Door To Hell

This comes from an email exchange with my friend JTT.  My email:

Here is another article and counter article by two really good
sportswriters, Thomas Boswell and Joe Posnanski.  Definitely read
these, Boswell is making points very similar to what you were making
earlier this year, JTT.  Thing is he's getting blasted by commenters
and other bloggers/writers. 

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/baseball-insider/2008/11/mvps_howard_k-rod_not_pujols_p.html

http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2008/11/19/life-of-boswell/

JTT's email response:

The 1980's were a glorious time to be collecting baseball cards as a kid.  The hobby was really hitting a peak, magazines such as Beckett's started publishing values to the cards, and everybody I knew collected cards.  My love for baseball carries on to this day but somewhere along the line, probably around age 12, my love for collecting cards faded.

However, like with other childhood nostalgia there comes a point when sometimes you yearn to re-experience it.  In my case, one day while stumbling through the web a happened upon a weblog that was sifting through the 1988 Topps Set.  It's great!  Seeing all the cards with a new, fresh perspective.  Examining the photography, checking out the stats again, correcting misperceptions of my youth (a lot of these players were much better or much worse than I remembered as a kid).

I recommend you check out the site here, even if you never collected cards you'll enjoy it if you're a baseball fan.  There is a relevant background and stats.  That same guy also is doing a 1978 Topps Set here and I just finished with this post and was great.

I believe there are several baseball card sites on the internet, I plan to check as many as I can out.  It is very relaxing and escapist to pore over these childhood relics.

This comes from my friend, JTT, about the future of the Nebraska Electoral System.  If you are not familiar, Nebraska like Maine allocates their Electoral College Votes by Congressional District, not winner take all.  JTT's comments:

"I see that fresh off Obama getting the Omaha electoral college
vote, the Nebraska State Republican Party is trying to change the state
constitution so that in future years, Nebraska will allocate their
electoral votes the way that everybody else (besides Maine) does: all
or nothing.

Nothing is more annoying than intellectual dishonesty hidden under the guise of fairness and balance in journalism.  I cannot watch MSNBC's election coverage anymore, it's sickening me because they refuse to acknowledge what is obvious to most of the world; that Barack Obama will not only win today but win big.  Yeah that's right I'm going out on a big limb here, calling it before the votes have been cast (well that's not even true considering early voting has accounted for a third of the total in some states).

I generally like MSNBC but lately Mika Brezinski and Joe Scarborough are getting out of hand.  Every 2 minutes they make a qualifying statement along the lines of " you know this is far from over, McCain still has an electoral college path…"  this is often in response to some other commentator's innocuous praise of Obama or his campaign.  Two things Brezinski and Scarborough need to understand:

1)  Their credibility rests upon being able to reflect some sort of reality, not on their ability to appease both political parties.  Here is the reality; both anecdotally and mathematically it appears by all rational viewers to be an Obama blow out or at the very minimum an electoral victory.  This is not opinion or spin this is reality.  Check any polling you want.  A McCain possibility is possible, yes we can all acknowledge that, however possible and the degree of probability are far different.  MSNBC's coverage is implying that this a McCain victory is more along the lines of 45% than the more realistic 3% ( see www.fivethirtyeight.com).  Yes, it is possible McCain will pull out the slim chance or that the polls and math is all wrong but no credible evidence suggests that!  It's also why their horrible analogy's to elections past and sporting events are wrong, those were wholly different situations. 

2)  There is no reason to try to be balanced when doing so is dishonest.  Trying to pander to the Conservative Republicans by not calling this race what it is is ludicrous.  First, it accomplishes nothing, no matter what the media does it will always be labeled "liberal."  This is a rallying cry for the Conservatives, and they have made it their mantra for years and no election coverage is ever going to change it.  Secondly, an objective commentator is supposed to be, OBJECTIVE, shocking isn't it.  Objectivity does not mean compromising two points of view, it means interpreting reality as clearly as one can.  It's like being a football fan and your team is down big in the 4th Quarter, you can want them to come back, you can envision all these scenarios, you can say that your team should have been closer, you can say the other team is dirty, or that the refs were unfair, but the objectively you have to acknowledge the mathematical probability of your plight.

The media needs to step up.  They've been battered by the right wing for so long with the claims of media bias that they cower to even call a spade a spade.  Through constant claims of liberal bias the right wing is able to spread their dirty propaganda and not have it contested.  So on this historic day, when a new, uplifting candidate finally prevails over the Republican slime, please for one day can't the media just call a spade a spade and acknowledge that Obama will be the next President of the United States.