Nobody in Media Brings the Crazy Quite Like Ed Schultz

From the fine folks at Accuracy in Media we get this side splitting line:

MSNBC’s Ed Schultz: “Republicans Should Also Show the Same Kind of Character that Anthony Weiner Did Today”

There are misbehaving politicians in both parties, but for Schultz to use the word character in the same sentence as Weiner's name is comical.

Is Bobby Abreu a Future Baseball Hall of Famer?

Bobby Abreu is not a knock your socks off with amazing statistics type of Hall of Fame baseball player. It is easy to dismiss his case for enshrinement. He's never lead the league in any major offensive category. He hits for some power but doesn't have the totals to compete with the power numbers of his generation. He runs the bases well, but stolen bases don't get you in the Hall unless you're setting records. What Abreu brings to the conversation is incredible consistency and reliability. Ask a manager what they want from their players and pretty high on the list will be to know the player will always be available to play and will give predictably good performance. Since he became a full time player in 1994, Abreu has played more than 150 games every year. His 162 game average is Runs 103, Homers 21, RBI 97, SB 28, and BB 103. That is very valuable performance for a team to know they can count on. His career On-Base Percentage is a stellar .400 meaning he reaches base four out of every ten plate appearances. People may read this and laugh at the notion of Abreu as a Hall of Famer. To them I'd say consider Tony Gwynn. Gwynn was a first ballot Hall of Famer, but Abreu has actually provided more offensive value to his teams. The difference is in Bases of Balls (BB). Gwynn while garnering over 3,000 hits only drew 434 walks. By contrast, Abreu has already walked 1,387 times. That disparity is why Abreu has already scored more runs in his career than Gwynn. The object of the game is to score more runs than your opposition.

Abreu draws too many walks to reach any of the supposedly magic numbers like 3,000 hits. It is impossible to predict how players will age. Having said that, if Abreu can remain healthy and produce a couple more good seasons he will merit very serious consideration. He could finish with 300+ homers, 400+ SB's, 1,500 Runs, 1,400 RBI, and close to 600 doubles. Add them all up and you've had one heck of a career.

When is a Politician Truly Non-Partisan?

When does a career politician lose their affiliation to a political party? That's right, when it is a Democrat being charged with a crime. Here is a link to an article about a councilman accused of stealing $300,000 intended to support youth baseball.

D.C. Attorney General Irvin Nathan has sued Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas alleging Thomas directed to his personal use more than $300,000 in city funds meant to support youth baseball in the District.

The lawsuit filed Monday in D.C. Superior Court asks Thomas to pay the cash back and requests damages totalling more than $1 million. It alleges that Thomas spent the cash on an Audi and trips to Las Vegas and Pebble Beach, among other items.

Read the entire article and let me know if you see either "Democrat" or "Republican" anywhere in the article. Since it is a negative story and party affiliation isn't listed you can be certain the crooked politician is a Democrat. I will admit that since this particular crook is a DC politician they may not be aware that there is more than one political party.

Did Your Opinion of Congressman Weiner Change Due to Recent Revelations?

Rep Weiner (D-NY) has been in the news over the past week for his internet behavior. The newly married congressman has been sending flirty tweets and salacious pictures to various women for some time. A little more than a week ago he accidentally send one of the pictures through a public Tweet rather than through the Direct Message (DM) method. He quickly deleted his offensive picture of his crotch and made wild claims of being hacked. His story changed over the next couple days and he refused to request an investigation. Despite being ridiculed for avoiding an investigation, he was hoping the matter would just drop. However, yesterday more pictures he sent to other women surfaced as well as some of his internet chatting and he was forced to address the issue. Late yesterday afternoon, he admitted some limited misbehavior over the years with "about six women." The number of women is in scare quotes because I've done enough interviews of suspects to understand that words like "about," "approximately," etc. are used in order to minimize the quantity of their offenses. Now, if more than six women come forward he didn't lie because he did not definitively claim it was only six.

The title I used for this post was picked because of the different reactions I've seen online from people across the political spectrum regarding Weiner post-admission of misbehavior. For the last week or so, many liberals have been supporting Weiner with various versions of the "he's too smart to have done something so stupid." For those of us who have been disgusted with his political behavior over the years this episode was viewed not with surprise but rather as confirmation of his base character and lousy judgment.

My opinion of Weiner is no lower today than it was a year ago. This episode merely reinforces my opinion of him. Those who are surprised or shocked by his behavior have not been paying attention. Here is just one example, Weiner chose former president Bill Clinton to officiate at his wedding last year. If you have someone noted for being unfaithful throughout his own marriage officiate your marriage you are sending a message to your betrothed about your views on honesty and fidelity. By allowing him to pick Clinton, the bride was accepting that she was marrying someone unlikely to take his vows seriously.

Goofiest Global Warming Claim Yet

I realize I'm going out on a limb with the title to this post as the global warming alarmists have said some real nutty stuff. Regardless, I'm confident that the article I'm linking to is far beyond past claims. Here's the link. Here is a snippet of the insanity:

It's Saturday night, and you want to catch the latest summer blockbuster. You do a quick Google search to find the venue and right time, and off you go to enjoy some mindless fun.

Meanwhile, your Internet search has just helped kill the planet. Depending on how long you took and what sites you visited, your search caused the emission of one to 10 grams of carbon into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.

Sure, it's not a lot on its own — but add up all of the more than one billion daily Google searches, throw in 60 million Facebook status updates each day, 50 million daily tweets and 250 billion emails per day, and you're making a serious dent in some Greenland glaciers.

No, this was not pulled from TheOnion.com or other parody site. The kook who wrote this drivel, Alex Roslin is actually a paid journalist who has won journalism awards. Only good thing is he is Canadian so he (hopefully) doesn't vote in our elections.