CapeCodToday Blog Chowder

O'B,

I agree the candidates are moving to the center. They're following the nation, as evident both by the results of the '06 election and the pending GOP nomination of John McCain. That puts almost all of conservative talk radio out of business, even though they deliciously don't know it yet. I want to be around when they find out.

The bad part is the command of superdelegates. The good arises with the fact that Ann Coulter and Rush will fade away to irrelvance.

Tim

I see your point, Greg. You're looking beyond 2008. That makes sense. The superdelegates could end up being the ultimate king (or queen) makers in 2012 or 2016, in spite of what we say. It's just too risky to leave the election in the hands of us the electorate. I mean, it's impossible that we could do the right thing.

By the way, that was rather funny with Mike Huckabee on SNL finally (and jokingly) realizing that the GOP didn't have superdelegates. "That changes everything," he said. Thank God the writers' strike is over.

Tim

O'B...Thanks for addressing the superdelegates, which can almost be described as superdelegate-gate. I've heard pundits talk of the situation, largely in passing, as if to merely accept them as the status quo. Fortunately, the superdelegates may just get it right by following the stronger candidate, similar to two teams of 7 year olds chasing the soccer ball.

Equally disconcerting to me is the disenfranchisement of Democrats of Michigan and Florida, simply because their party leaders did not toe the national party line. I'm not saying that as if I were a Hillary supporter (which I'm not). I'm saying it because it's not only wrong, but it's foolish, especially in The Sunshine State. Talk about a desperately hanging chad.

I'm sorry to hear of your family's loss and challenges. You are in my prayers.

Tim

Good to hear from you again, Greg. I hope you and your family are doing well.

Just another example of the US of A shooting from the hip. There's not even a warhead attached to the missile. It's purely kinetic energy breaking up the Sky Boondoggle, unless they really 'cowboy up' and pack the payload cabin full of Viagra.

However, with regard to the return of Skylab in 1979 and how that story turned out, we're safe. Two will get you three that no high school's football field will see or feel anything.

Tim

Thanks for the post, O'B. It's a good wrap-up of the decade's events.

Poorly reflecting on George W. Bush, the all-too-obvious common thread yesterday was change, albeit in each candidate's styles:

Huck: change in a bibical sense.
Hillary: experienced change.
Barack: inexperienced change.
John Edwards: change for the disenfranchised, which of course has not a snowball's chance in South Carolina.
Mitt: back-to-the-future Reaganistic change.
John McCain: no-change change.

It's different in 2008. Time was that change back from your cup of coffee actually jingled.

Tim

Greg,

I'd like to have a dollar for each time I've been in a conversation with a cell phone user and experienced the interruption as a result of one of his or her calls. I'm with you on this one. 'Can't it wait?' is my silent reply, silent because I am outnumbered by the army of Crackberry users who simply can't let the call roll to voice mail. Such is life in the 21st century.

As with all of your faithful readers, you and your family are in our thoughts and prayers.

Tim

O'B...thank you for following West Virginia football and for your kind comments. However, you posted an hour and a half before we played our worst home game in years, losing to a 4-7 team who just so happened to be our arch-rival Pittsburgh. That knocked us out of the national championship game. Think Red Sox and the Yankees pre-2004. Or, 1986. There. You have the feeling.

I've written my opinions of why it happened on hailwva.blogspot.com.

Recovering,

Tim

That's right, Monponsett. If NE wins the Super Bowl, that will go along with the Miami Heat's NBA title and give DuPont High School a Randy Moss/Jason Williams double world championship. Amazing, for a school in Belle WV just down the street from a chemical plant.

Tim

I'm late weighing on this one, O'B, but you speak well of what has to be done. Winning is an attitude. As well, when the Pats are up big, they have the luxury to try some things under game-time conditions they may need someday in a closer contest. Treating the Redskins game as a practice scrimmage will work for them, and may have paid off during the Colts and the Ravens games. Now, playing starters when the game is at hand is a risk, but Tom Brady assumes an equal risk when he drives home.

We here in West Virginia know Randy Moss very well. He grew up just down the pike from my home. Randy has been a head case, but I think he's finally found his home and his sensibility.

Tim

On the mark, O'B. Good job. As you said, let the buyer beware. Speaking of packing it on, I've seen so many weight loss programs they're all running together into a blur. The Rotation Adkins South Beach Pineapple Bacon diet did the best for me. I was so confused, I lost my appetite. Now, you tell me to pack it on for longevity. Jeez Louise! When I get nervous, I crave M & Ms. Natural peanut, of course.

I wish you and your family a happy...and healthy...holiday season.

Tim

On point, O'B...what was Joe Torre supposed to do? Granted, there is some substance behind the sports' "what have you done for me lately?" mantra, but it is obvious George wanted Joe out. Serving as the skipper with that one-year incentive-loaded contract would not be fair to the players, which of course happen to be the biggest allies of Joe Torre. From what I've read about the situation, Joe cares about people and George wields the blunt instrument. I've watched The Bronx is Burning, and I remember 1977. The Son of Sam metaphor is not lost on me, with George continuously shooting himself in the foot. Maybe George wants another manager who erupts like Hale Akala, setting himself up to be hired and fired as he The Boss collects pennants and World Series rings, thinking all along it has been done his way, the right way. I realize New York and George are as provincial as we are down here in Almost Heaven, but the Yankees are ridiculous.

And, I haven't even started on the Knicks...I did like your comment about Isaiah Thomas and his coaching prospects.


Tim

I do not feel better off than I did six years ago. Sure, there have been no terrorist attacks on US soil, but we've squandered time failing to catch bin Laden without really trying *and* lost 4,100 soldiers who have died in vain because our leaders implemented a foreign policy disaster, leaving a gaping void in Iraq. And, it's going to get worse as more of our brave troops sacrifice their lives fighting against al-Qaida training camps that weren't there before we created the vacuum that now is indeed the ultimate threat to our homeland security.

The interjurisdiction communication of first responders is important, but it doesn't give me any comfort. Washington has spent entirely too much of its valuable equity ignoring the fact that the evil genius in Osama bin Laden is now plotting another September 11th. Terribly unfortunate, he has the numbers and the verve to make it work.

O'B...I agree with your boat ride home. No doubt about that. And, if Dub would only think (what?), he could see a chance to employ a great exit strategy here and save his butt in the meantime. "The war is not lost," he could say, "It has only changed. The war is now a political one of minds and ideas, not bullets and armored personnel vehicles. And, I have the soldiers with which to fight this new war."

What are the chances of that working? Better than bombs.

What are the chances of that happening? Sad to say, it's like drawing three cards looking for a straight.

Tim

O'B:

I apologize for not getting back to you in a more timely fashion. I haven't been on CCT for a while.

Your dad, and your family, are in my prayers. I've been a part of it before, albeit in a minor role. It's difficult.

The best to you and yours,

Tim

Happy 4th, O'B!

There is nothing left to say, except that I find it interesting and tragic that a man of Dub's wealth had not, upon his Electoral College victory, been outside the borders, with exception to Mexico. I think this has led to his provincial view of our role in the world, and could be one reason why our fellow space travelers don't trust us and why our kids are dying in Iraq.

Tim

O'B,

Wireless and wired, on your fifth java. I can only imagine the view and the serenity.

The heat is wicked down here in the South, even at 1,000, 1,500 ft elevation. The sun heats the trees on the hillsides, adding to the humidity. Small price to pay - it's a great place to live (long) and work (less).

Tim

Oh, I forgot to mention how much I enjoyed Neda's comments about Dub and his struggles with his second language...the first being Fratspeak.

Tim

Nice job, O'B.

I do feel sorry for Neda. She's living with her two countries at their absolute worst.

Tim

Thanks for writing this one, O'B.

You may recall a time when we in Appalachia burned coal in our power plants and pumped acid rain up to Cape Cod. Well, we dealt with that issue by "scrubbing" the sulfur dioxide out of the flue gas emitted by the combustion of the coal. It cost billions and billions of dollars, dollars that mysterously appeared when the solution became politically expedient.

Once again, we must get "the suits" to figure out that solving the problem of global warming is in their best interests. With enough money, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide filters can be developed and applied.

Tim

Thank you for writing this one, O'B. I do think that, unfortunately, some divorces are warranted, but too many are a result of conceding defeat.

In a time that implants are more often implanted and the six-packs have become the ideal (I have one under there somewhere...), my wife and I have made it through our twenty-seventh year...today. It's been sometimes blissful and too many times hard work, and there were a few months when we didn't think we were going to make it (my fault), but as with other "dull plodders," here we stand.

It is so deliciously interesting that on our first full day of marriage, May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helen's erupted. I guess all three of us have made it.

Tim

O'B...

This worker bee is counting the minutes to seventeen hundred hours, and I just opened up the blog site.

Good, funny analysis on the acolytes. What an exclusive religion it is, this church of the Friday afternoon high priests.

Great work, if you can get it.

On to other important things...I saw the back-to-back-to-back-to-back homers Sunday night. Count me in as a bandwagon jumper. I know that upsets Bill Simmons, but he'll adjust.

Tim

Good job, O'B...you know, the day I felt a lot better about executives' exorbitant check stubs was the day I realized the executive works exclusively for the shareholders of the company. The execs have bosses, too, and those bosses are mutual funds and pension funds, and especially hedge funds, that have become increasingly more vocal, getting more involved in actively managing the companies in which they have invested.

It is ironic that the employees, often big investors in their employer, have validated outlandish executive paydays and have therefore picked their poison. And, sadly to say, it's whatever the market will bear.

Jeez Louise. I sound like Reaganomics.

But, this next statement is not GOP, and it is in my opinion the essence of your piece: if this were a fair world, there would be true merit pay, and first responders, teachers, doctors, and researchers wouldn't know what to do with all their millions.

Thank you,
Tim

O'B and all...from everyone here in the beautiful, idyllic mountains known as the Virginias highlands, we thank you for your prayers and thoughts. Too many people, including you on Cape Cod, were touched by this massacre; parents with children in college anywhere had to stop and think. And, when it's that, and for us just "down the pike," well, that's way too close.

Blacksburg is a bucolic land in God's hands. It's one of the most peaceful places in the East. On Monday, my first thought was, "How can that happen there?" However, a lot of questions will go unanswered.

Virginia Tech is a nationally-prominent engineering school. I know dozens of alumni and students, all of whom I'm sure just can't believe it. No one can.

Please remember the people of Blacksburg and Virginia Tech in your prayers. They're going to need us.

O'B, thank you for your eloquence on the subject of the massacre and its aftermath. I'll bet that was a tough one to write. These times are difficult for all, including my fellow citizens of Charleston, West Virginia, only two hours away from the carnage. Enough kids from here go to Virginia Tech; this week, too many. Friends and high school classmates had to learn their friends were gunned down by...evil.

You're on the right path, Greg. More gun laws, however much that would please me, won't help. Neither will greater enlightenment of mental illness. It's evil...and Cho fell into its grasp. Gun owners have to be self-restrained and the mentally ill have to wake up in the morning and take their medicine. Neither can act out, and almost all do not.

That's where we still have a chance.

Tim

Jack, I frankly don't know where I'd cut to balance the behemoth. I'm such a softy. However, in PJ O'Rourke's "Parliament of Whores," he tell us how he'd do it. I know he writes satire, but with regard to his budget analysis, I think he's serious about most of it.

Thank you for allowing me to be part of this "brawl."

Tim

Good morning, Jack:

I respectfully disagree, and I'm drawing from statistics on the national debt as a percentage of gross domestic product as offered by whitehouse.gov. At the end of Clinton's second term. national debt was 50 percnet of GDP. Presently, national debt as a percentage of GDP is 68 percent. And, as a point of information, since WWII the only times this number increased were during the Reagan-Bush 41-Bush 43 years.

Tim

You really banged the gong on this one, O'B...you have us all talking!

In his "The Triumph of Politics," David Stockman wrote that he originally had the naive thought that the Reagan Revolution would take off as the Federal budget deficits fade away. He's 1 for 2 from the three-point arc on that one. And therein lies the demise of the middle class. Someone has to pay for the attitude of government greed. Furthermore, who is the government? I think we all know the answer.

Tim

A good sad-but-true piece, O'B...and this addiction didn't begin in the 21st century. In the 1980s, Wall Street deals financed by really smart people with junk bonds (that decade's sub-primes), ruled the earth. The 'Masters of the Universe,' as they seriously referred to themselves, used these high-yield (a euphemism if I ever read one) bonds to lead us to huge credit card debt, the nitrous oxide we gladly inhaled. A stock market collapse in 1987 provided the clue that something was amiss, but obviously, junk talks, and reason walks. Will we ever learn? I don't know...I'm packing plastic.

Tim

Outstanding. Your piece makes me think about what games truly mean...and that if Tip O'Neill had been a single A farm team owner, then 'All winning is local.'
If you're looking for purity in winning, there is an argument for the fact that minor league baseball could likely supercede even big-time high school sports in the quest for the most vestal fan base. There are essentially no championships, only a few of the players will make it to The Show, and they'll likely not be back to the team the following year. But, in that singular chilly night in April, or the broiling Sunday afternoon in July, few things are more able to arouse a crowd than a pitchers' duel between two 19 year-olds throwing their dreams in the 90s broken up in the 6th inning by back-to-back towering left field shots. Even better, it all comes down to a shortstop's diving stab to quench the late inning two-out lightning, and the Alley Cats beat the Crawdads. It doesn't matter how many times you ran around the baseball bat, those outfield signs didn't cost 2.3 mil for 30 sec.

See you soon, Tim

First: any sarcastic reference to the Junior League, any Junior League, starts my day off better than corn flakes. The ladies do great work, but they leave themselves open to...call it good-natured ribbing.

More imporatantly, especially after that uninspired speech, Bush, in the words of John McEnroe, cannot be serious. He cannot be serious about a lot of things, and being a proponent of the environment is certainly one of them. I'll you this...no, I shouldn't. In fact, I have to stop before I wax into a rant.

Thank you for making us think.

Tim

Good job, O'B...you made me ponder.
I fell for the 2003 State of the Union address. The day the shock and awe bombing started, someone in my office had Fox News radio on. Fox played the broadcast gleefully, like NBC would have if Notre Dame was routing Stanford. That concerned me, then several days later I fell for it again, this time in the form of Jessica Lynch's rescue and the bogus stories that followed. Then, I proudly read the Mission Accomplished banner on the aircraft carrier. In other words, I didn't have a chance to think for myself.
The Iraq war is of the civil variety, right now smelling like Vietnam. Therefore, I've had it. We have to get out of there and get our troops out of harm's way.
Speaking of your 401ks, folks, if Bush continues to borrow from our future properity, it may be 1987 all over again.
Finally to the point: with loads of irony, it's up to the tax and spend Democrats to get out of that mess, too.

Tim

Good piece, O'B...the books of the 21st century you wrote about spend hundreds of thousands of words in an attempt to make our lives better, yet one of our priests in his Sunday homily talked of Elizabeth and her blind faith of what Mary with child really meant. 'Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,' she said. It's as if Mary's cousin was the first to know, without really knowing...or reading about it.

Merry Christmas,
Tim from West V