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MLB suspends Grimsley

Major League Baseball has suspended Jason Grimsley for 50 games under the auspices of its joint drug program, making the former Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher the first Major Leaguer to be so punished without failing a drug test. Grimsley is also the first big leaguer to be suspended under the new rules this season.

This decision by MLB is so wrongheaded, it’s astounding. Look, just because a guy said he did something does not mean you can suspend him. No positive test == NO SUSPENSION.

Now the league is going to have a labor dispute over a guy who retired and without any objective evidence that he did anything in violation of any of the league rules. All for some false appearance of “enforcement.”

Here’s how you know this move is ridiculous: using the same reasoning, Barry Bonds should also be suspended. He said he used the Clear! Off with his head!

Another way: how is HGH detrimental to the game, but cortisone shots to enable an injured player to stay on the field OK? With both you get players who shouldn’t be on the field on the field (theoretically in HGH’s case). How is HGH any worse for the body than repeated cortisone injections?

Update: Yet another way to know that your move is both retarded and transparent… the dudes at Baseball Tonight at ESPN can point out the sheer hypocrisy of the move in the first 10 seconds of the segment on the news.

Nice move, Bud.

Because I do. Corrupt robber barons who don’t give a shit about anything other than their pocketbook. The worst group of ownership any entertainment outside of the Romans has ever been saddled with. They’re just abysmal.

Now, they want to keep Sling and Orb and the like from placeshifting their broadcasts.

At the heart of the issue is that Sling Media, Orb Networks and similar companies cut out cable and satellite operators who pay great sums for transmission rights in their areas, according to Kliavkoff. Baseball sells transmission rights to specific geographical locations. So, a cable subscriber in San Francisco who watches a Giants baseball game from his or her laptop during a visit to Chicago is stealing from the Chicago cable operator who paid to transmit MLB games in that city.

But we’re not talking Napster here, argues Buchanan. The cable subscriber in such a scenario already purchased the content from a programmer back home and under the law can watch it wherever he or she chooses, he said.

“Your interpretation of the (cable and satellite user agreement) is wrong,” Kliavkoff told Buchanan as the two spoke before some 200 conference attendees. Sling Media users “are violating the scope of their user agreements.”

And by “execs,” I mean Howard Lincoln.

The #1 (by a mile) baseball talent available in this year’s draft was Andrew Miller. Due to his contract demands (which would probably end up being $6M), he fell from the #1 pick to where the Mariners choose at #5. They passed on him and the Tigers snatched him up at #6.

This is, to put it kindly, fucking moronic. When you’ve got a shot at an ARod or an Upton or a Griffey… you take it.

Passing Miller by because of over slot money demands is the definition of penny-wise, pound-foolish. Just absolutely embarassingly incompetent. I hate this management and I’m coming to hate the team because of their incompetent executives.

So welcome to the land of the Royals, Pirates, Devil Rays, and Rockies, Mariner fans. That’s the level of your executives. Those are the other teams that passed on Miller. Nice company to be in, isn’t it?

The M’s have more money than Croesus and they refuse to part with only a bit more than they’re paying Jurassic Carl for the best pitching talent since Prior. Gobsmackingly, jawdroppingly stupid. That they took a rather raw hard thrower (but he’s big, and they like big bodies) when there were better pitchers available is just more salt in the wound.

Meanwhile, the Tigers now have Bonderman, Verlander, Zumaya, and Miller. Damn, that’s a good young staff, under control until about 2010.

Meanwhile, the Mariners have this obsession with big bodied pitchers, so their first 5 picks were all 6’2 – 6’7 pitchers. “Projectable bodies” … they can’t throw, but they sure do look good in a uniform.

Bloated Drug Whore via Think Progress

This Haditha story, this Haditha incident, whatever, this is it folks, this is the final big push on behalf of the Democratic Party, the American left, and the Drive-By Media to destroy our effort to win the war in Iraq. That’s what Haditha represents – and they are going about it gleefully. They are ecstatic about it- Folks, let me just put it in graphic terms. It is going to be a gang rape. There is going to be a gang rape by the Democratic Party, the American left and the Drive-By Media, to finally take us out in the war against Iraq. Make no bones about it.

Ecstatic… gang rape… Yeah, and we’re the fever swamp.

Just think, our government pays to broadcast this guy every day across Armed Forces Radio.

Richard Phillips. What a penurious, stupid dickhead.

An unfortunate email exchange about an incident in which a secretary splashed tomato ketchup on his trousers has been doing the rounds, not only among his colleagues but in London’s legal community.

And it has left the 36-year-old solicitor, who is said to earn well over £100,000, with egg on his face after he demanded £4 to dry clean the trousers.

Apparently, it’s now a class C Felony (equivalent of child pornography or animal cruelty) to gamble online if you’re a Washington state resident. Here is the text of the actual amendment.

There’s a few points to recognize about this piece of … legislation.

First, I don’t see any way this bill is constitutional. It is a prima facie violation of the Interstate Commerce Clause (Art. I, sect. 8) of the Constitution. This gets thrown out at the first challenge…. only…

There won’t be any challenges because this was backed by the Indian tribes and the State itself. The gambling houses are all offshore or out of state.

Oh, and you might be interested to know that Sen. Margarita Prentice, the woman who introduced the bill, receives a huge amount of donations from (drumroll)… the Indian casinos.

At this point, what we’ve got is a new class C felony designed to stop the state’s financial bleeding at the behest of the Indian casinos and the State itself. That lottery thing is totally OK though, because it’s controlled, you see.

In sum, this is OK:

But playing poker online from my own home with my own money means I get to share a cell with this guy for five years:

Yeah, that makes sense. Glad to see the legislature is on top of the pressing issues.

In other news, the local rag carried the most idiotic piece of tabloid shit above the fold as today’s top news item. The title? Smokers find refuge in secret nicotine dens. I am not making this up.

These speakeasies and opium dens are the new hysteria du jour, though I don’t see how they pass the laugh test. This article is bullshit and it’s not news. No wonder paper circulation is dwindling. If I want to read exploitative bullshit, I’ll go for the World News Weekly and their bat baby, or wait for every fourth summer so it can be Time’s “Summer of the Shark” again, or turn on CNN for the annual summer “where the white wimmin at?” marathon, or listen to the latest bullshit terrrrrrist alert or Hitler reference from the imbeciles currently occupying the white house.

God, what an embarassment the state of my state is today.

The funny thing about this movie is that there are clearly 3 groups to hate and mock here.

1. The dude who goes to the library to look at porn and whack off, AKA The Loser;
2. His dad, who obviously has anger management and likely substance abuse issues, AKA The Raging Asshole;
3. The reporter, who is a condescending prick constantly making references to THE CHILDREN (as in “this computer is only feet away from THE CHILDREN”) as if it is somehow relevant; AKA The Pandering Dickhead.

Anyway, the movie’s pretty cringeworthy. I considered it for humor Friday, but it’s just too sad and it didn’t really strike me as funny. I’ll have to keep looking.

(I would embed it here, but it breaks my site formatting, so until I take the time to fix it, youtube has the movie)

The Congressional Black Caucus is making a huge mistake in supporting Jefferson here.

Furious black lawmakers, rallying behind Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.), were pulled back from the brink of open revolt against House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in an emergency meeting with her Wednesday evening.

Jefferson is on tape taking and putting into his car’s trunk $90,000 worth of money that was serial number matched to the bills found in his freezer. He’s corrupt and he’s stupid and he needs to resign for the good of the party.

The CBC putting the interests of one of the members of their subset ahead of interests of the Democratic party – and let’s not forget the country – is really fucking stupid. On the political side, it will add legitimacy to the false equivalency bipartisan bullshit that the media will try to use in re: the Republican culture of corruption. DeLay took $400 million, Jefferson $90,000… but it’s not going to matter to the media with their “but the Democrats are corrupt too!” messaging. It is also bad for the party nationally as it reinforces the belief that all politicians are corrupt and the false image that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans.

I’m not saying that the FBI sweep on his office was legitimate – it’s not, both on Unitary Executive bullshit grounds (even Hoover never thought he could raid a Congresscritter’s office) and it’s also almost certainly partisan and racially motivated (DeLay and Cunningham’s offices were never ransacked) – but supporting him on this small battle loses the war.

Jefferson is corrupt. Jefferson is harming the country and the party. He needs to go.

Now quake in fear, Seattle! Also, gimme some of money. Except the homos. No, wait, I’ll take their money too, you SINNERS!

In another in a series of notable pronouncements, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says God told him storms and possibly a tsunami will hit America’s coastline this year.

Robertson has made the predictions at least four times in the past two weeks on his news-and-talk television show “The 700 Club” on the Christian Broadcasting Network, which he founded.

Robertson said the revelations about this year’s weather came to him during his annual personal prayer retreat in January.

“If I heard the Lord right about 2006, the coasts of America will be lashed by storms,” Robertson said May 8. On Wednesday, he added, “There well may be something as bad as a tsunami in the Pacific Northwest.”

My favorite part is the “If I heard the Lord right” bit. I mean, if it was the fuckin Lord, is there any way possible that an impotent omnipotent, omnipresent being could speak to you in such a way that you would not understand? Does FSM mumble? Stutter? How could you possibly hear him incorrectly?

Oh yeah, because it was your accountant calling to say that your diamond mine venture was going gangbusters and that fear of tsunamis will push up your gold holdings. Also, you’re a batshit crazy wahhabist addicted to fame. And coke.

For the Christians out there, how does it feel to know that this guy is considered the face of your faith in America? Hell, even McGovern called this shitbrick a ‘kook’ (actual quote: “When you say ‘radical right’ today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye.”)

Bush:Dunebuggy as Dukakis:Tank

President George W. Bush rides in a U.S. Border Patrol dune buggy during a tour of the Yuma sector near the U.S. Mexico border in Yuma, Arizona, Thursday, May 18, 2006. White House photo by Eric Draper

A douchebag slamming a hoor while followed by a worthless sack of flesh, tittering away in her coke-filled delusions of importance. You know, these people live in a different, alien world. One that would twist any of us into something unrecognizable… but seeing it in action still makes me wish for a sudden impact, followed by lava, showers, and tidal waves.

But since nihhilistic misery deserves company… enjoy the video.

Hi there! I’m a bigot with eschatonian delusions of the rapture! Also, I hate brown people.

The latest righty ragegasm is immigration. You probably noticed this already. And what better thing to perfect your onanism with than immigrants? Particularly now that we’ve solved terrrrrism and brought democracy to Iraq.

Every now and then, these cowardly fear addicts go overboard. Like, oh, when they explicitly call for the use of Nazi Germany as the model for how to deal with our immigrant “problem.”

And he will be lying, again, just as he lied when he said: “Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic – it’s just not going to work.”

Not only will it work, but one can easily estimate how long it would take. If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn’t possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don’t speak English and are not integrated into American society.

Note the word usage, “rid themselves.”

Rid. Themselves.

Q given to 3 different presidents – what was the greatest moment of your presidency? Here are the answers:

Carter: Camp David accords
Clinton: Solving the Kosovo crisis
Bush: when I caught a 7.5lb fish!!!!!11!1!1111!!

Even better is that the fish he caught? Was in his own private, man-made, self-stocked lake. Try no to strain yourself there with the difficult tasks, Bushie.

The besotted blathering idiot goes and puts a hit piece on Juan Cole on Slate (AKA the new TNR, AKA Joe Lieberman Daily). Well, Juan Cole brings out the whuppin stick. Not that a bleary-eyed, whiskey-soaked Hitchens will be able to read anything besides the label on the scotch his RNC/AEI handlers are currently feeding him along with his hit pieces. What a waste of a formerly formidable mind.

Here’s Hitch:

Aaaaand here’s Juan:

Christopher Hitchens owes me a big apology.

I belong to a private email discussion group called Gulf2000. It has academics, journalists and policy makers on it. It has a strict rule that messages appearing there will not be forwarded off the list. It is run, edited and moderated by former National Security Council staffer for Carter and Reagan, Gary Sick, now a political scientist at Columbia University. The “no-forwarding” rule is his, and is intended to allow the participants to converse about controversial matters without worrying about being in trouble. Also, in an informal email discussion, ideas evolve, you make mistakes and they get corrected, etc. It is a rough, rough draft.

Hitchens somehow hacked into the site, or joined and lurked, or had a crony pass him things. And he has now made my private email messages the subject of an attack on me in Slate. (I am not linking to the article because it is highly unethical and Slate does not deserve any direct traffic from my site for it.) Moreover, he did not even have the decency to quote the final outcome of the discussions.

If someone dictates the terms of something, say a contract, they are deciding the framework of that contract. Thus, the dictator is also the decider.

Dictator. Decider.

“I hear the voices and I read the front page and I know the speculation,” the president told reporters in the Rose Garden. “But I’m the decider and I decide what’s best. And what’s best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense.”

Decider. Dictator.