In our Little League board meeting last night, the president of the league refused to consider a person eligible for managing a Little League “Honors” team because of what he considered “unsportsmanlike conduct”. During the regular season, the manager in question “intentionally walked” a particular player from the other team. The manager claimed that this was a strategy: In a game with two outs, and players on 2nd and 3rd, he intentionally walked this particular player to make it easier to get the next out (because all bases are a force out with bases loaded). When this happened, he noticed that the player in question was “rattled”, and didn’t pitch well when their team was on the field. He then chose to intentionally walk this player in a subsequent game. Do you think this is “unsportsmanlike conduct” as the president claims?
#1 by Roy on January 11, 2008 - 11:22 am
Hi, Found your site on WU. As for the unsportsman like conduct….. That is good coaching, I don’t care what the age. Giving the batter a free base is not unsportsman like. Following the rules and conduct of baseball is not unsportsman like.
On another matter, I read your post about impeaching the vice president. THAT is unsportsman like conduct. Elections must only be fair when a democrat wins. For everyone that says The current administration should be impeached, there is another who thinks they are doing what must be done. At least the people who currently have 4 or 5 year old daughters are not finding themselves explaining to them what Oral Sex is.
Gore lost the election, a new team is in office and Dems need to be “good sports” and wait until it is their turn. It won’t be long until you have a chance to do so. As a right leaning independant, I may even vote for Barak if Guliani isn’t the republicans choice.
Roy
#2 by Jon on January 11, 2008 - 1:13 pm
Hi Roy,
I assume you are commenting on my post about Representative Blumenauer. I don’t know if the Vice President has committed impeachable offenses. I object to the unwillingness of the current Congress to even investigate it. I think there certainly has been some questionable conduct: lying to the public about the danger of Iraq, sanctioning practices that violate the Geneva conventions, wiretapping innocent Americans in violation of existing law… All of those accusations have been leveled at the current administration, and it is the Congress’s duty to investigate potential crimes. Blumenauer voted to stifle debate on the issue, which flies in the face of his own retoric around how important impeachment proceedings are.
Jon
#3 by Roy on January 12, 2008 - 11:40 pm
Jon,
About “lying to the public about about the dangers of Iraq” you mean WMD I don’t know what to say to you.
Saddam signed an agreement to a full and unconditional surrender at the end of the first gulf war. Since then, there were 19 UN resolutions involving Saddam that he snubbed his nose at. His missles had been going after our UN sanctioned aircraft for 10 years. He kicked out UN inspectors. He was giving a $ 25,000 reward to palestinians who blow themselves up and kill Jews.
What exactly should we have done.? Do you not think that IF he – Saddam – had not been taken out, that by now you would be crying for the impeachment of the administration because they did nothing ?
At the start of the Iraq war, the vast majority of the congress and senate and the American public were expecting the potential for 30,000 or 40,000 US deaths due to the strong possibility Saddam would use chemical agents. The congress and senate went in with Both eyes open. Saddam had in the past used these weapons. They were not accounted for and we expected the possiblity he’d use them again. The French, the Germans and the Russians all said he had these weapons.
Now four years later, We’ve lost 4000 US personell in this war, not 30,000. And you can’t find anything good in that? One life is one life. These people ( our military ) signed up for the job that they got. They knew the risk. Do you know that less than 1 % of all military personell who served in Iraq, died as part of that service. And that 97.5 % of the people who serve our country in Iraq, come home uninjured.
I’d say considering the 30,000 + people we expected might come home in body bags….. we are doing pretty well.
Meanwhile 3,500 babies are aborted in this country EVERY SINGLE DAY. EVERY DAY, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. 3,500 babies are dead.
Do you realize that in JUST ONE CITY ( you pick the city) – Atlanta, LA, San Francisco, NY, Seattle….. in the US, there are more murders in a day, than the average day in IRAQ for dead US personell.
50 % of the people in this country, like the job Cheyney and Bush are doing. They were re-elected for that reason. You don’t have to like it. That right is given to you by our soldiers over there. It has not been a perfect job, but are you perfect ?
As far as Geneva Conventions go…. Did Al quiada sign on to the Geneva Conventions? Do they do anything by international law ? Are they following the Geneva Conventions when they cut off heads ? When they blow themselves up on Buses, attack non military targets ? Dude…. They cut off heads…….of people who are alive, and know their heads are getting cut off.
Do you think they ( those who get their heads cut off ) care about Geneva Conventions? Do you not think we as a country should at least try to fight this kind of thinking. ?
They don’t want your money, They don’t want your wife, They don’t want your land. They want you dead. They want your kids dead. They want my kids dead. They would cut off my kids head if they could. They would blow up school buses if they could. They’d shoot down airliners if they could.
They may not be able to get YOU right now. But don’t you think we need to deal with this now before our kids and their kids have to deal with it ?
And Wiretapping ???? They were great laws in the olden days before islamic extremeists wanted to use our system to attack us. I have no problem with the government listening in to my phone conversations if I call Iraq or Afghanastan or Pakistan. Go right ahead. What is the problem with that? There has not been one complaint in this country that I know of, where the patriot act was abused. Not one time. In how many years ?
It is so clear to me. I can’t even fathom thinking like you do about this topic.
Wake up man.
Roy
#4 by Jon on January 13, 2008 - 5:47 am
Roy,
I’m surprised that you haven’t put much time into reading about what you so vehemently describe. First, on the casualties in Iraq. There may have “only” been 3922 deaths of US military in Iraq to date, but there have been many thousand more non-fatal injuries of our soldiers. Check out http://icasualties.org/oif/ to see the real numbers. I think you might be surprised. Don’t forget all the non-US casualties as well. They are estimated to be well over 1,000,000 as a result.
The real question is “why are our soldiers over there in the first place?”. The rehetoric at the time involved the threat that Iraq posed against the US. The intelligence community, and this administration KNEW there was no tangible threat, yet they spun up the rhetoric around invasion even before the dust began to settle around the twin towers (which had NOTHING to do with Iraq).
You put words into my mouth. I have not advocated for impeachment. I have advocated for an investigation into the conduct of this administration, and if those investigations discover impeachable offenses, then that is what should be done. I object to Blumeneaur’s double speak on the matter.
As for the Geneva Conventions: We have an obligation to take the moral high ground on this issue. We have signed treaties that obligate us to behave in a specific way, and torture is not acceptable behavior. I know for a fact that many WWII and Vietnam veterans would be really upset by your thinking on the subject. The other problem with torture is that IT DOESN”T WORK. People will tell you anything you want to hear to get you to stop. There is this little notion of “innocent before proven guilty” that you might want to ponder too.
As for the wiretapping, I’m not objecting to international conversation wiretapping. What I’m objecting to is the program that this administration has admitted to which violates current law: wiretapping of US citizens inside the US without a warrant.
You need to read a lot more about this world, Roy, and you might understand why 65% (not 50%0 of Americans disapprove of the job this administration is doing. http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm
Jon
#5 by Roy on January 13, 2008 - 4:45 pm
Jon,
I don’t get it. 29,000 US wounded in Iraq by hostile. You can’t include medical emergencies or illness. Over 1.2 million military served in Iraq in the past 4 years at one time or another. 29,000 / 1.2 million = 2.4 %.
I didn’t say 50 % of Americans approve or disapprove of this administration. I said they were re-elected by 50 % ( OK 47 or 49 % …. More than John Kerry….) They did this despite what was happening in Iraq. They didn’t choose to listen to the LIES that Dems were spewing. ( Bad economy, War unwinable, unemployment etc. ) The economy was good. It IS good. It has never been better……
Moral high ground my ass. Let me ask you something. If I ( or anyone ) came by and raped your wife or beat your kid, what kind of moral high ground would you take then ? They are cutting off HEADS.
What tourture do you mean? Waterboarding? It doesn’t work ??? I suggest you read your last comment back to yourself ( about reading about the world.) We are not torturing anybody. If water boarding is tourture, what was it when Kennedy left that girl to drown in that car? She’s dead. We didn’t kill anyone water boarding. If waterboarding saves one life, it is worth it.
And I know “for a fact” that there are “many” vietnam and WWII veterans that are upset with YOUR way of thinking on this subject as well. That is a dumb argument. Whatever.
The bottom line to me is that our guys are dying in Iraq BECAUSE the democratic leadership is so opposed to this war. and I’ll explain…..
According to the Dems, Bush does NOTHING right. This is not because he actually does nothing right. It is because they hate him so much because Al Gore got beat by a couple of hundred votes. Since that happened, They have done everything in thier power to block, obstruct and complain about the administration. If Bush takes a left, they say he should have gone right. If he says yes, they automatically say no. You have to see that….
When he -Bush -asked to go into Iraq, the congress had all the same information that he had. They voted for it. Congress said “YES”
Now we have 150,000 personell in Iraq trying to complete a mission of getting Iraq back on its feet after Saddam. We have a whole country of educated good people counting on us to help them rid thier country of the scum that filled the vaccum of Saddam. They are relying on us as a country to help them get up and running again.
We cannot do this job, without the help of the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people know that if the US pulls out of Iraq, and they help us….. They are dead after we are gone.
The Iraqi people have two choices. Help us and get rid of Al Quaida and the insurgents OR don’t help us and go with whatever happens.
Yet the Dem leadership demands we leave Iraq. And with the possibility we will if the dems take over, we will get no help from the people of Iraq. It would be suicide for them to help us and they know it. without their help, it becomes a much harder mission.
If on the other hand we as a country could somehow forget about the election of 2000 and just allow the citizens of Iraq to understand we are not going to abandon them – show them were all on the same page and committed to helping those people gain control of their country again, the Iraqi people would help us win this thing and we’d win it fast.
In my opinion, the Dems are helping our enemy. They are giving aid and comfort to our enemy. They are sick individuals who are prolonging this war for the sole reason of hating George Bush. They are not patriots. They should be charged with Treason.
If we pull out of Iraq tomorrow ( or next month or next year ), how does that make the world safer ?
In my opinion it doesn’t. It makes this problem grow and passes it off to our kids and their kids. ( BTW, I have an 18 year old son who just might get dragged into this. My opinion should count too.)
Jon, I am sorry for ruining your baseball blog. I feel very strongly about this as you do. I’m sorry we are on opposite sides of the situation. I know I can’t change your mind. You won’t change mine either. Only history will end this argument. I’ll be dead by then. Somehow I wish that the right and left could come together.
As I said, I am a registered independent that leans to the right. I desperately would like to see some light on the left. But I see nothing. It is empty, dark and makes no sense. No ideas. Just complaints about the other side. No answers, just ” yeah, but look at him…”
Admittedly, There is not much on the right either. I am forced to choose between bad and worse.
I am done, you can have the last word.
Roy
#6 by Jon on January 14, 2008 - 6:33 am
Roy,
Thanks for sharing, Roy. You have attributed many opinions to me that I don’t have, but I don’t have the time or the energy right now to discuss them all. You assume, and those assumptions have filled you with anger and bile. I am not a robot for the Democratic Party. What do I believe? Many things, one of which is that this admistration was hell bent on shedding unneeded blood in Iraq before September 11th. Iraq was not a threat before or after September 11th, and I believe the administration knew it at the time, and yet provided rhetoric to the contrary. If there is credible evidence that this administration lied to the American people about the need for war in Iraq, then that should be persued with criminal charges.
I’ve let you had your say, and while I don’t agree with it, I’m going to let it stand. I would stay though, that you should listen to this interview and see if you still have your opinion on the effectiveness of torture. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15844677
I would also ask you to reconsider your ill chosen statement about people who don’t agree with this administration’s stance as being traitors. That sort of thinking is just wrong headed. If someone doesn’t agree with your opinion about the need for troops in Iraq, they are a traitor? That’s crazy talk.
Looking at what you have been writing, I can only assume that you are getting fed information from conservative talk radio. Find some new sources of information. Watch C-Span, CNN, listen to NPR. Or better yet, ignore it all, and find something else to read about that won’t anger you quite so much. It isn’t healthy.
My blog is a collection of things that I see, things that annoy me, thing that I like, and just anything else that strikes my fancy, baseball is just one of the things that happens to be in my life.
Jon