An editorial cartoon...

This is an editorial cartoon that I enjoyed, courtesy of the Boston Globe. I don't claim to be a financial genius, but I'm concerned about the $1 trillion bailout the U.S. Government is working on as we speak.

Just in case you can't read the text in the bottom right, it says: "Sharing profits worked differently."

ARR! I be Iron Sam Flint, ruler of the 3 and 3/4 seas!

Today be national talk like a pirate day, lubbers! T' truly enjoy this fine and bloodthirsty day, take this 'ere quiz and find you're true pirate name. ARR!

My pirate name is:

Iron Sam Flint

A pirate's life isn't easy; it takes a tough person. That's okay with you, though, since you a tough person. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
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Uh... nice ornament?

I saw this in Cambridge as I was driving home from work last week. It is easily the largest thing I've ever seen hanging from a rear view mirror.

To further set the scene, Latin music was blaring from this car as loud as possible. That's interesting because the woman in the car was on her cell phone.

Brady Out for Season

Well, the worst possible thing that could have happened to the New England Patriots happened in the first quarter of Sunday's game: A Tom Brady Knee Injury.

The team announced today at a 3 p.m. news conference that Brady will require surgery, and he is done for the season.

Ugh.

In all likelihood, that ends the team's chances of returning to the Super Bowl. The 2008 Patriots can probably still make the playoffs, but now there are definitely better teams in the AFC.

For millions of Patriots fans, today has been a day of despair. Certainly, some (all) of the luster has been taken out of the season opener.

What the hell are we going to do now?

In times like these, I always turn to one man to make me feel better: Bill Belicheck.

Here is Belicheck's quote from the news conference (courtesy of Mark Murphy and the Providence Journal)

"We all just have to do our jobs. That's what every player has to do. Each guy has a job to do, a coach, a player, they have a job to do, and they need to do it as well as they can. Really that doesn't change.

"[Brady] played one position and he played it very well. There will be somebody else playing that position now. I have a lot of confidence in Matt [Cassel] and everybody else does to [sic]. They just have to continue to do their job just like they always have and like they always need to."

Well, now I'm fired up.... thanks, Bill.

Of course, he's right. If the Patriots are going to make anything of this season, they'll have to put a new chip on their shoulder and win despite Tom Brady. Everyone will say their season is done too.

Brady was only one part of the team (a HUGE part), and now the rest of the very talented roster is going to have to shine in order of the Pats to get back to the playoffs.

Is that likely? Well, it certainly puts more intrigue into the season. Last year, regular season games got boring after a while. Who wants a guaranteed win? Now the team will have to scratch and claw for every win, just like when they won the Super Bowl against all odds in 2001.

If there is one thing I don't doubt, it's that Brady will be ready for 2009. He's a work out warrior, and my eyes tell me it could have been worse. I can say from experience, it's a good sign that he was able to half walk off the field in the first place. If you have a badly torn ACL, you don't walk anywhere. Remember when Rodney Harrison was carted off against Pittsburgh two years ago?

Let's open the book on the Matt Cassell era, and get ready for some good games. This team has too many veterans, too many hungry players to just throw in the towel after one game.

I'll tell you what is NOT going to happen. The Jets will not finish ahead of the Patriots in the division. You heard it here.

J - E - T - S Suck Suck Suck!

"Who's going to stop us?" Putin said, laughing.

A lot of things have happened in the week since I last posted. The Olympics started, an event that fully deserves its own post. That will have to come later.

More importantly, Russia invaded Georgia, the former Soviet republic (not the state).

The Russians weren't unprovoked. Georgia moved into South Ossetia to reclaim the breakaway province after separatists shelled Georgian forces, and Russia responded to protect the people they consider Russian citizens.

After that, Pandora's Box opened wide, and what came out was a Russian display of force nobody saw coming. The vastly superior Russian army rolled over the Georgians, not only taking back the two breakaway regions (Abkhazia is the other) but also driving deep into Georgia proper.

The rest of the world stood by and watched as a pro-NATO, pro-U.S. government got its ass kicked. That is not good.

But what could be done? Did anyone want to open a full shooting war with Russia? Hell no.

Now, you can believe what you want about protecting Russian citizens, but South Ossetia and Abkhazia are both home to major oil pipelines and other petroleum infrastructure.

Russia's invasion of Georgia served three purposes:

The first was to further consolidate its stranglehold on the oil infrastructure in the Caucasus region, which it uses to supply Europe with a large portion of its petroleum.

The second was to show the other former Soviet republics the penalty for close dealings with NATO and the U.S.

The third was to show the world that Russia means business, and unless you're going to stop them, they're going to do whatever it is they want.

Well, okay then.

When the war started, my first thought was "Is this what it looked like to the rest of the world when we invaded Iraq?" I don't know the answer to that.

Again, say what you like about combating terrorism, but by now we all know that the invasion of Iraq had at least something to do with oil.

So now we have two wars, one short (theirs) and one much longer (ours), that are about oil.

Russia has openly invaded an ally of the U.S. Conversely, the U.S. has effectively surrounded and continuously threatened a Russian ally, Iran.

Remember that line about being doomed to repeat history?

Many, if not all, of the world's largest wars are preceded by tiny ones. World War II started with Germany gobbling up surrounding countries to protect "German citizens" in those areas. World War I started because of a little revolutionary flare up in the Balkans. Stop me when this starts getting familiar.

Or how about this one: The Punic Wars. They were the largest war in history, really three little wars, between Carthage and Rome. They were the western world's two greatest superpowers, and the wars ranged from 264 B.C. to 146 B.C.

They started because both the Carthaginian Empire and the Roman Republic involved themselves on opposite sides of petty land disputes between tribes in Sicily, a strategic concern for both superpowers.

The world's energy crisis is not going away. Neither is Russia. Or China, for that matter. If they're willing to bulldoze half of their largest city just to throw a huge party, what else are they willing to do?

I'm not saying tomorrow, but this will get much bigger than we thought, and soon.

Joba on the DL

Well, I guess I told you so. Yankee pitcher Joba Chamberlain was placed on the 15 day diabled list today. Will he pitch again this season? Nobody knows.

Read about the story here, courtesy of the NY Post.

If Joba is unable to return to the Yankees' rotation, or is severely limited when he returns, I'm not sure how the Yankees will be able to contend for the pennant.

A pithy political cartoon...

I'm feeling particularly political today, so here is a nice little cartoon I found on Boston.com. I think this sums it up nicely.

Joba shoulder update

Yankee pitcher Joba Chamberlain is going to meet with orthapedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews today after the team saw his MRI results from yesterday. Andrews is the guy you go to when something is wrong.

We're getting closer to that I told you so moment...

Remember that $48 billion I lent you? Um, yeah...

It seems like just about everybody is profiting from the high price of oil these days. That is, everyone except the U.S. Taxpayer.

The following is an excerpt from a New York Times News Service story that appears in today's Boston Globe:

The soaring price of oil will leave the Iraqi government with a cumulative budget surplus of as much as $79 billion by year's end, an American federal oversight agency has concluded in an analysis released yesterday.

The unspent windfall, which covers surpluses from oil sales from 2005 through 2008, appears likely to put an uncomfortable new focus on the approximately $48 billion in American taxpayer money devoted to rebuilding Iraq since the American-led invasion.

The full story can be read here.

I understand the whole "you break it, you buy it" principle is valid here, but that only goes so far.

Not so mad after all...

Yankee Joba Chamberlain left Monday's game with tightness in his pitching shoulder, and New York went on to lose the game on a walk off grand slam off of the newly-acquired Damaso Marte.

The New York Post, in all its sensational glory, does a good job with the story here.

Perhaps it's too early to say I told you so. Perhaps.

We can't handle the truth!

The following is a letter to the editor in the Saturday, August 2 edition of the Boston Globe.

I loved it, even if I don't agree.

JUST THOUGHT I'd update a famous speech from the movie "A Few Good Men" (with apologies to Aaron Sorkin):

We live in a world that has walls, big green walls that need to be guarded by men with gloves. Who's gonna do it? You, Jacoby Ellsbury? You, Jason Bay? Manny Ramírez has a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Tito Francona and curse Red Sox Nation; you have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what the players in the clubhouse know: that Manny's antics, while tragic, probably saved jobs and that Manny's existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, wins games. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want Manny in front of that wall, you need Manny batting cleanup.

Red Sox management uses words like honor, code, loyalty. They use them as the backbone of a team trying to defend their World Series title. Manny uses them as a punchline. Manny has neither the time nor the inclination to explain himself to a fan base that rises and sleeps hoping for another title and then questions the manner in which he helps provide it. Manny would rather you just said "thank you," and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest that you turn on NESN and watch Manny hit another home run. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

SCOTT DAVIDSON
Fitchburg

My Manny Manifesto

It's a sad day in Red Sox Nation. The MLB trade deadline was today at 4 p.m. The Manny Leaving Boston trade deadline, that is. He was going to go no matter what, and sure enough, he's off to Los Angeles to play for the Dodgers.

Manny's relationship with the Red Sox organization deteriorated at a ridiculous rate over the last several weeks, from sitting out games against good hard-throwing pitchers (congrats, Joba, I guess that includes you) despite being locked in a pennant race, to loafing around the diamond in an unforgiveable fashion, even for Ramirez.

Then came his latest rash of anti-Sox comments, about wanting a trade, about being tired of the organization, about how the Sox don't deserve a player like Manny.

Well, I suppose that last part is true: no organization who has paid $168 million to a player over eight years deserves this level of grief. Manny's contract was the behemoth contract in baseball, well before A-Rod ever left Seattle. It hamstrung the Sox year after year when Manny demanded a trade before the season, after the season, and during the season, unable to move the chronically unhappy slugger and subject to his every whim.

So now with two team options for a paltry $20 million left on the table, the contract wasn't right for Manny Ramirez. He wanted a guarantee that the Sox would leave those options on the table. Manny thinks he's headed for a four-year, $100 million contract after this season, despite the fact that he's 36. He might be right, as teams will overpay for what they perceive as the missing piece to a playoff-caliber club (see: Barry Zito).

Yes, he's a professional hitter, one of the best right handed sluggers ever in baseball. But he's also a professional saboteur, as he's proved ably the last month. I'm not interested in participating in the mass character assassination that has occurred, and will continue to occur, here in Boston. Manny is a Hall of Fame hitter, there is no question about that. But he is also a selfish prick.

I truly hope that no one rewards him for his selfishness, and that he doesn't get a penny over $18 million a year for his four year contract. Otherwise, there will be another Manny Ramirez on the horizon, who despite anchoring the best lineup in baseball felt he had to leave town to make a few million more.

What's worse, the Sox had to sweeten the pot to get him out of town with a fire-balling young reliever, Craig Hanson, and a Major League ready outfielder, Brandon Moss. Why is it that the Sox have hemorrhaged young, promising outfielders at the trading deadline? In 2004 it was Matt Murton, who had to go in order to get Nomar out of town. In 2007, it was David Murphy for Eric Gagne. Murphy is a front runner for the AL Rookie of the Year award.

Now Moss, along with Hanson, must go to baseball purgatory in Pittsburgh to get Manny out of Boston and something back in return. That something is Jason Bay, 2004 NL Rookie of the Year, who for the first time gets to play in a big league pennant race (one might argue actually in the big leagues, period). He's got the numbers on paper: .282 average, 22 home runs, and 64 RBIs. But does he have the mettle? Not everyone can play in Boston, and nobody has had to live up to the expectation of replacing Manny Ramirez on a team that fully expects to go deep into the playoffs.

Another problem, unless it's being swept under in all the Ramirez publicity, is that the Sox failed to correct the one problem they actually have: an inexperienced and inconsistent bullpen. No help in sight for Delcarmen's Pirate Band, and despite Hanson's inconsistency, I'm sorry to see him go.

So what now? Do the Sox have it in them for the stretch run? I see two possible outcomes. Boston's veteran leaders pull the team together, Bay giddily adjusts to the limelight, and the offense goes on a tear the last two months, hiding the bullpen woes until the playoffs. The Sox still have a formidable front of the rotation with Beckett, Matsuzaka and Lester, and if the team can score some runs that ought to be more than enough.

Or the Red Sox offense doesn't click, and the Sox continue to lose close game after close game as the bullpen slowly folds in on itself, like a star going supernova. If that happens, Manny's name will be cursed across New England. He will be blamed for the season, stripping the Sox farm system, global warming and causing the Democrats to lose the presidency.

I am unconcerned about external pressures; despite their deadline reloading, I don't think the Yankees have it. Their pitching staff doesn't bother me. Joba Chamberlain has pitched great, no question. But this year he will by far exceed his previous number of innings pitched. Last year was his first year in baseball, and he pitched 112.1 innings through the minors and in the bigs. He's already pitched 84.3 this year. They also stretched out his arm from relief to starting while he faced Major League hitters, an unprecedented feat. His arm will falter in the pennant race.

I also don't see how Mike Mussina can continue his current pace. He's been done for two seasons now. Do he and Paul Byrd have the same dentist, I wonder?

Another thing I missed is what the Tampa Bay Rays did to get better at the deadline. Wait, nothing? There's a surprise. Tampa Bay's front office was probably too busy patting themselves on the back for being in first place at the trading deadline to answer the phones. Their young, inexperienced club has never been in a pennant race, and I'll be very surprised if they play as well in August and September.

So if the Sox can score runs, they'll win the AL East. If not, they won't. It's hard to imagine an offense getting better by removing a Hall of Fame hitter and plugging in a guy from Pittsburgh. Here's hoping that being spurned by Manny Ramirez is enough to wake up this listless club, force them to pull together and turn into a run producing machine.

Sure, maybe years down the road we'll all laugh and remember the good, and often hilarious, run with Manny. Right now, I want the Sox to spit in his eye and win. That way we can say, "You know, Manny, not only did we not deserve you, we didn't need you."

So you've decided to start a blog...

As I was searching the Internets for the informational pamphlet "So You've Decided to get Laser Teeth," I came upon the pamphlet with the above name by accident. I thought to myself "wait a minute, I'm literate, occasionally clever, and always opinionated... why don't I have a blog?"

After thinking about that quandary for about 10 minutes, I gave up and went on searching for the laser teeth thing, eager to obliterate small and large objects with laser beams emitted from my teeth. But this morning I decided to register here on blogspot (or I guess now it's called blogger.com, whatever) and give this whole blogging thing a go.

Am I 10 years behind the curve? Absolutely. Has that ever stopped me before? Absolutely not. In fact I'm awaiting new Sega Saturn releases as we speak.

As for the title... well, it's the best I could do after my first six attempts were shot down. Who knew Murphy's Musings would be taken? It's not that popular of a last name, is it? Maybe that's my cousin Eddie Murphy's private blog. Or maybe it's Troy Murphy's blog about all the great times he has living in Indianapolis... probably not.

I'm not going to pretend that Two Steps Towards Madness will have any direction (other than towards madness, of course) or theme; you're going to get whatever nonsense falls out of my head and through my fingertips. Won't that make it more fun? I think so.