National League MVP: Chase Utley, Philadelphia Phillies. I realize that with Albert Pujols chasing a triple crown, Utley's unlikely to get the nod, but a second baseman with 23 homers and 70 RBI at the end of July is pretty compelling. And his performance the last three years shows this is no fluke.
National League Cy Young: Matt Cain, San Francisco Giants. I never heard of him before this either, but he's 10 games above .500, and leading the league in ERA.
Team to Beat: Still the Dodgers, although the Phillies are closing fast.
AL MVP: Justin Morneau, Minnesota Twins. A fine player who already has a MVP trophy on his mantle.
AL Cy Young: Justin Verlander, Detroit Tigers. Slightly better ERA and many more strikeouts than Josh Beckett. I still like Zack Greinke a lot, but he's not getting any support from the Royals, and that's not likely to change.
Team to Beat: The Yankees have the best record in the league and they've been on fire lately.
The first study of drivers texting inside their vehicles shows that the risk sharply exceeds previous estimates based on laboratory research — and far surpasses the dangers of other driving distractions.
Yes, and let me point out as well that texting while bicycling and riding your skateboard (both activities that I have observed on multiple occasions recently) is hazardous as well.
As a dedicated cyclist, I do see more inattentive drivers on the road these days; the advent of the cellphone definitely made me more cautious around intersections. However, as I start with the assumption that they all intend to kill me, it doesn't change things much.
The conservative equivalent of 9-11 Truthers, who also love to show up at town hall meetings and harangue their representatives. Compare and contrast:
About the only difference is you don't hear the crowd egging on the Truther. But I guess that Obama Birtherism is mainstream Republican now, as Rush has given his seal of approval:
On his show today, Limbaugh told listeners, "As you know, I'm in the midst of another harassing audit from New York State and New York City for the last three years. We're up to 16 different ways I have to prove to New York City and state tax authorities where I have been every day – not just work week – but every day, for the past three years."
He continued, "Barack Obama has yet to have to prove that he's a citizen. All he has to do is show a birth certificate. He has yet to have to prove he's a citizen. I have to show them 14 different ways where the h--- I am every day of the year for three years."
There's the theory that comparative effectiveness review -- particularly when combined with a new IT infrastructure that could eventually help guide physician decisions -- will cut down on unnecessary treatments and allow us to bring high-spending regions of the country into sync with their low-spending brethren.
I like the comeback of one of his commenters:
Your argument is basically, "But he didn't even address the salient impact of unicorn dust and pixie wings".
I've heard all about the promise of technlogy and computerization saving money in health care not for years but for decades. The problem is that any savings on individual procedures immediately gets subsumed by additional demand. Nobody says, "Wow, fewer C-Sections, let's pocket the savings and lower the cost of care." Instead it gets turned into meeting improved access or broader services.
Those of you who are not Irish may only vaguely remember the name, but the Irish among us will never forget Angela's Ashes, McCourt's recounting of a terribly deprived childhood of an alcoholic father and an enabling mother.
It was a huge bestseller; I doubt there are many Irish in America who will confess to not having read it. It is a quite compelling and tragicomic story. Frank and his brother, Malachy, often went hungry because their father would go on a bender whenever he got paid, which unfortunately wasn't often because he was too much a drunk to stick with anything for long.
Where the story does become comical is on those paydays, as Frank and Malachy fantasize all the food they're going to eat when Daddy gets home. But of course as the afternoon turns into evening, and the evening into night, they realize that he's gone on an other bender, and by the time he returns there will be no money left for food.
As a result of his book, McCourt became a prominent professional Irishman and was featured extensively in the PBS series, The Irish in America.
Don't Blame Me, I Voted for the Loosertarian Candidate
Not the dumbest thing Stacy McCain has said, but right up there.
Yes, and how did this happen? Because I voted for Bob Barr in Maryland? I think not. The GOP nominated as its presidential candidate the only candidate in the primary field for whom I could not vote. (S. 2611.) The most electable candidate in the Republican field, Mitt Romney, quit two days after Super Tuesday.
The most electable candidate in the Republican field was the guy who couldn't win in the Republican primaries? How ironic is that?
As I will eventually tire of pointing out, McCain did better than the GOP candidates for Senate in 2008. So far from McCain dragging down the GOP, the GOP dragged down McCain. I can understand why some people want to ignore this, but I don't understand why we should listen to them when it is quite obvious that they are wrong, and when they contributed to Obama's victory with their constant carping about how the GOP's candidate was completely unacceptable.
Unlike Stacy McCain, I will pledge here and now to support the GOP's candidate in 2012. Even if it turns out to be Ron Paul.
They're threatening to vote against any insufficiently "progressive" bill. Given that the One's popularity is disappearing faster than an ice cream cone at the shore, it seems likely that he may have to compromise quite a bit to get a bill through, but if the progressives block it we may get nothing at all. Which would indeed be a pleasant surprise.
There is no way he can get away with telling a story like this and not disclosing who the Republican senator is. And note that after the groping story, Brooks starts talking about how lonely powerful people can be. Weird, very weird. But Brooks needs to disclose who this was.
Unless you were in college around 1975, you probably never heard the German version of Emerson Lake and Palmer, but Triumvirat's Spartacus is far better than anything ELP did. It's a concept album about a revolt against the Romans by a slave and gladiator named Spartacus, as in the movie with Kirk Douglas.
They didn't have a singer like Greg Lake or an organist who could match Keith Emerson, or a drummer like Carl Palmer. And to make matters worse, they were Germans (you can hear it in some of the mistakenly stressed syllables). But what they lacked in technical chops they made up for in an album that should be on everybody's must play list.
They had a couple other terrific albums; Illusions on a Double Dimple is also highly recommended.
I can't remember a song that started with a better hook. The "pow" about 12 seconds in is completely irresistable. The Moodys had some terrific intros: Ride My See Saw and You and Me are strong contenders.
If they had stayed together in the 1970s, I think they could have been a stadium band; they had a terrific catalog and when they reformed around 1978 they still could bring it. They just missed their wave, but at the top, they were as good as any band has ever been.
Sarah Palin is a coward and a bully. What kind of politician attacks an ordinary American on the Fourth of July for speaking her mind? What’s wrong with her? The First Amendment was designed to protect people like me from the likes of people like her. Our American Revolution got rid of kings. And queens, too. Am I jacked-up? You betcha.
How dare Sarah Palin exercise her right to free speech! What kind of ordinary American attacks an politician on the Fifth of July for speaking her mind?
My take? For some of them it's nothing more than snobbery; the Mo Dowd, Andrew Sullivan, Tina Fey axis of weasels. She's not one of "us", they sniff. She went to five colleges in four years, whereas we went to Haavaad. She got married to a guy who's not in mergers and acquisitions at Goldman, or even a lawyer. She had five kids and didn't even have the decency to abort the "defective" one.
For most, it's that she's a traitor to her sex. Women are all supposed to vote Democrat, so therefore she's not really a woman. You saw similar reactions to Clarence Thomas (or indeed any black who happens to be a Republican). They're race traitors (as is Michelle Malkin; Filipinos are supposed to stick up for the Japanese).
And once the treason is revealed, who would feel the need to stick up for the traitor? Indeed at that point it's appropriate to express racism or sexism. Sarah is a bimbo; otherwise she'd been a Democrat, QED.
Lots of speculation that Sarahcuda's resignation as governor of Alaska scotches any remaining chance she had of gaining the GOP nomination in 2012 or later. The timing to me seems quite a bit off; she could have finished out most of her term, quitting midyear 2010 and devote the fall to helping GOP candidates for Congress (the Richard Nixon program from 1966). Now it seems just a little too early.
Departing with little or no warning, after about 30 months in office, is beyond surprising. I'm sure the Lieutenant Governor will do fine, but there's definately a sense of leaving with work unfinished and as her career was just beginning to take off.
I know we've heard a lot of chanting "Governor, it's time to resign," but we meant Mark Sanford.
If she's really bowing out of national politics, this pretty much clears the decks for Mitt Romney.
The sense that something is wrong with our food quickly blurs into the suggestion that everything is wrong with our food. It has too much bacteria but also too many pesticides. It is too expensive, but we do not spend enough money on it. We need fewer corporations, or maybe more corporations run by the yogurt guy. With so much wrong, it is hard to know where to start. And sometimes, in fact, it seems that fixing one problem would create another: Making fruits and vegetables cheaper, for instance, is hard to do if you also want them to be organic.
But despite its overwhelming complexity, "Food, Inc." joins "In Defense of Food," "Fast Food Nation," "Super Size Me" and dozens of other polemical books and films in the necessary effort to convince us that checking out at the supermarket is, on some level, a political act, with consequences for ourselves, our families and our world.
You can guess the point here; those who care about ourselves, our familes and our world (and who have nice disposable incomes) should pay more for food.
