Politics round 2

here we are, 6 months into the new term of the presidency and people still are bitching and moaning about the election. This country is so divided along party lines, it is no wonder that this country is so screwed up. The elected officials, who are supposed to be acting like adults have taken to school yard antics to just cause problems with running the country.  This “because we didn’t win, then we are not going to help you” mentality is doing nothing but driving this country into an early grave.  The latest example is a gallup poll in April asking about the background check bill that got voted down. In April, 83% of the US people wanted it passed, yet the republicans wanted to play games with the Democrats or more specifically, Obama, and voted against it anyways. Then admitted that they wanted to pass the bill, but voted against it out of spite.  So, this is the government that we want?  At least with a dictatorship, we know straight out that we have no say in what goes on in the country. What we have now are jackasses who run a campaign and fill voter’s head with rainbows and unicorns just to get elected and once they get into office it turns into some sort of weird Red Queen regime.

You can not have a properly running government when they have the ability to get funds from special interest groups. It is called bribery. A group will offer money to a person that has decision-making power to back them/their cause…that is flat-out bribery. It should be stopped in order for a government to run properly and work “for the people.” In the music business, they made it illegal for bands or record labels to pay DJ’s extra cash to play their bands songs in heavy rotation. We can’t offer a police officer $200 to get out of being arrested. IT IS ILLEGAL! BRIBERY! So, why are our politicians allowed to do it? Remove that element from politics is one step to fixing things.

The next step to fixing this country would be to draft a new Constitution and Bill of Rights. The Constitution was created in 1787 and the Bill of Rights in 1789. By my math, that is 226 year ago. This is what America looked like during this time:

The population around that time was roughly just under 4 million people. Today, the population is over 300 million people. These are important documents, but they are outdated by 200 years and need to be re-written.  For those knuckleheads who feel the need to throw the second amendment speech around should probably learn what it means and its history first. Let me break it down for you.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

A well regulated Militia: The federal government at this time could not afford to assemble a military of their own, so they relied upon locally governed free white people to protect their local colonies. They were assembled for protection against Native American threats. They were hardly used until the Revolutionary War, where they were call upon to hold back the British Army in Massachusetts. Though most of the fighting was done by the Continental Army for the major battles. Fast forward to 2013, we no longer have or need a militia. The militia groups that exist now are radical groups that are more harm than good. They fall more into the category of cults, than militia.

being necessary to the security of a free State: Which was kind of previously covered. These militia groups were assembled as sometimes paid and sometimes voluntary means of protecting the colonies from Native Americans or other intrusions. Today, we call them the police departments. Also, this was written back in the days when people had respect for each other and you rarely had thieves or home invasions.

the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed: The ending of the amendment that the government will not take away your right to own a gun.

So again, the second amendment is translated to: “The government will not take away your right, as a person serving in a militia and protecting your colony, to own a gun.”

That means, that in 1789, the government will not take away your right to own your flint-lock gun or flint-lock musket.  Wait, it’s 2013…let me read this again. OK, I am not in a militia protecting a colony or at the ready to assist my government military in the case of war. We have the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines as protection, so there is no need for a militia. OK, I am confused as to where in the second amendment that is says we have the rights as citizens of the United States to own a gun.

So, before all you gun nuts jump down my throat about this, let me get to my point of this. Besides pointing out the obvious failure in our education system where people can not figure out the true meaning of the 2nd amendment, the main issue is that it needs to be re-written.  I am all in favor that a person should have the right to own a gun to protect their families and property, but the way that it is written right now it really is not giving that right. It is a 200-year-old single sentence that is out dated and basically void. While I do believe we should have the right as humans to own a weapon for protection of family and property, there needs to be regulations and background checks to keep it realistic.

So, if we take away the bribery and criminal activity in government and re-write The Constitution/Bill of Rights based on an America of 2013 and the next step would be to erase the line that divides this country. No republican or democratic party. Base an election on actual issues at hand and not on what political party your family voted for 150 years. I believe that I hit on this issue in a previous post. Go back and read that again, if you wish.

The other issue is the religion in politics. Religion does not belong in politics, end of story. You can not get 5 people in a room that all have different backgrounds and toss the topic of religion on the table. Religion has been the cause of wars for thousands and thousands of years and nobody wins. Religion is the absolute cause of all the evil in the world in some form or the other.  The funny thing is, there is no absolute scientific proof that any of it is actual fact. So, in reality,  wars have been fought for thousands and thousands of years based on nothing. Some papers found in a cave written about a guy named Jesus and an unknown entity named God?  Let me tell you, the Marquis De Sade wrote 120 Days of Sodom while imprisoned in a mental facility, on tiny rolls of paper that he hid in the cracks of the walls.  So, based on the theory of hidden documents being religious relics, S/M should have its own church. People, be free to worship your deity in however fashion that is publicly acceptable, but keep it out of politics.

But, this is the “New America” where we will never fix anything, but will complain about it.

The ID

Back after a brief hiatus

Finally got time to log back in after taking a break for a few months. I think my last topic was just prior to the presidential election and the joys of being friends with people who are on both sides of the political ticket. I’m not going to jump back into that battle again…at least not yet.

My hiatus was due to jumping into the buyer’s choice housing market and purchasing a home.  What started out as a simple transaction that was easily negotiated, turned into a 5 month ordeal. Largely in part of my loan broker and his incompetence and his vanishing acts when important things needed to get done. So, when as said and done, we move in just in time for winter and go into survival mode. The whole point of starting the process back in June was to have things in place and prepped for the cold snowy months. To be sure that the house is warm, possibly have the wood stove cleaned and inspected and have all the water pipes wrapped to prevent any bursts. So after a record-breaking winter and our turtles paced approach into spring, we survived as did our 100-year-old house. I walked into this purchase with a game plan of how I wanted to tackle my renovations, but after going through the first winter here, my game plan has taken a drastic turn.

It wasn’t a terrible winter here, it had its moments. We were able to identify areas that were priority fixes that will DRASTICALLY improve our comfort for next winter. Small things like buying a roof rake to renovating a back room that turns into a giant walk in freezer become unforeseen problems. Though, having a pantry that is part of the back room freezer does mean that I didn’t have moldy bread within 2 days of purchase.

To sum it all up, I hope to be back to writing some opinion pieces during breaks of home renovations.  If anyone is interested in following the progress of the renovations of a 100-year-old farmhouse that is located in Massachusetts can follow along at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Breakwind-Farm/467581379944223

 

The Id

Fixing this Political Mess

The day after a Presidential election. Today is the day that all the bitching and complaining comes out of the woodwork from all the sore losers. These are your friends, family, co-workers, strangers and celebrities. After a couple of years of being bombarded with ads and polls and special interest groups filling every waking minute with dribble about whatever agenda that they are promoting, it finally comes to a screeching halt. Everyone wipes their tears and heads back to the meeting room to figure out where they went wrong and strategize for a run at office in the next 4 years.  The campaigns are filled with a zillion ways that we can twist the truth to make it believable for the robot-like minions that follow a particular political party. Like zombies, they enter the poll booth and vote right down the party lines regardless of the agenda.  Republican and Democratic sides were drawn long ago in the family structure. “My Great, Great Grandfather was a (Republican/Democrat) so that is how I will vote.” It’s like no one really pays attention to the issues or the state of the country or the financial turmoil or foreign policies anymore.  If your rich, than some rich Republican will protect your money and if your poor a Democrat will give you handouts.  On top of it all, people think we are electing a leader for the morality police.  We, as individuals, are supposed to have our life in a dictatorship where we are to be told what we can do and cannot do with our own lives?

Religion, in ALL FORMS, needs to be taken out of politics. I am not Catholic or Jewish or Muslim, therefore, I do not need input from this section of the population telling me how I should run my life. Christianity has their own set of issues that they need to sort out before they can start putting their two cents into other people’s lives. Imagine that you’re in your cushy little suburban neighborhood either retired or not, but your neighbor comes over twice a week to play cribbage or some other old person card game. Somehow in the middle of the conversation, you come to realize that this neighbor of yours, this friend for the past 20 years; reveals to you that she had an abortion when she was 17 years old. This would have probably taken place in the mid 1960′s. Would you stand up from the game, point to the door and tell her to “Get Out!” and never be friends with this person again? I very strongly doubt that it would be something MOST people would do. I am pretty sure that, because we are Americans that thrive on gossip and rumor, as soon as this neighbor who had an abortion at 17 years old left the house; there would be phone calls around the neighborhood to spread the story. This is how we, as Americans do things. We can’t face things head on, we need to do things in secret and shun individuals that do not fit into the mold of morality that certain people want. This is the year 2012, not 1908…things have changed so drastically that there is no possible way that we can ever go back to the “old days.” We can’t send our children to school and expect that a ruler be smacked across the backs of their hands for misbehaving. The morality police of this generation won’t even tolerate a child being sent out of the classroom and being told to stand facing the wall for 10 minutes for misbehaving. This type of punishment happened just back in the 1980′s…a fact, because I was one of those kids sent to the hallway many times. I keep hearing the phrase: “The morality in this country is at its lowest.” Your right, it is and it is because of the people who feel the need to butt into every situation and preach that we can’t do this and we can’t do that are the same people complaining about the morality. You can not have things both ways. You can not interrupt justice because it doesn’t fit your moral code then at the same time complain that everyone is out of control. But it’s too late to change back, the damage is done. The separation of church and state is vital to having a productive government that is working for the people of America.

I paused after the last paragraph to pick up my child from school. As a second grader, they are studying “colonial america” as part of her studies. Today in her class was “colonial school days.” I asked her how the day was with having a teacher playing the part of a teacher in colonial times. She told me that she had to ear a sign around her neck with “nail biter” because she got caught biting her nails. She also had to stand in the corner for putting her elbows on the table. One child, the teacher’s own son, had to wear a “dunce hat” because he did something wrong.  I asked her how she liked having a class like that and she said she didn’t like it because her teacher was being too mean.  She did understand that she was being taught in a manner of long ago and was “pretend” for the day. She could not wait to go back to the normal class tomorrow. She did learn how important it is to behave while in school though and could appreciate todays class structure compared to how it once was.  My personal opinion is that every school should enforce a school uniform policy and allow a little discipline in the classrooms. Obviously within certain limits.

It seems that with each election, there are a few states that are adding the “same sex marriage” question to the ballots. Why is this even an issue. Who cares what goes on behind peoples doors as long as it is not affecting your way of life. This goes back to the religious morality police and how it is not in the bible. The bible was written 2000 years ago and if you think that there were no girl/girl or guy/guy activities going on, then your sadly mistaken. Does the sexual act of male on male sex interests me? Not in the least, but who the hell am I to say who can fall in love with who. There is an age of consent for a reason, for people to consent to whoever they love or whoever they plan on being intimate with. Regardless of your moral agenda, the gay community is here and I am pretty sure that it is not going anywhere any time soon. You don’t have to like it or approve of it, but get over it and get used to it. I find the Catholic Church and it’s pedophiles far more offensive than any same-sex intimacy that is going on behind closed doors between consenting adults.

Now that we remove the religious influence from government officials, we need to do away with the political parties. No more, Democrat, Republican, Independent, Green, Tea Parties. The government then is cut into separate sectors like, Justice, Finance, Foreign Policy and so on. Have individuals run in an election for heads of their respective expertise.  We need to elect a person who has studied and excelled in each sector of the government and not leave the appointment of individuals in the hands of one elected individual. Show me a handful of people with a background check, a resume and their accomplishments within the area of which they are ‘applying” for.  America is not a business or a company and cannot be run as such. We can’t have one person running it and then he hires all his unqualified buddies to take on positions that they have no inclination as to what to do. Why is it important to bail out General Motors just because they make a shitty product that no one wants to buy? If the government can bail them out, then why can’t the little mom and pop corner store get the same help? GM started in the same fashion in 1908 as a small company producing cars and it took them 100 years to be the giant that they are. Maybe in 100 years that mom and pop corner store will contribute some sort of revolutionary idea/product to the world.

Along the same theme, the debate about jobs being sent overseas. Companies that have their product made in foreign land and the people here in America complain about losing their jobs. The reality is that unions, while in some aspects have a use and purpose, they also promote laziness and work hard to fight against things that are basic common sense. Unions are the poster child for being bullies. When a business is breaking ground for construction, they request bids for the construction jobs. Then the big bad union steps in and says “This is our territory. Only union workers are allowed to do construction in this area.”  When a company decides to not go with a union contractor, these bullies spend their days picketing the construction sites, destroying and stealing non-union workers tools and strong arming people. So, this is the American way, to bully people into overpaying for a bunch of lazy workers to perform shoddy work.  Maybe the working conditions in foreign countries are not ideal to the American lifestyle, but it the way that these countries operate. Japan seems to be the technological capital of the world, they must be doing something right. I love to listen to my friends have the Ford/Chevy debate as to which truck is better. I have owned a Ford and it was garbage, I thoroughly loved my foreign Toyota truck.

There is one small tidbit of this past presidential election that has always struck me as humorous, the whole Obama birth certificate mess. Apparently, because Obama’s father is from Kenya then there is some big secret that Obama must not be an American born Citizen.  The great and might Oz, Donald Trump decides that he is no longer a businessman but has become the rich and powerful and thinks that he has some sort of political stature and continues to push the whole birth certificate issue. This is all based on the fact that the president’s father is from Kenya. Well, let’s take a peek at the other side of the ballot for a second. Mitt Romney’s father was not born in America, he was actually born in Mexico. “So what” you say? Well, Mitt’s dad was born in Mexico after his great grandparents fled America to Mexico because they were polygamous Mormons. Those who live in glass houses…blah, blah.

I’m not hear to bash one side over the other. I think that the Democrat side are a bunch of wimps.  Every little mouth that cries, then they try to feed. I, as are most of the hard-working population, are tired of the free handouts to people. Everyone thinks that things need to be spoon fed to them. A little complaining about some aches and pains and the disability checks come rolling out. A little crying that your depressed, another disability check. Don’t want to get a job and you have 5 kids? Here is an EBT card for food, tattoos, booze and strip clubs. I work my 40 hours a week and so does my wife. We pay taxes. We bust our asses to avoid sending our child to public schools because it is just that terrible. The government should give us bonus checks just for doing our part in supporting the degenerates of society. Instead of just writing disability checks like a madman, why not invest in retraining people. Can’t work construction because of a bad back? Then get retrained in some other skill that you can do. If you don’t want to be retrained, then sorry, cut off the government disability. Imagine how much money the government could save by just doing that. I know that in my line of work that people will always be either too sick or injured to drive themselves to the hospital or too lazy. It is usually the guy that you can tell is having the biggest heart attack that doesn’t want to go by ambulance. He wants to drive himself.

Which is a good time to jump to the next problem with America. Why is it that a hospital can charge anywhere from 65 cents up to $18.02 for a SINGLE BABY ASPIRIN? If you book your trip to Disney and put up your family of four in a hotel room with double queen size beds and a spectacular view of giraffes for an over-estimate of $500 per night. For $933 per night you can stay in the W Paris Opera Hotel in Paris France which is a 15 minute walk away from The Louvre Museum. Both places are beautiful locations and most anyone would pay that price for a night in either location. Then why the hell does it cost up to $5000 a day for a hospital room? You get an ugly room that you share with some stranger, with a bitchy nurse who could care less about your health and unsanitary conditions. You leave the hospital poor and most likely with MRSA. The US spends the most in the world on healthcare and it is ranked 37th. I’m not much of a math expert, but that doesn’t seem right at all. With all due respect to my nurse friends, but you can be replaced easily by a paramedic who has more skills and more affordable cost to the hospital. I’m not saying that as a paramedic, because the last thing that I want is to spend an 8 hour shift with a patient. I am saying that because it is fact. The other side of the medical costs issue is the insurance companies. If I told the electric company that I only pay 50% of any incoming bills, they would tell me to stick it in my hat and shut off my power. The hospital costs need to be cut down and the insurance companies can’t decide what they feel like paying.

Foreign policies…we are not the world police. It is not our job to jump into every little battle or moral injustice in the world. Did we not learn anything from Mogadishu? I do have absolute respect and throw my full support behind anyone who serves in the military. I, however, do not feel that are people need to be sent all over the globe to beat up the bullies. I am by no means an expert in foreign policies, but American needs to elect the right individual with the right qualifications to be able to handle the American foreign policies. Someone who is not a coward, but also someone who will not ship our military off to every corner of the world so fight the battles of others.

In closing, until American learns from all these mistakes and take in account what the American people want as a majority, the current system with continue to fail and things will never be solved. We cannot continue to be divided along party lines and still think that we will accomplish something. Hurry up and fix this, if not in my lifetime then maybe for my kids life.

The Id

Racism in ice hockey

People that I allow to get to know the real me, know that I am pretty passionate about a few things and very intolerant to a few things. Outside of my family, I am pretty passionate about ice hockey as a sport. The current situation in the NHL has left me wanting to feed my love of the sport by watching the AHL, KHL, college teams and European leagues. I have friends who are avid sports fans and follow football, baseball, ice hockey and basketball religiously. Some of these same friends will occasionally have a few drinks and some of my friends will not drink at all. My friends are, for the most part, responsible functioning members of society. They are goofballs who will crack insane jokes or pull great pranks, and I am proud to say that the people who I am friends with and associate myself with are not drunken racist idiots.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/wayne-simmonds-agent-speaks-verbal-assault-against-client-230222336–nhl.html

I really don’t understand why people need to attend a public sporting event and get completely dismantled on booze and start acting like complete jackasses. Even if acting like a complete fool is unavoidable based on IQ level, why do these same idiots need to start taunting a professional athlete with racial slurs? What purpose does that serve? Would these same fans have the same balls to catch up to Chris Simon on the street or in a bar and call him a “redskin”? Would they call Hall of Famer, Grant Fuhr a “ni**er” if they met in the supermarket?  To put into another perspective, would you get trashed at the company Christmas party and call the president of your company a “ch*nk” or  ”fa**et” or “dy*e”?  (yes, it’s kinda stupid to edit the words since we all know what the words are, but…)

Pretty much anyone over the age of 30 or 35 grew up calling their friends a “f*g” or “ret*rded.” It is up to individuals to change their mindset and be conscious that these terms are derogatory, hurtful and really just not right. I have tried to change my word usage and it is up to everyone to realize that it is not 1930′s or 1960′s or even 1980′s anymore. Being primarily the only white guy on a Caribbean island and being called “white boy” or “Red Man” or “Whitey”, really put racism and being a minority into perspective. This was only for a 3 week vacation, I couldn’t imagine dealing with that for my whole life. We don’t have “White Only” signs everywhere. We are not segregated in schools or on buses anymore. We are supposed to be the better nation and the better people and this garbage of paying $100 for a nosebleed seat at an ice hockey game and listening to some drunken idiot stumbling around and picking fights and screaming racial slurs at a player on the ice is ludicrous.

Wayne Simmonds busted his ass training and fine tuning his skill to achieve a goal of playing at an elite level as a professional athlete. This same thought goes for any athlete in any sport at any level. 9 times out of 10, these athlete are just doing something they love to do. I know nothing about Scarborough, Ontario, but I am pretty sure it is just like any other city in the world where a kid can grow up being a punk and not doing anything with your life, regardless of skin color, but he dedicated his attention to mastering his athletic skills.

I would be first in line to call Simmonds a bum if he couldn’t make a pass to the ocean from a rowboat in the middle of the Atlantic, as I would with any player who was playing a terrible game. As a professional athlete in the public eye, I am sure that Simmonds would expect that from the team fans or opposing fans. What is cowardly, is to be a nameless/faceless “fan” in a crowd of 100,000 spectators in an arena and banging on the glass and throwing out racial slurs.

Grow up people.

Medical Marijuana or “The Junkie Permit”?

The time is coming for some big votes and one of the items to be voted on it the use of “medical marijuana” here in the state of Massachusetts.  I have publicly stated my opinion on politics in a previous post and I openly admit that I do not vote.  With my vote not being cast as a protest to the whole flawed system, that does not mean I don’t have an opinion.

Now I am going to add my 2 cent with this whole medical marijuana mess. First off, I have smoked weed in the past. It is not something that I will jump on a high horse and deny that I ever did.  I will even go out on a limb and admit that the reason why I smoked weed was because I liked the feeling of being altered and basically because my friends did.  I wasn’t pressured or bullied into it, I made my own conscious decision to do it.  As a teen, I enjoyed being high and drunk. It was my own conscious decision to stop smoking weed and stop drinking. I drink maybe a total of 5 times a year and I can’t remember the last time I was drunk. I have had moments since my teen years that I have smoked weed, but then I get over it pretty quick. It’s just not my thing anymore.  I get the feeling that having a clean piss test has become a minority group lately.

Second, I can see that there are medical conditions that medical marijuana may help with the coping or eating or the vomiting. The consensus for criteria for medical marijuana is: Cancer, MS/ALS, Glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, Spinal Cord Injury/Disease, Epilepsy and Arthritis. This is the same criteria for both the US and Canada. Now, if this was followed by medical professionals and whoever the powers that be involved with the whole medical weed authority; then I can stand behind this whole heartedly. Unfortunately we live in a world of scammers and con artists and people who will try anything short of killing their own mother to fool the system.  One troubling criteria that keeps coming up with regard to medical weed is the “chronic severe pain” as an authorized medical condition. If the pain is associated with the aforementioned medical conditions, then by all means…smoke it up.  By having the line “chronic severe pain” attached as a qualifier, it opens the door to anyone to jump on board. This opens the door for all the Fibromyalgia “patients.”  Which, by the way, is a “medical condition” that has no scientific proof that it exists. Seems like we really don’t need to worry about EEE, West Nile Virus, Swine or Bird flu or The Black Plague…our focus need to be finding a cure for Fibromyalgia.  Currently the treatment for Fibromyalgia is medical marijuana, a big fat disability check and an overly abused EBT card.

Looking at the statistics for Oregon’s medical marijuana program ( http://public.health.oregon.gov/DISEASESCONDITIONS/CHRONICDISEASE/MEDICALMARIJUANAPROGRAM/Pages/data.aspx )  The numbers look reasonable except the “Sever Pain” category. The “severe pain” users are almost doubled as all the other conditions combined. That, to me, should begin to raise some flags about who is scamming the system.

While I feel that there is a place for THC in the medical world for treatment of legit conditions, opening this or any state up for medical marijuana without getting the government handouts under control is a huge mistake.

The NHL…it’s all about greed

I am a sports fan. I have been involved with playing and watching ice hockey since I was about 7 years old.  My parents worked extra jobs, drove me to early game or practices and watched my games to support me.  This probably happens in almost every household that has a child that is involved with sports. Every player has that dream of making it to the professional level. Every kid in youth hockey dreams of someday growing up to hoist the holy grail of trophies, The Stanley Cup. Every kid that plays any sport dreams of hoisting the championship trophy of their respective sport. All the sacrifices and the hard work are all focused on a single dream.  Unfortunately, as much as we dream as kids, the reality is that only a small percentage of these hard-working kids will actually make it to big leagues. And in reality, only those that get into the “high-profile” universities will even get noticed. If you’re a hockey player, BU, BC, Harvard, U of Maine or U of Michigan are the primary stomping grounds for future NHL players…unless your Canadian or a European player. So, with all your hard work and dedication, your chances to making it to the elite level are pretty damn slim just because of geography and if you can get into the “hockey schools” at the college level. There are plenty of hidden or unknown players who have the skills to play with the big boys, but they go unnoticed an undiscovered.

Now, I will admit that I and not much of a fan of baseball, football and basket ball.  I never played those sports and never really had the desire to.  I actually did play one season of baseball as a kid and I was terrible. I wanted to pitch, but because I am a side arm thrower the coach, my step-father, thought I would kill someone. So I stood out in the field, not paying attention and bored out of my mind. It was just one season and it was only to keep active until hockey season started back up again. Back in those days, we didn’t have summer hockey clinics to join and work on our skills and keep in shape. Once off-season hockey schools opened up, the thoughts of other sports dwindled. For some of us, soccer was a warm up or cool down to our hockey seasons. All in all, it was a focus on a dream of being elite.

Fast forward 30 something years and having a family and a job, we become adults who no longer play the game, but find ourselves as spectators of our dream sports.  The year is 2012 and within the last 12 months we had a short season of basketball due to a lockout. We have college referees working in the NFL. The NHL is on the edge of its second lockout in 7 years or third lockout in 10 years.  The 94-95 lockout shortened the season and the 04-05 resulted in an entire season cancelled.  I am not completely convinced that the NHL recovered from that lockout. I know a lot of hockey fans that turned their backs to the NHL because of it. Not to mention that sports like the MLB, NFL and NBA are all on regular channels to watch on TV and the NHL is banished to the Versus or whatever the channel is now called. To find a game to watch on TV, it’s a bit of a search and rescue mission. While those few who are not fans of the other sports are bombarded with games on the high-profile networks and have to deal with cancelled shows and delayed newscasts.  I applaud the NFL for at least making Sunday as football day. Obviously that is because of the short season, but at least I know what to expect on Sundays.

Getting back to the NHL and heading into the “greed” portion of todays rant, to attend an NHL game almost costs as much as a monthly mortgage.  The typical sports fan base is made up of the non-rich people. Your not going to see Bill Gates  tailgating it before a football game or throwing on a L.A. Kings jersey banging on the glass during an on ice fight or standing in line for an over-priced beer.  The rich guys (and gals) will be in the luxury boxes sipping wine and champagne while chatting it up with other rich people and most likely not even paying attention to the game.  Besides the joy of watching an 8th seed team like the Kings bust their asses to win last years cup, we did get to see some celebrity sports fans sitting with “the common folk” to enjoy the games. That is just a rarity and only happened because the finals were in Los Angeles. What the NHL doesn’t see or doesn’t pay attention to is the fact that most of the fan base is made up of regular common blue-collar workers. We don’t make ridiculous salaries to drop on a “luxury item” like an over priced hockey game.

http://viewfrommyseats.com/2010/08/nhl-ticket-prices/

http://www.fancostexperience.com/pages/fcx/fci_pdfs/6.pdf

The above links are pretty decent comparisons of what it costs across the board as a fan to attend a game in any of the cities. Now, I am not stupid enough to not see that the NHL and team ownership is a business and like any other business, it needs to make money. Trust me, I live in Boston Bruins territory and have suffered heartache year after year of watching the owner, Jeremy Jacobs, not spend any money for elite players. Hindsight, maybe his plan worked; the Boston Bruins went on to win the cup with a bunch of players who played with heart instead of playing with their wallets. The same thing happened for the L.A. Kings, as they didn’t really have any standout players.  A group of players who grind it out for the love of the game and not for the love of the big pile of money. The Stanley Cup can be won with heart. The Stanley Cup can be won with a hot goaltender. There are teams that, based on player statistic, will fail to make a playoff spot or will get bounced in the first round. Skills make the games interesting to watch, but it really comes down to just plain luck.

Back to the business aspect of the NHL, the owners need to make money. Coaches, players, trainers, equipment managers, arena staff, concession stands, security, buses and drivers and a whole list of other expenses need to be paid all at the same time trying to make a profit.  There seems to be a trend that owners also own other businesses just to take money from that pool to dump it into the team pool just to pay for things. It must be disappointing to be skimming off of your other businesses to paying a outragous salary of an “elite” player with the hopes of bringing home a Stanley Cup, but only to end up on the golf course for the first round of the playoffs.  At times it even seems like a joke to some of these players. The “eh, I got my $14 million this year” attitude really just sucks.  This is across the board in all the major sports. I absolutely hate NASCAR, but I don’t believe that they get a contract salary. They have to go out and earns sponsors that will place advertising on their cars for money to help pay the support staff and vehicle repairs.  The bonus money comes in winning races. You don’t win, then you don’t get paid. The same goes with golfers or tennis players. I do understand that those are individual sports, but the same theory applies.

Do we need a reminder of the infamous Alexander Diagle first round pick disaster?  The “elite” player awarded a 5 year/$12.5 million contract and basically ended up so deep in hockey minor leagues that his parents can’t even find him. Why don’t we make a base line entry salary for a rookie player at $x and each year increase it at a certain percentage. Just like any other job. Performance based raises. Set up bonus incentives for goals/assist/points/save percentage/goals against/plus-minus ratings.  Bigger bonus steps for winning each round in the playoff and larger bonuses for a championship.  Do away with the stupid bling rings too.  that is just a waste of money.  They are so stupid looking that I can’t imagine anyone wears them on a daily basis.  As for being a reminder of a championship, there are far better ways and plenty of video/photo coverage of a player hoisting the Stanley Cup. This will also make it a level playing field for players being traded. Eliminate some of these no-trade clauses in the contracts as well.  You’re a hockey player who is lucky enough to make it to the NHL, get over the ego. You “work” for the NHL and you will play wherever you are sent to. Florida to Montreal…tough shit, no crying and just play the game.

Finally, speaking of crying, this brings us to Tim Thomas and players before him and after him in all the major sports. You are under contract and you are not injured. Get your whiney ass on the ice/field and do what your paid to do.  I would love to head in to my bosses office and tell them that I am going to take the year off and get paid for it.  You want to sit out for a year? Then your contract is voided and you can not sign with a new team. Same goes for players who are under contract but feel that they are special and think that they will refuse to play until they get a better contract for more money. Refuse to do your job and the result should be, end of your professional sporting career with no chance of returning.

Don’t screw this season up because I feel that the NHL will never recover from another lockout.

The Id

Taxpayers to pay for sex change of a convicted murderer.

To begin, I am not going to go into the psychology vs scientific evidence, the right or wrong of or even the religious views of Gender Identity Disorder. Although I have a pretty firm grasp of what really is a psychiatric disorder, I am a pretty firm believer in the theory of “I don’t care what you do to your own body or who you prefer to sleep with.” It’s not my business what anyone does as long as it doesn’t effect me or my family.  We live in a society where people are always trying to get their 15 minutes of fame whether it is covering your body in tattoos, jumping on a soapbox to call out anyone and everyone for whatever reason or doing something ridiculously disturbing and then calling it art. Do whatever you want but leave everyone else out of it.

Back in 1990,Robert Kosilek murdered his wife and was convicted by a jury who felt that there was sufficient evidence as to his guilt. I do remember seeing this story on the news way back when it happened, but I wasn’t part of any trial. This has nothing to do with any specifics of what happened that led to a conviction.

This is about a scumbag defense attorney and a clueless federal judge. Today Federal Court Judge, Mark Wolf, paved the way for a convicted felon to receive gender re-assignment surgery. This surgery will not be paid for by a family trust fund or a psychotic fan of the killer, but by the taxpayers of Massachusetts. Not only does the citizens of Massachusetts need to pay for every meal, medical treatment, the prison guards and general upkeep of a prison, this jackass now wants everyone in the state to pay to have is “johnson” cut off. Is it not enough that the economy is turmoil and the FREE society is spiraling out of control? In a previous post, I mentioned that I am a non-voter and proud…I will be first in line to vote for the politician who puts a stop to this nonsense. I am part of a working family that busts their ass to maintain a household and provide an education for our child.

I really believe that, at the very least, citizens need to get an itemized list of where our taxes go to. Pay for road repairs and plowing? Absolutely. To assist with low income families in need? Sure, but only if it’s watched with a strict eye. I understand that we need to contribute at a state and federal level. I sure as hell don’t want to contribute to running a prison, but such is life. I would probably be a little more willing to contribute if it was to purchase bullets for a firing squad or rope for the gallows. I would even be ok with funding a Devil’s Island type of penal colony. If I have to pay for their daily needs, then I want prisoners to bust their asses until they die. No luxuries. A bed on a pile of hay, breaking stones or digging holes and if someone is sent to solitary confinement, I want it to be months of darkness and psychological torture.

I don’t want my tax money going to electrolysis or a sex change. I am totally unclear as to why a Federal Court Judge feels that it is within the clown’s constitutional rights to have society pay for his transformation. Where has the days of yore, when going to prison was a punishment? There is a part of me that feels that, specifically to Robert Kosilek, that he is playing everyone with this Gender Identity Disorder scam. My instincts tell me that this is just a way for him to get his days in court and eventually transfer to a women’s facility. Which would set the transgender community back 50 years.

There are really just 2 hopeful options for a proper outcome of this. A politician stops this in it’s tracks immediately or we can hope that Robert Kosilek assists in his own demise.

 

The Id