Against All Enemies
I have finished Against All Enemies and the short description is posted in the readings section. A full review will soon follow.

Politics
A simple, short, yet highly convincing article that should keep millions of Americans from voting for Bush from the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. If only it were that easy.

Politics/Entertainment
Sony has bought the movie rights to Richard Clarke's book, Against All Enemies, which I'll finish this weekend and post in the readings section.

It'll be interesting because there are plenty of parts that are well suited for a movie, especially some of the stuff that goes on in the White House during 9-11.

Cubs
The Sun-Times has a short article detailing how much better the offense would be if they would walk a little bit more, something I'm a big proponent of.

Cubs
Well the Cubs pull off a great win tonight in 15 innings against the Braves. With two outs
in the bottom of the ninth, down by one against Smoltz, Todd Hollandsworth comes through
with a pinch hit homer to send it into extra innings. Carlos Zambrano pitches a 2 hit gem
in 7 innings striking out seven and allowing no runs. Then the bullpen came in and threw 8
shutout innings and allowed only 4 hits, striking out 9. JoBo made it interesting in the 15th...again. But he got the save. I didn't see it on TV but it seems his velocity was WAY down and looked like he was really struggling. Lets hope it's no big deal, anyway we got Hawkings if anything is wrong. Aramis Ramirez went 4-7 with three doubles. The Cubs outhit the Braves 12-6 and still couldn't score earlier. Cruz and Alfonseca were effective against their former team, but in the end...Cubs win!

Politics
Want to protest against the war and actually do something about it? How about refusing
to pay the federal excise tax on your phone bill? Looks like you can get away with it.

Gary Hart supports Richard Clarke's testimony, as do many others.

Bill Frist slanders Richard Clarke without any evidence.

Remember Afghanistan? Yeah, it's still there and still in shambles.

Baseball
The Cubs lost yesterday and the most startling statistic, in my point of view, is that they didn't walk a single time. This has been my major gripe with the offense since early last year and Hendry, while adding a lot to the offense (Ramirez, Lee, Walker), the OBP of this team is going to remain low because we have too many swingers and not enough patience. OBP is the key here.

If you live in the west coast or just like it there, I would recommend you start following the San Diego Padres. They just moved into a new stadium and I really like the team they have. It's the first time I'm this moved to follow another team other than the Cubs so that says a lot. They made a ton of moves over the offseason and I really liked most of them. Great offense: Giles, Nevin, Klesko, Payton. And the pitching should be interesting. Go Padres!

Baseball
So Greg Maddux pitched for the Cubs yesterday and lost. He pitched OK, a four hitter, but two of them were homeruns and our offense sucked. But of course the papers now take a different spin on it. It seems that every loss will now be magnified and projected into the future as if "oh we lost, the season is over." Even as they admit that it's a long season, a marathon if you will, they still make a huge deal about it and hint that maybe Maddux is too old, etc, etc. Ridiculous. I remember the days we would lose so much that every loss was followed by an even-keeled recount in the paper the next day. Now it's like the end of the world.

We'll be fine.

- Salaries in Major League Baseball are down for the first time in nearly a decade, finally.

Politics
Condoleezza Rice testified today before the 9-11 commission and there aren't any real
surprises in her testimony. You can see the full transcript here.

She basically says that Bush is an angel and he was aware of al Qaeda and that he was creating a plan to wipe them out, but I really don't buy it. Later she says that it was impossible to stop because the country simply wasn't ready for it, which I do buy. So if Bush was so aware of it, why didn't he heed all the warnings? Why didn't he create a new way of dealing with them? Why didn't he give the guy in charge of terrorism (Richard Clarke) his principals meeting until a week before 9-11, months and months after he was urgently calling for it?

I don't buy it.

Movie
Movie
I saw a really old black and white movie last night called Fail-Safe , which was really good. I missed the beginning so I don't know how certain things happened.
I don't want to ruin it for anyone but the president has to make a harrowing decision in the
midst of a huge Cold War problem. With little hesitation, he makes a decision that left me
with my mouth wide open. I don't know if I agree with the decision, but it was so refreshing
to see a president (even though it was in a movie) make a decision that everyone knows will
not be taken well by the American People and that will definitely not get him
re-elected. You can always dream...