Big Dog...

I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this....but...look how big this freakin dog is.....I'm pretty sure this is a real picture of a world record holding English Mastiff..This is the write up that came with the pic...

"Hercules was recently awarded the honourable distinction of Worlds Biggest Dog by Guinness World Records. Hercules is an English Mastiff and has a 38 inch neck and weighs 282 pounds.
With "paws the size of softballs" (reports the Boston Herald), the three-year-old monster is far larger and heavier than his breed's standard 200lb. limit. Hercules owner Mr. Flynn says that Hercules weight is natural and not induced by a bizarre diet: "I fed him normal food and he just grew".... and grew... and grew... and grew."

Timetables in Time

Well... today, as we all, expected the Prez vetoed the bill from Congress that sets a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq....Bush et al have yet to give an explanation for their position that holds any water. I was going quote this excellent piece of investigative journalism from ThinkProgress.org...but I think I'm just going to cut it and paste it.

I believe artificial timetables of withdrawal would be a mistake. … I will strongly reject an artificial timetable withdrawal and/or Washington politicians trying to tell those who wear the uniform how to do their job. [President Bush, 4/23/07]

“The…attempt to micromanage our commanders is an unwise and perilous endeavor. It is impossible to argue that an unconditional timetable for retreat could serve the security interests of the United States or our friends in the region.” [Vice President Cheney, 4/13/07]

Flashback to 1999, when George W. Bush was governor of Texas. Then, Bush criticized President Clinton for not setting a timetable for exiting Kosovo.

George W. Bush, 4/9/99, Houston Chronicle:

“Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is.”

And on the specific need for a timetable:

George W. Bush, 6/5/99, Scripps Howard/Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

“I think it’s also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn.”

Nuff said.

Just a few more stats...Trivia too...

Albert Pujols has amassed perhaps the most impressive 6 year start to a career in Baseball history...at least arguably...his average, in only 6 seasons for RBI's is a wopping 126...far ahead of the rest of the pack...the fact that we can watch this guy right now and watch his career is very exciting indeed...

Great Trivia (from my Ken...thanks Ken):

Albert Pujols has an amazing 250 home runs in his first six seasons as well...
This number is second to only one man in history.

Who is the only player to have more home runs than Pujol's 250 in their first 6 seasons in the Bigs?

Big props to anyone who can guess, without, obviously, doing any research....

Bonds and Stats...

The Barry Bonds issue is a complicated one. Many, many baseball fans now feel that his undeniable link to the steroids scandal tarnishes his potentially-amazing legacy. Many of these who feel betrayed, turned-off, duped by Bonds, can't even rationalize their feelings. When asked to discuss the matter some cannot pin down exactly why the feel as they do. In many cases, for better or worse, people's opinions of Bonds are now the stuff of the subconscious. We can't control how we feel about him, we can't rightly describe, in many cases, how we feel about him. We just feel that way.

I for one have been anti-Bonds for some years now, even before the scandal, because of his personality, and the unnatural rise in his production since the 2000 season. But say what you will about chemical enhancements, the guy's record is astounding. As we all know, he is approaching the coveted and hallowed 755 mark. He is light years ahead of the pack, all-time that is, in Walks, Slugging and OPS...in 2004 he posted a ridiculous on-base-percentage of .609...he got on base more than 60% of the times he came to the plate. That same year he had an unbelievable 232 walks, no one would pitch to him. 232 is 62 more than any other player, besides Bonds himself, has ever had in a single season. 62 more. Numbers like these make it hard to argue the fact that steriods or not, like him or not, when compared to his peers, Bonds is the best player of our era, hands down. Better than Clemens, better than A-Rod, better than Maddux, better than, well, everybody....

This being said, in checking out Bonds' fantastic stats I was once again, like I always am, drawn to the one of the greatest players of all-time and maybe my favorite Yankee-I-never-saw-play, Lou Gehrig. Though he was a superb all-around hitter, and is among the All-Time leaders in several major offensive categories....his absolute greatest achievements came with regard to RBI's. The guy was an absolute machine when it came to driving in runs, just the best ever. Tonight I was investigating (purely because I love analyzing Baseball stats) Gehrig's average number of RBI's per year, for his entire career. I knew that he died young, and played only 17 seasons, still his career RBI mark of 1995 is good for 4th all-time.

This makes his average for RBI's in a season an amazing 117...117 per season for 17 seasons....including his rookie year and his final years when the disease that would ultimately bear his name, had already weakened him....117.... pretty fantastic...To put this number in perspective I got some other all-time great run producers season averages....They are:

Gehrig 117
Ruth 100
Aaron 99
BobMeusel (underappreciated Yankee great from the the same teams of the 1920's) 97

in other words, no one came close, especially not when you consider, the number of seasons played...

I then went to the biggest active run producers...

Manny Ramirez in 14 admittedly fantastic seasons....has averaged 108
A-Rod in 13...averaged 103

Both very, very good marks, but still not as many as Gehrig had for his entire 17 season career...

So yeah, I don't know what the point of that was, but I just love talking about the Iron Horse, Lou Gehrig. Bonds' statistics are impressive, in some ways more impressive than anyone's...but there is something to be said for a level of consistency, day in and day out, that produces a 117 RBI average seasons.

It's only April...

Well...the Yankees began this young Major League Baseball season with Bronx Hero, Andy Pettite, and staff ace, Chien-Ming Wang, on the DL...since their returns both Mussina and Pavano have gone onto the DL as well...Pavano's case is particularly frustrating because the guy has been injured more than an underweight sumo wrestler since the Yanks acquired him a couple of seasons ago.

Tonight, the Yankees are back in the Bronx to face the division-leading Boston Red Sox and attempt to halt a 7-game losing streak...their longest in 7 years. This kid Jeff Karstens goes to the mound, fresh off the DL himself, and fresh off getting his brains bashed in by the BoSox last weekend in Boston. Karstens gets hit by a line drive on the 6th pitch of the night...broken fibula...perfect. He'll probably be gone for 2 months. Great.

Needless to say things have not been going well in the Bronx...Now, facing a 7 game skid, and another pitcher on the disabled list, in last place, sitting one our fifth straight loss to the hated Red Sox and our 8th loss overall. (Who knows when the hell that last happened)

What happens?

Another rookie, Kei Igawa, comes in, pitches 6 scoreless, and gets the win...Rivera saves it, Posade hits a bomb. Yankees win, thaaaaaaa Yankees win.

Now call me crazy, but I'm a Yankee fan and ya know, honestly I like our chances this year. The baseball season is long...lots of things can happen. That's one of the reasons why it is such a wonderful, fantastic, stupendous game.

A Ray of Sunshine

My girlfriend, Courtney, has been visiting her family and friends on the West Coast for a while now. Far too long, for my tastes, because I really miss her. Part of the reason she went out there was to get the car that her mother bought for her as a graduation present and drive it back to Ithaca. Remarkably, the car that her mom got her is a green, '68 VW Bus. I saw the thing last year when we were out there and it is pretty amazing. It has all of the amenities of the classic camper, and from what I understand her Mom has spent the last year repairing and restoring the hell out of it. I, for one, am very excited about it, as if seeing my baby for the first time in 2 months wasn't enough.

Here's a pic of "the Bus" we took when we were out in Cali last summer.




So as I write they are together (Courtney and her mom) driving back East. And while I was composing that last post (you know the sad and bitter one about how crappy our President is), she called to tell me a little anecdote from the road.

Court said that she was driving her VW Bus through her old school's parking lot in Arkansas, en route to visit some of her old teachers I guess. And she drove by a group of Sixth graders walking into the school, like 12 and 13 year olds, Arkansas natives. And they all waved to her enthusiastically and threw up Peace Signs with their little 12-year-old hands. She was surprised and thrilled to say the least. So stoked that she called me.

Isn't that cool that a bunch of kids from Arkansas associate "the Bus," as we have been calling it, with Peace. There is hope for us humans I think. And everytime I get a chance to interact with kids I am reminded of that. It is one of the many reasons I am so excited to become a teacher. Also, it is pretty weird, that she called to tell me about kids flashing peace signs in Arkansas, as I was writing to advocate Peace on my blog from my laptop in Ithaca. So yeah...like I said before...

Peace.

The News...

I apologize in advance for being so damned serious on this blog. I will blog some fun-loving things like Dave does in the near future, I swear.

Anyway, as many of you know.... Actually when I say "many of you" I really don't know who the hell I think I'm talking to. I mean there can't be more than 3 or 4 people that actually read this blog ever. How does that work exactly? Are we allowed to speak on our blog as though we are actually speaking to the vast Internet community, even when, in reality, we know we have a readership of a stout, but paltry, few? I dunno. But I like doing it. [By the way Dr. Mary Kennedy recently informed me that "Internet" must always be capitalized in formal writing. Did any of you Masselink kids ever hear that? It was news to me.]

Ok..so yeah..As many of you probably know the House passed a funding bill this week for the War, that included a timetable for withdrawal. The Senate followed suit yesterday. The unfortunate fact is that "our" President has already emphatically stated that he will veto any bill that involves a plan to get us out of Iraq. And we don't have the numbers in Congress to overide that veto.

So now we have both the Senate and the House, agreeing that we must set a timetable for Iraq. We have 71% of Americans dissaproving of the way Bush is handling the war (including 93% of Dems), and 64% supporting a timetable similar to the one just passed in Congress, 59% approve specifically of the bill just passed, according to a poll conducted by CBS News/NY Times this week. We have all kinds of Iraq war vets, supporting withdrawal. the most recent, reliable, poll from Zogby I could find indicates that overall 72% !! of American soldiers in Iraq supported withdrawal by 2006! The poll was conducted at the beginning of last year. There have been more recent reports of our own soldiers dissaproval of the War effort that I can't find links for right now. Besides all of that the Iraq citizens themselves want us out to the tune of 70%, more than half now feel attacks on U.S troops are justified!!!

So, I mean the bottom line is that support for the war at this point only exists with the President and with those Republicans in Congress too stupid, and too loyal, to realize that he is at the helm of a sinking ship. If Bush persists in vetoeing bills that make plans for withdrawal, which he is very likely to do, the war will go on despite our wishes. And to the detriment of America, Iraq and on some levels the entire world. More Americans will die for a cause that is basically, at this point, nonexistent.

Things are worse now in Iraq than they were under Saddam. And not simply with regard to the level of violence-- even schools and hospitals, and basic utilities are in worse shape. The reasons that the President used to lead us to war have all been debunked, at this point. There was no good reason to go there in the first place and there is no good reason to stay now. The President is undoubtedly worried that failure in Iraq, will mean a failure in his Administration. He has focused all of his energy into one basket, and if those egss break he has nothing. The guy is obsessed with his legacy and still believes that he is a great man, and a great leader. If he has to pull out of Iraq, he might have to face the reality that his legacy will not be a glorious one. I mean think of all the terrible things that have happened on his watch. If he is forced to withdraw from Iraq, his last hope of salvaging anything decent from his presidency will be squashed. For Bush, I believe, it is completely personal now for him. He is using the lives and resources of America to vainly and naively attempt to save his name from disgrace. History will bear witness to the utter and dismal failure of his Presidency, and we will look back on these post-911 years as some of the worst in our nation's history. It is a sad and terrible thing. But the only way to make it better for all of us, is to start doing the right thing again. And start doing it right away. Bush is determined to drag this war out for the rest of his term so he doesn't have to face the consequences of his actions. I fear that the only way we can ensure troop withdrawal is to impeach the moron, or wait til November '08 and make damn sure we vote in a Democrat who is committed to ending the War. I am ashamed to say thats what it has come to. The President will be studied for all time however. Because he has exploited every possible weakness in the U.S. Government system. He has abused his power ever time he was been able to and to this point we haven't been able to stop him. It is really f*cked up that the system is still set up to the point where a rogue leader can so thoroughly control the fate of this once great Nation. I always thought that we were beyond this kind of thing, but I am afraid we are not.

Supporting the troops does not mean supporting the President, it means getting us the hell out of there as soon as possible. If your still not sure, check out VoteVets.org . Here's a sample of one of the most popular vids from the site.






Impeach the President.

Take a stand for Peace, and for responsibility.