The CBA instituted a salary cap tied to team revenues, a provision that, I warned, would bring the league to an end within 20 years. One of the ways this would begin to manifest itself, I foretold, was that the lowering of player salaries would mean teams in Europe would now be able to bid competitively for top-name talent:

"First, the salary cap. As if putting a limit on a player's earnings wasn't bad enough, the players have foolishly agreed to tie their collective earnings to the owners' revenue. This will cause a never-ending downward spiral, causing player salaries be cut in half by the start of next season, and making it more lucrative for top-name talent to play in Europe. Permanently. The NHL has just guaranteed itself the position of no-longer-the-premier-hockey-league in the world."

Almost three years ago to the day.

*     *     *     *     *

This morning, Russian team Avangard Omsk issued a press release. TSN, the premiere sports TV/web site in Canada, reported it as follows:

It appears Jaromir Jagr's days in the National Hockey League are over.

The Russian hockey team Avangard Omsk announced it has signed the former New York Rangers star and Jagr's agent, Pat Brisson, confirmed the move Friday afternoon.

"Jaromir signed a letter of intent with the Avangard Omsk Hockey team of the Russian CHL on or about 3am EST this morning. I won't comment on the terms of the agreement at this time.It was a very difficult but personal decision to make in light of the many NHL teams interested in his services. He is grateful to the NHL and especially the Rangers in recent years."

Local and international media are reporting that Jagr will be paid $35 million for two years. There is also reportedly an option for a third season.

For those of you who don't know, Jaromir Jagr is arguably one of the top five NHL players in the post-expansion era. He is 36 years old, has 18 years in the league, amassing 646 goals and 1599 points. Last year he had 25 goals and 71 points as a member of the New York Rangers, proving he is still in his prime.

I am going to gloat, and I am going to gloat loudly! These idiots were wrong, they have taken the lid off of Pandora's box, and the only thing that can save the league from complete collapse is rescinding the salary cap provision.

What will happen next? Simple. Avangard Omsk will see ticket sales skyrocket to levels never seen before in the Russian league. They will win the league championship. Other teams will need to become more competitive, and will (if they are not already doing so) start going after other NHL talent. More buyers going after scarce resources will drive up prices, and with salaries necessarily limited for NHL teams, before long there will be no way for them to compete against the big-dollar offers coming in from Europe.

Talent in the NHL will get diluted, games will become less entertaining, fans will lose interest, and ticket revenue will decline. That means lower revenues for owners, resulting in a decrease in salary cap levels, further limiting teams' abilities to bargain for top-name talent competitively. Decreasing salary cap levels also means lower player salaries, meaning European teams can procure top-name talent even cheaper. That means more bidders chasing the scarce resources, driving up prices (salaries), and the cycle continues.

Or should I say, the downward spiral.

I want Gary Bettman, Bob Goodenow, that cocky arrogant jerk-stain Bill Daly, and EVERY NHL player who voted in favor of that collective bargaining agreement to bow before me, kiss my ring, and beg forgiveness.

And if they want my assistance in reviving the league once it's gone completely in the crapper, I will be happy to help. All I will ask in return is a modest consulting fee (think the big-B, boys --- BUH-illion) and ownership of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

I can only hope somebody comes to their senses and fixes this situation before we get to that point.

Look at that sentence again. Voter turnout for the most important election in the country only manages to coax 40% of the people who have already gone through the trouble of registering out of the house to cast a ballot. What's to blame? A quick glance at the red and blue state-by-state map on every channel every minute of election day will tell you: the Electoral College.

As you would expect, states where there are lots of brain power in the workplace tend to vote Democrat. States with lots of laborers, farmers, and religious zealots tend to vote Republican. The way this shakes out in the final analysis is that each party winds up with about 225 electoral college votes no matter whether they nominate Jesus or Voldemort. That leaves three or four "Swing states" that could go either way on election day, and these states' electoral college votes determine the outcome of the election. It's winner-take-all, state by state, and because of this votes in most states don't mean a thing.

By the 2012 election, that will be but an unpleasant memory.

*     *     *     *     *

Abolishing the electoral college at a federal level would require a Constitutional Amendment. Very costly, very time-consuming, and fraught with obstacles that would ensure its defeat. But leave it to the lawyers to find a loophole. Every state, according to the Constitution, can decide the way that its electoral college votes are allocated. So if they want to flip a coin on election day, have one of the candidates call 'heads' or 'tails' and allocate their electoral college votes accordingly, all they need to do is enact a state law stating as such.

Boy, wouldn't that be the bees knees for the TV news losers, eh? They could sell exclusive TV rights to Rupert Murdoch for enough dough to re-pave every road in Christendom. Anyhow, I digress…

The loophole. A state can pass legislation such that their electoral college votes will be allocated to the winner of the national popular vote. The law would go into effect when states whose accumulated electoral college votes total 270 or more pass similar legislation. When that happens, those states' pact would erase the effect of the electoral college and ensure that the winner of the national popular vote becomes the next President of the United States.

Pipe dream, right? Wrong. Done deal. It's called NPV, and it's going to be the biggest change to the American political landscape since the Constitution itself.

Four states --- Hawaii (snore), Maryland (who cares), New Jersey (now you're talking), and Illinois (ZOINKS!) --- have enacted this legislation. As in, passed both houses, Governor has signed it, and it goes into effect when the magic number is reached. That's 50 electoral college votes between them. But what about the rest of them? Surely this movement can't be for real.

National Popular Vote legislation has been, or is about to be introduced in every state in the U.S. A dozen states have bills that have passed one or both houses in the state legislature. Many more are in or through committee. This is no small potatoes, people. This is going to change the face of the presidential election forever.

What does this mean? It means that all of a sudden the rancher in rural Montana, the laid-off mill worker in Maine, the oil rig worker in Alaska, the part-time surf instructor in Hawaii, the nurse in Mississippi, the stay-at-home mom in Nebraska, and every other living, breathing American citizen can *actually* influence the outcome of the presidential election. Votes in Ohio and Florida don't mean any more than votes in North Dakota and Vermont. Subsequently, one of the biggest excuses of non-voters will be swept away. We should see a substantial increase in voter turnout.

Furthermore, you will see a dramatic switch in the way campaigns are run. In one fell swoop, the candidates will have to pay attention to the needs of every American, not just pandering to the loci of special interests in the rust belt and Northern Cuba. Err, Southern Ontario. Umm, I mean Florida.

It also makes it infinitely more difficult to influence the outcome of the election by fraudulent means. With the electoral college system, both the Democrats and Republicans were dispatching their operatives to key districts in select states, trying to make sure that a given group of people got to the polls (or couldn't get to the polls, depending on which side you're talking about). When NPV becomes law, that type of manipulation (I call it "treason," which I think is a more accurate depiction of the truth) will be pointless. It won't matter if 2000 African-Americans in Miami get stuck outside when the polls close. The possibility that the results will be close enough to have that number affect the outcome is infinitesimally small. Traitors trying to rig the election will have to do so on a national scale, greatly increasing the chances of getting caught, and reducing the likelihood that they will succeed. We should see reports of voter fraud nearly disappear.

In my home state of Illinois, for instance, we have an unusual phenomenon thanks to The Machine introduced by Mayor Daly back in the 60's. Every county in the state, with about 6 exceptions, votes Republican. One of those 6 exceptions that votes Democrat is Cook County, where The Machine has delivered the goods for nearly a half-century. Because Cook County votes Democrat, the whole state votes Democrat, and the electoral college votes are allocated accordingly. That may change with an Illinois' native on the ballot, but you see what I mean.

Because of this, and because both sides know that there is no way The Machine can be circumvented, nobody campaigns here. Nobody runs ads here. Nobody pays attention to the state with the third-largest city in the country during a presidential election. Go figure.

That will all be swept away when NPV kicks in. Illinois will change from foregone conclusion to one of the hot spots of political activity overnight. With The Machine taken out of the equation, there are over ten million people in this state that could play a major part in determining the outcome of the election on a national level. We will be the lynchpin in each campaign's Midwest strategy, and we will see more political activity here than has been seen since WWII.

Other states that can expect a huge change in the weather: Texas, host to three of the top ten metro regions in the country, will no longer be a waste of time for Democrats; New York and Massachusetts; the collar states around D.C.; and basically any state with a city large enough to fly to non-stop from Dulles will see candidates darkening their doorsteps a lot more frequently.

This is what democracy is supposed to be. One vote equals one vote, all men (and women) are created equal. It's been a long time coming, and somebody finally figured out how to make it happen. Organizers of the movement are predicting that the threshold will be reached long before the 2012 election, so this is for real, and it's on the horizon.

You can keep track of the progress of the NPV movement at the link below, and watch as history is made. This will be a victory for the good guys, and hopefully the first of many steps towards elections that can once again be held up to the world as models of fairness and transparency.

http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

***

What a wonderful quotation! A few days ago one my friend from Chandigarh sms'ed me this. Thanks Amol!

I signed 3 films for a corporate company from Mumbai. I was given choice to make one film in Hindi too. Great feeling. I would love to start another small film in the gap, before starting Mumbai projects.

***

www.manutime.com
goal3m@gmail.com

I recently received an email message from one of my more-conservative thinking friends.  It contained a forwarded story, an allegory really, about birds flocking to free food.  The birds in the story were obviously a metaphor for illegal aliens.  My friend invited me to read the story then respond with what I thought of it. The original message, the one passed-on to me, encouraged recipients to pass the story on to others in chain-letter fashion.

My response to my friend began, "Interesting that you should ask this now, Bobby (not my friend's real name); I'm teaching a lesson to my economics students tomorrow entitled, ‘Social Goals vs. Market Efficiency'.  Social goals include things like equal justice, quality education for all, gainful employment for all who are able and willing to work, freedom from crime, and security in our old age.  I think I'll share this story with my students and ask them what they think."

What follows next is the story as it was originally forwarded to me.

The Birdfeeder

I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it with seed. Within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food. But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue.

Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table...everywhere. Then some of the birds turned mean: They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket. And others birds were boisterous and loud: They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food.

After a while, I couldn't even sit on my own back porch anymore. I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio.

Soon, the back yard was like it used to be...quite, serene and no one demanding their rights to a free meal. 

Now let's see... our government gives out free food, subsidized housing, free medical care, free education and allows anyone born here to be an automatic citizen. Then the illegals came by the tens of thousands. Suddenly our taxes went up to pay for free services; small apartments are housing 5 families: you have to wait 6 hours to be seen by an emergency room doctor: you child's 2nd grade class is behind other schools because over half the class doesn't speak English: Corn Flakes now come in a bilingual box; I have to press "one" to hear my bank talk to me in English, and people waving flags other than "Old Glory" are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties. 

Maybe it's time for the government to take down the bird feeder. 

The rest of the response to my friend read as follows:

"The market can very efficiently make some of us very rich while leaving the majority of us in poverty, or it can raise the standard and quality of life for all.  I know that this sounds like socialism, but that's an extreme I do not advocate.  Neither do I advocate laissez faire politics wherein the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  No serious student of economics believes in laissez faire anymore; that's survival of the fittest -- jungle rules.  So, we can either invest up front in human capital (head start programs, education, health care, etc.) or we can accept the consequences of higher high school drop-out rates, teen pregnancies, declining economic growth, and growing crime rates in our inner cities.  For me, it all boils down to a choice between near-term investments vs. long-term expenditures.

We are not birds -- we are human beings, charged by our common Lord to love one another." 

I did share this story and how it came to my attention with my high school economics class seniors the next day and the next (our school is on a block schedule).  I didn't lecture them or lead them to any particular conclusion about it.  I just read the story then let them respond and discuss their varying attitudes about it.  A few laughed and indicated that they thought the story was very astute, representing as it were an obvious truth about lazy, unethical people in our society, especially illegal aliens.  About an equal number of students argued that it was an ugly, unfair generali- zation about poor people and that it speaks more to a prevailing attitude of selfishness.  Some said they thought most immigrants, legal and otherwise, have come to America, not for a free ride but for opportunities to better themselves. Most students, however, offered no opinion at all, perhaps fearing criticism from me or from their peers. 

In retrospect, I see this story, and the way that it has been circulated, as an example of how political opinion is and has been shaped in this country since the advent of mass communications, especially television and the Internet.  I consider this kind of thing to be Viral Disinformation as it is originated and spread from one individual who is infected with biased, adamant, unreasoned beliefs to many others who share or are susceptible to the same frame of reference.  Not willing to discuss our beliefs and doubts with those who disagree with us, we have become intellectually lazy, taking in, first, "sound bytes" and now "video bytes" ala YouTube from entertainers who bill themselves as being well-informed, experts on any number of different subjects.

In the twenties and early thirties, the sound bytes were from entertainers like Will Rogers.  Today the bits and bytes are coming from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Keith Olbermann on the television, radio, and over the Internet... and from charismatic preachers in places of worship too.  In some cases, this can perhaps be the most virulent source of dis- information.  This kind of thing, according to Susan Jacoby in her book, The Age of American Unreason, is "infotainment." Rather than reading newspaper editorials - point and counterpoint - as our grandparents used to do, then discussing things with our friends and our neighbors in pubs, schools, parks, and other community places, we sit in air-conditioned homes alone after work and on weekends in front of the television or computer digesting only those sides of things that resonate with us.  We become more and more absolute in our convictions, more and more polarized from and stigmatized by the other half of society.

We no longer have minds that are open to facts.  In fact, if the facts conflict with the dogma we have already adopted, we reject them entirely notwithstanding the majority convictions of intellectuals like our scientists, doctors, and academics - the freethinkers.  We choose to believe instead, whichever politician curries our votes by agreeing to something we consider sacrosanct, like the literal, absolute truth found in the Scriptures, for example.  In this way we become victims to pitfalls of objective thinking: biases, loaded terminology, and the fallacies of composition and causation. 

Hmmmm... I wonder if I am not playing into viral disinformation myself by writing and posting this article to The World According to Opa. Let me know what you think by posting a comment.

BD+ Unbreakable for 10 Years says Richard Doherty of Envisioneering Group

Richard Doherty a Media analyist with Envisioneering Group says " BD +, Unlike AACS, Which suffered a partial Hack Last Year, Won't likely be breached for 10 years." Doherty said "and if so The damage would effect one film and one player."

He also said BD + Offers 4 time the safeguards on top of aacs against piracy. All Blu-Ray Players are equipped with BD +.

In today's AnyDVD Press release:

Press Release: AnyDVD HD now with BD+ support

Film studios that have switched to Blu-ray may have crowed a little
too early because the much-praised BD+ copy protection is an ad
absurdum affair now, too. With today's release of version 6.4.0.0 of
AnyDVD HD it is now also possible to make backup security copies of
Blu-ray discs protected with BD+.

Richard Doherty of the Envisioneering Group will have to revise his
statement from July, 2007 regarding BD+: "BD+, unlike AACS which
suffered a partial hack last year, won't likely be breached for 10
years". It is worth mentioning that since he made that statement only eight months have gone by.

AACS marketers should however be heartily congratulated for harvesting millions from their "marks" (the stupid media companies). AACS always was and still is a masterful example of the big con.

Meanwhile it looks as if Sony may have incoroporated stolen technology for their Blu-ray system; Sony Blu-ray Under Patent Infringement Probe

If you think logically in a superficial level, it's just trash and unbelievable. But when you really think, it's simply awesome!

Just now I wrote an email to a famous Spiritual Guru. Its an unusual email as far as my attitude is concerned. But I took liberty to wrote him that way. It's not intentonal but intuitive. Something deep within me inspired to take that action!

I still can't believe...
***
www.manutime.com

The announcement comes on the heels of a wildly successful year for Jonas Brothers, which included their first platinum album and their special guest appearance on the sold out “Best of Both Worlds” arena tour with Hanna Montana, massive internet and top 40 radio exposure, and countless TV appearances and magazine covers.

FYI: Billboard magazine also named the group the pop tour break out pick for 2008.

Offering historical photograph collections through Flickr gives the Library of Congress a welcome opportunity to share some of our most popular images with a new visual community.

We invite you to tag and comment on the photos, and we also welcome identifying information—many of these old photos came to us with scanty descriptions!

To view the photos on Flickr, go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/Library_of_Congress. You do not need a Flickr account to view the images; you would need to sign up for a free account to add comments or tags.

We are offering two sets of digitized photos: the 1,600 color images from the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information and about 1,500 images from the George Grantham Bain News Service.

Hattip: JoeDuck

Who is to blame? You are.

If you're reading this, well, first of all, thank you. Secondly, you're one of the tens of millions of us (myself included) who LIVE for this crap. You check your favorite news sites every day. You've got favorite channels pre-programmed into your remote control, and you flip between stations at a speed only an obsessive-compulsive who has just eaten a full box of Count Chocula can fully appreciate. You give yourself knuckle cramps “googling” the blogosphere looking for that edge, that little nugget of information that puts you in the know hours or even minutes before the news breaks. You collate information, opinions, and statistics to formulate theorems, develop postulates, and calculate proofs to gain insight into the most important decision this country makes every four years.

And because this InfoGigaRumorTainmentPalooza is not only the ultimate interactive video game but a cannibalistic mobius loop, you read what they write and then write something yourself, which they read and write something else which you read, and the process starts all over again. So before long, a news agency in London writes a rumor, you repeat the rumor on your blog, which is read along with the London source by a news agency in Tokyo and turned into a story citing two informed sources, which is then quoted in London the next day as confirmation of the rumor that they printed the day before!

And because you and millions of others like you feed at this trough pretty much 24/7, and the speed at which this information travels the globe is now measured in keystrokes, news organizations are beating the snot out of each other trying to be first on the block with the latest scoop. So forget credible sources, forget journalistic integrity (as if that isn't the ultimate oxymoron), forget the truth: get it on the air, get it on the web, and get it there FAST. If we're wrong nobody will notice; but if we're RIGHT, we get to say we were FIRST!!! THAT'S what's important...

Why do they do this? Again, it's your fault. Your eyes and ears mean advertising dollars for these sluts. Sure, the news room is all about bragging rights: they could give two hoots if the parent company ever made a dime. But the nerds that get hired for the news room are the ones most likely to chew their own reproductive organs off for a scoop --- because the suits know the value of a scoop in dollars and cents. So what do we get on the air and on the web? The lowest quality schlock that can be put up faster than everyone else's low-quality schlock.

Result: poll results that are, umm, wrong. Really damned fast, but wrong.

So don't come crying to me if you feel like your hamster got run over when the final tallies come through in November. Because you asked for it.

A Tipping Point For MP3s

(waaaay down the article we find this little nugget of good news)

... mass merchant Wal-Mart [is] alerting WMG and Sony BMG that it will pull their music files in the Windows Media Audio format from walmart.com some time between mid-December and mid-January, if the labels haven't yet provided the music in MP3 format.

Good news!

Update: Wal-Mart ... Wall-Mart ... what can I say? I'm not fixing it, go ahead and laugh all you want.

Update: This post was picked up by SlashDot. Quite a discussion went on over there.

It's Jeff Bridges day on the cable system, apparently. In the last 18 hours I have watched "The Fabulous Baker Boys" and "Stick It," the second being a little-known and little-watched almost-straight-to-DVD cheese festival about so-called elite gymnasts. I started sinking with the first film, and I am closing in on the bottom with the second.

If there is one film like "Stick It," there are at least a hundred a year. Rebel upstart with uncontrolled talent meeting the washed-up guru who tames the wild horse and helps them fight their way back to glory. The climactic scene where it's all on the line, pressure mounting, the sneering arch-enemy looking on, the suspicious crowd with the lone brave supporter, and then the rock music cranks up and the rebel cranks it up to eleven, scoring the goal, completing the pass, nailing the three-pointer, earning the perfect score, striking out the last batter, or achieving whatever achievement that will cause the crowd to explode, the guru to cry and hug people, and even the sneering arch-enemy to realize that the rebel is better than they are. The rebel looks into the crowd to find the lone supporter who never lost faith, and falls in love with them all over again.

You've seen that movie, or one like it, several times before. You've experienced that swell of emotion as the rebel wins the gold, or gets the girl, or lands the job. You've walked out of theatres (or away from your DVD player) feeling like you should go and join that rock band or submit that manuscript for publication or try out for the Olympic winter biathlon team. You're charged up. You're on top of the world. You feel like you can do anything.

*     *     *     *     *

In "The Fabulous Baker Boys," when Jeff Bridges and his real-life brother Beau are having the argument about their relationship and the act and everything, Beau Bridges says something along the lines of the following. "I get to make sure the numbers balance out at the end of the month so that everybody ELSE can go on LIVING THEIR LIVES!!!"

That's me. To-do lists. Rush-hour traffic. High school band concerts. Parent/teacher conferences. Car insurance. Snow shoveling. Picking up milk, baking soda, and Clearasil on my way home. Scooping the cat box. Scraping the callous off my aching feet. Trying to avoid getting overdrawn at the bank.

No crowds. No swelling rock music. No victory in the face of incalculable odds. I never had that moment. Few of us will ever have that moment. In fact, that moment is really a concoction of Hollywood writers appealing to the little space inside of us that believes we can do those things. Nobody has those moments in real life. But this fact is not reassuring, not comforting, not calming.

I'm thirty-nine years old, the potential for any of those moments to occur (even though they don't really occur in Euclidian space, but that's immaterial) is long past. I'm not a rock star, not an athlete, not a genius, not a millionaire, an actor, a pilot, a writer, nor an entrepreneur. There will be no crowds, nor any swelling rock music, at least not outside of my head. And that's the problem.

Apparently I continue to cling to the illusion that there might be. Someday when overweight, middle-aged fathers of three can join rock bands or become star athletes, in my imagination, there will be crowds and swelling rock music. This sounds funny even as I write this, but it is very literally eating away at my soul. I find myself sinking deeper into the throes of depression, with this issue as the cannonball strapped to my ankle.

You're supposed to come away from these movies feeling like you can do anything. I feel like I've never done anything, and I never will.

*     *     *     *     *

Most of the time I can end these missives with some reasonable assessment of the situation, some way to put it into perspective and move on with my life. Not this time. My financial life is in near-collapse, my job is about to end, my health is deteriorating, and there is no end in sight for any of it. Nothing makes me genuinely happy these days, nothing gives me hope, nothing is reassuring.

On top of it, I have movies with Jeff Bridges in them making me feel like an even bigger failure.

I have a bit of a weakness for You Tube myself, in the same vein as some kind of food you think you don't care for so much, easy enough to resist, but if someone happens to hand you an open package of it and you happen to taste one, you pretty much finish the whole lot of whatever it is—gummi bears or Cheez-its or Girl Scout Thin Mints—in spite of saying with each bite, This is the LAST one.

Anyhow, this song is really quite clever and likeable, the musician talented, and I think it's about time for more on the rhapsodic end for this blog.

December 1st is the World Aids Day while it also marks the beginning of the end of the year. Kenyans are therefore encouraged to spread word about the Party among members of the community. The World Aids day is being observed at a time when statistics from the Swedish authorities indicate that 122 Kenyans are infected with the HIV virus.
  
On the Party organization, Kesofo is in touch with the Kenyan Embassy in Stockholm because leaders of the organization believe that the Embassy is an important Institution which it needs to work with, not just as a partner but as a leading collaborator.
 
The Kenyan Ambassador to Scandinavia Her Excellency Mrs Purity Muhindi has been approached by Kesofo to attend the Party officially but unfortunately, she is booked elsewhere on December 1st. Despite her absence, the Embassy has confirmed that it will send a representative to the Party to stand for the Ambassador. This is positive.

The December 1st Party will be the second being organized by Kesofo at Norsborg Musikhuset, the inaugural Party having been organized last year when the organization hosted the Grand Nyama Choma Party. The bash was a big success.
 
Entrance at the Party will be 50 kr, food will be available and plenty of Kenyan music. Under 18s will not be admitted although the issue of catering for this age group in the area of entertainment will have to be looked into by the organization in the future.
 
Information about Kesofo will also be available at the Party although much of the organization’s working documents like the Constitution and the Program are already available through the organization’s web site.
 
Kesofo’s Chairperson Ms Susan Mukami welcomes Kenyans, friends of Kenya and Party lovers to attend the Party.
Kesofo Exceutive committee

*     *     *     *     *

President Bush has decided, apparently, that when it comes to Congress, he’s taking his football and going home. The president is dictating the terms of all appropriations legislation to the House and Senate, and if that legislation comes in too high or too low in terms of dollars, he’s vetoing it. No negotiations, no compromise, just give me what I want or do it over again. He figures he’s got enough votes in the Senate to sustain the veto, he’s going to do what he wants.

Well, this is not the way government works. This is not a monarchy, this is not a dictatorship. This is a Republic, and for better or worse, the two branches of government have to work together to get anything done. Presidents Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton all managed to pass legislation, including some landmark, game-changing, and ground-breaking stuff; has nobody explained to Dubya how this works?

There is only a year or so left in this buffoon’s presidency, it’s time to make a decision. Either give the spoiled little prick what he wants (within reason) for the next 12 months and tough it out, or draw a line in the sand and stick to it, consequences be damned. In my younger days I would have said, “screw him.” Now, despite the fact that I think this guy will go down as the most well-rounded imbecile ever to have tainted the good name of the United States, we should just grit our teeth, get our licks in where we can, and wait for 2008. If we keep an eye on the twerp he shouldn’t be able to do too much damage.

At least, nothing that a Democratic president and control of both houses won’t fix…

*     *     *     *     *

I am tremendously impressed by the amount of green technology coming our way. Every time I turn around I am hearing about more and more breakthroughs and techniques that will change the way we live. Hydrogen extraction for powering everything from computers to portable medical packs to cars, trucks, and planes; ways to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and either store it or put it to practical use; or a new way to use recycled materials to actually produce something other than more recyclable materials.

On the heels of that, however, is the news from the “second world” countries: places like China and India that are bridging the gap between an agrarian society and an industrialized one. These countries have massive populations (fully 1/3 of the world’s population), their governments are encouraging and in fact initiating some of the most aggressive urbanization projects in history, and the middle-class is exploding.

The news is, for every gallon of gas we consume in North America, China and India consume ten. So in places where cars are built for low cost (with *no* concern for environmental considerations), they will put an additional… wait for it… ONE BILLION cars on the road in the next ten years, and our CO2 problem will multiply themselves exponentially.

If we want to get our greenhouse gas problem under control, that solution cannot begin and end here in the U.S. It has to start in southeast Asia, or it’s a waste of time.

*     *     *     *     *

Everybody is thinking this, nobody is saying it, so I’m going to say it.

Barry Bonds is a cheat. Kick him out of baseball, rescind his home run record, and bar him from the Hall of Fame.

Now if we do that, we have to bounce McGuire and Sosa too, so we’d better be ready for a bloodletting. But this isn’t the fate of the world, this is sports: put in its simplest terms, this is entertainment.

We can afford to take a moral stand on the matter for the sake of the sport, and more importantly, the impressionable kids who idolize and imitate these athletes.

So: baseball, give these ‘roid freaks the boot; football and basketball, implement a one-felony, one-expulsion policy; hockey, jeez… where do I start? Fighting? Betting? Huffing? Pick ‘em; cycling, like I have to tell you; college sports, just ask the star sophomore running back driving the Bentley what needs to be fixed, he’ll tell you.

Ultimately all of these problems come down to the matter of sacrificing money for principle. I know it’s tough to stare down the possibility of only having ten zeroes on the bottom line instead of eleven, but I think you’ll adjust. Get some grief counseling.

*     *     *     *     *

The folks at Playboy, Penthouse, etc. need to be more on the ball. All of us guys out here have been itching to get a look at Britney and Lindsay in the altogether. Their careers are in the dumpster, they could both use the money. They’re ripe for the picking. Come on, bring it!

What will you do?

LA Times has more

hattip: LGF

After two editions of the show, Kimmel was let go for a quip about former QB and announcer Joe Theismann, in which he said that Theismann, who was let go last season, was “watching from his living room with steam coming from his ears.”

The next day, Monday Night Football producer Jay Rothman characterized Kimmel's joke as “classless and disappointing,” adding that “it was cheap.”

Rothman confirmed Kimmel won’t be back.

This is reminiscent of 2003, when ESPN bowed to pressure and accepted Rush Limbaugh’s resignation after the talk show host directed commentary at the media about quarterback Donovan McNabb’s overly favorable press coverage.

Sports talk used to be the last bastion of freeform ranting.

Looks like PC-itis has really infected the announcing booth when a commentator gets let go for expressing an opinion and a comedian gets fired for telling a joke.

On another ambiguously funny note, Stephen Colbert was teasing as usual when he announced that he’s a candidate for the U.S. presidency.

But the law could create some serious trouble for the satirical talk show host.

Congress has created a load of complex election laws that Colbert may have already triggered with his latest politically charged prank.

The Comedy Central notable executed the necessary documents to have his name added to both the Democratic and Republican primary ballots in South Carolina. In addition, he set up a Web site for his budding campaign while at the same time declaring that he was crossing out the part of an oath stating that he would not “knowingly violate any election law.”

Colbert appears to be mildly serious. He indicated that he has sought the advice of an election law firm, Wiley Rein. The caricaturist switched to his campaign site a petition seeking signatures from the show’s Web site, based on his lawyers’ recommendations.

If Colbert actually follows through as he has promised and pays the fees ($2,500) and collects enough signatures (3000), campaign finance laws will expose his show and network to violations that could even involve criminal penalties.

To the extent that Colbert’s cable show promotes his candidacy, it could arguably be viewed as an illegal “in-kind” contribution from Comedy Central.

The whole problem might be mitigated if Colbert would do something he almost never does—admit it was just a joke.