Almost perfect heartbreak and a bigger lesson

Unless you've been under a rock, you know that Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga had a perfect game taken away from him on the final out in the 9th inning on a blown call by umpire Tim Joyce. It's a sad situation all around.

The bigger message though, shouldn't be lost. Joyce immediately stepped up and took responsibility for his mistake, both to radio and personally in a private meeting with Galarraga, who graciously accepted Joyce's tearful apology.

What happens from here? Should the commissioner step in and overturn Joyce's call and award Galarraga his perfecto? Maybe. Probably. What should happen from here is that parents and kids and adults and government and celebrities see this as how America should work. We admit our mistakes, apologize and move on.

There is a bigger lesson here than just baseball.

Right. The problem is too much government. Right.

via Cesca

The other day, I tweeted: You know who I blame in part for the oil spill? Everyone who bought into "government is the problem" and "era of big government is over."

Much of this oil spill tragedy, say nothing of the financial crisis, can be traced directly back to Republican free market deregulation. The Reagan Revolution sounded nifty when delivered by a rosy-cheeked grinning grandpa, but in execution and reality it's turned out to be a nightmare. And by the way, notice how I quoted President Clinton as well. Too many Democrats acquiesced to this crap and, in fact, enabled it.

Dennis G. at Balloon Juice wrote:

Do you really think that you could have Anti-Government Republicans in charge for 30 plus years and actively working to destroy the infrastructure of government without causing system failures? If you do, then you are living in candy land (or a tea infused lotus dream).

The oil spill in the gulf is is just another result of snorting deregulation fairy dust with a Markets-Are-God hi-ball chaser night after night for decades. When you let industry capture regulators and dismantle effective governance, you guarantee a catastrophic failure. The spill is evidence of this, so was that mining disaster in West Virginia, same thing when it comes to that financial meltdown and the same thing will be true when the next system fails.

When the goddamn hell is the free market going to fix this leak?!

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Sarah Palin is a lying idiot

Sarah Palin is lying through her teeth about Drill Baby, Drill. In the wake of the largest poil disaster ever, she now claims that DBD was about "safe" on-shore drilling, not about offshore drilling. She tweeted:



My question is, hasn't she ever heard of the internet? Your old quotes are out there for everybody. Like this one from October 21, 2008.

And we will safely drill for the billions of barrels of oil that we have underground, including off-shore.

(APPLAUSE)

We will drill here, we'll drill now, and that's when you start the chant. Yes.

AUDIENCE: Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill!

And this one from the day before.

PALIN: And whether Joe Biden approves it or not, we will develop clean coal technology and we will safely drill for the billions of barrels of oil that are warehoused underground, including our offshore sources. We will drill here and drill now. (Cheers, applause.) Drill, baby, drill. Drill, baby, drill.

And this one from three days before that.

PALIN: Drill, baby, drill. That's right.

(APPLAUSE)

AUDIENCE: Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill!

(APPLAUSE)

PALIN: It also means safely tapping into our offshore sources, safely, environmentally safe.

The woman is a hypocrite, a liar and an idiot. Does she think we are also?

Gun-toting wingnut wanna-be Ag Commish Dale Peterson finishes third

Remember our buddy Dale Peterson, the gun-totin', rootin-tootin' wanna-be Ag Commissioner from Alabama who wanted to run the bastards off that wanted to steal your money? He finished third.

There is hope.



And this Funny Or Die! parody was brilliant.