Ed Schultz Is A Clown

Most of us on the left recognize that El Rushbo is basically an actor. So is O’Reilly, Hannity, et al. Most of them don’t live or act in the ways they claim are correct. Rush is a pillhead; O’Reilly likes “falafel” on women. They merely ride the ratings wave of being right-wing talking heads. And they atune their schtick to a certain audience.

Ed Schultz is just the same on the left. He is a blowhard, talking-point repeating, dipshit. He has carefully picked his positions so as to appear like a real American and not a North Dakota version of Amy Goodman, but he doesn’t really believe it, it’s just his schtick. This is obvious because when he’s challenged by a point beyond his ken, he can only yell, hang up, and repeat his talking point.

Randi Rhodes at least sends you to some links. Al Franken will hedge a little, but he’s willing to listen. Ed, on the other hand, I think he’s just a guy who couldn’t find a niche in right-wing radio and so he’s trying to catch the early more open field on the left.

Just take for example his position on immigration. He wants the “illegals” out. A caller tried to explain to him that the economy would collapse without them. He simply retorted that Americans would do the jobs if they were paid enough. Exactly. If they were paid enough, then PRICES would go up, and Weimar-like hyperinflation would result, and the wages those folks earned would be as worthless as before. Oh, and we can do this, apparently, without destablizing Mexico.

Ed Schultz: Lettuce should cost $10 a head and we should like it.

I’m not suggesting we should continue to exploit workers because it would hurt the economy not to. I’m just suggesting that such a huge problem isn’t something that stupid talking points is a solution to.

He’s an idiot.

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NHL: What I Got Wrong

Everything. Sigh.

I appear to be wrong about most of the teams, especially Anaheim, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Carolina, and the Rangers. The Rangers are riding Jagr, Detroit is not dominant, but is keeping it together, and Anaheim has surrendered.

Based on current standings for the President’s Trophy, here’s my error rate compared to pre-season rankings:

(1) Philadelphia (15) -14 -14
(2) Ottawa (2) 0-14**
(3) Edmonton (13) 10-24
(4) Vancouver (5) 1-25**
(5) Anaheim (20) 15-40
(6) Calgary (11) 5-45*
(7) Pittsburgh (25) 18-63
(8) New Jersey (19) 11-74
(9) San Jose (24) 15-89
(10) Boston (23) 13-102
(11) Toronto (10) 1-103**
(12) Atlanta (22) 10-113
(13) Tampa Bay (16) 3-116*
(14) LA (4) 10-126
(15) St. Louis (30)15 -141
(16) Montreal (6) 10-151
(17) Chicago (26)* 9-160
(18) Dallas (7) 11-171
(19) Colorado (14) 5-176*
(20) Detroit (1) 19-196
(21) Minnesota (21) 0-196**
(22) Nashville (9)13 -209
(23) Florida (28) 5-214*
(24) Columbus (29) 5-219*
(25) Buffalo (12) 13-232
(26) Islanders (18) 8-240*
(27) Carolina (8) 19-259
(28) Phoenix (17) 9-270
(29) Rangers (3) 26-296
(3o) Washington (27) 3-299*

** +/-1 place * +/- 9 places

So, I’m off by roughly 10 places in the standings on average, terrible.

NHL: What I Got Right

I didn’t make as many structural predictions about the new year as DJS, but I certainly made a lot of predictions about teams.

The Trapezoid: Martin Brodeur is already lobbying to have it removed, and there is a lot of popularity to having it removed. The only changes that are making any difference are the calling of penalties and the 2-line pass. Everything else is meaningless.

Ottawa: You might not remember, but they were widely poo-pooed before the pre-season (especially before the Heatley trade). I put them in the final four, and they are looking strong.

Vancouver: They weren’t picked in a lot of other final fours, but I was in consensus with them being strong.

Tampa Bay: I had them in the middle of the pack, not the top. That’s where they are.

Colorado: Just an average team these days.

Toronto: Good but not elite

Minnesota: Average

I put 6–just 6–teams in the right place so far.

I will say this: there are fewer dominant teams. Detroit is at the top of the standings, but has been on a terrible run of late; they simply aren’t as much better as they used to be. Ottawa has been terrifying, and they are the closest to dominating. Anything can happen on any night. Even Washington can blow you away if Ovechkin gets loose.

So much for Warner

And I had hopes. Stupid.

Hockey Predictions Revisited

Prediction One: Goaltending is so good that even with the new rules good goalies will dominate and the 80’s style 7-5 games are gone.

Clearly wrong on this one. Scoring is up about 23%; the pansifying of league by obliterating physical play has made for a lot of lay ups, so to speak.

Prediction Two: Goalies will win most of the shoot outs.

Correct.

Prediction Three: Goalies will still be the key.

Mostly wrong. The goalie will always be paramount in hockey, but the Between Lockouts Era was the age of the defensemen. Stevens, Konstantinov, Pronger, Foote, and even Carney and similar players dominated, especially in the playoffs. With the new rules we have entered the era of the forward. The Horridacanes are the same collection of Once Wases and Never Has Beens they always were, but the presence of the excellent Eric Staal has now made them a force to be reckoned with.

Potential Spoiler: Nashville Predators

Correct, just three regulation losses thus far.

The Fall of the Wings and Avs:

Mostly incorrect. Wings started hot and both teams have respectable records; Avs are not as feared as they once were.

The Decline of the ‘Ning Dynasty.

Correct! Injuries, no back up goalies to play against, no teams taking a night off to rest for golf in Florida. It’s tough when everything isn’t perfect. Their record is respectable and they play in a weak division, but an 8-2 loss to a good but not great Devils squad is ugly – and you can’t blame adjusting to the new rules at this point. Tampa was, by far, the weakest Champion of the Between Lock Outs Era. Captain Dave Andreychuck is playing with less hunger than a spawning salmon.

Fade Out of Some Stars:

Correct. Thought it would be Hasek. Instead it was the Golden Brat Hull and ol’ “Anadromous” Dave Andreychuk. Honorable mention to Stevie “Why?” in Detroit.

The Devils Will Be In The Hunt:

Tentatively Correct. This team has struggled much more than I thought, but any team would minus two Hall of Fame defensemen and one All Star forward. Moreover, the venal trapezoid rule was directed strictly at Brodeur and, by extension, them, which is both the ultimate compliment and insult. Still, the squad is starting to round into shape. Assuming Elias works his way back into the player he was in 2003-4 from his post-Communist sojourning Hepatitis, he could dominate in this Era of the Forward. With Mogilny clearing the cobwebs, Kozlov trying and the emergence of Gionta the Devils could suddenly have a formidable offense. Losing McGillis (for Ference) and Langdon (for Pihlman) in the process of regaining Elias may be addition by subtraction.

Coaching Deadpool

(1) Mike Keenan – 12 losses might be partly the fault of the players who came here to play golf, but my guess is that they’ve tuned out this loon. The problem with this guy is that he gets tuned out by vets but can’t coach young players. Time to put him out to pasture on the CBC so Don Cherry can retire.

(2) Ed Olcyzk – When everything goes right, this team is dangerous. If they had championship coaching, even without a real goalie, they would be something to fear in this league.

(3) Mike Kitchen – The Blues shouldn’t be this bad.

(4) Trent Yawney – Chicago is still suffering from overexpectations and underdelivery.

(5) Mike Sullivan – The owner has been on this team’s nuts, and they’re in last place.

BONUS PICK: Tortorella.

Just for the record, I think Wayne is doing good enough not to step down. A normal person might still be on the list, but Wayne will really have to stink things up to stay on the list–and he was at first. I still think Carlisle is a problem, but with the Fedorov trade it shows that this team is not in go for it mode, so he’s got some slack; plus, he and Burke go back a ways.

Accountability in Canada

Not that you would ever hear it in the news of the neighboring country, the most culturally equaivalent country, with a very long border, but there has been great tumult in Canadian politics recently.

The Republican-trained conservatives have begun a smear war against the Liberal Government, not implying, but directly stating that their party amounted to an organized crime ring. This stems from the former PMs kick-back scandal, and the Gomery commission has exonerated Paul Martin, the current PM.

But, wait. The Liberals control the government, and have control of the Commons and the Senate (including an actual, non-coalition majority in the Senate). So, how, exactly did they get investigated? You mean Canadian politicians get held accountable even if their party is in power?

The Vote of Non-Confidence has been tabled by the Conservatives. I haven’t done enough reading to find out why this is. But, the motion could not have succeeded unless the left-wing NDP voted no confidence. I don’t know enough to say, but it seems like this would have been another example of a left-wing party betraying the center-left party to the advantage of the right-wing party. The issue was over National Health Care. Did the NDP leader think that forcing elections at a time of peril for the Liberal party would have imrpoved things? Yikes.

There apparently will be an election and a new parliament. What are the chances of a Liberal party ouster? Nil. But they stand to become an even more precarious minority.

But remember, this all came about because misconduct was exposed under the regime of the same party. This would never, ever happen in the current United States. Democrats are forced to implicity legitimize the Clinton impeachment in order to call for a “fair” analysis of Bush, DeLay, and Frist’s actions–and to call for their removal. Clinton got his cock sucked. So what? The United States was never better than under his leadership.

We have a lot to learn from Canada, who, by the way, is keeping more of the jobs that GM is cutting because GM’s problem is mostly american health care costs.