Ze Draft

I know I had my mock draft last weekend when I was a bit tipsy, and I know that since Jake Long already went first and Chris Long will probably go second, I'll be way off. But...

That doesn't make me wrong :-)

Now sober, rather than do a mock, I just have my thoughts.

I'm a Giants fan AND a bit of a Raiders fan, and I think the former could shed light on the latter.

The Raiders are rumored to pick Darren McFadden at #4. He's a great player, no question. But for the Raiders to become good they are much better off choosing Dorsey or Gholston because those two players will mane their ENTIRE team better. Having McFadden is great because he's explosive, but I was thinking: would the Chargers win more games with Tomlinson or Merriman? I think Merriman. Tomlinson is the best RB in football, but with a guylike Michael Turner backing him up, they can still win their games. When you remove Merriman their entire defense is way down. An amazing pass rusher lifts the entire defense in a way a running back does not.

Hopefully the Raiders realize this.

As for the Giants, would love to see them lose Jeremy Shockey, and then with their first pick select Dustin Keller, the TE from Purdue. If that doesn't happen, maybe, again, they trade up and get Mayo from Tennessee because he's a beast. Regardless, the Giants will make a great pick, I am sure. It'd be nice to see them take another cornerback if one is available, like a Cason from Arizona. You can never have too many.

The Jets will get lucky, and by that, I mean the Raiders make a SMART decision and McFadden falls to them at #6. Not. The Raiders are too dumb to do that. Plus, while Atlanta needs a quarterback, I'd not be surprised to see them pull the McFadden trigger. Regardless, the Jets will get a great player, no doubt.

Eagles praying for one of the two stud LBs to fall.

Other Than a Name

What do the George Bushes have in common?

Sales of new homes in March plummeted to the lowest level since the housing recession of the 1990s, the government said on Thursday, as inventories rose to the highest point in more than a quarter century.

Buyers vanished from the housing market last month at a swift rate. Sales of new homes fell 8.5 percent, a far sharper decline than economists had forecast.

Sales are running at an annual rate of 526,000 after adjusting for seasonal factors, the lowest point since October 1991.

Answer: They both suck.

Well

My Drunk Draft is wrong already since the Dolphins already signed a deal with Jake Long. Wow, what a mistake that is.

Historically, Michigan offensive lineman have been very good, I'll give you that. However, the first overall pick, aka, the best player in the country? Not Even Close, Bud.

For a team looking to rebuild they could have moved down (assuming someone would want to move up), attained more picks, and drafted one of the other 2-3 OTs in the first round.

This is a questionable call, regardless of Long's abilities. In 1997 Orlando Pace went first and Walter Jones seventh. Long will never be as good as either of those players.

Good player, bad call. But I guess you get one pick per round, and that's the position they thought they needed.

Ahoy!

Making this country great.

he Bush administration would require commercial airlines and cruise-line operators to collect information such as fingerprints from international travelers and send the information to the Homeland Security Department soon after the travelers leave the country, according to a proposed rule.

The proposal, which will be announced Tuesday, will close a security gap identified after the 9/11 attacks and identify which visitors have overstayed their visas.

Heil!

Good Luck, Joe

Joe Girardi has got to be having a good time.

If you're a young manager why in the world would you want this job? Yes, it's the Yankees, I get it, but if you have nothing to fall back on other than one year with a young overachieving team, you're going to get second guessed and screwed if things don't go well. If you're a veteran you can take the gig because you're probably wealthy enough to not care, and you have a track record which speaks for itself. In Girardi's case, not really.

To be second guessed by the owner of the team really ruins the team, especially one like the Yankees. Now the press will start to second guess the manager even more, and the players may even tighten up. You're doing no one any favors.

I think it's great the younger Steinbrenner makes claims about this not being the rotation he wanted when in essence, he owns the purse, and he makes the calls. Now he wants to manage too? What's stopping him? You own the squad. Take over! Prove to everyone that managing a baseball team is nothing more than pushing a few buttons, and making few moves. You have that right, so rather than be a second-guesser, or a backseat driver, take the wheel, big guy.

After all, what would be better right now than having another son of the wealthy mismanaging an organization for a few years? Has not this city had enough of that?

Oh, and sidenote, to Steinbrenner's point about having a guy who throws a 100 MPH fastball as a setup man in the bullpen, yes, it happens. In fact, it happened twice. One time it was the Nasty Boys, who played for the Yankees farm team, the Reds, and they won the World Series. The other time it was this guy, who also won the World Series.

Well That Was Scary

I've just learned the NYTIMES piece is actually a non-story. Phew. I was waiting for a good response.

Wait

I don't want anyone to think the article below is just the part I posted. Oh, no, no. There's A LOT MORE, and I await the silence from the jackasses who weigh in here, and on every other conservative radio/news program in the world.

Give them a few days to get their excuses down pat.

Nice

This pretty much speaks for itself:

In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.

The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized.

America. Freedom. Defending it. Sweet.