The politics of baseball - and, uh, other stuff

Rivka may be right that the most surprising thing about the Congressional take on Nationals ownership is the sense of entitlement.

You'd think that I could no longer be shocked. But I am utterly astounded by this unashamed, on-the-record threat to prevent a private business from conducting a legal transaction with a private citizen. Davis and his colleagues make no attempt to cover this naked exercise of brute power with even the thinnest veneer of a pretense to legitimate governmental interest. They don't even seem to be aware that this kind of petty bullying is the sort of thing that people usually try to hide.

They simply believe that Congressional Republicans are entitled to demand that every aspect of American society, from great to small, be ordered as they wish. They simply display the two-year-old child's astonished outrage that anyone has the temerity to thwart their will.

My only caveat to that is that baseball is not precisely a private interest; as a legal monopoly, I'm sure MLB is quite used to Congressional meddling in its affairs. Still.

(Rivka has more here.)



In other news...

The always-interesting Teresa Neilsen-Hayden gives tips for an apocalypse. (It's sort of sad that we're learning how to do this stuff, isn't it?)

I've been collecting architecture blogs lately. Where else can you learn stuff like this?

Brownstone, a type of sandstone, was readily available from quarries located in New Jersey and Connecticut. A form of sedimentary rock which frequently contains fossilized footprints of prehistoric animals, it owed its unique dark brown color to high concentrations of iron, which turned color with exposure to water..

(Well, ok, if you bothered to look it up, probably lots of places, but I don't usually get around to doing that, do you? It's more fun to read Brownstoner instead.)

A couple of other architecture-related weblogs:
The Frank Lloyd Wright Newsblog
Hewn and Hammered (who just published their own list of renovation blogs)

I lied

One more post, because Lidge is in (in the 7th) and so is Ensberg. Ensberg was in the on-deck circle at the end of the last inning, and now is in at first, so presumably he'll lead off the next inning. Lidge made his first batter look bad - and his second one, too, I think, although they were interviewing Kenny Rogers at the time, so I doubt that anybody noticed. Everybody's swinging over the pitches. Ooh, he struck out all three. Yay Brad. (McCarver pointed out that nobody even touched his pitches - nine strikes, no foul balls. pretty impressive.)

Ensberg popped the first pitch up before they even got a shot of him. That's no fun.

Oh, another ex-Astro - Mo Alou. I forgot about him. (And he just got a hit.)

Correction

Ensberg only has 65 RBI, I checked. (But the 24 homers was correct.)

Here's Roy

The pitch
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

(And Clemens retired his 3 guys really quickly, by the way.)

One more

OK, Clemens is in, pitching to Ortiz. It's the bottom of the 5th. LaRussa has finally started substituting. Lots of flashbulbs going off for Clemens, which makes me realize that I've come to take him for granted, a little bit. It wouldn't occur to me to take pictures of him, any more than of anybody else. (I was taking pictures of Oswalt last Saturday, though, so it's not like I don't do such things.)

(Off to post a picture.)

part 3

Oswalt is pitching now, in the 3rd (and Clemens is warming up). Oswalt gave up an infield hit to Johnny Damon, and now a walk. Still nobody out. Then Ortiz singles to get Damon in. Sigh. Astros not showing themselves off too well here.

Derrek Lee doubles to lead off the 4th, off Santana. The AL is starting to substitute guys in the outfield - Ichiro and Garrett Anderson are in, Damon and Manny are out. Lee gets to third on a DP, but then Piazza grounds to 1st and that's that. (Piazza does that kind of thing way too much, which is why I've never been his biggest fan.)

Ha. Mastercard commercial with kids playing baseball in streets and back yards.

First base: 68 dollars
Second base (a lawn chair): 630 pesos
Third base (a car): 300,000 yen.

(And then a crash, naturally. Kids scatter.)

Home plate: priceless.

You could see it coming a mile away, but still cute.

(Do kids still play ball in the street, though? I can't remember the last time I saw them doing that.)


Livan Hernandez up next. He doesn't fare any better than Oswalt, because suddenly it's 2nd and 3rd, one out. Brian Roberts doubled down the 1st base line with Varitek already on. And... Ichiro singles them both in. 5-0. (If it stays like this, I'm giving up on the semi-play-by-play. Too depressing.)

All-Stars, part 2

I really don't know as much about the American League as I should. I mean, considering I'm supposed to be this huge baseball fan and everything. (Although mostly, I am coasting on my reputation as a huge baseball fan these days. Not that I don't still love baseball, but I don't spend the kind of time studying everybody's stats and things that I used to.) There are a couple of American League guys that I don't even really know who they are, which bothers me.

Bottom of the 2nd, Smoltz is in to pitch, and Tejada sends about the 2nd pitch way, way over the fence. They should've left Carpenter in. (I think Carpenter just pitched a couple of days ago, though, if I remember correctly.)

I came in late yesterday on the Home Run Derby - it was Rob's fault, he was watching some thing on the History Channel about Area 51, for god's sake - and I missed Abreu hitting all those home runs. There are four Astros here tonight, and at least four more ex-Astros - Abreu, Billy Wagner, Jeff Kent, and Beltran. Of the four current players, three are pitchers (Clemens, Oswalt, and the closer, Lidge), which is as it should be, since pitching is very much our team's strength. The lone position player is Morgan Ensberg, who only found out he was coming on Sunday. He definitely deserves to be here, though. He has (I think) 24 home runs and seventy-something RBIs. The only reason he didn't make it in the first place was because the fans voted Scott Rolen in even though he's been hurt half the season. (And is still hurt, apparently, which is why he's not here.)

Bitching about the All-Star Game

7:03 Good lord, WTF did they do to Jeannie Zelasko's hair? And what does she have on? She looks like she belongs on Petticoat Junction, or something.

7:11 Just when I think I couldn't hate Fox any more, they put Ernie Harwell on and then they interrupt him after ten seconds. I'm not joking, she literally started talking across him. Jesus. You know, because if he talked too long, it might throw off the timing of some of their terribly important activities, like the guy trying to win a million dollars (sponsored by Taco Bell).


(Hopefully I won't find this many things to complain about all the way through.)


Oh, but Kenny Rogers should not be here. He just shouldn't.

Monday

My goodness. Interesting numbers on impeachment, from the Washington Post.

And the whole Plame thing just gives me a headache. (But here's more from Slate.)

Meanwhile, FactCheck says $100 million may be spent on the Supreme Court fight.

"The liberals are gaining"

The Stevens court? This rates a post all by itself largely because of the phrase in the title above. "The liberals are gaining" is just not a phrase you see every day in the oh-so-Republican new millennium. -- And I can't say I believe it for a minute, to tell you the truth. But its presence in USA Today interested me. (The article is interesting, too, don't get me wrong. Good lord, who besides Supreme Court junkies even pays any attention to Stevens?)

Incidentally (in regard to the "oh-so-Republican new millennium" remark above) I find myself hoping lately that when we look back on these years later, it will all just seem like post-9/11 hysteria. Let's all cross our fingers for that, okay?

London

I love the British.

People have been trying to blow up bits of London for decades. Centuries, in fact. This one's nothing special. It's no different to any of the others. London's reaction to it is typified by my friend Jeff, who was actually *running* to catch the bus that was blown up.
"I went to Euston: went to the tube and there was a loud bang. and we were sent out! Then we were sent out of the station so I half ran to Tavistock Place to catch a bus to Victoria. And then it went bang, so I thought "b****r that"."

And then there's this:

When the news reporter said "Shopkeepers are opening their doors bringing out blankets and cups of tea" I just smiled. It's like yes. That's Britain for you. Tea solves everything.
You're a bit cold?
Tea.
Your boyfriend has just left you?
Tea.
You've just been told you've got cancer?
Tea.
Coordinated terrorist attack on the transport network bringing the city to a grinding halt?
TEA DAMMIT!

New Scientist on the forensic investigation

And last but not least, Fox News shows its class again.

It's a secret!

Capitol Hill Blue on secrecy

Religion here, religion there

Since when was God pro-war, and pro-rich? (Yahoo News via the Huffington Post)

Church of Christ endorses gay marriage (but shockingly, everyone does not agree!)

Justice and justices

The Wall St. Journal's "Evening Wrap" on the O'Connor retirement:

Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement, setting up a political battle royale for the high court's heart that could derail Senate business for much of the rest of the year.

Justice O'Connor, the first woman ever to serve on the high court, retired after 24 terms, during which she was a key swing vote in several closely divided decisions. Nominated by President Reagan, Justice O'Connor most often joined court majorities in decisions that pleased conservatives, including her vote to stop the Florida recount in the 2000 presidential election. But she also took positions that angered those same conservatives, most notably her 1992 vote to uphold the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion and other votes that curbed the death penalty and upheld affirmative action. Given her role, her replacement could change the court's ideological bent for decades to come. "With all due respect to the chief justice, she's been the most important justice on the court for the past 20 years," said Bradley Joondeph, law professor at Santa Clara University and a former clerk for Justice O' Connor.

President Bush now must nominate her successor, and he eventually must also propose a replacement for ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist, whose retirement is expected to come soon. Mr. Bush's conservative base, already fuming about recent judicial decisions on hot-button issues and bitterly disappointed with the record of Republican-appointed Justices David Souter and Anthony Kennedy, will want red-meat conservatives. Mr. Bush might also want to replace Justice O'Connor with another woman, and he almost certainly feels an urge to nominate the court's first Hispanic justice.

The Senate must confirm his choices, and a tough fight there could obliterate a tenuous truce between the parties and trigger the "nuclear option," in which Republicans eliminate Democrats' right to filibuster nominees, and Democrats in turn basically shut down the Senate. Even without going nuclear, the Senate will be too busy to act on Social Security, taxes or other pet projects until at least the fall. But Mr. Bush will likely push a confrontation anyway. "If the Democrats try to ferociously block a Bush pick, it would play right into Karl Rove's strategy of making the 2006 election largely about obstructionism," said Greg Valliere, political analyst at Stanford Washington Research Group. "I would be surprised if he picks a moderate."