Musings on the daily events in politics and sports as well as some local bar stops along the way in LA.

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Complain like an Armenian or play ball like a Georgian?

So President Bush is in Georgia today (the country not the state). Here is a classic example of the US paying back people who play ball with him. Georgia had a "rose revolution" last year where the government was toppled by the people without a single shot being fired, then a Pro-US leader was put in place. Georgia is a country that two years ago people were saying was going to cease to exist in 5 years, now its quickly becoming one of the more stable governments in the region. Of course the Rose Revolution took place coincidentally after the US started a program to train the Georgian troops and increased the American presence in Georgia. All the while pissing of Putin even more because of American presence in his ex-Soviet territories. What Bush is doing with Putin is pure genius. While most people are complaining that Bush is too close with Putin while Putin is taking Russia back to the dictatorship of the Soviet era. What people dont realize is that while Bush is letting Putin do his thing in Russia, while calling him a great friend, hes putting Putin in a corner under the guise of friendship. What is actually happening is that Bush is gobbling up the ex-Soviet states and getting them into NATO, EU, Council of Europe and any other Western Institution he can think of. In the Caucasus he's installing a Pro-US democracy in Georgia, giving Armenia the 2nd most per capita US aid, and opening a pipeline to get the Azeri oil. While in the short term he's letting Putin worry about Chechnya, he realized there was so little he could do about Chechnya he'll let Putin control those areas and the US will take everything else.
So Bush thanks Georgia by visiting the country. A visit by the US president to a 3rd world country like Georgia will do wonders for their economy. US presidents dont travel alone, the security and media that follows him assured that there wasnt a single vacant hotel room in the entire region, not to mention the windfall for the prostitution in that area. It was a nice injection of cash while showing the world that the US will stand by you if you play ball (by playing ball I mean allow the US to control the region through your respective country.)
So why isnt Armenia playing ball? We'll for one thing all Armenians do is complaing about President Bush, and the Armenian Americans arent helping that cause any. The main issue is that Armenia has an identity which we won't deny. We refuse to be Pro-West and as a result we're pissing off the US. Do you think its a coincidence that the parliamentary shootings took place an hour after the highest US ranking official that had ever visited Armenia was leaving (I think it was the assistant sec of defense) or that the next time a ranking American official went to Armenia (assistant sec of state), there were major demonstrations and the opposition was trying to topple the government. So the last two major US officials to visit Armenia left and each time there was an attmepted overthrow of the government within a week. So while were not getting Presidential visits and taking a shortcut to development by playing ball, the Armenian economy grow on its own without artificial help from the US. Except for that free money the ANCA is getting for Armenia through Congress, but who'se gonna say no to free money?

Is not playing ball a good move or should we let the US come in and exert some power while helping out Armenia in the short term?
Ask me in about 10 years.

And whats with these blowouts in the NBA playoffs? Can we just skip the 2nd round and go straight to Detroit-Miami and Phoenix-San Antonio that everyone wants to see.

This could have been an extremely well written and informative post but I have a final on Thursday so you get this convuluted crap instead.

Kris

Sunday, May 08, 2005

Whiny liberals and ESPN bandwagons.

Random thoughts for today:
"The US should feel responsible for putting Saddam Hussein in power, but not responsible enough to do something about it." So the only way to keep you liberals happy was to allow you to bitch that the US put him in power without actually doing something to take him out of it. Uh ok.

“We should have gone into Sudan not Iraq, there is a genocide going on there.” Yes there is a genocide going on in Sudan and we should do something about it but the first rule of government is that every nation looks out for its own national security. One country was in the middle of a breeding ground for anti-US sentiment AND had some oil on the side, and the other country posed absolutely 0 security threat and is in the middle of a continent that brought us such great advancements such as the ebola virus and apartheid to go along with the god knows how many civil wars going on at any given moment. Yet we are still leading the world in voicing out against the genocide in Sudan.

Whats that sound? It’s the sound of millions of people and everyone at ESPN jumping off the McGrady bandwagon. I seem to remember them blaming Yao for everything that was wrong with the Rockets in the playoffs and how Dirk is a soft European player. Looks like after McGrady missed 16 shots while Yao scored 33 and the soft European got himself a nice triple double, McGrady might not be the next next Jordan.

Thursday, May 05, 2005

$100 million or $11: which can't we afford to lose?

As a note of housekeeping, new posts are going to be much shorter from now on.
I was going to write about the money missing in Iraq, but I received an email which I agreed with on the topic. After getting permission from the writer, I decided to post that instead.
Thanks to S.D. for this post.

100 million missing. But out of 8.8 billion. Thats 1.1% of bad accounting. Assuming we all probably have about $1000 in our bank accounts, that would be like us not being able to account for $11 when balancing our checkbook. Id be very happy with that, as I am frequently unable to account for mroe like $100, which means I wouldve lost $1 billion in iraq. These people are professionals, but they are spending money thats not their own, dealing with the money coming from who knows how many sources and wire transfers through international borders, 3rd world countries, corrupt middlemen from bankers to suppliers to soldiers to messengers. I cant even account for $10 I spent at the corner american market.U.S. Can't Account for $100M Spent in Iraq - Yahoo! Newshttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq_money

And for you hill folk who were commenting on what this site is lacking http://www.network54.com/Votelet/29462 heres a link to a poll of if the Armenian Genocide should be recognized, the Turks seem to have started a poll and started voting no, so it's time to get the rest of the world in on the voting.

Kris

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

How The Great One ruined the NHL

Well its now May, which means its time for the playoffs to start in the tournament for the greatest trophy in sports... and i'm not talking about the stupid gold ball you get for winning the NBA championship. I'm talking about the huge cup that the winning team gets to have their names engraved into, the one that each player on the winning team gets to spend a day with, the one that has gone to strip clubs and been damaged while being thrown from a roof into a pool while Pantera was playing a free backyard show. The one that amateurs have filed a suit in Canadian court so that not them but anyone, can play for it this year. Yes, I am talking about the Stanley Cup, the greatest sports trophy of all time.
The NHL playoffs are like no other playoffs, the game gets rougher but suddenly there are no fights, every goal is magnified and becomes the equivalent of three goals in the regular season. Yes the NHL playoffs.
Too bad this year they dont exist, and I am here to tell you why. Now the simple answer is it is because the owners got greedy and expanded the sport so much that the talent wasnt there. Or because the New Jersey Devils started the new defensive era- which is as exciting as watching paint dry. But the real answer to why the NHL is no longer being played is because of Wayne Gretzky. Unarguably the greatest hockey player of all time, and arguably the greatest player of anyone in their respective sport of all time.

I grew up in Los Angeles, California. Sunny weather, beautiful women and great beaches. We like outdoor sports here, mainly basketball and baseball. Then in that summer of 88 (or whenever it was) I was introduced to a new sport. The Kings had just traded for Wayne Gretzky, I barely even knew who he was let alone why such a big deal was being made about some hockey player coming to la. So I start watching a few hockey games and I'm blown out of the waters. The skill of this one player was insane. This was the first time I agreed with the overused analogy that "its like an artform out there." What Gretzky was doing on the ice truly was like art. The puck was like an extension of his hand and he could do whatever he wanted with it. He completed perfect passes that nobody would even think of attempting. His teamates were all scoring career highs in goal because all they had to do was put their sticks on the ice and he would use them the way a basketball player uses a backboard. Hockey got so big in la that James Woods joked he recently called the Forum to get tickets to the game and was asked if he wanted one for next months game or the month after that, before Gretzky came to LA he would call the forum and ask what time tonights game starts and they would ask him "what time can you be here?" Nobody cared about hockey in LA before him. The Kings then started spending money on the team and that meant that their minor league team even improved. Their minor league team in phoenix was starting to sell out their games because they were getting good hockey there too. Hockey got so big in LA that we needed another team down here, and Anaheim got a team. Then it got so popoular in phoenix that Winnipeg moved their team down to phoenix. Then the people of Texas saw how popular hockey was in these sunny states that they got Minnesotta to move their team down to Dallas. Minnessotta! the land of 10,000 frozen lakes no longer had a team. Since people were willing to pay top dollar to start new teams, the greedy owners were taking their cash and there were new teams in Tampa bay and Jacksonville. Then Minnesotta wanted a team again and they got an expansion team, all of a sudden there were teams in the small city of Columbus, OH, the random cities of Raliegh, NC and Nashville, TN. Hockey was everywhere all because Gretzky was so good and such a great ambassador of the sport.
Then it all came crashing down.
Gretzky retired at a point where there were so many teams that players didnt have a chance to develop in the minor leagues. Coaches realized they can just teach their big players some easy defense and these undeveloped players wouldnt be able to score. This was horrible for the game. All of a sudden Gretzky was retired, Lemieux was semi retired with his back problems and there were teams everywhere in these small towns and these sunny towns. The players wanted to continue getting paid the top dollar they were getting that resulted from the popularity of the Gretzky era, and we had problems. All of a sudden Carolina was in the Stanley Cup finals, this wasnt good.

It all resulted in a showdown last year with Calgary and Tampa Bay playing for the cup. This was an old school Canadian team thatwitha potential superstar in Jerome Iginla v. a sunny hockey town that barely knew the rules of the game, nor did they care. They only cared about their draft picks in the recent NFL draft at the time. It went down to a game 7 in Tampa with Calgary given an opportunity to win one for the true hockey fans and take the cup back to Canada and away from these fake fans. Well Tampa bay ended up winning that game 2-1 and "coincidentally" the NHL died after that.

And it all happened because Wayne Gretzky was too good for his own sport.

Kris