Not a good start for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Her choice for majority leader got beaten almost 2 to 1 in the election. This apparently came as quite a shock to Congressman John Murtha who was heard to say that "he had the votes" on Chris Matthew's show. By the way, Matthews should change the name of his show from Hardball to Half Speed Fastballs Down the Middle after his gentle handling of Murtha.
Murtha also had another interesting remark when he labeled ethics and lobbying reform efforts as "total crap." Seems to me to be a tad undignified of the congressman. Murtha it seems is one of the obstacles that will have to be overcome for the proposed legislation to move forward. Murtha apparently feels that ethics reform might cramp his style.
Speaker Pelosi could also be coming up for some serious and well deserved ridicule if rumored attempts to place Congressman Alcee Hasting as the head of the house intelligence committee are true. In case you forgot, Alcee was overwhelmingly impeached by the house and then convicted in the senate for some rather nefarious conduct as as federal judge. This is a very special distinction since only about 7 judges have been impeached in the last 250 years. It is hard to imagine that a new speaker could get off to such a terrible start and squander voter good will so quickly. Let's wait and see
Not a good week for John Kerry either it seems. After the election of the Senate leadership, a photo was taken of them striding down the hall. In the background, looking almost forlorn was Sen. Kerry. The Democrats won despite Senator Kerry's late gaffes. Fortunately for the Democrats the only thing he seriously hurt was his chances for another presidential nomination.
In Massachusetts, Governor Elect Patrick made all the sounds of a middle of the road performance and merit minded manager when he made his comments about patronage appointments."The decisions will be made on qualifications and merit". Asked what effect legislators attempts to get cronies hired would have he replied, "It is not going to have any impact at all." Very noble and business like but anti patronage politicians soon get the noses of public officials out of joint. I wish him luck but this is Massachusetts or could more commonly be known as patronage heaven so it will be interesting to see how such a policy is received by the solons on Beacon Hill.
Senate majority leader Harry Reid's name came up in some reporting on disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. It is rumored that Jack has named Harry in some shadowy dealings. That will be an interesting situation to watch as it develops. The Republicans have already taken some heavy hits from Jack but what good lobbyist would pay off only one side of the aisle?
The Red Sox made all kinds of headlines with the winning bid for Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsusaka. The guy is 26 years old and is reported to have number 1 starter stuff. That means four pitches and speed on his fastball enough to punch out American League hitters. When he is signed that will give the Sox a starting five that looks pretty settled. Curt Schilling, followed by young phenoms Jonathan Papelbon and Josh Beckett is a formidable threesome. Follow those three up with Matsusaka and Tim Wakefield and the Red Sox are suddenly very much back in the hunt for the American League East.
I managed to catch the Patriots play the Jets last Sunday at Gillette Stadium. Despite the usual terrible traffic conditions it was a very good take. The torrential rain stopped just at kickoff and stayed pretty much clear the rest of the way. The stadium experience was quite a bit better than the football experience. The Patriots simply did not play very well offensively. The play calling seemed somewhat suspect as once again they abandoned the running game much to quickly. When Dillon carried the ball he simply bowled the Jets over.
Oil prices continued to fall this week to around $55 dollars a barrel. This is quite a decline from the high of $78 but still not near to the original $28 that it started at prior to Iraq, Katrina, Nigeria, Prudhoe Bay and rampant speculation to name a few reasons why it jumped.
There seems to be a good news and bad news aspect to this. All of the products and services we buy are likely to cost less as a result, but efforts to encourage nascent alternative and domestic sources of fuel are likely to suffer as people begin to forget about foreign fuels negative strategic impact.
Will Americans give ethanol and other domestic fuels continued consideration if they are higher priced than oil? Is the patriotic effect strong enough to lessen reliance on foreign sources? It would seem to me that we ought to take steps to make sure that it does. Now might be a good time to tack on a dime or even a quarter per gallon of gasolene and earmark those funds for some major problem like Social Security or Medicare. I heard an analyst refer to the middle American grain belt as the "New Middle East" when talking about ethanol. Isn't that something that we should make sure comes true?
I used to be a 12 handicap in golf and then one year I suddenly got the yips and the shanks and what little game I had soon disappeared. The worse I played the harder I would swing, which resulted in a downward spiral of ineptitude. The last couple of years my playing rounds declined to the point where this year I played once. Playing less or in fact not playing at all was good for my mental health.
I went out with my friend a couple of weeks ago and shot about 60 on the front nine. After helicoptering a club about 50 yards I had somewhat of a miraculous golf epiphany. I found that if I kept my left shoulder still while I am coming through the ball and released my hands that I started to hit the ball with new found authority. Just to make sure I wasn't being teased by the lord of golf, I went to the driving range last week.
I was almost giddy with the results. Drive after drive went smartly down the middle and landed between 230 and 260 yards away. These were results I haven't seen in 10 or 15 years. Of course this happens like two weeks before snow will be flying so I guess I better keep those swing thoughts fresh for the next 5 months.
O.J. Simpson has written a book that his publisher says is a confession of how he murdered his wife and Ron Goldman. I wonder if anyone has contacted members of the O.J jury and asked some simple questions like "do you feel really stupid having let this creep walk the streets? Have you had any seconds thoughts and are you losing any sleep? Well you ought to be. Where's a random drive by shooting when you really need one?
