An 18th century ship buried at the WTC site will be extracted and sent to the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory.

An 18th century ship found buried near the World Trade Center site in New York will be carefully extracted and sent to the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory to be treated and reassembled.

Resale Kiddy Coming to Park Slope [RH] How to Dress for Hot Summer Weather [Gawker] Sand Sculpting Contest [KC] Requiem for Rocketship [CHB] A Borough Away from Ground Zero, a Different Mosque Controversy [The Brooklyn Ink] Photo by mgny903....

Given my last experience attending an intriguingly titled Newt Gingrich talk, I should have known better. But when I heard that Newt Gingrich's address today at the American Enterprise Institute would be called, "America at Risk: Camus, National Security, and Afghanistan," I couldn't resist. Gingrich wouldn't be the first high-ranking Republican to be taken by the Frenchman's writings, and I was curious about what he had to say. 

But despite the promising blurb -- Drawing on the lessons of Camus and Orwell, Gingrich will describe the dangers of a wartime government that uses language and misleading labels to obscure reality --  the former speaker of the House did nothing of the sort! Instead, what we got was a somewhat meandering Geert Wilders-esque warning of the dangers of Shariah law and a condemnation of the Obama administration for not taking radical Islam seriously enough. 

The only reference to Camus in the entire hourlong speech was one quotation from The Plague: "There always comes a time in history when the person who dares to say that 2+2=4 is punished by death."

The line became a rallying cry during the Polish Solidarity movement and Gingrich has apparently printed up bumper stickers featuring it, but as no jackbooted Obaman storm troopers busted in to drag Gingrich away while he pontificated for C-Span, I'm not sure quite why he identifies with it so much. Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" was also mentioned but not discussed. 

Gingrich cited a number of examples of Shariah encroachment, which he described a "mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and the world." These included an Islamic loan program in Minnesota, the Islamic finance program at Harvard, and a court decision in New Jersey that was eventually overturned and of course, the much-discussed Ground Zero mosque.  There was also the U.S. military's failure to immediately label the Ft. Hood shooter as an Islamic terrorist, and the fact that Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's father's warnings were not taken seriously.

Given that, as Gingrich acknowledged, Abdulmutallab's name found its way onto a database with "half a million" other names, one might infer that there are an awful lot of people the U.S. is keeping tabs on. If only we would spend billions on a massive top-secret effort to sort through all that intelligence.

Gingrich also had lists! There were his top-seven most critical countries in the Muslim world, in descending order of importance: 

1. Iran

2. Saudi Arabia

3. Pakistan

4. Afghanistan

5. Iraq. 

6. Egypt

7. Isreal's "borderlands"

Then there were the top three threats facing the United States: 

1. Radical Islam

2. Competition from China and India

3. The secular socialist system

Beyond proposing a new anti-Shariah law, Gingrich's speech was pretty light on policy ideas. The main thrust seemed to be that the government isn't rhetorically blatant enough about the seriousness of creeping radical Islam. Hmmm...constantly invoking unseen foreign enemies to keep the populace on high-alert. I do seem to recall Mr. Orwell had some thoughts on that subject.

In any event, I admit I was predisposed to be skeptical about Gingrich's speech which was widely speculated to be a prelude to a 2012 presidential run. But personally, I would still have liked to hear less about existential threats and more about existentialism. 

In May, the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA) and the Cordoba Initiative proposed plans to build a community center two blocks away from Ground Zero in New York City that would include “a mosque, performance art center, gym, swimming pool and other public spaces.” Since then, radical conservatives across the country have expressed open [...]

That, is apparently, how low you can go. (Photo by Jessica Blair | SpyOnVegas.com) Skatemageddon explodes tonight. Between RollerCon and tonight’s Down & Derby at Rain, Vegas is Ground Zero for anyone who straps wheels to their feet. We’re looking at you, bear-riding-a-unicycle. Tonight, it’s the Pants-Off Dance-Off with DJ SHR3D as RollerCon attendees get [...]

A type of prostate cell that has been largely ignored by cancer researchers can trigger malignant prostate cancer. The studies provide researchers with a new tool for exploring the genetic changes that lead to prostate cancer. The advance may help in developing new treatments for the disease, which causes some 32,000 deaths in the United States annually.

[link] [129 comments]

A plan to build an Islamic center on downtown New York City has brought out the worst in some of our elected officials here in the United States.  TPM gives a good rundown of the patently bigoted and racist statements made by public officials in the United States, from Sarah Palin's admonition that Muslims "refudiate" the mosque to Newt Gingrich's ultimatum that, "There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in S

Segments on Countown and The Rachel Maddow Show last night--guest hosts on both--highlighted significant self-inflicted wounds by the Obama Administration that serve to undermine the narrative of a "deeply progressive" president who only delivers so little because of intransigent GOP opposition in the Senate.  On Countdown there was the revelation that EPA staffers had been politically over-ruled in their objections to letting BP use oil dispersents that actually do more harm than good.  And The Rachel Maddow Show highlighted news from the Washington Post about a sharp increase in deportation rates under the Obama Administration.

First, the Countdown segment, with Larry O'Donnell interviewing EPA senior staffer Hugh Kaufman:

O`DONNELL: Today is day 100 of the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, and a whistle-blower has come forth from the Environmental Protection Agency, charging the EPA with helping BP to downplay the environmental impact of its supposed cleanup efforts.... EPA senior policy analyst, Hugh Kaufman, is a veteran and legend of the agency, having had a hand in Love Canal and the creation of the Superfund and helped expose the EPA cover-up of air quality at ground zero. Mr. Kaufman, what should we know about the dispersants used in the Gulf that the EPA isn`t telling us?

KAUFMAN: Well, first of all, the dispersants mixed with the oil and the water is extremely toxic. Sweden has done studies on this. Israel has done studies on this. And the only real purpose of using so many dispersants with the oil was to cover up the volume of oil that was released from that well. So, that and lying about how much is coming out was a mechanism to help BP save billions of dollars in fines.

O`DONNELL: Should they have not used dispersants at all?

KAUFMAN: That`s correct. If they did not use dispersants, they would have been able to get most of that oil off of the surface and would not have endangered all of the fish and ecosystem underneath the water that now will be affected for decades on down the line. I was listening to some of the, quote, "experts" who are being paid by BP at universities who are saying that the oil has disappeared. It hasn`t disappeared. It`s throughout thousands of square miles in the Gulf, mixed with dispersants, and because the temperatures down there are so cold, they`re going to be around for decades.

This is not really surprising, since it was reported at the time that the dispersents were banned in Europe because of their toxicity.  Put that together with the information we've reported from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) about how staffers at a number of agencies continue fighting political battles similar to those during the Bush years, and this hardly comes as a surprise. But it's surely a disappointment.  No matter what type of spin they try to put on it, the Obama Administration's closeness and deference to BP has clearly visible, and clearly damaging to the President politically--for absolutely no good reason.  Now we're getting an even clearer picture of how much it has cost--and that cost will only grow larger and clearer in the years ahead.

The interview continued, on the subject of what went on within the EPA & the administration:

O`DONNELL: Now, were you and others at the EPA making this case within the system, that -- arguing that we shouldn`t be using dispersants there? And what was the response?

KAUFMAN: Well, the working level troops in research, some of the toxicologists who have experience and education, were trying to get management to pay attention to the data that EPA had and has had for decades, but to no avail. There was a political decision made to let BP take the lead as opposed to the government being proactive, as we used to be.

O`DONNELL: Now, when you say a political decision, are you saying that that decision was made by EPA administer, Lisa Jackson, a Barack Obama appointee? Or was it made outside of the EPA?

KAUFMAN: The decision was made outside of the EPA, by political appointees. But I don`t have the vision to see how high up that was made. My vision is limited, because I`m in the middle of the bureaucracy.

Openness?  Transparency?  Accountability?  Reality-based policy-making?  What happened to all that good stuff?

Note that none of that is--supposedly at least--inherently liberal or progressive.  It's supposed to be just plain Civics 101 and common sense.  Yet, here we are with an EPA acting more like Bush was still in office than a Democrat.

And speaking of Bush, in a segment called "Deporter in Chief", Chris Hayes, sitting in for Rachel Maddow, picked up on the Washington Post story "Deportation of illegal immigrants increases under Obama administration".

Here's Hayes, in one of the best on-air commentaries he's made to date:

The "papers, please" law in Arizona may be at the center of the national immigration debate, but there's another immigration story that you really need to know about. it's being obscured by all the screaming election year hyperbole surrounding this issue, but it's both politically significant and frankly pretty shocking. It's the story about the Obama Administration and deportation. the Obama Administration is deporting substantially more people than the Bush Administration did. they're actually changing immigration enforcement policy so they can kick more people out of the country. As a matter of fact, President Obama is expected to deport 10% more people this year than President Bush deported in 2008.

Now, officially, the Obama deportation policy is focused not on undocumented immigrants who are otherwise law-abiding citizens, but on those who commit crimes while they're here. But the Washington Post reports this week that President Obama has been presented with evidence that thousands of ordinary illegal immigrants continue to be targeted and deported often for minor violations. And an advocate for day laborers tells the Post that the Obama policy has created, quote, "a huge drag net and it's structural. basically, it's anyone they can get their hands on"....

Deportation is the most heavy-handed way of dealing with the immigration problem in this country. It has a massive potential for splitting up families and otherwise inflicting misery on people who don't have any good options in this world. And it's a way of treating the symptoms of illegal immigration rather than the causes. So that's why it's bad policy. But the politics are even worse. Because no amount of deportation short of 100% will satisfy the people the President appears to be pandering to with this policy shift. For one thing, most people vehemently opposed to current immigration levels haven't even noticed he's deporting more people than President Bush, because they don't get their news from the so-called "lame stream media". But even if they're aware of the change, they don't to be in a big hurry to admit it. It does not in any way involve giving the president credit for all that old-fashioned law enforcement. Let me read here from the script. Steve King said of the President, "The President doesn't want to enforce immigration law, because he's vehemently opposed to those laws." It goes on.

Now, here's the thing, not only is he alienating the people who are already -- not only has the President decided to pander to people who are not going to support him anyway, but he's alienating the crucial bloc that won him the 2008 election. It was Latino voter's twinge toward president Obama in 2008 that provided the margin of victory in many swing states. and if you're the White House right now looking at polling data about approval data for the president, you're very scared. just months ago, the president's approval rating among latinos was coming in at 79%. it's now down to 55%. When the midterms come this fall and the Latinos decide to stay home because they're seeing people deported every day, the White House is going to have no one to punish but itself.

Why does Obama to pander to people he can't possibly succeed with?  What makes him such a terrible panderer?  It's his ideology, stupid!  He believes as a matter of faith that if he just panders long and hard enough, eventually "men of goodwill" on the other side will just have to see what a swell guy he is--even though such men do not actually exist.  Verily, so strong is his faith that his pandering will single-handedly call them into being! And then they can sit down and make beautiful "grand bargain" music together.

You know he used to smoke pot.  So did millions more of us.  Used moderately, it's less problematic than alcohol.  

But this sort of behavior suggests he sniffed glue, too.  And that stuff really messes you up.

Sarah Palin's language-bending tweet asking New Yorkers to “refudiate” a proposal to build a Muslim centre near Ground Zero has highlighted the truth that Americans still remain...

Former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is taking a break from telling New York that a mosque shouldn't be built two blocks from Ground Zero. But before you breathe a sigh of relief, she's trying to tell voters of the 13th Congressional District (Staten Island and tiny bit of Brooklyn) who they should vote for: The Mama Grizzly endorsed Republican hopeful Michael Grimm via Facebook!

She writes, "Michael Grimm, a former Deputy U.S. Marshall and FBI Special Agent, is running in New York’s 13th Congressional District. This decorated Marine and Persian Gulf War veteran took on organized crime and Wall Street corruption as an undercover agent. As a current small business owner, Michael understands that real economic growth comes from the private sector, not government. He’ll represent New Yorkers with just as much integrity and courage as he defended them in the FBI and the Marine Corps."

Grimm, who faces Michael Allegretti in the Republican primary, told the Daily Beast, “I’m humbled that she has chosen to support me of the thousands of candidates that she is inundated with. I am very, very proud and very humbled," but one SI GOP board member said, "These are just circus antics that are being put on by a certain campaign. This race and this primary is going to be decided on the issues, not the circus-like antics. Sarah Palin is old news." You know what's circus-like? Nominating Vito Fossella.

Allegretti, who has the SI GOP's support, said, "I find it amusing that my Republican opponent has had to go from Washington to Alaska to find an endorsement. want to give some advice to Sarah Palin and I doubt she's ever taken the ferry from Manhattan to Staten Island, but you can't see Russia from the ferry, but you can see Brooklyn so I hope she gets a chance some time."

Hollywood News!!!!! (all things that matter in Pop Culture!) [size=150:myioceo9][/size:myioceo9] [img=http://bumpshack.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/chelsea-clinton-marc-mezvinsky-photos.jpg] (above). (TMZ) Former First Daughter is To get technical, the fly zone will cover a landmass of 1.5 nautical miles and extend from zero to 2000 feet above ground level. .

In the first six parts of my Training Camp Battles Series , I analyzed the future of the nickel linebacker , defensive end,  free safety , left tackle ,wide receiver , and cornerback  positions.

Today, I will take a look at the current battle between tight ends Martellus Bennett and John Phillips for the No. 2 job behind starter Jason Witten.  Recently, offensive coordinator Jason Garrett seemed to indicate that the competition for the second tight end spot is quite open.  He said there will be“healthy competition”  at every position and when referring to Phillips, Garrett claimed:

Every opportunity he gets, he seems to make the catch, make the block, do the little thing that helps our football team. He did that really all throughout last year in a limited role, and he has a little bit more of a role with Martellus out here the first four or five practices. He’s doing it. It’s not always flashy, but he always seems to make the block or make the catch or do something that helps our offense.

With Bennett currently sidelined due to an ankle injury, Phillips has stepped up.  On Monday, he had what Jason Witten labeled “his best practice ever,” followed by perhaps an even better performance on Tuesday.

Will the less flashy second-year man be able to overtake Bennett for the backup tight end spot?  Let’s take a look at the scouting reports.

Scouting Reports

• Martellus Bennett

Bennett may still need to mature off of the field before he can flourish on it.  He isn’t a bad kid by any means, but he sometimes does boneheaded things.  He’s even led me to question if Dallas would be better off without him .

On the field, Bennett is actually a little underrated (at least in terms of blocking).  Take a look at what I wrote about him in my 2009 Tight End Grades :

Blocking:  B+

Despite the general consensus among fans that Bennett had a horrible 2009 season, he actually performed quite well as a blocker .  It is ironic that such an athletic player has developed faster as a blocker than a pass-catcher, but perhaps the way in which Witten goes about his business is rubbing off on Bennett.

Like Witten, though, we’d like to see Bennett’s penalty count decrease .  Yes, it is difficult for tight ends to often block larger defensive ends, but a few of Bennett’s penalties were offensive pass interference.

Receiving:  C-

Bennett obviously regressed as a pass-catcher in 2009.  He caught only 51.7% of balls thrown his way, and just 15/21 on-target passes (71.4%) .  Bennett doesn’t have poor hands, so we think this was due more to a lack of concentration than anything else.

Bennett is dangerous after catching the ball (4.8 yards-after-catch-per-reception–wow, that is a lot of hyphens), so the key to his 2010 success will be mastering the mental aspect of the game so he can let his athleticism take over.

• John Phillips

Also from my 2009 Tight End Grades :

Blocking:  C-

Phillips’ pass-blocking sample size (only 26 snaps) is too small to draw meaningful conclusions, but not so for his run-blocking sample (126 snaps).  In a study I performed on the effectiveness of fullback Deon Anderson, I compared Anderson’s stats to those of Phillips .  What I discovered (listed below) was that Phillips was far inferior to Anderson as a blocker, at least out of the backfield .

The Cowboys averaged nearly two more yards-per-carry with Anderson in the game as compared to Phillips, and, surprisingly, .2 more yards-per-pass .  Phillips’ rookie play was a pleasant surprise in 2009, but he has a long way to go before he can be considered a dominant blocker.

Receiving:  B-

It is tough to grade Phillips as a receiver because of his limited sample size (only seven regular season catches).  Rather than use purely statistics, this grade is based more on what I saw from Phillips on film.  He displayed good route-running ability and solid hands (zero drops and a natural receiver) .  He averaged an impressive 6.6 yards-after-catch  and showed he is capable of being an adequate runner after receiving the football.

Pros/Cons of Starting. . .

• Martellus Bennett

Bennett is more athletic than Phillips and offers a higher upside.  He has the potential to be an outstanding all-around tight end.  The problem is that he suffers from frequent mental lapses and has yet to cash in on that potential.

Bennett’s skill set makes him more of an in-line tight end/slot player.  He can be split out wide and, although he struggled there last season, possesses the ability to play as a sort of “big receiver.”

The addition of Dez Bryant means the Cowboys will likely use more three-receiver sets and spread formations, though, so Bennett’s snaps could be limited.  After all, who would you prefer line up outside for the ‘Boys on 3rd and 7:  Bryant or Bennett?

• John Phillips

Like Bennett, Phillips can be moved around the field.  He will not flourish out wide, however, and is even inferior to Bennett as an in-line tight end at this time.  Phillips does have the ability to play as an H-Back (a tight end/fullback hybrid), however, which Bennett really does not.  This could be of use to a Dallas offense that figures to be more spread out in 2010.

Some have been predicting the Cowboys might even retain no true fullback, using Phillips at the spot when needed.  However, as I stated above, Phillips has a long way to go as a blocker, so expect Deon Anderson to hold onto his job–for now.

Advantage

The Bennett/Phillips battle is an interesting one due to the varying nature of their skill sets.  Bennett is currently a much better blocker and has the ability to succeed out wide, but the addition of Dez Bryant could make the former trait less valuable (if the team is in less two-tight end sets) and the latter irrelevant altogether.

Right now, Phillips is making up ground on Bennett, but he is also competing just as much with fullback Deon Anderson for playing time.  I believe Anderson is the superior blocker, but Phillips obviously offers more athleticism as a legitimate pass-catching threat.

Once Bennett returns from injury, it will be interesting to see how offensive coordinator Jason Garrett splits up the tight ends reps.  You can probably expect Bennett to regain his No. 2 gig.  Don’t think for a second the coaching staff doesn’t value his blocking ability.

Bennett is on a much shorter leash this year than in the previous two, however, meaning an outstanding preseason from Phillips, particularly as a blocker, could win him the job.

The growing debate over Islam’s place in America, which is escalating in light of plans to build a mosque near ground zero, is increasingly playing out on city streets across the country. On the sides of buses, to be precise. Several groups are engaging in something of a religious ad war over the merits and [...]

I’ve already heard from a consultant to the “Cordoba Initiative” regarding my “Letter to Mayor Bloomberg.” Among the points I find interesting: This project is being billed as an “inter-religious center” for “multi-faith collaboration.” So why, I asked, will there be space for Muslims to worship plus only a “multi-faith meditation room”? Why not treat all three great faiths alike? His answer:

[I]t's a Muslim facility. We're building a community center that serves the needs, cultural expectations and goals of knitting together segments of the Muslim community, who oft feel disenfranchised, with the larger community of lower Manhattan.

 

Ah, well, that’s not quite the same as an “inter-religious center,” now is it? Also, this suggests the project is less about remembering the atrocity that was committed on 9/11 -- who committed it and why; who the victims were and why -- and more about serving the Muslim community.

I would also ask Mayor Bloomberg to consider: Is that the appropriate use for this site?

One other Q & A: I asked whether any funding would be coming from abroad. I did not get a direct answer. Instead:

 

No funding that isn't sanctioned by regulators that we're bringing in to review the process. We'll be disclosing details to the letter of the law once fund-raising starts.

 

My response:

 

Surely, it should be disclosed who these “regulators” are, as well as other financing details, before there is approval for the project -- not after.

---

Huffington Post - By Matt Sledge - Jul. 29 (Special Report) - The "Ground Zero Mosque" that we have been and will be hearing so much about is not exactly a mosque, nor is it at Ground Zero. Here's why. (video)

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New York City firefighters exit the walkway leading down into ground zero after finishing a shift on the cleanup and recovery effort at the disaster site of the World Trade Center March 7, 2002 in New York City.

I guess Bill Polian enjoys scooping up Josh McDaniels' scraps in Denver. Here's a bit from Rotoworld, source Adam Caplan:

Colts claimed OT Chris Marinelli off waivers from the Broncos. The lanky Marinelli never fit in Denver, but he'll get a good look with the Colts, who value intelligence in linemen. The right tackle for Jim Harbaugh's Stanford Cardinals last year, Marinelli could be a practice squad stash.

Marinelli is the second Broncos roster casualty to get claimed off waivers this off-season by the Colts (quarterback Tom Brandstater was the other).

To make room on the Colts bulging roster prior to the start of camp, the team waived rookie kicker Brett Swenson. Now, I'll get to Marinelli in a second, but first I'd like to examine the Colts releasing Swenson.

We all assumed Swenson was signed so that he could handle a majority of the camp reps at place kicker while Adam Vinatieri continued to rest. With Swenson now gone, the only kicker on the roster is Vinatieri. This likely means that the Colts feel Vinatieri is healthy enough to handle the kick reps in practice, and to kick during pre-season. Of course, if they sign another kicker, all that changes. But, for right now, Adam Vinatieri is the only FG kicker on this roster.

After the jump, we talk Chris Marinelli.

Walter Football ranked the Stanford kid as the 25th best tackle in the entire 2010 NFL Draft. Likely, others felt the same way about Marinelli, which explains why he wasn't drafted by anyone in April. He signed a rookie free agent deal with the Broncos, who cut him yesterday.

At 6'7, 300 pounds, Marinelli is built like a tackle. He's from the just south of Boston (boooo!) and because of his hometown roots in New England, Patriots fans were hoping the Bill Belichick brain trust would draft or sign the local product. There isn't much in terms of scouting reports on Marinelli, save a CBS Sports report linked to an Examiner.com article.

From a pass blocking standpoint:

Textbook knee bend and angled, short steps when set up in pass protection. Mirrors very well, extends his arm and resets to punch and keep defender at bay. Good balance and armbar to prevent ends from using inside moves to get to the quarterback. Gets down quickly on cut blocks but needs to get more into his man's thigh to get him on the ground.

Run blocking:

Drives off the snap and keeps his legs churning to push the pile on blocks inside. Anchors well, very strong at the point of attack. Combos from the tackle to linebacker fluidly and with strength. Able to turn his man out of the hole. Will take his man ten yards downfield once attached, if given the chance.

Overall:

He has the versatility to play guard or tackle at the next level, thanks to his intelligence, size, strength, foot speed and nasty streak.

...

Intelligent player that plays with a bit of a nasty streak. Cleans up piles and won't back down when challenged. Strong, vocal leader. Father worked for Local 88 Tunnels Workers Union for 30 years, and the offensive line took on that nickname for their group before the season because of its blue-collar attitude.

Since he's had zero time this off-season to work within the Colts offense, don't look for Marinelli to be competing for any starting jobs. If he's lucky, and stays healthy, they've keep him on via the practice squad. He has a noted strong work ethic and a blue collar background. So, already, fans like him. He's stated that he feels more comfortable playing right tackle than guard or left tackle. So, unless Pete Metzelaars wants to move him around, Marinelli is probably going to work mostly at RT.

Oh, and yes, Marinelli was one of Jimmy Harbaugh's most dependable players at Stanford. For those of you who remember Harbaugh as a Colt, here you go (oh, and check out the "rookie from Syracuse" in this clip):

Banks failures kept climbing and the Asset Back Security market completely froze up. While it sounds like a grim description of the height of the Credit Crisis, it was actually the week of July 19th.

In little reported news, there was no issuance of asset backed securities (ABS) last week. Large companies rely on this type of financing to fund their short term needs. The collapse of this market in the fall of 2008 was one of the key reasons that economic activity ground to a halt. Recently, everything looked OK for the ABS market. During the ten weeks prior to July 19th average issuance was $1.83 billion per week. Then suddenly it was zero.

Editor's Note: The EPA still displays their notice that the air was safe to breathe at Ground Zero only one week after the twin towers fell. Congress should not need anymore evidence of the governments negligence in protecting the health of first responders.

A reader writes: It might be worth pointing out to the knuckleheads who are protesting the building of a mosque near Ground Zero that there's been a Japanese Shinto Shrine very close to Pearl Harbor for a very long time....



Pearl Harbor - New York City - Islam - New York - U-boat

The growing debate over Islam's place in America, which is escalating in light of plans to build a mosque near ground zero, is increasingly playing out on city streets across the country. On the sides of buses, to be precise.

Several groups are engaging in something of a religious ad war over the merits and misconceptions of Islam, a religion that remains a mystery to many Americans.

Ads by a group calling itself Stop Islamization of America, which aims to provide refuge for former Muslims, read: "Fatwa on your head? Is your family or community threatening you? Leaving Islam? Got questions? Get answers!"

Well, at least we won, right? It always could be worse. 

I feel bad for Jaime, who once again got screwed out of a victory he deserved. Strasburg has been the black swan on the horizon since spring training began, and Buster Posey is the man of the minute with his Ty Cobb impression, but Garcia has been the best rookie in the National League on the whole this year, and he has absolutely zero chance of being recognised for it. Now, I'm not saying a few extra wins should make any difference, but you know perfectly well they would. Oh well. He can just go on being underappreciated as far as I'm concerned. 

By the by, the original version of the above paragraph referred to Jason Heyward as a black swan, but I thought better of it. 

Anyway, I'm not going to say much else about last night's game, as I want to get this up bright and early since I'm pretty sure today's game starts at about eight am, but I thought Mike MacDougal looked pretty decent. The pitch he got Beltran on was scary, but I was encouraged overall by the stuff he was throwing. The last two outs he got were both groundballs on 96 mph fastballs that had nice downward movement on them; if he can throw just like he did last night I think he could be plenty useful for us. Given the choice, I would probably choose to see Eduardo Sanchez get an audition or keep Salas up, but not seeing either of those guys until September also isn't the worst thing in the world. 

I don't think it's exactly news to anyone that our middle infield has been awful. And not normal awful; awful in a way that's almost hard to even properly conceptualize. The Cardinals are paying actual major league money to Skip Schumaker to be a below replacement level player; by comparison Brendan Ryan's neutrality for league minimum seems positively heavenly. 

Actually, let me correct that. I last checked WAR for Ryan and Schumaker a couple weeks back; both of them have managed to move into positive numbers, albeit ever so slightly, since. Both players are currently worth 0.1 wins above replacement, meaning our starting middle infield has contributed two-tenths of a win to the cause. Huzzah! I apologise to both players for impugning their contributions. 

I promise I'm not going to bash Aaron Miles here, either. We all know what he is, but seeing as how he's been better than either of our regulars, he gets a pass for the morning. 

Nonetheless, facts is facts, and facts is our middle infield sucks. It sucks hard. It sucks like James Dyson designed it. It sucks like its hockey player boyfriend just proposed. (I should be ashamed of myself for that joke, but I'm soooo not.) I would like to come up with another funny thing that sucks to satisfy the rule of three, but I can't think of one at the moment and as I said I'm trying to finish this quickly. (That's what- there's no time, man!) 

Perhaps this season is simply an unfortunate convergence of a couple bad seasons, and both Brendan Ryan and Skippy will rebound next year to be productive players. If you believe that, that's fine; there's certainly an argument to be made. However, I don't believe that. I believe we've seen the best of both players, and I don't expect to see it again. I think Skip's game is just fundamentally unsound in certain ways, and Brendan Ryan is, well, um, let me tell you a little story. 

When I was little, I stayed with my grandmother a lot, and had a friend named Chris who lived near her house. On her road, down by where she lived, there were mostly older people who had lived in the neighborhood for years, and things were pretty much okay. Just a couple miles up the road, though, things were much worse. Trashy houses with inhabitants to match. Chris was from one of those houses. Skinny and gingery, he looked a little like Ron Howard in his Mayberry days, a little like a hungry stray. A few too many teeth when he smiled, shoulder blades you could see. 

Chris wasn't a bad kid, necessarily; he was just one of those kids your grandmother doesn't want you hanging around with. His father cut out on the family when he was four; his mom worked at 7-11 and part-time at McDonald's. We used to throw rocks at cars and hide in the woods when the drivers stopped or sneak over to the neighbor's barn where he had posters of naked women pinned up in his workshop. Sometimes we would get bottles of Nitro cola and smash the empties together until they shattered. Normal bored unhappy kid stuff. 

Over the years, Chris got into trouble quite a few times. He broke a neighbor's windows one time after the guy shot his dog with a BB gun; another time he got caught lifting stuff out of the snack machine at school. Every time he did something bad Chris would apologise and promise to do better and say all the right things and actually would stay out of trouble for awhile; a couple months later though and he would be right back in hot water for something stupid. Chris wasn't really a bad guy; he never stole big things or hurt anyone or graduated up to felonies. He was just missing whatever it is that lets the rest of us learn from our mistakes. Last time I saw Chris we were both about eighteen and he was working at a gas station in Festus. I went in with my girlfriend at the time and we recognised each other; he told me all about how he dropped out of school because he knocked up his girl and she was being a total bitch about him needing a better car and he was thinking of dumping her. 

Anyway, Brendan Ryan reminds me of Chris. Not because Brendan looks like he could really use someone to buy him dinner (though he does), but because Brendan just seems to be missing something. Every time you think he's really arrived, that he's ready to become a consistent, productive major leaguer, something goes wrong and he backslides to future utility infielder territory. I don't know what it is about Ryan, but I don't believe in him. I just don't. 

But I digress. Plenty has been written about the abject shittiness of our middle infield this year, but I'm more concerned with what the Cards can do to improve it. (If they can do anything, that is.) 

What you would hope, of course, is that there might be help on the horizon coming out of the farm system. Unfortunately, middle infield has been one of the major areas of failure for Jeff Luhnow and company; they've had almost zero luck drafting and developing useful talent in the middle of the diamond. Jose Martinez succumbed to an almost stunning lack of plate discipline, Donovan Solano made an impression in spring training but has a .557 OPS at Triple A, Pete Kozma has been The Guy Who Isn't Rick Porcello. There are a few intriguing names at the very low levels, guys like Cesar Valera, but nothing really close. 

There is Daniel Descalso, the second baseman who had such a big season last year at Double A and personal favourite of mine. He was having a pretty good, if uninspiring, campaign at Memphis this year, but he just made his first start last night after being on the disabled list for a month. 

That leads us to the trade market, which is certainly more fertile ground but presents plenty of other issues. Looking around, there are a handful of teams with middle infielders who would present real upgrades and are also probably sellers. Dan Uggla of the Marlins is certainly a popular name around trade talk circles, but the price in talent for him will be massive, and with good reason. Uggla was worth almost 3 wins last year and is already at 3.3 WAR this season. His fielding isn't always pretty, but his value is impossible to argue with. 

Aaron Hill is another option, but the Jays would want a king's ransom for him and I wonder what kind of hit his power numbers would take leaving the Rogers Centre. He's intriguing, but I don't really see a fit. I suppose Brian Roberts has to be considered an option, but the injury history and salary aren't pluses, to say the least. 

The Indians are brutal and have a ton of middle infielders, but very few of them are guys you really want around. Asdrubal Cabrera has actually been worse than either Skip or Ryan, and he's fairly representative of what you're looking at with the Indians. So not a whole lot of help there. Mike Aviles of the Royals has come up; again, he's basically the same production level of what we already have. 

Personally, the guy I really wish the Cards could get their hands on is Reid Brignac of the Tampa Bay Rays. He's young, talented, and would be cost-controlled for quite a while. Of course, one could then ask the question, "Why would the Rays trade him?" and that would certainly be fair. He's playing second base for them currently and doing a nice job, and I personally think he's going to be very, very good down the line. However, the Rays are also staring down the potential loss of both Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena to free agency this offseason; they have Desmond Jennings who will likely step in for Crawford, but don't have as obvious a plan at first. I wonder if Allen Craig would interest them. You would likely have to include another player with Craig to overcome the positional value difference and Brignac's track record in the majors, but I do wonder if the Rays would consider moving Brignac for a cost-controlled solution at a position of greater need for them. Probably a pipe dream, or at the very least one which likely waits until the offseason. There are probably other teams with better bat prospects anyway. (Though I really believe in Craig's bat.) Oh well. 

You may notice most of the players I'm looking at are second basemen; that isn't an accident. Very quietly, Tyler Greene is looking more and more like a pretty productive major leaguer. Not productive enough to make me forget the Cards drafted him instead of Clay Bucholz, mind you, but not bad at all. Tyler Greene is the best shortstop the Cardinals have right now, and I think he needs to be the starter going forward. 

In just 75 plate appearances this season, Tyler has amassed 0.4 WAR, or double what what our 'starters' in the middle infield have combined. His OPS+ on the season is 105, putting him almost exactly league-average and very good for a shortstop. And honestly, I don't see any reason he can't continue to hit approximately as well as he currently is going forward. He's always going to have an odd looking batch of results, but this is a player with enough power to make up for below-average contact skills. Defensively there seem to be a lot of fans who think Tyler is much worse than he is; UZR has him a shade below average and +/- likes him for just a hair above both this season and last. Obviously the sample sizes are far too small to be very meaningful, but those results basically jibe with what I see from Greene: both in the minors and majors I think his glove is pretty good, with a few spectacular plays offset by the occasional blunder on something routine. I would be perfectly willing to bet he ends up a few runs above or below average over the next few seasons. Combine averagish defense with his unusually dynamic profile with the bat and I think Tyler is our best bet. 

Unfortunately, I don't think it's going to be easy for the Cards to upgrade their middle infield. If Freese comes back Felipe Lopez can slide over to second, but I personally hope we can find a way to keep him as more of a utility guy filling in at three spots than tethering him to one five days a week. Regardless, the fact is I think the Cardinals are likely stuck with what they have up the middle for the rest of this season. Finding a way to turn the middle infield from a major weakness into a strength may be the most important challenge John Mozeliak will face between now and Opening Day 2011. 

So, what do you guys think? Any pet names out there? 

The Baron's Playlist for the 29th of July, 2010 -- New!

"When Will You Come?" - Wavves

"The Suburbs" - Arcade Fire

"Summer Mood" - Best Coast

"Mansion of Misery" - Fortress

"Coquet Coquette" - Of Montreal

WAKE UP PEOPLE!!  Here is more evidence that Obama and his cronies have an agenda to ruin Ameri

They want to build a mosque two blocks from ground zero. And the outrage burns like jet fuel, the argument billows like choking dust, the questions lacerate like flying glass: Is it right, is it decent, is it morally defensible, for developer Sharif el-Gamal of SoHo Properties to build a Muslim worship center called Cordoba House within walking ...

Mayor Bloomberg says it would be downright "un-American" to investigate the funding of the mosque proposed near Ground Zero. I think it was downright un-American for him to ignore my vote against third terms.

When Sarah Palin told Muslims to "refudiate" plans for a mosque near 9/11's ground zero a few weeks ago, I was shocked that some media talking heads dismissed her because she invented a word. They need to stop laughing.

On the language front, refudiate is a helluva lot more understandable than many of the words, abbreviations, and acronyms that get tweeted these days. Everyone knew what she meant, at least kinda, and if we want to analyze or mock the use of language by political or public figures, there are similarly enough sub-subordinate clauses, parenthetical interludes, and passive verbs in most comments from President Obama to warrant a deconstructing chuckle.

Her idea deserved a more reasoned analysis mostly because it was so unreasonable. What was she asking "peaceful Muslims" to do, exactly? Whose heartland did she believe the construction plans "stabbed?" There were factual inaccuracies: the plans call for a community center, not a mosque, and it's located 2 blocks away from the site, not at it. Her follow-up statement didn't mention that the promoters for the center are renowned for advocating interfaith dialog, they're all Americans, and the local political and community leaders approved the plans.

More broadly, her logic was suspect: even if the plans were for a mosque, would that mean that Jews shouldn't build temples in or near the West Bank (or in Jerusalem)? Should Christians be banned from building churches in Arab or Muslim countries? Blood is spilled regularly because the Dome of the Rock is so close to the Western Wall, and in many countries Christians are indeed prohibited from publicly practicing their religion (not only because of theocratic differences, as evidenced by the Communist Chinese during the Cultural Revolution, for instance).

Shouldn't all Americans refudiate such intolerance, whether here or abroad?

It's not easy or always comfortable, but I say such thinking is at the core of American exceptionalism. We are different from everyone else because we hold ourselves to higher standards; our beliefs are pure Enlightenment idealism that are impossible to live up to. What makes us different is that we try. We're better than everyone else when we practice what we preach. So our exceptionalism isn't about what rules and norms we're allowed to break but rather how hard we work to do better than other countries.

Anyway, this laughing thing really bothers me. It's condescending and it only serves to confirm Palin's claims of being persecuted and attacked. The same goes for Glenn Beck or any other rabble-rousers, irrespective of their political leanings. I caught recently a clip of his loony declaration that the new Financial Reform legislation meant the American republic had "died." The video edit was meant to elicit a laugh, but his point about the bill's length (2300 pages) deserved more: Glass-Steagall was all of 53 pages long. It's hard not to suspect that something's wrong, but is the problem that printers used too much ink and killed democracy? Hahah...er...we didn't talk about it.

One word or too many words...the ideas coming from national personalities deserve reasoned and fair attention, not glib derision. Take away talk radio and the talk shows on Fox and MSNBC, and the rest of the mediasphere that claims to be "mainstream" risks falling into the political calculations of one party or the other if they take such comments anything less than seriously. A smirk or snarky comment isn't reporting, however much focus groups have told you that your audience will appreciate it. Laughing is lamestream.

It doesn't help that so much nuttiness comes from those who oppose the current adminstration. You can stifle a laugh only so many times in response to accusations that President Obama is a foreign usurper, or that he's a socialist. But there are serious policy differences behind these wild claims -- or there need to be, if those people supporting them want a turn at running things -- and it's the media’s job to bring those issues into the light of day. Similarly, it's too easy to contrast the nuttiness with the apparently serious policy moves coming from the party in power, and in doing do make the nuttiness seem nuttier.

This isn't fair, or particularly honest, as the President's policies could be equally nutty, or they could well be partially or completely wrong. They're just not as funny or easy to laugh at. Michelle Malkin ranking about the Democrats' reign of darkness? Funny. Al Gore on global warming, or the intricacies of cap and trade? Not so funn...zzzzzzzzzz.

I don't believe conservatives and liberals are at war in America, or that patriots are busy standing up to the unpatriotic. Extremist minorities and their chosen evangelists want us to believe otherwise, and when our media (or we as citizens) laugh at ideas, we do their bidding and advance their interests. We need to stop shooting the imperfect messengers and missing our chance to talk about or understand perfectly valid or relevant ideas. Our national debate is between what’s rational and what’s stupid, and we’re losing our ability to tell the difference.

And that's nothing to laugh at.

(Photo credit: The screen grab of Wrongway Peachfuzz appears on numerous sites and I can't tell who has the rights to it, so here's where I found the image that I used: http://02varvara.wordpress.com/2010/02/04/the-gang-that-can%E2%80%99t-shoot-straight-matusiak-gets-his-facts-wrong-again/)

WASHINGTON -- Long Island Republican Peter King yesterday took a shot at Democrats as he predicted that a bill that would pay billions of dollars to people exposed to toxic dust at Ground Zero will fall short in a House vote. The chamber today takes up a measure to provide...

The New York dance presenter's lease on its 8th Avenue headquarters, with its $1 annual rent, expires in 2016. The Joyce had committed to occupying a planned arts center near Ground Zero whose construction seems ever more remote; meanwhile, the 8th Avenue site's landlord, Eliot Feld's Ballet Tech Company, wants rent payments closer to market rate....

securefreedom | July 21, 2010 Message from Frank Gaffney: The Center for Security Policy today unvei

Opinion: ...more

First they're popping up underneath Ground Zero, now they're in the Arctic. Ghosts ships are everywhere! The HMS Investigator was abandoned in 1853 during a search for the Northwest Passage. Canadian archaeologists just discovered it! [AP] More »

How can Pitts support Islamic religion? Re "A mosque at Ground Zero? There's no better place," July 23: I rarely take time to reply to anything at all, but Leonard Pitts Jr.'s ignorance and arrogance are nearly unendurable to me and my family.

AP - Saying he knows what real heroism is, former New York Giants star George Martin began a cross-country walk to raise money for ailing ground zero workers.
[From: Yahoo! Celebrity]

Pundits jumped on Sarah Palin when she recently tweeted that people should "refudiate" plans for a New York City mosque near Ground Zero.

Pour qui tu dansais pendant ta vie sans moi? — Big legislative win on crack/powder sentencing disparities. — Big win on Arizona immigration law. — Masjid Manhattan has been near Ground Zero since before the World Trade Center was even completed. — Improve the CLASS Act, don’t scrap it. — The real problem with “gifted” programs. — Robert Gates takes a dark [...]

I think this is what happens when one go is beating the other by 30 or 40 points. Rick Lazio is challenging Andrew Cuomo to a debate solely about the threat of the 'Ground Zero Mosque.'...


Rick Lazio - Andrew Cuomo - Islam - United States - Social Sciences

Still iffy on Newt, but his message is sound. One of our biggest mistakes in the aftermath of 9/11 w

Community Board One voted last night 24-to-11 (with two abstentions) not to push for landmark status of 45-47 Park Place. That location is set to be the home of the formerly named Cordoba House, t...

Rick Lazio, the Republican frontrunner in the primary for New York governor, has thrown down the gauntlet and challenged Democratic nominee and state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to a debate...a debate that focuses solely on the controversial plans to build a Muslim community center near Ground Zero.


Rick Lazio - New York - Andrew Cuomo - Republican - Attorney general

Wonkette operative “Evan B.” writes: “The debate over the planned mosque at Ground Zero seems a bit retarded to me; I work directly between the planned mosque and a mosque that has existed before 9/11 and continues to operate to this day. The existing mosque and the proposed mosque are probably 800 feet apart; one [...]



World Trade Center - Manhattan - Times Square - Mosque - Terrorism

WikiLeaks' Julian Assange has figured out that on the Internet, being homeless means you don't have to play by anybody's rules.

This week's disclosure of the Afghanistan war logs shows how WikiLeaks has emerged as a new type of media player, an information broker that collects secrets and negotiates how they will be revealed.

It has cracked open governments and corporations without apparent repercussions because it has no headquarters, no printing press or transmission tower, no physical address. It's just a confederation of skilled volunteers and Web servers. In that sense, WikiLeaks is of the Internet.

In inserting itself between source and publisher, WikiLeaks has shifted power away from the monoliths that once determined what is news and toward the people who, before the Web, would have been stopped in the newspaper lobby before they could see a reporter.

WikiLeaks allowed The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel access to the Afghanistan war logs a month early as long as they kept quiet until WikiLeaks published them on its site. In striking that bargain, those news organizations found themselves not as gatekeepers of information, but as guests with VIP access.

And yet WikiLeaks needed these titans of old media. It needed their reporting, their reach, their distribution networks, their reputation.

The new role of the "source advocate"

WikiLeaks' Julian Assange and conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart operate in the wide, middle ground between sources and publishers, and they play both sides. In providing new information related to a story of public interest, they act as sources. And in giving voice to sources and information that would otherwise be lost among the chatter, they function like publishers.

"The source is no longer dependent on finding a journalist who may or may not do something good with his document," Assange said in a New Yorker profile earlier this year, published after WikiLeaks released an edited video of a U.S. helicopter killing a Reuters photographer and driver in Iraq.

Breitbart and Assange chose different methods these past two weeks (and they have vastly different goals), but each sought to influence traditional media, not replace it. Breitbart published the Shirley Sherrod video himself and hoped the media would follow along; WikiLeaks decided to give a few outlets advance access to the "Afghan War Diary," as WikiLeaks calls it, in the hopes that their coverage would establish this as a major story.

The power of self-publication isn't quite enough. To achieve the most impact, to get people to pay attention to this story, WikiLeaks needed to broker a deal with traditional media.

Exchanging information and credibility

For WikiLeaks, the worst outcome of leaking the Afghan war logs wouldn't be government prosecution. It would be silence.

The New Yorker article describes how in 2007 Assange and his cohorts published U.S. military purchasing records for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even building a searchable database. According to The New Yorker's Raffi Khatchadourian, "Assange hoped that journalists would pore through it, but barely any did. 'I am so angry,' he said."

Assange has also experimented unsuccessfully with auctioning off access to documents, according to The New Yorker.

This time, WikiLeaks opted for an old tool: the embargo. In a 2009 Computerworld article, Assange described how scarcity is key to getting media attention:


In creating scarcity with the war logs, Assange played to the competitive instincts of legacy media and controlled the story, at least at the outset. For the first day or so, those three newspapers owned the story, forcing their competitors to scramble. (When they caught up, not all thought the war logs measured up to the hype.)

New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller told me in an e-mail that simply posting the thousands of military logs on WikiLeaks' site "would probably have been messier, as news outlets and bloggers and others scrambled to find interesting nuggets in an ocean of complicated, jargonized documents.

"The month that The Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel had to sort, translate, verify and analyze," Keller said, "meant the Afghanistan documents were rendered useful for readers."

And what did WikiLeaks gain? Credibility. As these venerable news organizations verified and analyzed the documents, they legitimized them. Anyone can publish to the Web, but not with the impact of the Times, The Guardian or Der Spiegel. Do I trust WikiLeaks? Maybe not. But if the Times trusts them, perhaps I do.

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, described the pros and cons of self-publishing in a Times story published after WikiLeaks posted the video of the helicopter video. Though there's something enticing about being independent, he said, "I don't think it would have had the same impact, then or now, as having it in The Times."

Increasingly complex relationship between source and journalist

In handing these news orgs the raw material, WikiLeaks obviously made their job easier. But with WikiLeaks standing between them and the primary source, the journalists' work was harder, too.

There's a limit to what the journalists could verify. And though they could check what was in the documents, they don't know what was missing -- documents that could have provided exculpatory evidence or presented a more mixed picture.

"Deep Throat had an agenda. Ellsberg had an agenda," Keller told me by e-mail. "That doesn't invalidate the information they provide us. If we refused to work with sources whose motivations we didn't share, a lot of important stories would go untold.

"The critical thing is what we do with the material -- check its authenticity, draw our own conclusions from it, put it in context, and lay it all out for readers on our terms, not the source's terms." (Indeed, CJR noted that the three newspapers came to different conclusions about what the logs mean for the war.)

In light of such complications, it's important for news organizations to explain how they got this information and how they verified it. The Times did this in several ways:

• A "note to readers" explaining how it got the documents, how it weighed the costs and benefits of publishing classified information and how it verified the documents
• A Q&A in which readers could ask more questions
• An explanation of what types of information it had redacted from the logs that it published (see bottom of page)
  
• A separate news story about WikiLeaks and its motivations in disclosing the documents

But even with those disclosures, it's still "asymmetrical journalism," to use David Carr's term -- WikiLeaks determines what it will share, on what terms, and it's up to the media to go along or watch someone else break the news. (Assange and Ellsberg would point out here that journalism has always been asymmetrical -- just in the other direction.)

The power of a Web-native organization

The U.S. military designed the Internet to be decentralized so that enemies or terrorists couldn't bring down the system by striking at one key location. Likewise, "a government or company that wanted to remove content from WikiLeaks would have to practically dismantle the Internet itself," Khatchadourian wrote in The New Yorker.

WikiLeaks is extralegal, "the world's first stateless news organization," as NYU's Jay Rosen put it. "To say that it is an independent organization is a monumental understatement," Keller said in a Times Q&A with readers.

The federal government went to the U.S. Supreme Court to try to stop The New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers. In contrast, legal experts noted that now that the war logs have been made public there isn't really any legal recourse against WikiLeaks. (Though that's not the case for those suspected of leaking information to the site.)

Perhaps the greatest symbol of how little power the U.S. government has to stop WikiLeaks is that the White House asked the Times to relay its request to WikiLeaks that the organization withhold some harmful information. WikiLeaks has withheld some documents under its "harm minimization process demanded by our source."

"There's the new balance of power, right there," Rosen wrote on his blog. "In the revised picture we find the state, which holds the secrets but is powerless to prevent their release; the stateless news organization, deciding how to release them; and the national newspaper in the middle, negotiating the terms of legitimacy between these two actors."

The only question seems to be where Assange will train his eye next. He told Der Spiegel:


What will this citizen of the Internet reveal next about the world we inhabit?

[link] [145 comments]

Here's a song about extremism -- about the importance of finding a middle ground for the sake of humanity as a whole.

Great news, Muslims! Our arbiter of all things American, Newt Gingrich, has decreed that you may build a mosque on the island of Manhattan! There's just one condition: It has to be far away from the World Trade Center site. How far is far enough? Newt says near Central Park is permissible, or maybe up around Manhattanville. Last night Gingrich elaborated on what Matt Yglesias has called the "mosque exclusion zone" during an interview an interview on Fox:

You know, there are over a hundred mosques in New York City. I favor religious freedom. I'm quite happy if they'd come in and said, "We want to build a community center near Central Park, we'd like to build a community center near Columbia University." But they didn't. They said right at the edge of a place where, let's be clear, thousands of Americans were killed in an attack by radical Islamists.

Daily Intel has put together a handy map showing Newt's No Mosque Zone, ballooning out in an 80 block radius from Ground Zero. The area outside that zone will be ceded to Islam, and any real American leaving the safe zone is advised that he or she will likely encounter individuals who are, in Gingrich's words, "very hostile to our civilization."

The Landmarks Preservation Commission has not yet ruled on whether the building the mosque would replace deserves landmark status. But last night Community Board 1 voted 24-to-11, with two abstentions, to recommend that the city's Landmarks deny historic designation for the building at 45-47 Park Place. Before the vote, there was the requisite ranting from the public. Stuart Kaufman of Great Neck, Long Island, declared that "this is not just a local issue. It was America that was attacked on 9/11."

Pakistan has made huge sacrifices in the war on terror. Yet the PM criticises us based on intelligence leaks that lack credibility

I was surprised to read the reported remarks made by David Cameron when speaking to Indian businesspeople in Bangalore this morning, especially when he said: "We cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that this country [Pakistan] is allowed to look both ways and is able, in any way, to promote the export of terror, whether to India or whether to Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world". These remarks are completely contrary to the realities on the ground, and are intended to embroil Pakistan in issues for which it cannot alone be held responsible.

One would have hoped that the British prime minister would have considered Pakistan's enormous role in the war on terror and the sacrifices it has made since 9/11. He seems to be more reliant on information based on intelligence leaks, despite it lacking credibility or corroborating proof. A bilateral visit aimed at attracting business could have been conducted without damaging the prospects of regional peace.

His remarks have come soon after the leak of US military documents about the war in Afghanistan and the alleged involvement of Pakistan's security institutions. As far as Pakistan's role in the war is concerned, it is sufficient to quote the Persian proverb: "Fragrance does not need recommendations of a perfume seller". The sacrifices endured by Pakistan are enormous. Since 2001 more than 2,700 members of the security forces have laid down their lives and more than 9,000 have been severely wounded. These figures far exceed the total casualties suffered by Nato allies in the region over the same period.

For the west, it may seem as though terrorism began on 9/11. But Pakistan's experience started back when the Soviet troops occupied Afghanistan. The invasion posed a threat to the "free world", so we were told, and Pakistan was declared a "bulwark against communism". We are still struggling with the devastating and economically crippling fallout with limited resources and in an environment of mistrust.

We should not forget that the resistance offered by the Afghans against the Soviets mesmerised the west so much that it bestowed the title of "mujahideen" upon them. The new madrassas – in reality, more like guerilla training centres – were financed in Afghanistan and Pakistan by the free world to recruit and train religiously fanatic elements as mujahideen.

The so-called intelligence leaks that allege Pakistani involvement do not have any credibility. The timing of the leaks is instructive. Just a week ago an international conference held in Kabul called for the need to stabilise the situation in Afghanistan through reconciliation, reintegration and the gradual withdrawal of coalition forces by 2014.

This conference offered an opportunity to stabilise Afghanistan by engaging antagonists in order to find a political solution. The overwhelming majority of the conference favoured this approach. However, a few factions within Afghanistan and some countries in the neighbourhood who are trying to dominate the country do not like the idea.

For the stability of Afghanistan and for a smooth withdrawal of coalition forces, it is important not only that the political process in Afghanistan should be led by Afghans themselves but also that the country's neighbours honour the commitments made at the Kabul conference of 20 July. Mere lip service will not bring stability.

Pakistan has proved through its actions that stability in Afghanistan is an imperative. Pakistan has taken firm action against terrorists and observes zero tolerance against foreign extremists trying to take refuge within its borders. More importantly, the democratic government in Pakistan believes in a stable Afghanistan and by extension a stable region so that all nations in the region may focus their energies on addressing the plight of their poor. Instead of manufacturing evidence against Pakistan, it would be advisable for us all to work for stability in Afghanistan through peaceful means.

Back in 1998, when G.W. Bush won re-election as governor of Texas, and there was all this buzz about him running for President, I thought, "Surely this bubble must burst."  Of course it did... but not till 2005 & Hurricane Katrina.  I thought it would come much sooner.  And why was that?  Simple: the source of his wealth--after a whole string of failed oil investments--was (1) a sweatheart deal making him the general manager of the Texas Rangers, leading into (2) the building of a tax-payer funded stadium, which is where the vast majority of his money came from.

In short, G.W. Bush was a welfare queen, pure and simple.  It still astonishes me that McCain's people as well as Gore's were so utterly incompetent that they failed to sink Bush with this.  Yes, the press was behind Bush, but still, there are ways of making stuff like this stick, if you actually try, that is.

So, naturally, I took note of this segment of the Rachel Maddow Show last night, with guest host Chris Hayes talking to Nation sports editor David Zirin.  They start talking about steriods as the reason that there's no buzz around Alex Rodriguez being on the verge of hitting 600 home runs, but the focus quickly shifts to stadiums.

First the steroids:

ZIRIN:  ...he`s the Courtney Love of major league baseball. They find him embarrassing and past his day. And there`s a reason for that, and it`s a very simple one. It`s because he`s an admitted steroid user. And so to talk about Alex Rodriguez` 600th home run is also to cast light on the entire steroid era which the Commissioner Bud Selig oversaw. And owners have skated on that era. They have avoided all accountability on the steroid era, spectacularly so. And so then, if you celebrate A-Rod, you raise uncomfortable questions like what did owners know and when did they know it

HAYES: Yes. You know, I want to talk about the steroid era because it occurs to me that in some respects, what happened in the steroid era was almost as kind of it kind of prefigured all these scandals and corruption we had throughout the decade.

ZIRIN: Oh, absolutely.

HAYES: Everything from Enron, you know, Wall Street

And then the stadiums:  

ZIRIN: You know, I would argue that the public funding of stadiums did the same thing. I mean, you`ve had public stadium funding over the last 20 years. You also had the corruption with the steroid era and the public funding of stadiums. You have the socializing of debt and the privatizing of profit. That`s exactly what you could argue the bank bailouts were as well. And so the lab for that was professional sports. And for the steroid era, it`s about the absence of accountability at the top. I mean, you look at everything from Enron, British Petroleum and the rest of it, they saw in major league baseball how owners skated on what was supposed to be a time of scandal. Think about the congressional hearings on steroids. How many owners were called out in front of the hot lights of Congress? Zero. How many general managers? One Brian Sabean of the San Francisco Giants. It`s like one player said to me off the record he said to me, "Why is it when it comes to steroids, distribution is a team issue, but punishment is an individual issue?"

....

HAYES: I want to go back to this stadium issue, because it`s you cover it really well in the book. And you know, you go around the country and you go to these places that are just there`s no job creation. There`s nothing. You have these industrial cores that are just hollowed out. And there`s this gleaming new stadium that is the economic development agenda of the local government....

HAYES: You know, the argument they make is this is going to spur job creation. This is going to be this big economic driver. It`s going to revitalize our downtown. Does that actually happen?

ZIRIN: Economists from Fox News to MSNBC, to Democracy Now across the political spectrum, they will say the same thing. They will say stadium funding does not provide a return on its investment. And $30 billion has been spent on stadium construction over the last generation. It`s become a substitute for anything resembling an urban policy in this country. And I would argue it has a body count. It`s very real. Look at Minnesota where the bridge collapsed in 2008. The bridge collapsed, sending 13 people to their deaths the same week they were going to break ground on a new $30 million publicly funded stadium courtesy of Mr. Anti-Pork, Tim Pawlenty. Hypocrisy alerts big time.

HAYES: Right.

ZIRIN: And you could argue the same thing in Washington, D.C. Five minutes from my house, the metro went off the tracks. The metro trains dated back to the Jimmy Carter administration. And it happened the same year they debuted a gleaming billion-dollar stadium for the Washington Nationals. It`s an ugly business.

This is not news, really.  It's been happening right out in the open for at least two decades now.  The numbers never added up, and it never mattered.  It should have come to a head when Bush ran for President in 2000.  But our press was already to broken to handle it, and the candidates--McCain in the primary and Gore in the general--proved either unwilling or incompetent in going after this glaring contradiction between the conservative rhetoric of personal responsibility and the reality of Bush's utter welfare dependency.

And so, as a result, we've had an additional decade of agony that we didn't have to go through--at least not as badly as it turned out.  There were clear and obvious warning signs.  There was a poster boy running for President, for gosh sakes, and the entire political system missed it completely.

Talk about raising cluelessness to an art form.

This is what we're up against folks.  

I've written about this before on several occasions, for example, "Superbowl Sunday highlights conservative welfare state in action", in which I referenced a 2003 study (pdf) of how sports reduces overall income.  This is its abstract:

This paper explores the impact of professional sports teams and stadiums on the wages of individuals employed in several narrowly defined occupational groups in cities in the United States. The occupational groups examined are among those that proponents of public funding of professional sports claim will benefit economically from these stadiums. Our analysis uses data from the March Supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS) for the period 1977 to 1998 as well as sports variables previously utilized by Coates and Humphreys (1999), (2001). Previous research focused on aggregate measures of income whereas here the focus is on the wages of individual workers. The results of the study confirm conclusions of earlier research that the overall sports environment is frequently statistically significant as a determinant of earnings and that the predicted mean impact of sports on wages in a sample of individuals employed in occupations closely related to professional sports is an annual average decrease in real earnings of $47.95. The results also show that the effects of the sports environment on wages differ across job-types. Workers in retail occupations earn more on average each year due to the presence of professional sports while workers in other peripherally related occupations like food services and hotels earn less.

Of course, the real killer is the opportunity costs, as Hayes and Zirin mentioned in passing: the decaying infrastructure that not only kills a "newsworthy" number of people every so often, but that regularly functions as a tremendous drag on our economy.  And then there are the broader opportunity costs, impossible to clearly define, that include all the endless possibilities out there if only we weren't so distracted by the shiny object syndrome, but actually pursued public policy based on demonstable results and open, public, rational deliberations.

Who knows?  We might even have chosen to save our planet by investing in a whole new green economy, rather than making billionaire sports team owners even richer than they already were.

Dr. Ghazala Hayat   In light of a proposal to build a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero in New York