Mark A. Kilmer (the weblog)

I posted this — why, this afternoon, at RedState Sports:

Yeah, the Yankees have won 26 World Championships.

A while ago. Not now.

To paraphrase Pejman blow, being a Yankees fan right now means having your heart ripped out of your chest on a regular basis.

The AP just referred to them as “baseball’s $195 million bust.”

Check this out: Johnny Damon is 4-for-his—last-32. Bobby Abreu,2-for-30; Hideki Matsui, 3-for-17; and Robby Cano, 1-for-18. Sure, Alex Rodriguez has 14 homers, 34 RBI, and Jeter and Giambi are passable at the plate, but the world’s greatest offense is just… well, only the Marlins are doing better, but they. are. the. Marlins.

But they’re giving up over 5 runs a game. If you want a bright side, that’s better than the Marlins, but again, who cares?

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I’ve found someone who sees this race shaping up as I do. This is from one the conservative political zen masters, if such a term is applicable to Republicans: Mike Deaver. No kidding.

Mr Deaver sees the same raw material in Mr Thompson as was perceived in Ronald Reagan, describing him as someone “that could really make a difference”. He added: “He is very popular in his party. He could change this whole thing and turn this primary system upside down.

Yep.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Joe Biden was pure Joe Biden on MTP, and we’re not sure what that was all about. He likes Roe v. Wade and trimester-theory as a “template.” Tim Russert asked him why he had been “so wrong” about voting for the Iraq resolution, and Biden explained that all the evidence pointed to Saddam possessing WMD, and global intelligence agreed: “This was not some Cheney pipe dream. They [Iraqis] had them [WMD] catalogued.”

On FNS, John McCain would not talk about being accused of flip-flopping by Mitt Romney, would mention that he ran around the rim of the Grand Canyon, and said that he does not throw temper tantrums.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, appearing with George Stephanopoulos on TW, talked of Tenet and “imminence” — “the question of imminence is not one of whether somebody’s going to strike tomorrow” – and asserted that the President made the decision to invade Iraq based on “totality” of the situation with Saddam Hussein in Iraq. (Didn’t the American lefties scream about WMD?)

Next on TW, Senator Sam Brownback stressed the need to “aggressively” push for a political solution. Senator Russ Feingold intoned that “American troops are dying for no good reason. … They are being sacrificed because people want political comfort in Washington.”

On FTN, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talked about George Tenet’s book in which he evidently freaks out in his paranoia about “slam dunk.” Rice said that she took the “slam dunk” comment to mean only that Tenet thought the evidence against Saddam was pretty strong. Everyone else thought that, as well. She’s going to resist Hank Waxman’s subpoena, and she does not rule out talking to the Iranians in Egypt next week.

Jack Murtha was next on FTN, and he’s still unglued. He said that the Administration has intimidated our military into lying according to an Administration script. Murtha threatened impeachment if nothing else convinced the President to do things the Jack Murtha way.

On LE, Blitzer pointed out that Clinton (Bill)’s peeps had warned that the sanctions against Saddam were working but Bush invaded anyway. Secretary replied that the sanctions had clearly not been working – Oil for Food was an example – and that the choice the Administration faced was to stop the problem now or wait until later when it was much more dangerous.

Check out RedState.com for the the show-by-show review….

All the Martians are gonna die!

Mars is being hit by rapid climate change and it is happening so fast that the red planet could lose its southern ice cap, writes Jonathan Leake.

Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period.

Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.

Someone says its the red planet’s huge dust storms trapping heat, while still others say that the problem is… wait for it… THE SUN. Natural solar activity.

For Sunday, April 22, 2007

Meet the Press (NBC): Host Tim Russert will interview Joe Biden.

FOX News Sunday (FNS): Host Chris Wallace will talk to John McCain and his wife, Cindy.

Face the Nation (CBS): Host Bob Schieffer will interview Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Next, he turns his attention to Okinawa Jack Murtha.

This Week (ABC): Host George Stephanopoulos is a stop on George “Slam Dunk” Tenet’s book tour, and he talks to Secretary Rice; then he turns to Sam Brownback and Russ Feingold.

Late Edition (CNN): Host Wolf Blitzer talks to RIce, Jane Harman and House Republican conference Chair Adam Putnam, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, and his usual cast of thousands.
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McCain and Biden are back, and everything is good and right about Sunday Morning talk.

Schieffer ought to ask Murtha to spin his recent insult, though I can think of no way to cast the line to make it appear that Jack Murtha does not loathe the military. Murtha, who never gives a coherent presentation, is what is wrong about Sunday Morning talk.

It will be nice to hear from the Secretary of State Rice, so there’s something salvageable from TW. (I don’t care for book tours.)

After I had compiled this this lineup, I looked at the various listings compiled by the MSM, and I noted that one site listed Representative Putnam as “(D-FL).” It gave me pause, but it made me think of one of haystack’s posts. (Not in relation to Putnam personally, mind you.)

Read the show-by-show review over at RedState on Sunday, after noon,

Okay, so it’s a little hyperbole. But these folks are behaving like news-reporting amateurs, making the world safe for suckers.

One of my local TV stations, WTAJ TV-10, aired a report on our latest State senator, a fellow named John Eichelberger. Now, Eichelberger calls himself a conservative Republican, and he has done so for many years. However he wants to describe himself is his business, but the TV station ought not to take his claims.

The report, going as straight news, asserted that Eichelberger ran promising to cut government spending. It’s a vague promise, but it sounds good. The report claimed that Eichelberger had kept his promise and cut government spending. It did not say what spending he had cut or how much. As far as I know, no spending has yet been cut anywhere, least of all by an freshman senator, so it TV-10 is spreading John Eichelberger’s propaganda, his garbage. The TV station owes us specifics.

The report, going as straight news, indicated that Eichelberger had angered some lawmakers because he cut spending. It named no lawmaker. Eichelberger said he was happy to have angered those lawmakers in the pursuit of his promises. Which lawmakers? The TV station owes us names and specifics. We got none of that from this report.

If you’ve read my stuff here, at RedState.com, or wherever else I was in the past, you know that I support conservatism and the national Republican Party. If you’ve followed my stuff at Rathergate.com, you know that I’ve been skeptical of the media.

The TV station celebrated Eichelberger as a successful lawmaker, but they offered no proof of that or any of their other assertions. It can be argued that Eichelberger is a breath of fresh air after what we had before him, and I agree that a change was needed, but if all Eichelberger has been thus far is a different person than Bob Jubelirer, fine. Eichelberger has only begun to serve, so no one can fault him for accomplishing nothing so far. I can, however, complain that WTAJ has violate their public trust by turning nothing into something splendid. I am very disappointed.

I will celebrate Eichelberger when he does something right. He’s surrounded himself with some bright people, so this is indeed possible. I won’t believe the news of this from WTAJ, however. They are the suckers.

My caveat: I was on the air at WTAJ long before any of their current on-air personalities. I’ve spent long evenings in that building, writing news, reading from a teleprompter, etc. Sure, I was a kid at the time, but I still have that loyalty. But they do have to cut the crap.

In this morning’s Congress Daily AM [subscription], the Washington Post’s lefty columnist Richard Cohen examines the upcoming book by the ChiTrib’s Naftali Bendavid, The Thumpin’, about the Democrats’ recent election victory. It is the subject of the subtitle, “How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution,” which draws Cohen’s interest, namely: Rahm Emanuel.

(A Tribune scribes pens a paean to Chicago congresscritter.)

First of all, the book, according to Cohen, “seems to take unwarranted swipes at her [Speaker Nancy Pelosi], evidently with some assistance from Emanuel or those around him.” Perhaps Rahm wants to one day be the [expletive deleted] Speaker of the [expletive deleted] House.

Hey, at least I delete the expletives:

The book doesn’t stint on cataloging Emanuel’s frequent use of the F-word in its many variations. Signing off on a phone call to a candidate, Rahm concluded: “Don’t f[*] it up or I’ll f[*] you. I’ll kill you. All right, I love you. Bye.”

He told some campaign staffers, “In my house, when you say ‘f[*] you,’ it’s a sign of endearment.” On election night, with his kids gone, he told a boisterous celebration that the Republicans “can go f[*] themselves.” Plus, the author noted, Emanuel referred to Washington as “f[*]nutsville,” to opponents as “knucklef[*]s,” and warned a reporter not to “ratf[*]” him.

Oh, Rahm doesn’t like to be seen in that light.

Emanuel also voiced some unhappiness about the raw rhetoric. “You guys are enamored by my language. That’s not all that I do,” he said. His chief purpose as chairman, he added, was “to move a progressive agenda.”

Indeed, a [deleted], [deleted], [deleted] pro-[deleted]-gressive [deleted] agenda, you string of expletives!

The Democratic strategy has four letters. By jove, Jane Hamsher and the folks at dKos really are influencing that political party! Then again, Speaker-to-be Emanuel can come up with such nastiness on his own. He worked for Clinton (Bill), you know.

(If Nancy needs to wash Rahm’s mouth with organic soap, they sell the stuff in her hometown.)

Phil Hughes is to the Yankees Ace of the Future. He started tonight, and we hoped for at least seven innings. Yankees starters this year, on average, have not made it out of the fifth inning.

Tonight against Toronto, Hughes gave up 4 earned runs for 4 2/3 innings. Send him back to Scranton, Cashman, and let him develop into a Major League pitcher. Bring up more AA guys, trade for Shawn Chacon, do something else.

This is silly.

On the up side, I listened to Tom Hamilton’s broadcast of the Cleveland Indians game this afternoon. Those games are a blast, and right now, with the Indians having won five straight, it feels like something is happening.

Growing up, my dad was an Indians fan. (His dad was a Yankees fan.) I’ve always had a soft spot for the team: “GO… JOE… CHARBONEAU!”

Dan Kennedy, over at Media Nation, is angry with the Boston Herald. It seems Boston’s tabloid has revealed the name of a 19-year-old Boston College women’s hockey player who was sending sexually explicit text messages to coach Tom Mutch, who didn’t complain a bit.

Here’s Kennedy quoting the B-Herald:

Hockey East Coach of the Year Tom Mutch, 39, who’s married and whose wife just had a baby, abruptly stepped down hours after the Herald began making inquiries to authorities at the Heights.

Sexually graphic text messages that BC hockey star [name omitted by Media Nation], 19, allegedly wrote to Mutch were discovered on a cell phone [she] gave to a teammate, neglecting to delete them first, sources said.

One source familiar with the messages described them as “filthy. They were very sexual in nature.”

He did the bracket-work above, omitting the name of the dirty-minded 19-year-old.

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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, recently subpoenaed to testify before Congress by the freak Hank Waxman, suggests she might throw Waxman’s subpoena back in his face.

Waxman is stuck on the argument that everyone knew that Saddam Hussein was a great guy who complied with UNSC resolutions, and Bush chose to lie about Saddam in order to invade Iraq and Halliburton, Big Oil, Croneys, Quagmire, Vietnam. His committee has subpoenaed Secretary Rice.

Rice told reporters in Oslo, Norway Thursday… [that] any discussions with Mr. Bush on the matter are protected under executive privilege, and she is not required to testify before Congress.

Rice has said she will answer Hank’s questions in writing.