Whatever-it’s-called The Grill 1-14-10 ← FREE KRAUT!

Whatever-it’s-called The Grill 1-14-10 82

1. Like Fack Youk, I liked McGwire better before all this apology nonsense.  FY on how contrary to what Poz says, McGwire’s apology is little better than A-Rod’s (courtsey of Poz)

2. I’ve enjoyed following this Lane Kiffin-to-USC thing.  Enjoyed reading initial reactions (Ratto & Plaschke) but the guy who’s probably having the most fun with this story is T.J. Simers.

3. This is, like, kinda funny.

4. And finally, “Dock Ellis and his no-hitter on acid going to Sundance

82 thoughts on “Whatever-it’s-called The Grill 1-14-10

  1. Leopold Bloom Jan 14,2010 9:36 am

    1. Typical Boston asshat. There’s something in the water up there, makes ’em all back-biters. It’s worse in the winter after a Patriots loss.

    2. I thought I was the only one still reading TJ Simers. I love him, though he’s clearly insane, and not in a Ray Ratto kinda way.

    3. Like, didn’t he used to be, like, liberal? Or was he, like, just contrarian, and, like, trying to be, like, against whatever was in the the forefront? He’s kinda, like, become a dick. I went to grad school with a bunch of people like Hitchens and I’ve still not quite decided how I feel about him. Making fun of people with poor phonetics, though, seems beneath his gaze. Must’ve been a slow news week or his deadline was before McGwire’s conversation.

    4. I loved acid. What a fun, fun drug.

    • mjdittmer Jan 14,2010 11:34 am || Up

      And get off your lawn?
      1. A couple of things I liked about the FY piece: a) proper recognition of his own role when it all comes down to it: “When you are a media bottom feeder like myself and you wait 36 hours to give your opinion on a story like this, all that’s left is the backwash of the backlash. So here goes nothing…”; b) well-articulated praise of Posnanski as a pre-“back-biting” caveat: “If you don’t read Joe Posnanski’s blog, you are truly missing out. If there was a sports writers draft tomorrow, he would be snatched up with the first pick. He weaves together disparate topics with ease and makes seemingly uninteresting things worth reading about. His posts are long and nuanced and are meant to be read in full, but I’m going to blockquote him here (and take him out of context) to make a point”; c) his point, from a post the next day on the same subject, on how intelligent writers can disagree–a point that sort-of addresses your questions about Hitchens in No. 3.

      As writers, we try hard to make points and gravitate towards unequivocal terms in doing so. Readers don’t want to waste their time reading wishy-washy opinions and writers don’t generally waste their time typing up their thoughts on issues that they don’t feel strongly about. As a result, there are bound to be any number of contradictions in a person’s body of work over the course of time. If anyone cared enough to rummage through my archives, I’m sure there would be plenty of them there as well.

      On the other hand, one thing I don’t like about the piece is the use of the phrase, “I still consider the single season home run record to be 61.” Also, their blog’s name is disturbingly similar to this one’s.

      2. Yeah, Simers is definitely out there. Or we should say, he puts himself out there.

      3. I just discovered Hitchens through mb’s recommendation and have been reading him regularly via his twitter account. So far, I like the writing–I probably don’t have enough info on him and the subjects he covers to speak on whether he’s changing politically. It’d be interesting to hear from mb on this.

      • Leopold Bloom Jan 14,2010 11:57 am || Up

        he says all that nice stuff about Posnanski, then rips him for being inconsistent between A-Rod’s confession and McGwire confession. There’s a reason for that: A-Rod’s a douche.

        • andeux Jan 14,2010 12:04 pm || Up

          He’s not ripping him, just pointing out an inconsistency. I’m with Boston ass-hat on this one.

          TINSTAAFK
          • Leopold Bloom Jan 14,2010 12:04 pm || Up

            meh.

            Speaking of meh, has someone kidnapped the monkey?

            • monkeyball Jan 14,2010 12:48 pm || Up

              I had some statisticians I had to crush under my bootheel.

              you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
            • mjdittmer Jan 14,2010 12:54 pm || Up

              He’s tied up in my basement. I loved him too much to let him roam free. You’re next, LB.

          • nevermoor Jan 14,2010 12:59 pm || Up

            Fwiw, Pos agrees… to an extent.

            I’m not going to spend a lot of time disagreeing because I really think it’s a fair point. I could not tell you that there isn’t some contradiction here. But I also think that there were drastic differences between A-Rod and McGwire, so I’ll give you 500 words or so on the topic.

            Here is the big difference: A-Rod used a fair section of his apology to rip Selena Roberts, the reporter who pulled back the curtain and exposed him. That was my biggest beef with his apology and the main reason why I felt the way I felt about what he said. As I wrote then:

            "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • andeux Jan 14,2010 12:37 pm || Up

        re. Hitchens:
        He’s always been kind of a classic witty, hard-drinking, erudite British intellectual. Lots of fun to read if you agree with him, and infuriating if you don’t. He was generally left-leaning, often to an extreme, and in particular very anti-religion. (I remember turning on the radio when I first moved to Berkeley, landing on KPFA and hearing this guy who turned out to be Hitchens railing against Mother Teresa.)
        After 9/11 he became an enthusiastic champion of the “war on terror,” including the invasion of Iraq and some of the civil rights abuses in the US. Whether that constitutes a radical shift in his ideology depends on how you look at it. On the one hand he was aligning himself with people and supporting similar practices to ones he had blasted in the past. On the other hand, his belief that radical Islam needs to be stamped out can be seen as just part of his larger anti-religion crusade. (Also worth noting is that many secular Europeans worry, rightly or wrongly, about a growing Muslim population gaining too much political power there, in the same way that their American counterparts worry about the influence of the (Christian) religious right here.)

        TINSTAAFK
        • Leopold Bloom Jan 14,2010 1:33 pm || Up

          I read him regularly and I watch him if he’s on the television. I try to reattach my earlier viewpoint of him with what I see of him today.

          However, if both he and Cornell West are hanging off a cliff and I can only save one, I’m probably stepping on Hitchens fingers to pull Brother Cornell up.

        • mjdittmer Jan 18,2010 2:53 pm || Up

          This book seems to show Hitchens in both lights; that is, how he might be at once liberal and yet a pain in the liberal establishment’s collective ass.
          Also, LB, isn’t it one-l-Cornel?

          • Leopold Bloom Jan 18,2010 4:22 pm || Up

            Yup. I’ve made an error. E-Sign maker.

        • mjdittmer Jan 18,2010 3:03 pm || Up

          Oh, one more link, channeling LB above:

          What happened to Christopher Hitchens? How did a longtime columnist at The Nation become a contributor to the Weekly Standard, a supporter of President Bush in the 2004 election, and an invited speaker at the conservative activist David Horowitz’s forthcoming Restoration Weekend, along with Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh? Or, to put it another way, how did Hitchens come to be a “Lying, Self-Serving, Fat-Assed, Chain-Smoking, Drunken, Opportunistic, Cynical Contrarian”? (This is from the title of an essay posted on CounterPunch, a Web site co-edited by Hitchens’s former friend and Nation colleague Alexander Cockburn.)

          • Leopold Bloom Jan 18,2010 4:24 pm || Up

            It very well could be his true belief in the opposition of religion. He is very anti-religion. It does seem strange however that he seemingly switched allegiances. Of course, it also could be that he didn’t and felt he could do more damage from within. If ANYONE were capable of making this transition, it’s him. He’s egocentric enough to assume he could make some people change their minds in that capacity. I dunno.

          • monkeyball Jan 18,2010 4:47 pm || Up

            Yeah, well, IIRC, Cockburn’s jumped his own tracks as well.

            you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
            • Leopold Bloom Jan 18,2010 5:48 pm || Up

              In 1999, Alexander Cockburn wrote, “Many’s the time male friends have had to push Hitchens’s mouth, fragrant with martinis, away” during hellos and goodbyes; Hitchens said that he had no memory of “making a bid for the clean-limbed and cupid-lipped Alexander Cockburn.”

  2. nevermoor Jan 14,2010 9:44 am

    Making out became less “necessary.” Hell, it was never necessary to begin with. It was fun, most especially between two people who enjoyed playing together. I believe that many of us have a strong, if not fully articulated, desire for extended periods of making out. No, I am not referring to “foreplay.” Making out need not be “fore” anything.

    He’s a good read these days.

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • Leopold Bloom Jan 14,2010 11:45 am || Up

      He’s got all wistful and French since he got sick.

  3. nevermoor Jan 14,2010 9:47 am

    I think, although cannot know, that I would be glad for this article even if Obama did not cut spending more than Bush. Spending cuts are a core conservative goal, and the ability to achieve them should be something conservatives focus on.

    Giving credit where credit is due should be a goal for both sides, so consider this one of mine.

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  4. nevermoor Jan 14,2010 9:47 am

    Thoughts on the bank tax?

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  5. nevermoor Jan 14,2010 9:50 am

    See, I have been working out.

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  6. nevermoor Jan 14,2010 10:38 am

    Doesn’t this have to be true:

    to argue about Raines — or Blyleven or Ron Santo or Mark McGwire or Gil Hodges — with Miller out of the Hall of Fame seems beside the point. Without Miller, a good case can be made that there should not even be a Baseball Hall of Fame.

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • andeux Jan 14,2010 11:29 am || Up

      No, it seems like a totally separate issue. I mean, it’s absurd that Bowie Kuhn is in the hall of fame and Marvin Miller is not, just as it’s absurd that Jim Rice and Lou Brock are in and Raines is not, but there’s no real way to compare the players to the non-players.

      TINSTAAFK
    • Leopold Bloom Jan 14,2010 11:56 am || Up

      That was weird. For whatever reason, I spent the first 3/4ths of that article assuming it was Plaschke who wrote it, and I was subconsciously ripping it.

  7. nevermoor Jan 14,2010 10:50 am

    Rock on, SABR. Rock on.

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • Leopold Bloom Jan 14,2010 11:54 am || Up

      Deep Focus, Inc.’s a NYC-based marketing company. They’re scum. My backing goes with the stat geeks. Roll, geeks.

      • monkeyball Jan 14,2010 12:47 pm || Up

        Hey, do I impugn sign-makers?

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • Leopold Bloom Jan 14,2010 1:34 pm || Up

          JC, you’re in marketing?!

          There is no god.

          • nevermoor Jan 14,2010 1:41 pm || Up

            Where did you think his wit came from?

            "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  8. monkeyball Jan 14,2010 12:47 pm

    This looks funny.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  9. monkeyball Jan 14,2010 12:48 pm

    Tony, Tony, Tony. Being truthful is always the correct course of action.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • monkeyball Jan 14,2010 12:49 pm || Up
      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • nevermoor Jan 14,2010 1:03 pm || Up

      Where is Jon Heyman on this? Where is Ken Rosenthal? Mike Lupica? Dan Shaugnessy?

      Answer: protecting their ability to get Cardinals stories next season.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • andeux Jan 14,2010 1:04 pm || Up

        I read that and thought “Or Buzz Bissinger?”

        TINSTAAFK
    • Leopold Bloom Jan 14,2010 1:44 pm || Up
  10. monkeyball Jan 14,2010 12:57 pm

    Tapir baby!

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • green star oakland Jan 14,2010 1:39 pm || Up

      Lemur conkers!

      If this is His will, He's a son of a bitch.
  11. nevermoor Jan 14,2010 1:01 pm

    Science Thursday: people are stupid.

    Aka: Karl Rove is (no-snark) one of the better campaign managers of modern US politics.

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  12. nevermoor Jan 14,2010 1:07 pm

    If Klein is right, this is an out-and-out stupid deal:

    Early reporting is that the deal exempts union plans for a couple of years and raises the threshold for the tax, but we’ll see.

    At least the Nelson deal was something that was structurally good (more federal medicare money) instead of something that is structurally bad (less revenue generated by excise tax)

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • bbenny Jan 14,2010 1:28 pm || Up

      apples and oranges, NM

      This is good for the unions. They can’t afford to have their members hammered by that excise tax, and here in Cali it would effect quite a few union members. They are probably hoping that this will get revisited when there is additional pressure for real reform.

      -A night you wouldn't conjure in your wildest alcoholic dream!
      • nevermoor Jan 14,2010 1:33 pm || Up

        No, not apples and oranges.

        Both are giveaways to secure support. The first was a giveaway we should be giving to everyone (instead of just NE). The second was a giveaway we should not be giving.

        Unions should be negotiating an xfer from medical benefits to wages with their management (who, unless I’m missing something, wouldn’t care) rather than fighting for targeted giveaways.

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
        • bbenny Jan 15,2010 1:18 pm || Up

          I see the two differently. Nelson held up the senate for his piece with a wedge issue. The “cadillac tax” as it is called is a real problem for the union constituency, for the following reasons –

          A. The value of excellent health benefits is very hard to predict even in a normal cycle of inflation, much less with x factor of subsidies and impending mandates thrown in. That is why it has been to unions’ advantage to bargain for the best possible benefit and lock it in for the longest period.

          B. Union’s have collective bargaining agreements that expire at different times. It is never a good strategy for a union to open negotiations on a mandatory subject of bargaining without the leverage of broader subjects at issue and a full spectrum of leverage to wield at the table. Even worse (I would call it incompetent) for a union to open negotiations on a mandatory subject with a predetermined takeaway as the end objective. It just won’t work, you can never get back the value of the takeaway.

          This cadillac tax has been a huge problem from the beginnning and it will only get in if the unions believe that it will not have any real impact by the time it goes into effect. Which fits with the broader pipe dream, among establishment dems anyway, of this legislation.

          -A night you wouldn't conjure in your wildest alcoholic dream!
          • nevermoor Jan 15,2010 1:31 pm || Up

            That’s interesting. I wouldn’t have expected that a predetermined takeaway was an impossible position (when the takeaway is neutral for employers). That’s a different kind of negotiating than I’m familiar with, but certainly doesn’t make it wrong.

            I personally think the “huge problem” idea is crap to begin with (its a tax on 40% of benefits after the high threshold, so it’s a tiny tax on a tiny number of plans). Unions who negotiated big benefits and small wages gained a windfall for a long time, the fact that that window needs to close for a much larger and unrelated reason can’t possibly make the sky fall. Or, put another way, there is no good policy reason for employer-provided health benefits to be untaxed at all (while other health insurance is taxed), so taxing only the most expensive ones is a long way from unfair.

            And to clarify, no one (at least that I am aware of) believes the tax will have no impact. It is designed to raise revenue, and can only do that by having an impact. Furthermore, its existence will provide an incentive towards less expensive plans (especially important because more expensive plans are not necessarily better).

            "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
            • bbenny Jan 15,2010 1:56 pm || Up

              The point is that the takeaway is never neutral and trying to agree on the facts and figures with an employer with intrinsic power in the relationship requires a certain amount of bludgeoning. It is about power.

              Yes it is an entirely regressive tax.

              Union members have sacrificed higher waiges for years in order to maintain what they thought was a responsible level of health benefit. What this bill calls a cadillac here in CA is often really just completely adequate insurance.

              Union members have made these decisions partly in the belief that holding up their better plans would benefit society in general. It has been a strategy in the last decade to do this in order to put pressure on employers to support some kind of national health care. You apparently have a dim view of unions but you are wrong on this point, NM. They are not all bad and many of the folks involved in organizing have high ideals.

              This goes to another area of HCR, which is the problem of disparate billing practices which makes comparing policy prices in different parts of the country almost impossible. Really, truly, a $1500 per month policy for a family of four in the bay area, which might not even allow more than a veneer of provider choice, is probably adequate and may be full of holes. Said family of four living on a combined income of $100,000 is not the family we should be taxing even if their employer is picking up the tab.

              -A night you wouldn't conjure in your wildest alcoholic dream!
              • nevermoor Jan 15,2010 4:32 pm || Up

                To clarify, I don’t have a dim view of unions generally (although I do in this instance).

                You’re also playing some numbers games. A $1500/month policy is not a $24,000 policy and would not be subject to any tax. A $2000/month policy would not be subject to any tax. A $2500/month policy would be subject to $200/month of taxes. Conversely, for a $100,000 family that paid for insurance without a tax break, that $2500/month would be subject to $478/month of taxes (19.1% total tax rate).

                It is also not a regressive tax because it only applies to people with generous benefits (and I certainly think $2000/month is generous in the bay area). It would be more progressive to tax benefits directly because income tax is a more progressive system, but that attempt failed. The limitation to taxing insurance providers rather than individuals is that you can’t consider the individuals’ income level.

                "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
                • bbenny Jan 15,2010 5:45 pm || Up

                  I wasn’t up on the numbers and thresholds in the proposal. So that was really just a hypothetical game I was playing.

                  But I have been out of the game for about 3 years. It is actually concievable that some plans exceed the $2000 per month and it is also concievable that these are not extraordanarily rich.

                  Again, it would be a mistake to assume that this proposal won’t hammer some people with more modest means than you might imagine and that is why there is this resistance. That’s why I call it regressive, though “riddled with holes” might be a better term.

                  From a union perspective, albeit way too altruistic, why should any union member get taxed in this context? I mean that is where I am coming from.

                  -A night you wouldn't conjure in your wildest alcoholic dream!
                • nevermoor Jan 15,2010 5:55 pm || Up

                  Because any cost control is going to effect people. I, personally, would favor ending the exemption entirely as long as the additional income was well allocated. I don’t think health care is a problem we can solve exclusively by taxing the top 1% of earners. It’s too big for that.

                  The better question, I think, is why shouldn’t union workers also pay the tax?

                  "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
                • bbenny Jan 15,2010 6:16 pm || Up

                  Well politically, I think union workers have earned a pass this time around.

                  Pragmatically they shouldn’t because it is not income. Again, these are folks who have, very responsibly, prioritized healthcare for themselves and their families. If they were paying out of their pocket directly I would feel different.

                  -A night you wouldn't conjure in your wildest alcoholic dream!
                • nevermoor Jan 15,2010 6:20 pm || Up

                  I guess I just don’t understand either issue. By politically, do you mean because Dems are in power?

                  Benefits are compensation and are therefore part of income. I see them as folks who have (smartly) preferred an employer spend $1 on a tax-free benefit than on taxed income, but I don’t see how that’s a laudable moral choice (rather than a smart financial one).

                  "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
                • bbenny Jan 15,2010 9:59 pm || Up

                  Maybe the answer to both is the same.

                  What I said above is that, and now I am very far afield here, but union members chose these benefits not only out of a sense of responsibility but as a strategy.

                  Further explanation: in negotiations union members have been told by employers “your health benefits are too expensive, you need to shoulder more of the cost.” The good union’s response has been “it’s not our fault premiums are going up” and then they proved that to be true and then showed the employer – look this is what we are doing as a group in various efforts to reform healthcare – what are you, boss, doing about it? The answer from the employer is always the same. Which is most employers have been fighting any reform efforts, politically and in practice. Obviously just making this argument doesn’t do shit so you have to, again, pummel the employer.

                  So, you see, what I’m getting to, these unions think they have led the battle for reform in some respects, so politically they have to get a bone.

                  The reason I am maybe a tad on a limb here is I don’t know the numbers so we may be talking about very few actually effected. In which case this is entirely political.

                  One other point, it is a mistake to just put a dollar amount on benefits. There are intangibles…

                  -A night you wouldn't conjure in your wildest alcoholic dream!
                • mk Jan 16,2010 7:39 am || Up

                  Related post that does not resolve your disagreement, but nevertheless contains various enlightening (for me, anyway) details:

                  These trust funds are financed by a negotiated hourly contribution that comes out of the overall wage package for employees. Virtually all of these plans are “self-funded” meaning that there is no insurer involved — medical claims are paid directly out of the corpus of the trust funds.

                  […]

                  The hourly contribution rate for these “Taft-Hartley welfare funds” as the medical plans are generally known in the industry is designed not only to pay for the true cost of benefits, but typically to provide subsidized coverage to retirees and to unemployed or underemployed members. Construction workers are often unable to work until they are 65 — it is work that is simply too physically demanding. As a result, there is often a gap of several years between retirement and Medicare eligibility. This group of members — generally ranging in age from 55 to 65 — are the most expensive demographic to which to provide health coverage. As a result, almost every Taft-Hartley plan subsidizes the continued medical coverage for retirees, especially non-Medicare eligible retirees. When I first started in this business, most of the funds actually gave free coverage to retirees or provided it at a token cost. Over time this has become impossible, although it is still normal to see retirees having anywhere from 50 to 80% of their medical costs subsidized.

                  […]

                  Because of this ethic of mutual obligation and a sense that the medical and pension funds are the living embodiment of that ethic in action, it is common for a union membership to do what is necessary to keep the funds healthy, even if it means foregoing raises or actually cutting wages. As a result, the notion that this could ultimately result in their benefit contributions being taxed is anathema to both union leadership and membership. (I can’t tell you how many messages I’ve been getting about the impact of the Cadillac Tax, even with groups who are not terribly close to the $23,000 per year triggering point.)

                • nevermoor Jan 16,2010 8:36 am || Up

                  A couple reactions:

                  I can’t tell you how many messages I’ve been getting about the impact of the Cadillac Tax, even with groups who are not terribly close to the $23,000 per year triggering point.

                  This suggests the bbenny is right about this being a political issue first.

                  Second, if these plans have a ton of 50+ year olds in them, the line won’t be $24k (or rather, their cost will be adjusted downwards via community rating).

                  "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
                • bbenny Jan 16,2010 12:06 pm || Up

                  Thanks mk. That describes one common “scenario.” Hotel workers, laborers, etc. tend to have these types of arrangements.

                  The other big group that this may effect are health care workers, both public and private, teachers and other state employees who have historically pushed their employers to run or join consortiums that were meant to lower costs and provide top notch coverage. Some of these relationships have resulted in inefficiencies but most have provided well for union memnbers primarily because members are active stakeholders. You can see how these arrangements could lead to increased costs. As union members held the line on coverage the insurance companies have just jacked up the prices, knowing that the employers were locked into the deals. So this is why this tax is seen as unfair to unions. And also why it is hard to convert coverage into a dollar value. There are just too many factors for me to account for.

                  -A night you wouldn't conjure in your wildest alcoholic dream!
                • nevermoor Jan 18,2010 10:31 pm || Up

                  These are good points, that’s also the sort of behavior (on the insurer’s part) that the tax is designed to discourage.

                  "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • nevermoor Jan 14,2010 2:53 pm || Up

      Ezra spins.

      In the excise tax deal announced today, the threshold becomes $24,000, and the growth rate is exactly the same. The basics of the tax are virtually unchanged. The other elements of the deal are that vision and dental coverage aren’t included in the taxable cost of the plan; there are adjustments for the age and gender of the pool (so if your insurance is expensive because everyone in your group is 52, there’s an adjustment for that); and it doesn’t hit union plans until 2018, which gives them time to renegotiate their contracts — — presumably rebalancing their compensation away from expensive insurance plans and towards higher wages, which is exactly what the tax is supposed to.

      From a pure health care cost control policy angle: Lowering the threshold is bad; excluding vision and dental I’m not as sure about (but I lean towards it being bad); excluding union plans for eight years is bad and unfair; and the pool adjustments are good.

      I agree with Ezra that it could have been worse, and that HCR should still be passed. I just wish we didn’t have to capitulate to unions to do it.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  13. nevermoor Jan 14,2010 1:39 pm

    Is there a reason no one is talking about Felipe Lopez? He’s an above average 2B/3B (SSS on 3B) and a below average SS with an average bat. CHONE likes him as a 2+ WAR guy, and lord knows we need people who can play those three positions.

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • Leopold Bloom Jan 14,2010 2:17 pm || Up

      He knows what he did.

      • nevermoor Jan 14,2010 2:31 pm || Up

        Last summer?

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
        • Leopold Bloom Jan 14,2010 2:40 pm || Up

          Well, let’s just say I’m never making Boeuf en Daube and inviting him to the Hamptons again.

          • monkeyball Jan 14,2010 2:43 pm || Up

            I always enjoyed Grant’s old Giants website, Waiting for Boeuf.

            you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  14. nevermoor Jan 14,2010 3:27 pm

    Honest question: Isn’t Race to the Top the most popular of Obama’s programs amongst conservatives? Am I making that up?

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  15. monkeyball Jan 14,2010 3:34 pm

    “I will not commit Texas taxpayers to unfunded federal obligations or to the adoption of unproven, cost-prohibitive national curriculum standards

    I think it’s about this sort of thing.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • nevermoor Jan 14,2010 3:41 pm || Up

      Yikes.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • green star oakland Jan 14,2010 3:54 pm || Up

        At what point do other states coordinate their purchasing to counteract the Texas effect? The “perfect world” solution of allowing each district to make its own decisions assumes a wide range of textbooks to choose between, which I doubt has ever been the case.

        The other alternative would be something based on kindle-like technology – not only allowing for much wider and locally tailored choices, but also doing away with the health risks of overweight backpacks full of books.

        If this is His will, He's a son of a bitch.
    • Leopold Bloom Jan 14,2010 3:55 pm || Up

      Imma have this tattooed across my back:

      Then I see how they treat Ronald Reagan–he needs to get credit for saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last twenty years because he lowered taxes.”

      • green star oakland Jan 14,2010 4:01 pm || Up

        Typical Texas edumakashun – everyone knows David Hasselhoff overthrew communism.

        If this is His will, He's a son of a bitch.
      • monkeyball Jan 14,2010 4:02 pm || Up

        … so the Ruling Class can read that every time they screw you?

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  16. monkeyball Jan 14,2010 4:28 pm

    In college, I played jazz flute for Marin County Fern Bar

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • Ice Cream Jan 14,2010 5:00 pm || Up

      You must have frond memories of that time.

      Where is the good in "good-bye"?
      • monkeyball Jan 14,2010 5:07 pm || Up

        Not really. I was very spore at the time.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • Ice Cream Jan 14,2010 6:20 pm || Up

          Did you have to germinate your relationship with the group?

          Where is the good in "good-bye"?
          • nevermoor Jan 14,2010 6:43 pm || Up

            Uh oh. Here we grow again.

            "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  17. monkeyball Jan 14,2010 5:16 pm
    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  18. nevermoor Jan 14,2010 5:27 pm

    Tigers jump to the front of the offseason WTF line.

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  19. mjdittmer Jan 14,2010 5:35 pm

    I am listening to the Simmons-Tim Goodman podcast right now. I give Simmons credit for pulling guests that make me turn on his podcasts (well, Klosterman is the only other one I can think of right now). But they are always disappointing. Bleh.

  20. Leopold Bloom Jan 15,2010 9:56 am

    Um, did you guys go start another website and not tell me?

    • nevermoor Jan 15,2010 10:06 am || Up

      Seriously.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • monkeyball Jan 15,2010 10:10 am || Up

        I’ve got coals heating right now.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • Leopold Bloom Jan 15,2010 10:12 am || Up

          Are you starring in a 1907 period piece?

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