Mets

Omar Minaya is the laughing stock of the NYC sporting world! Is this designation one that Omar should be burdened with? Minaya is the front man for two incompetent, arrogant and acutely avaricious Madoff ruined alleged sportsmen named Fred and Jeff Wilpon. Fred and his brother in law, Sol Katz, has parlayed these attributes into owning one of baseballs lucrative franchises. They got the city to provide them with a palatial stadium, and have come to own a potentially profitable sports network.

To keep their empire afloat they directly and tacitly got Omar, the training and medical staffs to either ignore or downplay the seriousness of numerous major potentially career threatening injuries. How come Jose Reyes injury has never been clarified? Why hasn't Carlos Beltran undergone microfracture surgery? When did JJ Putz first develop Omar ulnar ligament damage? Why was Ollie Perez pitching with a ruptured patella? Who decided that Santana's chips justified him continuing to pitch? Why was John Maine pitching with nerve damage in his shoulder, and why is Jeff Francoeur playing with two ripped ligaments in his thumb?

AFGHANISTAN

Barack, Johnson, Nixon... Obama is now vacationing at Martha's Vineyard according to his flacks... he is about to read five books! Not one of these books is about Afghanistan. I guess that Obama feels that reading about Afghanistan would be a waste of time since he is already being educated about it by Admiral Mullen, Bob Gates, and Stan The Man McCrystal.

Obama has signed off on a new rendition policy which seems to mimic the Cheney ideas, except now the state dept lackeys will supposedly see to it that individual human rights are withheld. This is really comforting to know.

Eric Holder, the benefactor of Mark Rich announced the appointment of a justice dept person, not a special prosecutor, to investigate the alleged CIA abuses. Why isn't the role of Chaney and his cohorts being scrutinized? Why are Donny Rumsefeld, Condi Rice and Collin Powell exempt from having their actions examined? What did Junior Bush authorize? What did he know? What's going on?

FOOTBALL BEGINS

Training camp sycophants, lackeys, ass kissers rejoice! This is the week you've been anxiously awaiting with baited breath.

The injuries have already started (T. Jackson, K. Jenkins), holdouts are plentiful, rookies can't have cars in camp, and P.E.D. abusers fill the rosters of each team. Only 300lbs + offensive lineman are allowed to play, and the serving of water in intense heat is still an issue. Do the writers have anything to say about this????

The Forgotten War

On the day that Michael Jackson's chef was appearing on television and Obama had the Cambridge 2 over to the White House for beers, a more important story was given short shrift. The Pentagon announced that a US soldier was killed in Afghanistan...where, when, doing what, name of victim, cause of death, etc, as per usual, was not mentioned. This brought the July death count in Afghanistan to 41, the highest 30 day total ever!!!

The nightly news shows each gave this 10 seconds of air time. At the pace we're going, more than 400 US soldiers in Afghanistan will die this year and untold 1000s of our personnel will be wounder. N.A.T.O. forces will suffer similar fates. Myriad numbers of Afghanis, firend and foe alike (if we can distinguish between them?) will die in a ghastly fashion. The question that needs to be asked is WHY???

Do the reasons for this carnage enunciated by President Cheney, the pretend President Bush, and the liberal hero Obama, have any credibility, even if one believes what the aforementioned threesome are saying, the true motivation for the US being in Afghanistan, is there any reasonable and objective hope that our goals (whatever they are) can be achieved in the next 100 years?

Seth Jones, a rand policy wonk, Georgetown University, War College Professor, has written the definitive book on Afghanistan entitled, In the Graveyard of Empires. Jones write in a professional manner and refrains from drawing many conclusions or indictments. However, he presents a devastating portrait of a nowhere policy which is doomed to fail.

Why has Obama allowed himself to be captured by the likes of Richard "Big-man" Holbrooke, and Generals Jones and McCrystal? Is it really possible that Obama can produce a more misguided and dillusional policy towards Afghanistan than Bush and Cheney? Why don't Barack, David, Valerie, Rahm, Hillary, Bob, Dick, Stan, etc read Jones' book or bring him into the White House for a little discussion? Are they afraid they might learn something?