Torre to the Dawdga's?- Spare Me!

Yeh, that's what I said when I read about this last night. That being, Joe Torre may in fact take the manager spot for the LA Dodgers. Ok, we all know that the Dodgers have money and they spend it rather freely. So why not give Torre a team of inflated salaries. Hell, it worked in New York!! The difference between NY and LA is that 1996 Torre actually proved he could work with youth, given a good farm system that is. He molded such talents as Jeter, Posada, Rivera, and Petite and furthered the careers of O'Neil, Martinez, and brosius. But after that year he got lazy and the team decided to forfeit their youth and go with star power. He succeeded for the most part but eventually lost his grip and has been what I think a pretty substandard coach. I know your idolized in Yankee-land but you havent won with a 200 million dollar payroll in 7 years.

WELL Joe, your going to inherit a franchise that skipped the 1996 dream season. Your adopting a 2003 Yankees. The Dodgers don't have much youth. Sure they have Either and Loney but you now have Normar, Kent, Gonzo, and a pitching staff that doesn't seem to want to play in the big game. You know what, As a Giants fan I don't fear you one bit and I believe im granted the right to criticize you as well as hate you!! Your coaching my most hated team now!! Lets see, Your taking over the Dodgers. A team that was supposed to dominate the NL for the past 3 years, but have failed to even manage a winning record. Ok, your replacing a failed RedSox manager, so you automatically get 10 wins for that. But your still a sub .500 team.

The Dodgers payroll is hovering around a moderate 120 million dollars. Well below what your used to. Also, your not a good NL Manager. You stunk it up in Cardinal-land, made it to the playoffs once with the Braves (and got swept), and did an awful job coaching the Bums. The NL is a much more strategized environment. There is no DH so you need to manage your bullpen to the T. I dont think your capable of doing that, especially with the bullpen in LA. I just hope you do the right thing an take a year off to reflect. Dont tarnish your image by sinking an already leaky ship.

Buchanan Preaching the Truth! (mostly)

Always been a huge fan of Pat Buchanan in his hands off approach to most things, though his hands on approach to religious involvement in portions of public of government operations always made me squirm a bit.

All that being said, he typically stands as the bastion to conservative values for most republicans, so when he has a judgement call to make on someone, typically there is a significant audience listening.

So when Buchanan comes out and says that:

"Rudy offers the right the ultimate Faustian bargain: retention of power at the price of one's soul."

I would tend to believe that there is a pretty big audience listening (or I would hope so).

The GOP does seem to enjoy branding Romney as their "St. George" vs the "Dragon" of Senator Clinton, but Giuliani continues to maintain a fairly wide appeal among the party, as well as some more moderate members that like to highlight his crack-down on crime and sheer "luck" at being the mayor of NY when 9/11 occurred. He was not nearly this popular prior to the attacks, but for some reason people equate him with strong leadership precisely because he was mayor then.

I guess I don't understand how this guy can seriously be a legitimate contender on the national scene? Honestly, what is he really known for, except for just being there on that day?

You read countless articles and op-eds about how this guy constantly ducks chances to be involved in brushing up on foreign policy to attend fund raisers, is just about always late for any event he's planned on hosting or attending, has members of his own family working for Obama, I mean what more do people need?

He's always been a "bad guy", he'll always be a "bad guy"! It hurts my head to feel like all those people that voted for the "Idiot Boy King" are going to turn around and vote for this guy purely because they can't find a worse candidate...

Dews Wednesday Issues

Ahh, another freezing day up here in basically Canada, but lets get right to the issues of the day...

We have apparently found a supercharged germ that is drug-resistant and spreading like crazy right here in the States. Not only that, but it is killing more people in the United States each year than the AIDS virus, federal health officials reported yesterday.

Little scary to think about, but I suppose this is what happens when people don't take their medication properly!!!

Southern California is apparently in worse shape real estate-wise then a lot of other parts of the country. Sales of houses have sunk another 30% this month.

Again, glad the market is still tumbling, since my return to DC may not be all that far off it seems...

Bush appears on target to make Harry Truman's numbers look positively amazing as he continues to sink in polls. Currently Bush is polling at just about 24% approval rating which really makes me want to go door to door to all those bastards that voted for him and slap them silly, since it took this long for them to finally learn their lesson.

Finally, some uplifting news out of New York City though. As part of their "Get tough on Graffiti" campaign, they've apparently rounded up a 6-year old girl for drawing with chalk on the sidewalk.

I'm sure this has something to do with Giuliani, but I can't prove it... Yet...

UPDATE: If anyone has any interest in the state of the current primary elections, Slate.com has a great scorecard running that seems to be updated daily. You can find it here