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.

Why does Michael Jordan have a Hitler mustache?

This is bizarre. This IS Michael Jordan in a Hanes commercial and he IS wearing a Hitler stache. Perhaps his under-lip soul patch migrated north for the summer? He wants the rights to the NBA franchise in the Sudetenland? It's a ploy to bring Dirk Nowitzki to Charlotte this summer? He wants to challenge Mikhail Prokhorov for 'most evil NBA sterotype'? Thoughts? Ideas ...besides "Shave. Now."?

Bill Nye explains Top Kill

Science is cool.

"Small government" my ass; Republican bailout of BP continues

Bob Cesca

The Republican bail out for BP continues:

Republican Senator James Inhofe has stepped up to the plate yet again for big oil, pledging a Republican filibuster against legislation offered by New Jersey's Robert Menendez that would completely lift the $75 million liability cap currently protecting big oil companies from claims of economic damage from oil spills.

Paraphrasing John Cole, I thought the Republicans supported the free market in which corporations were unregulated and allowed to fail without government meddling.

Meanwhile, alleged free market state's rights small government southern Republican politicians continue to demand federal help and socialized federal money -- redistributed wealth from Pennsylvania and Illinois and New York and Massachusetts with all of its bleeding heart tree-hugging environmental wacko liberals.

Suck it, Republicans. Do they even recognize how staggeringly hypocritical and ridiculous this is?

BP: Bringing People Together

Matador 6, Bull 1; but the one is a doozy

This is renowned matador Julio Aparicio, who is in critical condition in a Madrid hospital because, well, the 'because' should be obvious.

While I hope the matador ends up being OK, I can't say I feel bad for him. These things happen when you're trying to take the life of an animal several times larger than yourself.

Palin endorses anti-government Tea Partier who took $270K in subsidies

Seattle Times

A former NFL player turned farmer, (Clint) Didier has repeatedly called the federal government "a predator." He vows to oppose the "Marxist utopia" he says Democrats want to create -- "where everyone is taken care of from womb to tomb."

But Didier himself has cashed in on one big government aid program. He has received nearly $273,000 in federal farm subsidies since 1995, according to a database of U.S. Department of Agriculture subsidies maintained by the Environmental Working Group (EWG).

On her Twitter account, Sarah Palin described Didier as a "patriot running for U.S. Senate to serve his state & our country for all the right reasons!" She didn't mention his farming subsidies.

Ah, logic.

The Tea Party might want to reconsider the Rand Paul/Libertarian affiliation

With Rand Paul repeatedly making the statement that the federal government overreached with the Civil Rights Act in preventing private businesses from discriminating, the Tea Party might want to reconsider their fervent embrace of him.

On first blush, this reactionary racist stuff seems to be right in their wheelhouse. As usual, they haven't thought this through. If the federal government, as their argument goes, does not have the power to be legislating the private choices of Americans, it opens the door to a lot of things that social conservatives find abhorrent.

For example, if the government can't (in the words of the Tea Party) regulate private choices, then the Tea party must immediately drop all opposition to abortion and gay marriage, both of which are private choices.

The Tea Party has never been known for it's logical conclusions, but they cannot have it both ways. Either the federal government ought to have the power to regulate private choice, or it shouldn't.

Please be clear, I'm not saying that the federal government should regulate private choices at every level. I am saying that they ought to have the ability to regulate to stop discrimination of any minority - be it blacks at lunch counters or white grandmas in wheelchairs.

Agree or disagree, at least my conclusion is logical in it's conclusion.