Moneyball revisited

As we enter the next round of the baseball playoffs (LCS), the big market teams (Yankees & Phillies) have exited early. Add in the fact that the Red Sox (payroll $162 million) had an epic September collapse to allow the Tampa Bay Rays (payroll $41 million) to make it into the playoffs. With all those recent big money acquisitions (Lackey, Crawford & Gonzalez) the Red Sox had a September stretch where they went 6-18 in their last 24 games. The Rays (whose payroll is about as much as the 3 Red Sox I mentioned) went 16-8 in the same 24 game stretch overtaking the Sox by 1 game. Boston's 2 pitching aces (Beckett & Lester) went a combined 2-5 in September. To paraphrase ESPN's Bill Simmons, neither Beckett nor Lester was able to step up during the spiral and put the team on his back. To add insult to injury the Red Sox were picked by everyone in the pre-season to represent the American League in the World Series.

Boston aside, the Phillies (payroll $173 million) won 102 games, had a tough line-up and easily the best starting rotation that baseball has seen in a long time, http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/PHI/2011.shtml. The Phillies were beaten by the Cardinals in 5 games. Phillie ace Roy Halladay pitched a great game, 8 IP 1 ER, but Cardinal ace Chris Carpenter pitched magnificently, CG 3H 10ks. Let's not forget the fact that the Phillies beat up on the Braves at the end of the season allowing the Cardinals in slip in (the Braves collapse would be historic if not for the Red Sox being epically historic). The Cardinals are not a small market team, they just spend a bit more wisely than other teams. The Phillies were the odds on favorite to not only represent the National League in the World Series but to win it all.

That leaves the New York Yankees (payroll $202 million). The Yankees have had the highest payroll for years. They charge a lot of money so ownership has felt that they need to field a championship caliber team every year. Getting into the playoffs for the Yankees isn't enough, only hoisting the World Series trophy is considered a successful season in the Bronx. The Yankees have been taking a lot of heat for losing to the Tigers at home in an elimination game. They didn't get a lot of production from their 4,5 & 6 hitters A-Rod, Teixeira & Swisher (the 3 were represented as the Three Stooges on the back page of the Daily News or whatever after the game 5 loss). A-Rod makes about $30 million and Teixeira made $22.5 million, not quite the bang for the buck the organization would have like to have seen in a big spot.

What's left is the Detroit Tigers (10 highest payroll at $105.7 milion), St. Louis Cardinals (11th highest payroll at $105.4 million), Texas Rangers ($93 million) and the Milwaukee Brewers ($85 million, 17th highest). Only the Brewers are in the lower half of the league in payroll. Both the Brewers & the Cards face a dilemma in re-signing their best player. Prince Fielder, Brewers 1st baseman, is in the final year of a contract that pays him $15.5 million. Many believe that they will not be able to meet his asking price (probably somewhere in the Mark Teixeira neighborhood). The Brewers weren't able to re-sign Sabathia when he became a free agent, allowing the Yankees to back the Brinks truck up to CC's home. Albert Pujols made it clear before spring training that he wanted a long term deal that would make him one of the highest paid players in the game. As I stated earlier, the Cards spend money but a 10 year $300 million contract (the numbers being thrown about at the beginning of the year) would be difficult for them (probably difficult for any team but the Yankees but they've got A-Rod & Teixeira locked up for awhile so they're out).  In my opinion, Pujols, 3 time MVP, didn't help himself with what could arguably his worst year as a pro; .299 BA, 37Hr, 99 RBI, 105 R & led the NL in grounding into double plays (95% of all players would love to have a crappy year like that but when you compare it to the rest of his career it's a bad year. Don't take my word for it see for yourself, http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/pujolal01.shtml).

Make no mistake payroll is an issue. The top 2 payrolls won the most games and had home field advantage in the playoffs until the World Series. However, the 3-9 highest payrolls did not make the playoffs (some teams, let's say the Mets & the Cubs for example, were terrible) including the 2010 Champs the SF Giants (8th highest at $118 million). You also had the Diamondbacks win the NL West (25th payroll at $53 million) and the Rays (see above for their payroll info) making the playoffs as well. Being able to spend money helps but it obviously doesn't guarantee you a championship or a playoff appearance for that matter.

There's just a whole lot of factors that come into play. The Minnesota Twins were considered the blue print of a small market team that had made it to the post season with frequency, since 2002 they've made the playoffs 6 times but only got to the LCS in 2006 and they got swept. This year ( a payroll of $112 million) after getting a new stadium and re-signing their best player, Joe Mauer, they proceeded to won only 63 games. Injuries played a big factor for the Twins. Injuries are always be a problem, A-Rod missed 63 games this year (I even heard a caller on the Chris "Mad Dog" Russo show say "if A-Rod can't juice, he can't produce" in reference to his steroid issues) the Red Sox had injuries within the pitching staff. In addition to injuries there can sometimes be bad decisions by upper management (the Mets & Dodgers vault to the forefront here) and of course guys who just don't produce even when healthy.

In regards to poor decision making, the Yankees are going to be in a tough spot over the next few years. A-Rod will be into his 40's y the time his massive contract expires and his production has dropped off a bit and he's missed 150 games since 2008. Teixeira hit 39 homers but a measly .248 batting average (since BA has gone down since his arrival in the Bronx, I've even heard Yankee fans call in & say that he doesn't hit in the clutch). Jeter is old but he's still got it despite a slow start in 2011 but in his late 30's he may not be able to cover the ground he was did. Sabathia may opt out and demand more money (he made $23 million this year) and more years as well as  taking heat for being too fat. Stephen A. Smith of ESPN wrote that the Yankees can pay him more but they shouldn't give him a long term deal, he's not the only person to take that stance. The Yankees blinked when A-Rod opted out a few years ago and they made a bad deal because of it so I think they're too smart to make the same mistake but who knows.

It will be interesting to see who ends up in the World Series. So far the playoffs have been great to watch. I don't have a dog in the fight so I wouldn't mind seeing Milwaukee & Detroit in the Fall Classic but I think the Tigers & the Cardinals is the more compelling match-up.

Not really sure if I went anywhere with this but if someone reads it, thanks for your time.

2012 GOP Platform

I've been loosely following the 2012 GOP Presidential candidates over the last few months and these people are quite a bunch. Here's what you've got (in no particular order):

• Mitt Romney: Mitt is a Mormon, which alienates a lot of people. He served 1 term as Massachusetts Governor after a successful run as Chairman of the Salt Lake Olympic Committee (you know the one that was uncovered for bribing officials to grant SLC the 2002 Winter Olympics). Mitt's a super rich guy who's probably not in touch with the average working man (this has been the comedy gold for a lot of talking heads).
• Newt Gingrich: Newt is a staunch conservative who preaches family values. Don't forget he was cheating on his cancer stricken wife while going after Clinton for getting a BJ. Newt was at the forefront of the "Contract with America" after Republicans won back majority on the House & Senate in 1994. I don't remember much about the "contract with Amercia" so my opinion is that it really wasn't all that significant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_with_America. Suffice to say I glanced over it on Wikipedia & it didn't seem all that significant. 
• Michele Bachmann: A Tea Party favorite who has periodic dialogues with the Lord Almighty (he often gives her advice). She's recently fallen from grace if you want to call it that & no longer seems to curry the favor of the Tea Party. After reading an article about her in Rolling Stone & hearing Bill Maher go off on her, it's almost inconceivable that a rational human being would vote for her. She's against things like farm subsidies but she's taken them in the past. I brought her up in a previous post. 
• Rick Perry: Governor of Texas. Rick was in office when he urged Texans to pray for rain to end a drought (another candidate who converses with the Almighty). Rick went toe to toe with Romney in a debate awhile back & seemed to generate some steam. Then he kept talking & whatever steam he gathered soon dissipated. His record as governor appears spotty at best.
• Herman Cain: To be honest all I knew about this guy until today was that he was the token non-white guy. This morning I watched an interview he gave on some Sunday morning talk show (I was under the influence of cold medication so that's my excuse). He seems to feel that African-Americans should be voting Republican (despite the fact that the GOP has done very little to meet or care about the needs of the Black community, as pointed out by the interviewer) and have been "brainwashed" by the Democratic Party. Herman's a business man who recently did real well in a some sort of straw poll or something so he thinks his chances are getting better.
• Ron Paul: Ron ran as an Independent candidate in 2008 but has since gone over to the GOP. He's got a loyal (almost cult) following but he's got some opinions that the hard core conservatives don't agree with. Seems like a reasonable guy.

There are others of course but they all are running on one underlying theme...to expunge Barrack Obama from history. I saw clips of a debate & they all said the same thing, their 1st "acts" will be to undo anything Obama has done. That's it. Apparently once that's done everything will just get better. That's the best solution that these clowns can come up with. If I cared to do the research, I would better dollars to Little Debbie Snack Cakes that their "solutions" to America's problems are not that original and each candidate's "solutions" seem eerily similar to the others. I'm reminded of a World War I documentary about the Dardenelles Campaign. The British wanted a 2nd front to alleviate pressure on the Western Front. The original plan was all naval as few if any ground forces could be spared. The plan was simple, the Royal Navy was to sail up the Dardenelle Straits right to Constantinople. The Turks would either surrender or runaway at the mere sight of the Royal Navy. Suffice to say that plan didn't work. That's just what these clowns have come up with. Somehow undo what Obama has done & everything will fine.

Speaking of other GOP candidates, what is the deal with this country's weird fascination with Sarah Palin? The Tea Party has been falling all over her since she sabotaged McCain's bid for President. She quit her job as Governor of Alaska halfway thru, she's into family values but tried to keep the father of her grandson out of the baby's life. What's she ever accomplished? Seriously? To my knowledge she's yet to declare her candidacy but she gets public money for it (like her little summer bus tour where she "happened" to show up in New Hampshire when Romney was there to announce his candidacy thereby stealing his thunder). During this tour she got the gist of Paul Revere's ride all wrong, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS4C7bvHv2w, when she visited the Old North Church during her bus tour. Most grade schoolers can give a better answer (she gives a rebuttal on Fox News, http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=CLQTcZwbykw, where she denies getting wrong & tries to rewrite history). Inconceivable!

The pool of talent is so shallow for the GOP that they're begging NJ Governor Chris Christie to announce his a run. Christie seems like an everyman but he's got some views (gun laws) that don't jibe with the hard core conservatives either.  We'll see what happens.

Thanks for your time & thanks again to all the the men & women in the US Armed Forces.

Moneyball

So I finished reading Michael Lewis' Moneyball, about the Oakland A's and their GM Billy Beane's unorthodox approach to talent evaluating. It was actually recommended to me in 2009 and since the film is coming out I decided I wanted to read the book first (a rarity). I"m not going to write a review of the book and I'm undecided on whether to see the film or not.

Billy Beane was a former "can't miss" baseball prospect in the late 70's. Suffice to say, his playing career never panned out. He would eventually become a scout for the A's, the last team he played for, and work his way to General Manager of the team ins 1998.

The Oakland A's were a powerhouse in the late 80's & early 90's. They went to 3 consecutive World Series but only managed to win 1. Their Series losses in 1988 & 1990 (Dodgers & Reds) were to teams that didn't have the talent the A's did. After the A's lost to the Blue Jays in the 1992 ALCS, the team pretty much fell apart and they won just 68 games in 1993 and wouldn't post another winning season until 1999. Ownership change after the 1995 season forced the A's into becoming a cost conscious organization. Sandy Alderson, Beane's predecessor, then set out to find talented players that the team could afford by using sabermetrics. Long story short, sabermetrics is a more an empirical approach to evaluating baseball talent. It wasn't new but it was seldom (if at all) used. Using this system of talent evaluation along with some great young pitching & some wheeling & dealing, the A's put together a nice run from 2000-2006 (5 playoff appearances & 4 Division titles).By the way, the A's lost in the ALDS 4 years in a row, including the classic series with the Yankees in 2001 (that's the series that Jeter cut off a bad throw from the outfield by running from his shortstop position to the 1st base line in order to grab the ball & throw out Jeremy Giambi at the plate. Easily the most heads up play, probably ever) that saw the Yankees come back from a 2-0 deficit to win the series 3 games to 2.

I applaud the way Oakland went about putting together a winning team with a small budget. They used a different system that went against the time honored baseball tradition of talent evaluation and did well for themselves (although the team hasn't has a winning season since 2006). There have been a lot of critics of Beane & the A's, more so now with the movie coming out. Michael Lewis went out to acknowledge some of the ridiculous criticism in the post script (I read a Kindle edition). It seems to me that a majority of the criticism came from guys who read excerpts from the book but not the entire book (it's not just politicians who jump to conclusions before getting all the facts...it's all of us).

The book kind of comes across as Beane being the smartest guy in baseball but it never states that he invented sabermetrics as critics suggest.  He also comes across almost as if he's some sort of Jedi using the jedi mind trick to take advantage of weak minded GMs. Beane is also not a big believer in the importance of managers either. Art Howe, the manager of the A's from 1996-2002, comes off as lackey who's there only as a calming influence on the players. Draw your own conclusions but Oakland continued to win under Howe's replacement, Ken Macha, while Howe went on to manage the Mets to a 137-186 record in 2003 & 2004. The Mets had a much larger payroll than the A's and had talent but they were lousy.

I've been listening to  Chris "Mad Dog" Russo on the SIRIUS and he's been going off on it. He correctly points out that a big (perhaps even huge) factor in the A's success from 2000-2006 was because of a great, young pitching staff that consisted of Barry Zito, Mark Mulder & Tim Hudson. You can check out their stats on www.baseball-reference.com. Russo pointed out that 2 of the A's big sluggers, Jason Giambi & Miguel Tejada, during their run were "juicing (as was Russo's favortie SF Giant Barry Bonds)." Russo had on Larry Bowa, a former player & manager who's been in baseball since 1970 (he's old guard), who went so far to say that Beane & the likes of the sabermeticians are "ruining the game." I think that's a bit much.

The battle rages on between the small market (A's, Brewers & Royals) v. big market teams (Yankees, Red Sox & Phillies). The book brings up a chart that showed how the A's (lowest payroll) were in 1st place of the AL West while the Rangers (biggest payroll in the division) were in last place. There's a lot that could go wrong with sabermetrics (as well as the traditional methods) but things fell into place during that time and that shouldn't be overlooked. I've always felt that it's not how much a team spends it's who they spend it on. For years George Steinbrenner paid fortunes to big hitters but couldn't win. When the Yankees put that money into pitching then their fortunes changed (1996-2001, 4 World Series Championships, WS appearances in 2001 & 2003). Of course they gave AJ Burnett $85 million and he may not make the post season roster for the 2nd year in a row. In 1999, Peter Angelos (owner of the Baltimore Orioles) signed slugger Albert Belle to huge contract ( 5 years $60+million - big back then especially). Well Belle played only 2 years and the O's were saddled with a massive contract & the team threw it in the tank (of which they are still in).

All in all, it's a crap shoot. Beane, despite the teams lack of success over the last 5 seasons continues to stick to his guns (although there have been a few changes) on his "scientific approach" to evaluating talent. In 2009 he stated, "It's all about evaluating skills and putting a price on them. Thirty years ago, stockbrokers used to buy stock strictly by feel. Let's put it this way: Anyone in the game with a 401(k) has a choice. They can choose a fund manager who manages their retirement by gut instinct, or one who chooses by research and analysis. I know which way I'd choose."

Beane states in the book (as well as the movie) that the team is counting cards and trying to level the field as they say. So sometimes things work out and sometimes they don't. The A's and other teams like them are trying to do what they can. Good luck.

Why do athletes say these things?

Gone are the days when I used to care about the Sawks/Yanks rivalry with any real passion (granted I thought it was amazing to see Boston come back from 3-0 to defeat the Yankees). It's still one of the best in baseball (if not the best) but I'm just not into baseball as I was when I was a kid.  Mind you I've had some good times at the ballpark. Most recently at Wrigley Field for the Giants v. Cubs.

While checking out the ESPN New York app on my Android I came across an article about how Yankee catcher Russell Martin, "hates the Red Sox!" My first thought was, "who's Russell Martin?" Then I looked him up, http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/martiru01.shtml. Basically he's a guy who grew up in Canada, drafted by the Dodgers & signed a free agent contract last winter with the Yankees. I'm curious to know how a kid growing up in Ontario learned to hate the Red Sox? If he had signed with the Blue Jays would he still be a Sox hater? 

 Why do pro athletes say stuff like this? It reminds me of when CC Sabathia was a free agent & after the Yankees offered him a contract that dwarfs the GNP of most countries he stated something along the lines that it was always a dream of his to pitch for the Yankees. I'm sure that the money had nothing to do with it. The same goes for Carl Crawford who grew up in Houston & how he was so happy the Sox signed him. It's because these teams throw ungodly sums of money at them and that's it. I'd bet that Sabathia's dream would've been to play for whomever offered him that much.

What I wouldn't give to hear a pro athlete just once say, "you know what I didn't want to sign with so & so but they made me an offer that floored me so I signed on the dotted line." After Carlos Beltran had his great run in 2004 and became a free agent he was courted by a lot of teams. When the Mets got serious it came out the Beltran was hesitant about playing in NYC. We there probably wasn't a much hesitation after a 7 year $100 million contract was dangled in front him. After that I'm sure that he always wanted to play int New York.

We live in a world where it's all about the money. Just admit it. I don't see pro athletes as money grubbing carpetbaggers, it's the owners that pay them (or overpay in some cases) but I'm tired of hearing how much guys want to play for whatever the team that offered them a ton of money.
 

The GOP War on Voting...seriously?

I came across this article in Rolling Stone Magazine, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-gop-war-on-voting-20110830. Quite frankly I was setback in slackjawed disbelief. Once again this goes under the category of "this stuff isn't made up." But it makes sense. The GOP ran the show for 8 years, got a taste (or an addiction) of the power & they want it back. In a bad way.

All the historical allegories to Jim Crow are right on the money. It's sad really. The GOP's big soap box is that Obama & the Democrats want to turn the U.S. into a new socialist state. All while trying to take voting rights away from taxpaying citizens. Inconceivable. These guys give the term "sore loser" a new meaning. They seem to be trying to stack the deck for the 2012 election. It isn't bad enough that the GOP seems to drag their feet when trying to come up with solutions to our economic problems (please note that both sides seem to be content with pointing fingers at the other side but the GOP, to me anyway, just appear more stubborn than the rubber backboned Democrats) they have to eliminate voting rights.

The best part about the article is how the GOP is doing this under the guise of going after voter fraud. The stats show that most of the "voter fraud" are results of  people who were not aware of their status. Of course their actions just happened to be aimed at traditionally democratic voters. Thanks for the favor! Aren't there more important issues in these states (Ohio & Wisconsin are mentioned) than worry about trying to eliminate voting rights in order to stack the deck in 2012? The Republican Kansas Governor stated that an actual dead man voted. It turns out that the alleged dead voter was indeed very much alive. Once again these people just make stuff up, I'm certain of it.

According to the article, as early as 1980 this has been a GOP issue. Conservative activist Paul Weyrich told a gathering of evangelical leaders in 1980, "I don't want everybody to vote, as a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." Here's the Wikipedia link to this guy if you want to know more or get the full quote, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich.

The GOP has targeted those long standing perpetrators of "voter fraud" like Rock the Vote &the League of Women Voters. If the GOP gets there way in certain states these organization's members could be arrested. Wasn't there a big stink about 20 years or so ago about countries calling for sanctions against South Africa for not allowing it's Black citizens to vote? Yet here we are watching something similar, yet there isn't really a big stink. Where are the alleged "liberal media" that people like Ann Coulter are always railing against? I read this in Rolling Stone not in the NY Times or saw an expose on CNN or MSNBC. In fact Jesse Ventura mentioned stuff like this in a chapter of his book entitled, American Conspiracy.


In the film, Capitalism: A Love Story, director Michael Moore put together a segment in which some financial institution (that was involved in bringing about the financial meltdown in 2008) was worried that if regular people (i.e. the working class) exercised their voting rights, their running rough shot over Wall Street & netting billions in profits, could come to an end. So they were scared of people voting! Think it's possible that their lobby is throwing  money toward the GOP? It's a safe bet. On a side note, regardless of your personal feelings on Michael Moore, this film is worth watching as it paints a pretty good picture of who was responsible for the recent financial meltdown. It concentrates more on how it affected working class families than the global outreach like the film Inside Story.

As I've said before I'm politically neutral but I do feel that both the Democrats & the GOP serve their own interests. I recently read an old Playboy interview with Jesse Ventura in which he mentioned that when the country was founded, anybody could run for office. You could be a farmer, serve in office then go back to farming. Now it's an occupation. These guys get in office and don't want to leave. Once they get in, they no longer care about solving the problems of the country, they only care about the issues that will get them re-elected. My personal feeling is that a lot of the guys on Capitol Hill have been there too long. These people are no longer in touch with the working class (I say working class because I think that's what most people fall into. We all go to work everyday to raise a family and what not.)

That's it for now. Thanks again to all the men & women serving in the military. Your dedication & sacrifice are well appreciated. Thanks for your time.

Again, you can't make this up

So Republican Presidential candidate and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann made a "joke" about God sending the recent earthquake that struck the east coast as well as Hurricane Irene, http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/bachmann-claims-hurricane-earthquake-were-god-messages-politicians-155051199.html.

God sent the earthquake & hurricane as a message? Really? Joke or not it's a dumb thing to say, especially if you're not a comedian. Since the person who said it is a sitting US Congresswoman, then it's really stupid. Unfortunately there probably are people who think that God communicates in this manner ( I don't want to judge but let's face it...they're kooks.)

As impossible as this may sound, Ms. Bachmann has actually gone on record as having communicated with The Lord on a few occasions. According to Bill Maher, Bachmann has stated that (paraphrasing here) God told her to get married & stay with her husband despite the fact that she didn't love him and that God gave her career advice in becoming a lawyer. For the record I haven't checked these facts but quite frankly the mainstream media (CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, etc) and elected politicians seldom fact check so why should I. But it isn't the first time I've heard that.

In addition, Ms Bachmann has a tendency to not always speak the truth when making public statements, http://www.politifact.com/personalities/michele-bachmann/statements/. Of the 30 statements sampled on 5 are half true or better. That means that over 80% of her statements are mostly false or worse (including 7 "pants on fire!") President Obama has 318 statements on PolitiFact & by their count he's at 70% half true or better & he only has 4 "pants on fire" quotes for 1.2%. Whereas Bachmann, with only 30 statements, has a "pants on fire" percentage of 23%. On a side note, I don't know where these elected officials get their info. Does someone tell them? or do they just throw it out there?

Over the last 10-12 years it seems like there's been a decline in the "facts" by politicians (what a surprise) and the media. Once again this is nothing new. In the 50's, Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed that there were hundreds of card carrying communists working for the Defense Department. Where did he get the numbers you ask? He made them up.

It seems the worst offenders are the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter & Glenn Back. Quite honestly I don't know who the liberal talking heads are (NPR maybe?) because they aren't able to cause the ruckus that these 3 do. Al Franken used to be that liberal guy but he actually put his money where his mouth was & ran for office. And won! This is off the subject a bit & should be another topic altogether. To be fair, Rush, Ann & Glen are good at what they do. They've all made millions in radio, books & TV. They can all be checked out on politifact.com.

I got a bit off topic there but back to the subject. In June of this year Matt Taibbi, writer for Rolling Stone Magazine delivered this article about Ms. Bachmann, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/michele-bachmanns-holy-war-20110622. He basically states that Bachmann as nutty as she may appear (follow some of the links in the article and judge for yourself) she is gaining steam. It seems ghastly weird to me that someone running for the POTUS who doesn't know American History, claims to converse with the Almighty and believes in outlandish conspiracy theories has any real chance of getting the GOP nomination. But it's happening! As the title suggests, you can't make this up. Inconceivable!

I'm hoping that reasonable intelligent people will eventually grow tired of Bachmann and her followers  (who must be somewhat intelligent people) will in time wake up & smell the coffee. Bachmann & her husband own a farm and have received farm subsidy checks. So there's a bit of hypocrisy involved considering she's a conservative who's against such things but doesn't mind taking a hand out herself.

It also makes me wonder where Sara Palin fits in. She wants to make a run for POTUS in 2012 (at least that's the impression everyone got when she was McCain's running mate) and she's making all the rounds (stealing Romney's thunder in New Hampshire) but she's made no announcement. She clearly enjoys (and probably wants) the attention but she could feel that 2 crazy women would cancel each other out. Who knows. With any luck it could get interesting.

Thanks as always to the men & women in the Armed Forces for their dedication. Thanks again for your time.

War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death

While in Winston-Salem I watched this film in my hotel room. I found it very interesting. It traces the Presidential office's use of force and the media's going along with it from 1964's Gulf of Tonkin Incident, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident, to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Norman Solomon, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Solomon, wrote the book of the same name in 2005. Solomon traces the history from Viet Nam to the present day.

It's amazing to see how little differences there were between the US entering Viet Nam and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It's interesting because I am a believer that the powers that be seldom learn from history  (subsequently repeating past mistakes) but they're in reality selective historians. They repeat the things that will help their cause and ignore the overall helpful lessons.

LBJ was less than honest about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident that led the US into Viet Nam, although Eisenhower was footing 80% of the French bill during the First Idochina War and Kennedy had sent "advisers" and was involved the the South Vietnamese gov't early in his administration (on a side note for those interested in the America's history in Viet Nam read David Halberstam's book, The Best and the Brightest, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_and_the_Brightest). Much like how President Bush made up the evidence about Saddam Hussein's connection to al-Qaeda and WMDs. So it's nothing new, it's all been done before. One could argue that it goes back to the sinking of the USS Maine in 1898, a direct cause of the Spanish-American War. At the time it was believed that the Maine struck a mine and gave us the battle cry, "Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!" Several different investigations lead to different disputed conclusions but in 1898 a mine was all that was needed to send the country into war.

In addition to Viet Nam (Nixon gets some blame as well) and Iraq, the film also touches upon President Reagan's invasion of Grenada in 1983, President Bush's invasion of Panama in 1989, the First Gulf War, President Clinton's use of military action in the Balkans and Somalia, President GW Bush's wars and President Obama's subsequent follow-ups in Afghanistan and Iraq. All the President's from LBJ to the present have blood on their hands. It also touches upon how the mainstream media has gone along in lock step with the various administrations and how the Presidents use (or manipulate) the media to get their point across.

It's interesting note how each President says almost the same thing about how it's "with a heavy heart" that the US needs to use force and how they don't want to do it, yet they all did. Also, the Bush administration wasn't the first administration to call dissenters cowards and unpatriotic, that goes back to Viet Nam. "Cut & Run" also dates back to Viet Nam, again selective history is in place. I thought it was ironic that the "Hawks" turned Rep. John Murtha, a decorated Viet Nam vet and 2 time Purple Heart recipient, into a traitor! Much like Bush managed to turn his Republican opponent for the 2000 Presidential nomination John McCain, a Naval pilot who spent several years in captivity at the infamous "Hanoi Hilton," into a wimp. Bush's people managed to turn John Kerry, another decorated Viet Nam veteran, into a non-patriot during the 2004 Presidential Election.I also found it funny that President Bush killed McCain & Kerry for being "dove-ish" despite the fat that Bush never saw any combat.

I could probably go on for hours but I'm going to cut it short. The film is very eye opening and it will make you think, as probably was it's intention. The film makes another interest point about how civilian casualties have risen steadily, since WWI, and the adminstrations seem to fail to recognize the damage they're causing (US casualties, civilian casualties and the destruction to the areas with civilians). The film gave me the feeling that the politicians who make these decisions are detached from the perils of war. Which is true because Reagan (served in the Army but did not serve overseas in WWII due to nearsightedness, Clinton, GW Bush (served in the "champagne unit" of the Texas Air National Guard) and Obama never saw combat. LBJ served in the Navy and received a Silver Star but his own biographer noted that it was the "the most undeserved" citation in history. GW Bush was a decorated Naval aviator during WWII.

Once again, I am not political (I feel that the Republicans & Democrats as a whole are equally inept and out for their own personal gain) and this film hammers the Republicans, Democrats and mainstream media equally (despite having Sean Penn narrate as his views of President Bush are unflattering to say the least). It blasts MSNBC & Fox News equally and takes no sides other than the side of the facts. I interpreted these facts as not only are politicians untrustworthy (since they're bought & paid for, they're not but that's my opinion) but you can't out too much faith in the mainstream media as well.

In the end I just think it's an interesting thought provoking documentary that is worth seeing. That's why I wanted to bring it to people's attention. Formulate your own conclusions. Once again, thank you to all the men & women in the military for your service and dedication to your country. Thanks for your time.