Thinkitthrough

MLB drops the ball again

So Bud Selig and co. are going to investigate Barry Bonds and co. for performance-enhancing drug abuse. Give me a break. If the investigation is expanded to include amphetamines, then I'll watch the televised procedings, Those will no doubt feature lots of players that I've actually heard of.

Bush gets it right (for once) on immigration

Sometimes the only way you can tell that an incompetent leader has finally made a good decision is when extremists on both sides are screaming for different reasons. Bush's guest-worker proposal is by far the most sensible solution to the "problem" of illegal immigration. The loony right's proposal (their reactionary constituents in mind) would shove even more people into the criminal justice system (and ultimately jail) who shouldn't be there in the first place. The loony left (potential voters in mind) want a citizenship "fast-track" for all illegal immigrants without bothering to ask them if that's what they want. Guest-worker visas with the later option of citizenship make the most sense for illegal immigrants who are following the great American dream of making life better for their children. Bush seems to understand that this dream doesn't depend upon which side of the Rio Grande you were born. Give him credit for that.

Sports fans waste time with brackets, fantasy picks

Too bad that gambling on individual sporting events is illegal unless you live in Vegas. Problem is that it forces average sports fans, who would otherwise log on or walk down to the OTB to place their bets, to waste precious long hours on filling out brackets for the NCAA basketball tournament or drafting fantasy baseball and football teams. Participating in these competitions offer odds of winning only slightly better than those for winning the Powerball and with a lot higher energy input. America's gambling policy needs a serious overhaul.

What do the anti-war protestors want?

The Cindy Sheehans of this world make no sense whatever. Where were they in the months leading up to the invasion, when every sane person outside the government was screaming at the administration to back off? Where were they when tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians were being massacred daily, first by US airstrikes and later by insurgent bombings? About the only true statement that Colin Powell made in the leadup to the Iraq invasion was to state the Pottery Barn principle: You break it, you own it. For better or for worse, we own Iraq now and we have to fix it, or Iraqis will hate us for generations to come.

Take it easy, Colts fans - Rhodes will be fine

Colts fans need to chill - Dominic Rhodes, who was recently signed for a further year, will be a more-than-adequate replacement for Edgerrin James, just as he was a few years ago when Edge went down with a torn ACL. Forget his kick returning last year - that's a wide receiver's job. Rhodes can perform at the highest level, as he has shown in the past. Plus every draft turns up an outstanding running back in the 2nd or 3rd round, and Polian is bound to find the guy either this year or next. Meanwhile, the Colts will do just fine on the ground this season.

Edwardsville, IL schools let dead cats out of bag

There may be more than one way to skin a cat, but at senior high school biology classes in Edwardsville, Illinois, there's no way to dissect one. That's because school district Superintendent Ed Hightower (who'll probably referee an NCAA Final Four game in a few weeks) recently caved in to a bunch of ignorant loudmouths at the local American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and cancelled the scheduled after-hours Honors courses in cat anatomy after the ASPCA labelled them "unconscionable". News flash, folks - the bloody cat is already dead when the students insert the scalpel, killed humanely, as it turns out. Any cruelty here? Maybe referee Hightower could have tried explaining this and the benefits of such courses rather than let "activists" dictate the agenda.

Barry Bonds took steroids? No kidding

So the latest flap about Barry Bonds is that we have more proof he took steroids. Big deal - he admitted as much to a grand jury a couple of years ago. So did Jason Giambi, by the way, and since then Rafael Palmeiro has been proved a steroid abuser and Mark McGwire all but admitted it too. But we're still supposed to get all bent out of shape whenever Barry Bonds's name is mentioned. In the same vein, lots of commentators and fans have, probably rightly, speculated about Sammy Sosa and body-bulkers yet I can't remember the last time anybody asked why Jeff Bagwell's forearms are bigger than Barry Bonds's upper arms. At least Bonds can still play.

Don't give potential visitors to Australia reason to swear

I don't really know if putting the expression "bloody hell" in an ad encouraging tourism to Australia is such a great idea. It might remind them of reasons why planning a trip to my fair homeland can be frustrating. After all, the answer from abroad to the bikini-clad babe's tagline question in the notorious TV ad: "So where the bloody hell are you?" is most likely to be :"Working my bloody ass off to save up for the bloody airfare for the whole bloody family." Now that can be bloody hell.

So now we're stuck with American port security?

Bummer that Dubai chickened out of the deal to take over running P&O's port operations in America. After all, the UAE city-state wasn't exactly about to boot out all the Pommie (Brit) operatives in the port operations and replace them with guys in beards and turbans, and now it looks like we'll be stuck with the nation whose airport security brought us September 11, 2001 (see earlier posting). Too bad - if the Brits had been running American airport security that day, those 19 guys wouldn't have gotten out of the parking lot. Come to think of it, if the Israelis had been running it they wouldn't have gotten past the front door of their apartment buildings. Consumers know the virtue of shopping around; Congress loves the vice of illogical xenophobic populism. We're all the worse for it.

Let athletes take drugs and publish it.

Forget all this self-righteous crap the sports media chuck around whenever Barry Bonds and steroids and juiced records get dragged out by some smartarse with a book contract. Plenty of professional athletes are on performane enhancing drugs, while a lot more are on performance-reducing ones, all protected by technological advancements in drug-test cheating (yep, even the Whizzinator). So why bother throwing the poor saps who forget to drink the stuff the night before the test out of the game? Emulate horse racing, where they have the trainers declare whether the horse is on lasix or bute and then publish it in the form guide so punters know who's getting a little kick. If an athlete is on human growth hormone, amphetamines or marijuana (though why you'd smoke pot before a professional sports event is beyond me), put it in the program. If nothing else, it's sure to give the home fans something new to chant.