Lock-Street Week 4-9.30

New England Patriots (-4) vs. Buffalo Bills

Dear refs, watch your back. Gisele is angry and you don’t want Gisele angry. After her rant essentially directed at Wes Welker after he missed that vital catch in the super bowl, he'd been riding the pine before last week. There are obviously other aspects that have caused this demotion, but as a blogger it is my civic duty to create underlying turmoil that simply does not exist. Therefore, any notion that she is displeased with the men in stripes, they soon might find themselves in a terrible place.Well, actually it's too late. Anyway, if you think the New England Patriots are going to lie on their backs and die, you're out of your goddamn mind. This is first time they've been below .500 in 164 games. Belichick is going to ensure they decimate the lowly. Sure the Bills have a better record at 2-1, but their opponents’ combined record is 3-6. The Patriots lost against two good games by two awkward field goals as Stephen Gostkowski missed a potential game winner two weeks ago against a 3-0 Cardinals team and then they lost by Justin Tucker’s just-barely-made-it field goal. Their opponents’ record combines for 6-3. The Bills are going to get their first test, and boy will they be tested by a Patriots team that never loses more than 1 in a row, let alone more than 2.

Ryan Fitzpatrick is not worth that contract extension from last year. Just because he went to Harvard does not mean money should thrown at him unnecessarily. Or maybe it does. What do I know? I didn't go to Harvard. Both CJ Spiller and Fred Jackson have been bitten by the metaphorical injury bug that persists from the battle ground between lines. With an injured back field and their lack of offensive weapons, they only have one legit WR in Stevie Johnson (173 yards and 3 TD’s), they won’t be able to handle a shootout since their defense has not been as good as the money they have thrown at it in the off-season. While the Ravens amassed 503 offensive yards, Fitzpatrick is not Flacco and CJ Spiller is not Ray Rice. OK, so this game is going to be played in Orchard Park, N.Y (Buffalo), but it’s fall and the elements do not affect a team that plays in Boston anyway. Patriots win by at least 9 here.

Washington (+3) vs. Tampa Bay

 OK, is it too late to throw in a new candidate for president - RG3. He has DC buzzing more than Obama or Romney and even has a new pose. Both of these teams have a pass defense as good as Channing Tatum’s acting ability. The Redskins and Bucs seem to not have corners or safeties. They're 31^st and 32^nd in the league for pass defensse, the worst two in the NFL. Lucky for the Redskins,they are leading the league in points per game with 33. Thank god, because their defense has been anemic, allowing one of the league's worst yards per game averages. The Bucs offense won't be able to compete with a defense as poor as theirs as they're averaging 258.3 y/game and 149 passing yards per game so it’s not like they can take advantage of a secondary that would be better fitted for a high school team. RG3 has a better completion percentage, more rushing yards, more TD’s and less picks than Freeman so he wins the QB competition, which is going to be vital in this game.  While the Bucs have studs in Vincent Jackson and Mike Williams, they just simply cannot stick with the Redskin’s offense right now. I would even go on to say that you should parlay the over, but when a bookie sees a parlay, they jerk off in excitement. Don't give them any joy.

Chicago vs. Dallas (o41.5)

 I think if you gave me pads and some equipment I could play better on the offensive line than anyone on either team. So Cutler had one horrendous game, one mediocre game, and one great game. You have a better chance of winning the lottery than predicting how big baby Jay is going to play. He started the season off with 333 yards and 2 TD’s against the Colts. Game 2, a prime time match-up against division foe Packers, he was sacked 7 times and picked 4 times. Then last week he was a mediocre 14 of 31 with 1 pick, but he helped lead the Bears to 20 first downs. Now Tony Romo is between 14^th-11^th in every major QB category, but if they provided some protection, he could heat up quicker than a junkie’s spoon. DeMarco Murray is a beast of a runner and the bears still have Matt Forte, although he is off to a slow, injury hampered start. It’s crazy to think that Michal Bush would be Chicago’s leading rusher after 3 games, but neither of their RB’s can gain any traction due to the offensive o-line.  While Dallas has allowed the least amount of yards in the NFL (750) and the Bears have allowed the 6^th best (837), there's going to be some sloppy play that will provide some solid field position for both teams. This game is either going to be a tight offensive shootout or a sloppy shootout but, either way, points will be scored.

Kyle's Lock-Street Season Record

So far my record has been altered by the long arm of shoddy replacement refs. My picks have been unjustifiably hampered by the SCABS in a referee jersey. Two weeks ago, my Ravens bet would have hit had it not been for a bogus offensive pass interference call. Last week proved to a greater extent how much this refs manipulated games when their call at the end of the Monday Night game, better known as the Immaculate FAIL, altered $150-500 million in bets, the analysts say. I feel bad for these men who were provided keys to a Porsche and totaled it. Due to their influences in the betting world, my advice for them is to stay away from any Italians in dark alleys. I also missed one game by half a point (Detroit Lions vs. San Francisco 49’s (O 46.5)-Week 2 ). As you can see below, your understanding of each team evolves throughout the season and is more apparent as your understanding of predicting the games progresses. That said, my analysis is more to provide you with the keys to make your own decisions. Good luck and now finally we can go back to complaining about the real refs.

RECORD

Week 3

2-1

Week 2

1-2

Week 1

0-1

Total 3-4

Total

3-4

The NFL stats above are taken from espn.com

-Kyle

STRANGE WORLD: Zom-bees Attack America - Seriously

As if we didn't have enough to worry about, what with the eve of American world domination creeping slowly closer, the world warming, the middle-east just as bad as it was BEFORE we spent trillions of dollars trying to improve it, we now have a new enemy - zombie bees.

That's right. Those evil things that fly around and sting you are being zombified. Kyle's written about how movies can teach you to survive this freakish terror of undead, brainless hordes attacking and, hell, it might just be starting with insects. This is the beginning of a new zombie Shyamalan twist.

Really what's happening is that a fly lands on the bee and injects it with parasitic larvae which, a la ALIEN, hatch and burrow through the bee from the inside, fucking up its neural pathways first so it's just a sharp-tailed bug without brains hovering around lights at night until finally it dies.

This means a couple things - 1. the bee population, which is already dangerously low (I say dangerous because bees are known to do something called "pollination" which essentially helps grow and sustain all plantlife which, as we already know, has enough challenges facing it) will be getting even lower. This has been seen in California, Oregon, and has just been found in Washington. 2.Natural zombification has been proven possible, as has the H.R. Giger/Ridley Scott idea of a parasite which plants its larvae inside you to eat their way out.

3. Finally, this means that the insect perfect storm is brewing. I have 3 words for you - zombie - killer - bees.

Yeah. So for now, follow the progress of the zom-bees on zombeewatch.org.

And prey they don't find out some way to infect you.Though if it should break over to humans, just rest assured that our armed forces and police will be ready to step up to the encroaching hordes of walking dead.

- Ryan

Obama-Romma week 3: The Economy, pt. 1, "Context"

So the economy is rapidly emerging as the biggest issue in this election and - hell, let's be honest, it's BEEN the biggest issue in this election for the last year. And that's valid because, gotta face it, our economy's in the shitter and it has been for quite a while. We're at a very dangerous time in our nation's history, when we run the risk of losing our place at the top of the international economic food chain, a place we've gotten very used to. America is great because this place is the top of the top and, as such, if a man aspires to be the greatest at anything (except for perhaps soccer, gymnastics, or cricket) this is the place to do it. This is the varsity, D-1. Right now most of the wealthiest men on earth have done so in or thanks to America. So restoring our economy to the greatness that made our country the bastion of success that it is, well, hell there's not much more important than that, right?

But before we start into what's going on and who's got a better idea, here’s a couple basic facts and a brief lesson of the American economy to qualify all the talk about finance and the solutions which lie therein:

1. America shows every symptom of a nation in decline. Like Spain in the 1600’s, the Dutch in the 1700’s, and the Brits in the late 18/early 1900’s (that’s right, our three colonial founders), our rising comfort levels, augmented by emerging explosions of technology, have led to societal economic downfall. In Kevin Phillips’ brilliant study of the birth and growth of the American economy and its role in our country's history, WEALTH AND DEMOCRACY, he points to the overwhelming evidence that “great individual wealth-holdings, a troubling mix of national fortunes and misfortunes, and widening internal gaps between the rich and poor often reflect a point well past the zenith.” Plus usually a bloat of military spending puts the final nail in the coffin (whether the 30 Years War for Spain or WWI for Britain). But mostly it's the fact that when push comes to shove, a trader or advisor can live anywhere, especially today. So if your country's industry is mostly based in international commerce and finance, said white collar "markets" industry can move to the new country with all the money and the thing that can't be moved easily - that is, physical factories and a massive workforce.
2. BUZZWORD: "Supply side economics." Everybody has a solution. This idea is that the ramping up of production and supplies via encouragement of business owners will trickle down to the workers who will then turn around and spend more money, thus forming a beautiful symbiosis of both raised consumerism and raised profits. It should be noted that an early form of to supply-side economics was one of a few causes of the original Great Depression, where rampant speculation and easy debt led to an explosion of goods and keeping up with the joneses (people who bought Ford cars on credit but didn't yet have electricity) which ended up exhausting and bankrupting both workers and the marketplace. Also, growing profits at corporate HQ’s usually led to greater investment in machinery which put average people out of work and then, most recently, took their jobs away completely and sent them to another country. On the other side, it’s a simple equation that without new companies, and certainly without new industry, our country’s trajectory is decidedly downward (look at point 1). It should be noted that the 80’s were marked by national economic crises chalked up to stagflation (a phenomenon of rising inflation and unemployment) and the failure of Reagan’s supply-side economics (Reaganomics) 
3. Taxes. This is a thorny one, with one side saying they should be lowered while the other saying they need to be raised for the top earners. And there are debates about entitlements and so on which bring into question whether we should be on the hook for people who don’t pull their own financial share such as welfare recipients, though the biggest and most worrisome chunk of the money is going to the retiring baby boomers who paid into a program bankrupted by poor investments, crooked money managers, a corresponding national recession, and a dropping pool of people paying into these funds on the eve of their retirements. But there’s a simple fact one needs look at to get some perspective. For all intents and purposes the American high water mark was the 50’s. Wages were at an all-time high, for the first time MIDDLE CLASS wives could stay at home while the husband made enough to buy 2 cars and make the mortgage. Blacks and whites. Raise Bobby and Susie right. White picket fences. The American dream in action. There are a bunch of other factors at play here, from the decimation of the rest of the Western World to an explosion of new industry and tech bankrolled by the war. But also

a.       Median Taxes in 1955: 9.06%. Top 1% effective tax rate: 85.5%.

b.      Median Taxes in 1965: 16.06%. Top 1% effective tax rate: 66.9%

c.       Median Taxes in 1980: 23.68%. Top 1% effective tax rate: 31.7%

(statistics are per Alan Lerman of the U.S. Dept. of the Treasury Office of Tax Analysis)

So what this shows is that during our era of greatest comfort and idyll enjoyed by the greatest amount of Americans, the top 1% were paying between 67 and 85 per cent. These high rates first appeared during wartime, when citizens were ready to sacrifice for their nation. Those taxes were used by the government to pay for manufacturing for the war effort, which then ramped up American industry. Once the rest of the Western world was decimated, our heavy industry established the American Dream. A similar period of comfort and increased industrialization leading to better times for the nation occurred in the wake of the Civil War, with southern reparations used to augment Yankee industrialization. So by "nation" I'm referring to the North, which was strengthened on the backs of Southern former wealth. 

See, post Civil War, basically the south paid for the first real American industrialization which led to good things happening (in the North) which led to comfort which led to speculation on railroads which bankrupted a lot of people but especially the British who were heavily investing in American railroads because they were the top world economic power and as such no longer had much of their own industry so had to invest in some other country's. This, combined with WWI, ruined Britain. America rested on its laurels, then tried out the first experiment with something like supply-side economics, wound up with too much stuff and not enough people to buy it, which led to a drop of purchases to failed companies to a drop of jobs as well as an over-farmed farmland and thereby the Great Depression and Dust Bowl. Banking regulations and regulators began to appear to make sure that such rampant, debilitating and at times deceptive manipulations and speculations could not happen again, especially via something known as the Glass-Steagall in 1933, which specifically addressed banks and associated financial vehicles, and the formation of the SEC to regulate speculation and securitization. That, combined with the war effort, made us financially and infrastructurally great thanks to the taxes-as-seed-money from the top 1% (I'm not even going to bring in the New Deal et al for the controversial over what exactly got us out of the Depression besides a world war).

But as tends to happen, people get comfortable, become proud of themselves, forget that this big boom came because of heavy wartime tax-funded government spending to build up factories and the decimation of all competitors, and decide to start reversing laws. Cutting down taxes on the wealthy because no doubt 85.5% is a bit too high for anybody and raising them for everybody else because 9% is certainly too little. The thing is, the dropping taxes were reflected on balance sheets as people having more money, the country doing better, and as such investment in stock came from the top % which began the growth of the stock market. The government in turn invested in the newest "railroads", namely computers and biotech and the Internet which not only gave Wall Street something exciting to sell and buy but also revolutionized how Wall Street did business. These also allowed companies to automate jobs, thereby cutting workers which made profits grow along with unemployment; that, combined with moving jobs overseas in greater numbers began America's modern polarization, with an investor class and then everybody else. The government bailed out banks and implemented laws that benefited (as well as cut those who held back) those who were getting richer via the stock market as they in turn would turn around and make sure to fund those campaigns. While 85% against 9% is absurdly too wide a difference, the paradigm of taxes being about even has been historically a not-so-good thing.

So finally, let's look at the causes of our current situation:

If the explosion of investment and government subsidization of finance began in the 80's, it hit its stride in the 90's. Between slick Bill Clinton deregulating financial and corporate regulations and the blossoming of hundreds, hell thousands of tech companies, and the growing ability to trade online and over the computer and interweb which allowed for a whole new breed of market manipulations and vehicles (i.e. the ability to make fucking ANYTHING into a security or, essentially, a vehicle in which people could "invest" in spite of its growing similarity to back-alley betting), speculation was at an all-time high. This resulted in the dot com bubble, which burst in 2000 after a good chunk of companies with stock valuations hundreds and thousands of times bigger than actual earnings simply went under because there were too damn many online companies and not enough demand.

This would have been a time to pull things in. To start looking at other places where rampant speculation was occurring. For example all the unregulated energy speculation committed by Enron, a company who counted as one of its best friends George W. Bush, who logged in more time on their company jets than any other non-employee while he was Governor of Texas. This unregulated speculation led to the Enron collapse in 2001. Then there was the further dropping of taxes for the top percentages of wealthy Americans, compounded by an overly costly war without any chance for reparations - should we "liberate" Iraq, what, were they gonna give us oil for free? Anybody who took a Freshman sociology course could tell you that, no, Iraq would and could not just turn around and give the American hegemony free oil for fighting their civil war. So this was a war without any real gain which, compounded with lowered taxes, drained the government of its money which could have been better spent by fixing the levees in New Orleans or even building a fucking island shaped like George Washington - anything would have been better than the Iraq war and now, increasingly, than the Afghanistan war as well. Also, it must be noted the comedy of wealthy hawks pointing to increased military size and presence who aren't willing to increase their taxes to pay for it, much less send their children off to fight it, opposite to WWII's themes of sacrifice and rich AND poor doing their duty.

At the same time securities and derivatives and credit default swaps and so on began to evolve as mathematical evil geniuses, given carte blanche and incentivized by absurd amounts of money, invented more and more advanced ways to find glitches in the matrix through which they could "grow wealth" - though there was seemingly little incentive to grow actual productivity, the original reason for having stock markets and the wealth grown was, therefore, mostly just a fictionalized accounting of electric numbers on virtual ledgers.

This wild west of money manipulation led to a bunch of bankers playing fast and loose with money which would not normally be available for such speculation had Glass-Steagall not been repealed by Clinton and the SEC been gutted by Clinton and W. and, along with the Fed, been turned into essentially a revolving door between the regulators and the people they're supposed to be regulating. It's like high-ranking detectives in the NYPD leaving the force for a lucrative position with the Mafia and then heading back from the Mafia to the NYPD to "enforce th laws". Of course eventually shit's gonna go down. Which it did, in 2008, when all the speculation came to a head and burst but this time with reserves and manpower drained after a decade of wars with no real well-delineated goals and no real foreseeable benefits as well as a workforce increasingly unemployed and unemployable thanks to radically escalated industrial outsourcing and technology gains which raise productivity at the expense of actual humans. Think of something as simple as how many receptionists were replaced by automation, leaving you to swear into the phone because they won't put you on with a fucking person (if you start swearing on an automated line, by the way, the computer supposedly identifies that you're irate and sends you to an operator much faster).

Obama bailed out the banks because he was told they were too big to fail. And while the TARP funds for the most part have been paid back (or at least a majority of them have been), this massive government expenditure had very little trickle down to the average American whom the government claimed it was trying to rescue. And while the whole "too big to fail" moniker might be true, it's only because we allowed them to grow that big (Bank of America, for example - used to be a bank can't operate outside its own state as it might make them too big but, alas, the Bank Holding Act of 1956 was gutted by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley act of 1999 and then, boom, they take over the fucking world and need to be bailed out because their collapse following an ill-timed acquisition of Countrywide would have trillions of dollars of ramifications) that they became giant liabilities to our national economic safety.  Then he was faced with the stark truth - the US Government has done everything it can to encourage American financial and white-collar growth at the expense of its blue collar workforce, thus making us into a middle-man country of pencil-pushers and it's easy to cut out the middle man when times get tough. America's also embraced new technologies, essentially leaving behind any and everybody who was born and trained before, has no access to, or can't afford to be educated in the usage of computers and other modern technology - essentially, we've created our own highly-unemployable lower end to the workforce. And yet Obama has to build this service-based economy (though the services aren't much needed) and to put to work these people the world has passed by?

Tune in here for a rundown of where we are now and what Romney and Obama are suggesting to fix what's obviously a hideously-broken economic situation.

- Ryan

Lock-Street Week 3-9.23

 

Detroit (-3.5) vs. Tennessee Titans-Look for Stafford and crew to rebound from losing at the hands of a talented 49s team. And look for a down week from an already struggling Tennessee Titans. Last week, Locker had the most rushing yards on the team and just in case you forget, they have Chris “Golden Grills” Johnson. It’s alright for those Fantasy Football owners of CJ; he has nothing to do with the problems, it’s their offensive line’s fault.  It’s so absurd for an RB to call out the people protecting him. Well they finally got Kenny Britt back and as the season continues, look for him to surge, but we are going to see the 1 reception for 5 yard Britt from last week this week, compared to the beast who dominated before getting injured last year.

Matt Stafford is a great QB with some great weapons in Burleson, Pettigrew, and Megatron. Against a strong San Francisco defense, Stafford still threw for 230 and Kevin Smith had 53 yards. Watch Detroit come back steaming and dominate the imploding Tennessee Team. Last time I checked, the Titans have half of the talent on defense than San Fran. Detroit wins by double-digits

Atlanta (+3) vs Chargers- Alright, we all know the Chargers have been off to their best start since 2006 (A whole 2 wins). Yea, even though they have won both of their games, they also played against two shitty teams. They beat the Raiders in week one. Oakland’s best receiver is Michael Heyward-Bay. My unborn child has better hands. Darren McFadden is great, but it’s difficult to do anything when the box is loaded.  

I don’t think that the Falcons are going to get three picks in their first three defensive stands, but they have proven that they can make plays. Manning is still a little rusty, we get it, but Rivers is not. In the end though, their defense does not have to be elite. Matt Ryan might have the best receiving core in the league with Rowdy Roddy White, Julio Jones, and Tony Gonzalez. Plus, they have the burner Turner right off of a Tuesday morning or Monday night (Just semantics) DUI which means nothing besides the fact that he is the man and likes to party. Good for him. Watch for Atlanta

Green Bay vs. Seattle (u 45.5)-So the Russell Wilson project is still a work in progress, but lucky for Seattle, Lynch is staying in beast mode so they dominate the time of possession and their defense is solid. Between Aaron Rodgers not playing efficiently as last year, Jennings returning from injury, and Jermichael Finley looking like shit, the Packers offense is not clicking. Their defense is also solid so bet on the under because if you don’t, you’re an idiot.

 

 

Bring on Winter Mountains, the Last Home of Adventure

The essence of life - especially for the man striving to do great things and experience existence the way it's supposed to be, as a visceral arc of growth and exploration - is adventure.

Several hundred years ago most of the great adventurers were tied up exploring thick, warm jungles, sailing to and around desolate beaches, and discovering new islands and island chains. Thing is, after half a millennium of such exploration, most of the warm weather places have been explored, named, tagged, and settled. Thoroughly, in fact. Not to say there's no more adventure in jungles and beaches. But certainly the places that are still most removed from humanity, which feel most untouched by our foul modern world and all its appliances, are the mountains. And as such, those who live in them and play in them - and sometimes die in them - are some of the last great adventurers in the world.

Any jackass with a pith helmet and malaria vaccine - and ideally a high-powered weapon of some sort - can go tromping through the jungle and it's pretty damn easy to survive ad infinitum on a beach provided you have some basic knowledge of fishing and/or know how to crack a coconut. But mountains require special equipment and knowledge, not to mention an ability to conquer such rational fears as those of height, of falling, fear of hypothermia, fear of suffocation, and of course that doesn't even take into account the simple factor of exhaustion that overtakes all but the strongest of mortals should they try to climb the greatest undiscovered peaks. And let's not even discuss the idea that, should you get snowed in, where the fuck will you get food? You can always hunt in the jungle and ideally have some manual for picking berries and such. But what berries grow and/or animals live above the treeline, especially during a 10-day blizzard?

Still, even in the exploration of mountains the outside world is encroaching. Much of the North American mountains have been thoroughly explored and conquered - even mountains untouched as recently as a few years ago have been explored. And even Everest, while still extremely challenging, is about 5 years from putting in a gondola to at least base camp. But the conquest of mountains is still a noble quest, and the combination of mountaineering with skiing and snowboarding further blurs the lines between adventure expeditioning and sport.

As such, check out Sweetgrass' SOLITAIRE from last year. What it lacks in urban jibs and M83/hip-hop soundtrack it more than makes up for in soul, vistas, and life-affirming exploration far beyond the borders. Just a couple guys on tele and fixed skis, as well as snowboards, travelilng through the hinterlands of South America in search of something new, something inspiration, something daring to ride.

So as summer comes to a close, not only do we give one last look to the boys of the South American winter but we also can now look forward to, maybe, please God, having some decent snow this winter.

Happy Friday.

- Ryan

Baseball’s Post-season Pre-season: When Small Market Teams Attack (Week 2 the NL)

The hottest Olsen

(Continued from last week's rundown of AL Small Market teams.)

I want to point out the complexity of 1 week in the US first. Starting with baseball; just last week, the Rays and by further stretch, the Pirates, were both in contention, but have dropped off quicker than the Mary Kate and Ashley’s acting careers. By the way, if you've seen Silent House you will be introduced to the youngest and by far the hottest of the sisters, Elizabeth Olson. Andy Pettitte has rejoined the Yankees. The Brewers and the Angels are hotter than a SoCal fire and the O’s have continued to win in marathon type ballgames. Yunel Escobar wrote a gay slur as a “joke” and is now suspended for three games (It’s ok because his interior designer and his hair dresser are both gay…). Romney has once again proven that he has no interest in presiding over the entire country, just simply 50%. So without further ado, here are the small NL teams who are proving that the 1% can’t have all of the fun.

Nationals (20th in payroll; 89-57)

The Nationals have finally emerged from the shadows of the Baltimore Orioles and developed into the best team in baseball. Unlike in the AL with the miracle A’s and O’s, it's pretty evident why this team is so successful. First off, their run differential is +128 which is one run less than than the NL Central and NL West’s leading teams (Reds and Giants) run differential combined. This team has been firing on all cylinders this year and I do not foresee them not going there, well, unless one of the large market teams legally but unjustly throws their money around to steal their stars, as is tradition.

They are young, dumb, and full of…skills. Strasburg has a great year recovering from TJ surgery (That stands for Tommy John Surgery and not waking up in a bath tub in Tijuana without a kidney) but how are they going to handle his absence? Well, quite frankly, they're not fucked. He's been a great contributor pitching lights out (15-6 record, 3.16 ERA, 197 SO’s, 159.3 innings pitched), but he isn't their ace as they have the deepest rotation in baseball. As much as he dislikes the situation of sitting down during a playoff season, it was a move to prolong his career, which he should be happy about.

Just in case you were wondering why the NATS are really so good, here's a crazy stat: 4 of their pitchers are in the top 11 in NL ERA. Gio Gonzalez, Jordan Zimmerman, Ross Detwiler, and Stephen Strasburg (although he’s now riding pine and I’m not talking about Escobar’s eye black pine). That’s fucking out of control. Gio Gonzalez only needs 1 more win to hit the 20 mark. Even without Strasburg it's apparent they have some studs slinging that ball.


In regards to their offense it’s pretty middle of the pack. But Bryce Harper, the 19 year old prodigy, is being considered to be the next Hank Aaron. Ok, maybe I’m just saying that but still. This guy is young and at the ripe age of 19, he hit 19 HR’s, 50 RBIs, and had a .263 BA. That last stat is not going to change the world, but for those haters, he can’t even drink legally. Besides him, they have consistent but not game changers in Ryan Zimmerman and Ian Desmond. Jayson “I added a Y because it was cool” Werth is playing pretty well. By the way, they're 9th in MLB for youngest roster, averaging 27.6 years young.

So what transformed a team of vegabonds into the best team in baseball? They added stud pitchers in Gio Gonzalez. Jordan Zimmerman and Detwiler are finally coming into their own. They increased their defense with LaRoche and added a solid bat in Werth. They have developed some young stars in Strasburg and Harper. On top of this, have an extremely underrated manager in the Davey Johnson, who I feel has managed every team at some point. The only people that can stop them is themselves. Oh, and two big fat naked bikers having sex behind home plate. I mean how are they suppose to pitch with that going on?


Braves (16th in payroll, 85-64)

Hotlanta, that place is WHACK. It’s hard to believe that they're in the lower half of payrolls as they always contend. It seems like the Braves are having a statement year in honor of destined HOF Chipper Jones. HE apparently has been drinking out of the same cool-aid as Ray Lewis since neither appear to be affected by age. Besides his bat, Martin Prado is number 9 in the NL for avg at .301, Jason Heyward has 27 jacks, but besides these three, they aren’t worth the charmin extra they wipe their ass with.

Runs wise, they've done a solid job as they've scored the fourth most runs in the NL (657). Pitching they have the fourth best ERA and opponents batting average, which is at 3.56 and .248 respectably. But where they are elite is their defense, which has only committed 79 errors, best in the NL and number 2 for put-outs. These are great numbers seeing how they are third in Total Chances, which equates to more opportunities to screw up. They have a 1.5 game lead with 13 games left. How fitting would it be to see Chipper Jones waving good bye to a sport that treated him so well with a world Series Champion hat on?






Cincinnati Reds (17th in payroll; 89-59)

The Reds magic number is 4 to clinch the NL Central. They are 8th in the NL with 630 runs batted in. They're 5th in slugging percentage. So while these numbers are directly located at the middle of the heap, it is important to understand that this team revolves around pitching. They have the second lowest ERA in the NL at 3.42 and number 7 in opponents’ batting average. Between allowing few runs, they are also number three in errors at a low 81 committed this year. Also, Johnny Cueto has the fourth lowest ERA in the NL.

They sit righteously on top while being outspent by the St. Louis Cardinals by about $28 million. Jay Bruce has the third most HR’s in the NL with 33. Joey Votto is a great defensive player. Todd Frazier is the man of the future as he has enough strength to wrestle a bear. One of my roommates won’t shut-up about this kid - granted he's also from Toms River, which is also Frazier’s hometown. By the way, does anyone remember when he hit a homerun as the bat left his hand? Pretty damn solid.



(Pittsburgh Pirates 26th in payroll ; 74-73)


Sorry Pittsburgh, on second thought, I’m going to make your portion very simple. Andrew McCutchen, Andrew MCCutchen, AND Andrew McCutchen. They're on a slippery slope towards watching the post season on TV. At least Dark Knight Rises was filmed there. Am I right or am I right?

So keep watching the rest of the season unfold. The hottest races are the AL East and the AL Central. While the AL Wild Card race is close, the NL has 7 teams within 4.5 games. Oh, and welcome back football.

- Kyle

Shaun White Gets Arrested: Finally, He's a Real Snowboarder

It's what the snowboard mag headlines should read: "Shaun White Finally does something Cool Outside the Pipe." 

Right now there are probably a shitload of middle-aged moms in Iowa who are worried about that Shaun White tee she bought at Target for her son, "Ooh, it's just so hard finding good role models, geez, now I'll have to go back to buying him pre-faded superhero shirts."

But for real snowboarders, especially ones who've been doing it for over a decade and know about the history, not to mention skaters who still hold firmly to their rebel roots, Shaun White is finally becoming the hero we all wished he would be.

I mean, sure, it's awesome what he's done, bringing big money sponsors to snowboarding, giving it a bit more legitimacy so these daring athletes can actually get health insurance to pay for the regular bone-breakings and joint-tearings that are part and parcel with their sports. I mean, you talk about the hits football players take, just imagine falling from 20 feet up flat onto ice or, if urban jibbing, concrete - then doing it over and again, followed by occasionally slamming yourself on long hard rails and finally having to swim out from under an avalanche. So it's good to know the ones out there doin' work on their boards can afford to get medical care.

But on the other hand, Shaun White's also the number 1 guy changing what it means to be a snowboarder and not necessarily for the better, especially is you ask some of the elders of the sport.

Terje Haakonsen, for example, the closest thing to snowboarding's Michael Jordan, protested the addition of snowboarding to the Olympics on the grounds that it's something done by snowboarders with snowboarders and therefore the whole "being judged by the FIS" part of the Olympics  - that is, snowboarding is judged and controlled by the Federatione Internationale de Ski - goes against everything he and his brethren wanted.

Let's rewind to a time called the 80's. Punk rock was big. Skaters were public enemy number 1. And snowboarding wasn't allowed at most resorts, leaving the first couple to have to hike out of bounds or poach runs. Or even more, there were special little pens snowboarders couldn't go outside of. Snowboarders frightened skiers with their punk rock haircuts and sideways style and their boisterous hooting and hollering.

Then came the WHISKEY boys. They were the first ones to come along and really take it to all those two-planking bastards. Their movies were a mixture of some of the daringest snowsports footage of the time with footage of the derelicts getting violently drunk, vomiting, breaking bottle over their heads, and getting into fights. There was even footage of legend Shaun Palmer getting hammered - like literally drinking a beer while standing on the competition halfpipe - and then going on to win the fledgling snowboard US Open in a mini shovel-dug halfpipe. WHISKEY won snowboard video of the year in 1992 or some shit. They went on to inspire snowboarding's in your face explosion towards today where any mountain that doesn't cater to boarders is basically asking to get shut down. The people they featured - from Jimmy Halopoff to Sean Kearns - all but single handedly changed the world of snowsports so not only were boarders soon doing mind-blowing backflips over roads but even skiers realized they had to try and ride like boarders if they wanted to progress their shit. They were JACKASS before JACKASS, for fuck's sake.

Then came Shaun White. Outright proud of the fact that he doesn't smoke weed.  Respectable, like a rockstar late in life, like Paul McCartney fuckin' singing out of tune at - where else - the Olympics. Okay, so maybe Shaun still rips in pipe, and is decent on slopestyle, but he needs to stop being so corporate, so family-friendly, and for once actually be just a shredder, both on and off the snow.

Shaun White is the kid who made good, sure, but as was once pointed out, when Shaun White was given carte blanche by Red Bull he had them make him his own perfect halfpipe to session and perfect his moves. Travis Rice, on the other hand, the rider currently considered by most real snowboarders to be the best, what did he do with Red Bull's deep wallets? He put together the most mind-blowing contest in the history of extreme sports. And he regularly pulls together the greatest riders to join him on big adventures around the world, the most recent being THE ART OF FLIGHT.

And interspersed with all the footage, all his shredding are stories about the raucous times he and his buddies have. Not so with Shaun White. Shaun listened to Led Zeppelin the first time a few years ago and suddenly he started dressing like fucking Robert Plant without realizing the fact that Planty don't board - he makes albums with fuckin' Alison Krauss. And even more, that Robert Plant could look like a pirate in a tight leather jacket because he Led lived the life of true rock stars back in the day, when rockers did hard drugs and trashed hotels and had orgies instead of shrooming or taking prescription pills or simply being "misunderstood" and dating Disney stars. At the least plenty of real riders called him a square behind his back and he hasn't been voted a top 10 rider by the snowboard mags in a few years. Shaun was never really known for being "one of da boys" much less for partying hard and as such many in the snowboard community have very mixed feelings about him.

Until now, at least for the partying part. As they say about Stacy Peralta in LORDS OF DOGTOWN, "Poor guy's so straight he doesn't even cast a shadow." But now - now - now, Shaun I'll say it. You pulled a fire alarm, evacuating a hotel all hammered up and when some dude tried to stop you from running away you got into an altercation and, seemingly, got popped in the eye before being arrested for vandalism and public intoxication. Congratulations. You're living up to your potential. You're a real snowboarder. Now go trash another hotel room, smoke a blunt, and spend a season riding backcountry pow - or at least urban jibbing in Quebec.

It might mean less Stride gum and American Express commercials but, hey, at least it'll mean you get respected by the community you're supposed to be representative of. And c'mon, part of the fun of being a snowboarder is being a derelict. Leave the respectability to the skiers. And maybe shave that douchey goatee - your mugshot looks like Axl Rose circa 2012. Nobody wants to be THAT old rock star.

- Ryan

Obama-Romma week 2: Foreign Policy

U.S. Foreign Policy

This is a big consideration as the globe shrinks, especially since America’s gone from world producer to world middle man and consumer. That is, our largest US industry is finance which is really just shifting around and reassigning wealth. Followed by shipping. Then there's our exporting of culture but, hell, if it wasn't for Apple would we have any exports the rest of the world wants (yes this is hyperbole)? But still, our top money maker is finance and this makes the greatest gains when played against the hundreds of trillions of dollars that make up the global financial system. Add in our struggle to establish some real export presence and all the money that trickles down through such transpo ventures as oil (in which gast station companies pay large chunks of money to middle-easterners for fossil fuel resources we can then consume) and the simple fact that American ports are still major global hubs for supply chains and the shrinking globe is in many ways more important than domestic issues. That is, the way we handle ourselves internationally not only can assure or reduce our safety as American citizens, it will also dictate the future well-being of this country’s GDP.

So here’s the current international policy buzz phrase: THE INNOCENCE OF MUSLIMS.

This is possibly one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. The acting is horrible, the brown-face is laughable, and the scenes where they blatantly dubbed comments about Muhammad so the actors wouldn’t realize they were involved in one of the most defamatory videos about Islamists are so poorly dubbed one would need to be an idiot to think this is anything but a sad attempt by a crazy Coptic Christian to get some attention and maybe just let out some of the virulent faith-based hate that's boiling inside him. I mean, seriously, I’ve seen better acting, special effects, and storyline in a Skinemax flick about a group of sorority girls who get sent to an alien planet for some reason and have to fuck their way out of a spaceship of male and female humanoid aliens. Seriously, the anger from the Muslim community should not be at the portrayal of Muhammad in such a bad light but instead should be that in America, especially in Los Angeles, a land with so much money and access to quality film equipment and out of work actors, a movie about Muhammad is made so POORLY.

Still, that’s the problem with the internet, it allows a movie that looks like it was written, directed, and designed by a 10-year-old to be sent all over the world, including to a region where people don’t understand that THIS IS NOT HOLLYWOOD. And as such, they think “Oh, this movie reflects America since they are watching it and since our governments regularly restrict what we can see the fact that the American government has not forced them to take it down must mean that they support it so we must kill America.” Leading to anti-U.S. mobs running rampant from South Asia to North Africa, killing one ambassador and swarming many others, burning American flags as they chant. So much hatred in the world is so frightening but even more frightening is that they blame us for their shitty situation. Which leaves only one real response: we bomb every Muslim country into the dirt, turn the middle East into an amusement park called oil land, and go on vacation in the nice, dry arid seaside deserts. Just kidding here, folks. That’s not an option, at least not if America wishes to appear like the “good guy” – perhaps a bit of an asshole, certainly the head jock in the school but not necessarily a bully. And even if we didn’t care about our reputation, genocide is never the answer. So that leaves us with 3 options:

1. Increased military presence. Though that hasn’t worked in Afghanistan. Nor did it work in Iraq the first few times. In fact, were we to launch an all-out war right now we’d be bankrupt before it was over. Because as it stands, many Muslim countries are currently struggling with their own shortcomings – low rates of literacy, especially among women; in general limited rights for women; a blind belief of everything told them by their religious leaders; and regular skirmishes between ancient tribes, hell between neighborhoods, many of which erupt into violence – this has more in common with feudal Europe than the modern day idylls of Democracy. So how are we supposed to bomb and shoot them forward through 1000 years of the most expansive social and artistic evolutions known to man? The answer: we can’t. Just think of all the Americans who, even with access to the Internet, a high rate literacy and our modern ideas of democracy and equality, still believe in biblical pronouncements which oppress others. Best case scenario, we vaunt an upper class elite into power and when we leave they get over-run but the easily-controlled (thanks to the specter of organized religion) multitudes.  Which brings us to the second solution: 
2.  Ignore them. Wouldn’t it be great if we just pulled out, let them have their revolutions and fighting on their own? Let them fall back into being a bunch of mud-dwelling nomads and city-states like before we "civilized" them? The problem is, we can’t for a number of reasons. The most obvious, of course is oil. Recently there have been a lot of developments made with churning shale into gasoline and between that and our own oil wells America could theoretically be independent of the middle-east within the not-so-distant future, especially if instead of trading the oil out we just kept it here for our own consumption. The thing is, even if we didn’t have oil interests, we still have allies over there who are important for our international interests in general. Israel, for example, and Saudi Arabia – even if they didn’t have oil they have wealth and as the world’s wealth manager we need them to trust us. Not to mention shipping ramifications should the Middle East erupt full-bore into one massive sectarian mini-world war and shut down the Suez. And finally, there's the fact that if we let them fall into war and poverty now, after having introduced them to Facebook and XBox, their resentment will grow and terrorist organizations will have lines of angry, abandoned one-time-pro-western Muslims wrapping around the block. Which brings us to a third approach 
3. Diplomacy. Not all Muslims hate us. There are well-educated Muslims in the middle east who want their countries to embrace the freedoms of the Western way of life. And yet our embassies are getting attacked, our flag burnt, and everybody is clamoring to kill U.S. infidels. Strangely enough, this current outbreak is due to some video put up by some wackjob who doesn’t even have the balls to go in public and apologize for this piece of trash that's getting muhfuckas killed. But if one wants to see why there’s such deep-seeded hatred of the US, it’s because we have a history of going into countries, changing them so they suit us, then leaving them to fall apart until they get our attention by putting a dictator into power whose interests are American liquor and uranium enrichment. Like the kid who has to take a gun into school to get their parent's attention that, hey, I'm being bullied and I'm weak and you just kept telling me "it'll get better" but it hasn't. Take Afghanistan, for example. We came in to use them as a tool against the Russians. After we won that round we left them to their own devices and all these well-trained warlords felt jilted, thus founding the Taliban. Then we went in and routed the Taliban in 3 weeks just after 9/11 but immediately turned our attention to Iraq and left our allies alone to fight the Taliban virus as it rebuilt itself into the juggernaut it is now. Even at this point Afghanistan is unstable, not sure whether they want us there or not, what with our military burning Korans and that wackjob who went on the killing spree around his base. So really, what we need is consistency. And we need to show that we’re not trying to hurt them, we’re not just using them for their resources and connections. Show them we want to be friends. But do we? 
4. The solution, one would think, is a combination of the three, which we've been trying to do the last few years. Certainly a massive military presence does nothing as our prolonged occupation of Afghanistan has shown. Strategic strikes against terrorist leaders has been working to, for example, destroy Al Qaeda but we have to augment these strategic attacks of bad cells with support for good cells. And this is much easier said than done.

Right now we’re at a strange place in international policy.The US has invaded countries to put new people in charge and take them out of power so many times over the last 50 years nobody knows whether to trust us or not - including ourselves. We have some new allies, like for example Egypt, run by member of the Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed Morsi who has already deployed troops against Islamic terrorists who attacked Israel and denounced Syria's regime while a guest of Ahmadinejad in Iran, no less (though he's admittedly in a tough situation with this IOM video situation - he's denounced the video but could not do so for the resulting violence, probably for fear of being called an Uncle Tom). And of many of the other Muslim countries, while they claim to hate us, burn our flags and attack our embassies, they would all be bankrupt without our help - for example, the US gave about $25B in humanitarian and social aid to Afghanistan between 2001 and 2010 (not to mention the $27B in aid to form and train their military) and, in fact, Afghanistan's current GDP is about 90% foreign aid; we give Egypt about $1.5B a year, Libya $200M a year. Yet these people want to kill us. On top of that we have to borrow to take care of ourselves so why are we supporting people who want to kill us when we can't support ourselves? Because if we pulled out and they had nothing, most likely shit will just get worse. And our credit is better than theirs.

Now let's change directions and look to Europe. Britain is still an ally, always will be. Germany's aid packages are similar to America's usual calls for austerity when it administers aid and seemingly neither work (Greece got WORSE under Merkel's austerity). So if we did this  If the Muslim countries are the angry, hunched-shoulder goths who smoke cigarettes in the corner of the schoolyard and plot lead-jock-America's downfall, England is our cousin who's mostly friends with everyone but still has our back, Europe is part of our same popular clique, and Russia is our rival only because he's the only dude on the playground as big, strong, and tough as us.

So Russia, that's tricky because we had a 3 decade Cold War with the Russians following WWII during which, without the Reds destroying Germany, it could very easily have gone another way (as Stalin put it, "The Americans paid in money, the Russians paid in blood, and the British kept the whole thing going.") They're also a bigtime player in oil. And they're the only nation with a nuclear arsenal comparable to ours. Not to mention they're cool with the goths, have a long history with our clique, and, again, were our strongest allies during the Great War. Yes, their government is edging closer to the former socialist/dictatorial paradigms it once proclaimed proudly to the world, what with Putin essentially in power since 1999. And yes, they at times ally against America (like when they joined forces with China against the UN's Ameri-Europe suggestions for supporting the militias) almost seemingly just to be adversarial and refuse any type of US international hegemony. Basically, Russia's our nation's greatest frenemy - we both inhabit the top sphere of popularity and strength but we each think we're better than the other. And just walk around Beverly Hills or Las Vegas and you'll find more than enough rich Russians spending their money here so it's obvious they're not all bad, nor do they think Americans are that evil.

And then there's China. Just recently Romney has begun chastising Obama for allowing China to routinely break international laws, everything from China's falsely holding down the value of the yuan so that internationally they can continue to sell their shitty goods for rock bottom prices to allowing them to pass massive taxes on imports so as to preclude their people from buying foreign goods from countries like, for example, US. And when today Obama announced he's filing with the WTO to take China to task for low-balling its auto parts, a trade imbalance made possible by heavy government subsidies of its parts industry (a convenient announcement for Obama while in Toledo, home of auto parts manufacturers), Romney said it was just a publicity stunt. But here's the more in-depth truth:

1. We have gently ribbed China about suppressing the yuan. On one side, their releasing it will certainly give the yuan a much greater value against the dollar, ideally opening it up for trade. On the other, it will make any future borrowing from China much more expensive. Should we be borrowing so much from China? No. Has it put us in a tough situation as far as our ability to chastise them for unfair practices seeing as it's hard to take somebody to task if you owe them a lot of money? Yes. And is the ensuing trade gap thanks to these practices, $294B in 2011, very bad for America? Yes. And I'll get deeper into this next week, when I talk about economics.
2. One has to wonder at the convenience of the announcement and surely this was in the back pocket waiting for a time like this. On the other hand, the US has regularly lodged complaints against China, including for example as recently as July and March and back to December 2010 and beyond. And interestingly enough, China filed one against us today as well, showing that we all have to walk a fine line between what strengthens our nation's exports against another's and what the rules are which we've agreed to play by. America was the beneficiary of high import tariffs and government subsidy of development and industrialization, we're just mad now that somebody else is doing it.

Obama returned by chastising Romney for investing in companies which have outsourced their labor to China. The thing is, you can't blame Romney for this. The US government has spent the last 30 years strengthening its financial sectors while letting its industrial sectors go to the wayside. Not to mention that the American obsession with consumption has turned us into a society that desires more, not better and which measures American success with how many "things" we have. So we want to have more cheap shit instead of less high quality products (as Chinese imports are highly inferior to "Made in the USA"). Not to mention we have an investing public hungry for more gains and to hell with how you make it happen. And what's the easiest way for a company to make higher profits? Cut payroll like a motherfucker. That's not something Romney started. It's, sadly, the new American way and Romney just happens to be a part of it.

So, to summarize, what do Obama and Romney propose for America's foreign policy?

Romney proposes an augmentation of military spending coupled with America taking a tougher stance on Russia, China, and Libya and Syria and other similar nations (I'm ignoring his asinine statements that Obama brought about the Muslim riots I talked about at the top of this article as ).

Obama is calling for increased diplomacy, still hoping that'll work against growing evidence that the Muslim world seemingly doesn't want to play fair (Obama trying to reach across the aisle to an increasingly hostile group that's unwilling to make concessions and quick to turn angry after the slightest mix-up, even when he had nothing to do with it? Where have I seen that before?). Militarily his plan, to minimize shock-and-awe massive ground attacks in exchange for higher investment in drones and intelligence/special forces working together has already proved to be more effective in killing our enemies (and for cheaper, might I add) though one has to wonder about the long term effectiveness against terrorists in general (since it's a psychological war even more than a physical war).

And I'm not gonna talk about immigration because we already know where both candidates stand and I can see both sides - Obama, yes there are a bunch of people here and we need to allow productive members of American society try and become American, especially since that was how our country became great. But Mitt, yes there are too many damn people, do we really need more? Even more, should we allow people to become citizens when they seem to refuse to adopt elements of American culture like football and speaking English?

In the end, though, even Romney, after all his grandstanding about China and about the middle-east and all admits that Americans don't really care about the rest of the world, or at least our "enemies" as he's spent so much time trying to drive home.

So tune in next week for a little rundown of the economy - where we've been historically, where we've been recently, and where we're going - including an analysis of Obama's and Romney's plans.

- Ryan