Telling it like it is, or it should be, or like it's going to be, or the way I wish it would be, or the way my girlfriend who just yelled at me told me it is
The New York Metropolitans… ahhhhhh… does it seem like this season has gone on for 7 years? Did they break a mirror? Walk under a ladder? Had a clowder of black cats cross their path? This team has the clear distinction of spending more money then anyone ever and have the worst record per square dollar. With Max Scherzer opting out of his 43.3 million dollar contract to go the Rangers and with the Mets paying almost every bit of his remaining contract except for roughly 20 million and with the Mets getting in return a prospect and nothing else, I’m going to say that this is the equivalent of the 2008 mortgage bubble burst where your house was worth a million dollars when you bought it in 2007 and was worth 300 K in 2009 and you still have to pay the million dollars for the house because you already signed the contract. The truth is that house was only worth 300K the whole time but the buyer was just not doing his/her due diligence. So what you are left with is a 70% depreciation on your dollar or in this case you are left with a team that is in 4th place with the almost no way of making the playoffs. The owner, Cohen, got a crash course in bad decision making and thinking that money makes world championship teams. What makes good players great is when they are undervalued and underpaid and they have to show why they deserve that big money.
Look, I know that the NY Mets are an electric team and are playing in an electric atmosphere with mounds of crazy waves of expectations surrounding them and ultimately creating an atmosphere that might be just too much to handle. None of the players played up to their caliber, not withstanding some of the rookies that did pretty good for their rookie years, as this was an off season for the Metropolitans but they have to keep their heads up and push through. Always fight to the last out and never be the person that makes it. The Mets will bounce back, maybe…probably not this year but they will come back next year with a little more focus and lot more humility.
I have no idea what is going on in boxing today. This year is the year most women divorce their guys because they just won’t stop watching boxing. The reason is unlike any year in recent memory, their have been a slew of top matchmaking that are aligning the best versus the best. It started with Garcia v Davis and then the damn (or maybe DAMMMM!!!) just broke and the fights were on. This is a year to remember for boxing enthusiasts. I can’t remember a year this good of matchmaking since….. I can’t remember a year this good. I started this year at 179 pounds but I like donuts or chips ahoy with big fights so when I yell at the TV screen, telling one person to knock his ass out, I need to see donut bits flying all over the place or it isn’t a real fight. I weigh 192 pounds today so it has been a real good year for boxing. While that last statement is partially true it goes to show you how good boxing has been. The best part about it is there is more still to come, like on Saturday, July 29th, when two of the biggest stars face off for welterweight supremacy, Errol Spence Jr. versus Terence “Bud” Crawford… The welterweights, for some reason, has been a historic division since the hey days of the best boxer ever to lace up his gloves, Sugar Ray Robinson. Even though most of his memorable fights came at 160, he is still the best at 147 of all time. The last time we had an event of this magnitude at this weight was when De La Hoya fought Trinidad. That was way back back in 1999. There are worth while fights after that but nothing generated the buzz of that fight until now. This fight, as I see it, with my dirty bifocals, ha, not anymore, laser surgery is a great invention, is going to be a king maker. The winner will be boxing royalty. Who is the winner going to be you ask….. how the hell am I suppose to know, that is pretty much the consensus of all the boxing experts and of course, my favorite is, I’ll let you know on the 30th. That being said lets break down the fight that should break PPV records, I personally bought it twice, that’s a joke, Showtime wouldn’t let me.
We’ll look at Errol Spence Jr first as he sports an undefeated record of 28-0… 22 big wins coming from man down syndrome. Spence, pictured above on the left in a deadly game of thumb wars, is a non-stop pressure fighter that makes the Energizer bunny jealous. Spence wears his opponents down with heavy punches to the torso and head. You can literally see the energy bar above his opponents head wither away like in a video game. He’s a human volcano, in the sense that volcanoes are formed by intense pressure. For Spence to get the victory tonight though, he’ll need more than just applying pressure, he’ll need to be able to absorb big shots and evade the knock out shots. To do this he’s going to have to make sure that Crawford doesn’t plant those feet and unleash. He’s going to have to turn Crawford so Crawford will need to keep resetting to get those concussive shots off. Spence will also need to invest to the body heavily and often. He has to sap Crawford’s energy, but this is what Spence does, so his gameplan should be to do what he does… His weakness… I have no idea. I have never seen Spence hurt and if he was, he hid it really well. Spence’s expression rarely changes. He has the look of the guy that hid your keys and is smiling while you are losing your head looking for them. Best poker player ever. His only thing is that his hand speed is not as quick as Crawford’s. That might play a role in this fight, depending on how Crawford adjusts. If they stand right in front of each other, it’s likely that Spence will get the victory. The closest fighter that I can compare Spence to is Rocky Marciano or Marvin Hagler… two go forward fighters that hit like “tu mama” when you she caught you looking at dirty magazines.
Now, a look at Terrence “Bud” Crawford who sports a 39-0 record with 30 big wins coming from chin inspections that failed the test. Crawford, pictured above doing the Delta Tau Chi secret handshake (let’s see who can guess that one without using the internet) is a quick twitch forceful fighter that can hurt the other fighter in a moments notice. He has the ability to change the course of a fight in a few seconds and you can literally see it happen as the other opponent suddenly wonders why someone gave Crawford an aluminum bat in the middle of a boxing match. For Crawford to be victorious today he has to change his game plan a little. He has to force the bigger Spence to follow the puncher, which Spence, as sure as hardly anyone reads this blog, will do. But Crawford must not just stay there after that, he has to unleash those quick twitch strikes, and then move before Spence gets those energizer drums rolling and reset and have Spence come to him again. He has to do this in a consistent basis and hit Spence with those forceful punches until Spence becomes wary of coming in and then the fight is his… because he would have done something no one else was able to do, to make Spence hesitant. Once he has Spence thinking about those shots coming in and make him hesitant to apply pressure, then he won the fight and might score the knock out. Sounds easy right, well, it’s as easy as stopping a volcano, there really is no way to do it unless you are the best in boxing…. So lets see. AS for Crawford’s weakness… ditto to Spence’s, none that I can see… the only thing that might hamper him is that he is the naturally smaller guy.
Good luck to these two combatants, truly nice guys but definitely no push overs. It’s going to be a hell of a fight.
This fight is simple to predict because I just watched it and the only thing that you can say is “Holy Motherfuckin’ Shit”. Inoue should be the pound for pound. Fulton was the best in his division…. All I can say after watching that is….
The most notable thing in this fight was how Inoue made Fulton look so ordinary, as commented by the ESPN Analysts. Inoue was one step ahead of Fulton the whole fight. Inoue used his speed to freeze Fulton and while Fulton has really good hand speed it seemed pedestrian compared to Inoue. Fulton wasn’t able to capitalize on Inoue’s defensive faults, he carries his left hand low and brings it back low when he throws the jab but his speed didn’t let Fulton take full advantage of that flaw. Fulton’s only chance was to trade or throw at the same time as Inoue when he threw that jab but Inoue’s force on his shots seemed to make Fulton apprehensive. It was a really good fight but one sided.
Looking ahead for Inoue, it seems that he will become a 5 division champion because the best fighter at 126 lbs. is Fulton as he beat the number 1 guy in that division, Brandon Figueroa. My prediction is that Inoue will unify Super Bantam and then move up to 126 and demolish that division as well.
How dare they? Right…? I mean can’t they take time in between them burying their women and children, the ones that weren’t kidnapped, and their soldiers to thank us for them fighting a war that was eventually going to happen to a NATO nation if they had just laid down and did nothing. The one thing that is definitely going to be an outcome of this debacle is the Russia is going to realize that they have no chance of winning any land war or incursion in a NATO nation and that’s because Ukraine punched back. While Ukraine should be thankful, I think that we should be just as thankful that they are fighting a NATO war…. I think the least we can do is make sure that are properly equipped, that should include long range missiles. If NATO wants a quick end to this incursion, it has to get a backbone and let Russia know that any threat of nuclear deterrence by them would be met with the full force of NATO making Moscow the world’s largest crater within minutes and NATO should be giving Ukraine the ability to strike deep in Russia if they want… without asking what Ukraine is going to do with those long range ballistic weapons so they could plead ignorance. Ukraine cannot win swiftly if Moscow is still enjoying their lattes. They have to give Russia a reason to quit and fighting in Ukraine alone won’t do the trick. As for the thanks being requested, I’m pretty sure the Ukrainians are busy now and will thank us properly with a plaque of participation later.
This is not an article on what you think it is about. Do you think it’s going to be about climate change? Then it might be an article about what you think it’s about, but just partially. It’s going to focus on my uneducated opinion on how to fix it, which has nothing to do with Thanos and him snapping his fingers, mainly because he isn’t real, but on how to slow the degradation of our atmosphere. I’ve been right about a lot of stuff, 2+2 is 4, but I have also been wrong about a lot of stuff, Ostrich farms in Alaska are not a good idea. My opinion on how to fix this problem is to hasten the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, alright I stole that idea from other people, but it isn’t going to electric power or promoting EV’s, who still have to get most of their power from carbon emitting sources, but to hasten the employment of hydrogen fuel cells and to make power plants that run on this abundant material. There are several reasons why I, the guy that got stuck in a turnstile, believes that this might be the solution.
The first and probably the most important reason is because the only emission from Hydrogen fuel cells is water, not sure if it’s spring, tap, or maybe sparkling? or even if it’s drinkable, but it isn’t climate harming and I’m pretty sure it won’t kill the vegetation. We’re in a time where I read story after story about how lakes no longer exist or how they finally found Jimmy Hoffa after one disappeared or that’s where my car was (at the bottom of a former lake) and maybe pretty soon we will be able to walk on the Titanic instead of dying in submersible subs that some guy bought from the Colombian cartels at a discounted price. While hydrogen, itself, is climate harming, when used in fuel cells and properly administered, it is completely harmless…. according to ChatGPT. Okay, not only ChatGPT, but also the same scientists that are warning us about climate change and that, prior to that, said smoking wasn’t harmful…. Hmmm… so they’re not perfect either, but as the world breaks heat records year after year and the duration of those heat waves last longer and longer, I think something should be done. Here are the benefits of Hydrogen:
Clean energy: Hydrogen is a clean and flexible energy source that supports zero-carbon energy strategies
Reduced emissions: Hydrogen can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, CO2, particulates, and NOx emissions
Renewable energy: Hydrogen is a renewable energy source that’s abundant in nature
Highly efficient: Hydrogen is more powerful and energy efficient than fossil fuels
Safe and non-toxic: Hydrogen produces water as a byproduct, making it a safe and non-toxic fuel
Can be used in mobile applications: Hydrogen can be used to power vehicles and mobile power packs
Can be used as a heat source: Hydrogen can be used as a heat source
Can be used in space vehicles: Hydrogen is an ideal source of energy for space vehicles
While these positives look great, there are some negatives… but none that should really stop the advancement of Hydrogen as a main source of power. I mean I heard something about how it can ignite or explode, but what can’t. Put anything in a microwave and it will explode, except an ice cube. So, hydrogen is highly flammable and explosive, huh… That doesn’t sound to great Well, nothing comes for free. We’ll have a better climate and will lose half the population in hydrogen mishaps until we can get the formula right… See, we don’t need Thanos. Obviously, there will be safe guards in place and the infrastructure that controls natural gas, which is, guess what…. highly explosive and flammable, should provide the necessary guidance and solutions on how to make sure we don’t go boom. Also, Hydrogen is inherently safer than conventional fossil fuels. All advancements come with there trial period where people blow up… Space travel… Nuclear weapons… COVID immunization… We’ll eventually get it right and we’ll save the planet from complete annihilation at the same time. Also, with the advancements of procuring this abundant resource that is not free flowing, as it attaches to any molecule it sees, much like Harvey Weinstein and any lady part, and must be physically separated, again, like Harvey Weinstein, by means of green resources are quickly growing. Lets be real here…. What are our options?
I seriously don’t want to leave my kid a dehydrated planet.
I know this one is going to come back to bite me in the rear end but here we go and I hope everyone takes this in the spirit it is intended. The new rumor is the Mets are trying to shore up the starting rotation and are giving Pedro Martinez a contract for 200 million for three years. If that one fails, they are looking at Randy Johnson and Greg Maddux at the same rate. If none of those pan out, they’re going to court to excavate Tom, just in case.
Debates over who is Hispanic and who is not have often fueled conversations about identity among Americans who trace their heritage to Latin America or Spain. Most recently, the 2020 census has drawn attention to how Hispanic identity is defined and measured. The once-a-decade head count of all people living in the United States used a new approach to identify who is Hispanic and has provided fresh details about how Hispanics view their racial identity. This passage was written by the Pew Research Center.
The law is pretty clear as to whom may identify as Hispanic. You must have been born or derived your heritage from one of the many Spanish speaking countries around the world. This country is unique as it is compromised of a mix of a variety of races and ethnicities. People identify themselves as they see fit but you must have a connection with that identity, somewhere down your genealogy, as people have tried to identify as another race or ethnicity to gain some kind of recognition, for whatever reason. That leads me to the question: how far back can you go to identify as this other race and or ethnicity? I mean, they say that all life started near the river Nile, can I now say that I’m African American? or Middle Eastern? Probably not…. pretty much “no”. So how far back can you go? 100 years… 1000 years?
For conversations sake, lets discuss the plight of Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican people. Are they Hispanic? Spain lost Puerto Rico to the United States in the Spanish-American War. In the Treaty of Paris of 1898 that was signed by Spain and America. There were some stipulations that compromised the treaty. Some of them were that Spain had to cede control over Puerto Rico, Cuba, Guam and the Philippines and that Hawaii would become a territory of the United States, just like Puerto Rico. Since Puerto Rico was never a sovereign country of its own, always occupied by a foreign nation, what are the Puerto Rican people? At this point, could they be considered Hispanic? There are many great Puerto Rican people and it has produced many great stars… boxing in particular is one of the areas these warriors excelled in, but are they Hispanic? After essentially being under American control for 125 years and the people being born American citizens for all that time, wouldn’t they be American? I believe it’s an important question.
Now lets look at Guam, who was colonized by the Spanish from the 16th Century until the U.S. gained control in the same treaty. In this case, the people of Guam, called Chamorros, a Spanish word, do not identify as Hispanic. They have their own language but with many words being Spanish or derived from from Spanish. In a country where identity has become such a major issue, America, and there is a box to check every time you apply for something to make sure that there isn’t any discrimination, I think these questions are important. So how far back can you go? To identify yourself as something other than the country you were born in? What’s appropriate?
I love my NY Mets, well… not mine per se, they belong to the ultra rich Steve Cohen, by I borrow their images on my TV when I’m feeling too happy so it can bring me down back to earth. But, this is my team, in the good times and… now. The Mets went out to prove this year that money doesn’t mean a damn thing in baseball because you can pay people what you want, they can still lose on a regular basis. They’re not losing big, most of the time, they’re losing by one run in a game where they were up by three or four, but still stacking up those ticks on that L column. What the Mets are teaching is us is that… wait I know this…. they’re teaching us…. I got it… that winning isn’t everything! or maybe that winning is for losers while losing is for winners? or maybe that incentive based contracts are better in sports, especially when you have an owner that pays big, because if you pay up front, there is no getting those hundreds of millions back. The Mets, in 4th place and 18.5 games back with a 38-46 record, still haven’t figured out what to do to turn things around. Well, at this point, the Phillies, in 2022, who made it to the World Series last year, were, let me check… above .500 at this point, huhhh, I thought maybe they weren’t, but no, they were. Well, it isn’t too late for the Mets to do something Amazing! like, bringing up Vientos and/or Mauricio so they can get some big league experience and get rid of Vogelbach and send Danny Mendick down. Rotate them in the DH spot with the starters so they can get field time as well. The Mets need some youth if they need anything. They’re a walking Ben Gay commercial, Geritol shows their games on their channel, Metamucil is one of their sponsors and delivers to their clubhouse, the players wear a medical alert bracelet just in case they dive for a ball and can’t get back up, they have a stairlift chair from the bench to the clubhouse. I think you get what I’m saying… they’re the oldest team in baseball by average age. They need a shot in the arm and I don’t mean a B-12 shot to stave off dementia, they need some unbridled enthusiasm even if its hopeless. I don’t know what Eppler is doing besides collecting paychecks but he needs to get these young ready players up in the majors even if they fail miserably. Lets do something here… If you’re going to fail, then fail big… don’t just fail. What do you have to lose, I mean your job, but you’re going to lose that anyway, might as well enjoy watching these young hungry players try their best. I love my NY Mets….
Oh, yeah, I put a pic of the current best NY Mets….
A Maryland professor who instructed female students to remove their shirts during class created a “hostile environment” and violated Title IX, according to an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education.
Investigators said the instructor at the Takoma/Silver Spring campus of Montgomery College in Maryland required female students to remove their shirts and wear only their sports bras to demonstrate a “medical assessment.” Some students put on lab coats for modesty and the professor instructed the students to remove them. He then commented on the students’ breasts, according to a letter from the Office of Civil Rights to the college.
Manny’s Blog: So, white students, and rightfully so, complain about this harassment and get an investigation from the government. That’s good and also interesting.
The Supreme Court has released a litany of litigious liabilities. It has ruled on affirmative action, student loan relief, sabbath’s, State power over federal elections and now the mysterious case of don’t write gay (if you don’t want to) in a first amendment challenge to Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws. Of all the cases, this case is the most troubling for me because I don’t have the capacity to understand it. The other cases have some basis under the law but this one, in my opinion, has a very murky connection to the first amendment. Leeettt’s review….
A Colorado web designer challenged the State’s anti-discrimination laws by stating that her religious beliefs would not allow her to write “gay stuff” for wedding websites, that she could make the website as long as it doesn’t have words that promote same sex marriages. The web designer brought the suit to the court only on the sole basis of same-sex marriages and not on any other applicable religious grounds, like I can’t write for Jewish or Muslim religious ceremonies or I can’t write for atheists. That she singled out the LGBTQIA to Z but no S community and leaves every other aspect of the religion out of it, is, on its face, discriminatory. In Christianity, you believe in Christ to reach the kingdom of heaven and if you don’t then you are departing from the religion’s core belief, so would this web designer design and write for a bar mitzsvah? Wicca gatherings? Ramadan? Well, that is promoting different beliefs from her Christian beliefs, isn’t it? It goes against the Christian core beliefs but her lawsuit didn’t mention this aspect because I’m assuming she wouldn’t have a problem with it. I’m surprised that this topic didn’t come up in the hearing or wasn’t brought up by the defendants of the anti-discrimination laws. To state that I will not serve gay people on a religious belief but will serve other people that, by all accounts, are sinning the same under the Christian doctrine by not believing in Christ or following his teachings, is simply singling out a particular aspect of a religion to further your discriminatory behavior. If your only problem is with gay people and not anyone else that doesn’t conform to your religion, then you are just using religion as an excuse for your bigotry.
Religion, if it does anything, teaches compassion and understanding. It also says that the Lord would be the arbiter of any sins committed, not web designers. It also states that you must treat all people the way you would like to be treated and that no person is absent of sin. To pick and choose which passage of a religious doctrine applies or you want to follow and which one doesn’t or don’t have to follow is like allowing the government to choose which laws they will enforce and which ones they won’t dependent on demographics and/or socioeconomics and/or any other factor. If you are going to rule on Religious beliefs then you must rule on what the whole doctrine says, not just the parts you like. Just like the government must rule on the entirety of the law not just the laws they like.
Golden Rule, precept in the Gospel of Matthew (7:12): “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you. . . .” This rule of conduct is a summary of the Christian’s duty to his neighbor and states a fundamental ethical principle
I hope this makes sense….
And please stop attacking my Christian religion with your crazy interpretations… A lot like the Title VII, everyone is welcome in the Christian faith without bias to any race, color, religion, sex, sexual preference and national origin. Only God reserves the right to judge.
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