The Arbitrary ChuckJerry

A message for the Knicks: New York fans are smart. They know that the team sucks and they know that you're way over the salary cap. They would understand if you rebuilt the team and just admitted to sucking for the next 5 years instead of trying to hide it for the next 10.

I don't understand any of the off season buzz for the Knicks so far. First of all, Phil Jackson will never, ever coach this team. I don't know why they're talking to him or even floating his name. Phil only coaches teams that are favored to win, and the Knicks are anything but that. It would be interesting to see Marbury, Crawford, and Kurt (superfly) Thomas in the triangle offense, though. I think they'd make it work to a certain extent.

Second, why is Larry Brown's name out there as the next potential coach of both the Knicks and Lakers? He's got a team that's already built, is playing well, and is the defending champion. Why would he want to leave them just to go to a worse team? Larry is notorious for his commitment issues with teams, but it just seems ludicrous for him to want to leave Detroit for a different coaching job. If he were going to just stop coaching for a season, then I could see it, but to leave for another team seems pretty stupid.

If neither one of these guys is the coach of the Knicks next season, and I would be enormously surprised if either of them were the coach, the worst thing the Knicks could do would be to keep Herb Williams as the head coach. He's a good dude, and he's also a pretty good coach, but this team is going absolutely nowhere. They are too far over the cap to change their roster significantly, and they can't bring in any free agents. Every single player on that roster is overpaid and underperforming, with the exception of Kurt the Flirt, who is also overpaid, but performing up to his abilities. To remain absolutely stagnant is just to admit defeat.

The only possible moves the Knicks could make would be to package Kurt Thomas and hopefully a salary dump for a marginally better player. That would be a sad day. Also I suppose they could trade Marbury if someone were willing to take him, but who could they possibly get in return for him? There is no way the Knicks would get equal value if they traded Steph. Also that would change the face of the franchise, and I don't think Isiah wants to do that.

Bottom line, the Knicks are going to Suck with a capital S for years to come. The best move would have been to wait out their salary cap woes and lure a huge free agent to the team in the next year or two (LeBron, anyone?). Now they can't do that, however, since they added to the salary cap in order to get fucking Malik Rose and Maurice Taylor.

In absolute complete honesty, I think that I could have run the Knicks better than Scott Layden and Isiah Thomas have over the last 5 or 6 years. I was literally yelling at my TV for them draft Ron Artest. Instead of drafting Amare Stoudamire, they drafted Nene, fine, but then traded him for McDyess, who played something like 15 games in a Knick uniform. Marcus Camby is playing his heart out in Denver now, as is Nene.

I almost feel like a Cubs fan trying to route for the Knicks. I just know that they won't compete for at least 5 years, but I want them to do well. At least if they had some young guys we could watch them develop like the Bulls have.

The best plan would be for them to build around Marbury, Sweetney, Crawford, and Ariza. I'm willing to accept that Crawford can improve in time, even though he's enormously frustrating to watch at the moment. They need to lose (but don't have any viable means of doing it) Tim Thomas, Allan Houston, Maurice Taylor, Jerome Williams (even though I like him), and Penny Hardaway. Kurt Thomas and Malik Rose can play significant roles, but only for the next 3 to 4 years.

I feel strongly without being 100% sure that they traded their first round draft pick this year. They do have San Antonio's or Phoenix's pick, but those are worthless at the end of the first round.

First of all, I didn't know that they were still making Behind the Music on VH1. I haven't seen any episodes of that show recently, let alone a new one.

Anyhow, today I saw a Behind the Music on the first boy band, New Edition. It outlined their career highlights and lowlights and all the regular Behind the Music stuff. They interviewed all 6 members of New Edition, including Bobby Brown.

Accrding to girls in 1992, Bobby Brown was a good looking dude. Today he just looks like he's been smoking crack for years on end. His jaw hangs down of of the side of his face when he talks. It looks like his jaw is trying to escape from his mouth. It was a scary sight.

Also what he says makes no sense. Of course, he never made sense, so that's maybe not a symptom of his crackheadedness.

I was stuck in a rut the last couple weeks so I busted out the old Hootie and the Blowfish album, Cracked Rear View. Goddamn I love that album. It just makes me happy to listen to it. I can't help but smile at the beginning of every song.

I felt let down when Hootie was in the Burger King commercial, but I can't stay mad after listening to that album. Their second album was pretty good too.

The Mets scored 10 runs yesterday and Mike Piazza was 0 for 4. That is why the Mets have a chance to compete. In the past three years the Mets success has been tied solely to the success of Piazza, who's not been great over that stretch. Now they can produce outside of Piazza, which they've been doing over this entire season. Since their 0-5 start they have gone 10-3, lifting them 2 games over .500. Pretty impressive for a team that has had confidence issues over the last couple years.

I think Piazza will relax soon and realize that he is no longer the linchpin of this offense, and that will allow him to be successful again. Beltran has been great in the young season, as has Pedro. Not to mention the huge contribution Doug Mientkiewicz has made on defense and offense. Victor Diaz and Chris Woodward, guys I had never even heard of before three weeks ago, are making big hits and fitting in well. Jose Reyes seems healthy and consistent and David Wright is clearly solid at 3rd base. Cliff Floyd has a bunch of big hits too. Their offense is pretty potent.

If the pitching can just be consistent, they can compete to win the division. Let's assume Pedro will be great and Glavine will be good. All the other pitchers are question marks. Heilman has looked great and then terrible in back to back starts. Jay Seo looked good, but also tends to be inconsistent. Zambrano is the same. Benson is hurt. The bullpen is not phenomenal, and Looper has blown more saves than he's converted so far this year.

What they've got going against them is their division. All 5 teams I think are very equally matched. At the moment they are all within 3 games of each other and will probably all stay that way. They play each other all season, so none of them will have the opportunity win the wild card outside of winning the division since they'll all just beat up on each other.

The Spurs have to be the favorites, but I think there are legitimately 5 or 6 teams who could win the championship this year. I would not be enormously surprised if Pheonix, Seattle, Detroit, or Miami won. Even outside of those teams I could give an outside shot to Houston, Denver, or even New Jersey winning it all.

This year has the best 1-8 matchups ever, in my opinion. Memphis and Phoenix have completely opposing styles and Memphis could conceivably steal the series. New Jersey is playing well and if Shaq is ineffective, then they could easily steal the series. I don't see either Memphis or NJ willing, but it's conceivable.

The best first round matchup is Denver and San Antonio. They split the season series 2-2 and Denver actually beat the Spurs at home. Denver is playing really well recently and what they have in their favor is that they are not playing above their heads. Denver is actually that talented.

Seattle seems ready to cruise through round one and Houston made Dallas look really bad last night. A Jeff Van Gundy team in the playoffs is dangerous because of his defense first mentality.

Boston and Indiana is a "who cares?" series, but Boston will win. The most interesting series is the Wizards and Bulls. Both of those teams are fighting for legitimacy. The Wizards seem to have the advantage with the Bulls lack of Curry and Deng, but that's a toss up as best as I can tell.

Also the Knicks suck.

McLaughlin this morning said that the Republicans are in disarray and are displaying a dysfunctional face to the nation. He sites John Bolton not being approved to the UN post haste, Tom DeLay's improprieties, Bill Frist threatening the nuclear option, and the fight over Social Security, among other recent events that have smudged the faces of Republicans.

I disagree. They have power, and they are trying to abuse it. If the Democrats were in power I would suspect that they would do the same thing. They are pushing the line of what they would be able to do without complete control, so their ideal agenda is coming through. The Democrats are obviously making a stink about it since they're losing ground.

There is obviously a chance that all this could backfire and some Republicans may realize one day that they are not as conservative as they thought they were, but I don't see that happening any time soon. I hope it does, but I don't see it.

On Chris Matthews they took an interesting poll among their contributors. They feel pretty strongly that Bill Frist would win a 2008 nomination over John McCain for the presidency. The follow up question indicated that they overwhelmingly felt that McCain would have a much better chance to beat Hillary Clinton, the perceived front runner for the Democrats.

All this begs the question: are the Republicans painting themselves into a corner? They are isolating their middle ground at a time when the Democrats are going out of their ways to embrace their more moderate members.

I suppose it's just a function of living in NYC Metro my entire life, but I'm extremely surprised at the success of the new religious Republicans. They've managed to leverage one issue to their complete advantage. Especially considering the tendency for most people I know to go out of their ways to separate church and state.

I think the title says it all. Check it out.

It's nice to see other people my age being productive in the world.

I love Conan O'Brien. His show is very funny and his humor is ridiculously clever. I love the monologue and the opening skit especially. If I'm up that late, I usually fall asleep before the second interview starts, but since they replay it on CNBC the next day and since I got DVR, I can watch the whole show now.

The reason that Conan is awesome is because he never changes his style to suit his guests. He paints himself as a nerdy, quick witted guy no matter who he is interviewing. Most of his guests seem familiar with the show and understand his humor, but even if they don't he doesn't back down from it. That leads to some great scenes. Conan pulls out random stuff anyway, but with the people who aren't expecting it, it makes it that much better.

He had Damon Dash on a couple days ago and he kept throwing jokes in about how he could wear Dame's watch or how they should ride on Jet Blue together after Dame mentioned he usually only takes chartered jets. Dash responded like he was taking Conan seriously, which is hysterical.

Conan is the anti-Carson Daly, who is the biggest suck up, attitude changing, vocabulary morphing bitch on the planet. It's somewhat ironic that Carson's show is on right after Cone-doggie's. Is that show still on?

The fact that I can mention simply Hillary without the Rodham or even the Clinton in my mind says that she is definitely going to run for president in 2008.

The first stepping stone for her presidential run would be to win re-election of her New York Senate seat. If and when she does that she can run in '08 without fear of having to lose her seat if she loses because she will be in the midst of her Senate service.

There are Republicans on New York who are reported to be starting at least two "Stop Hillary Now" campaigns looking to raise money from conservative voters to keep her from getting re-elected. That's some ill shiznit right there. Isn't there a better name for a campaign like that? When you call it "Stop Hillary Now" I would bet you could turn some people off from it.

Anyhow, Hillary has managed to make a lot of friends in the state of New York. She's high profile and she's managed to fight for the state's best interests (recently defending a deal for a New York based aircraft company to manufacture helicopters and such for the military, to the dismay of Connecticut, where the company's competition is). New York City dwellers, largely Democrats, would be hard pressed to find a better candidate who's willing to run. The real surprise is that she's pretty popular with upstate voters as well. She has addressed their concerns too, whatever they are, and they like her.

I think the hardest part about Hillary running for president would be that the public would be essentially unable to separate the fact that she either is or isn't the best choice for the job with the fact that she's a woman. Many people would vote for her simply because she is a woman and many would *not* vote for her solely because of her female status. Even if 80% of the populous could vote without gender bias (either positive or negative), the remaining 20% would have a huge effect on the outcome.

I'm interested to see how this whole thing pans out. I'd love to see a legitimate campaign from Hillary. She's undoubtedly one of the smartest potential candidates, whether that would translate into her being a quality candidate and, more importantly, a good president remains to be seen.

I'm not a Catholic, but I find myself pretty intrigued by the whole process surrounding the election of the new Pope. This is the first such election process, or conclave as it's known in Vatican circles, in my lifetime, so that sortof adds to it. John Paul II was pretty firmly entrenched in my mind as "The Pope" that someone else filling the role is an interesting notion.

The New York Times has devoted a ridiculous amount of space to the death of John Paul and the ongoing conclave. Over the past couple weeks, they've had maps of the Vatican showing where John Paul lived and where he is interred, and the length of the lines of people waiting to see him. Also they've had visual aids detailing where the cardinals are staying during the conclave and the path they will travel from their lodgings to the Sistine Chapel, where the voting takes place. They've outlined all the rules for electing a new pope and what not along with articles on who they think might be elected.

I didn't figure it was that big a deal, though I guess it is. This seems to be a case where all the people are buying into the Vatican's own self-importance. It's a little like the Academy Awards.

I think it would be interesting if they were to pick one of the front runners who's named Joseph Ratzinger. This dude was a Nazi officer during WWII before becoming a priest. That's a conservative motherfucker right there. Will I go to hell for referring to a cardinal as a motherfucker? He apparently didn't believe in the Nazi cause and deserted his army post. He's apparently even less progressive in his views that John Paul was. I guess we shouldn't expect San Francisco morality from the Catholic chruch, but soemone who's willing to be moderately progressive would probably serve the constituents who pour the money into the system better than a super conservative.

Here's an interesting thought that I suppose is perfectly logical from a Catholic standpoint. One of the people interviewed from outside the Vatican said that he didn't believe the process was a political one, but rather simply an act of God. He feels that the cardinals will eventually be imbued with divine judgement and choose the pope that God intends to rule the church. I find that to be a rather sound mindset if you take one's Catholicism as a given.

Sunday is always my most political day because I always try to watch Chris Matthews, Meet the Press, and The McLaughlin Group.

I'm all for people paying taxes. I think a lot of our country's problems could be easily solved if taxes were raised in certain areas. Social Security taxes, for example, should be raised and then the issue would disappear. Oil and fuel companies who are not making a serious attempt at new energy technologies should be taxes (or penalized, as it were).

Anyhow, I find myself in agreement with Republicans on one issue, the estate tax. The estate tax should be repealed unilaterally. The plan is already in place for it to be removed by 2010, and I think that's a good idea. The issue currently under debate is whether the current plan, which calls for all estates in 2011 to be taxed at a ridiculous rate, should be executed. Republicans say no, Democrats to a certain extent say yes.

The estate tax is essentially grave robbing, in my opinion. The argument for the estate tax is weak, even for the richest of Americans. Those in favor of the tax say that they are taxing assets which have never been taxed. In other words, if you own a stock, you don't pay taxes in it until you sell it. The same is true of many other huge assets. This being the case, people who own large amounts of stock at the time of their deaths have never paid any taxes on them. The logic follows, then, that these assets should be taxed.

I disagree with that notion. The assets do not need to be liquidated in order to be distributed from the estate, and if they are not liquidated, then they should clearly not be taxed. In addition, a significant portion of any estate large enough to qualify for the estate tax is made up of moneys or assets that *have* already been taxed, and they are then taxed for a second time. Either way, this nothing short of stealing by the government.

Winston Churchill said that anyone who is not a liberal at 25 has no heart, and anyone who is still a liberal at 40 has no brain. So I guess you should get back to me in 13 years or so.

It was reported today that the Giants have reached a deal with New Jersey to build a new stadium right next to the old one. The deal had fallen apart for a while because of a couple of key issues, mainly the Giants not wanting to pay taxes and the insistence of the state that they accept a huge gaming complex to be built within the Meadowlands next to Continental Arena.

I guess they worked it all out, and the new stadium is scheduled to cost $750 million. That's a lot of cash, but what's getting me is the fact that the plan to built the Jets' new stadium on the West Side of Manhattan calls for a stadium that costs $1.9 billion, and will undoubtedly cost more once all is said and done if it actually gets built.

The existing Giants Stadium and the proposed site of the Jets stadium are literally less than 5 miles apart. How could it possibly be that a state of the art stadium in East Rutherford, NJ and a state of the art stadium in lower Manhattan could differ in price by that much money. The cost of the Jets' stadium is more than 250% of the cost of the new Giants' stadium.

We're not talking about the value of the land, which is obviously infinitely more in Manhattan (another stupid reason to put the stadium there), but solely the cost to build each stadium. If it costs that much more simply because of where the stadium is going to be built, then it should clearly be built in Queens or on Long Island.

This whole idea of building that stadium on the West Side is ludicrous to begin with, but when faced with a clearly viable plan from the Giants it looks downright insane.

Mariah Carey's first album is honestly one of the best albums ever released. Song after song of beautiful lyrics and that astounding voice that was so original in 1989 or so.

None of her albums since then have been as good as that one, though her next couple, Music Box especially, were pretty good. Since that album, Mariah has Sucked with a capital S. Her songs no longer feature her incredible voice, and are just over-produced R&B songs. She sings the type of songs that are usually packaged for those girls who can't sing, like J-Lo or Britney Spears.

Mariah never, ever, had any street credibility (just watch her try to do the running man in the "Someday" video) and the notion that she's trying to take it back to the hood is simply ludicrous. She rides in limousines and vacations on private islands for Pete's sake.

I have a theory as to why she sucks now. She has obviously had a lot of plastic surgery. Clearly she has breast implants, which probably doesn't effect her singing. She also clearly has had some sort of facial surgery, though, which may have effected her voice. Look at her when you get a chance. Her cheeks are enormous. She looks like a chipmunk, and the skin on her face is ridiculously tight. Not even a hint of a wrinkle.

Perhaps the surgery she had has messed up her voice, and she can't deliver the goods any more. When was the last time you heard her sing one of her old songs that required her to actually sing?

I'm just throwing that idea out there. I would guess that someone who is such a great singer wouldn't undergo something that would potentially ruin her voice for no reason, but Mariah did go crazy for a while there (she's probably still there, to tell you the truth). I mean, Barbra Streisand has that famous nose and she has said time and again that she would never think of operating on it because it would change the quality of her voice.

The best pop singer out there today is Christina Aguilera, who's last album "Stripped" is actually really good. She's taking the reverse Mariah route, meaning that Christina started off slutty and is transforming into a classy broad (ha, broad). Mariah was initially classy and is now slutty and apparently no longer a singer.

Some interesting names I've come across.

A friend of mine had a student last year named Gunit (goo-neet). This was in a 7th or 8th grade class and this was a small little Indian girl who was not quite Americanized. All the kids in the class would get really excited when she would put her work on the board and write her name next to it. As she would go back to her desk all the kids would go, "g-g-g-g-g-g-g-G-Unit." Apparently she never quite got it.

An ESL teacher in my school has a student named Hardik (har-deek) who's either from India or Bnagladesh. Since all the students in the class are learning English, none of them really find it strange to mispronounce his name to sound like "hard dick". The teacher doesn't want to tell him what his name means, so I guess he'll find out some other way.

I've been interested in the last day or so about the process of the filibuster and how it works and what it accomplishes. I thought there was some sort of huge process with it, but there really isn't. As I understand, a senator is given the floor and just starts talking. He then keeps talking until everyone leaves so there can be no vote on whatever topic they're discussing. Usually this is used so that the president can't just appoint anyone he wants to a judge's seat. Essentially it means that you need 60 votes to get your guy in instead of a simple majority of 51, since 60 votes are needed to forego any more debate and force a vote.

For the most part filibustering is accepted out of a respect for limiting the power of the majority. If the majority party wanted to just pass every bill in the world, then there would be nothing to stop them without the filibuster. The Democrats and Republicans both know at this point what it's like to be the minority party, so they recognize that the majority can be overzealous in their plans. As this is such, filibusters are an accepted, if not welcome, part of the Congressional workings.

Recently there has been a good deal of talk about the current Republican majority trying to end the filibuster in order to essentially pack the courts with their favorite judges. To do this would require something known as "the nuclear option."

An explanation of the nuclear option from the People for the American Way site:

The "nuclear option" is actually a series of steps that right-wing senators would take to eliminate the filibuster. The "nuclear" attack would likely begin with one party’s senators provoking a filibuster, most likely by trying to force a confirmation vote on an out-of-the-mainstream appeals court nominee. A senator would then object, claiming that the filibuster cannot be used on a judicial nomination. Vice President Cheney or another senator presiding over the Senate would rule in the Radical Right's favor, and then that ruling would be appealed. A simple majority (with Vice President Cheney as the tie-breaking vote if necessary) would then uphold the ruling, and the filibuster would be history.

You might find this explanation, also from PFAW, a bit more clear.

I don't really understand how the nuclear option works. The intent is clear: somehow it invokes a different rule in the Senate that requires only 51 votes to pass, so that they can force their issue through. I don't understand why it would be following the rules, however, to uphold the claim that a filibuster is not allowed. Clearly it is allowed, and has been used many times before.

Who, you may ask, holds the record for the longest filibuster? Why that honor goes to South Carolina's J. Strom Thurmond, who held the floor for 24 hours and 18 minutes. What, pray tell, got Mr. Thurmond so worked up as to go on and on for an entire day to delay a vote? Well, it was his staunch opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

UPDATE: I read a bit more about the nuclear option and I think I understand it a little better, but the actual process used still doesn't quite click for me. At the end of the day, what makes the nuclear option possible is that Rule 22, which is the rule concerning the "cloture" vote which requires 60 people to end debate, is most likely unconstitutional. The Congress may not enact a rule which binds the hands of a future Congress. This has apprently been upheld by the Supreme Court again and again.

I think, then, that at the time it came to exercise the nuclear option, the argument would be that Rule 22 should not apply since it binds the hands of the existing Congress. What follows, though, still makes no sense to me. It is a series of procedural moves that don't quite add up. Would anyone who uderstands what acutally happens at the point the nuclear option is put into effect, please try to explain it to me?

Something I'll bet you didn't know if you weren't Latino is that for some reason Mexicans are the black folks of the hispanic world. The one thing that Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Colombians, Ecuadorians, and so forth seem to agree on unilaterally is that Mexicans are somehow inferior to the other hispanic races.

In my school if the students want to insult each other they call each other Mexican. I have one student who is half Mexican and she doesn't hear the end of it, even though her friends are mainly just joking with her. To call a hispanic a Mexican is akin to calling a black person a nigger it seems.

There are a ton of Mexicans immigrants in the area I work in, there are also a ton of the aformentioned hispanic folks in the area as well. One of my students, who is Colombian, just got back from some conference she went to with her father in Houston. I asked her how it was and she says, "It was pretty nice. They call the mall the Galleria. And you know what I didn't like, though, mista?" She said in a whisper with a strain on her face, "There are a lot of Mexicans over there."

I was like, "Well, there are a lot of Mexicans here too."
She was all, "Yeah, but there's only Mexicans there."
And I was all, "Well, Texas is right on the border with Mexico."
And she totally went, "Yeah, I guess that's true."

Anyhow, I don't really understand the hating on Mexicans thing. Mexico is the largest Spanish speaking nation and there must be the most Mexicans out of any other hispanic folks. If they are in the majority, why can't they sway their influence to get themselves liked?

OK, I don't really have a point. Just an observation.