The Marprelate Tracts

Miles August Murphy

2012-01-24T23:55:00.001-07:00

Born 1-12-12 at 12:39pm, 7.0 lbs, 19.5 inches

A Little Snow Flurry

2012-01-24T23:50:00.001-07:00

Tommy's 1st day of school

2011-10-25T18:24:00.004-06:00

Happy Birthday Katya!

2011-10-25T18:19:00.003-06:00

Scots-Irish Fest!

2011-09-10T18:44:00.008-06:00

artists at work

2011-08-21T20:03:00.004-06:00

Into the bubble chamber

2011-08-21T20:00:00.001-06:00

MMMM, birthday cake

2011-08-21T19:55:00.002-06:00

Happy 3rd Birthday, Tommy!

2011-08-21T19:46:00.001-06:00

Nap time

2011-07-24T17:01:00.002-06:00

Slide!

2011-07-24T16:58:00.001-06:00

Christmas surprise

2011-05-21T20:13:00.002-06:00

Arctic expedition

2011-05-21T20:11:00.002-06:00

I luv candy!

2011-05-21T20:08:00.003-06:00

Easter Joy

2011-05-21T20:05:00.003-06:00

Blondie

2011-05-21T20:03:00.005-06:00

Angel Eyes

2011-05-21T19:58:00.002-06:00

Tuco

2011-05-21T19:54:00.002-06:00

Stylin'

2010-09-12T21:18:00.002-06:00

New Haircut, looking good, having some shepherd's pie

swing shift

2010-08-12T20:42:00.004-06:00

Age of Aquarium

2010-08-07T22:57:00.004-06:00

summertime at the park

2010-08-06T20:54:00.001-06:00

Our Little Ones

2010-05-10T21:48:00.001-06:00

Bar B Que

2010-05-10T21:47:00.000-06:00

Peachy Keen

2010-05-10T21:46:00.000-06:00

Story Time

2010-05-10T21:43:00.000-06:00

My Girls

2010-05-02T21:11:00.001-06:00

Playtime at the Park

2010-05-02T21:10:00.000-06:00

Peek-a-boo!

2010-05-02T21:09:00.002-06:00

Springtime!

2010-05-02T21:06:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year

2010-01-07T20:24:00.001-07:00

the Wonder of Christmas

2010-01-07T20:22:00.004-07:00

The tree and gifts were put up after our little one was asleep. He awoke to a wondrous surprise and started clapping with joy!

Let It Snow!

2009-12-23T22:07:00.003-07:00

Katya third day

2009-10-20T20:02:00.002-06:00

Katya newly born

2009-10-20T20:00:00.002-06:00

better late than never...

2009-07-19T12:34:00.001-06:00

Funny how Newsweek forgot about Joe Stiglitz for the last eight years.... Why Washington Ignores an Economic Prophet: "...Joe Stiglitz. Even in the contentious world of economics, he is considered somewhat prickly. And while he may be a Nobel laureate, in Washington he's seen as just another economic critic—and not always a welcome one. Few Americans recognize his name, and fewer still would recognize the man, who is short and stocky and bears a faint resemblance to Mel Brooks. Yet Stiglitz's work is cited by more economists than anyone else's in the world, according to data compiled by the University of Connecticut. And when he goes abroad—to Europe, Asia, and Latin America—he is received like a superstar, a modern-day oracle. 'In Asia they treat him like a god,' says Robert Johnson, a former chief economist for the Senate banking committee who has traveled with him. 'People walk up to him on the streets.'

Stiglitz has won fans in China and other emerging G20 nations by arguing that the global economic system is stacked against poor nations, and by standing up to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. He is also the most prominent American economist to propose a long-term solution to the imbalances in capital flows that have wreaked havoc, from the Asian contagion of the late '90s to the subprime-investment craze. Beijing has more or less endorsed Stiglitz's idea for a new global reserve system to replace the U.S. dollar as the world currency. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has been influenced by Stiglitz's work, especially when 'he talks about the economics of poor people,' says Fang Xinghai, the head of Shanghai's financial-services office. But his stature is huge in Europe as well: French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently featured him at a conference on rethinking globalization.And earlier this month, while traveling to Europe and South Africa, Stiglitz received a call from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office: could he return through London and help the P.M. get ready for the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh?

Stiglitz is perhaps best known for his unrelenting assault on an idea that has dominated the global landscape since Ronald Reagan: that markets work well on their own and governments should stay out of the way. Since the days of Adam Smith, classical economic theory has held that free markets are always efficient, with rare exceptions. Stiglitz is the leader of a school of economics that, for the past 30 years, has developed complex mathematical models to disprove that idea. The subprime-mortgage disaster was almost tailor-made evidence that financial markets often fail without rigorous government supervision, Stiglitz and his allies say. The work that won Stiglitz the Nobel in 2001 showed how "imperfect" information that is unequally shared by participants in a transaction can make markets go haywire, giving unfair advantage to one party. The subprime scandal was all about people who knew a lot—like mortgage lenders and Wall Street derivatives traders—exploiting people who had less information, like global investors who bought up subprime- mortgage-backed securities. As Stiglitz puts it: 'Globalization opened up opportunities to find new people to exploit their ignorance. And we found them....'"

Frank Rich: Sotomayor hearings showed...

2009-07-19T12:22:00.003-06:00

They Got Some ’Splainin’ to Do: "...the Sotomayor show was still rich in historical significance. Someday we may regard it as we do those final, frozen tableaus of Pompeii. It offered a vivid snapshot of what Washington looked like when clueless ancien-régime conservatives were feebly clinging to their last levers of power, blissfully oblivious to the new America that was crashing down on their heads and reducing their antics to a sideshow as ridiculous as it was obsolescent.

The hearings were pure “Alice in Wonderland.” Reality was turned upside down. Southern senators who relate every question to race, ethnicity and gender just assumed that their unreconstructed obsessions are America’s and that the country would find them riveting. Instead the country yawned. The Sotomayor questioners also assumed a Hispanic woman, simply for being a Hispanic woman, could be portrayed as The Other and patronized like a greenhorn unfamiliar with How We Do Things Around Here. The senators seemed to have no idea they were describing themselves when they tried to caricature Sotomayor as an overemotional, biased ideologue."

Interesting interview with newest Celtic Rasheed Wallace

2009-07-19T11:08:00.001-06:00

Wallace fits Celtics to a T:
Wallace and Celtics make a good match
By Shira Springer

Money quote: “I don’t care about the All-Star Game,’’ he says. “I don’t care about the Hall of Fame. I didn’t come into the league for that. I came to win championships. By championships, you’re eternal. You can play 15 All-Star Games, but if you don’t win a championship, what do those 15 All-Star Games mean?...’’

...“Isn’t a championship a grander prize? When you’re at the carnival, do you want the little stuffed teddy bear or do you want the big stuffed teddy bear? You can’t trade All-Star Games for a championship ring.’’

Blowing the whistle on the NBA's flaws

2009-05-28T19:58:00.001-06:00

A great piece on the plague of the NBA: refereeing so bad you can't tell if is just incompetence or conspiracy by Bill Simmons

The New School In Exile

2009-04-11T12:16:00.010-06:00

Must Read: The Quiet Coup

2009-03-29T12:26:00.001-06:00

The Quiet Coup - The Atlantic (May 2009): "The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time."
by Simon Johnson

Let 'em filibuster

2009-02-07T09:34:00.002-07:00

So the Republicans are holding up the stimulus bill that aims to help the economy - in other words to help US. What can the Dems do?

I say force the Republicans to make good on their word, force them to filibuster.... start a filibuster count up 'day 12 of the Republican filibuster....' etc. Put the pressure and attention where it belongs, on the minority of obstructionists who are holding up the business of the majority party.

The Dems should not be pressured to water down their goals with more snake-oil schemes that got us in this fix in the first place. Like a bully, better to face down the Repugs now then let them gain confidence. Do it!

Find the latest polling data

2008-10-08T21:44:00.000-06:00

Pollster.com - Political Polls, Trends, Charts and Analysis

Must read on McNasty

2008-10-08T21:04:00.000-06:00

Make-Believe Maverick : Rolling Stone

New Election Season - SOS, a letter to my brother

2008-07-13T10:29:00.004-06:00

I don't think there is anything you can say to him, his mind is closed. Yeah he hates the war (so he says...) but as long as GWB is not on the ticket he will vote GOP (I bet he voted GOP in 2004 too).

No surprise to me he will vote for John McSame... people like him don't really care about the war in Iraq, he cares more about his make-believe war against 'liberals' (hence his 'are you with us or against us' are you a liberal or conservative rant at the end). In his mind you can only be on the good side or the bad side.... issues are just to divide up the sides not actual problems to be examined and resolved.

His belief system epitomizes many die-hard GOPers, they claim to hate the war but their mind is so inured to the last 40 years's worth of GOP lies and spin that they simply can't 'free their minds'.... (I could have told you that after the 15 minute chat at your wedding reception.... these people are so obvious it is like they come out of a cookie cutter.)

Take his examples - 'welfare' and 'deficit spending.' It is a matter of fact that the two biggest deficit spenders in US history are REAGAN and BUSH (hmm both had GOP congresses too - Reagan with the boll weevil dems in the house and a GOP majority in Senate, Bush with GOP majorities period). NO one else even comes close.... in fact, the only balanced budgets for the last 25 years have been under Clinton. The facts show that it is the Democrats who are the fiscal 'conservatives' - why? Because they believe government has a positive role to play in society, but only if it is run responsibly.

The GOP could care less about deficits - as history and their own philosophy show us.... Why? because they fundamentally don't believe in government as anything other than a means of giving away other people;s money (basically your stepfatherinlaws own words) - and so it is not a big leap from that belief to the one that says... if the money is going to be 'given away game' (your stepfatheinlaw's own word, a 'GAME,' that all this is for the GOPers, a fucking 'game') we might as well 'give' to our own --- hence historic levels of corruption at every level as in Iraq and Halliburton, Katrina and FEMA, you name it. A call for government aid is for the GOP another opportunity to get cash give-aways.... which brings us to welfare

'WELFARE' probably the scariest word in the GOP lexicon (next to 'uppity black people' LOL), what is welfare? Is Social Security welfare? Medicare, is that welfare? Unemployment insurance, is that welfare too? No doubt it must also be food stamps.... that is what has cost America more than the 100x Iraq war????? Last I heard it is valuable to invest in your own people... but then I am not making a killing importing faulty or dangerous products produced by slave labor in China...

And in fact is was 'welfare' (and the priorities it symbolizes) that made America great - we were able to win two wars on two separate continents, educate an entire generation, go to the moon, make great strides in societal justice and integration, virtually eliminate poverty amongst the elderly and raise our country to the highest standard of living in the world due to the Democrats and their 'welfare'. Over the past 40 years it has been nothing but decline as investment in safety, education, infrastructure, an our own people's health has been cut cut cut to give fat subsidies to corporate bloodsuckers like the oil, nuclear, pharmaceutical and military industries. The GOP has turned the US from the beacon of the workd into a hyper-militarized version of Brazil - the super-rich and then the rest of us desperately running to stay in the same place (come to think of it, maybe China would be a better analogy, you know iwth all the hyper-jingoism to keep the peasants in line etc).

When it comes to really expensive welfare - no bid contracts for years on end.... the GOP is suddenly silent (just as they are when it comes to any fee or premium or tax other than the income tax...) Where did those FEMA toxic trailers come from? Why does Halliburton get paid millions for supplying tainted water for the troops? where are the competitive bids? Why does the magic of the market place work for everyone but the GOP contributers? This is what is called 'crony capitalism' and it is the bedrock of the GOP - screw process, screw transparency, screw markets and especially screw the taxpayer. Wrap it up in a flag and serve it country-fried and people will eat it as long as you scare them with talk about 'taxes' and sixties hippies (just like the latest McCain ad).... after all, why tax when we can just borrow and borrow and borrow to support our campaign contributors obscene lifestyles?

Speaking of taxes.... your interlocutor should at least try and get his facts straight... the current payroll tax is regressive people only pay on the first $75k or so of income, it is tax free after that. Obama's proposal is to raise that ceiling (don't you think the currency has inflated a bit since the program was set up during the Great Depression?) - I would do away with it altogether (isn't the flat tax the thing these tax-whackos profess to love?) What is so terrible about that? Don;t you think there is something wrong with a system that charges a lower percentage to someone making a shit load more money? (Heaven forbid someone suggest to make FICA slightly progressive for those with incomes over $250,000.00 a year - I'm sure 100 more years in Iraq is preferable to that LOL).

And who is convincing who that the govt owes them a living...? I've not met one working person who assumes union membership means govt owes them a living... I've met plenty who wish we could get drugs at the same price as Canadians do, or that they could do something other with one of their two monthly paychecks than send it to day care, or that they could actually get some coverage and customer service in exchange for the bloated premiums we pay for health insurance, or that their kids could actually be on their health insurance rather than on Medicaid....

The only people who I have any contact with (via the non-stop media) that assume the govt owes them a living is the GOP-enabling punditocracy/govt staffers who infest washington scuttling between their GOP thinktanks, govt 'service' their gigs on fox, cnn and the networks... gee, what do you know, people just like David Brooks and his cocktail party pals or those at Tax Vox (or whatever the hell it is...), now that sounds like folks who are really public spirited, who live in Georgetown, and attend whitehouse dinners and drive around in their luxury autos texting each other on the different ways they've dreamed up of telling the American people that every Democratic candidate since FDR is corrupt or cynical or manipulative or are just really weird people, because, you know they talk about the public interest and boring stuff like that.

Your stepfatherinlaw lives in an entirely different universe from the rest of us, unfortunately it is people like him who have run this country into the dirt for the past 40 years and who continue to run it like it was their own private social engineering experiment with us folks who actually work for a living day in and day out as their fucking test subjects. They are so inured in the lies they have told themselves for the past 40 years to cover for their own greed that they have come to believe them.... they are like the old guard of the Soviet Union, corrupt, cynical yet still highly ideological, so when a true reformer comes around (like Gorbachev) they are piss-angry with envy because all they can see is someone just like them with what they think is an even bigger 'con-job.' They are the tired old gluttonous husks of men full of envy and spite who, tied to our back, would rather we all drown than that they get their toes wet with any kind of reform as we try and swim thought the ocean of their own past excesses towards a better future for all.

PS and why the fuck can't he spell your name correctly? You've only been fucking married to Kristin for, what, the last decade?

Love, your big brother LOL

----- Original Message -----
From: Charlie XXXXXX
To: Tom XXXXXX
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 8:18 AM
Subject: Fw: Obama? Are you sure? More

Hey when you have a chance I want some help responding to my foolsih father-in-law.
Thanks

----- Original Message -----
From: ROBERT XXXXXX
To: Charlie XXXXXX
Cc: Kristin XXXXXX
Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2008 9:41 AM
Subject: RE: Obama? Are you sure? More

Charley,

Thanks for the articles.

As I said, I believe we need to look beyond what the candidates say and address what the Dems. and Reps. have stood for for the past 50-60 yrs. To believe that Obama will do otherwise and go against his party's wishes/platform is, to me, drinking his campaign Kool-Aid rhetoric. What would motivate Obama to go against what the Dems. have stood for forever?

As I indicated in my last email to you, in my adult lifetime the Dem. majority controlled Congress has ALWAYS endorsed and executed countless tax and spend welfare-type programs. Their M.O. has been to convince Johnny-lunch-buckets (JLB's) that somehow the "rich" and corporations don't deserve what they have so tax them heavily and give their money to you JLB's..because you work harder than the rich so you deserve it.

Worse yet, the Dem. decided that if a little welfare was good, a lot would be better--so they financed it with deficit spending. The JLB's who don't know or care how Dem. taxation, income distribution, and deficit spending programs have hurt the country, so they got off their 4-wheelers, put down their 7 babies and voted for the Dems. It's been the Dems. liberal "game" to make the JLB's their fiefs by convincing them that gov. owes them a living.

If you carefully read the article you sent re Obama with an eye toward past Dem. welfare programs you will note "..lack of specificity" in several Obama comments--here's one from that article:

"That lack of specificity concerns some tax experts. "If Obama is hinting that those making more than $250,000 would pay a higher payroll tax rate ... it would fundamentally change the way Social Security operates and run the risk of making the program look less like social insurance and more like welfare," Tax Vox blog editor Howard Gleickman wrote for the Tax Policy Center."

Personally, I believe the 50 yrs. of Dem. welfare programs have been 100x more harmful to the US than the Iraq invasion..and you know how much I hate the Iraq fiasco.

The Reps. have stood for the opposite approach over the last 50 yrs.--low taxation, fiscal responsibility in gov. with little/no deficit spending. The Reps. believed in responsibility for oneself--that welfare should only be given to those who are physically/mentally disabled. Unfortunately W has screwed up this philosophy with deficit spending, etc., as he has screwed up everything else, but his programs are not what most conservatives believe in.

Basically, one is either a conservative in thinking or one is not when it comes to our current voting choices. I wish we had more choices but we don't. While I don't agree with several Rep. platform positions like gun control and abortion rights, my compromise is much better than choosing another tax/spend Dem.

As for McCain, he doesn't excite me like some Reps. in the past. However I do believe he's honest enough to be forthright with us if push comes to shove. He may have flip-flopped on AMT, but as the article you sent says about McCain's AMT policy "... presumably, the AMT would (now) at least be hitting those for whom it was originally intended."

Question: Are you a basically a Dem. (liberal) in your thinking/beliefs or a Rep. (conservative) and why?

Bob

A Tale of Two Teams

2008-06-14T12:39:00.008-06:00

This could be entitled 'a tale of two cities' or perhaps more accurately 'a tale of two Americas.' Twenty years ago sportwriters loved to refer to the Celtics - Lakers rivalry as one between a lunchpail crew (the Celts) and glitzy 'LA Showtime.' Although there was some superficial truth to the comparison when discussing style of play, it was no more than a journalistic conceit, since both teams loved to run, both worked just as hard and neither had a monopoly on national attention.

Likewise today's players share similar lifestyles, income brackets and workplaces. But there are some differences between the players that make up the teams that are shared in common with the social networks that make up their respective fanbases. One team is made up of individuals who have labored in relative obscurity, while the other is seemingly the darling of America's media and corporate elites.

Many of the key players for the Celtics - Pierce, Allen and Garnett come immediately come to mind - have had to put in long years of toil in less than glamorous team circumstances. They are successful, but they have never been given anything, any success they have attained has come through years of dedication to their craft, their teammates and, yes, their fans. They have been matured by experiences that have taught them that nothing is given to you, you must take everything - the good with the bad. As a consequence they have become a professional's professionals - classy, gracious, centered, unpretentious TEAMMATES.

These are the qualities that hoop fans from around the country identify with in their own lives - the willingness to dedicate long hours of hard work to the perfection of their skills and the betterment of their team, even if they will never reap the media attention and recognition that is so capriciously bestowed on others. Doing it the right way is its own reward for these people, regardless of what others may think. Doing right by each other, by the team, by others in their community and not expecting anything from anybody that they would not be willing to do themselves.

The Celtics do not have a self-proclaimed 'leader;' each player leads by example, not because it may garner attention, but because it is the right thing to do. Like many hardworking Americans, these stars have earned their way, payed their dues and now are on the verge of reaping the rewards that only come from personal sacrifice for the team goal. Despite never having been the media darlings they have persevered to reach this point after a long journey.

Contrast that with the Lakers we have had on display this series. Has their ever been such a collection of arrogant whiners? From the coach on down, they seem to expect everything to be given to them and when shocked that it isn't they begin the blame game - it is always 'someone else's' fault: the refs whistles, the other team's physical play, their teammates 'inadequacies.'

You have all probably heard the idiocy Phil Jackson spouted about the refs after game two, Jackson - the beneficiary of highly suspect calls in the series against San Antonio, a ridiculous amount of calls throughout the Jazz series, not to mention one of the worst games ever called, (game six of Lakers - Kings in 2002). See how this kind of leadership rubs off on his young charges: Here is Sasha Vujacic (pronounced wussy-biatch) explaining why he couldn't move his feet to cover Ray Allen as he drove unconteted for the clinching lay-up in game 4:

The whole game, from the minute I came in, they called fouls on me. [Allen] fell down; foul. [Presumably referencing the time Vujacic was cought on camera blatantly trying to trip Allen with a scissor hold commentator Mark Jackson likened to a wrestling move.] I was trying to find a way to guard him for 48 minutes, and everything I did was a foul. He got me. He went to the basket, and it was a good basket. I don’t know what else to say. I wanted to stay with him, I wanted to stay aggressive, but again, there would be a foul. So I kind of stood back, I gave him the room to operate, and he went to the basket, so that was a bad defensive decision on my side. It doesn’t matter, help or not, we came out and were supposed to be more aggressive, and not let him breathe at the top of the key.

It is shocking to see no one take any responsibility - again, from the coach on down - on a team as talented and successful as the Lakers have been this season. The handling of Kobe Bryant's rape accusation is surely the most serious instance of this sort of behavior.

However for the Lakers, as many of the elite denizens of the Staples Center, such a serious dose of reality rarely intrudes into the media bubble of their pleasure dome, since it seems for them that the hype is their reality. And hype there is in spades - attention and adulation because they are 'celebrities.' In a sense they mirror the extreme elements of the glitterati fanbase that they attract - untroubled by ordinary cares and responsibilities, they love to play act and seek the attention of the camera. When the cameras go are off, however, so is the mask and 'cameraderie' is replaced by carping criticism of the most infantile variety. And as always, it is someone else is expected to excuse and clean up for them. Why remain on the floor with your team as the final seconds of a game tick down? The 'curtain' is falling, 'eff' the extras.

Which America will triumph? Well, as we have seen in Iraq, the hype starts out loud but reality has an insistant way of reasserting itself....

Finals prediction: Celts in SIX

2008-06-05T18:57:00.000-06:00

Game 7 at the Garden

2008-05-03T22:23:00.005-06:00

Well, it came a lot sooner than Celtic fans would have hoped, but their 66 win team is about to be tested in the fires of a winner-take-all game seven, against the Atlanta Hawks, a team that did not even win 50% of its games. How did it happen?

A) Up front, let's be clear that this Hawks team is better than their season record indicates. The Hawks have needed a PG for a long time (yes Chris Paul would have looked great in red and black...). They finally got one at the trade deadline with the arrival of Mike Bibby. Even though Bibby has been outplayed in Boston by the explosive Rajon Rondo, he has brought a calming, steadying influence that the Hawks have sorely needed. The more time he spends with the team the better they will be.

B) The Celts are having trouble adjusting to the playoffs. Why? The stakes are higher and so two people who are absolutely crucial to their success are under the gun. The first is Kevin Garnett. For whatever reason, he does not like to shoot the the ball crunch time. As with the Karl Malone, there seems to be a level of fear, and - even worse for a seven-footer who shoots free throws as well as he does - he shies away from contact too. So, as with the Mail Fraud, we get a rain of fall-away shots, hardly what it takes to get it done in the NBA.

All is not lost, however, since Garnett has two veteran all-stars at his side... which brings me to the second person whose performance seems to suffer in proportion to the importance of the occasion: Coach Doc Rivers. It is Doc's job to keep the team mentally up, game-situation prepared, and to make the necessary adjustments to keep the juggernaut running at peak performance. However Doc has never impressed as a game coach, being better at managing personalities than time outs. And Doc's reaction to stress seems to be to freeze up, almost as if he were calcifying before our eyes, and his resultant 'strategy' is to just play the vets longer and harder. In consequence Doc has tossed out the regular season rotations (such as they were) and substituted in their stead extended minutes for his veteran core (for example neither Ray Allen nor Keven Garneet had a break in the second half of game four).

This sacrifices the bench: one of the teams real strengths from the regular season, the ability to extend the suffocating defense for a full 48 minutes with fresh bodies spelling the starters. It also sacrifices the sheer physical athleticism that the younger bodies on the bench bring to the game. A tired veteran Celts team walking the ball up the court is also a Celts team that has a good chance of loosing. As Vince Lombardi said: "fatigue makes cowards of us all."

Perhaps even worse, when Doc does turn to the bench a major beneficiary is Sam Cassell. Now, don't get me wrong, I love that the Cs were able to land Sam. But the man is 38 years old. And he has not had much time with the team and doesn't have much experience with the plays to run. So he doesn't help much on D and unless his shot is falling he actually hinders the offense. His shooting would help at SG, but that would mean playing Eddie House (who, along with Tony Allen was unceremoniously dropped from the rotation).

Worst of all is that Doc often plays Sam with Ray Allen (not Tony) at SG - meaning we have two older, sub-par defenders (one who has already expended a great amount of energy) at the two perimeter spots.... not a good recipe for defense in general or big men fouls (covering for penetration) in particular. Bad, bad and BAD - no rest, no defense and no easy transition points.

C) the third reason, and this is the least important, but still a notable factor, is the curious calls of the men in stripes. Some of you may have noticed, for example in the Phoenix series, but also incidents in others, where out of the blue lane violations for free throws started to be policed with unusual scrutiny, resulting in numerous calls, I would not be surprised if more than in the regular season given how rare they usually are.

I bring this up as a reminder that sometimes, for seemingly no good reason, the refs decide to throw a curve-ball during the playoffs, this being one of them. Another seems to concern the defense of the Celtics. For 82 games they have played the same defense, but now they are incurring far more fouls - most pronounced in games 4 and 6 - than at any time since Pitino had the team running around like headless chickens. It is almost as if the defense that got the team where they are - and is a major motor for their offence, has been deemed unacceptable.

What is really unusual is that many of the fouls appear to be of the touch variety. While rebounding action is fierce on one end, a touch is enough to send someone to the line at the other. You may have seen the numbers - games 4 thru 6 the Hawks took roughly twice as many free throws as the Cs, 15 to 2 in the pivotal final quarter of game 6 - but the numbers alone don't convey the difference this makes in the defense, transition game and hence offense for the Cs.

It is not a case of the Celtics not getting their fair share of free throws. Rather it is a case of the Hawks getting an inordinate amount of free throws. Who would ever anticipate that the Hawks could ever get 47 free throw attempts in just one game? Or average 36 ft attempts over the past three games? People like to point to the different styles of play but the facts show that the Hawks had only 51 more FTA than Boston over the course of the entire season. And now somehow the Hawks have outshot the Celtics by 51 in the last three games?!? (71 for the series) Has the Celtic defense changed that much over the past 6 games? Strange days indeed!

One thing is for certain, this series has been the best thing for the NBA in Atlanta in 20 years. What is not for certain is whether the Hawks ride stops Sunday of contintues on to Cleveland. The odds say it will end, but then Doc has never won a playoff series and facing a similar situation against Indiana his team not only did not win but laid a stinkbomb of embarrassing proportions. Which is a long way of saying that I don't trust Doc under pressure. And pressure there will be.... particularly if these strange trends at the foul line continue.

Debates? and why Wisconsin 'matters'

2008-02-16T15:13:00.002-07:00

The latest attack ads produced by Hillary's campaign against Obama have focused on his 'willingness' to debate. Obama has responded, not unreasonably, that he has debated 18 times with 2 more scheduled. So why would Hillary choose this line of attack? And why now, in Wisconsin?

On the debates question, I think the Hillary campaign sees debates as a very cost-effective means of reaching lots of voters. I think it is a given that she would reach a lot more voters in a joint appearance with Obama than she would in any other kind of campaign active of comparable time-length. Just looking at the differential in the crowds she attracts and those he attracts - a factor of 10 - demonstrates this.

To change the current dynamic Hillary needs to reach lots of voters quickly and somehow contrast herself positively against Obama. A debate is the quickest, most effective and cheapest way to do so. Yet given that Obama decided not to rescue Team Hillary from their own mistakes, they went for a series of attack ads that, while not shown that widely, did garner free media attention (as was intended)... which is why they were parceled out one by one. While she is not paying for them to play all that much, Hilary at least need to make a show of 'fighting,' since that is her own self-described forte. However, her campaign is not organized to effectively 'fight' with the level of resources she currently has on hand.

That latter point needs to be emphasized. A series of debates would be a lot more cost-effective and right now one of the major problems she is 'fighting' is not having enough resources to mount as an effective campaign as Obama (particularly since Hillary has not invested nearly as much in ground organization and, as Solis-Doyle said, they thought they'd be done campaigning on Feb 5th). In short, Hillary's team, through mistakes of their own, is comparatively unprepared and underfunded... which leads me to why Wisconsin 'matters.'

Of course, all states matter despite what Mark Penn, Hillary's campaign guru, insists. But Wisconsin may matter more than it's delegate count would suggest, due in part to it position in the primary calendar. It is the largest state in which Hillary has a good chance of defeating Obama before the large (and expensive) contests in Texas and Ohio on March 4th. Hillary needs money now to make a maximal effort in those two self-defined 'must-win' states.

But I imagine that contributors (those who have not already contibuted the limit) as well as 'bundlers' (those who solicit funds from others) are looking at this and wondering if it would be a case of simply throwing good money after bad. Hillary has already burned through over $100,000,000 and yet her campaign is in disarray and, unless the momentum changes, headed for defeat. So Wisconsin may well be the 'show me state' (apologies to Missouri) for her contributors... 'prove to us you are competitive before we go one more round in the hole for you.'

Which is why it is imperative for Obama's supporters to go all out in Wisconsin, since a victory there may do more than simply continue the current 'momentum' media narrative, it may cripple Hillary where it hurts, in the pocket book. She has not invested in a ground game, so cash is her campaign's lifeblood. And the greater the victory margin, the harder it will be for Hillary to make the argument to the money people that she is a good financial gamble.

Hillary is wounded, but she is far from down and out. Now is not the time to let up. The victories we win on Feb 19th could help us exponentially down the line. Pour it on at http://my.barackobama.com/page/conte...

The Meaning of 'Hope'

2008-02-12T21:14:00.002-07:00

This article Inside the Clinton Shake-Up by Joshua Green is very interesting, particularly when he states:

Rather than punish Solis Doyle or raise questions about her fitness to lead, Clinton chose her to manage the presidential campaign for reasons that should now be obvious: above all, Clinton prizes loyalty and discipline, and Solis Doyle demonstrated both traits, if little else. This suggests to me that for all the emphasis Clinton has placed on executive leadership in this campaign, her own approach is a lot closer to the current president’s than her supporters might like to admit.

If nothing else the campaign that Hillary has waged has raised real questions about her executive ability and the value of her experience. Thsat is not to say she is lacking in either, but neither does she appear to be the 'experienced hand' that she has sought to portray herself.
Rewarding loyal mediocrity, ignoring campaign spending burn rates, choosing the old 'core states' strategy that has lost the Dems so many races over the past 30 years (rather than the 50 state strategy) - none of these inspire me with confidence in her leadership ability in a general election or in the day to day scrum of governing.

I admire her tenacity and spunk, but she and Bill seem to be fighting the last war using the DLC handbook.

We as Democrats have a chance at achieving victory in what could be a realigning election. Unfortunately, given what I have seen this campaign - the over-reliance on projected expectations of 'inevitablity' and the over-valuing of inside the beltway connections - I do not think Hillary would be able to wage the sort of campaign necessary to pull it off.

Such an election would require a greater organizational talent and the ability to motivate not only confirmed Democrats but also to attract others who have never really thought of themselves as Democrats. We as Democrats win when we grow as a party and that is the best way to break the current deadlock in the electoral college, Congress and the nation at large.

Obama's ability to organize in state after state and mobilize Democrat old and new speak to the potential to achieve such a victory. He is winning not because of a 'cult of hope,' but rather because he is able to articulate the vision of a political realignment to ordinary people and convince them that they have the power to make it happen. That is what truly excites me about Obama - his combination of organizational skill, strategic vision and they way he marries them together with inspiring but also very accessible language. He just doesn't ask you to 'hope' - he provides a very visible and effective organization within which you can easily volunteer and work to realize your 'hope.' When he say "yes WE can," he means it in a way that the Hillary campaign simply does not match organizationally.

As a political scientist, I can say that he is the first politician I have know who is able to both organize and communicate effectively around the idea of a realigning election. It is fascinating to watch but also very inspiring. Here's hoping that those who mistake the Obama 'phenomenon' as a fad or salesman's schtick take a deeper look at the hard work and thought that has actually gone into creating this opportunity for us all.

Caucus Craziness

2008-02-05T22:12:00.000-07:00

The caucuses held out here in Colorado's front range were woefully unprepared for the number of attendees who showed up. Our caucus had to be moved from a classroom to a school gym to accomodate the great numbers of people who came. Of course, it was as about as organized as a spelling bee organized by illiterates. It took the caucus chief (or whatever he was) over half an hour to figure out that several hundred people were not going to fit in an average sized schoolroom. He also seems to have never used a megaphone before - whispering several inches behind the mouthpiece as he recited the rules - which served only to create annoying feedback that drowned most of what was said.

The huge numbers were overwhelmingly in favor of Barack Obama. My precinct had 63 for Obama to 17 for Hillary. Unfortunately since we only had three delegates to the state convention they were split 2 for Obama and 1 for Hillary (I was chosen as an alternate for Obama). The differences between the supporters was stunning as well. The Obama folks were a cross-section, young, old, male, female, professionals, students, mothers with small children, retirees. And while the Obama folks were celebratory, the Hillary supporters for the most part has an expression that said 'I think I just bit into a rotten egg.' The Hillary folks did nothing to dispel the image that she is the favored candidate of what seemed to be primarily over forty women with a politico or two sprinkled in. Now I know that is not the case, but got no hint of it with the sample that was on display.

Well as frustrating as it was at times (and believe me there is no reason in the world why every caucus should be replaced with a primary), it was also exhilarating to gather together with so many people who came together for the same political purpose, much like the feeling I have had attended some political rallies. It is also exciting to be taking part in what could well be the creation of a new Democratic majority. You could practically here the tectonic plates shifting as in state after state without a lock-down dominant Democratic political establishment (and even in a few with one), Obama's supporters swept aside the old party guard: Colorado, Idaho, North Dakota, Kansas, Alabama, Alaska and Utah.

That is the promise Obama brings to so many people - the ability to capitalize on John Dean's 50 state strategy by challenging Republicans everywhere because he is the right person to present the core Democratic positions in a way that does not polarize but rather speaks to our common concerns. Hillary, whether you judge it to be her fault or not, simply has (a) too much baggage and (b) has too often allowed political calculations to trump what should be decisions of conscience and principle - not only in the health care debacle in 1994 but as recent as the vote to go to war in Iraq and her votes to in essence authorize war with Iran (by declaring a part of the Iranian military a 'terrorist organization' therefore subject to military action).

Obama has always opposed the war, both when such a position was unpopular and now when it is the majority view. But the larger point is not that Obama is uniquely virtuous, the point is that like other great Americans like FDR, MLK or the dead Kennedys, he can reach people and get them to rethink their allegiances by appealling to their better natures. None of these people were saints, but they were able to channel and facilitate a movement of people coming together for the common good, and not simply fighting to retain the larger half. The Democratic Party has to grow if it is going to accomplish any of the goals it has set for itself. I don't see that growth happening under Hillary, instead there will likely only be score-settling on both sides.

Obama is the messenger who can help us transform the Democratic party into the majority party for the next half century by once again making the government the servant of the people, a people energized and aware of the strength they have when they come together and do not settle for the tit-for-tat of establishment politics.

The problem with the Clintons

2008-01-26T14:59:00.000-07:00

Josh Marshall has a stab at analyzing why he, presumably many other folks who like the Clintons, are feeling queasy about the role the Bill is playing in the campaign, which I think speaks to a general uneasiness with the whole idea of a dynastic 'Billary' candidacy in certain ways.

In his analysis, it stems from the fact that Bill is something rare - a former Democratic president who is popular, alive, and married to a leading candidate for the nomination. This puts Josh in a bind, since he, presumably again like many others, has genuine affection for Bill as a prominent member of the party, but feels that Bill is using that goodwill in unfair ways by attempting to play a partisan role in his wife's campaign. At least that is the gist of what I can take away from what Josh has to say, click the link above and judge for yourself.

In stating this as the potential source of his discomfort, Josh dismisses the idea that race-baiting may play any role in his conflicted feelings. While I agree with him that the Obama camp overreacted and that the press has run away with the issue, inflating it to proportions far outsized when compared to the initial statements, I disagree with his analysis dimissing this as a factor. In fact I think it is a major factor, and one that people have had trouble putting their finger on, because discussions or analyses of race make most people uncomfortable unless it is an incident that is just clearly beyond the pale.

I think what has Josh, and others as well, feeling a bit squeemish about the Clintons is the fact that they have very deliberately sought to inject race into the campaign but in such a way that no blame could come back to them. Just take for example the outsized brouhaha about LBJ and MLK.

The obstensible point was to contrast 'deeds' with 'words.' Of course, the comparison was forced and nonsensical on many levels: it was many deeds and not just words that created an environment where policy could move forward before LBJ ever became President. And deeds without words can often be overlooked without words (or TV cameras) to place them in proper context and give them meaning in a larger narrative.

But to focus on these distinctions misses the point: no one ever thought of stating that Hillary is the second coming of LBJ when it comes to legislative acumen. Rather it was a roundabout way to bring up the notions Civil Rights and Uppity Black People, which are still sadly linked in many Americans' subconsciousnesses. The Clintons did not have to beat anyone over the head about it, all they had to do was provoke something that could be interpreted as defensiveness from the Obama camp and let the press do what it does best: keep hitting the 'hot button' - which happened to be race in this case - via repetition, innuendo and reckless speculation in order to gin up false drama and excitement. The Clintons should know this game well, having been stung innumerable times by it when it concerned innuendoes of illicit sex.

Now several underlings in the Clinton campaign have been more heavy handed than Hillary or Bill himself, but when you are a past president with a remarkablely lawyer-like command of the English language (yes, the "depends on what the meaning of 'is' is" comment is apropos here), then even his seemingly off-hand or potentially misinterpreted comments are going to be influential and hence should be viewed in a skeptical light.

Now, as Josh has said, Obama and some of his supporters think he should be above hard-ball politics. I agree, there at times seems to be a degree of willful blindness in thinking that Republicans won't play the race issue like an organ, in all sorts of coded, deceitful and crude ways. But on the other hand, I think the fact that the Clintons have decided to play the race card is at the root of the feeling of unease that many are feeling regarding the Clintons. After all, Bill was supposed the be the first 'Black president,' wasn't he?

I think it is the dawning awareness that is demonstrated by these incidents that, whatever the Clintons may tell themselves, they would do anything, damage their own party and destroy anyone by any means in order to advance their careers that has shaken some people up.

Now politics is not for saints. LBJ helped orchestrate some of the most noble if not the most noble legislation in my lifetime, and he was by all accounts a rascal. But he was also a man of accomplishments. Indeed, I think the irony on the whole issue of 'deeds' is Hillary's resume undercuts her very claims to being an 'agent of change.' One can think of health reform in 1994, but even more recent examples - the vote to declare an arm of the Iranian military a terrorist organization - has shown her to be a habitual follower rather than leader. I'll be the first to agree that the nineties under Bill were the best time we have had in a quarter century. But I am sorry, that is faint praise given what we have had in comparison. We should have higher standard for office than not being total screw up and say what you want, triangulation is not a recipe for social progress.

I think much of the hunger for change that Obama seems best able to fulfill is due in large part to the fact that people realize at a gut level that all the Clintons offer is a well-run version of Republicanism-lite packaged together with with a good dollop of personal hatreds, vendettas, and partisan strife. While I agree with Josh that it is foolish to think such strife will dissipate, I DO think that people are savvy to the fact that unless we want to refight the same endless struggles of the past two decades over again, we need a new way to reach voters who are not sold on the Clintons and in that way capitalize on the strengths of what should be an emerging Democratic majority.

But fighting all the old fights - personal and otherwise - with a leader at the helm who would rather triangulate than articulate is NOT the path to such change. Some might say we should not hold the Clintons' enemies against them, but that misses the point. For far too long have people embraced the Clintons because of their enemies. Bill's popularity rose in reaction to the attacks upon him. I am struck that more do not find it odd that Hillary only seems sympathetic under similar circumstances. It is a sad but historic fact the Bill threw the Democratic Party under the bus in order, as he saw it, to salvage his presidency. I have no doubts that Hillary would do the same, and in fact that is part of the dynamic that we are seeing today - injecting race into the primaries will only help to weaken the Party, regardless of who wins.

And while Obama may not be a perfect candidate (I too find his 'above partisanship' posture off-putting) he is practically the only candidate who holds any promise of forging a new Democratic majority that breaks with the stale 'lets-clean-up-this-GOP-mess' politics of the DLC, the Clinton establishment and, yes, the past. Hillary can't and won't do it. Edwards has had his shot. Obama may be a just another politician like the Clintons (at times that is how they seek to portray him, when not depicting him as an out-of-touch dreamer). But he has not been give the chance to fail. Hillary has.

That is the hope people are voting for when they vote for Obama, the hope for something other than back to the future redux that another Clinton presidency - and the harm it would do to the Democratic Party at large - would likely yield.

Krugman on partisanship and unions

2007-12-26T19:25:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, back when America had a strong middle class, it also had a strong union movement.

These two facts were connected. Unions negotiated good wages and benefits for their workers, gains that often ended up being matched even by nonunion employers. They also provided an important counterbalance to the political influence of corporations and the economic elite....

It’s often assumed that the U.S. labor movement died a natural death, that it was made obsolete by globalization and technological change. But what really happened is that beginning in the 1970s, corporate America, which had previously had a largely cooperative relationship with unions, in effect declared war on organized labor. Don’t take my word for it; read Business Week, which published an article in 2002 titled “How Wal-Mart Keeps Unions at Bay.”...

Whoever receives the Democratic presidential nomination will receive labor’s support in the general election. Meanwhile, however, unions are supporting favored candidates.

But Barack Obama, though he has a solid pro-labor voting record, has not [received support] — in part, perhaps, because his message of “a new kind of politics” that will transcend bitter partisanship doesn’t make much sense to union leaders who know, from the experience of confronting corporations and their political allies head on, that partisanship isn’t going away anytime soon.

O.K., that’s politics. But now Mr. Obama has lashed out at Mr. Edwards because two [labor union] 527s — independent groups that are allowed to support candidates, but are legally forbidden from coordinating directly with their campaigns — are running ads on his rival’s behalf. They are, Mr. Obama says, representative of the kind of “special interests” that “have too much influence in Washington.”...

Part of what happened here, I think, is that Mr. Obama, looking for a stick with which to beat an opponent who has lately acquired some momentum, either carelessly or cynically failed to think about how his rhetoric would affect the eventual ability of the Democratic nominee, whoever he or she is, to campaign effectively. In this sense, his latest gambit resembles his previous echoing of G.O.P. talking points on Social Security.

Beyond that, the episode illustrates what’s wrong with campaigning on generalities about political transformation and trying to avoid sounding partisan.

It may be partisan to say that a 527 run by labor unions supporting health care reform isn’t the same thing as a 527 run by insurance companies opposing it. But it’s also the simple truth.

Seeing is believing

2007-09-17T19:17:00.000-06:00

and believe me, you have to see this to believe it!

what a difference 10 years makes...

Stern's Folly - The Referee Crisis

2007-08-21T18:57:00.000-06:00

Stern has a mixed record in my estimation. What will tip the balance is his response to the reffing crisis. So far I have to say that his slapping of a gag order and attempt to depict it as 'one bad apple' does not bode well for his legacy. But I'll get to that in a minute.

Stern became commissioner in 1983-84. This was a year that witnessed the league reaching a pitch of competition and level of play that has rarely been equalled since. That includes the most memorable finals in the past three decades (in part, I would argue, due to the 2-2-1-1-1 format that Stern dismantled for TV reasons).

Now obviously Stern had little to do with the cresting of the wave in 1984 - a peak that I would argue lasted roughly five years before 'bad boy' thuggery eroded the aesthetic appeal of the game. Stern has always sought to raise the profile of the NBA and take advantage of the good fortune of his inheritance, but in so doing he has as often catered to the immediate return rather than the long-term health of the game.

Unlike Wilt, for example, when the NBA widened the lane to reduce his dominance, Stern has overseen changes that have made dominant players more dominant not less. This could be related to his marketing focus on individual stars rather than the team dynamic. For example, the three point line was brought in, obstensively to increase scoring - a poorly thought out strategem - but it also coincidentally minimized the one weakness in Jordan's game. Likewise the 'no charge zone' - which could have been enforced by rules already on the books (you can;t stand under the basket to take a charge from a player making a layup) - also coincidentally gave Shaq free rein to wreck havoc without restriction.

I think the short-sightedness of these initiatives lay in a failure to think through the impact of changes, but that failure was due to the fact that the game dynamic was not valued whereas individual accomplishments were in promoting the game. There has been some progress in this over the past few years, but the record has not been stellar by any means.

Stern seems to have made a similar error of focusing on short-term rather than long-term with regards to reffing. Rather than think long-term what is in the best interests of the game (breaking up the cronyism and favoritism that is apparently rampant in the reffing ranks and promoting refs who can control the tempo of the game rather than ones who are 'technically' the best on each and every call) Stern has resorted to fines, technicals and gag orders to punish dissent. He has not examined the problem from a disinterested perspective (or commissioned anyone else to do so) but rather behaved as one would expect an authoritarian to do - tell everyone that things are fine and to 'shut the eff up.'

After all, the problems with the reffing have been bubbling up for the past 15 years. The key with the gambling is not that it occurred, but rather that it could occur over a period of years without it being especially discernable, because the refs have become such a dominant aspect of the game that incoherent calls, favoritism and meddling wiht the outcome of contests has become the norm, not the exception. That is the failure that Stern has to clean up, and he has shown no notion of the challenge that he faces.

If you really think that the reffing of 2007 is comparable to 20 years ago, then please watch some old recorded games, you will be astounded how behind the scenes - and effective - the refs were. There were fewer of them and hence of higher quality - expansion has not only hurt player quality. They were not micromanaged, they were allowed to manage the tempo of the game depending on the demands they faced and in general facilitated a much more free-flowing sport.

After all, the importance of being a ref is not in making each call conform to what someone who has never refereed considers 'the correct call' regardless of context (refs today are 'scored' on their calls by people with little to no basketball experience) but in being consistent and getting the big calls right. I myself never minded the make-up call (which is not allowed anymore) since it was an admission by a ref that (a) they are not perfect and (b) that the balance of the overall game was more important than any particular ticky-tack call. And in general the refs of old were able to strike a judicious balance - in part because they were allowed to and in part because it was expected.

Being a ref in a sport like basketball is like being a judge. You have the laws but in order for the spirit of the law to emerge you must be able to take the context into account. If you micromanage a judge (through mandatory sentencing) or a ref (through all the 'scoring' Stern has instituted) then you remove their ability to ensure that the spirit of the rules are observed. Instead you have a nearly 400 pound Shaq being allowed to knock people over on the basis of a rule that was designed to prevent a defender from undercutting someone going for a layup.

Richie Powers was the ref in the triple overtime in '76 who refused to call a timeout for Paul Silas when Silas was signalling for one right in his face with mere seconds left on the clock. Why? Because Boston had no more time outs at the end of regulation and as Richie reportedly said later, he did not want to see a title decided by a ref rather than the play of the participants rather than a technical foul shot with no time on the clock. You can argue whether he was right or wrong (I would say right) but what you can't be argued is that it is this sort of responsible attitude toward the integrity of game on the part of the refs that Stern has been very successful in eradicating. Heck, Stern himself banned two key players from one team from the pivotal game in what was essentially the 2007 championship series for actions that had ZERO impact on a game just completed!?!

And that illustrates why Stern does not and will not be able to clean up the primary problem currently plaguing the NBA - the marked intrusion of refs into the action through standards that allow a whistle to be blown anytime, anywhere with little regard to the essential fairness, balance or justice of the game. Because by essentially meddling in the outcome of the NBA playoffs for little to no reason, Stern showed himself to have no comprehension of the anything beyond the basic letter of the law and hence no understanding of the elemental concepts of fairness and justice - which must alway take into account context and proportionality. And if the commissioner himself has little to no clue regarding what is essential for maintaining the respect of league among its fans, then how can we expect him to instill it and demand it of those who represent his league? In short, you can't - and that goeas a long way to explaining how we ended up mired in an NBA referee crisis to begin with.

Celtics: The Vision - An Assessment

2007-08-06T19:36:00.000-06:00

My take on the Garnett trade and its potentially transformative effect on the Celtics team and organization. Initially posted 8/5/07.

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Make no mistake, the Celtics’ 2007 off-season will go down as one of the most successful in all of sports. The addition of Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett should not just have an additive effect, it should be transformative. These two, combined with Paul Pierce will make the rest of their teammates much better. Let’s look at the reasons why:

Offense: The benefits of Danny Ainge’s off-season additions are easiest to appreciate when it comes to the offensive end. In the NBA two dominant scoring threats are better than one, not simply because ‘two is better than one’ but also because the defensive team’s energy and attention are zero-sum entities. In short, the more attention devoted to one potential scoring threat results in a less attention to another. So having two dominant scorers typically makes it easier for both players. You can see where I am going with this… three is obviously better than two, making scoring that much easier and efficient for all three than it had been the season before when each was the primary focus of their opponents defensive schemes.

And in a league where the perceptions of the refs are just as important (or actually more important) than the reality, having three acknowledged, accomplished scorers is far better that any that are up-and-coming, particularly given how refs have been encouraged by the league office over the past few years to award free-throws, even at the end of games in decisive circumstances. Grade A

Defense: This is an area where we should expect a true transformation. Already after the Ray Allen trade I expected our defense to be better for the following reasons: (1) Ray Allen would push Pierce to play SF almost exclusively, (2) Ray Allen, whatever his defensive deficiencies, can stay in front of his man when motivated, unlike Wally Sczcerbiak, and (3) the loss of Delonte West (who had trouble staying in front of speedy PGs) means more time for Rajon Rondo on the court. From my count that results in improved defense at all three perimeter positions, but particularly at the most important, the PG position, where the pressure at the point can result in delays in establishing the offense leading to hurried sets and rushed shots as the shot clock ticks down.

Now Ainge has added Garnett to the equation, a perpetual Defensive POY candidate. This transforms the PF position, which had been our most vulnerable position from a defensive standpoint, into a defensive strength. Al Jefferson simply did not have the lateral footspeed required (which is why most of his minutes were at the center spot), which often resulted in blown assignments whenever he and Kendrick Perkins were on the court together (often resulting in fouls on Perkins as he tried to compensate). Now with Garnett and Perkins the Cs will have two shot-blocking linebackers as the second line of defense, but with the improved perimeter D and Garnett at his side, I would expect Perkins to cut down on the fouls and stay on the court longer while being more effective when out there. In short the Cs should expect to improve their D at every position and the two positions where they were weakest (PF, PG) are now their areas of greatest strength. Grade B+

Rebounding: One would expect improvement given that the Celtics are adding the league’s top rebounder for the last several years in Kevin Garnett. Some might counter that the key player Boston surrendered, Al Jefferson, was coming into his own on the boards so that the improvement might be marginal at best. There are some reasons for believing that Boston should be a much better rebounding team, however. As mentioned, the improvement on the defensive end should allow a player like Kendrick Perkins to stay on the court longer. And Perk (as well as Leon Powe and Glenn ‘Big Baby’ Davis) should be more effective on the glass when out there if only because of the attention Garnett will attract. Given Garnett’s ability to play away from the basket, it should allow whoever he is teamed with to crash the offensive boards against single coverage without too much concern about gumming up our offensive sets.

Add to this, however, the definitive move of Pierce from SG to SF and Rondo into the starting lineup and you have the makings of a dominant rebounding team. The closer Paul Pierce plays to the basket, the better off the Cs will be on the boards. And Rondo’s uncanny nose for the ball should earn him recognition as one of the best in the league at his position once he get the minutes to show his stuff. If Rondo can simply do in starter’s minutes what he has already done playing primarily off the bench, then it will give the Cs three elite rebounders for their positions at PF, SF and PG. And since we already know Perk can rebound if he can stay on the floor long enough, then the Cs have the makings for a potentially dominant team on the glass. Grade A-

The Bench: The bench is the obvious loser when evaluating this summer’s deals. Now, while I would much, much rather be in the current situation of having a loaded starting line-up and looking to shore up the bench than the converse situation of having a bunch of complimentary players with few set starters (as was the case prior to this off-season), we still do need a bench in order to maximize the value of our starters and hope to truly contend for a title. I think the Celts are correct in their apparent estimate that a nine man rotation for the season can be shortened to eight in the playoffs. Now the question is how good do these 3-4 complimentary players need to be? One thing, however, is sure: the Cs should not switch out all their stars simultaneously. So whatever contributions the bench will make will be in the context of blending in with rather than wholly replacing the starting five. This simply has not been possible for the Cs to do in recent memory, and for that reason the expectations for the bench may be a bit higher than they may actually need to be.

Boston apparently feels that Leon Powe is ready to step up and back up the PF spot. At this point it is difficult to assess this judgment – only time will tell. Likewise, they seem comfortable without a pure PG to back up Rondo, apparently estimating that instant offense, three point threat Eddie House will suffice. While this line of thinking is not surprising given how PGs have been used in Boston for the past decade, it is also a judgment that crucially depends on the effectiveness of blending the bench with the starters rather than replacing them outright. Scalabrine seems to be penciled in for spot minutes at the three. Obviously, a healthy Tony Allen would be an invaluable asset. Here again there is little data to either confirm or contradict the apparent judgment by the Celtic brass to rely to some degree on a full recovery. The last piece of the puzzle would seem to be a signed Dikembe Mutombo. He has performed well in short minutes last year for Houston. Certainly he would not be expected to do any more than guard the paint and contribute on the boards for short minutes here. So among the potential backups, only House and Tony A could be considered an offensive threat. The others are at best defensive stop-gaps unless Powe really surprises.

As for the rookies - Big Baby, Gabe Pruitt, Brandon Wallace and (essentially) Jackie Manuel – I would be surprised if any got substantial minutes. Perhaps Big Baby later in the season or Brandon Wallace in specific situation, but for the most part I think these folks are considered investments for upcoming years. I would expect the Cs to leave the final roster spot open, since teams will need to pare rosters in the coming months and you never know who might negotiate a buy-out or be released in the aftermath of a trading deadline trade.

Barring a major injury, the Cs will be fine – but then that is true for most teams as well. Their bench will not be a source of strength, but considering what should be required of them, I don’t think at this point it is the insurmountable liability some have purported it to be. Grade C-

Coaching: As has already been pointed out in various other venues, this is a make or break year for Doc Rivers. Luckily for him, the sort of veteran team that Ainge has assembled minimizes many of Docs greatest weaknesses: rotations are fairly obvious and straight-forward, in game decisions can be handled by veterans themselves on the fly or through contributions during time outs, the point guard position has been resolved. Doc is also purportedly going to focus on defense with the departure of his previous defensive coordinator, leaving the reins of the offense by in large in the hands of Dave Wohl, and while this is no guarantee of improvement, I think most fans would agree that both sets of schemes could do with a change whatever the source. But it will be up to Doc to maximize the value of his newly minted starting five in all areas of the game and if he cannot do so it will mean a lot of wasted motion, effort and money. I share the doubts of many whether he is up to the job or not. I think Doc is on a short leash this season. Let’s hope he makes the most of it. Grade C

Intensity/Effort/Intangibles: You’ve likely heard the comparisons between Garnett coming to a much improved Celtics and Barkley going to the Suns. Both were superstars trapped in unworkable circumstances, who had seen their rivals succeed in the playoffs while year after year their hard work and best efforts, while recognized at one level, were diminished and belittled by the impediments placed in their path by incompetent GMs. Both have a passion for the game and a hunger to win. And like Barkley, it is expected that Garnett will move heaven and earth to take advantage of what is likely his last best chance at winning it all and silencing detractors. However, in the Celtics case I think you can multiply the ‘Barkley factor’ by three – since Pierce, Allen and Garnett have all in one version or another been living the same nightmare. Their commitment will be absolute, and don’t think that they will not expect the same from each and every one of their teammates. Add to that the fact that all three are good character guys and that their skills are eerily complimentary and I think you have the makings for a perfect storm of a season. How it ends we obviously do not know, but I think we can all agree it is going to be special for both the players and the fans. Grade A+

The Vision: Danny Ainge stated when he first came on board that given the realities of the league (and Boston winters) that virtually the only way to acquire the veteran talent needed to win it all was through trades. Now the only way to acquire veteran talent is to exchange prospects – ‘chips’ as he called them. But the process would take time because you had to either (a) develop prospects to the point where their value had increased sufficiently or (b) ‘flip’ assets with other teams with an eye to consolidating multiple lesser assets into larger, more valuable (but still flawed) chips. Obviously, Ainge pursued both avenues, collecting picks, young players and larger, veteran contracts. Both were necessary to finally pull of the two major trades of this summer: cheap young players with upside combined with larger contracts that actually enabled the transactions to be completed on the financial side.

Now it would be foolish to say Ainge never made a misstep or misstatement. Likewise, however, I think any balanced assessment would also have to admit the basic validity of his original ‘vision’ as well as extend him credit for having the intelligence, grit and perseverance to see it through to this stage. To simply try and pass off the events of the summer as ‘desperation’ (as if one needs to be ‘desperate’ in order to want to add Ray Allen or Kevin Garnett) or ‘luck’ is not simply mistaken it is willfully ignorant.

I think Ainge, Red, any GM worth their salt, would agree that luck plays a role, sometimes a key role in making great transactions. But in almost every situation the opportunity afforded by luck is wasted unless one has had the foresight to plan to take advantage of such opportunities when they do present themselves. It is this foresight and preparation that separates the visionary GMs from the plodders.

Did Ainge know he was going to get Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett? No, of course not… but did he plan to take advantage of rebuilding teams that wanted to shed salary in the form of expensive veteran talent – yes. And did he target which veterans he would prefer and work his tail off to do all he could to make sure that his offer made the most sense, yes again. It was not a mistake that Ainge had not loaded up the team with overpriced mediocre talent by spending the full mid-level exception year after year for a marginal return (once was bad enough LOL). Did each individual move push us forward? No, and I don’t think it is realistic to expect that every move always will, given the inherent degree of uncertainty when dealing with extraordinary talents (and egos) who are nonetheless very vulnerable to injury. But when taken as a whole the pattern that emerges is one of pragmatic trial and error that essentially adhered to the basics of vision.

I expect that right now Ainge wants to maximize the flexibility he has with the few roster spot he has to play with. I think a key criteria in filling out the bench this year will be finding players willing to accept one year deals so that the roster is not locked up for the remainder of this team’s window of contention, all the while nurturing the next generation of young talent.
The Celtics have not won anything yet and Ainge’s job is not done, but on the other hand, one can stand back in assessment and state ‘we’ve come a long way, baby!’ Grade A

Celtics: Ray Allen - Good Possibly Great Trade

2007-08-06T19:30:00.000-06:00

I wrote this after the Ray Allen trade in reaction to the widespread criticisms of Allen, the trade and the direction of the Celtics in general. Posted 6/30/07.
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After giving the matter some thought, I find it hard to believe that picking up a 7 time all-star two-guard in his prime in exchange for a combo guard, a draft pick and a big contract for a player who never fit is somehow a step backwards.

To address the fears of many: 32 is not 35 or even 34. Allen should have several more great years and a few good ones after that left in the tank. And bone spurs are not career threatening - painful, but not mechanically limiting.

Allen is not only a phenomenal player in his own right, but he solidifies our rotation by pushing Pierce back to his natural position at SF. Our offense is instantly diversified. Our defense is improved, as much by subtraction as by addition, as neither Pierce nor Wally couldn't stay in front of two-guards nor Delonte in front of points.

And the gravy to this whole deal is that we have our youth movement still firmly in place, only having sacrificed Delonte. (And if it came down who to pay after this season I think most would agree it would be Al before Delonte).

Now that we are actually players in the East, other potential pieces of the puzzle will no longer view us as a leper colony. Just one more good trade and we could be favorites to head to the finals. Great move, can't wait for the next one to solidify our contender status.

If Denver is serious about dumping salary we may be able to pry Marcus Camby (33 yrs old, three more years on his deal) from them for not much more than Theo's contract - keeping Al while adding Garnett-lite. Camby and Evans (4 year deal) for Theo works straight up. Or possibly Camby and a sign-trade for Steve Blake (Gene would have to smile at that, no?) for Theo. I would imagine in either scenario we would have to part with an addition asset (pick/player or both) but neither deal is pie in the sky. And either deal would make us pre-season contenders for the championship.

I can understand that people are sad to see Delonte go, or to have dreams of UPPPPP-side fizzle with the trading of the #5 pick. Funny, but the one think most people will agree Ainge understands is the draft and in the last two he has basically said that after the first few picks you are as likely to get a star in the second round as in the first. I don't know much about Big Baby, but from the buzz I've heard that may well be correct about this draft. (I already know that Rajon is easily as valuable as any of the top picks from the last draft.) Don't let the lack of national media exposure fool you about the value of the player we just acquired. This is an exciting time to be a Celtics fan.

Celtics: is it time to trade Pierce?

2007-08-06T19:28:00.000-06:00

This post was in response to talk about the need to trade Pierce and seriously tank/develop youth after losing out on Oden or Durant in the 2007 draft. Posted on 5/26/07.
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There is no 'need' to trade Pierce just yet. Quite the opposite I would say. Losing out on the draft brought some clarity to the picture. The only way forward is to use the contracts, picks and players available and make a deal for an impact player. This is the season it is either going to happen... kind of like when Philly rolled the dice with Webber, but hopefully a much better result.

People decry Ainge's ability to swing trades, but one thing he cannot be accused of is rushing into anything. And when taken in context, Ainge is the best GM (de facto) we've had since Red actually called all the shots - better than Wallace, Pitino, M.L., Gavitt and Volk. Now this is faint praise, but on the other hand Ainge has not committed the whoppers that the others had been guilty of - I won't bother to list them all.

Ainge's worst trade is, as far as I can tell, the draft day deal from last season, and I think it would be best to see what he can do with Ratliff's contract in combination with our other resources before ginning up the lynch mob. Can Ainge pull something off? I don't know - so I can't say he is a genius. On the other hand I can't say he is an idiot either. He has avoided making any earthshattering blunders so far... that is, as long as he is able to use the Ratliff contract to swing a deal. So as far as I am concerned the clock is ticking on Danny, but he's not down for the count yet.

Right now we are one of the few teams that has the salaries, talent, and picks to make a blockbuster unaided. As far as I am concerned this season is the real test of what Ainge is capable of. For the past four years we have been digging out of the rubble - what else do you call it when you have 3 first rounders and end up with nothing but Tony Delk for your trouble? Or that we are only just this summer FINALLY rid of Gin Baker's financial legacy?

Am I happy we have been losing these past few years? Obviously no, but on the other hand, there is losing while frittering away assets and then there is losing while increasing assets. I'd rather not be in either category, but if we are losing it is some consolation to see our assets - like Jefferson, Allen, West, Rondo, Gomes and even Green - increase in value. What needs to be done now is to hold onto Pierce, Jefferson and Rondo and do what is necessary to score a game changing PF - I've listed some that I'd target before.

Minnesota in particular seems to be in tough straits - now there is a model for how NOT to add assets to a middle of the road team that is losing. They are weighed down with contracts to mediocre players with years yet to run (ah yes, the wonders of MLE), have traded away a good number of picks, have a star past 30 who can't carry the team by himself.... oh, and by the way their conference just added Oden and Durant for them to face for 4-5 games a year each.

Now *there* is a team that needs to reshuffle the deck (and ironically it is because their ownership has been willing to 'spend money' on the MLE and waste picks in sideways trades). And we may be able to cash in IF they do decide to cash in on Garnett precisely because we have NOT been engaging in the sort of behavior that the 'blame Ainge & ownership' detractors apparently desire. If the Celts do end up back on top sometime in the near future, it won't be due to the luck of the lottery balls, but because of prudent decisions - including decisions not to spend - that will enable them to take advantage of other franchises that have spent for the sake of spending.

Celtics: The Way Forward

2007-08-06T19:26:00.001-06:00

Here was my reaction to the Celtics getting the worst possible draft choice - #5 - available to the in the 2007 draft. Originally posted on 5/22/07.
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Now that the pipe dream of a lucky lottery solving all our problems has burst, where do we go?

Our greatest area of weakness last year was at PF. ANY time Scalabrine is penciled in a lineup that is a sure sign.

The best way to move forward is to deal for a vet PF.

Three come to mind: Jermaine O'Neal, Kevin Garnett and Pau Gasol.

What are our assets? The #5 pick, Theo's, Telfair's and Gomes expiring contracts and Green. (I won't include Sczcerbiak, Tony Allen or Kendrick Perkins due to injury/contract issues.) Pierce, Jefferson and Rondo are the only 'untouchable' players.

With those kind of resources you are basically looking for a trade partner looking to dump salary and start fresh, cheap and energetic.

I seriously doubt we have a chance at Garnett. Granted, this is McHale we are talking about so I guess anything is possible... but I seriously doubt it. We don't have enough in expiring contracts to make it worthwhile and if we have to part with our untouchables, then we will not have enough left to make the game with the candle.

I feel similarly about O'Neal. Indiana has so much sunk in player contracts (Murphy, Dunleavy, Tinsley) that freeing them of one of them does not do enough for them. Add to this calculus that O'Neal makes nearly as much as Garnett but is not nearly as desirable.

That brings us to Gasol. Wiping out his contract would bring Memphis significantly below the cap. Also it would make it a much more attractive buy (the franchise is on the market) since it will already be in position to turn a profit. Memphis has the #4 pick so the addition of #5 will give them great flexibility at the top of the draft with the potential to draft big and small. I would think some combo of Ratliff, Green, Gomes, Telfair, Gomes and the #5 would at least get their attention.

One last thought: we should not overlook Andrei Kirilenko. BSG has mentioned this option too. AK47 He hasn't looked too hot playing out of position at SF in Utah this season, but he would be a great fit in Boston at PF - great D, rebound, help D, blocked shots - energy. Kirilenko for Sczcerbiak and the #5 would help both teams, but it is hard to gauge the balance due to injury and the depth of the draft. It would make Utah only a reliable SG shy of having one of the best starting five, and that could be remedied with the 5th pick in the draft or the inclusion of West or Green. On the other hand, I'd like to see at least a 1st rounder come back our way, but then this is where Danny has to show his worth.

Celtics Is Doc/Ainge to blame? & Stern throws Suns series

2007-08-06T19:20:00.000-06:00

Here is an post I wrote tackling the question of Doc's and Ainge's culpability in the Cs woes and Stern's mortal meddling in the defacto NBA finals - the Suns/Spurs series. Originally posted 5/16/07

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I think the 'some people blame everything on Doc' straw man has been about beat to death. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Doc (as a coach), but no way no how is he the source of all the Celts failings. For a full accounting of that we'd have to go back a decade at least.

But by the same token, I've think anyone who believes that Danny is the source of all Celtic evil is either pretending to be a strawman for attention's sake. Not that anyone seriously subscribes to that theory, but with some of the noise and confusion it sometimes seems that way (no doubt in the same manner it seems to others that Doc is the chosen scapegoat).

So while we can debate the relative merits of both coach and GM (or whatever Danny's de jure title is), let's remember that they are both relative newcomers to the ongoing debacle and that a full assessment of either of them needs to take into account the context of their arrivals (cough cough - Gin Baker - cough cough - 0 for 3 in 2001 draft).

What I find even more alarming today is the farce that the NBA has made of one of the most interesting series in a long time - the Suns vs the Spurs. If you haven't read it the Sports Guy has a blistering article on it here.

Really, is there any greater crisis facing basketball than the quality of the refereeing and the related ineptitude of the league office in rewarding bad behavior if committed by the 'good guys'? I really am wondering where WWF leaves off and NBA picks up? Maybe I am just not cynical enough: so much money, so much 'entertainment,' so much at stake: maybe it is inevitable that the league playoffs would end up as rigged more or less. The bias is obvious in the teams selected for TV during the regular season... is it that much of a stretch to assume such biases persist during the 'second season?' The only excuse I can see right now is incompetence... (nothing to sneeze at whenever Stu Jackson is involved) but isn't that just as bad?!?

"Good news, you are not dieing from cancer, rather from you are instead dieing from antibiotic resistant TB"

Celtics - What went wrong - 2006-07

2007-08-06T19:14:00.000-06:00

This is a response I wrote in answer to the question of how the Cs 2006-07 season became such a trainwreck originally posted on 2/26/07:

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Interesting question, posed in an interesting manner, Patrick. You begin with a basic observation: early in the season we were at least competitive (even if we did lose more often then we lost), but we are now a train wreck.

You then very succinctly review the usual suspects (injuries, coaching, GM) and find yourself facing two options: active tanking or 'loss of momentum.'

My first move would be to reassess the usual suspects, and perhaps toss a few more into the mix.

Basketball, like all sports, is very psychological. I am not a brain doc, but I would hazard to guess that basketball may well be the major sport most susceptible to the influences of team psychology, given that the size of the team is smaller, the influence of teamwork more pronounced and the margin of error so slight.

Baseball is notorious for its ability to segregate the impact of the individual from the team, which is a leading reason why statistical analysis of baseball players is so much further advanced. Both hockey and football have much larger squads, and the players on a football team tend to be much more specialized, whereas as the margin for error in hockey strikes me as far higher - if a pass does not connect, you chase it down in the corner, whereas if a pass does not connect in basketball it is likely a turnover and quite possibly a fast break for the other team.

All these factors tend to enhance the impact of psychology in basketball, so it seems to me. Add to that the fact that apart from football I suspect that basketball players have the shortest careers on average and hence tend to be younger, and I think you have a recipe for potentially dramatic impact for psychological factors.

Hardly a season passes in basketball where a team that has been mired in the lower half of the league begins with a new coach/star/GM whatever and seeks to break from the mediocrity of the past. The start the season with some promise, playing scrappy ball and winning a few upsets but losing a larger proportion of 'moral victories.' Then at some point mid-way to the all-star break, things begin to break down. They become less competitive and less consistent. The 'fresh' aspect of the season that gave the team hope and heart is no longer fresh and as the losses pile up - some heartbreakers, others blowouts - the 'momentum' correspondingly becomes lessens. Before long they are enduring long losing streaks and the promise of the early season seems to have completely evaporated as the team seemingly settles for what they have been in the past: also-rans, losers, the Washington Generals to the league's Harlem Globetrotters.

This scenario, it seems to me is quite relevant to the question Patrick has asked. How is it that a team that at one time was at least passably competitive can fall so low? I think a major part of the answer relates to the psychology of the team, but not in terms of pseudoscientific 'braintypes,' but rather in simple, concrete ways in which we can all empathize.

One item I would not dismiss quite so quickly is the impact of injuries. Our injuries have not just resulted in loss of man-hours on the court. In part because the way the injuries have been handled, the injuries our team has suffered have not only stolen man-hours, but it has reduced (quite substantially in some cases) the quality of those man-hours that HAVE been played. I think Sczcerbiak and Perkins are two excellent examples of this. Neither is the most fleet of feet in the best of times, but to insist that they 'play through the pain' and show 'true grit' has rendered the time they have spent on the court painful in more ways than one. It has hurt the team and it has hurt the team's morale.

After all, it is one thing to lose when you are shorthanded and have to play second-stringers who lose despite giving it their all - that is understandable, particularly given the knowledge that today's loss at least bought time for fielding a stronger team tomorrow. But how must it feel to be cemented to the bench when you see teammates literally struggling to make basic plays due to the handicaps that they suffer? To know that even though it is painfully obvious that a player cannot play anywhere near up to their capabilities, that they are still going to see court time simply because of their status within the team hierarchy? Is that going to spur teamwork and mutual sacrifice? Or might it instead numb you to what true teamwork is all about? Perhaps I am making too much of this point, after all, I could simply state that by not allowing what should have been minor injuries to heal the team has in effect made the proverbial 'mountain out of molehill,' hamstringing the team in the short term by playing a bunch of banged up players and in the long term by preventing those same players from healing, all the while eroding the confidence of their bench compatriots.

In short I see the injury problem as something that has unnecessarily become a cumulatively increasing issue. What could have been a been a plus in some ways (rewarding backups with time when the starters were less than 100%) has instead turned into a psychological negative. Furthermore, one might argue that the injuries themselves have been much more significant than the loss of Pierce, Wally and Ratliff. Surely the loss of Tony Allen must loom as a major shadow over the second half of the season. So I would conclude that injuries have been a major contributing factor to our current dejected state, although the situation has been compounded by a shortsighted approach to player health and the utilization of team depth.

As far as coaching goes, I think it too could do with a reexamination. Every team starts the new year with a wrinkle or two. Some take that and grow with it. Others seem to treat it as a passing fad, and soon it is back to the 'grind' again, and with the grind all to often comes the losing. The long rumored but never seen 'running game' certainly comes to mind. I think it is fair to assess some of that blame to the coach. But even more importantly in assessing the season is how the coach manipulates his roster.

Does the coach get the most out of his team every night? And remember, that is the most out of the TEAM, not player X or Y. If the coach is not getting the most out of the team - and I believe a large part of that is by crafting appropriate roles for players that enhance their strengths and minimize their weaknesses - then is he 'losing' players? Are players being stashed on the bench because, due to a combination of poor usage and subsequent loss of confidence - they are WORSE players than when the season began? If so, then the coach is de facto contributing to the progressive deterioration of his assets (as well as destroying trade value), to the benefit of no one. I think that it is a sign of a poor coach that he cannot find at least one redeeming characteristic of a player and give that player a sense of ownership as a contributing member of the team. Mark Berry, as much as he does not care for Telfair, was able to identify a role for him as a quick penetrating/scoring guard off the bench. Regardless of how it would have worked out, it is still more than Doc has manage to do. And the end result of such failure to identify roles will not be limited to that one player, because it will infect the atmosphere of the clubhouse. Players will be less likely to sacrifice for the team if they see that the team is not treated as a collective but rather as a mere collection of individuals.

Finally, I would add that the coach can have a dramatic impact on the course of the team simply by deciding who plays and who sits. Earthshattering, I know lol, but it seems to get overlooked. Staying with Scalabrine or a wounded Sczcerbiak rather than going with Gomes or Powe time after time after time yields certain results, not only on the scoreboard but in the mindset of the team. And having certain pets can wreck even more havoc. Whatever you think about Delonte versus Telfair, I think we can all agree that at least when Delonte is on the court with either Rondo or Telfair, that Delonte should not be the primary ballhandler. And yet Delonte can apparently do no wrong. I know that such relationships between supervisors and employees are poison in a workgroup's team environment and imagine much the same is true in basketball. So would disagree that coaching should be understood as a constant throughout a season. As under any regime, an accumulation of poor decisions can begin to create a negative dynamic, in just the same way that good management can create a 'momentum' that enables organization to weather bad times. I would argue that good leadership and bad leadership are not static entities but dynamic ones. I think poor coaching has been an equally contributing factor to our constantly degrading situation.

I would argue that the same can be said for the GM as well. While I agree with Patrick's statement that the GM is more removed from the scene than the coach, by that same token, whatever the GM says and does (or does not say or do) is more influential than any single statement or action by a coach. The GM has the final word, both over coach and players, and his view of a situation has more influence than one might expect if one just looked at trades and signings. If players know that the GM is content with losing now to win later, then that is certainly going to color their view of their responsibilities. And I think one would have to be foolish to think that some of that is not happening here. Also, if the GM has not proven that he can pull of the 'big deal' or, for that matter, even manage some midlevel FA signings to provide veteran help, I think that has to color the collective psyche of the team as well. In short - the cavalry is not coming, good luck Custer! And finally, I think the GM's relationship to the coach can also help determine the teams collective disposition. If there is antagonism, then the players can be torn between the coach and the GM (as in the case of O'Brien). If instead the GM is cozy with an incompetent, well then there is no hope. I would agree with those who believe that the GM has compounded what was already a poor situation this season and contributed to its being worse. Whether that will work out in the 'long term' (whether by design or luck) is yet to be seen, but I don't think there is any denying the impact in the short term.

I think all these factors have come into play on the Celts this season, and in such a way as to create a negative feedback loop leading to our current death spiral. There is no need to entertain any tanking theories, such a project would be redundant on this particular team. The only other major factor I have not touched on are the players themselves. And of all the teams that have Ainge has put together, this one seems unique in that it is devoid of the sort of personalities that are most problematic. Perhaps I'm mistaken here, maybe we have yet to have all the laundry aired in public, but this team seems a sight better off than past ones with Payton, Davis, Banks and Steamboat Willy. Maybe we'll find out that Sczcerbiak is a locker room cancer or that Telfair threatened Green with a knife, but as of now it doesn't seem to be the case.

The only knock I have heard repeated is that somehow the players are just exceptionally dumb, even by professional athlete standards. My first thought is that I don't think that their IQs are dropping as the season progresses - at least I hope not! My second and more substantive thought is that, for crying out loud, we are talking about BASKETBALL. How hard can it be? And if it is that hard, then adjust the difficulty level accordingly. Wasn't that part of the problem with Pitino? He never had the 'right' players for his invincible system. I think it was Red's insight that you play the game with the team that you have, not with the ideal team that you wish you had. If the players are that stupid, then simplify the game for them. This comes back to the coach ultimately in my opinion, and that is why I will never accept the excuse that the players are just 'too dumb.'

What may seem bright in a commentator (Player X needs to work on his ABCs top become a top player) can be disastrous in a coach. Players need to maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. Coaches are there to help them do just that. Working on a weakness *during* the season (as opposed to off-season) just strikes me as asking for trouble. And this is what kills me about Doc: he knows basketball, but seemingly only as an analyst, not as a real-time strategist or tactician. Coaches need to put players in position to succeed, not in a position to 'work' on a weakness. Our team needs to walk before it can run. The coach is the one that can put them in a position to do that. But it seems to me that Doc would rather that they just start flying and blame the players for the fact that they cannot. In such a situation blaming the players for being just 'too stupid' errs by forgetting that a plan, no matter how 'brilliant,' is worthless if it cannot be implemented. A 'lesser' plan, if it can be implemented, will in reality prove the superior. It is the coach's job to devise that superior plan, even if it is not 'brilliant.'

Lewis Black Interview

2007-04-11T22:00:00.000-06:00

Click here for the Lewis Black Interview with The Progressive

Here we go again

2007-02-25T20:08:00.000-07:00

Seymour Hersh has yet another invaluable look inside the byzantine politics of the ~~Kremlin~~ White House called The Redirection.

Of course in a democracy the goverments policies should be open and transparent, at least in the broad strokes. For example, we should know who our allies are and who the bad guys are. So I guess what follows gives you a good barometer of how committed to our democratic heritage our current regime is.

Judging from what Hersh has to report, not very.

Having failed to secure Afghanistan, in large part due to our rush to get our hands dirty in Iraq, our fearless leader is eager to start a shooting war with Iran. Naturally that means his minions are actively seeking to create a pretext for said war. But in addition we have decided to greenlight a Saudi plan - hatched by prince 'Bandar Bush' (you may remember him from Fahrenheit 911) to fund extremist terrorist Sunnis.

Does that plan ring a bell? It was the same plan used in Afghanistan against the Soviets: Saudi money and mullahs with US military training and technology, which resulted in.... Al Qaeda!

That's right, apparently Bush has decided that the Shiites of Iran are more dangerous than Osama bin Laden's peeps! So we'll arm and unleash all the Al Qaeda wannabees we can find and point them towards Iran and Hezbollah... and hope they focus all their hate on them. So the US, Israel, Saudi and the 'Salafists' (the new and improved rebranded name for Al Qaeda type terrorists) against team Shiite - that's the plan for peace in the Middle East.

Quite the plan, eh? Of course, in order to do this both the Congress and the CIA have to be cut out of the operation... so it is being run out of the Veeps office, natch. Luckily our regime has plenty of folks with resumes that say IRAN-CONTRA on them, which provided invaluable experience (Hersh reviews the 'lessons') in what and what not to do when using an illegal 'national security' slush fund to essentially conduct a personal foreign policy with no oversight or even knowledge on the part of either the Congress or the security agencies.

Kinda like how kings of days gone by used to use their personal purse to finance wars of whim and fancy.

Puts a whole new spin on the meaning of the term 'conservative,' don't it?

Seen this weekend

2007-02-19T19:09:00.000-07:00

I watched three vids this weekend, the superb "Lewis Black: Black on Broadway," the intriguing "Beowulf and Grendel," and the surprising "Never Cry Wolf."

I call the last one surprising because neither my wife nor I remembered putting it in the queue. That was virtually last surprising thing about it, well, that and the male nudity that the Disney folks put on the screen in 1983. It was also a bit curious to see Disney actually putting out an unabashedly environmental movie, but then that is less surprising than it is a commentary on the manipulative right-wing politics that Disney has made a franchise feature over the past two decades. 2 stars out of 5

Beowulf and Grendal was interesting for its investigation of the creation of the saga as well for the stunning beauty of the landscape (Iceland) and refreshingly frank dialogue. It suffered a bit for not having subtitles (I like using them even when the movie is in my native tongue) particularly since the diction and words were anything but ordinary. The inherent violence was tastefully done and it managed to avoid lapsing into Monty Python despite some very comic scenes. 4 stars out of 5

If you have not seen Lewis Black on Comedy Central's Daily Show, then you really are missing something. Make up for lost time by renting his incredible performance in Black on Broadway. Never have I found a comic so trenchant, mordant and spot on. Again, his use of language is a refreshing change from the palaver of the thought police. Even though his performance is from five years ago it seems fresh and timely today (particularly if you live in the Front Range). Run, don't walk, to find out what all the noise is about. 5 out of 5

Republicans Blame Election Losses On Democrats

2006-11-11T18:54:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON, DC—Republican officials are blaming tonight's GOP losses on Democrats, who they claim have engaged in a wide variety of "aggressive, premeditated, anti-Republican campaigns" over the past six-to-18 months. "We have evidence of a well-organized, well-funded series of operations designed specifically to undermine our message, depict our past performance in a negative light, and drive Republicans out of office," said Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman, who accused an organization called the Democratic National Committee of spearheading the nationwide effort. "There are reports of television spots, print ads, even volunteers going door-to-door encouraging citizens to vote against us." Acknowledging that the "damage has already been done," Mehlman is seeking a promise from Democrats to never again engage in similar practices.

Thank you, America | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

2006-11-08T18:52:00.000-07:00

In US domestic terms, the 2006 midterms bring to an end the 12 intensely divisive years of Republican House rule that began under Newt Gingrich in 1994. These have been years of zealously and confrontational conservative politics that have shocked the world and, under Mr Bush, have sent America's global standing plummeting. That long political hurricane has now at last blown itself out for a while, but not before leaving America with a terrible legacy that includes climate-change denial, the end of biological stem-cell research, an aid programme tied to abortion bans, a shockingly permissive gun culture, an embrace of capital punishment equalled only by some of the world's worst tyrannies, the impeachment of Bill Clinton and his replacement by a president who does not believe in Darwin's theory of evolution.

"Stay The Course"

2006-10-27T22:08:00.000-06:00

Who's 'cutting and running' from "Stay The Course"? Click and see...

Joshua Micah Marshall on Bush the 'entreprenueur'

2006-10-23T18:47:00.000-06:00

This is good, go read the whole thing:... it's worth remembering why President Bush, short of being forced kicking and screaming, will never and can never withdraw American forces from Iraq.

Fundamentally, it doesn't have to do with military strategy or ideology. It has to do with coming to grips with the monumental failure he has wrought, which of course he can never do....

...Think of the president as a failed or deadbeat entrepreneur (again, not such a stretch) who's already lost his investors a ton of money. He goes back to them and says, 'Okay, fine. You think I'm a moron and a screw-up who lost you guys a ton of money. Fine. But do you really want to finally, totally, conclusively kiss that $300 billion goodbye. You wanna just totally call it quits? Admit it's a total loss? What about giving me just another $10 billion and maybe somehow I'll actually pull this off? Or, since that's just not gonna happen, a mere $10 billion to put off for six months having to write the whole thing off as a loss, having to come to grips once and for all with the fact that all the money's gone and the whole thing's a bust?'

Theories Abound as Oil Prices Fluctuate

2006-10-06T19:17:00.000-06:00

This is only one of the theories broached in the article

Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. has asked his former partners at Goldman Sachs to dump gasoline futures to drive down pump prices and boost GOP prospects in November.

Goldman runs the most important commodity index, which serves as the basis for about $60 billion in investment funds. And the firm has been selling gasoline holdings. "Goldman has been liquidating its gasoline position, and that's put a lot of pressure on prices," said Citigroup Inc. oil analyst Doug Leggate. "It's a very large part of why gasoline has fallen."

Other theories include the debts that the Saudis owe the Bush family, but not mentioned in my quick galnce over is the fact that the US govt has not been buying stores for its winter oil subsidies for the poor and elderly, which it usually does at this time, for cost-savings reasons. This can have a huge impact in a commodity market where the price is defined by the price of the last barrel of oil currently in demand.

In a market system, all prices are pegged the same, so the first sold costs as much as the last, so if the last exceeds supplies all the prices rise precipitously. Hence the influence a relatively small amount of oil demand can have on a market system. Of course, as any economist knows... you must pay the piper in the end, but as far as the Bush crime family is concerned, better you pay them (more) after November than before.

Olbermann: It is not the Democrats whose inaction in the face of the enemy you fear

2006-10-06T19:10:00.000-06:00

Mr. President, these new lies go to the heart of what it is that you truly wish to preserve.

It is not our freedom, nor our country — your actions against the Constitution give irrefutable proof of that.

You want to preserve a political party's power. And obviously you'll sell this country out, to do it.

These are lies about the Democrats piled atop lies about Iraq which were piled atop lies about your preparations for Al-Qaeda.

To you, perhaps, they feel like the weight of a million centuries.

As crushing. As immovable.

They are not.

If you add more lies to them, you cannot free yourself, and us, from them.

But if you stop — if you stop fabricating quotes, and building straw-men, and inspiring those around you to do the same — you may yet liberate yourself and this nation.

Please, sir, do not throw this country's principles away because your lies have made it such that you can no longer differentiate between the terrorists and the critics.

THE KISS OF DEATH

2006-09-20T16:52:00.000-06:00

This is a crack-up, Al Sharpton on Ned Lamont, Lieberman and the future of the Democratic Party:

“Ned Lamont is an unlikely vehicle. It’s always unlikely people who turn history. It must be God has a funny sense of humor. In my imagination, I see the meeting in heaven when they say it’s time to really deal with this war: ‘We need a messenger to send to the Democratic Party.’ And an angel says, ‘I got this guy in Connecticut, a real goofy, rich Greenwich, Connecticut, white guy who in Harlem would be like Gomer Pyle. Let’s make him the candidate.’ I can see everyone falling down laughing. And look where we are this morning. I tell you one thing: I don’t think Joe Lieberman is laughing. No matter how this night ends, he ain’t laughing. They’re gonna have to rethink the whole centrist strategy. Democrats everywhere are going to have to rethink their strategy. It’s just amazing.”

Al’s growing more expansive about the coalition that formed around Ned, of antiwar liberals, scared soccer moms, disaffected union members, and mobilized blacks—how they’re not only going to put Ned over the top here but they’re also going to change the direction of Democratic politics. “This is the beginning of the end of the right-wing takeover of the Democratic party,” he says. “This is a whole different kind of people comin’ together out of mutual interest and mutual respect. And the people that have the courage to stand up are gonna be the ones that usher in a new movement. Sometimes in life, you gotta make the decision to do what you think is right, and out of it something grows. I think Ned Lamont made the right decision.”

PS: the title of this post is the title of the excepted article, which refers to the kiss that Bush gave Lieberman after his 2005 State of the Union address. I guess it could also stand for Lieberman's 'embrace' of neoconservatism. It is in no way a comment on Sharpton's analysis, which I think is spot on.

Wouldn't it be ironic, after the divisiveness of the Vietnam war - which split the Democratic party - if a second divisive 'war of choice' were to lead the Democrats back to their roots and help them find their voice again, pushing them to articulate liberalism as an attractive governing philosophy in a way that it has not been for 35 years? I think this war of Bush's might just push the Democrats - despite themselves - to actually fight back! And it is long past time.

Bush owes us an apology

2006-09-20T12:51:00.000-06:00

...In four simple words last Friday, the President brought into sharp focus what has been only vaguely clear these past five-and-a-half years - the way the terrain at night is perceptible only during an angry flash of lightning, and then, a second later, all again is dark.

“It's unacceptable to think," he said.

It is never unacceptable to think.

And when a President says thinking is unacceptable, even on one topic, even in the heat of the moment, even in the turning of a phrase extracted from its context, he takes us toward a new and fearful path -- one heretofore the realm of science fiction authors and apocalyptic visionaries.

That flash of lightning freezes at the distant horizon, and we can just make out a world in which authority can actually suggest it has become unacceptable to think.

Thus the lightning flash reveals not merely a President we have already seen, the one who believes he has a monopoly on current truth.

It now shows us a President who has decided that of all our commanders-in-chief, ever, he alone has had the knowledge necessary to alter and re-shape our inalienable rights.

This is a frightening, and a dangerous, delusion, Mr. President....

The denial industry

2006-09-19T10:57:00.000-06:00

For years, a network of fake citizens' groups and bogus scientific bodies has been claiming that science of global warming is inconclusive. They set back action on climate change by a decade. But who funded them? Exxon's involvement is well known, but not the strange role of Big Tobacco. In the first of three extracts from his new book, George Monbiot tells a bizarre and shocking new story...

Major Problems At Polls Feared

2006-09-17T12:46:00.000-06:00

More news about a situation brought to you by the gang that can't shoot straight

An overhaul in how states and localities record votes and administer elections since the Florida recount battle six years ago has created conditions that could trigger a repeat -- this time on a national scale -- of last week's Election Day debacle in the Maryland suburbs, election experts said.... But in Maryland last Tuesday, a combination of human blunders and technological glitches caused long lines and delays in vote-counting. The problems, which followed ones earlier this year in Ohio, Illinois and several other states, have contributed to doubts among some experts about whether the new systems are reliable and whether election officials are adequately prepared to use them.

In a polarized political climate, in which elections are routinely marked by litigation and allegations of incompetent administration or outright tampering, some worry that voting problems could cast a Florida-style shadow over this fall's midterm elections.

"We could see that control of Congress is going to be decided by races in recount situations that might not be determined for several weeks," said Paul S. DeGregorio, chairman of the federal Election Assistance Commission, although he added that he does not expect problems of this magnitude....

The world's only superpower and we can't even reliably count ballots?!?

UPDATE: And why is it our government can't count ballots? Is it just sheer stupidity? Or does one party - say the party that controls all three branches of government - benefit from some level of election indeterminancy?

Clearly, the Rethuglicans have many more resources for fighting court ballots over disputed elections - they have the money, the lawyers, and - as we saw in 2000 - they have stacked the judiciary with judges willing to play a partisan role. Why can't our government count ballots? Because in part - as the past six years have shown - the party that controls every branch of our federal government is NOT THAT INTERESTED in being able to count those ballots. They think of 'democracy' as a ritual not a process - something to be endured, not encouraged. Like the Bolsheviks before them, the Busheviks are only interested in putting on a show of democracy, not in abiding by democratic principles. Power is what they reverence, not the will of the people.

Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq

2006-09-17T12:19:00.000-06:00

...The CPA had the power to enact laws, print currency, collect taxes, deploy police and spend Iraq's oil revenue. It had more than 1,500 employees in Baghdad at its height, working under America's viceroy in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, but never released a public roster of its entire staff.

Interviews with scores of former CPA personnel over the past two years depict an organization that was dominated -- and ultimately hobbled -- by administration ideologues.

"We didn't tap -- and it should have started from the White House on down -- just didn't tap the right people to do this job," said Frederick Smith, who served as the deputy director of the CPA's Washington office. "It was a tough, tough job. Instead we got people who went out there because of their political leanings."...

Sound familiar? It should, it is the same reason OUR government can't do the simple things any government does, with Katrina being the most obvious example.

Bushevism = Ideological Cronyism ueber Alles!

Carter on Lieberman

2006-09-14T14:28:00.000-06:00

"He's been strongly in favor of the Iraqi war from the very beginning. He was one of the originators of the public statements that misled the American people into believing that the Iraqi war was justified. He's been an undeviating supporter of the war from the very beginning and still is. He's joined in with the Republican spokespersons by saying that Democrats who disagree are really supporting terrorism. So for all these reasons I've lost my confidence in Joe Lieberman and don't want to see him re-elected."

- President Jimmy Carter, speaking about Joe Lieberman on Larry King.

Bloggermann: This hole in the ground

2006-09-12T11:53:00.000-06:00

...However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast -- of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds -- none of us could have predicted this.

Five years later this space is still empty.

Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.

Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.

Five years later this country's wound is still open.

Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.

Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op.

It is beyond shameful....

...The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.

Those who did not belong to his party -- tabled that.

Those who doubted the mechanics of his election -- ignored that.

Those who wondered of his qualifications -- forgot that.

History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.

Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.

The President -- and those around him -- did that.

They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."

They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.

The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."

The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."...

ABC Consultant Richard Clarke Blasts First Installment Of Film, Hints At ABC "Conspiracy"

2006-09-11T15:14:00.000-06:00

...Although I am not one to easily believe in conspiracy theories and have spent a great deal of time debunking them, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the errors in this screen play are more than the result of dramatization and time compression. There is throughout the screenplay a consistent bias and distortion seeking to portray senior Clinton Administration officials as holding back the hard charging CIA, FBI, and military officers who would otherwise have prevented 9-11.

The exact opposite is true....

Update: Disney/ABC's 'Stab in the Back'

2006-09-10T11:52:00.000-06:00

This propaganda is being shown not only in this country but in Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Removing any doubt about what Disney/ABC hope to accomplish - in short rewriting the history of 9/11 to try and shoft the blame for one of the worst failures in U.S. government history from W. 'My Pet Goat' Bush to Clinton - is the following tidbit regarding the marketing of 'Triumph of the Swill' in our fellow Anglophone countries:

Daily Kos diarist STOP George has uploaded one of the foreign trailers for the Disney/ABC conservative fan fiction to YouTube, and the advertisement makes it very clear just what sort of Limbaugh-style political porn this thing was intended to be. Featured prominently? The words: "OFFICIAL TRUE STORY".

Combat the Big Lie!

2006-09-08T13:46:00.000-06:00

Sign the petition with a personalized message!

Disney/ABC's 'Stab in the Back'

2006-09-08T11:57:00.000-06:00

Rewriting history is what "The path to 9/11" is all about. But Disney/ABC are rewriting it in a certain way conforming to a particular script. That script is a tried and true one, the one Hitler and his fascist minions called the 'stab in the back.'

The term comes from German mythology about how the almost invulnerable hero Siegfried was killed by a perfidious public-friend-but-secret-enemy Hagen. Siegfried (like Achilles in Greek myth - the 'Achilles heel') was invulnerable except in one spot on is back. Hagen discovered this and treacherously stabbed him in the back, killing him.

Hitler used the myth to scapegoat the Jewish people for the German loss in WWI. He claimed that the German army was never defeated but instead 'stabbed in the back' by German citizens of Jewish ancestry and/or religion. It was patently false, but in true 'Big Lie' fashion, it appealed not to reason but to emotion. What would people rather believe: that the most revered and honored institution of the German Empire - the Army - had been defeated or instead that the army had been betrayed by an unpopular minority? The Big Lie worked just as it was intended: it was 'red meat' for the true believers, it clouded any undertanding about the true causes of defeat among the apolitical majority, and was absorbed into the impressionable youth who were too young to know any better.

A more emotionally palatable fictional narrative became more real than fact for large segments of the population. Defeat of the German war machine became a symbol of its near infallibility and the need to resurrect it while 'dealing harshly' with those who dissent.

The same scenario is now unfolding with Bush, Disney/ABC and 9/11. The truth of 9/11 is that Bush and his administration simply did not take non-state terrorism seriously. It was merely 'swatting at flies' as Bush himself put it. He had bigger things on his agenda: Iraq. But Bush's failure of omniscience - and his total disregard for his constitutionally sworn duties - is hard to square with the belief of his all-knowing persona as projected by the WH press office or with the typically American belief that government officials always do what they think is best for the nation rather than say, merely a segment of the nation (oil & military industries foremost among them). Wouldn't it be far easier to swallow that Bush was hoodwinked (just like the rest of us) by the enemy within? And the ground for substituting Liberals for Jews has already been well prepared by the likes of Rush and Coulter

(I'm curious, why - when all we hear from the WH is how 'no one took Mein Kampf seriously no one seems to take the hate from Coulter et. al. seriously?).

Hence the creation of a fictional history to embed a false - but emotionally more satisfying - narrative. America was betrayed not by a lackadaisical president whose imperial ambitions did not admit of engaging in anything as menial as 'swatting flies,' but rather by a pusilanimous, dithering liberal administration who couldn't stand tall in defense of America. Our Armed Forces and spy networks were not defeated as much as they were prevented from winning. We're still #1 - as long as we don't make the mistake of electing liberals.

The take home message from Disney/ABC: Clinton and liberals stabbed Bush, the CIA, and the US in the back. Yes it is 'factually inaccurate' - pure fiction in the key points - but that will not rob it of its influence and power once it gets out there. We need to stop the lies before they seep into our children's subconsciousness - it is no accident that Disney/ABC sought to enlist Scholastic books and school districts to promote their lies. Don't let this become another Rambo (the liberal politicians didn't let us win!) or Clint's 'make my day' (the liberal politicians didn't let us win!).

Contact your ABC affiliate and politely inform them that you have read about the gross lies and distortions displayed in the 'docudrama' and that you will you contact your channels local sponsors informing them that you will no longer patronize their products/services if this fascist (in the true sense of the word: and ideology of anti-liberal, militaristic corporatism) propaganda goes on the air. Do your bit to save our Republic! See how it is done here and here, with more general info here and here. Finally here are a bunch of great resources here.

Good luck and Godspeed!

The myth of fair elections in America

2006-09-07T10:34:00.000-06:00

One person, one vote. Count the totals. The one with the most wins. The beauty of democracy is its simplicity and its inherent fairness. It equalises everyone, even as it empowers everyone. What could go wrong? In America, it turns out, quite a lot.

Everyone remembers the debacle in Florida, 2000. The recounts, the law suits and the eventual deciding of a presidential election - not by the voters - but by the Supreme Court. The memory still causes a collective shudder to America's body politic.

Which makes the fact that America's system of voting is now even more suspect, more complicated, and more open to abuse than ever before so utterly shocking. Across the country a bewildering series of scandals or dubious practises are proliferating beyond control. The prospect of a 'second Florida' is now more likely not less. There are many - and not all of them are conspiracy theorists - who believed it may have happened in Ohio in 2004.

This week the venerable New York Times was the latest of many organisations and institutions to declare that America's democratic system is simply starting to fail. Not in terms of its democratic ideals, or some takeover by a Neocon cabal, but by a simple collapse in its ability to count everyone's votes accurately and fairly. The Times is editorialising on a shocking government report into electoral rules in Ohio's biggest county, Cuyahoga, which contains the city of Cleveland. It details a litany of errors and a large discrepancy between the paper record of a ballot and the result recorded by the new Diebold electronic voting machines the county has just installed....

propaganda alert!

2006-09-06T12:42:00.000-06:00

Controversy Over 9/11 Film Hits Press -- Here's a Sneak Preview

Donald Rumsfeld's Dance With the Nazis (Set Frank Rich Free!)

2006-09-05T15:19:00.000-06:00

That's Frank Rich, who penned a must read that now you can read thanks to Mother Jones:

...In his speech last week, Mr. Rumsfeld paraphrased Winston Churchill: Appeasing tyrants is “a bit like feeding a crocodile, hoping it would eat you last.” He can quote Churchill all he wants, but if he wants to self-righteously use that argument to smear others, the record shows that Mr. Rumsfeld cozied up to the crocodile of Baghdad as smarmily as anyone. To borrow the defense secretary’s own formulation, he suffers from moral confusion about Saddam.

Mr. Rumsfeld also suffers from intellectual confusion about terrorism. He might not have appeased Al Qaeda but he certainly enabled it. Like Chamberlain, he didn’t recognize the severity of the looming threat until it was too late. Had he done so, maybe his boss would not have blown off intelligence about imminent Qaeda attacks while on siesta in Crawford....

Body politic a dead giveaway

2006-09-05T14:31:00.000-06:00

Interesting brief article on politicians' attempts to manipulate body language - and how their body language also betrays them:

President Bush's exaggerated "power walk" is put on in an attempt to impress. The knuckle-dragging swing of the arms, the languid simian gait and the palms facing backwards are all part of showing who's boss.

"This is not how normal people walk," Dr Collett told the annual British Association Festival of Science in Norwich. "[It is] to convey an impression of his masculinity and therefore his power."

Keith Olbermann on Rumsfeld, govt infallibility and fascism

2006-08-31T10:29:00.000-06:00

The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack.

Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.

Mr. Rumsfeld's remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday demands the deep analysis--and the sober contemplation--of every American.

For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence -- indeed, the loyalty -- of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants -- our employees -- with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration's track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.

Dissent and disagreement with government is the life's blood of human freedom; and not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as "his" troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq.

It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile it is right and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.

In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld's speechwriter was adroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis. For in their time, there was another government faced with true peril--with a growing evil--powerful and remorseless.

That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld's, had a monopoly on all the facts. It, too, had the "secret information." It alone had the true picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in terms like Mr. Rumsfeld's -- questioning their intellect and their morality.

That government was England's, in the 1930's.

It knew Hitler posed no true threat to Europe, let alone England.

It knew Germany was not re-arming, in violation of all treaties and accords.

It knew that the hard evidence it received, which contradicted its own policies, its own conclusions -- its own omniscience -- needed to be dismissed.

The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew the truth.

Most relevant of all -- it "knew" that its staunchest critics needed to be marginalized and isolated. In fact, it portrayed the foremost of them as a blood-thirsty war-monger who was, if not truly senile, at best morally or intellectually confused.

That critic's name was Winston Churchill.

Sadly, we have no Winston Churchills evident among us this evening. We have only Donald Rumsfelds, demonizing disagreement, the way Neville Chamberlain demonized Winston Churchill.

History -- and 163 million pounds of Luftwaffe bombs over England -- have taught us that all Mr. Chamberlain had was his certainty -- and his own confusion. A confusion that suggested that the office can not only make the man, but that the office can also make the facts.

Thus, did Mr. Rumsfeld make an apt historical analogy.

Excepting the fact, that he has the battery plugged in backwards.

His government, absolute -- and exclusive -- in its knowledge, is not the modern version of the one which stood up to the Nazis.

It is the modern version of the government of Neville Chamberlain.

But back to today's Omniscient ones.

That, about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused is simply this: This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely.

And, as such, all voices count -- not just his.

Had he or his president perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience -- about Osama Bin Laden's plans five years ago, about Saddam Hussein's weapons four years ago, about Hurricane Katrina's impact one year ago -- we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their "omniscience" as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact, plus ego.

But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris.

Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire "Fog of Fear" which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have -- inadvertently or intentionally -- profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.

And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emporer's New Clothes?

In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America?

The confusion we -- as its citizens-- must now address, is stark and forbidding.

But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note -- with hope in your heart -- that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too.

The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.

And about Mr. Rumsfeld's other main assertion, that this country faces a "new type of fascism."

As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that -- though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.

This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.

Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute, I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow.

But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed: "confused" or "immoral."

Thus, forgive me, for reading Murrow, in full:

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty," he said, in 1954. "We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular."

And so good night, and good luck.

Spinning the bullets

2006-08-31T09:44:00.000-06:00

This is a good article, read the whole thing (but at minimum, click on the links in cluded below) at:

Spinning the bullets the Guardian Unlimited: News blog

...You can find the roots of [the refusal to accept the reasons behind the bad coverage from Iraq] in the sincere belief among many American conservatives that the media should be used as a partisan tool to advance their political ends - an attitude encapsulated in the infamous Nixon-era memo by late Supreme Court judge Lewis Powell, seen by many as the seed from which the modern conservative media backlash has grown....

...The fact that Washington seems to believe its own propaganda, blaming the media for all this seems astonishing. But as US social theorist Eric Hoffer pointed out, propaganda doesn't so much deceive people, as help them to deceive themselves.

Disaster capitalism: how to make money out of misery

2006-08-30T11:03:00.000-06:00

Katrina is a classic example of what you get when you put people (Rethuglicans) whao are ideologically opposed to the government in charge of the government - dithering, delay and disfunction:

The first step was the government's abdication of its core responsibility to protect the population from disasters. Under the Bush administration, whole sectors of the government, most notably the Department of Homeland Security, have been turned into glorified temp agencies, with essential functions contracted out to private companies. The theory is that entrepreneurs, driven by the profit motive, are always more efficient (please suspend hysterical laughter).

We saw the results in New Orleans one year ago: Washington was frighteningly weak and inept, in part because its emergency management experts had fled to the private sector and its technology and infrastructure had become positively retro. At least by comparison, the private sector looked modern and competent.

But the honeymoon doesn't last long. "Where has all the money gone?" ask desperate people from Baghdad to New Orleans, from Kabul to tsunami-struck Sri Lanka. One place a great deal of it has gone is into major capital expenditure for these private contractors. Largely under the public radar, billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on the construction of a privatised disaster-response infrastructure: the Shaw Group's new state-of-the-art Baton Rouge headquarters, Bechtel's battalions of earthmoving equipment, Blackwater USA's 6,000-acre campus in North Carolina (complete with paramilitary training camp and 6,000-foot runway).

I call it the Disaster Capitalism Complex. Whatever you might need in a serious crunch, these contractors can provide it: generators, watertanks, cots, port-a-potties, mobile homes, communications systems, helicopters, medicine, men with guns.

This state-within-a-state has been built almost exclusively with money from public contracts, including the training of its staff (overwhelmingly former civil servants, politicians and soldiers). Yet it is all privately owned; taxpayers have absolutely no control over it or claim to it....

News from the work front

2006-08-28T11:08:00.000-06:00

The median hourly wage for American workers has declined 2 percent since 2003, after factoring in inflation. The drop has been especially notable, economists say, because productivity — the amount that an average worker produces in an hour and the basic wellspring of a nation’s living standards — has risen steadily over the same period.

As a result, wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation’s gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960’s. UBS, the investment bank, recently described the current period as “the golden era of profitability.”

Under Bush - and his congressional enablers - we continue to go backwards: in foreign relations, on civil liberties and in dollars and cents, both at home and with the all time largest Federal budget deficit.

Had enough?

Bush's 'malaise moment'

2006-08-21T19:47:00.000-06:00

But in Bush-speak is it not a malaise (as it came to be called when Carter sought to shift blame) but rather a "straining [of] the psyche of our country."

Translation: the American people are to blame if Bush's policies fail.

Yes, this is the critical turning point when the failed politician points the finger of blame not at himself but at the public he has served so poorly. He tried blaming the terrorists, he tried blaming his predecessor, he tried blaming the messenger. And now (like Hitler in the bunker) he has run out of people to blame - so the blame falls upon the people themselves for failing Der Fuehrer.

Make no mistake about it, this is Bush's attempt to fob off blame for his failure as the fault of American citizens' collective loss of nerve, not flawed policies he built upon a house of cards composed of lies and neo-con fantasies.

'Straining the psyche' will go down in history as a moment - like Carter's 'crisis of confidence' malaise speech or Ford's WIN buttons - that crystalized the fact that this man has no clue what he is doing or what he is up against. And that means that the rest of us are up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

2006-08-18T13:16:00.000-06:00

Think Progress - THE ARCHITECTS OF WAR

Mass murder in the skies: was the plot feasible?

2006-08-18T11:25:00.000-06:00

So, did the latest 'terror scare' have a snowball's chance in hell of actually taking place? that is the question asked in the following very insightful post:

Binary liquid explosives are a sexy staple of Hollywood thrillers....

Now we have news of the recent, supposedly real-world, terrorist plot to destroy commercial airplanes by smuggling onboard the benign precursors to a deadly explosive, and mixing up a batch of liquid death in the lavatories. So, The Register has got to ask, were these guys for real, or have they, and the counterterrorist officials supposedly protecting us, been watching too many action movies?

We're told that the suspects were planning to use TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, a high explosive that supposedly can be made from common household chemicals unlikely to be caught by airport screeners. A little hair dye, drain cleaner, and paint thinner - all easily concealed in drinks bottles - and the forces of evil have effectively smuggled a deadly bomb onboard your plane.

Or at least that's what we're hearing, and loudly, through the mainstream media and its legions of so-called "terrorism experts." But what do these experts know about chemistry? Less than they know about lobbying for Homeland Security pork, which is what most of them do for a living. But they've seen the same movies that you and I have seen, and so the myth of binary liquid explosives dies hard....

It turns out actually mixing the chemicals is a several hours long process that requires delicate mixing (otherwise the mixture will go 'poof' without the force necessary to do much damage - except perhaps kill the person mixing) and abundant amounts of coolant:

After a few hours - assuming, by some miracle, that the fumes haven't overcome you or alerted passengers or the flight crew to your activities - you'll have a quantity of TATP with which to carry out your mission. Now all you need to do is dry it for an hour or two....

Certainly, if we can imagine a group of jihadists smuggling the necessary chemicals and equipment on board, and cooking up TATP in the lavatory, then we've passed from the realm of action blockbusters to that of situation comedy....

But the Hollywood myth of binary liquid explosives now moves governments and drives public policy. We have reacted to a movie plot. Liquids are now banned in aircraft cabins (while crystalline white powders would be banned instead, if anyone in charge were serious about security). Nearly everything must now go into the hold, where adequate amounts of explosives can easily be detonated from the cabin with cell phones, which are generally not banned....

It's a pity that our security rests in the hands of government officials who understand as little about terrorism as the Florida clowns who needed their informant to suggest attack scenarios, as the 21/7 London bombers who injured no one, as lunatic "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, as the Forest Gate nerve gas attackers who had no nerve gas, as the British nitwits who tried to acquire "red mercury," and as the recent binary liquid bomb attackers who had no binary liquid bombs....

Our official protectors and deciders trumpet the fools they catch because they haven't got a handle on the people we should really be afraid of. They make policy based on foibles and follies, and Hollywood plots.

Meanwhile, the real thing draws ever closer.

Of course, what the article doesn't address is WHY the ernest focus on the nitwits - in order to scare the bejesus out of the rest of us, of course. Because when people are afraid they don't ask questions and they rally around the authorities, no matter how incompetent those authorities (Bush and Blair) might be. In short, it is a cynical attempt to shore up declining polling numbers.

Thankfully, according to the polls, by now the public seems to have finally heard the cry 'wolf' one time too many.

Judge to Bush: "No hereditary Kings in America"

2006-08-17T13:27:00.000-06:00

The Government appears to argue here that, pursuant to the penumbra of Constitutional language in Article II, and particularly because the President is designated Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, he has been granted the inherent power to violate not only the laws of the Congress but the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution, itself.

We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no power not created by the Constitution. So all "inherent power" must derive from that Constitution.

Here is some quick analysis:

...the court made its scorn quite clear for the administration's Yoo [John Yoo, Bush regime lawyer] theory of executive power because, as the court put it, "there are no hereditary kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution." Citing Youngstown again, the court made clear that even in time of war, and even with regard to the President's Commander-in-Chief powers, the President is subject to constitutional restrictions -- a proposition long unquestioned in our system of government until the Bush administration began inventing radical theories of executive power.

Even conservatives skeptical of recent 'terror plot'

2006-08-16T13:49:00.000-06:00

Read the whole thing...

So far, no one has been charged in the alleged terror plot to blow up several airplanes across the Atlantic. No evidence has been produced supporting the contention that such a plot was indeed imminent. Forgive me if my skepticism just ratcheted up a little notch. Under a law that the Tories helped weaken, the suspects can be held without charges for up to 28 days. Those days are ticking by. Remember: the British authorities had all these people under surveillance; they did not want to act last week; there was no imminent threat of anything but a possible "dummy-run," whatever deranged guest-bloggers at Malkin say. (Correction, please.) Bush and Blair discussed whether to throw Britain's airports into chaos over the weekend before the crackdown occurred....

...I wonder if Lieberman's defeat, the resilience of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the emergence of a Hezbollah-style government in Iraq had any bearing on the decision by Bush and Blair to pre-empt the British police and order this alleged plot disabled. I wish I didn't find these questions popping into my head. But the alternative is to trust the Bush administration.

Been there. Done that. Learned my lesson.

A Primeval Tide of Toxins

2006-07-29T15:35:00.000-06:00

In many places — the atolls of the Pacific, the shrimp beds of the Eastern Seaboard, the fiords of Norway — some of the most advanced forms of ocean life are struggling to survive while the most primitive are thriving and spreading.

Fish, corals and marine mammals are dying while algae, bacteria and jellyfish are growing unchecked.

Where this pattern is most pronounced, scientists evoke a scenario of evolution running in reverse, returning to the primeval seas of hundreds of millions of years ago.

Jeremy B.C. Jackson, a marine ecologist and paleontologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, says we are witnessing "the rise of slime."

For many years, it was assumed that the oceans were too vast for humanity to damage in any lasting way. "Man marks the Earth with ruin," wrote the 19th century poet Lord Byron. "His control stops with the shore."

Even in modern times, when oil spills, chemical discharges and other industrial accidents heightened awareness of man's capacity to injure sea life, the damage was often regarded as temporary.

But over time, the accumulation of environmental pressures has altered the basic chemistry of the seas.

The causes are varied, but collectively they have made the ocean more hospitable to primitive organisms by putting too much food into the water.

Industrial society is overdosing the oceans with basic nutrients — the nitrogen, carbon, iron and phosphorous compounds that curl out of smokestacks and tailpipes, wash into the sea from fertilized lawns and cropland, seep out of septic tanks and gush from sewer pipes.

Modern industry and agriculture produce more fixed nitrogen — fertilizer, essentially — than all the Earth's natural processes. Million of tons of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide, produced by burning fossil fuels, enter the ocean every day.

These pollutants feed excessive growth of harmful algae and bacteria.

At the same time, overfishing and destruction of wetlands have diminished the competing sea life and natural buffers that once held the microbes and weeds in check.

The consequences are evident worldwide.

Iran: The Next War

2006-07-27T13:29:00.000-06:00

Even before the bombs fell on Baghdad, a group of senior Pentagon officials were plotting to invade another country. Their covert campaign once again relied on false intelligence and shady allies. But this time, the target was Iran.
BY JAMES BAMFORD

...In the Pentagon's view, according to one senior official there at the time, Iran was nothing but "a house of cards ready to be pushed over the precipice." So far, though, the White House had rejected the Pentagon's plan, favoring the State Department's more moderate position of diplomacy. Now, unwilling to play by the rules any longer, Franklin was taking the extraordinary—and illegal—step of passing on highly classified information to lobbyists for a foreign state. Unable to win the internal battle over Iran being waged within the administration, a member of Feith's secret unit in the Pentagon was effectively resorting to treason, recruiting AIPAC to use its enormous influence to pressure the president into adopting the draft directive and wage war against Iran.

It was a role that AIPAC was eager to play. Rosen, recognizing that Franklin could serve as a useful spy, immediately began plotting ways to plant him in the White House—specifically in the National Security Council, the epicenter of intelligence and national-security policy. By working there, Rosen told Franklin a few days later, he would be "by the elbow of the president."

Knowing that such a maneuver was well within AIPAC's capabilities, Franklin asked Rosen to "put in a good word" for him. Rosen agreed. "I'll do what I can," he said, adding that the breakfast meeting had been a real "eye-opener."

Working together, the two men hoped to sell the United States on yet another bloody war. A few miles away, digital recorders at the FBI's Language Services Section captured every word....

It's all about oil?

2006-07-27T12:13:00.000-06:00

...We are trained to think of Middle Eastern conflicts as modern flare-ups of ancient tribal animosities. But to uncover why the flames won't die, the usual rule applies: follow the money.

Am I saying that Tehran, Riyadh and Houston oil chieftains conspired to ignite a war to boost their petroleum profits? I can't imagine it. But I do wonder whether Bush would let Olmert have an extra week of bombings, or the potentates of the Persian Gulf would allow Hamas and Hizbullah to continue their deadly fireworks if by doing so they would cause the price of crude to crash.

You know and I know that if this war took a bite out of Exxon or the House of Saud, a ceasefire would be imposed quicker than you can say "Let's drill in the Arctic."

Blame the Bloggers - Joe Conason

2006-07-26T08:49:00.000-06:00

The conventional narrative of what may become Joe Lieberman’s final campaign for public office—parroted faithfully by pundits and politicians who admire the Connecticut Senator—is a moving tale of courageous dissent in the very maw of fanatical extremism. It is the story of a supremely decent public servant, purged by party activists with a mean-spirited, shortsighted, single-issue obsession. And it is a fable with a familiar moral, supposedly proving once more that the Democratic Party cannot be trusted to protect America.

Compelling as this account of the beleaguered Democrat’s travails may sound, it is very much like his position on the war in Iraq: wrong, superficial and divorced from reality.

And wingnuts like to mock the French?

2006-07-23T11:08:00.000-06:00

But it seems that it is the British, or more specifically, Blair's 'new Labourites' who are the spineless lickspittles of Europe:

You will have your own view - there's so much to choose from - on which part of the open-mic conversation between George W Bush and Tony Blair at the Yo Summit was the most toe-curling. One of my favourite excruciating moments is when Bush thanks Blair for sending him a Burberry sweater as a birthday gift. The American President sends up the British Prime Minister by mocking: 'I know you picked it out yourself.'

There's no question which exchange is most enjoyable for those with contempt for the Prime Minister. It is the moment that makes Mr Blair look like the poodle of popular caricature. Worse, he comes over as a poodle who can't even beg his master to toss him a dog biscuit. It is the same bit of the encounter that has caused the most wincing among the Prime Minister's friends.

When Tony Blair offers himself as a Middle East peace envoy, he is casually rebuffed by the American President between bites on a bread roll. Told by Bush that 'Condi is going', the normally fluent Blair is reduced to inarticulate jabbering. 'Well, it's only if, I mean, you know, if she's got a... or if she needs the ground prepared as it were... Because obviously if she goes out, she's got to succeed, if it were, whereas I can go out and just talk.' Yeah, just talk.

It was awful for Tony Blair to be caught asking for permission to go to the Middle East. It was dire to hear George Bush saying he wouldn't let the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom go out - not even on a pointless trip. It looks even more humiliating when the French Foreign Minister is going.

U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis - New York Times

2006-07-22T12:59:00.000-06:00

U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis - New York Times
So much for being an 'honest broker' of any cease fire talks. This is sure to do wonders for our position in Afghanistan and Iraq as well.