March Madness

Days BEFORE Selection Sunday, I'm picking the NCAA winners:

Men's Final Four:

• UConn
• North Carolina
• Michigan State
• Pitt

Winner: UConn

Women's Final Four:

• UConn
• There's
• No one
• Else

Winner: UConn

Our Father who art in ... Hartford?

In Connecticut, the ranking members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have proposed legislation aimed at one church. The legislation would require individual Roman Catholic (only) parishes to be structured and governed in a particular way. In its current form, it is called Raised Bill 1098. It won't pass. But you can imagine what this means. Legislators feel free to attack the First Amendment. Anti-religion is on the rise. In (fill-in-the-blank) We Trust? This is what I wrote to my legislators and to the bill's authors:

It is a frightening day when the government acts directly against a religious group. I am adamantly opposed to any intervention by the Legislature into the governance of the
Catholic Church. I urge you to oppose Raised Bill 1098.

On its face, this proposed bill is a violation of the separation of Church and State. Perhaps more importantly, how does such a blatently unconstitutional bill get this far?

I am concerned that the lessons of history are lost on the very people who have been given the authority to write history. One of the core precepts of this country is religious freedom. This right allows individuals to join institutions based on their free will. If the institution is not being governed in a way that makes sense, each of us has the right and ability to choose another institution. If any individual's constitutional rights are being abridged, there are already state and federal laws that can be brought to bear.

That a legislator would use the power of government to attempt to force an organizational change in the Catholic Church is stunning. If this attempt succeeds, the consequences are almost too profound to grasp. Imagine a priest being arrested for carrying out pastoral and episcopal duties. Imagine individual believers having to declare for a 'state-sanctioned' church, with tax levies or other consequences for failure to comply.

"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."

- Martin Niemoller

The issues facing the Church are real and need to be addressed by its membership. The legislature has no role to play.

Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi,Christopher Dodd, Harry Reid

I can't remember but were these morons on the Presidential ballot last November?
How do we shut this foursome up? They are expects on everything.
Maybe if our supreme "Messiah" wasn't such a rookie and actually took some time away from delivering three or four speeches a day he'd take them to the woodshed to deliver the beating they deserve.

Jim Calhoun, Urban Meyer, Roy Williams, Jim Tressel......

Every state budget in this current financial crisis is drowning in a sea of red ink and I would bet one of those government $Trillions$ the highest paid state employee in all 50 states is some coach at a university. And now you can see and hear the arrogance from someone on the taxpayers gravy train. He's won a couple of National Championships. He brings in Millions of dollars to the university. He sure sounds "Entitled". Sort of like one of those Wall Street types. Maybe President Barack Hussein Obama should come down hard on state government waste just as hard as he's come down on Wall Street salaries. It would at least be consistent.

Annual Events

The annual far-off sighting of spring: "Pitchers and Catchers report to spring training." But there's snow in the forecast. And we all know that it has snowed many times during the opening week(s) of the baseball season in April. So there's at least another month - or more - of winter in the New England.

Plenty of time to speculate on which month the Yankees will collapse this season.

Oh yeah, Yankees collapse. An annual event. Like spring.

Take Your Pick

Jeff Pearlman has it right. Bud Selig is either an idiot or he's full of sh--.

Selig has made barrels of money during the Steroids Era. Which makes him self-serving at best. But no idiot.

So my pick is ....

... he's a total cynic.

Secrets? What Secrets?

Did the world really need to hear this??

Dianne Feinstein has proven once again that any sentence with the words Intelligence and Senator in them is inherently oxymoronic. She stated at a Senate Intelligence hearing that the Predator planes used to launch missile strikes against Islamic militants are based in Pakistan. Something that had not been previously acknowledged by either side.

The age of transparent government has begun.

I've been forced, due to my business, to watch the testimony today of all the major U.S. bank CEO's getting grilled by idiotic Congressmen and Congresswomen. I think if each voter in America watched any part of these congressional proceedings, they would vote all these lame brain representatives out of office.
After watching, I say thank God for these CEO's because at least they know their business, whereas the government knows noting about their business.

First of all, I admit fully without hesitation to being a huge Yankee fan, but much more than that, a huge baseball fan. I'm sick and tired of all the steroid news and accusations the last few years. I've never been a big fan of Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens. And I sure hate to hear that A-Rod is the latest moron to have injected his body with deadly drugs.

But...if in fact you are against steroids in baseball, you are now smack on the side of the U.S. Government and Jose Canseco. And knowing their track record, maybe it's time to re-think our opinion.

As I said earlier, I'm not a fan of Barry Bonds, but boy was I a fan of seeing and hearing the crack of his bat when he connected. And I booed every second he rounded the bases. Or to see the fireball and hear the popping of a catchers glove when Clemens unloaded a high hard one. And as much as A-Fraud would fail in pressure situations, the chance that he connects is why you're there.

We live in a new era for sure and it's hard giving up our past hero's for these impostors. Mickey, Willie and the Babe will always stand the tests of time and will remain in our hearts. And I will argue that both Bonds and Clemens were HOF'ers before their first injection. It's time to forgive and forget.

I was sitting around yesterday watching the Buick Open golf tournament from La Jolla and the thought occurred to me that golf too is guilty of adding steroids to their sport. The difference is that they allowed their illegal injections into their clubs and balls. Think how we shudder to see Tiger scorch a drive of 350 yards. Think Hogan, Snead, Palmer and Nicklaus would have loved to have had the present day technology when they dominated?

And how about the NFL? That league is all about steroids. I mean guys 275-300 lbs with no body fat running sub 4.5 second forties. Jim Brown would have gained double the yards with the Mack Trucks of today clearing holes for him. Just close you eyes and look away. It's entertainment.

Training and workout structure has come along way since the days of Babe, Mickey,Willie, Jack and Arnie. The majority of professional athletes back in the day had to carry a job in the off season to pay their bills. They didn't have time to train and they certainly didn't have the luxury of a personal trainer. Let's face it. Today's athletes are the best conditioned in our history. The competition of their sports demand it. And with a widening appeal of the money sports offer and the increasing number of participants from outside the Unites States, the competition for jobs are at a boiling point. So athletes turn to performance enhancing drugs (PED's) for an edge.

In closing, let me state as emphatically as one can, that I do not and will ever look favorably upon an athlete who has to stoop to PED's as a way to compete. It's a killer as in a death sentence for those individuals. But let's also learn to accept we have a whole new paradigm for sports and its athletes and even it means re-writing record books, who cares. We have much more as humans to care about right now.

Hip Surgery

Reading a nice article on Carl Yastrezemski's grandson in the Boston Globe, and I came across this, "Papa Yaz has had a tough few years. His only son, Michael, 44, died of a heart attack Sept. 15, 2004, after undergoing hip surgery." Mike Yaz was a Triple A player at one time. I vaguely remember a news story when he died.

However, since I'm considering hip surgery soon, that sentence really jumped out at me.

Manny being Manny

Taxes? Not for me.

Let's stop the hatin' and start the learnin'.

Daschle, Killefer and the other sainted tainted Obama nominees clearly know something we don't know. There are no downsides to tax evasion. The only mistake they made was agreeing to work for the President. So, knowing that there is no chance I'll be asked to submit my name to Congress for a cabinet-level job, I'm going to learn from the masters: no more taxes for me. Taxes are for the little guy. Wait that's me. Taxes are for the littler guy. Yeah you.

Dodd: Is This Full Disclosure?

I'll assume you know that we've waited 8 months or more for the senior Senator from CT to reveal his relationship with Countrywide Mortgage CEO Angelo Mozilo.

Now that he's finally decided to let the public in on his financial records, there are still more questions. The elephant in the room remains: did he or did he not give favorable treatment to Countrywide (and others) as a result of the favorable rates he got on his mortgage.

He might actually believe he got no special deal. And he might even believe that his actions as head of the Senate Banking Committee weren't influenced in any way.

In other times I might say that Sen. Dodd was the poster child for all that's wrong in Washington government. And as the Hartford Courant points out, the central question of whether he took favors from Countrywide mortgage or just negotiated shrewdly has still to be determined.

But, Sen. Dodd looks above reproach next to the other headliners in today's news: former Sen. Daschle (isn't tax evasion a felony, by the way?) who just withdrew his nomination, Hartford mayor Eddie Perez (who pleaded not guilty to bribery in court today and triggered a NYTimes editorial) and Nancy Killefer, who withdrew from being a candidate for the (holy cow) position of Chief Performance Officer.

Citigroup Adds to "Fleet"

Bowing to pressure from President Barack Hussein Obama and the rest of his government cronies, Citigroup abandoned their plans to add a $50 Million state of the art private jet.

Instead they elected to take the slow boat to China. It comes complete with oars for all those upper-mangement types.

Now if all investigative journalists can fixate on pork barrel government spending on behalf of us taxpayers, then maybe we can fix this financial mess.

Congratulations Jim Rice

Finally

After 15 years and in his last year on the Hall of Fame ballot, Jim Rice will take his rightful place with the greats of the game.

As a lifetime Yankee fan, Jim Rice was the one Red Sox slugger who struck fear into my heart. In the most wondrous baseball year of my life, 1978, Jim Rice was MVP.

I wonder how Fred Lynn feels today, because he and Rice formed a truly dynamic duo and if he had stayed a Red Sox instead of taking the money from the Angels, Fred Lynn might be together with his Red Sox teammate in Cooperstown.