....when I said that there was more proof that Obama was born in Hawaii than I was born in Puerto Rico.
A law enacted by Puerto Rico in December mainly to combat identity theft invalidates as of July 1 all previously issued Puerto Rican birth certificates. That means more than a third of the 4.1 million people of Puerto Rican descent living in the 50 states must arrange to get new certificates.
It looks like a lot of birth certificates were stolen. This is one way in which illegals who cannot habla English can pass themselves off as citizens.
Now I've got to go through this rigamarole to get a new certificate. It's going to be a real pain.
Especially since I was actually born in Kenya.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
This Explains Hayworth
His birtherism, that is. It seems to be rampant among Arizona Republicans.
Nearly half of the Arizona Legislature wants to force President Barack Obama to show his birth certificate to state officials if he runs for re-election.
A state House committee on Tuesday approved the measure sponsored by 40 of the state's 90 legislators. It would require presidential candidates who want to appear on the ballot in Arizona to submit documents proving they meet the requirements to be president.
All 40 co-sponsors are Republicans, comprising 75 percent of the GOP caucus. Two of them have since resigned to run for Congress.
The idea was proposed by Skull Valley Republican Rep. Judy Burges. She says if people have to prove their citizenship to apply for a job or get a passport, they should have to prove it to run for president.
With those kind of numbers his position on Obama's birth may help him vs McCain.
Nearly half of the Arizona Legislature wants to force President Barack Obama to show his birth certificate to state officials if he runs for re-election.
A state House committee on Tuesday approved the measure sponsored by 40 of the state's 90 legislators. It would require presidential candidates who want to appear on the ballot in Arizona to submit documents proving they meet the requirements to be president.
All 40 co-sponsors are Republicans, comprising 75 percent of the GOP caucus. Two of them have since resigned to run for Congress.
The idea was proposed by Skull Valley Republican Rep. Judy Burges. She says if people have to prove their citizenship to apply for a job or get a passport, they should have to prove it to run for president.
With those kind of numbers his position on Obama's birth may help him vs McCain.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Toll Collector Rage in Jersey
In browsing this list, I see that many toll collectors have racial issues.
And they don't appreciate being paid in pennies.
And they don't appreciate being paid in pennies.
Crist Staffers Jumping Ship..
...does the 18-point Rubio lead have anything to do with it?
In the latest sign of turbulence for Charlie Crist's wounded U.S. Senate bid, key staffers are starting to leave the campaign.
Political director Pablo Diaz, one of the first two staff members hired for the Senate campaign, is departing at the end of the month for "a new opportunity." Sean Doughtie, a well-regarded new media consultant who had worked with Crist for years, stopped working for the campaign at the end of January.
"The campaign was going in a different direction," said Doughtie.
Meanwhile, a poll released Monday pointed to Crist's dire position six months before the Republican primary: Rubio was leading Crist by 18 percentage points — 54 percent to 36 percent — among likely Republican primary voters, according to a Feb. 18 Rasmussen Reports poll with a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
One chance Charlie has: Ray Sansom, Former Florida House Speaker and Rubio's budget director when Marco was speaker resigned from the Florida House yesterday hours before an ethics committee was going to look into his financial shenanigans. Crist is calling for Rubio to release all communications he has had with Sansom.
I wish Charlie luck. The way I feel right now Marco could be a Satan worshipper and still get my vote.
In the latest sign of turbulence for Charlie Crist's wounded U.S. Senate bid, key staffers are starting to leave the campaign.
Political director Pablo Diaz, one of the first two staff members hired for the Senate campaign, is departing at the end of the month for "a new opportunity." Sean Doughtie, a well-regarded new media consultant who had worked with Crist for years, stopped working for the campaign at the end of January.
"The campaign was going in a different direction," said Doughtie.
Meanwhile, a poll released Monday pointed to Crist's dire position six months before the Republican primary: Rubio was leading Crist by 18 percentage points — 54 percent to 36 percent — among likely Republican primary voters, according to a Feb. 18 Rasmussen Reports poll with a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
One chance Charlie has: Ray Sansom, Former Florida House Speaker and Rubio's budget director when Marco was speaker resigned from the Florida House yesterday hours before an ethics committee was going to look into his financial shenanigans. Crist is calling for Rubio to release all communications he has had with Sansom.
I wish Charlie luck. The way I feel right now Marco could be a Satan worshipper and still get my vote.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Rays pitchers and catchers report
The bad news is that owner Stuart Sternberg says that the current $70 million payroll is unsustainable. Which means that I need to hustle to the Trop before July 31 to see Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena before they become Yankees.
The good news is that Fan Fest at Tropicana today features Cowboy Troy, the 6'8" black country rapper singing his hit, "I Play Chicken With the Train".
The good news is that Fan Fest at Tropicana today features Cowboy Troy, the 6'8" black country rapper singing his hit, "I Play Chicken With the Train".
Friday, February 19, 2010
The esteemed theologian...
....Sir Elton John.
So it comes as a surprise that in Parade magazine this week, John claims that one of the central figures of Christianity is in fact a homosexual.Of course Jesus is not gay. We all know from The Da Vinci Code that He was shacking up with Mary Magdalene.
"I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems," he tells Parade. "On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him."
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Well, McCain's re-elected
His opponent panders to birthers.
Former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, who on Monday officially entered Arizona's Republican race against Sen. John McCain, defended his recent call for President Barack Obama to produce his birth certificate, suggesting his questions stem not from conspiracy theories that Obama was really born in Kenya but from concerns about identity theft
The one chance we have of ridding the GOP of the disease of McCainism, and we get this guy. Earlier Hayworth had called for Obama to release his long form certificate. Now that he is a candidate he has to walk back on that. So he comes up with this lame identy theft cover.
.
Former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, who on Monday officially entered Arizona's Republican race against Sen. John McCain, defended his recent call for President Barack Obama to produce his birth certificate, suggesting his questions stem not from conspiracy theories that Obama was really born in Kenya but from concerns about identity theft
The one chance we have of ridding the GOP of the disease of McCainism, and we get this guy. Earlier Hayworth had called for Obama to release his long form certificate. Now that he is a candidate he has to walk back on that. So he comes up with this lame identy theft cover.
Hayworth is either a birther or worse, feels he needs to pander to them.
We'll never get rid of McCain. If you're in the Senate at 70 the only way you leave is by death. Robert Byrd has been in the Senate longewr than I have been alive. Now on his deathbed he nstiull won't give it up.
McCain is saying the right things now. But as soon as there's a Republican in the White House he will be on the TODAY show badmouthing his party and getting his toes licked my Meredith Viera.
.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
You keep using that word...
...I don't think it means what you think it means.
If they were to say that the stated rationale of the modern Games is to meet on the field of play, rather than the field of battle, then perhaps they'd have a point - but to reduce this to politics is rather like objecting to a ransom note because of the grammar. If this is the best they could do, then it's obvious that the ruling is itself a petty dig.
Well and duly noted. They should be told to note our mocking laughter in reply. Patriotism is not political, and it's kind of most of the point of having Olympics in the first place. Most of the countries participating in these Games have fought alongside our forces, or are free today only because of them. That is a fraternity that goes far deeper than politics. He that to-day sheds his blood with me shall be my brother...
Tim Thomas, btw, has already gone Vichy and has covered his own "Support the Troops" backplate. I hope he gets traded to Edmonton.
(stick-tap to Gabriel Malor at the Ace of Spades)
Trouble is brewing over United States ice hockey goalie Jonathan Quick and the “Support Our Troops” slogan on his helmet. Slogans of this sort are banned under Olympic rules and Quick will be told to remove it, the International Ice Hockey Federation has told Reuters.Political propaganda? Wha...? I don't recall GOP or DNC patches on the uniforms. Besides, this is the Olympics - the non-partisan gathering of the fraternity of athletic endeavor in which, every four years, you gather with your countrymen to totally pwn stupid furrinurs and rub it IN! THEIR! FACE! Afterward, they give out medals to the athletes who defeat their foreign opponents, and the winners are stood on a podium in front of millions while their national anthem is played.
...
IOC rules forbid political propoganda or advertisements being placed on equipment. “If the players don’t agree with the interpretation they can ask the USOC (United States Olympic Committee) to petition the IOC.”
If they were to say that the stated rationale of the modern Games is to meet on the field of play, rather than the field of battle, then perhaps they'd have a point - but to reduce this to politics is rather like objecting to a ransom note because of the grammar. If this is the best they could do, then it's obvious that the ruling is itself a petty dig.
Well and duly noted. They should be told to note our mocking laughter in reply. Patriotism is not political, and it's kind of most of the point of having Olympics in the first place. Most of the countries participating in these Games have fought alongside our forces, or are free today only because of them. That is a fraternity that goes far deeper than politics. He that to-day sheds his blood with me shall be my brother...
Tim Thomas, btw, has already gone Vichy and has covered his own "Support the Troops" backplate. I hope he gets traded to Edmonton.
(stick-tap to Gabriel Malor at the Ace of Spades)
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Now this sounds familiar
A Republican pretending to be a conservative to try and win a primary.
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain has undergone a transformation on significant issues since the failure of his presidential campaign, particularly since he has faced a challenge from a conservative rival in his Senate re-election campaign.
The AP lists some of McCain's flip flops as he tries to do his best Charlie Crist impersonation.
One thing for which I can thank McCain is that his presidential campaign smoked out those radio talkers who are not independently conservative but shills for the GOP. Liberals would accuse conservative talkers of being hacks for the party and in some cases they would be right. During the presidential campaign McCain would only go on radio shows that gave his campaign full-throated support. That list includes Hugh Hewitt, Bill Bennett and the biggest GOP shill/McCainkisser of them all Michael Medved. McCain may have had the courage to stand up to the North Vietnamese but lacked the guts to go on Rush Limbaugh during the presidential campaign.
For the good of the party McCain has to go. If McCain gets re-elected, it will embolden McCain acolytes like Crist, Lindsay Gramnesty, Mike Huckabee and by his own admission, Scott Brown. And if a Republican becomes president in 2012, McCain will go back to his old tricks of being the "maverick" of his party, advocating cap-and-trade, amnesty, and ripping conservatives while getting his fanny kissed by Matt Lauer on the TODAY Show.
Yes, the Sisko is angry.
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain has undergone a transformation on significant issues since the failure of his presidential campaign, particularly since he has faced a challenge from a conservative rival in his Senate re-election campaign.
The AP lists some of McCain's flip flops as he tries to do his best Charlie Crist impersonation.
One thing for which I can thank McCain is that his presidential campaign smoked out those radio talkers who are not independently conservative but shills for the GOP. Liberals would accuse conservative talkers of being hacks for the party and in some cases they would be right. During the presidential campaign McCain would only go on radio shows that gave his campaign full-throated support. That list includes Hugh Hewitt, Bill Bennett and the biggest GOP shill/McCainkisser of them all Michael Medved. McCain may have had the courage to stand up to the North Vietnamese but lacked the guts to go on Rush Limbaugh during the presidential campaign.
For the good of the party McCain has to go. If McCain gets re-elected, it will embolden McCain acolytes like Crist, Lindsay Gramnesty, Mike Huckabee and by his own admission, Scott Brown. And if a Republican becomes president in 2012, McCain will go back to his old tricks of being the "maverick" of his party, advocating cap-and-trade, amnesty, and ripping conservatives while getting his fanny kissed by Matt Lauer on the TODAY Show.
Yes, the Sisko is angry.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
If you wanted to be scared out of your mind
A horror flick is not the answer. The real ticket to a night with the lights on and the covers high is the always-excellent Mark Steyn. Excellent - but disturbing.
(update - before I hit publish, a tour of the blogs uncovered this bit from the Corner, also by Steyn. Courtesy of the fine folks at the Swilling.)
Every time I retail the latest indignity imposed upon the “citizen” by some or other Continental apparatchik, I receive e-mails from the heartland pointing out, with much reference to the Second Amendment, that it couldn’t happen here because Americans aren’t Euro-weenies. But nor were Euro-weenies once upon a time. ...Please, read the whole thing - preferably in a warm, well-lit room, with a comforting beverage close at hand.
Two-thirds of a century on, almost every item on the list has been abandoned, from “independence and self-reliance” (40 per cent of people receive state handouts) to “a healthy suspicion of power and authority” – the reflex response now to almost any passing inconvenience is to demand the government “do something”, the cost to individual liberty be damned. American exceptionalism would have to be awfully exceptional to suffer a similar expansion of government and not witness, in enough of the populace, the same descent into dependency and fatalism. ...
What’s easier to do if you’re a democratic government that’s made promises it can’t afford? Cut back on nanny-state lollipops? Or shrug off thankless military commitments for which the electorate has minimal appetite? ... On its present course, as Dennis Prager put it, America “will be a large Sweden, and just as influential as the smaller one.”
And that’s the optimistic scenario – because the only reason Sweden can be Sweden and Germany Germany and France France is because America is America. Who will cushion America’s decline as America cushioned Europe’s? ...
Much of the timing of American decline depends on Beijing, which will make the final determination on such matters as when the dollar ceases to be the world’s reserve currency. Given that they hold at least the schedule of our fate in their hands, it would be rather reassuring if they had the capability to assume America’s role as the global order-maker. But they don’t and they never will. The most likely future is not a world under a new order but a world with no order – in which pipsqueak states go nuclear while the planet’s wealthiest nations, from New Zealand to Norway, are unable to defend their own borders and are forced to adjust to the post-American era as they can. Yet, in such a geopolitical scene, the United States will still remain the most inviting target – first, because it’s big, and secondly, because, as Britain knows, the durbar moves on but imperial resentments linger long after imperial grandeur. ...
The first victims of American retreat will be the many corners of the world that have benefitted from a unusually benign hegemon. But the consequences of retreat will come home, too. In a more dangerous world, American decline will be steeper, faster and more devastating than Britain’s – and something far closer to Rome’s.
(update - before I hit publish, a tour of the blogs uncovered this bit from the Corner, also by Steyn. Courtesy of the fine folks at the Swilling.)
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
The coveted 25-54 year-old demographic...
...has insomnia.
MSNBC’s David Shuster became a fan of Fox News’ late-night comedy/news hybrid Red Eye just in time for its three-year anniversary.Incredible as it seems, more people in this demo are watching Fox Cable News at 3am than CNN in prime time. MSNBC isn't even mentioned.
And it’s coming at a time when the 3amET show is seeing big ratings in the A25-54 demographic – even topping CNN prime time last week.
Just like when we highlighted the show’s ratings in September 2009 (which the FNC advertising department enjoyed as well, taking out full-page ads in the New York Post and others), the ratings for last week show Red Eye beating CNN again. This time, the show had better ratings in the A25-54 demographic than Campbell Brown at 8pmET and Larry King at 9pmET, and tied Anderson Cooper at 10pmET (Monday-Thursday).
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Much better now
For those who asked or just had a prayer and a good thought, thanks. I'm over the congestion. There's a little backstory, which I hinted at but didn't elaborate, until now.
As for the other doctory things:
The tech who gave the echocardiogram was a pleasant guy, born in Spain. He attached me to what seemed like forty leads and had me lay on my side in the classic first-aid recover pose. (Worst. Swimsuit photo. EVER.) Somewhere behind me, he got the terminal up and running, and then reached across with his one arm to move the sonogram wand across my torso. So, yeah, real awkward. And he kept saying stuff like, "Beautiful! Wonderful!" in his classical accent. I tried to be fierce, peeps, but it was difficult. New spot - whooosh whooosh behind me, and then "Booteefool!" followed by a click and a beep. He was either happy about the cardio or got a top score on Minesweeper, I can't tell.
Next, the stress test. Since I didn't want to fool with my BP before the visit I had been taking exactly nothing for my sinus complaints, so I wasn't feeling my best. Luckily the actual jogging wasn't so bad. Hockey pays off. They took my BP every three minutes, and the machine went up a level (really, it said so right on the screen). The hardest part was not pulling too much with my arms and just using them to steady myself. I got up to level five and still hadn't hit the target heart rate yet.
"How many levels are there?" I asked.
"As many as it takes," said the doctor.
"So, Level 6.... the machine starts throwing things at me?"
"Knives," he replied. The laughter finally got me to the target.
Why was I taking a stress-echo test? Basically, a couple of days before Christmas, I was woken by a great deal of discomfort in my chest. I also felt dizzy and had tingling in my hands, much worse on the left. Freaking out about said conditions didn't help all that much, either.
Don't ask why, because I have no good answer, but I didn't call anyone, nor tell anyone. I rode it out. That tingling certainly wasn't my brain working. I suppose I had a mental line of demarcation, where I would have just woke up the Ladybug and gone to the hospital, and my symptoms never crossed. Had they done, though, I may not have been in a place to ask for help. It was, in all respects, incredibly dumb.
A couple of weeks later, a milder form of this happened again, and then again a few days later, and again, and by the last week of January it was almost a daily occurance. Mind you, I'm still playing my weekly hockey games at this point,* and the funny thing is that my symptoms NEVER occured during or after games. I'd feel like crap driving there but be fine once I started.
* (I'm intensely stupid, he explained.)
Finally I got fed up with it and checked myself in for fun tests. They took very good care of me. Better still, my wife declined to kill me once I told her the whole story.
The upshot of it is that all my EKGs and my stress-echocardiogram were fine. Cholesterol and components were excellent. The only thing to watch, oddly, was my B-12 level, which is (marginally) low. I wonder if that's a contributing factor? Maybe the illness had something to do with it.
In any case, I'm keeping a close eye on things. It looks like you're stuck with me for a while longer.
update: beat this, techie!
As for the other doctory things:
The tech who gave the echocardiogram was a pleasant guy, born in Spain. He attached me to what seemed like forty leads and had me lay on my side in the classic first-aid recover pose. (Worst. Swimsuit photo. EVER.) Somewhere behind me, he got the terminal up and running, and then reached across with his one arm to move the sonogram wand across my torso. So, yeah, real awkward. And he kept saying stuff like, "Beautiful! Wonderful!" in his classical accent. I tried to be fierce, peeps, but it was difficult. New spot - whooosh whooosh behind me, and then "Booteefool!" followed by a click and a beep. He was either happy about the cardio or got a top score on Minesweeper, I can't tell.
Next, the stress test. Since I didn't want to fool with my BP before the visit I had been taking exactly nothing for my sinus complaints, so I wasn't feeling my best. Luckily the actual jogging wasn't so bad. Hockey pays off. They took my BP every three minutes, and the machine went up a level (really, it said so right on the screen). The hardest part was not pulling too much with my arms and just using them to steady myself. I got up to level five and still hadn't hit the target heart rate yet.
"How many levels are there?" I asked.
"As many as it takes," said the doctor.
"So, Level 6.... the machine starts throwing things at me?"
"Knives," he replied. The laughter finally got me to the target.
Why was I taking a stress-echo test? Basically, a couple of days before Christmas, I was woken by a great deal of discomfort in my chest. I also felt dizzy and had tingling in my hands, much worse on the left. Freaking out about said conditions didn't help all that much, either.
Don't ask why, because I have no good answer, but I didn't call anyone, nor tell anyone. I rode it out. That tingling certainly wasn't my brain working. I suppose I had a mental line of demarcation, where I would have just woke up the Ladybug and gone to the hospital, and my symptoms never crossed. Had they done, though, I may not have been in a place to ask for help. It was, in all respects, incredibly dumb.
A couple of weeks later, a milder form of this happened again, and then again a few days later, and again, and by the last week of January it was almost a daily occurance. Mind you, I'm still playing my weekly hockey games at this point,* and the funny thing is that my symptoms NEVER occured during or after games. I'd feel like crap driving there but be fine once I started.
* (I'm intensely stupid, he explained.)
Finally I got fed up with it and checked myself in for fun tests. They took very good care of me. Better still, my wife declined to kill me once I told her the whole story.
The upshot of it is that all my EKGs and my stress-echocardiogram were fine. Cholesterol and components were excellent. The only thing to watch, oddly, was my B-12 level, which is (marginally) low. I wonder if that's a contributing factor? Maybe the illness had something to do with it.
In any case, I'm keeping a close eye on things. It looks like you're stuck with me for a while longer.
update: beat this, techie!
Monday, February 08, 2010
Cry-landers
Our very young ice hockey team has had everything go sideways on them. Not a surprise, as they are still not quite ready for contention - not even in this year's Eastern Conference, which features seven or eight mediocre teams, any two of which will make the playoffs by default this season.
In their honor, I've decided to put up a post about the worst of times. It's easy to pick out the best times when you win four straight championships and nothing else; when you have seven Hall of Famers over a concentrated period and little else. But when the suffering starts to pile up - it's just about 30 seasons since "OT - NYI, Nystrom (Tonelli, Henning) 7:11" - it's time to have a laugh about crying. This is not an original idea (and Leafs fans have been waiting longer than we have), but it's cathartic. If you like, you can hum the Simpsons' "Mediocre Presidents" song in your head as you read, for these are the adequate, forgettable, and occasionally regrettable Islanders...
Starting goalie: Tommy Soderstrom - Folks are more familiar with the longer tenure of Tommy Salo, a middling enough keeper who shrank from big moments and was reduced to tears in an arbitration hearing by his own general manager. That deserves special mention. Soderstrom, however, beats him out. He wasn't really good at anything. His 3.61 GAA is lowest in the annals of the franchise for any goalie with 50 career games, save Gerry Desjardins, who is excused because he played for the team in their first three seasons. Save percentage? .886, in the dead puck era. He played ten seconds in the 1996-97 season, and that was it for his career. And then there's this demoralizing fight. Perhaps the odd helmet/mask combo fooled the Isles into thinking they were getting Arturs Irbe, or something.
Backup: Eric Fichaud - Not really all his fault. He was drafted too high by the Leafs, and then dealt off in a trade that hurt everyone involved: the popular Benoit Hogue went from Long Island cult hero to Toronto pariah, the extra picks were squandered, and poor Fichaud was tossed onto the ice to face NHL teams behind one of the most porous teams of the day. His first two teams finished in the bottom five of the league and his final team finished 19th out of 26. The only consolation for him must have been that the Leafs finished below the Isles twice in those three seasons. Just a horrible trade.
Dishonorables:
Salo. Not Ron Hextall - everyone remembers "A River Runs Through Him" but there were mitigating factors: 1. if not for Hextall the Isles would never even have made the playoffs that year; 2. the Rangers were so stacked that year that beating them would have been even more astounding than beating the Pens the year before; and 3. Jamie McLennan got similarly smoked in his game two appearance. It wasn't Ron's fault.
Defenders:
Dick Tarnstrom - drafted in 1994, finally came to North America as a 27-year old rookie and human giveaway machine for the 2001-2002 Isles. He was a frustrating player to watch; offensively gifted but lost anywhere within fifty feet of his own goalkeeper. (Penguins fans are nodding right now. Sixteen goals and 52 points while going minus 37?!? Ugh.)
Thomas Pock - three points in fifty-nine games, minus 17, hasn't played an NHL minute since. Completely overmatched by the NHL. At least he was only a waiver claim.
Bruno Gervais - the current whipping boy for suffering Isles fans. He's a polite, well-spoken, decent young fellow who likes cooking, has a cute girlfriend, and gets undressed regularly by opposing forwards. Probably not as bad as advertised, but that's a function of having a poor team: you have guys playing too many minutes, against too-tough opposition. Bruno may be a sixth or seventh guy, and he's been on the TOP pair at times. Sadly, there can be only one outcome.
Janne Niinimaa - if you look at his numbers, they're actually not bad. Janne was never very comfortable on the Island but he didn't disgrace himself, either. On this I think some of my fellow fans were overreacting. Then again, you can go to any Isles blog and see that for yourself: if they win a few games everyone is mentally organizing parades and banner-raisings; lose a few and it's "trade everybody, those guys stink!" In other words, we probably owe Janne a fruit basket or something. I hope he's happier wherever he is now.
Dean Chynoweth - this was hardly Dean's fault: he was very frequently injured. The trouble was that he was drafted in the first round ahead of some talented players, such as Joe Sakic and John LeClair. (I'm leaving out others like Mathieu Schneider who actually later became Islanders... including the 114th overall pick, who is now their general manager.)
Scott Lachance - much like Chynoweth, he wasn't openly dreadful the way some of the others were, but it's all about opportunity cost. The Isles took him FOURTH overall in 1991, leaving on the table players like Peter Forsberg, Brian Rolston, Alexei Kovalev, Ray Whitney, and Markus Naslund. Heck, they could have taken Richard Matvichuk if they wanted a defender. Then again, it also comes down to player development; had they taken Matvichuk maybe he's on this list and Lachance has a long career as a respected blueliner for Minnesota/Dallas.
Dishonorables:
Most of the folks I could list here just weren't around very long, so instead, some follow-up trivia about 1991: the Isles took Ziggy Palffy in the second round of this draft, after all the above-listed players were off the board. Nice pick. And the all-time scoring leader for that draft class, surprisingly, is NOT Forsberg or even Eric Lindros. Injuries limited their playing time too much. With 408 goals and 980 points (and counting), it's Kovalev.
Forwards:
Kirk Muller - public enemy number one for a large number of Isles fans of my age. He'd won a Cup with the Canadiens - beating the '93 Isles in the conference finals along the way - and midway through the shortened '94-'95 year, the Isles traded for him and Matheiu Schneider. However, it cost them Pierre Turgeon and Vladimir Malakhov, depriving the Isles of their most talented forward and defender in one shot. And Muller flat-out did NOT want to play for the Isles, bitched about it publicly, and dogged it while on the ice. The Isles were forced to accept pennies on the dollar for him midway through the very next season. Oh, we'll be talking about the GM of THIS trade in a few minutes, thankyouverymuch. Sonofab...
Brett Lindros - Don Maloney bragged upon his selection in 1994 that he had "the better Lindros." It was not to be. He was even more concussion-prone than big brother Eric. Eventually he was forced to retire after just 51 games. He scored twice in that time. Nobody was ever angry at Brett they way they were at anyone else on this list, really; he may well have made good on his potential. (Of course, with Milbury on the horizon, he would have done so in another jersey.) This is just a very sad story.
Alexei Yashin - I remain convinced that the real problem with Yashin was not his talent, nor his production. He played well, if not as well as he had in Ottawa. He overcame a severe injury that affected the tendons in one of his hands, which could have ended his career. I don't buy the "aloof Russian" reputation crap, either. Nobody would have thought he was aloof if he was only paid $3 million per year. No, the real issue here was that the Isles paid a king's ransom for him (soon-to-be franchise defender Zdeno Chara, checking forward Bill Muckalt, AND the second-overall pick, which became Jason Spezza), paid him a kings' fortune, and then were stuck with the bill after the lockout and the new salary cap. Eventually they were forced to buy him out; now he plays back home in Russia and sleeps with Carol Alt, so who's laughing now?
Oleg Kvasha - no discussion of Yashin is complete without Kvasha. When it comes to enigmatic Russian talents, this was the poster child: a large, physical player with gifted hands who could never top 15 goals in a season. Eventually went back to play in Russia as well, though his tastes in supermodels are unknown. Talk about enigmas: either there's another dude named Oleg Kvasha out there, or he has hidden musical talents.
Mike Comrie - anytime a guy plays for five different teams before his 30th birthday, something's up, but when he's done two separate stints for two of them, then it's on a whole new level. The guy's obviously got great talent, but something makes him very easy to part with despite it all. Incidentally, one of the prospects he was once traded for, Rob Schremp, is currently an Islanders rookie, and off to a promising start.
Chris Simon - long one of the league's better enforcers, but had good enough hands to score 29 goals one season. Also good enough hands to clobber Ryan Hollweg in the face with his stick. In fairness to Simon, it was later revealed that he had been concussed by an illegal hit from behind that received no penalty at all. He claimed later that he didn't really recall what he'd done to Hollweg because of it; I only note that he certainly recalled which player was responsible for it. He was later suspended again for stomping on a guy with his skate. Now out of hockey.
Joe Sacco - remember those players I didn't mention above, who eventually became Islanders after being drafted after Dean Chynoweth in 1987? Joe was one of them, but he gets mentioned anyway, because while on the Island, he put up one of the most confounding statlines in league history: in 73 games in 1998-99, he scored three lonely goals with zero assists - zero as in nil, zip, none, bubkes. Nobody deflected one of his shots in, or scored on one of his rebounds, or even had a fluke shot off his rump and into the net, much less converted an actual pass. It's astonishing. He wasn't a brawler, either. One would think that even in just ten minutes played per game, you could get an assist just by accident, at least once. I mean, even Mick Vukota never went an entire year without an assist, and he took 250 penalty minutes a year.
Scott Scissons - it seems odd to hate on a guy who played all of two NHL games, and scored no points. Wonder no more. He was taken sixth overall in 1990's entry draft. Eighty-seven different players taken in that draft had points in the NHL, including eight goaltenders. If that's not enough, one of those goalies is still playing in the area: you may have heard of him, fellow by the name of Brodeur, the NHL's all-time wins and shutouts leader in the regular season. Scott *($$!?%^* Scissons, people!
Dishonorables: I'll take nominations from the audience here. I just can't go on. Scott Scissons....
GM: Mike Milbury - the easy choice. He was the engineer of so many disastrous moments during his inexplicably long stay in the organization. Tops was trading Roberto Luongo and Olli Jokinen to Florida for Oleg Kvasha and Mark Parrish: that's one of the five best goalies in the league and a perennial 30-goal scorer (if a touch of a headcase) for one of the other guys on this list and hard-working yet clearly secondary scorer. Then there's Spezza/Chara for Yashin, the constant coaching changes, exiling young talent before it could develop, whiffing on top draft choices... to say nothing of the already-mentioned arbitration hearing where he savaged his own starting goalkeeper. It was a comedy of terrors with Mad Mike at the helm. O to put it another way - searching his name returns his wikipage as the top result, and a blog called "Mike Milbury Sucks" as the second. The third is his current job as an analyst on NBC and CBC. The fourth is "Mike Milbury's Bad Deals."
Dishonorable: Don Maloney - the former Ranger played a bit for the Isles before moving up to the front office in 1992. He came into a team with a lot of offensive talent (four 30-goal scorers) and a reasonable defense (Norton, Kurvers, Krupp, Malakhov, Pilon, Kasparaitis), and they shocked the two-time champion Penguins in the conference semifinals in 1993. He didn't feel like they could get any farther without better goalkeeping, though. He brought in Hextall. That, as we have seen, didn't work out so hot, so he panicked and sent Hextall right back to Philadelphia... for Soderstrom. Later that very season, he bundled Pierre Turgeon and Vladimir Malakhov to Montreal in the infamous Kirk Muller deal. That was pretty much all she wrote.
Muller was eventually dealt for Ken Freakin' Belanger, straight up. Schnieder is STILL playing, but was long dealt away: the Isles got Kenny Jonsson for him, which was nice, and the first-round pick that was part of that deal became... well whodathunk it? Roberto Luongo, who was part of Mad Mike's finest moment as GM of the Florida Panthers. Oh, wait... he was our GM, wasn't he?
:::facepalm:::
So just three degrees of separation for the two worst trades in the history of the franchise (Turgeon/Malakhov for Muller/Schneider and Luongo/Jokinen for Kvasha/Parrish). Shocka. We'd better not be out of beer...
Trivia - Maloney and I were born on the same date, but not the same year. We also share a birthday with Jesse James. I am the only one of us not to kill a person or a franchise.
In their honor, I've decided to put up a post about the worst of times. It's easy to pick out the best times when you win four straight championships and nothing else; when you have seven Hall of Famers over a concentrated period and little else. But when the suffering starts to pile up - it's just about 30 seasons since "OT - NYI, Nystrom (Tonelli, Henning) 7:11" - it's time to have a laugh about crying. This is not an original idea (and Leafs fans have been waiting longer than we have), but it's cathartic. If you like, you can hum the Simpsons' "Mediocre Presidents" song in your head as you read, for these are the adequate, forgettable, and occasionally regrettable Islanders...
Starting goalie: Tommy Soderstrom - Folks are more familiar with the longer tenure of Tommy Salo, a middling enough keeper who shrank from big moments and was reduced to tears in an arbitration hearing by his own general manager. That deserves special mention. Soderstrom, however, beats him out. He wasn't really good at anything. His 3.61 GAA is lowest in the annals of the franchise for any goalie with 50 career games, save Gerry Desjardins, who is excused because he played for the team in their first three seasons. Save percentage? .886, in the dead puck era. He played ten seconds in the 1996-97 season, and that was it for his career. And then there's this demoralizing fight. Perhaps the odd helmet/mask combo fooled the Isles into thinking they were getting Arturs Irbe, or something.
Backup: Eric Fichaud - Not really all his fault. He was drafted too high by the Leafs, and then dealt off in a trade that hurt everyone involved: the popular Benoit Hogue went from Long Island cult hero to Toronto pariah, the extra picks were squandered, and poor Fichaud was tossed onto the ice to face NHL teams behind one of the most porous teams of the day. His first two teams finished in the bottom five of the league and his final team finished 19th out of 26. The only consolation for him must have been that the Leafs finished below the Isles twice in those three seasons. Just a horrible trade.
Dishonorables:
Salo. Not Ron Hextall - everyone remembers "A River Runs Through Him" but there were mitigating factors: 1. if not for Hextall the Isles would never even have made the playoffs that year; 2. the Rangers were so stacked that year that beating them would have been even more astounding than beating the Pens the year before; and 3. Jamie McLennan got similarly smoked in his game two appearance. It wasn't Ron's fault.
Defenders:
Dick Tarnstrom - drafted in 1994, finally came to North America as a 27-year old rookie and human giveaway machine for the 2001-2002 Isles. He was a frustrating player to watch; offensively gifted but lost anywhere within fifty feet of his own goalkeeper. (Penguins fans are nodding right now. Sixteen goals and 52 points while going minus 37?!? Ugh.)
Thomas Pock - three points in fifty-nine games, minus 17, hasn't played an NHL minute since. Completely overmatched by the NHL. At least he was only a waiver claim.
Bruno Gervais - the current whipping boy for suffering Isles fans. He's a polite, well-spoken, decent young fellow who likes cooking, has a cute girlfriend, and gets undressed regularly by opposing forwards. Probably not as bad as advertised, but that's a function of having a poor team: you have guys playing too many minutes, against too-tough opposition. Bruno may be a sixth or seventh guy, and he's been on the TOP pair at times. Sadly, there can be only one outcome.
Janne Niinimaa - if you look at his numbers, they're actually not bad. Janne was never very comfortable on the Island but he didn't disgrace himself, either. On this I think some of my fellow fans were overreacting. Then again, you can go to any Isles blog and see that for yourself: if they win a few games everyone is mentally organizing parades and banner-raisings; lose a few and it's "trade everybody, those guys stink!" In other words, we probably owe Janne a fruit basket or something. I hope he's happier wherever he is now.
Dean Chynoweth - this was hardly Dean's fault: he was very frequently injured. The trouble was that he was drafted in the first round ahead of some talented players, such as Joe Sakic and John LeClair. (I'm leaving out others like Mathieu Schneider who actually later became Islanders... including the 114th overall pick, who is now their general manager.)
Scott Lachance - much like Chynoweth, he wasn't openly dreadful the way some of the others were, but it's all about opportunity cost. The Isles took him FOURTH overall in 1991, leaving on the table players like Peter Forsberg, Brian Rolston, Alexei Kovalev, Ray Whitney, and Markus Naslund. Heck, they could have taken Richard Matvichuk if they wanted a defender. Then again, it also comes down to player development; had they taken Matvichuk maybe he's on this list and Lachance has a long career as a respected blueliner for Minnesota/Dallas.
Dishonorables:
Most of the folks I could list here just weren't around very long, so instead, some follow-up trivia about 1991: the Isles took Ziggy Palffy in the second round of this draft, after all the above-listed players were off the board. Nice pick. And the all-time scoring leader for that draft class, surprisingly, is NOT Forsberg or even Eric Lindros. Injuries limited their playing time too much. With 408 goals and 980 points (and counting), it's Kovalev.
Forwards:
Kirk Muller - public enemy number one for a large number of Isles fans of my age. He'd won a Cup with the Canadiens - beating the '93 Isles in the conference finals along the way - and midway through the shortened '94-'95 year, the Isles traded for him and Matheiu Schneider. However, it cost them Pierre Turgeon and Vladimir Malakhov, depriving the Isles of their most talented forward and defender in one shot. And Muller flat-out did NOT want to play for the Isles, bitched about it publicly, and dogged it while on the ice. The Isles were forced to accept pennies on the dollar for him midway through the very next season. Oh, we'll be talking about the GM of THIS trade in a few minutes, thankyouverymuch. Sonofab...
Brett Lindros - Don Maloney bragged upon his selection in 1994 that he had "the better Lindros." It was not to be. He was even more concussion-prone than big brother Eric. Eventually he was forced to retire after just 51 games. He scored twice in that time. Nobody was ever angry at Brett they way they were at anyone else on this list, really; he may well have made good on his potential. (Of course, with Milbury on the horizon, he would have done so in another jersey.) This is just a very sad story.
Alexei Yashin - I remain convinced that the real problem with Yashin was not his talent, nor his production. He played well, if not as well as he had in Ottawa. He overcame a severe injury that affected the tendons in one of his hands, which could have ended his career. I don't buy the "aloof Russian" reputation crap, either. Nobody would have thought he was aloof if he was only paid $3 million per year. No, the real issue here was that the Isles paid a king's ransom for him (soon-to-be franchise defender Zdeno Chara, checking forward Bill Muckalt, AND the second-overall pick, which became Jason Spezza), paid him a kings' fortune, and then were stuck with the bill after the lockout and the new salary cap. Eventually they were forced to buy him out; now he plays back home in Russia and sleeps with Carol Alt, so who's laughing now?
Oleg Kvasha - no discussion of Yashin is complete without Kvasha. When it comes to enigmatic Russian talents, this was the poster child: a large, physical player with gifted hands who could never top 15 goals in a season. Eventually went back to play in Russia as well, though his tastes in supermodels are unknown. Talk about enigmas: either there's another dude named Oleg Kvasha out there, or he has hidden musical talents.
Mike Comrie - anytime a guy plays for five different teams before his 30th birthday, something's up, but when he's done two separate stints for two of them, then it's on a whole new level. The guy's obviously got great talent, but something makes him very easy to part with despite it all. Incidentally, one of the prospects he was once traded for, Rob Schremp, is currently an Islanders rookie, and off to a promising start.
Chris Simon - long one of the league's better enforcers, but had good enough hands to score 29 goals one season. Also good enough hands to clobber Ryan Hollweg in the face with his stick. In fairness to Simon, it was later revealed that he had been concussed by an illegal hit from behind that received no penalty at all. He claimed later that he didn't really recall what he'd done to Hollweg because of it; I only note that he certainly recalled which player was responsible for it. He was later suspended again for stomping on a guy with his skate. Now out of hockey.
Joe Sacco - remember those players I didn't mention above, who eventually became Islanders after being drafted after Dean Chynoweth in 1987? Joe was one of them, but he gets mentioned anyway, because while on the Island, he put up one of the most confounding statlines in league history: in 73 games in 1998-99, he scored three lonely goals with zero assists - zero as in nil, zip, none, bubkes. Nobody deflected one of his shots in, or scored on one of his rebounds, or even had a fluke shot off his rump and into the net, much less converted an actual pass. It's astonishing. He wasn't a brawler, either. One would think that even in just ten minutes played per game, you could get an assist just by accident, at least once. I mean, even Mick Vukota never went an entire year without an assist, and he took 250 penalty minutes a year.
Scott Scissons - it seems odd to hate on a guy who played all of two NHL games, and scored no points. Wonder no more. He was taken sixth overall in 1990's entry draft. Eighty-seven different players taken in that draft had points in the NHL, including eight goaltenders. If that's not enough, one of those goalies is still playing in the area: you may have heard of him, fellow by the name of Brodeur, the NHL's all-time wins and shutouts leader in the regular season. Scott *($$!?%^* Scissons, people!
Dishonorables: I'll take nominations from the audience here. I just can't go on. Scott Scissons....
GM: Mike Milbury - the easy choice. He was the engineer of so many disastrous moments during his inexplicably long stay in the organization. Tops was trading Roberto Luongo and Olli Jokinen to Florida for Oleg Kvasha and Mark Parrish: that's one of the five best goalies in the league and a perennial 30-goal scorer (if a touch of a headcase) for one of the other guys on this list and hard-working yet clearly secondary scorer. Then there's Spezza/Chara for Yashin, the constant coaching changes, exiling young talent before it could develop, whiffing on top draft choices... to say nothing of the already-mentioned arbitration hearing where he savaged his own starting goalkeeper. It was a comedy of terrors with Mad Mike at the helm. O to put it another way - searching his name returns his wikipage as the top result, and a blog called "Mike Milbury Sucks" as the second. The third is his current job as an analyst on NBC and CBC. The fourth is "Mike Milbury's Bad Deals."
Dishonorable: Don Maloney - the former Ranger played a bit for the Isles before moving up to the front office in 1992. He came into a team with a lot of offensive talent (four 30-goal scorers) and a reasonable defense (Norton, Kurvers, Krupp, Malakhov, Pilon, Kasparaitis), and they shocked the two-time champion Penguins in the conference semifinals in 1993. He didn't feel like they could get any farther without better goalkeeping, though. He brought in Hextall. That, as we have seen, didn't work out so hot, so he panicked and sent Hextall right back to Philadelphia... for Soderstrom. Later that very season, he bundled Pierre Turgeon and Vladimir Malakhov to Montreal in the infamous Kirk Muller deal. That was pretty much all she wrote.
Muller was eventually dealt for Ken Freakin' Belanger, straight up. Schnieder is STILL playing, but was long dealt away: the Isles got Kenny Jonsson for him, which was nice, and the first-round pick that was part of that deal became... well whodathunk it? Roberto Luongo, who was part of Mad Mike's finest moment as GM of the Florida Panthers. Oh, wait... he was our GM, wasn't he?
:::facepalm:::
So just three degrees of separation for the two worst trades in the history of the franchise (Turgeon/Malakhov for Muller/Schneider and Luongo/Jokinen for Kvasha/Parrish). Shocka. We'd better not be out of beer...
Trivia - Maloney and I were born on the same date, but not the same year. We also share a birthday with Jesse James. I am the only one of us not to kill a person or a franchise.
Super Bowl quick hits
So this is what the feminazis were wetting themselves over?
I knew the Saints had this when they went onside to start the second half and got the ball. That took kugeln.
The Saints became the first team to lose to the Buccaneers and win the Super Bowl in the same season.
Does Sean Payton look like country singer Kenny Chesney?
Confession: Thirty years ago I owned a Tshirt that said, "I'd Walk Over You To See The Who".
additions from the 'fly - True story: at the end of the first quarter I asked everyone at our Super Bowl bash, "What are the odds that they blow this lead the way the Broncos coughed it up against the Redskins?"
I thought the goal-line stand would be the key sequence in the game. Instead the key sequence came when the Saints held the Colts to three-and-out, forced the punt, and kicked the field goal at the end of the half. Had they kicked the short field goal instead, they would have been giving the Colts the ball back at the 25 or so with two timeouts and 1:35 or so on the clock - in other words, they may have been looking at 17-6 instead of 10-6 at the half. And then with the onside kick they were saying pretty clearly that they weren't rolling over in awe of Indy.
Halftime - Is it really that hard to get a current act to do this? Was Jimi Hendrix too dead to return their calls? The Who were doing farewell tours back when the NFL had TWO franchises in Los Angeles. Sure, the music sounded all right, but when you've got a full backing band of young folks you don't need Townsend to do all that much - except hit the notes during his measly three lines in Baba O'Reilly. Couldn't even do that. And of course Daltry didn't even try to go above middle C, if that. It was pretty rough. At this point I'd rather see Doctor Who do the halftime show, at least they get a new one of him every five years.
Pick Six! And the best part of it was the return of the Classic Manning Face. It's amazing. None of us doubted for a second that the Colts were tying the game: that's how clutch Peyton's been since finally defeating the Patriots in the playoffs in 2005. That INT may have been the worst pass he's thrown in five years. Are we sure that Brett Favre didn't sneak onto the field in a Manning jersey for that play? Manning was bright red - it was like he'd gone to Miami Beach at halftime and gotten sunburned. Incredible turn of events.
Huge party on Bourbon Street after the final gun. I wonder if they even knew the score, or if they'd just been partying since Thursday.
Overall, one of the better games, especially after the early deficit where it looked as if New Orleans had started Mardi Gras early. Things really picked up after that.
I knew the Saints had this when they went onside to start the second half and got the ball. That took kugeln.
The Saints became the first team to lose to the Buccaneers and win the Super Bowl in the same season.
Does Sean Payton look like country singer Kenny Chesney?
Confession: Thirty years ago I owned a Tshirt that said, "I'd Walk Over You To See The Who".
additions from the 'fly - True story: at the end of the first quarter I asked everyone at our Super Bowl bash, "What are the odds that they blow this lead the way the Broncos coughed it up against the Redskins?"
I thought the goal-line stand would be the key sequence in the game. Instead the key sequence came when the Saints held the Colts to three-and-out, forced the punt, and kicked the field goal at the end of the half. Had they kicked the short field goal instead, they would have been giving the Colts the ball back at the 25 or so with two timeouts and 1:35 or so on the clock - in other words, they may have been looking at 17-6 instead of 10-6 at the half. And then with the onside kick they were saying pretty clearly that they weren't rolling over in awe of Indy.
Halftime - Is it really that hard to get a current act to do this? Was Jimi Hendrix too dead to return their calls? The Who were doing farewell tours back when the NFL had TWO franchises in Los Angeles. Sure, the music sounded all right, but when you've got a full backing band of young folks you don't need Townsend to do all that much - except hit the notes during his measly three lines in Baba O'Reilly. Couldn't even do that. And of course Daltry didn't even try to go above middle C, if that. It was pretty rough. At this point I'd rather see Doctor Who do the halftime show, at least they get a new one of him every five years.
Pick Six! And the best part of it was the return of the Classic Manning Face. It's amazing. None of us doubted for a second that the Colts were tying the game: that's how clutch Peyton's been since finally defeating the Patriots in the playoffs in 2005. That INT may have been the worst pass he's thrown in five years. Are we sure that Brett Favre didn't sneak onto the field in a Manning jersey for that play? Manning was bright red - it was like he'd gone to Miami Beach at halftime and gotten sunburned. Incredible turn of events.
Huge party on Bourbon Street after the final gun. I wonder if they even knew the score, or if they'd just been partying since Thursday.
Overall, one of the better games, especially after the early deficit where it looked as if New Orleans had started Mardi Gras early. Things really picked up after that.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Is this why you're a Giants fan, Fly?
Before Tim Tebow, there were these guys.
This is really over the top. Gloria Steinem would burst a blood vessel if she saw this.
This is really over the top. Gloria Steinem would burst a blood vessel if she saw this.
An observation
Reading is fundamental, until your sinuses back up like like a freeway at rush hour. Turns out that breathing is fundamental.
update and bump: this just keeps getting worse. Crapola. I just had a huge doctory thing last week, what with the bloodwork and the general checking-up and flaaaaaayvin. I feel smooshed. This is going to be quite fun: I'm going back later today for a follow-up to discuss some of the results. I'm sure they'll wonder what I did in the past week to turn myself into a phlegm-filled zombie. When they checked me out they told me I was perfectly fit; now this? Did they replace my blood with used motor oil or something?
update and bump: this just keeps getting worse. Crapola. I just had a huge doctory thing last week, what with the bloodwork and the general checking-up and flaaaaaayvin. I feel smooshed. This is going to be quite fun: I'm going back later today for a follow-up to discuss some of the results. I'm sure they'll wonder what I did in the past week to turn myself into a phlegm-filled zombie. When they checked me out they told me I was perfectly fit; now this? Did they replace my blood with used motor oil or something?
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Does this guy realize...
...that he's in the Republican primary?
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that illegal immigrants should not count in the census, a position that would cost the state federal money and one that puts him at odds with Gov. Charlie Crist — his primary opponent — as well as the Republican-controlled legislature.
Rubio’s spokesman told the paper that his position was based on “rightful representation in Congress and ensuring that every voter has an equal voice.”
Today, Crist, trailing Rubio in recent polls, called the former state House speaker’s position “absurd.”
“Florida deserves to have her fair share. And I think making sure that we count every single Floridian is vitally important. That’s why I went to the school yesterday in North Miami,” Crist said.
Pork and illegals, that's a winning issue in a GOP primary. Well, Charlie's got $7.5 million in the bank so maybe he cn spend his way to victory.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that illegal immigrants should not count in the census, a position that would cost the state federal money and one that puts him at odds with Gov. Charlie Crist — his primary opponent — as well as the Republican-controlled legislature.
Rubio’s spokesman told the paper that his position was based on “rightful representation in Congress and ensuring that every voter has an equal voice.”
Today, Crist, trailing Rubio in recent polls, called the former state House speaker’s position “absurd.”
“Florida deserves to have her fair share. And I think making sure that we count every single Floridian is vitally important. That’s why I went to the school yesterday in North Miami,” Crist said.
Pork and illegals, that's a winning issue in a GOP primary. Well, Charlie's got $7.5 million in the bank so maybe he cn spend his way to victory.
I need to hustle
I'm only halfway through Season 8 of Stargate SG-1, with 9 and 10 to go.
Hulu has always been free, but there’s long been speculation that would change. Now the L.A. Times is reporting that in six months Hulu may introduce a $4.99 per month subscription option that would give viewers access to TV show episodes beyond the five most recent already offered.
With broadband I do more TV watching on the PC than on a TV.
Hulu has always been free, but there’s long been speculation that would change. Now the L.A. Times is reporting that in six months Hulu may introduce a $4.99 per month subscription option that would give viewers access to TV show episodes beyond the five most recent already offered.
With broadband I do more TV watching on the PC than on a TV.
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
I'm loving it
Rubio has double digits over Good-Time Charlie.
According to a new Rasmussen telephone poll among likely Florida GOP primary voters, former state Speaker Marco Rubio now has a double-digit lead over Gov. Charlie Crist in the race to be the Republican nominee for the open Florida Senate seat. Rubio now leads 49% to Crist's 37%, with 11 % undecided. Both have a double-digit lead over likely general election opponent, Democratic Congressman Kendrick Meek.
It's not Crist's moderation that honks people off, it's the fact that he has no core principles at all. He is all things to all people so that he might get votes. Name the issue and Charlie has two, maybe three recorded positions on it.
It was his devotion to the polls that started his downfall. Rubio is having a "moneybomb" internet fundraising drive on Feb 10, the anniversary of Charlie and Barack's manhug last year in Ft. Myers.
On Thursday Crist met Obama at MacDill and then disappeared. If the president's approval rating was still 80% Charlie would have been on the stage in Tampa next to him licking Obama's ear.
I am registered independent in Florida. I may register as a Republican just to vote for Rubio.
According to a new Rasmussen telephone poll among likely Florida GOP primary voters, former state Speaker Marco Rubio now has a double-digit lead over Gov. Charlie Crist in the race to be the Republican nominee for the open Florida Senate seat. Rubio now leads 49% to Crist's 37%, with 11 % undecided. Both have a double-digit lead over likely general election opponent, Democratic Congressman Kendrick Meek.
It's not Crist's moderation that honks people off, it's the fact that he has no core principles at all. He is all things to all people so that he might get votes. Name the issue and Charlie has two, maybe three recorded positions on it.
It was his devotion to the polls that started his downfall. Rubio is having a "moneybomb" internet fundraising drive on Feb 10, the anniversary of Charlie and Barack's manhug last year in Ft. Myers.
On Thursday Crist met Obama at MacDill and then disappeared. If the president's approval rating was still 80% Charlie would have been on the stage in Tampa next to him licking Obama's ear.
I am registered independent in Florida. I may register as a Republican just to vote for Rubio.
Now this is progress...
The fortunate lady is Pam Iorio, the mayor of Tampa and the scene is MacDill AFB on Thursday.
Am I over the top with these comments? I may be watching too many clips from the racebaiters at MSNBC, but if there is another pic of the president bowing to a Caucasian I haven't seen it.
(nf - you are perhaps a touch intemperate. Don't let them drag you down to their level, my friend.)
(nf - you are perhaps a touch intemperate. Don't let them drag you down to their level, my friend.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)