It's going to be a long season

One area that I have been meaning to write about for sometime now is sports. Why? Well, I'm a sports fan and I have my favorites- unfortunately, most of them aren't very good, with only one bright spot this season (the Penguins who got to the Stanley Cup finals a year ahead of schedule). But the main reason for me writing this post is the absurdity that took place earlier this week at Chiefs training camp. For reasons only known to me, I am a Chiefs fan.

On Monday, the Chiefs signed veteran place kicker Jay Feely to a one year contract. Feeley has an 81% career accuracy mark, and went 21 for 23 in field goal attempts last year for the Dolphins. That same day, Head Coach Herm Edwards decided that the best way to figure out who the best kickers are is to have a "kickoff" where each kicker would have 30 kicks over two days and the best two move on.

So, Jay Feely, fresh off the plane and in a uniform is asked to start kicking with a new holder and snapper. The other two kickers involved in the kickoff were Nick Novak, a University of Maryland graduate who spent the 2007 season in the European football league and sports a 65% career accuracy rate in the NFL, and undrafted rookie Connor Barth from North Carolina. After 30 kicks, Barth missed 2, Novak missed 3 and Feely missed 7. What was the whole point of this exercise? Why sign a veteran kicker to a 1 year deal, then on the day he reports, put him through this fiasco and release him the next day? As Feely's agent said, "If they’re going to base it off two days of kicking, they probably shouldn’t have signed him. It makes no sense to make a decision about Jay without letting him kick in the preseason game. Had we known he wasn’t even going to get that chance, we never would have signed with the Chiefs.”

Now, it very well may be true that either Novak or Barth will turn up to be perfectly fine and acceptable kickers; I'm not making that point. I'm making the point that the Chiefs made a terrible decision on signing Feely and putting him and Novak and Barth through this mess. Feely has a name and a history, and surely deserves a bit more deference than 30 kicks over 2 days. Instead, this shows a serious lack of decision-making and leadership. Plus, this is the final week of the preseason and now they bring in a new placekicker to challenge Novak and Barth? And sign him to a 1 year contract? This is just a terrible decision by an increasingly inept front office and head coach. Bringing a veteran like Feely to the team to challenge for the position must mean the team hasn't decided on which kicker they like- they might not like either of them and this was a way to getting rid of them. Instead, Feely does a terrible job in practice, and gets cut. Practice, not a game, but practice. I will say this, at least the Chiefs apparently kept their word that the two best after the end of the kickoff would stay.

In closing, I'm just gonna quote what my friend Phil told me in response to this story:

For the sake of your psychological health, you should probably just tell yourself that the 2008-2009 football season was canceled because of a workers strike, natural disaster, etc. This year is simply not going to be pretty for you.

Yeah, I already knew that.

Weather

Temperatures here in ol Ess Eff are in the mid 80s, and yesterday was the first day of the warming trend. Yesterday, I walk outside, turn my Ipod to Guided by Voices and get on the bus for work. On the bus I realized that I don't want to go to work today and should just skip it. After all, the boss is out of town, and the week before Labor Day is pretty uneventful. Thinking of this grand idea, still smiling on the bus listening to GBV, I try to gather accomplices for a round of golf. No luck; I get "sorry, have jury duty," and "sorry, first day of class." What a bunch of losers.

Anyway, I still decide to skip out early and head home where I decide to hit the backyard and do some yardwork. Yep. I left work early to do yardwork. I'm all set for the suburbs. Brought out my Ipod boombox and set it to shuffle all 500 GBV songs on my Ipod- I should add that there are probably 500 more GBV songs that I don't have, and that's not including Bob's solo albums.

Having accomplished my very grand task of yardwork, got a text from Vansmack to meet up at the Beach Chalet for $2 tacos and beer. Wife and I hop in our car and drive over and enjoy the rest of the afternoon. The Beach Chalet is located across the street from Ocean Beach, which, as the name implies, is the beach and who doesn't want to see the sunset while drinking beers and eating tacos by the beach? Although, the kids and hippies were distracting; the kids in a fun way, the hippies, well, they really aren't all that much fun anyway. One kid somehow spent the entire time we were there brandishing a golf club (maybe a kids 6 iron), whacking at trees, taking out weeds, and barely missing heads and arms of all the other kids running around. At one point, he opts out for a long stick and has a sword fight with another kid using a much shorter stick. Kids with sticks and parents with beer- good times had by all.

A variety of things

I wanted to start off with an update to my previous post on NBC and the Olympics. In case you couldn't stay up until midnight last night, NBC decided to poke fun at its own viewers who have been complaining about staying up late watching the olympics. Bob Costas provides a number of tips to help ward off the effects of staying up late, including "Stay Hydrated" and "Skip Work." Hey, I have a great idea- how about broadcasting it live on the West Coast!

I also want to point out that the link above goes to a blog on the Seattle Times where the writer points out the glaring differences between the highly superior CBC broadcasts (live across all of Canada) and NBC, which is tape delaying lots of things, some events as long as 15 hours.

Moving on, I would be remiss if I didn't point out this excellent column from the Washington Post wondering that while we are looking at a repeat of the 70s economy (inflation is increasing), are we also failing to abide by 5 policy failures from the Great Depression. The 5 failures from the Great Depression are 1)Giving in to protectionism; 2) Blaming the messenger; 3) Increasing taxes in a downturn; 4) Assuming bigger government will bring back growth; and 5) Ignoring the cost of inconsistency. The article presents some interesting comparisons between the actions of Congress in the 1920s/1930s and proposed action today and how many of today's proposed policies simply repeat these same mistakes that pushed the country further into the Great Depression. I'm reminded of Ben Stein's economic lecture in Ferris Bueller's Day Off- "In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the... Anyone? Anyone?... the Great Depression, passed the... Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?... raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression."

Anyway, enough of the dismal science for today.

Finally, and on a lighter note, there is this editorial from the Wall Street Journal. The gist of the editorial is this: "But now the environmental movement has morphed into the most authoritarian philosophy in America." While I think the editorial is a bit to extreme, the general point is one I tend to agree with: the use of the "environment" is becoming a club to bludgeon commerce and individual choices, all resulting in higher costs and prices that will achieve little on a worldwide scale. Instead, the better use of the money being spent on coming up with new ways to intrude in people's lives would be to spend it on countries that truly need the technology to lower emissions. Does it make sense to spend the several millions of dollars that California will be spending to make our residents even more efficient and drive out commerce when for the same amount of money we could drastically do more good by using that money in growing third and second world countries that want to have our lifestyle and prosperity, but not the technology or means to achieve it? Wouldn't more savings be realized by installing more efficient power plants and automobiles or even building an infrastructure to allow for the efficient movement of goods and operation of industry and agriculture result in far more emission savings than encouraging already efficient Californian's to go out and buy new efficient this-or-that's.

But, god forbid anyone question the costs of doing all of this, isn't that right Pastor Jones? See, a few weeks ago, the California State Senate held a hearing on how to cut emissions across the state, and Pastor Jones had the gall to remind the legislators that the costs of doing this will negatively impact low-income communities dis-porportionately since they will be unable to make the necessary changes to mitigate the increased costs. In making these concerns heard before the legislators, he got interrupted by State Senator Pat Wiggins who told Pastor Jones, "Excuse me, but I think your arguments are bullshit." Really. You can watch it here. Not even the poor and minority groups can stop progressives' march toward protecting the earth from humans, as these patrician politicans dictate to everyone else what's best for us.

Thank you NBC

For tape delaying your "primetime" coverage on the West Coast. Gwen Knapp is exactly right, there's no good reason for NBC to not be airing some of these important events live across the country. I mean, last night the women's all-around event didn't start until after 11:00 PM, what harm is there in broadcasting that live on the West Coast at 8:00 PM, which is smack-dab in the middle of prime time. The swimming events all start sometime between 10:00 and 11:00PM, again, why not just broadcast those live across the country, when it's actually primetime? How does keeping the entire country on the same time schedule make sense, especially when these main events don't start until after 11:00 PM? Apparently NBC has no plans to change that.

I simply do not understand why NBC would do this. It doesn't help that they keep the "LIVE" image on the screen or that the hosts constantly note that it's being broadcast "Live" and not always noting that that only applies to the East Coast or that they every so often flash the time, but only in Beijing and on the East Coast. If NBC wants to protect its primetime coverage, fine that can easily be done. As the main events start, such as swimming finals or last night's all-around exercise, let it go live to everyone and use tape-delayed events fill in the difference. The other night we were up until 1:15 in the morning watching swimming and men's gymnastics. If NBC's goal is have people go to bed before the main events, they've accomplished it.

Deadbeat

How on earth is Laura Richardson still in Congress? Today, the L.A. Times reports that her house in Sacramento has been declared a public nuisance. According to the article, police were called to investigate the house after neighbors called about it being abandoned and potentially housing a squatter. Of course, this isn't the first time Rep. Richardson, a Democrat, has had to explain herself. In fact, she has defaulted on 3 different houses more than once over the past few years, including the Sacramento house, and had several thousand dollars worth of unpaid property taxes. In fact, the Sacramento house was foreclosed and sold, and was able to convince Washington Mutual to rescind the sale only after she, according to the L.A. Times, made a "stink."

Lest one think she's just caught up in the "housing mess," Rep. Richardson has also made a fool of herself by using taxpayer funded cars for her own pleasure. As this article explains, Rep. Richardson leases the most expensive car in Congress. Additionally, when she was a councilwoman in Long Beach, she proceeded to borrow a city-owned car and run up 30,000 miles- in one year! Oh, using a city-owned car for personal business is against city policy, but. . who cares, right? And why did she need to use a city-owned car for travel? Because she abandoned her wrecked BMW at a auto repair shop and claimed to be unable to afford the required work, so, the mechanic sold it for junk.

So, to sum up. . .Rep. Richardson has defaulted several times on 3 homes, one of which ended up in foreclosure, and was only returned to her under questionable circumstances, and which is now declared a public nuisance. In addition, she abandoned a wrecked car with a mechanic, claiming to not have enough money to pay for the repairs, and, as the article notes, had not paid a previous repair to the same mechanic, then borrowed a city-owned car and ran up 30,000 miles in one year as a part of the part-time city council in a city that takes up 50 square miles. And she won her primary and is running unopposed this fall, except for a write-in campaign.

I want to run for congress now, and buy up a ton of property that I have no way to pay for, then take loans out on those properties to fund my campaign, and when I can't pay for those loans, have a member for the congressional leadership hold a fundraiser for me to help pay them off, but then have a fit when the houses are foreclosed and sold, even though I still can't afford to pay for them. Yes We Can.

Falling over itself

Oh, do I love seeing the green movement begin to eat itself. For today, we have two amusing stories. . .

First story comes from the Sacramento Bee. California Department of Transportation is planning on expanding U.S. Highway 50, which runs from Sacramento to Ocean City, Maryland, to combat traffic concerns by adding carpool and HOV lanes, you know, to encourage carpooling, buses and other hybrid vehicles. Carpooling, you would think, would be a good thing since it encourages people to share rides and not simply clog the highways with single person cars. However, a lawsuit was filed against the Caltrans because they failed to take into account additional emissions from the expansion of the highway. The gist of the complaint is that by adding new carpool lanes, people would be encouraged to drive more, and discouraged from taking public transportation. However, the telling quote in this article gets to the true purpose of this lawsuit:

"Do we want to build (big road) projects like we did in the 1950s, or do we really change our region?"

It appears that this lawsuit is basically an attempt to force the state and the cities impacted by this lawsuit to move beyond automobiles and highways, and that they intend to use AB32 as a blunt force to impose that view. Additionally, the court asks Caltrans to look into the increased use of buses or light rail- wouldn't buses need to use the highway to get people to work quicker than using side streets, and wouldn't it be easier if there were a dedicated lane or two for them?

So, in the meantime, people will still be sitting in traffic as their cars burn gasoline at a higher rate, instead of carpooling and moving down the highway at a more efficient rate.

Our second story today comes from an article from the Visalia Times-Delta. This one deals with the dangerous emissions that come from composting. Yep. Composting.

The San Joaquin Air Pollution Control District says that emissions from composting contributes up to 2% of all volatile organic compounds in the atmosphere, and wants to see a 15% reduction in emissions from composting. The restrictions would be placed on companies that compost 50,000 tons annually and would require those companies to install technology that would limit the amount of compounds released through composting. These companies in the Central Valley do the unenviable task of taking animal crap and other compostable waste (include compostable waste from the cities of Visalia and Tulare as part of their various environmental policies to limit garbage going to landfills). Then offering the compost as fertilizer to other companies. These companies project that the costs to install technology to capture these emissions would drive them out of business and result in, more garbage going to landfills (which of course gives off methane, amongst other things).

So, what we have here is dueling environmental goals- on the one hand, composting is good because it doesn't fill up landfills, helps replenish soils and does it naturally. On the other, organic waste naturally gives off some amount of emissions though the natural breakdown of the material. So, which one is it? Recycling, limiting landfill use and a natural fertilizer or trying to regulate a naturally occurring cycle that would be expensive and potentially result in less recycling, more landfill use and more use of "dirty" fertilizer?

What do these two items tell us. First, the green movement is taking over and coming to all sorts of non-sensical conclusions. And I haven't talked about environmentals opposed to renewable energy. Second, in order to satisfy the zealotry with which they demand, people cannot make their own decisions; the government must step in and force people to comply. At which point, you end up with situations where "we must limit the amount of emissions and volatile organic compounds in the atmosphere" meets "we must limit the amount of garbage we produce and compost." Where "no more coal" meets "no solar in the desert" or "no wind on the mountain, think of the __insert bird or endangered animal of your choice___" or "no wind 10 miles offshore my estate on Nantucket." Which leads us to the third point- there is no inconsistency in these views if you consider their ultimate goal, which is fundamentally, humans are bad for the environment. Simply by being here we are destroying the planet and any attempt to mitigate those are not good enough- composting, sorry, still giving off emissions. Renewables? Sorry, killing too many birds. New transmission lines? Sorry, cutting down too many trees. Rail? Upsetting too much of the ecological balance of nature (I made that one up because I'm sure that once rail starts becoming a viable option, they will pop up and throw up all sorts of environmental roadblocks to stop it). They would rather us all just live in communes, growing just enough food to feed yourself, not travel (but be accepting of other cultures, of course), live only off of rain water, and live an existence devoid of challenges, wonderment, curiosity, and just about any type of pleasure.

The City of San Francisco is a good example- municipal transportation systems are a mess (and underfunded), violent crime is on the rise (police, underfunded), the city, instead, spends its time on trying to force people to recycle and compost (!!!!), force menu's at fast food restaurants be labelled with calorie and other dietary information, and allow homeless to stay on the streets because that is a personal choice. Yes, being homeless is ok as a personal choice, but choosing to eat a cheeseburger at McDonalds is denigrated and looked down upon. Again, pick one.

Yes, if all I do is complain, then why do I live here. Well, I like my 10 minute commute to work. So, there's your cost-benefit analysis.

And he wants to be a judge?

So, I've been sitting on this post for over a week now, trying to figure out if I should post it or not. I don't know why I sat on it, other than it was written pretty quickly and may not be entirely thought out. But then I thought, hey, only 5 people read this anyway, so why not. So, without further ado. . . . . .

Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval wants to be a superior court judge. In the election in June, he failed to reach the 50% threshold that would have otherwise not allowed a run-off against the sitting Superior Court Judge Thomas Mellon. Judge Mellon's crime? He's a Republican. Supervisor Sandoval's motivation to become a Superior Court judge? "I am running for judge because we deserve a court with a balanced and diverse point of view that reflects San Francisco."

Not to enforce the law, or anything like that; no, he wants the court to reflect San Francisco, law be damned. His platform is based on three things: he's been in some post in the city government for 20 years, so that's good enough to continue in government service as a judge; number two starts with a statistic about how 80% of inmates released every year commits a crime within a year of being released, then he goes on about how he wants to search the world for other types of rehabilitation methods and get them introduced here in California. In other words, he wants to reduce the amount of repeat offenders by figuring out a way to not have criminals go to jail in the first place, but rather, give them a hug and a pat on the back and tell them someone loves and feels their pain.

Finally, "and most importantly," he wants to make this position as a judge political. He notes that 30% of the judges on the court are Republicans, and "too many come from large corporate law firms," nevermind he started at Skadden Arps, "one of the country’s premier law firms." Yes, god forbid there be any Republican's on the bench. Primarily, he wants to be a judge "because the current composition of the court does not reflect San Francisco in any meaningful way" by applying "legal principles in a fair way, but in the context of our community."

First, I thought protecting minority rights and respecting the opinions of others was a San Francisco value? Ohhh, silly me. . .unless you're a Republican, then you don't count. Second, he advocates using the position as judge "a tool for social change." I thought the role of a judge was to interpret and implement the law, not make law.

In case you are wondering why all of a sudden did I choose to make a rant against a retiring Supervisor running for seat on the Superior Court, it is because of something he said recently. According the an article in the Chronicle that detailed a hearing where the Board of Supervisors set up law banning the sale of cigarettes at large drug stores, there was a quote in there by Supervisor Sandoval. It is that quote that led me to this post: "We have to do anything we can to get people to stop smoking. ... To ban the sale of cigarettes citywide would be justifiable," he said. "Call it social engineering, call it what you will, but the statistics speak for themselves."" Supervisor Sandoval has no problem with the government stepping in between you and your ability to make your own decisions. The government can and should hold your hand and guide you to a better lifestyle by banning cigarettes. I find it very hard to believe that Supervisor Sandoval would be an adequate or even fair arbiter of the law should he eventually be elected to the Superior Court.

In interviews with Cal Law, Sandoval couldn't cite to one case where he disagreed with Judge Mellon, couldn't identify one instance where a litigant was treated poorly, instead, he relies on a nearly 10 year old survey where Judge Mellon got low marks for demeanor. He says that the court should be more diverse, by which he means Hispanic. So, his main arguments for voting for him is because he's hispanic and Judge Mellon is mean. Additionally, he seems to the think of the position of judge as being able to dictate what and how things get prosecuted- he noted that he thinks the court deals with too many petty crimes and small time drug deals and wants more prosecution of lending practices. Great. . .let him run for District Attorney and do that. In short, the court is not a political position where one can dictate the types and importance of cases that should be brought before it; it is not a position where one makes law, but where one interprets law.

In an article on this race, Cal Law, which failed to issue an endorsement, they had many concerns about Supervisor Sandoval, notably his experience and his reasoning for running. They noted that

There's the additional problem that Sandoval is running for this position the minute he is termed out from the Board of Supervisors. It smacks of a person looking for the next possible government job, and during our interview he did not evince a passion for the nuts and bolts of judging. In a separate interview with one of our reporters, Sandoval said, "Well, what is a 46-year-old Columbia Law School-trained attorney with a passion for public service supposed to do next? Am I supposed to move to West Texas and be become a peanut farmer?" We find Sandoval's candor admirable, but not reassuring on the point.

I think it has to be questioned his ability to fairly adjudicate cases before him. How would a Judge Sandoval rule on cases involving illegal immigrants caught dealing drugs? He's already said he doesn't think small-time drug cases should be brought before the court, I would imagine he supports the sanctuary city status, and I would imagine he would try to use all available means not to have this illegal immigrant deported. All of which are social and policy positions of the city and not based on the state or federal law. The Bar Association of San Francisco noted that he was unqualified, the Chronicle, noting Sandoval's appearance on Fox News stating that the U.S. does not need a military, says that Sandoval has not shown himself to be fit for the office. How he managed to receive more votes than Judge Mellon is beyond me. Actually, it's not, since this is San Francisco. Yeah, I think that is answer enough.

But today. . .

I've been trying to avoid writing about national politics for a number of reasons, which I don't feel the need to state right now, but I am becoming concerned. . .concerned with a public that is fawning over a candidate who claims to be on a committee that he isn't on, which shouldn't be a surprise since he doesn't know what's going on in a subcommittee of which he's the chairman. Today in Florida, this same candidate claims that he's "been talking about talking about predatory lending." So, congratulations, you've been talking about talking about doing something, but not actually doing anything. What is even more interesting about the meeting in Florida today is that a group of black activists started asking this candidate about why he's not responding to the needs of black people, first, the candidate noted "You can ask a question later. Sit down." Then when these activists got a chance to ask their questions, people in the audience began to boo the questioners.

Needless to say, first, if another candidate told a group of black activists to sit down, there'd be hell to pay, secondly, if the same candidate's supporters began to boo black activists, it would be all over the press and the media showing how supporters of this candidate are racists and bigots, and all sorts of other nasty words.

I simply cannot fathom how people have been sold on this snake oil seller for so long. His accomplishments are minimal, his experience is non-existent, the cult of personality created around him is astounding, to the point where all of these problems are swept away and people who note them are hounded out of the room, or shut down. The anointed one shall not be troubled by specifics.

In the meantime, I'm planning our escape from San Francisco as the garbage police gets set up. That's right, the illustrious, and newly married, Mayor Newsom wants the city's garbage collectors to be to fine people who do not properly sort their garbage into garbage, recycling and compost. So, garbage collectors will be sorting through your trash to make sure you are doing what the government tells you to do. Yeah, that's not all Big Brother monitoring your garbage. Further, it's simply one more instance where environmental policies are being used to further government's intrusion into our personal lives.

I was at a briefing the other day from the California Air Resources Board, the agency responsible for implementing one of the most egregious examples of government using the environment as an excuse to regulate trade and monitor our lives, and they noted several areas where they will be setting up new monitoring and enforcement standards on a number of areas, including transportation. As part of their goal to reduce CO2 emissions, they want to set up several standards for transportation sector, including automobiles. If you go to slide 17 of this ARB presentation, you'll see that they plan on setting "tire inflation and tire efficiency" standards. My question is- how are they going to enforce "tire inflation" standards on automobiles? Who will be the tire police? Will meter maids that drive around cities looking for parking violations also be carrying tire gauges to check tire pressure, then be allowed to issue citations? How on Earth do they plan to enforce this standard? It seems to me that this is just an example of this state throwing all sorts of ideas into a bucket, then dumping the bucket onto the people of this state and expect them comply. . .or else, regardless of the stupidity of the program, or the cost of complying.

Ok, that was cathartic.