Performance Enhancing Drugs Will Not Make You a Major Leaguer

The hardest thing to do in sports is hitting major league pitching. Performance enhancing drugs, aka steroids will not help you do this. Steroids allow you to work out harder and longer, recover quicker from your workouts, and recover faster from injury. Major league baseball players are elite athletes, they are born with that ability; it did not come from a syringe.

Much has been made about the revelation that New York Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids in 2003. Mr. Rodriguez admitted to using performance enhancing drugs from 2001 to 2003. His rationale was that he wanted to justify his 252 million dollar contract. Mr. Rodriguez earned that contract based on his prior play, not public perception of his ability. Mr. Rodriguez was in the majors for several years with the Seattle Mariners and signed with the Texas Rangers as a free agent for 252 million dollars over 10 years. The contract was based on his production as a baseball player making the most of his natural ability.

If the average person on the street were to take performance enhancing drugs, he would gain size and strength, but not the ability to hit major league pitching. Since this is the case, why do we call them performance enhancing drugs?

Pass the stimulus, please

Trickle-down economics is a guaranteed path to our country’s future economic failure. The concept of providing tax cuts and other benefits to business and rich individuals didn’t work in the 1980s, nor did it help our country progress in the past eight years. So why would it work now?

GOP senators claim the president won’t work with them on the stimulus, yet Obama has visited Capitol Hill, invited them to the White House and requested their input. To the GOP in Washington, bipartisan cooperation means ‘do what we want or we will obstruct and hijack progress’. When asked if the Congressional republicans had a solution, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), said they would roll out their plan in stages at a later date.  What he meant was we don't have a plan, we just want to derail the democrat's plan.  If you have a better idea, present it now, and let it stand or fall on its own merit. It’s very easy to vote no, but you should explain why and offer a better plan. It seems as though the republicans are content to be obstructionists for the next to years in hopes of winning seats and regaining control of Congress in 2010. Shouldn't the republicans work with the president to help stimulate the economy?

Trickle-down economics has been tested and failed, yet republicans continue to push the same ideas. We’ve partially nationalized our banks, handed out billions to banks and the auto industry, consumer confidence has fallen, stores are closing, jobs are lost daily, and states are seeking relief from the federal government, yet republicans still believe that eliminating estate taxes, capital gains taxes, and lowering taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans is the solution to our economic problem. This is a self-serving notion that will do nothing to improve the lot of the average American.  Ask yourself, 'are you better off today than you were eight years ago?' The true definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  

Whatever Happenend to Shame or Why is Former Gov. Blagojevic on Letterman?!?

Once upon a time in this country, there was a thing called shame and it worked like this - you do something wrong, get caught, and get punished.  Shame would kick in after getting caught and the subsequent punishment served to rehabilitate you and magnify the shame you were feeling as a result of getting caught doing something wrong.  Former President Nixon resigned in disgrace as a result of the Watergate scandal and largely spent the rest of his life out of the public eye.  That's how shame works.   Shame no longer works, because Mr Blagojevic was on Late Night with David Letterman trying to portray himself as an innocent man who was railroaded out of office, rather than a man who was impeached, convicted, removed from office and barred from holding public office in the state of Illinois. Thankfully, Dave was having none of that - at one point, he cut Mr Blagojevic off after he asserted that he did not have a fair trial - Dave said "that's not entirely true."  Mr Blagojevic said he was unable to call witnesses that would prove his innocence.   It seems reasonable to assume that the impeachment trial was an opportunity to call said witnesses .  Rather than do that, the former governor chose to go on the talk show circuit to poison the potential juror pool for his upcoming trial.   Shame would have caused Mr Blagojevic that leave the state  (or Chicago, at least) and try to rehabilitate his image.   However, Mr Blagojevic has no shame.

Another one (two actually) bites the dust

Today was not a good day for the home team in The District and I don't mean the Wizards or the Capitols.  Not one, but two of President Obama's  cabinet nominees withdrew today due to tax issues.  One has to wonder about the vetting process because this is the third person to withdraw due to some sort of misbehavior.  Much of the blame is being placed at the feet of the Obama team and they do have their fair share of blame, however, former Senator Daschle and Ms Killefer should shoulder a sizable portion of culpability as well because they should have disclosed this immediately upon learning they were under consideration for Cabinet positions and removed themselves from consideration.  Had they put country first, they would have spared themselves, their families, their supporters, and the president a great deal of embarrassment.