What Democratic Elections?

It is becoming very clear that the presidential "elections" in Egypt will be nothing more than a sham. Via the New York Times:

Wielding bamboo batons and small leaded clubs, Egyptian security agents attacked and beat protesters on Saturday as they tried to rally in the central Tahrir Square here, chanting slogans calling for the end of Hosni Mubarak's 24-year-reign as president.

A contingent of several thousand black-uniformed riot police officers, with shields and batons, together with squads of plainclothes agents, each armed with a blackjack, cornered small groups of protesters and then beat them, often tearing their clothing, as commanding officers, with stars on their shoulders, shouted for the beatings to continue.

The crackdown on the protesters came just two days after Mr. Mubarak pledged his support for democracy and increased freedoms in a speech announcing his plans to seek a fifth term as president. Elections are scheduled for September.

Two leaders of the opposition movement known as Kefaya, or Enough, were among those arrested, but were later released. Police officers at the scene would not comment on how many people had been taken into custody. By late Saturday evening, about 300 protesters had gathered in front of the building that houses Egypt's journalists union and said they would demonstrate until those arrested were released.

I think it's time we start sending them foreign aid checks with a few less zeros in them until they learn that during democratic elections, non-violent protests are generally a good thing and don't require the police to beat the crap out of the protesters.

Oh Jesse Jackson...

...is there anything you won't do to get your name in paper or your face on TV?

Good Riddance

The Uzbekistan government has ordered the U.S. to leave the Karshi-Khanabad Air Base in Uzbekistan within 180 days. While the airbase has been an important hub in the U.S.'s efforts in Afghanistan, I do not think that it will seriously weaken the military's ability to root out the Taliban and other insurgents as they will be able to use bases in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. In fact, this development makes President Bush look really good. Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov has bristled at calls from various U.S. government officials for an international investigation into the Andijan protests where at least 500 people were killed by Uzbek government troops. Karimov has also bristled at U.S. efforts to keep 439 Uzbek political refugees from being forced to returned to Uzbekistan where if they returned to Uzbekistan, they would likely be tortured and killed. These developments in Uzbekistan show that autocratic rulers like Karimov are becoming fearful of U.S. efforts to make their country more free and consequently, cutting into their power. Karimov realizes that President Bush is willing is back his rhetoric with action (though not as often as I would want, as evident in Egypt). The U.S. can't let up now on Uzbekistan and should be more than willing to withhold much of the $22 million in aid due to Uzbekistan.

A Major Problem with the Current Supreme Court

Michael Barone eloquently writes at Powerline about one of my chief annoyances with the Supreme Court right now:

...Try reading the opinions in most important cases today, and you need to set aside several hours and start by making a flow chart of which justices agreed with which sections of the majority (or plurality) opinion and with which sections of the separate dissents or concurring opinions. Supreme Court jurisprudence has become unfollowable even for intelligent, interested citizens. Almost no one goes through this exercise except law professors, law review editors and members of the bar who are paid upward of $500 an hour for doing so.

I could not agree more. I consider myself a pretty educated guy, and I like to read Supreme Court opinions, but when I try to read opinions written in the last ten to fifteen years, it gives me a headache. It seems like there are always at least 2 or 3 concurring opinions and each concurring opinion begins something like this: Concurs with Part I, III, IV; Dissents with Part II, V, VI. Not only does this over-parsing of issues make opinions difficult to read, it also fails to concretely settle constitutional questions that the Court is suppose to be answering.

Tom Cruise...

...puts his craziness to good use for once. (Via: In the Agora)

Trade Winds

With MLB trading deadline just a week away and my beloved White Sox looking poised to play deep into October, this is a very exciting time as I dream about all the big trades the Sox can make. I find myself constantly checking all the sports websites to see if the White Sox made a deal. The name being talked about the most in Chicago is Marlins starting pitcher A.J. Burnett who throws consistently in the mid to upper 90s along with a filthy curveball. The Chicago Tribune reported today that the Sox are in "serious discussions" about a trade that would send left-hander reliever Damaso Marte and top pitching prospect Brandon McCarthy to the Marlins for Burnett. How close the White Sox and Marlins are is unclear. It does appear that Sox would only agree to this trade if they can sign Burnett, who is a free agent after the season to a long-term deal, as Kenny Williams has said he will not trade top prospects for a "60-day rent-a-player". That could ultimately derail any potential trade between the Marlins and Sox as one source told the Chicago Tribune that Burnett will not sign a long-term with the Sox. So if the Sox can pull off this trade and get Burnett to sign to long-term deal (which appears to be an iffy proposition right now), is it a good trade for the Sox? The short answer is no.

There is no question that Burnett has great stuff and would an upgrade over Jose Contreras. However, the Sox would be giving up way too much in this deal. The sticking point for me is giving up Marte. While Marte has been inconsistent at times this season, the Sox are going to need Marte if they want to go deep into the playoffs. Playoff games are not only won with great starting pitching, but with also great relief pitching. One of the reasons the Yankees were so successful in the late 90s was that they had an outstanding bullpen. If the Sox were to trade Marte that would leave the Sox with three reliable relievers: Neal Cotts, Cliff Polite and Dustin Hermanson. The Sox might be able to get away with just three reliable relievers if Burnett was a sure-thing, but he's not. In fact, if Sox were to acquire Burnett, they would basically have their version of Kerry Wood minus the constant shoulder problems and a little better control. While Burnett throws really hard and strikes a lot of hitters out, he is just a .500 pitcher in his career(43-43 after beating the Giants today) and has never won more than more than 12 games in season. While I think that Burnett would handle post-season pressure a lot better than Contreras who seems to shutter at the thought of pressure based his not-so-stellar years with the Yankees, it is unclear what the Sox would get from Burnett in the playoffs. He could very easily go out pitch 8 shut-out innings and strike out 12. He could very easily pitch 3 innings and give up 7 runs and 12 hits. If the Sox are going to trade a quality left-handed reliever, they better get a guy who you are very confident could pitch deep into games come playoff time.

In order for this to be a good trade for the Sox, they need to trade Contreras instead of Marte. The Marlins have allegedly long-coveted Contreras and ESPN's Buster Olney reported yesterday that the Sox were offering Contreras and McCarthy for Burnett. It's not clear what the Marlins thought of the proposal. Yes, Burnett is inconsistent, but he is a lot less inconsistent than Contreras. Contreras has never had a season with an ERA under 4 whereas Burnett has had an ERA under 4 three of the last four years and the one year he did not, he blew out his elbow in April. I have a lot more confidence that Burnett could shutdown the Yankees or the Red Sox or the Angels or the A's than Contreras. The thought of Contreras starting in the playoffs scares the hell out of me. Not to mention by trading Contreras, it would free up some money to sign Burnett, though I would not include McCarthy in the trade unless they sign Burnett to an extension. Sox GM Kenny Williams faces some difficult choices over the next seven days, and based on the successful wheeling and dealing he has done the last two years, I'm confident that if a trade goes down, it will help the Sox more than hurt them.

Villains in Notre Dame Football History

During the 100 plus years of Notre Dame football, it has not always been rainbows and sunshine. Blue-Gray Sky takes a look at on some of the antagonists in Notre Dame football history.

I'm Going to Stop Making Predictions

It's looks like the prediction I made a few weeks ago of a long and vicious partisan fight over a John Roberts Supreme Court nomination is going to be completely wrong.

Supreme Court Nominee Update

It's John G. Roberts. Since I know little about him, I'm going to take a wait and see approach before I have an opinion on him, but I am for now, standing by my previous prediction on how the Senate will react to his nomination.

InstaPundit Round-Up

InstaPundit is probably my favorite blog and it has several interesting links to some stories I would like to touch upon.

First, much has been made in MSM about Bush "raising the threshold" in whether he will fire any aide involved in leak of Valerie Plame when he said yesterday, "If somebody committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration." (see the AP report here and the Washington Post story here). Many in the MSM seem to believe that Bush is going back on his pledge to fire anyone involved in the leak of Valerie Plame even if the leak was not a crime. However, as I explained last week and Tom Maguire explained yesterday, Bush has only pledged to fire the leakers if the leak was criminal. Someone might want to explain that to the MSM before they run another breathless page one story on this so-called scandal.

Second, Morgan Spurlock, who is trying to become the next Michael Moore, with his movie Super-Size Me, his book Don't Eat This Book and his new TV show 30 Days. While Spurlock has enjoyed some success with all three projects, he seems to have the same problem that Moore has in his movies and books, which is getting his facts right.

Finally, I will end this post with my third installment of the Overblown Political Rhetoric of the Week. While the first two winners, Eleanor Norton Holmes and Dick Durbin have been both Democrats, it was only a matter of time before a Republican said something really, really dumb. Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo said the following during a radio interview in Florida when asked what the U.S. should do if terrorists use nuclear weapons against civilians on U.S. soil:

"Well, what if you said something like -- if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites."

"You're talking about bombing Mecca," Campbell [the radio host] said.

"Yeah," Tancredo responded.

Huh? So using Tancredo's logic, if I get mugged by some red-headed Irishman, I might want to think about desecrating a Catholic Church. If you want every single Muslim in the world to hate you and not just a few hundred thousand radicals spread out throughout the world, then you bomb Mecca. The U.S. has to be tough in the war on terror and be more than willing to use military force against terrorists, but the U.S. can't be stupid about it. If terrorists were to attack the U.S. again, then the U.S. should attack military targets in response, not something like Mecca which to my knowledge has little military value. If Rep. Tancredo has any sense what so ever, he will apologize for these comments immediately.

The Real-Life Peter Griffin

In a word: Hilarious! (via: AllDumb.com)

Update: Apparently somebody has been spending a lot of time with Photoshop because the man pictured above is not Peter Griffin, but rather Justin Blair Spaeth. Weird.

Dumb Dumb Dumb

While I read my fair share of dumb columns, Susan Estrich's column (via the Drudge Report) on how John McCain's cameo role in the R-rated movie Wedding Crashers may hurt his chances to get the Republican nomination in 2008 has to be one of the most idiotic columns I've read in a long time.

Quick Hit on Tom Cruise

With the recent bizarre behavior of Tom Cruise, the religion of Scientology has come under the spotlight and the picture is none-too-pretty, as Slate's Michael Crowley explains.

Crime and Punishment

Today I came across two stories that both had me saying to myself, "What the hell was that guy thinking?"

A 27-year-old man offered $25 to a player on his TEE-BALL TEAM to hit an 8-year-old boy on his own team, whose apparent sin was that he was not a good baseball player and the coach was looking for a way to not play the 8-year-old. The player, not knowing any better, hit the 8-year-old boy near his left ear and in the groin area. The 8-year-old boy was of course unable to play. The police found about this incident after the 8-year-old's mother confronted the boy and subsequently told her about the payment offer. The coach, Mark Reed Downs Jr., was arrested and charged with criminal solicitation to commit aggravated assault, corruption of minors and reckless endangerment.

I have heard and seen some crazy baseball dads in my many years of playing and umpiring baseball games, but this so far beyond anything I've seen or heard that words cannot describe my disbelief. Whatever the maximum sentence for his charges is, he should get it. Hell if it were 1798 as opposed to 2005, I would have no problem with a public flogging in the town square.

Now on to the other story. I have read my fair share of ill-conceived criminal plots, but this takes the cake. A 60-year-old Georgia man, William Crutchfield, who was $90,000 in debt came up with a not-so-brilliant plan to get out of his debt. And no it did involve robbing a bank with a water pistol. No, instead, he decided he would shoot and kill his mailman, so he could get the government to pay for all his expenses while he served a life sentence in prison. Luckily for the mailman, Crutchfield, did not hit any vital organs when he shot him 7 times, however, the mailman, Earl Lazenby, suffered 29 holes in his colon and intestines and shattered bones in his arm.

While I have never spent a day in any kind of prison facility, I willing to bet that spending time in a federal prison is not like spending a few nights at the local Red Roof Inn. I hope he enjoys eating god-awful food, making sure he doesn't get raped or his ass kicked by his fellow inmates on a daily basis and being confined to a 9' by 9' space most of the day. You better be careful what you wish for, Mr. Crutchfield, you just might get it.

Quick Round-Up of Thoughts on Notre Dame football

Since I just found out late last night that I won tickets to the home opener of the Charlie Weis era, I thought I would link a couple good posts from the my favorite ND blog, Blue-Gray Sky.

First, Notre Dame got it's 9th verbal commitment on Monday when Cleveland, Ohio native, Rob Parris, announced he will attend Notre Dame. Parris is a 6'4" receiver who runs a 4.55 40 and is ranked as the 27th best player in Ohio by the some of the recruiting services. Blue-Gray Sky fills us in on what led Parris to verbally commit to ND.

Second, Blue-Gray Sky has an excellent post on how Charlie Weis is trying to make the Patriot way the Notre Dame way.

Supreme Court Update

Rehnquist has released a statement stating that he is not retiring. I doubt this statement will stop the constant speculation that he will retire soon.

Blood in the Water

Democrats and the MSM have been hyperventilating over the past few days over the revelation that Karl Rove told Time reporter Matt Cooper that Joseph Wilson's wife (without specifically naming her) and not CIA Director George Tenet or VP Dick Cheney authorized Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger.

While this revelation along with evidence that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame was not a covert agent would suggest that Rove did not violate the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, the MSM senses a potential scandal, as they barraged White House Spokesman Scott McClellan yesterday with 35 some questions on Karl Rove in a terse 35 minute Q & A session.

One of the major themes in the questions was whether President Bush would uphold his pledge to fire those responsible for outing Valerie Plame. The MSM was not alone in echoing this theme as several prominent Democrats such as Sen. John Kerry, Sen. Harry Reid and Sen. Hillary Clinton suggested that the President uphold his pledge and urged him to fire Rove. Unfortunately for the MSM and the Democrats, President Bush made no such promise. President Bush said back in September of 2003:

If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is and if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of.

To me that sounds like if someone violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, they would not be above the law and be prosecuted and obviously be fired. It does not sound like President Bush would fire a person in his administration for a non-criminal leak related to the outing of Valerie Plame. Unless someone can point to some other direct quite from President Bush, I'm not sure where the Democrats and the MSM got the idea that President Bush made a promise to fire the leaker, even if the leak was not a criminal action.

Another major theme in yesterday's grilling was whether McClellan lied when he said in the fall of 2003 that he spoke to Rove and Rove told him that he had nothing to do with the outing of Valerie Plame. While I don't believe McClellan lied where he made that statement in the fall of 2003, he did mislead the media with the statement. Rove may not have engaged in a criminal action in his conversation with Matt Cooper, which is probably what McClellan viewed question as being asked of him (unfortunately I do not know what the exact wording of the question that prompted McClellan's response), but Rove did have something to do with the leak when he told Cooper that Wilson's wife authorized Wilson's trip to Niger. But again Rove likely did nothing wrong in disclosing what he did to Cooper

In fact, it appears Rove was only attempting to accurately rebut the lies Wilson wrote in his New York Times editorial. Despite the lack of a scandal here, there will continue to be pleas from the Democrats for Rove's firing or resignation and MSM outlets like the New York Times will continue to run breathless headlines like this: White House Silence on Rove's Role in Leak Enters 2nd Day.

Tragedy in London

At least 37 people are dead and over 700 have been wounded in a series of three bombings in London's subway and a bombing of a double decker bus in London. The Secret Organization of al Qaeda in Europe claimed responsibility for the bombings, although it can be confirmed that they are responsible for the attacks. My thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of the victims of these barbaric attacks. I hope the murderous thugs responsible for these attacks are quickly brought to justice.

Most of the British politicians are showing a steel resolve in responding to the bombings, most notably, London's mayor, Ken Livingstone, who said the following today:

I want to say one thing, specifically to the world today - this was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful, it was not aimed at presidents or prime ministers, it was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian ... young and old ... that isn't an ideology, it isn't even a perverted fate, it is an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder. They seek to divide London, they seek Londoners to turn against each other ... this city of London is the greatest in the world because everybody lives side by side in harmony. Londoners will not be divided by this cowardly attack.

Amen brother. Unfortunately, not all of the British politicians are showing the resolve of Ken Livingstone, and surprise, surprise, it's far left British parliamentary member and UN Oil for Food beneficiary, George Galloway, who said that Britain had it coming:

We argued, as did the security services in this country, that the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq would increase the threat of terrorist attack in Britain. Tragically Londoners have now paid the price of the Government ignoring such warnings.

I'm sure those words will be very comforting to those who lost loved ones today.

There is a lot more to this story and Project Nothing has a massive round-up.

Multiple Hat tips: Instapundit

Jeff Brantley Owes an Apology and A Look Ahead to the Post-Season

Back on April 23rd, I took ESPN commentator, Jeff Brantley to task for his comment, "I don't care how hot of a start the Sox get off to, they will not make the playoffs." Well it looks like Brantley might want to revise that prediction. After 83 games, the White Sox are 57-26 and are 10.5 games in front of the Minnesota Twins. The Sox could go 39-41 the rest of the way and would still win 96 games, meaning barring some unforeseen collapse, the Sox will be in the playoffs. However, that probably will not stop Brantley from saying for the 1,345th time that Ozzie made a terrible move to not put Dustin Hermanson in when the Sox played the Angels on Memorial Day.

So with the Sox on their way to the playoffs, the question becomes is this team good enough to make it to the World Series? Sadly the answer is no. What will hold back this team from making it to the World Series is not their hitting even though they are currently 12th in the AL in batting average, 11th in the AL in on-base percentage and 6th in the AL in runs scored. In fact, offensively, this team is built to win in October with its ability to manufacture runs through walks, stolen bases and sacrifice flies and bunts. When a team, like the Sox, is near the bottom in hitting and on-base percentage, but middle of the pack in scoring runs, it means they do an exceptional job of taking advantage of the getting in the few baserunners they do put on. No, what will hold this team back in October is their starting pitching. This might seem surprising considering Freddy Garcia is 8-3, Mark Burehle is 10-2 and Jon Garland is 13-3 and all three of these pitchers have an ERA below 3.50. But consider this, of those three pitchers, only Freddy Garcia is playoff tested. Not to mention, Jon Garland has only shown inconsistency until this year. In addition, after Garcia, Burehle and Garland, the Sox's starting staff starts to get really iffy. Jose Contreras makes fans itchy with his inability to consistently throw strikes and who knows if Orlando Hernandez is going to be healthy when October comes around. Thus, the Sox must add a starting arm if they have dreams of playing deep into October.

So who might be available for the Sox? The most talked about name has been the Giants Jason Schmidt, but it appears that the Giants want quite a bit in return (at least 2 major league ready players plus a top prospect) and it does not appear that his pitching shoulder is 100% as he currently sports a 5.11 ERA. Another talked about name is Roger Clemens, who is having a phenomenal year for the Astros, but it appears unlikely the Astros will deal him even if they fall out of contention. One name that is certainly on the trading block, especially after his recent run-in with media is Kenny Rogers. While Rogers is on this year's AL All-Star team, I have serious doubts that his self-centered and volatile personality would fit in well with the team concept of the Sox.

One name that has not been discussed much in any trade rumors, but Kenny Williams may want to inquire about is Barry Zito. Zito may be a difficult one to pry away as he the last remaining member of Oakland's Big Three. Oakland GM Billy Beane will certainly ask a lot in return. However with the A's looking like a team that is a year or two away from contending, I believe Zito can be had. Zito has been one of the better left-handers in AL for the past five or so seasons and he has pitched effectively in the post-season (though no LCS or World Series experience). Kenny Williams should not be afraid to deal a prized prospect like Ryan Sweeney or Josh Fields in order to acquire Zito.

As we get closer to the July 31st trading deadline, more pitchers could become available as more teams fall out of contention. Kenny Williams is one of the most aggressive GMs around and cannot get tentative here and maintain the status quo. If Williams does not acquire another arm, I fear the Sox could have the same fate as the 2001 Mariners who won 116 games and did not make it out of the ALCS.

Reason Number 278 Why Boston College Sucks

Apparently the BC basketball team is taking lessons in off the field behavior from FSU's football team.

Hat tip: Sports Guy Intern

Never Gets Old

I always enjoy when the French get screwed over.

Happy Independence Day!

While kicking back and enjoying some burgers, beers and fireworks, let us not forget the words that our Founders wrote 229 years ago (Thanks to Daily Contentions for the link):

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Let us also not forget the sacrifices that our armed forces have made and continue to make to protect these unalienable rights.

Doesn't Congress Have Better Things to Do?

Congress continued its fascination with the District of Columbia's gun laws with the House of Representatives passing an amendment in a federal subsidy bill for DC that will allow DC residents to carry loaded pre-1976 handguns and rifles in their homes. As I stated in an earlier post, I do not support DC's ban on handguns, but any change in DC's gun laws should come from the DC government and not the federal government. Now I've seen the argument that Congress should be actively trying to repeal DC's gun laws because DC's gun laws violate the Second Amendment. If that is what Congress's true intention is, then why don't they introduce a bill than bans states and local governments from enforcing bans on handguns. DC is not the only local government with strict gun laws. The City of Chicago bans handguns. Why doesn't Congress prevent Chicago from enforcing a ban on handguns if they are so concerned about upholding the Second Amendment. This is just another example of Congress's increasing desire to further reduce federalism and act as a superlegislature.

O'Connor Retires

Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement yesterday, effective when a successor has been confirmed. While her retirement was somewhat expected, it was thought that Rehnquist would retire first. So now that there is an opening on the Court, who will be the next Supreme Court Justice? I frankly have no clue, but I will make this prediction: If President Bush nominates Alberto Gonzales, he will be confirmed within two months of his nomination. If President Bush nominates John Roberts or J. Michael Luttig or Samuel Alito, who were seen as the leading contenders to be nominated if Rehnquist stepped down, then the confirmation fight will drag well into the fall with a 50-50 chance that one of these three guys gets actually confirmed. I would also be shocked if Bush nominates Priscilla Owens or Janice Rodgers Brown even though they have strong conservative credentials and are women because they barely survived the nomination process to the U.S. Court of Appeals, and the scrutiny is exponential more intense on Supreme Court nominees than Court of Appeals nominees. What ever happens, there will be a heaping helping of over-the-top political rhetoric from both sides of the aisle. Heck, I expect to hear a few Hitler analogies. Should be a fun summer.