The Cooperation Nazi

I'll admit to being paralyzed the last couple of weeks; with the healthcare reform 'negotiations,' there really has been too much preposterousness for me to process, much less post. But back on the horse with everyone's favorite totally not-senile recent presidential candidate, John McCain, speaking today on repercussions:

"There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year," McCain said during an interview Monday on an Arizona radio affiliate. "They have poisoned the well in what they've done and how they've done it."

Um, two questions: Was there cooperation before this? Because I think I missed it. And "for the rest of the year"? Seriously? Was there a meeting, at which this time frame was agreed upon? Did they put Mr. Happy Fun Guy in charge of making that decision? Who's got the fly-on-the-wall stuff here?

Bachmann-hysteria overdrive

I mean, I can't swear she's consciously and actively engaged in a contest with Palin, but we can all be forgiven reaching the conclusion.
This on the climate change bill the House passed Saturday:

But what is worse than this is the fact that now because of this underlying bill, the federal government will virtually have control over every aspect of lives for the American people.

Does that include grammar? Because if the government can clean up the way Bachmann speaks, I might be willing to sacrifice my Twinkies or light spanking or whatever it is Bachmann thinks they want to take away from me.

I've also reached a new hypothesis about the representative for the lucky state of Minnesota: Is it possible she just is lazy? If she overreacts like this to passage of a climate change bill, it seems reasonable to assume she would oppose, if more temperately, just about any bill. She clearly thinks the role of the federal government is not to make law or, you know, govern. And yet she's a U.S. representative! Why did she become one? What is it she thinks she should be doing with her time, short of campaigning for re-election? If they come for me in the night, you'll know I was on to something with this.

Better use a lifeline

Straight from the twit's mouth:

Due to intense spring floods, I've declared a disaster for Interior AK; this opens doors for govt agencies to better assist AKns in need.

Are you sure? I bet there're all sorts of strings attached. I bet the damn government's gonna want you to use that disaster money to, oh, I don't know, handle the disaster. YOU GONNA LET THEM TELL YOU WHAT TO DO WITH THEIR MONEY?!?!?

Who's got a link to one of those maps that shows how Alaska and other 'red states' get the most federal aid per tax dollar, and the blue states pay for it?

Tony Atlas Shrugged

What would happen if fans stopped attending sporting events, presumably because tickets prices are too high, which is presumably because athletes’ salaries are too high?

And what would happen if the commissioners of the major sports leagues told their athletes they were making too much money, and the salary system was going to change immediately.

What would happen if the athletes went on strike and the team owners, and presumably the fans, refused to budge on the ideal that athletes should not be allowed make millions of dollars more per year than the average worker?

Is that something we’d be interested in?

Because a recent ESPN/Seton Hall University poll proclaimed that the majority of its respondents (40 percent) said that baseball’s biggest problem is players making too much money.

Huh? … What? … Whuh?

Not steroids? Not the prices of tickets? Not the length of ballgames? Not the length of the season? Not the dwindling numbers of African-Americans playing the game? Not the “Viva Viagra” commercials played incessantly on TV to young viewers? Not the fact that the most important games of the season aren’t decided until hours after little kids have gone to bed?

It’s not Bud Selig? It’s not even Jeannie Zelasko?

The biggest problem in our national game — and no, historically and culturally, the American Rugby League (a.k.a., the NFL) is not our national pastime, but that’s a post for another day — is that Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez make too much money??? That Scott Boras is too good of an agent?? That the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers spend too much money on salaries???

Oh sure, millions of people are outraged right now over bailouts and economic nationalism and unseemly bonus money, yadda, yadda, yadda. And, oh boy, was there an outcry from many of these same people when Candidate Obama suggested that people making more than $250,000 per year should pay a larger percentage in taxes than those who are comparatively closer to the poverty line! (Remember those idiotic chain e-mails, supposedly based upon an "actual" classroom exercise by an “actual” high school teacher that likened tax hikes on the wealthy to an entire class automatically getting C’s?)

But you ask these same millions of nimrods if there should be salary caps in sports, they say Yes. Definitely yes! Why? Because it’s “not fair” that large-market teams like the Yankees have a major financial advantage! The playing field, in baseball, is “not level!” I’ve stopped counting how many dummies I know who say they enjoy football more than baseball because the American Rugby League “has parity” and doesn’t allow teams to simply outspend everyone else.

Though, when you look at the past 10 Super Bowl champs …

(Pittsburgh, New York, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, New England, New England, Tampa Bay, New England, Baltimore, St. Louis)

… And the past 10 World Series champs:

(Philadelphia, Boston, St. Louis, Chicago, Boston, Florida, Anaheim, Arizona, New York, New York)

… I’m not exactly seeing much of a difference in “parity.” If anything, the playing field looks a tiny bit more “level” in baseball, the sport without a salary cap. Just sayin’.

In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand argued that individual achievements (and the financial fruit of that achievement) enable society to thrive, and that, over time, coerced self-sacrifice cheapens and ultimately destroys a society.

Listen to any hard-core football fan (or better yet, Steve Young or Emmitt Smith) long enough, and you'll hear them complain about how the best NFL teams of today can't compare to the old Steelers or Niners or Cowboys juggernauts. Why? The salary cap.

So let Manny and A-Rod get their money if somebody’s willing to pay them. Let the teams from New York and Boston and Los Angeles outspend everyone if they have the resources to do so. Who cares if a left-handed pitcher or a trash-talking wide receiver breaks the bank? Why do you really care?

Or then, let’s not pay the very best athletes a dime more than your average CEO — still a pretty sweet salary, if you ask me — and let them walk off the playing field in disgust. Let them quit.

And then let’s not pay any attention to sports, and let’s start watching a hell of a lot more CSPAN, and let's start paying a lot more attention to how our children do in math class, which probably is something we should’ve been doing all along …