Fear Mongering and Capital Flow

One of the many things that has turned me away from the Democratic party in recent years (can I really say that? I'm only 19. I've voted once; it seems somewhat odd to be radically changing viewpoints this early) has been the treatment of free trade proposals. I think, generally speaking, free trade agreements are a good thing. Allowing the global market to reach equilibrium free of constraining influences will, more often than not, create greater wealth for all. Any inequities can be solved for.

The United States, despite various idiotic tariffs and quotas, does allow free flow of capital. During the 1990s and early 2000s, this meant that capital largely flowed towards foreign markets. Now that the dollar is weaker, the market is correcting itself. Capital flows towards the United States, more capital is created, more wealth is created, and the dollar will eventually strengthen. It's a beautiful thing.

Stories like this are harmful to the public's knowledge of the economy. This one does an okay job of reporting the economic facts - foreign investment is a good thing - but it also ends with typical economic fear mongering. The end quote by Stiglitz leads people to believe that there is some hidden danger in normal economic activity. Here it is:

We used to measure the economy in terms of GNP, which is the amount of income produced by U.S. citizens. But now we measure it by GDP, the income that is actually produced in America. The distinction becomes important, says Stiglitz, when an increasing proportion of the country is owned abroad. "If you were to look at America Inc. as a company, it's like owning a company and you own a smaller and smaller fraction of it. So the fraction of America Inc. owned by Americans is diminishing," says Stiglitz.

That means that when the economy recovers, there will be less wealth left in the country to reinvest in it. But then returning to the original question--Why is the American yard sale not setting off alarms?--Stiglitz explains that the alternative is even worse. "There isn't an outcry," he says, "because the focus right now is the weakness of the American economy, and anything to keep our economy going is welcome." That's why no one really objected to Citibank's becoming a Middle Eastern--financed bank, because it's better than Citi's becoming a dead bank. "But clearly we're worse off as a country," he says.

There are a lot of problems with this. (And before I begin my critique, let me point out that I know quite a bit less than Dr. Stiglitz. I'm a second year economics undergraduate. He is a premier economist. But I think he's very wrong about this on a very basic level.)

This first is that he says, "...clearly we're worse off as a country." This is begging the question. We're not clearly worse off, as indicated by the necessity of his critique.

He gives his only reason for being "clearly worse off" earlier:

"If you were to look at America Inc. as a company, it's like owning a company and you own a smaller and smaller fraction of it. So the fraction of America Inc. owned by Americans is diminishing."

The problem I see with this is reference point. It's true that less of American capital is owned by Americans, but does that really matter much? As a left wing economist, one would think that he'd be primarily concerned with the welfare of laborers. And if one views it as an issue of worker quality of life, then this is a no-brainer. The prospect of having the Rust Belt resuscitated by European and Japanese money far outweighs the "problem" of having fewer wealthy Americans own shares in those factories.

Now, I think that workers should have a share in the capital they use. I think profit sharing plans, stock options, etc. are a step towards the cooperatives that I think would be a more just distribution of capital. But that type of society is a long way off. In the meantime, welfare of the people is a more worthy goal. Little is lost when a German owns a factory, rather than an American. To use Marxist lexicon, the Proletariat is international. Who cares which country our bourgeois oppressors are from?

I think Time should have brought in a more mainstream economist to actually counter Stiglitz' claims. It's poor journalism to just let the guy make such idiotic statements.

People on Fark sure are stupid.

Granted, one shouldn't look on the internet for any type of wisdom, but Fark is the biggest collection of blathering retards this side of 4Chan.

To quote from the complete idiocy (regarding Biggio's Hall of Fame worthiness):

I'm saying that his most impressive stat (3,000) hits) was reached by merely being average for a long time.

There are obviously quite a few things wrong with this statement:

1) 3000 hits was certainly Biggio's most heralded stat, but it was not his most impressive. I'd say most career doubles by a right hander is more impressive, to me at least. His HBP record is also remarkable.

2) Biggio was anything but average. He has a career OPS+ of 111. If you don't include his post-knee injury years, it gets higher. He had 5 years posting an EQA of 300. He had 7 of at least 290. EQA takes into account park effects, and 260 is league average. His career EQA was 286. He was a spectacular hitter.

3) Being an average hitter for 20 years will not get you 3000 hits. Yes, he stayed in the game an extra year to get to that number (and I think most would agree that doing that was a little selfish), but he would have had 3000 hits if he (a) played somewhere other than the Astrodome or (b) hadn't injured himself in 2000.

The problem is that Biggio played 20 years in Houston. Had he done it in New York, Chicago, LA, or Boston, this wouldn't be an issue. ESPN would've covered his ceremony live and spent days talking about how fucking fantastic he was.

Instead, he played for an expansion club that never won a World Series. So he gets shit on by stupid fucks on the internet who never saw him play. Bidge and Bags were two of the best hitters of their era. Anyone who thinks differently on this is probably functionally retarded.

Edit:

Fark is also frequently the source of great wisdom. From "Clonod":

Craig Biggio deserves to be the Hall of Fame, even if he had 2,800 hits.

What is the most important job of a hitter? Get on base, don't make outs. This is especially true if you are hitting in the #1 or #2 hole ahead of players like Jeff Bagwell, or Lance Berkman, like Biggio.

In his prime, Biggio's on base averages were:

.378
.373
.411
.406
.386
.415
.403
.386
.382

He was slo posted slugging percentages in the high .400s-low .500s. Most of these seasons were played in the Astrodome, one of the toughest hitters parks in baseball over the last 40 years.

All of this means that Biggio's best seasons has OPS+ of 141, 139, and 138. By comparison, MVP candidate 2nd baseman Chase Utley has a 135 OPS+ this year.

Oh, and during his prime, he was also stealing 35-50 bases a year at a high frequency. And playing a capable (though unspectacular) 2nd base.

So no, the biggest redneck here:, he was not merely very good for a long time. He was one of the very best players in baseball when he was at the top of his game. I'm sorry you can't see past batting average to understand this fact.


Since WWII, I would rank Biggio the 3rd best 2nd baseman that payed the game, after only Joe Morgan and Jackie Robinson, better than HOFers Rod Carew (if you want to put him at 2nd), Ryne Sandberg, Red Schoendienst (and I'm a Cardinals fan), and Bill Mazeroski. Te only contemporary close to him is Jeff Kent, and you could make an argument that Kent if better (I would disagree) but even so, it's pretty clear that Craig Biggio is one of the greatest 2nd basemen who ever lived, and he belongs in the Hall of Fame.

Couldn't have said it better meself.

If Obama picks a Republican, I'm gonna hafta choka bitch.

There's some talk of Obama picking Chuck Hagel as VP candidate. I don't think this is at all likely, but it's a possibility.

I've long since stopped professing to be a Democrat. I've changed my mind on too many issues with them, and they've failed to stand up for even the most basic of Liberal principles. I seemingly disagree with every Democrat I meet on important topics - abortion, stem cell research, the war. But I have greater disagreements with the Republican party.

More important, however, is the issue of "bipartisanship." Hitchens has talked about this before - bipartisanship should not be made a fetish. It is not an end in itself. In fact, I think bipartisanship is wholly dangerous to the republic.

The two party system is not perfect. I wish there were more parties, but the system is not set up to easily accommodate that. But it is important to remember the jobs that parties serve:

1) They provide voters with a means to find candidates they generally agree with.
2) They provide a clear delineation between opposing ideologies.
3) They provide a sort of check on ideological power - there always exists a group of people who will fight against the established party's plan.

Bipartisanship undermines all of those purposes. A frequent complaint of those independent voters is that the parties are too similar. What better way to show that is true than to run on a unified ticket?

I personally hope that Obama chooses Joe Biden as his running mate. He was the candidate I was going to vote for before he dropped out. I don't know who I will vote for in November, but I definitely won't be voting for an Obama-Hagel ticket.

Retired Numbers

A while back, I read Joe Posnanski's article on retired numbers. Biggio retirement ceremony has got me thinking about it again.

Posnanski kind of slights the Astros on the quantity of numbers retired.

"No offense to the fine people of Houston but … that’s a few too many retired numbers for a 1960s expansion organization that has not yet won a World Series."

At first, this kind of pissed me off when I read it. It still does, but for different reasons. I used to be pissed off because he didn't know how fucking great Cheo Cruz and Jimmy Wynn were; now I'm pissed off because he presumes to know when Houston should retire a number.

Now that Biggio's number is retired, the Astros have retired 9 numbers:

34- Nolan Ryan
24- Jose Cruz
25- Jimmy Wynn
33- Mike Scott
49- Larry Dierker
32- Jim Umbricht
40- Don Wilson
5 - Jeff Bagwell
7 - Craig Biggio

Umbricht and Wilson's numbers were retired because of their tragic deaths. Wynn, Cruz, Scott, Ryan, Bagwell, and Biggio were all great players. Bags and Bidge are going to the hall of fame. Wynn probably should have gone, Ryan is already in, and Cruz is a borderline case who was beloved by Houston fans. Mike Scott very nearly took Houston to its first pennant. Dierker was our first really good pitcher and a fixture in the Astros organization for many years as a player, broadcaster, and manager.

It occurs to me that two other players are actually deserving of retirement: JR Richard and Joe Niekro. Both were great pitchers; both were loved by the fans. Richard stroked out on the field and was never the same. Niekro holds the Astros record for most wins (which is meaningless, I know, but he spent half of his career here and was only behind his brother and maybe Wakefield as a knuckleballer), which will likely be broken in the next few years by Oswalt.

Everyone is pretty certain that Berkman and Oswalt will have their numbers retired when they retire. Barring anything weird (Berkman goes out and shoots up downtown Houston / Oswalt turns out to be the anthrax terrorist), I'm sure they will be, too. JD and Brownie were saying that Oswalt and Berkman are in the middle of HOF careers. I'm inclined to agree, but we'll see in six years where everyone's at. Berkman's most similar batter (by similarity score) is David Ortiz, and I think everyone thinks he'll go in. In any case, it's way too early to start talking about this.

Anyways, that will mean the Astros will retire 11 numbers. I think Billy Wagner will probably be in the HOF not too long from now, and he'll probably go in as an Astro. Houston will be practically obligated to retire #13. So that's 12 numbers retired. That's a lot of jerseys. Especially for a club enfranchised in 1962. The Yankees are the only ones close, at 15 retired.

Some clubs have very strict rules about who gets their jerseys retired. The Mariners and Red Sox only permit those who have been inducted into the HOF to be retired. Most clubs have not retired anywhere close to the number Houston has.

But I don't think that's necessarily bad. There's nothing more like "Houston" than telling older cities, organizations, traditions, or whatever to fuck off. This is a city renowned for the oil boom - couldn't get much more "new money" than that until the internet bubble. We're a sprawling metropolis that flies in the face of what a city should be. The Astrodome - the symbol of this city and the Astros organization - was the biggest, tackiest architectural monstrosity money could buy. Older clubs played in parks like Yankee stadium and Fenway. We played on artificial grass with air conditioning and the home run spectacular. Our grounds crew wore fucking space helmets. We wore the rainbow guts. The Oilers played Run-and-Shoot. The Rockets had the Dream Shake. The Cougars redefined college basketball. The city of Houston doesn't give a shit about your fucking traditions.

So if we want to retire every fucking number between 1 and 99, and start issuing symbols and letters, then we can and will. I hope they retire Roger Clemens' number, too, even if he's denied a Hall of Fame spot for this steroids crap. Fuck them dumbass Yankees - he delivered us our first pennant. And you'll just have to deal with it.

I think the same applies for the Texans. We should retire every number the Oilers retired before Bud Adams consummated his relationship with the devil. And if Goodell has a problem with it he can shove it up his ass. The NFL fucked us over in 1997, and they let fucking Cleveland keep its club name, records, etc, while the legacy of the Oilers left for hillbilly country. Warren Moon and Earl Campbell didn't even fucking play in Tennessee, ever. Why the fuck should they get to keep their records and numbers? Campbell didn't cripple himself for Memphis, he did it for Houston.

Fuck. Now I'm all angry again. Fuck Bud Adams.

Roy Oswalt pitches a gem; Craig Biggio is awesome

The Wizard went 8 innings, allowing only 1 hit, 2 walks, no runs, and striking out 10. Pretty goddamn awesome, especially since he was getting squeezed through the whole game. Roy seems like he's getting back to form. I don't know if it was simply time, a mental thing, or if he went out and got a personal pitching coach, but he has been kickass through his last several starts. Ty Wigginton shot a three-run homer into the Crawford boxes, which accounted for all of Houston's offense. Spaz went 0 for whatever, but he made a pretty spectacular assist with Ausmus at the plate. Valverde came in the ninth, giving up a hit, but getting the save. All around a pretty awesome game.

---------------------

Biggio, of course, was the focus of the day. The ceremony was pretty good, and all of the retired numbers were there, except for Ryan. Bunch of speeches. Everyone talked about his 3000 hits, his doubles, etc. But most of all, they talked about his grit.

I think that's always what happens with players. People seem to want to remember them for things that don't affect the game all that much. Don't get me wrong, the guy was a joy to watch and certainly had grit and was a gamer and all that crap. But I think it's important to remember exactly why he was such an awesome player.

Bill James ranked the best players of the 1990s in his New Historical Baseball Abstract. In it, he placed Bonds at #1. No question, Bonds was the best player of the last two decades. He might have been the best of all time.

#2 (and this always surprises me) was Craig Biggio. James loved the Bidge. And it's easy to see why. Biggio really was a "five tool player." He could hit for average and power, he had a great arm and played spectacular defense, and he displayed remarkable speed.

That speed kept Biggio from grounding into the double play, as did his power. The guy has more doubles than any other right-handed hitter. He won four gold gloves (and deserved it). He had a great ability to get on base, particularly for a guy not spectacularly powerful. And he really knew how to take a pitch to the head. He won five Silver Slugger awards, four as a second baseman and one as a catcher. He had a career high OPS+ of 143, and a career average of 111. He was great - one of the greatest.

Biggio was certainly robbed of a lot of power statistics from his years in the Dome. Had he played in, say, any other ballpark, he likely would be considered one of the greatest of all time by the national media, and here's why: Biggio was only 9 homers away from the 3000 hits, 300 HRs, 300 SB club. If he had played anywhere but the Dome, or if he had played all year in 2000, he would have done it. There's only one other player in all of baseball history to pull that off: Willie Mays. And Biggio had about 80 more stolen bases than Mays, too.In his "Big Book of Baseball Lineups," Rob Neyer wrote that Biggio was "unique." And he meant that in the literal sense. Nobody else has gone from being an all-star catcher to being an all-star middle infielder. That's just not done.

Going by Similarity Scores, Biggio was most similar to Robin Yount. But Bidge has no "truly similar" match. His #3 match, Joe Morgan, is the guy I'd say was most similar, but really there was no one quite like Craig Biggio.

James ranked Bagwell #5 on the Best Players of the 1990s list. The Astros really had a great tandem with the Killer B's. Few teammates in the history of baseball are that great together. The last 15+ years have truly been a great time to be an Astros fan, even with the postseason losses and disappointment. It's a shame that the two had to eventually retire, but they made baseball big in Houston, and did a lot for this city and franchise.

-----------------

So they had about a billion in-game interviews today: Bagwell, Biggio, Bill Doran, and Mike Scott all showed up in the booth. I usually hate that type of crap, but hearing those guys was pretty sweet.

Bagwell gave a pretty great endorsement for Bogusevic. Great ballplayers aren't always great evaluators of talent, but it can't hurt to have one of the greatest hitters ever say that you're looking good at the plate. I hope he gets called up in September.

Who Dat Say They Gon' - oh wait

Watched the first two innings of the Astros game. That blew. Wigginton continued to say "Fuck you!" to all the whiny douchebags calling in to sports radio and complaining about the Wheeler trade. He go two doubles and a triple (!). Pretty good for a chubby guy. After Carlos' injury, Wiggs is the second-best hitter in the lineup. Why Coop doesn't bat him clean up I don't know. He's making it clear that he's the best third baseman the Astros have had since Ken Caminiti was traded and Morgan Ensberg turned out to be a fluke. Though he's certainly not as good on defense as either. Backe got the ball, played for 5.2 innings and gave up 11 runs, all earned. Geary, Brocail, and Hawkins came in and finished up the game without giving up another run.

Kazuo was placed on the DL. This isn't too big of a deal, given that the Stros are out of the race, but injuries have been Matsui's problem since he came over from Japan. JR House was called up from Round Rock, getting a pinch-hit RBI groundout in the 9th inning. House was in the Astros organization for a season a couple of years ago, and he was briefly called up then for a few games. He's played in AAA Round Rock for the season, as both a catcher and first baseman. He's got an 853 OPS there, which is pretty good. But he's also 29, so he's probably condemned to swinging between AAA and the MLB for the remaining few years of his career.

But the Texans handed a loss to the Saints. I'm glad that the NFL and the respective clubs have decided to nurture the burgeoning rivalry between the two teams. Though it's more of an all-in-fun thing than that between the BE-SF and the Texans.

Reggie Bush continued to show that he's a bust. He actually played today, which makes me think that maybe the Saints organization isn't happy with him, telling him that he's no guarantee to play during the year if his performance doesn't improve. He responded with a total of 7 carries for an average of 3.4 yards. No touchdowns on rushing. He caught one 12 yard pass (though he dropped another) for a touchdown. He was tackled once by Williams, which was pretty cool.

One of the sideline reporters asked Mario about the Bush-Williams "rivalry," and he responded with the typical non-interest in such talk. He's right - the discussion of who was the better draft pick was over TWO SEASONS AGO! Hell, in 2007, the only argument one could make was Young vs. Williams, and that's shown to have been in Houston's favor, as well.

I saw PTI's discussion of Reggie Bush yesterday, and they were both saying that his first season was good, but that he went through a sophomore slump. This is bullshit. He only had two more touchdowns his first season, but he was averaging fewer yds/carry, too. He received better, but he still wasn't the RB everyone thought he would be.

Back to the Texans. The defense looked alright, otherwise. Nothing particularly awful (Pass rushing wasn't great. Two sacks were recorded, though), but nothing totally awesome.

Matt Schaub came out and threw perfect passes. Anyone would look good after years of Mr. Mittens throwing in Houston, but Schaub is proving to be an excellent QB. He had a beautiful short passing game - perfect laser shots into his receivers. Excellent. Sage was Sage, and the two Texans QBs look good. Our passing game is going to be great.

But the most pleasantly surprising thing tonight was the running game. Maybe Slaton was just better than anyone expected, but I think a lot of credit goes to the zone blocking scheme. The announcers talked about how Slaton wouldn't be good to use to set up a passing game, but that's not the Texans' game, anyways. During the season, Schaub will come out and throw a few passes, and then we'll use the running game a little, not the other way around.

Jacoby Jones wasn't too good, fumbling THREE TIMES! FUCKING HELL GODDAMMIT! But the defense was able to save the day every time he did it. He fumbled on the first punt return, resulting in a turnover. Not pretty.

So the Texans are looking good. The Astros definitely aren't. Biggio's jersey retirement is tomorrow, though. So we'll get to fondly remember the good days, circa 1996-2005, when the Astros rocked the National League but routinely got pounded in the postseason because God hates this fucking town. Maybe Bagwell will show up in the shirt he wore last year. Good times. Randy Johnson and Roy will be pitching, which should be nice to see, even if the Good Guys collapse.

ESPN Can't Speak Spanish

Watching Sports Center this morning (big mistake), I caught ESPN's recap of last night's Astros game. In it, they mispronounced Q's name: instead of "um-bear-toh keen-ter-oh" it becomes "hum-ber-toh kwin-ter-oh."

I realize that Bristol is a long way from the border, and that Houston is just some sleepy ghost town to those Yankee fucks, but one would think that enough Hispanic athletes have passed through American sports since Roberto Clemente that ESPN could bother to pronounce their fucking names correctly.

Astros get killed; Down on the Farm

Astros got knocked around. Diamondbacks 12-2. Wigginton got 3 hits, including a home run. Lance got an RBI double. Everyone else sucked donkey dong.

Chase Davidson has until tonight to sign. He was the Astros' 3rd round pick, and is the only pick in the Astros' first 16 to be unsigned. Rumor is that he will probably go to college.

It's tough to find statistics on high school prospects, especially beyond basic BA/OBP/SLG lines. But he posted a .500+ OBP his senior year, according to his high school website. They don't give any numbers to indicate whether or not that came from just monstrous hitting or from walking. I'd be more hopeful, of course, if his numbers indicated having a good eye, rather than simply knocking the hell out of the ball. Taking high school position players isn't as bad as taking a high school pitcher. At least there's some indication in high school of where a hitter might end up. But if a guy doesn't demonstrate a good eye in high school, it's doubtful he'll discover one in college or the minor leagues.


Lisa Gray over at the Astros Dugout has a pretty good list of Astros picks and where they are right now. Jason Castro has been unspectacular in his season thus far, posting a .278/.387/.354 line, and only getting 6 doubles and no home runs in his debut. What's at least hopeful is his 14 BB in 23 games (at least one was IBB; he was intentionally walked in his first PA). He can add power later; he probably can't add discipline.

A few players have been promoted already. Jacob Priday (who didn't post anything special in the ValleyCats, but drew 5 walks in his short time there) was promoted to Lexington after only 8 games. He's hit .256/.362/.333 in his first 13 games there. He's drawn 4 walks since starting. That's encouraging. He also strikes out a lot, which isn't. But there are far worse things than striking out. He also plays DH in Lexington, so maybe he'll be another Adam Dunn clone (one can only hope).

This one's really good: Phil Disher, whom we drafted as a catcher from the USC Gamecocks, is still in Low A after 53 games. In that time, he's drawn 21 walks and hit 12 doubles, 2 triples , and 11 dingers . He's posting a .304/.375/.541 line. Those triples might be why the Astros moved him to first base, not wanting him to lose speed. He's stolen one base, which is meaningless when you're a slugger, but speed on the basepaths is a plus. One of the many things that separates Lance from Bags is that Bagwell rarely got thrown out stretching a single into a double or a double into a triple. Lance, on the other hand, is a fat bastard. Hopefully the Astros will promote him soon.


The last dude on the farm I want to talk about is Brian Bogusevic: Ankiel'd former pitcher and fellow Tulane alum (kind of; I think he left before he graduated). Bogusevic was pretty awful as a pitcher, posting a career ERA of 5.50 in four seasons. This year the Astros gave up on his pitching career and took advantage of his batting skills. They moved him down to Salem, where he played 8 games before being called back up to Corpus Christi, this time as an OF. In 28 games, he's gone .377/.463/.638. He's also got a BB% of 13.75%, which is none too shabby. I wouldn't be surprised to see him called up in September.

From what I remember of the two or three Hooks games I've seen, he also plays CF. So if Bourn doesn't work out (and I'm increasingly worried that a combination of organizational incompetence and coaching will mean he won't), we might not have to play Spaz in center.

Alright, one more dude. Our friend JR Towles. JR sucks. I used to think that he was just overwhelmed by MLB pitching, but I think it goes much deeper than that. He's hitting well in AAA, going .275/.338/.517 in 36 games. But he's only walked 7 times in those games. That's the problem. Posting a BB% of 5 during AAA doesn't bode well for one's major league career. And his reactions to failure at the major league level seemed to indicate he was frustrated with it - ballplayers, particularly rookies, have to be able to take failure in stride. The good news is that Q has become the regular catcher. He isn't any good, offensively, but he has a 1990s-Ausmus-like arm.

So there is reason for hope. This draft class seems to be doing alright in their first few weeks/months in pro ball. Only time will tell if they work out, but hopefully these kids can get good quick. The Good Guys need them.

Edit:

Apparently Davidson has decided to not sign. Whatever.

Much more interestingly, Oakland signed their 7th round pick (Brett Hunter) to a seven-figure deal. Beane must have seen something really good for that to happen. Wow.

Dickie J is Houston's Worst Reporter

Don't get me wrong, I like the Longhorns as much as the next non-Aggie Texan. If I have to choose an NCAA Div-1A team that doesn't get its ass kicked by the local community college, I'll take UT (though Tech is pretty cool now. I like the Air Raid offense. Reminds me of vintage Warren Moon). Sorry, Tulane, but we should never have left the SEC. Sure, we'd continue to get pounded by larger, more retarded schools, but we'd make out with boatloads of cash each year. That's why Vandy does it, year in and year out.

Anyways, back to why Justice is a tool. He takes his love of all things Longhorn too far. I get that he's an alum, and I guess that goes a long way (I don't know. Neither of my parents took their colleges that fucking seriously, and dear old Dad went a military academy). But his latest piece of shit about Vince Young and the Longhorns sets a new standard in bullshit.

For those not aware of it, the University of Texas is amending its rules on retiring numbers. Previously, only those who actually graduated from UT could have their numbers retired. This left out guys like Vince Young and Roger Clemens.

If I were a UT alum, I would think this was an embarrassment. It's insulting enough that Vince Young was barely literate, yet allowed to compete in the NCAA. Now the University is going to pretend that he finished his schooling there.

What's really galling about Justice's fellatio of Young and UT is his statement "It's a place of ideas, a place of thought, a place where people learn to be the best they can be," - referring, of course, to the UT Austin campus.

But that's just it - Young had none of those qualities. He didn't even graduate. He didn't become the best he could be at anything but scrambling and passing.

On principle, I don't have a problem with Young going to "school" for three years to hone his skills as a quarterback. The NCAA is a scam that robs young athletes of the money they make for the schools they attend, and on some level I think it's okay for schools like UT, LSU, and USC to admit sub-par students.

But pretending that Young was anything but a hired athlete is bullshit. That's why UT shouldn't retire his jersey, just as they shouldn't retire Clemens'. They were both spectacular college athletes, but neither were there for the "college" part of the equation.

And when will Justice finally come out and admit he was wrong about Mario Williams? He spent all of 2006 and 2007 complaining about our star DE, and now he pretends as if he's always been behind Williams. Hell, Bill Simons admitted that he was wrong, and he doesn't even write for a Houston paper.

In fairness, virtually no one was right about Mario Williams. Only Casserly (who would lose his job shortly after the 06 draft) got it right. No Houston sportswriter thought Williams was the right choice. Only a tiny minority of fans believed that drafting Williams was a good choice. I admit that I wasn't among them.

But two years later, neither Young nor Bush has lived up to expectations. Young might develop into a good QB in a few years, but Bush has shown himself to be a complete and total bust. He averages 3.7 yds/carry. That's ridiculously bad.

But Justice will never admit a mistake. He never acknowledges a change in opinion or gives a reason for why his would change - he simply states a new, mindbogglingly stupid opinion every day.

Fuck Dick Justice and the Chronicle.

Shit that pisses me off #1!

The Astros have just won eight straight. That places us "only" 7.5 games behind the Brewers in Wild Card standings. Knuckleheads throughout the city (fine, throughout the Chronicle comments pages) have latched onto this as a playoff run. It ain't happening, people. No matter what Dick Justice or JdJO write in the paper, the Astros just aren't a very good team.

Right now, the Good Guys are greatly over-performing their expected Win-Loss record. Going by Pythagorean Win-Loss, they are on pace for a 78 win season. Granted, this is better than last year, but the Astros just aren't going to pull this into a winning season, let alone a playoff run. Not without Roy at the top of his game and Carlos hitting behind Twinkies.

The next series is against the D-Backs. Arizona's pitching is very good (Brandon Webb is posting an Oswaltian 2.88 ERA), but their hitting is awful. Dunn will undoubtedly add a great deal to the offense, but one can't expect one man to turn around an entire offense. So maybe the Astros can win by exploiting their shitty batters.

But wait! The D-Backs aren't actually that bad compared to the Astros. They've only scored 5 fewer runs than Houston. That might be bolstered by the quality of the NL West this season, but it still doesn't bode well for the Stros.

The Astros have shown themselves to be good at beating up on bad bullpens. Tuesday's game showed that best - Houston didn't get anything going until Ausmus hit a line shot off of Lincecum's knee. But the D-Backs have a very strong bullpen (as best as I can tell; neither ESPN nor MLB.com have ERAs for the bullpen as a whole). Even if the Astros can tire Webb and Johnson out, Arizona won't send out some young scrub to finish the game.

Which brings me to my final point. Chad Qualls. Why did we trade this guy? He proved himself to be one of the strongest parts of the Astros' bullpen, and we traded him, Burke, and Gutierrez for Valverde. Given Valverde's penchant for giving up fly balls and MMPUS penchant for turning those into homers, he was not really worth it for the Astros. More to the point, he's terrible with inhereted baserunners. Managers seem to think that accruing the "Save" is more important than using their closers efficiently, but Valverde is supposed to be the best guy in the bullpen. He's actually one of the weakest.

Beyond that, Valverde is also an injury risk. Cooper has kept him from having a heavy workload, however, and we haven't seen that side of him this season. The whole deal stunk back then, and it still does. We should have traded Burke and Gutierrez for anything else, and just held on to Qualls.

The only way I see this working out is if Ed Wade trades Valverde to a larger, stupider club next year. He's grabbed a fair number of saves this year, and only blown a few of his opportunities. Detroit comes to mind as a team with a good farm system and a desperate need for relief pitching. Valverde is overvalued right now, and the Astros could probably turn him into something significant.

If you're reading this, go to hell.

This is mostly a place for me to rant about crap that I can't change, but if someone reads this, more power to them.

Houston is my home town, though I spend most of the year in New Orleans. As such, most of my writing will probably focus on that. Specifically, Houston sports teams. Politics might compel me to post something about that, however. We'll see.