the Cubs and the National League

I do not often write about sports despite being a season ticket holder to both the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago Bears but with the Cubs being the first National League team to assure themselves a playoff spot I really should comment on today's games. Today is the final day of the regular season and still the Cubs are the only team in the National League to win their division. Today the Phillies and the Mets are tied in the Eastern Division with one game to play and the Padres are one game behind the Diamondbacks in the West going into the last game and the Padres have one more win than both the Mets and the Phillies.

If both the Mets and the Phillies win and the Padres lose, the Diamondbacks win the West. As an added bonus the Mets and the Phillies would have to play a tie-breaker on Monday (I am not sure where they would play but that was decided weeks ago with a coin flip) and the loser would play the Padres on Tuesday to decide who would be the winner of the Wild Card berth, that team would head out to Phoenix to play the Diamondbacks on Wednesday. The winner of a possible Mets - Phillies game would host the Cubs on Wednesday. If one of those teams loses while the other wins the winner wins the East and hosts the Cubs While the loser goes home.

If the Padres win and the Diamondbacks lose those two teams would play a tie-breaker on Monday and the loser would win the Wild-Card berth. If the Padres lose or the Diamondbacks win the Diamondbacks win the West and play the Wild-Card team. If both the Diamondbacks and the Padres win the Diamondbacks win the West and the Padres win the Wild-Card berth and play the Diamondbacks in Game 1 of the Divisional Playoffs on Wednesday in Phoenix.

UPDATE: I apparently wrote this post too early Sunday morning as I was reminded during the day that the Wild Card team does not play a team within their division during the first round, thus the Cubs play Phoenix on Wednesday. Doh!

What a day of baseball. Good luck to you fans!

Democrats and the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan - Aniversary of their Slaughter

The town of Opelousas, Louisiana saw the town's Democrats slaughter the town's African-Americans 139 years ago today. This massacre has been covered by the Grand Old Partisan and the Gateway Pundit. Like the jihadis of today's world they started off by killing a man who was teaching freed slaves; I don't think that their objections had anything to do with vouchers, unions or school funding. The history of the Democratic Party in the South parallels the history of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, as late as 1977 the Klan held a rally on the steps of the City Hall of Mobile, Al. Even Jimmy Carter came up politically with notoriously racist Georgia Governor Lester Maddux. That may explains Carter's guilt complex, unfortunately he wants others to pay off his guilt.

Cubs Hose Season Ticket Holders

I split a season ticket package for the Chicago Cubs with three other guys, we have a night and weekend series which contains 52 of the 81 home games. We collectively gave the Cubs and their parent company the Tribune Corp. about $9000 last year to secure the season worth of tickets. We just received our post-season tickets and the Cubs chose not to sell us one set of tickets for the NLCS and one set of tickets for the World Series. The tickets arrived one day after the local papers reported that the Cubs are selling face value post season tickets to each and every game to every corrupt local politician from Alderman on up. It may be worth noting that there may be a handful of Republicans in that group, there is only one Republican Alderman in Chicago. Of course the way that the Cubs are playing it really won't matter too much.

It is worth noting that the Cubs have their own ticket scalping operation and that individual game tickets have become scarcer at the box office as a result.

Ahmadineja Visits Bar in Greenwich Village

Sep. 24 New York. Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadineja visited popular Greenwich Village gay club the Dugout this evening in order to "discover" the gay culture that he claims is absent in Iran. Iranian officials told members of the international press that Ahmadineja wanted to "experience all that the west has to offer" and that apparently included some sort of "experimenting" while visiting the Christopher Street hot spot. Patrons of the club said that the Iranian leader was involved in "some sort of scuffle" in the saloon's expansive bathroom. Rumors even swept the establishment that Ahmadineja was involved in a bathroom sex episode. When asked about the charges by the press the Iranian leader yelled to press scrum "I no gay, he blow me!"

Warning: The above is satire.

Sen Larry Craig Teams Up With Wham!

Sept. 20. Singer George Michael appeared at a Washington DC press conference with contreversial Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho to announce that Craig will be joining Michael and his band Wham in another reunion tour this fall. Praising Craig's singing voice and "dance steps" Michael said that he was "thrilled to have Craig on the Mens Room Tour this fall". The band will kick off their fall tour in DC and Michael promised that they would appear "at nothing but the best facilities all over America!"

Warning: The Above is Satire!

Barry Manilow - Barely Man Enough

When I started writing this blog if I had been told that someday I would write about Barry Manilow I would have laughed out loud, yet here I am writing about Barry Manilow. Any white guy who grew up in the '70s with sisters is well aware of the sappy stylings of Mr. Manilow and surely like myself, they also hope that they never hear the strains of "Mandy", ever again. My sisters do not watch the View (that I know of) but surely somebody's sisters are watching because Mr. Manilow has been on the View twice and he would have appeared again this morning except that Manilow refused to appear on stage with Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the View's lone conservative. That is just utterly pathetic. Do you think that Mr. Manilow believes that conservatives also cut themselves off from others due to political beliefs? That would really make for a lonely life here in Chicago and frankly, the rest of America.

Michelle Malkin has a great post on the kerfuffle and she has linked to Mr. Manilow's recent political donations, max contributions to: Ewards, Obama, Clinton, Biden and get this, a max contribution to Ron Paul last summer. Bipartisan indeed!

Hat Tip: Dean Barnett at the Hugh Hewitt Townhall blog, check out the video Dean linked to in that post!

Update: Many Thanks to the wonderful Dr. Sanity for inclusion in her Carnival of Insanities again this week.

Libs Find Video Gamers Better at - Video Games

This silly study has been whacked around the blogoshere for a few days but I just have to comment. Was this study a study of liberal vs. conservative video gamers? I ask that question because the study is looking at reaction time and how it is filtered through parts of the brain. I stopped playing video games about the time that Donkey Kong came out so I guess I would be seen as "rigid" by those conducting the study.

the Blogger Returns to Paul-Bats

Well I'm back after a crazy week and weekend and I must respond to the comments left at this post. Whenever I write a post about Ron Paul I get some pretty wacky comments including the new assumption that entering WWII was a bad thing that only Democrats could have done. Indeed many Republicans (and some Democrats) were isolationists and it took Democratic President Roosevelt and a Japanese attack on America to get the US into WWII. The comment struck me as strange because I find it hard to figure out a reasonable argument that concludes with, the US should not have entered WWII. The idea that the world would be better off with European fascism is so strange that I wonder whether the commenter even meant to write that statement. It could have been writen while in some sort of Paul-induced haze.

In the comment section I did take issue with one commenter's assertion that "(t)o argue that Lincoln fought the war to end slavery shows a frighten ignorance of American history." There were clearly a variety of reasons that Lincoln waged war on the southern states but it doesn't strike me as very bright to make the assertion that the commenter has made. Those assertions have long struck me as simply a way to denigrate Lincoln and to negate the fact that the Republican Party once took a stand that resulted in the end of chattel slavery in the United States. The Ron Paul supporters have found the correct man to back, I just thank God that there are so few of them.

Terrorist Goes Muskie Fishing!

The local police in Frederic, Wisconsin have arrested Hassan Mohamed Abdiaziz, a terrorist wanted internationally in addition to the outstanding warrants from the DEA and the FBI. Frederic is a tiny town north east of St. Paul and frankly this will be the talk of the town's three bars for a good twenty-five to thirty years.

Hat Tip: Instapundit, who amusingly commented that "(t)errorists only dare venture into Wisconsin now because Ann Althouse is gone . . . ." U of Wisconsin Law at Madison prof Ann Althouse's blog can be found here.

In Memory of Howard “Barry” Kirschbaum - A Life of Family, Friends and Service

-This was originally posted on September 11, 2006-

Barry Kirschbaum lost his life in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001. Barry likely started that tragic morning like so many other mornings during his previous four years working in the upper reaches of one of the world’s tallest buildings. Barry was the Director of Security for Marsh & McLennan, he was in charge of 20 officers who took care of floors 93 through 100 of Tower One. Marsh was directly below the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald. Tower One was the first of the Center’s towers to be hit; I have a friend who was on the fiftieth floor who was knocked several feet out of his chair, and he’s a big guy.

I never knew Barry but after spending a few evenings searching for and reading snippets of his life through the words of friends and loved ones I feel honored to be writing this post. The comment that seems to sum up all of his friends thoughts was left by a woman Barry dated before meeting his wife Rochelle; she described Barry as a “mensch”, the Yiddish word for a good guy. Indeed Barry was a mensch.

In 1972 Barry joined the New York City Police Department and eventually rose to the rank of Detective, he retired after twenty-five years in order to start a second career at Marsh & McLennan. During Barry’s time on the Police force New York City underwent dramatic changes that often wound up (as usual) putting the city’s Police force on the front lines of society’s problems. During his third year on the force the city of New York even teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. The posts left by his friends and colleagues resonate with Barry’s gift of gab and the gift of his friendship. I am sure that twenty-five years on the New York City Police force gave Barry a nearly endless font of material to amuse and inform his friends and family.

Barry’s path in life was service and friendship; twenty five years as a NY City policeman is more than yeoman’s service yet it was probably tough for him to leave all of his friends behind. Although it did take more than leaving a job to keep him away from those old pals, his daughter Lauren, now 27 said that “He knew every restaurant and what to order and who to go with.” In New York that alone is a full time job. All of his friends wrote of how much fun he was to spend time with, whether in the Kirschbaum home in Staten Island or in one of New York’s many restaurants.

There has been a very small but vocal minority of Americans who have disparaged the WTC victims during the past few years by stating that they deserved their fate. A few have actually used slurs to describe those victims. It should be noted that Barry’s service in the WTC helped a group of people who were transferring risk in a manner that has been critical to the advancement of individuals in our modern economy. Barry’s employer Marsh & McLennan provides insurance services; those services allow products and services to be offered to consumers at lower prices. Everyday products like mortgages have been made more widely available enabling more Americans to enjoy the benefits of home ownership. Those critics simply do not understand our modern society. Barry spent the last years of his life protecting those people who help to facilitate the modern commerce that is improving the lives of so many.

Barry was a lover of family, good friends, good jazz, good brandy and a good cigar. In memory of Barry I plan to have a little bit of brandy, put on some Thelonious Monk and smoke a stashed Cuban cigar this evening. All that is left is say a prayer for Barry, his family and his friends.

Barry’s New York Times obituary can be found here.

If Barry’s family or friends would like me to add to this post please contact me at el_rider_911@yahoo.com

This post was written in conjunction with thousands of other bloggers who were organized by D. Challener Roe at DCOE.com. Many thanks to Dale for putting so much work into organizing this project.

6 Years Later - Libs Still Crazy

One of the many idiotic faces of the surrender movement, Cindy Sheehan, was arrested yesterday while yelling in or near the Congressional room in which Gen. Petraeus was making his presentation. Also that move on group backed by the anti-human George Soros released a news paper ad stating that Petraeus has betrayed us. Get it? Oh are they funny! In the face of fascism the left bares their rear ends, they are pathetic in their child-like lives.

Ron Paul is an Idiot

Ron Paul (R-Tx) is on O'Reilly right now, what a moron. He just brought up the past American history in the Mid-East and he apparently wants to repeat the mistakes of the past. He is enamored of the "we supported Sadam" argument without realizing that he is suggesting that we leave Iran alone, thus essentially supporting that tyrannical dictatorship. Thanks Ron. Good idea, let's support dictators to make some people feel comfortable. The man is a loon who is the wrong party.

Terror in Mexico

Terrorists, likely homegrown rebels, have attacked the pipelines of the Mexican state owned oil company Pemex. They are reported to have attacked four pipelines causing four fires that are reported to be under control.

Obama Brags About Past in Corrupt Legislature

Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) has been bragging about his time in the Illinois legislature, one of the most corrupt legislative bodies in the land. In a campaign speech Obama bragged that "I've been in elected office longer than John Edwards or Hillary Clinton," said Obama. "I've passed more bills I'm sure than either of them --certainly in the state legislative level."

No word yet from the Obama camp concerning the Senator's background with Tony Rezko. Just last night Obama was at a fund raiser thrown by another unsavory charachter, a former banker to some Chicago mobsters Alex Giannoulias.

Steve Fossett Missing

Trader and adventurer Steve Fosset's plane has been missing since last night.in Nevada. I met Mr. Fossett years ago when I interviewed at his firm, Fossett Trading. Mr. Fossett not only flew in planes and balloons but he ran Le Mans and ocean races.

Cows and College Hijinks

Professor Reynolds, the author of the wonderful Instapundit points us to this book on college pranks and it's title, If at All Possible, Involve a Cow: the Book of College Pranks, brings to mind a wonderful story about President McKinley. McKinley briefly attended Allegheny College were he pulled a cow-related stunt. The future President took a cow to the top of a bell tower that still stands on campus and left her there; cows will walk up stairs but they will not walk down stairs. The cow was slaughtered in the bell tower and the future 25th President of the United States got the boot.

By the way, the college prank book is by Neil Steinberg, a Chicago Sun Times columnist who is worth the daily read, in any given week he probably tees off most of Chicago, he's great.