It’s quite simple, really.
There currently exists an unrealized confluence of two opportunities that only a bold, visionary real-estate developer such as Mr. Lewis Wolff could exploit.
I am talking, of course, of the federal stimulus spending program, and the current debate over where to relocated the “enemy combatant” prisoners from Guantanamo Bay.
Lew should build a combination ballpark-high security prison.
- Prisons are massive profit engines — they could underwrite any number of free agent signings.
- Prisons are massive employment engines — making Lew a savior to any community he would enter.
- Stimulus funding, baby! Lew probably wouldn’t need to spend one red cent.
- The prisoners themselves could possibly be a cheap source of roster filler — who knows how many skilled cricket bowlers and batsmen may be among the incarcerated? And no pesky labor laws, citizenship debates, or reserve clauses to deal with — just force ’em to play.
- The enhanced interrogation techniques could be adopted wholesale by Larry Davis and Steve Sales for use on the A’s disabled players.
- Prisons are a growth industry — and even if Obama succeeds in demilitarizing the metaphorical war on drugs, Lew will still have an entree into a dynamic development venture.
- A prison with such infamous inmates could probably be granted an EIR waiver by the state and feds — opening up the possibility of locating on any number of toxic sites. Who cares if some goatherder turned in by the brother of his cousin’s imam soaks up a couple gallons of PCBs? And you’ve gotta figure that if you put all the inmates on lower levels underneath the stadium, they’ll absorb any toxins before they reach the paying customers.
- Given the low attendance at A’s games, siting these high-value supervillains underneath the new stadium would probably put the fewest possible American lives at risk.
- For additional entertainment of the home fans, the JumboTron could display a live feed from the bowels of the enhanced interrogation chambers, and prisoners could be outfitted in caps and jerseys of the day’s opposing team.
- If the administration wishes to still keep the detainees out from under the legal aegis of the US of Fuckin’-A, the prison-stadium could be sited on a sovereign rancheria.
- … and you know what else that means? GAMBLING!!! Not only could one play slots or poker in the lounge overlooking the field, you could lay wagers on the game, on dot racing, on which detainees will crack first. (Seriously, though, I think an MLB team will be sited on sovereign tribal land within the next 20 years.)
Finally, if the whole thing falls through, Lew could simply wait for Obama to move the prisoners elsewhere, then move the team to Cuba: The Gitmoakland A’s.
you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
I’d take the San Quentin A’s. It actually is a very great location on the water. And I’m sure Marin would love it and approve of the park immediately. No hoops to jump through.
I agree 100%.
As long as Evil Terrorists are going to be “released into our communities” to “walk among us”, why not make the best of it?
Better yet, especially sinister bad guys could be raised up to the outfield surface during inning breaks to battle lions and tigers. It wouldn’t be popular with the groundskeepers, but it beats the hell out of dot racing.
Get Wolff a crown, some flowing robes, and a lithe young male companion, and he’ll be all set to direct the proceedings from a luxury box.
And to take it a step further, I imagine we would become famous for having the best game day promotions:
-Waterboarding day presented by Aquafina
-the seventh inning stretch on a rack
-Get your picture taken with a terrorist
and of course…sign up in the lower level concourse to be this week’s Cache Creek special interrogator!
Guess which terrorist is playing Stomper today
That was a looong way to go for the Gitmoakland pun, but worth it, actually. Gives new meaning to the suicide squeeze.
So okay, I’ll play — howsabout detainees as vendors:
“Bin-n-jihad I-E-Ds cream!”
“Bagh-da nuts!”
or
“Bagganuts, and bolts, and C4.”
“I stand in line at the Coliseum for 8 hours straight while waiting to buy a half-dozen dollar dogs — what’s wrong with having detainees forced to stand?”
— D. Rumsfeld
A half-dozen dollar dogs WITH NO FREE KRAUT
C’mon monkey, you’re better than this.
It’s gotta be a violation of the Geneva Convention to forcibly dress people in Red Sox or Angels gear. Although many of the detainees are probably fans of those teams anyway, so it might not be a problem.
Little-known fact: it is a custom of Uighur culture to wear those split A’s-Giants caps.
There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. (run estimators, Chavez’s back, etc.)
There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. (measuring defense, BoCro’s third base defense, Giambi’s ability to play every day, etc.)
But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know. (clutch, baby!)
We know where the weak muscle deposits are in Eric Chavez’ body. They’re in the area around his shoulder and his back, and east, west, south and north somewhat.
Nice
Let me ask if there is any reasonable justification for Kansas’ position that it would be too scawy to house these guys in Leavenworth.
I, for one, think not. Plus the scawy guys already in there could solve the problem Saul’s favorite cost-effective way.
Since this isn’t **, what I want to know is why for fuck’s sake did BERNIE FUCKING SANDERS vote with the majority in refusing the funding?
This answers your question in a most awesome way
And for those 8rios-H8rs (I’m lookin’ at you, mk), there’s this:
Snark aside, it seems that the issue is not a fear that the prisoners could escape, or indeed (as Greenwald suggests) anything tangible at all, but some vague notion having to do with the “otherness” of those currently held at Gitmo.
Which is ironic, since most of them were NOT EVEN CHARGED with any sort of terrorist act.
Charges? We don’ need no steenkin’ charges.
I didn’t mean it that way. I meant it in the sense that no one, including the last government, thought that the overwhelming majority of the people at Gitmo were dangerous.
Oh, I know. Hence my “some goatherder turned in by the brother of his cousin’s imam.”
“recent converts to islam” “radicalized in prison”
(I’m sure the Gitmo detainees will end up in their own wing of the CO supermax)
I clicked on that and read one of the headlines as “CAL THOMAS FOILED TERROR PLOT”
Better:
And everyone please note recent additions #10 and 11.
Your plan was just defeated 90-6 in the Senate.
Even the REAL socialist voted against me!
toxic assets -> legacy assets
terrorism -> man-caused disasters
swine flu -> H1N1
war on drugs -> ? (no alternative name = there might be some hope for this one)
enemy combatants -> indefinite detainees
In the UK we’d always use “Detained at her majesty’s pleasure” for the interned and the insane, as though afternoon tea on the lawn were not *so* far from a shit-smeared cell in the H-blocks.