VDH and the BVD Bomber

Reading these observations from Victor Davis Hanson on the Obama administration's reaction to the Detroit bomber - I was reminded of a saying that I've seen many times since 9/11:

The America is not at war. The Marine Corps is at war. America is at the mall.

Morning Music

Here's a few tunes for your Wednesday morning, not much going on because it's the day before New Year's Eve and nobody feels much like working.

- Linger - The Cranberries

- Mad World - Gary Jules

- Little Bonnie - Drive-by Truckers

- Brick - Ben Folds Five

- I Will Follow You Into the Dark - Death Cab for Cutie

I didn't purposely mean to put together such a dark set (except for Linger). Please don't read anything into it. Just some songs that I like - good lyrics and music.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Mike Leach never played college football. I'm not saying that coaches need to be all former players but I am saying that not knowing what it's like to have a concussion or being dinged up from playing should not be an overlooked aspect of this story. If you're not happy with a player's effort - send him off the field. You don't lock him in a closet... Former Red Sox minor leaguer Jeff Bailey signed with Diamondbacks. Bailey is 31 but was the 2008 International League Player of the Year. Don't be surprised if Bailey ends up as the starting 1st baseman this season for the Diamondbacks. Conor Jackson is no lock to regain his starting job after his bout with Valley Fever which cost him 5 months of the season in 2009 and the $4 plus million Jackson will cost the budget minded Diamondbacks may be a consideration... Happy 74th birthday to Sandy Koufax... If you haven't seen the video of Randy Moss and the fan in Foxboro - you should really check this out... Tweet of the day:

@FrankAdman Overheard at lunch " I've got a trophy wife, but she isn't what you'd call first place."

Holy crap - this was a real Super Hero? And his name was Codpiece? Too funny... FWIW Mike Leach also hasn't been real good at producing pro players at Texas Tech. Only Wes Welker and Michael Crabtree come to mind. I'll even give you Danny Amendola but that's not much from a supposed offensive powerhouse... Fantasy baseball players sleeper pick alert - Carlos Gonzalez of the Rockies could be a 25 HR / 25 SB guy in 2010. He should be available in later rounds too... Happy 34th birthday to Tiger Woods. And happy 25th birthday to LeBron James. I never noticed that Tiger and LeBron have the same birthday. This must be a very big day up at Nike headquarters...

Team of Misfit Players

With the signing of Jason Bay with the Mets - I got to wondering if you could put together a competitive team using just the remaining free agents. At the same time keep the salary total at below $100 million (my estimated signing costs are next to the names). Here's what I cam up with:

C - Yorvit Torrealba ($4 mil)
1st - Adam LaRoche ($8 mil)
2nd - Kelly Johnson ($3.5 mil)
SS - Orlando Cabrera ($3 mil)
3rd - Adrian Beltre ($8 mil)
LF - Johnny Damon ($9 mil)
RF - Matt Holliday ($16 mil)
CF - Rick Ankiel ($5 mil)

SP1 - Joel Pineiro ($10.5 mil)
SP2 - Erik Bedard ($8 mil)
SP3 - Jon Garland ($5 mil)
SP4 - Pedro Martinez ($8 mil)
SP5 - Braden Looper ($4 mil)

Closer - Danys Baez ($3 mil)

Notes: That's a payroll of $95 mil (fill out the other 11 roster spots at minimums and you have a $100 mil payroll). You could argue Orlando Hudson over Kelly Johnson but my thinking is that they are about the same but Johnson would come at a lower cost. I have Pedro down as the 4th starter but when healthy he could easily be the number 3 or 4. Baez is a crap shoot at closer but he's got the experience.

I think this team would be better than 50% of the current rosters easily. And I'm pretty sure this team could outperform the Mets.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Have you seen the clip of Max Baucus speaking on the Senate floor where he appears to be drunk? Shouldn't we compare that to other clips of him speaking? If there is an obvious difference then he has some explaining to do... Editing My Reality would be a good name for a blog... Because everyone needs a little Zombo.com in their life now and then... Admit it - Max Baucus sounds more like the name of a Roman bartender than a US Senator... I'm going to predict that Mike Leach will use the Costanza sex with the cleaning lady defense. "Was that wrong? Should I have not put kids in dark closets?" I also predict he gets fired over this... I'm going to open a clothing store called New Navy. I think it will be catchy... Wouldn't be surprised to see Chris Young traded by the Padres. If healthy - he's as good or better than all the remaining FA pitchers... Would Charlie Weiss be the right replacement for Mike Leach at Texas Tech if Leach is fired over this situation? Weis could also have a high-flying passing offense. Could be the perfect bounce-back situation for Weis... Star Trek and poker... Happy 36th birthday to Red Sox GM Theo Epstein...

New Year's Eve from Times Square

If you have a blog or if you just want to "look in" to Times Square on New Year's Eve - the Times Square Alliance has some info you might be interested in:

The Times Square 2010 Live Webcast/Blogcast will begin at 5:50pm on December 31, 2009 and end at 12:20am on January 1, 2010. The show will be available at TimesSquareNYC.org and Livestream.com/2010. Additionally, the Event Organizers and Livestream are offering free, non-commercial widgets of varying sizes for bloggers, webmasters and digital media outlets to embed in their own sites as a source of fun and entertaining content on New Year’s Eve.

Five co-hosts will cover all the action in Times Square. Viewers can tune in to watch and chat live online. The video solution is integrated with social media tools Twitter and Facebook, as well as the live blogging tool CoverItLive, allowing the New Year’s Eve co-hosts to engage participants, interact with their audience and to virtually share the moment with others.

Additional information on the widgets, including the sizes and embedding codes, and web event are available on the Web at: http://www.timessquarenyc.org/nye/2010widgets.html and: http://www.livestream.com/2010.

Top 5 - Characters Added to a Sitcom After the First Season

1. Reverend Jim - Taxi
2. Fraiser - Cheers
3. Deitrich - Barney Miller
4. Woody - Cheers
5. Chuck and Bob Campbell - SOAP

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

The term of the day is "hapax legomenon". That's something that is only mentioned once. An example would be Gopher wood which is mentioned once in the Bible (Genesis 6:14). That was the wood Noah was told to use for his ark... Hugh Hefner originally wanted to call his magazine Stag Party but there was already a hunters magazine called Stag. The name Playboy was his second choice... Next to Francis Scott Key's Star Spangled Banner - my favorite one hit wonder is Murray Head's One Night in Bangkok... Went for a walk yesterday. The streams in Massachusetts were swollen as if it was a sudden Spring thaw. Is it strange for you out there to consider a 40 degree day with no wind to be good weather?... Have you ever heard anyone use the word "spangled" in normal conversation? Do you even know what the word spangled means? Spangled could be a hapax legomenon of American history... It was five years ago today that Jerry Orbach passed away. With him and his character Detective Lennie Briscoe went my interest in watching the show Law & Order... For the record - spangled means "A small, often circular piece of sparkling metal or plastic sewn especially on garments for decoration." So another way to think of it is the Star Bedazzled Banner...

The World Bank and Stimulus Funding

Today marks the 64th anniversary of the founding of the World Bank. There is an interesting connection between this anniversary and President Obama's stimulus package.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were created via the efforts of the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944 which took place at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. The Mount Washington Hotel is a beautiful place but an international conference like the one in 1944 would be impossible to hold there today because of the lack of available bandwidth at the hotel for Internet access, cell phone coverage, etc.

That deficiency is about to change as Bretton Woods Telephone was awarded one of the first broadband stimulus grants and loans made under the Recovery Act (aka the Stimulus Bill). Bretton Woods' application was just one of 18 out of hundreds of applications that were approved for the first round of money. What makes the tiny Bretton Woods Telephone company so special? They have less than 1,000 access lines. The one thing they have that makes them special is the Mount Washington Hotel.

After seeing that Bretton Woods Telephone was picked from so many applications that would have benefited much greater population bases, I have to admit that my first thought was that President Obama was planning a Bretton Woods Conference of his own. Could he be planning something new for the World Bank or the IMF? If so - Bretton Woods would be the correct historical backdrop. And by the time the conference is announced - the Mount Washington Hotel should have the bandwidth needed to host such a conference.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Clemson's C.J. Spiller was the only player in Div 1-A college football to score a touchdown in every single game this season... Awesome! I really got a good chuckle out of that... Interesting - Meyer resigns, bettors jump on Gators in Sugar Bowl. The thinking is that the Gators will be pumped for Meyer's last game as coach. They won't want to let their coach down. The most interesting man in the world thinks this is a good bet... Tweet of the Day:

@RealJeffreyRoss Who the fuck is fondue?? RT @ParisHilton: Sitting by the fire eating fondue. Yum :)

I thought electing Obama was supposed to make foreign countries like us more? I don't recall anything like this ever happening under George Bush.... Happy 50th birthday to Patriot great and Hall of Famer Andre Tippett...

Babe Ruth as Santa Claus



Interesting and sad on the anniversary of the day he was traded to the Yankees.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Today will be a day of watching Band of Brothers on Spike and college football on ESPN. What a country!... The Battle of Trenton: An Eyewitness Account. I love stuff like this... The Oakland A's hit just 135 HR last YR with 25 of them coming from Jack Cust. With Cust all but gone there is a real chance the A's hit less than 100 HR in 2010. Next up for the A's giving their players Deadball Nicknames like Pud and Chief... Charlie Sheen's real name is Carlos Irwin Estevez - I did not know that... I think the San Francisco Giants could be a darkhorse team to sign Jason Bay - God knows they need a power hitter... Nugget from ESPN's Adam Schefter, "Chris Johnson will enter Titans' finale against Seattle 128 yards short of 2,000 and 233 short of Eric Dickerson's single-season record"... I think Ryan Garko could be an interesting low cost pick-up for a team that needs a 1st or DH... Another good name for a blog would be "Quodlibet" which is derived from the Latin for "whatever pleases"... I posted about the importance of the Battle of Trenton before... Happy 62nd birthday to Carlton "Pudge" Fisk. Wow - 62?

Possible Red Sox / Dodgers Trade

I'm going to throw this out there because I've been thinking about it all morning. What about a trade between the Red Sox and Dodgers that would send Jacoby Ellsbury and Clay Buchholz to the Dodgers and Andre Ethier and Russell Martin to the Red Sox?

From the Red Sox perspective in Ethier they would be getting one of the more under-rated corner outfielders in baseball. A player who would be just coming into his prime and who would be under team control for a couple more years. Russell Martin would give them potentially an everyday catcher once Varitek retires and Victor Martinez moves to 1st / DH. That would give the Sox an outfield of Ethier, Mike Cameron and JD Drew (with Jeremy Hermida and Josh Reddick as back-ups). Potentially they could carry three catchers with Martinez, Varitek and Martin being both catcher and pinch hitter options.

From the Dodger perspective - they would get a young pitcher who would probably dominate at Dodger Stadium and in the NL West in general and replace one young outfielder with another. The biggest key would be the fact that the Dodgers would probably save about $10 million in salary once Ethier and Martin were done with their arbitration hearings.

Never happen but it was fun to think about.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous Christmas Night thoughts and observations.

If I was to start a new blog today I'd name it Occasional Reflections on Several Subjects after the book by chemist Robert Boyle. I just like the name... Heh heh - words of wisdom from Henry F. Potter "No man is a failure who has friends. Unless he has no money. Then he's a miserable failure"... Bacon Wrapped Steak Fries...I can't believe I just learned of this!... Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer And Friends: Where Are They Now?... If you are a boxing or poker fan this is well worth your time - interview of Billy Baxter a member of the Poker Hall of Fame and a man who was accused of fixing the Hagler-Leonard fight... Terry Francona's son Nick - the Wharton School graduate and second lieutenant in the USMC. Cool story by Gordon Edes... Hall of Fame pitcher Pud Galvin was born Christmas 1856. He was nicknamed Pud because he made hitters look like "pudding" at the plate not because he was a dick... Ernie Harwell's touching Christmas card to all of Detroit... Fun fact: The official signal for the scramble to evacuate the US Embassy in Saigon 34-yrs ago was the playing of Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas’... After tonight's loss the Tennessee Titans are now only 1-9 ATS vs. teams with winning records and is now 0-6 the last 6 times playing the Chargers... Them Crooked Vultures - how could I have not heard of this band?... Hope everyone had a good Christmas...

The Birth of Jesus

The story of the birth of Jesus (in Legos).

Merry Christmas.