This might be the new direction of this blog.
News Stuff:
After reading a Times piece about the arrest of a "high level" Taliban operative, Abdul Ghani Baradar, I start to think about how we're going nowhere fast in Pakistan or Afghanistan.
The short version is the Pakistani's arrested a man for political reasons, and it seems to me they can arrest anyone they want, when they want to, for any reason at all. Right now this man Baradar is sitting comfortably in a Pakistani safe house.
This article goes on to explain why he was arrested, and how it came to be. I cannot get past thinking, "does it really even matter?" No, it doesn't. All these guys are replaceable. It's not like the best guys sit on top of the Terror Org. because they have these awesome ideas. They're on top because they're loyal, and finding a replacement isn't hard. There was no College of Terror in the Muslim world where this guy, or any other guy, earned his way to the top through a series of tests. Just a "next guy" scenario.
Beating this guy up for information also isn't relevant because the Pakistanis allow him to exist in the world he does in the first place. They know everything he knows. What, he knows where bin Laden is? Great. It's not capture the flag.
The bottom line is none of this shit matters in what is now going to be the Endless War.
So what's next?
Well, the other Endless War in Israel.
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Ambassador Hillary Clinton, at the behest of President Obama, has invited the Palestinians and Israeli factions to Washington DC to restart talks which ended during the Bush Administration. Clinton, and others, believe certain "final-status issues" have been resolved, which will lead everyone toward a 2-state solution.
Great.
Guess what?
Not gonna happen.
As I wrote more than FOUR YEARS AGO,
nothing ever changes. You can read this blog post about Israel from then and you wouldn't even know if this was four years ago, or if I was predicting what's going to happen tomorrow. Do you know why? Yes, you do. I just told you. Nothing ever changes. And the reason? The same reason I gave you in that blog post, or what I've been saying since my dad said it to me probably 20 years ago: Until Arabs offer their people something, nothing will ever change. But they never will because they're the greediest people in the world, and the conflict with Israel is a distraction that keeps the spotlight off of themselves.
Have fun at the summit, and then come talk to me in 4 years when we're still talking about this.
And for the record, even a 2-state solution means nothing. It only takes 1 person out of 100 to really fuck shit up, and in Mesopotamia, there will always be at least that one.
Moving on...
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Remember when people used to make bomb shelters? I think it's time we go in a different direction and
start creating arcs. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, and this summer its sea ice is melting at a near-record pace. The sun is heating the newly open water, so it will take longer to refreeze this winter, and the resulting thinner ice will melt more easily next summer.
Dear Great Great Great Grandchildren,
Sorry. We should have tried harder.
Sincerely,
The United States of Awesome (Which, by the way, used to be comprised of 50 states)
Sports:
My English Premier League Fantasy team is not very good, but it's also not bad. I do however the setup wherein every team can have the same players. Fantasy aside, I love watching soccer before noon. Unlike American football, you can be done with the games before you lose your day, and have a nice mellow breakfast while watching constant action. Really is fantastic, and probably the best thing about modern cable. That and The Wire, of course. And Breaking Bad. Man oh man that's a good fucking show.
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Darrelle Revis is a fucking cocksucker douchebag piece of dick. Yeah, I said it.
There are rumors floating around based on
Dallas Morning News reporter Tim Cowlishaw's Twitter that:
Revis and Jets announce new deal, probably Wednesday. You heard it here first. "Inside information!"
Cowlishaw says his "source has never been wrong."
Okay, maybe Tim is right; maybe the source has never been wrong. Since the Jets have been mum, and Revis has as well, maybe someone at HBO knows something, and they're planning to tie it into the TV show "Hard Knocks." I have no idea. But in this day and age nothing surprises me. Not after what Lebron James did, and even worse, how I now see it
filtering down into the high schools. But fuck all that. The point is, regardless, Darrelle Revis is a FCDPOD, and that's because he wants to be treated differently than ever player in the NFL. He wants guaranteed money. He wants the most money. He wants to void his contract which still has 3 years on it. He wants the Jets to pay him the most money because the boneheaded Raiders (a team I root for) paid some other guy an absurd amount of money. Therefore the Jets have to. So Revis lied about being injured before camp, and now wants to be paid more absurdly than any athlete in the league.
He has a right to hold out and not get paid, but I really hope the Jets don't cave. Fans and media people already are, since the team just signed Nick Mangold, their star lineman. But signing one guy, and signing this guy are not the same thing. If Revis wants Mangold's deal there wouldn't be a hold out. He doesn't though. He wants to be different, and most likely be led to do so by his Uncle Sean Gilbert, a former NFL player who once held out an entire season.
It's one thing to ask for more money, and renegotiate a deal. I agreed with Terrell Owens when he did it with the Eagles. But this guy Revis? He's just a selfish and greedy prick. They are offering this guy MILLIONS, but again, he wants to be different. He has had one great year. ONE.
And believe me, every NFL owner has probably called the Jets owner Woody Johnson and said, "do not give this fucken guy a guaranteed deal..." If they do, every owner in the league will be fucked, and the balance of football could shift toward bigger market teams.
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College Football is coming, and with it, the Notre Dame bullshit story has begun.
I heard Mel Kiper Jr. on the Freddy Coleman show, ESPN radio, on my drove up from the beach this past weekend. The back and forth went like this.
Fred: Alright Mel, give me your take on the Irish.
Mel: Well, Freddy, you know I'm an Irish fan. And I think this is going to be a good year for them...If Dayne Crist is healthy, this team wins 8 games.
Fred: I don't see it. This team, to me, is about a .500 team. They'll beat the bad teams, but it'll be a coin toss with the good ones.
Mel: Oh just like you Freddy, another Notre Dame basher.
Fred: I'm not bashing them. I'm thinking 7-5 which is one game different from you. I believe in their coach, who has succeeded everywhere he has gone. I think he's going to turn the program around.
Mel: Well, again, it comes down to Dayne Crist for me. If he can stay on the field, they're gonna be a very good team. Notre Dame's biggest problem is still their inability to get the big time players...
Well color me fucken stupid. Apparently I suck at Math because these are the rankings for Notre Dame's recruiting classes starting in 2006:
2006: 1) USC 2) Florida 3) Texas 4) Georiga 5) Notre Dame 6) Penn State
2007: 1) Florida 2) USC 3) Texas 4) Tennessee 5) LSU 11) Notre Dame
2008: 1) Alabama 2) Notre Dame 3) Miami, FL 4) Ohio State 5) Georgia
2009: 1) Ohio State 2) Alabama 3) LSU 4) Georgia 5) UCLA 23) Notre Dame
2010: 1) Florida 2) Oklahoma 3) Texas 4) Alabama 5) USC 19) Notre Dame
Okay? Those are the numbers. So lets shut the fuck up already about the whole "don't get the players" because you give these same players to Oregon State and they're going to be in the Rose Bowl every year.
I don't care how many people bash Notre Dame football. That team stays quite hard based on the number of blinded bullshitty cocksuckers who continually prop them up as a great team.
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USA Basketball should own every country it plays, so I was shocked to hear Colin Cowherd applauding them on his radio show this morning for having squeaked out a win against Spain.
Yes, I know Spain is good, and they have a handful of NBA players, but we're talking about TEAM USA! Do I have to
chant the goddamn letters for you to make you realize what we're talking about here?
No one should ever be even close against us, but since our players are basically one on one ballers, team concept basketball can always keep it quite close.
In the end, America's future star, the man I've been saying
I'd pick over Lebron Jones for a year, won the game by blocking a shot (and being all around awesome. Yes, I watched a lot of this game). The dude is just a baller with the killer instinct.
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Some guy was sitting across from me at the bar last week when
Eli Manning's head was propelled into the shoulder pads of a Jets defender. The man jumped off his stool and said, "Yeah, Eli, you fucking pussy!" He was a Jets fan.
I said to him, "Yeah, he is a pussy. Now why don't you be nice and order him a glass of that Chardonnay you're drinking..."
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And finally, the thing that matters most...The Ohio State vs Michigan game.
Just like everything else great that eventually gets fucked up
by typical American-style greed, so will this epic battle that makes me smile at the end of every football season.
This hasn’t been announced. It’s all but certain though, the drumbeat of public relation leaks assuring it. Commissioner Jim Delany has talked about it. So too has Ohio State coach Jim Tressel and Michigan athletic director David Brandon.
They want the idea to float out there so it isn’t a shock to the system when it becomes official next month. It may not shock, but it should sadden.
Awesome.
And that's all I got for now. I must go learn more about Brazil.
