Ferrablog

Marty St. Louis has been considered the frontrunner for the Hart Trophy this year, given to the NHL's Most Valuable Player. But just how much of a frontrunner was open to question. However, Damon Cristodero writes in today's St. Pete Times that St. Louis is a virtual lock:

The Times spoke to 24 of the 105 voters, in person or by e-mail. Twenty-three said they chose St. Louis. Only one bucked the trend and picked him fourth behind Florida's Roberto Luongo, New Jersey's Patrik Elias and Atlanta's Ilya Kovalchuk.

I wonder, however, how many Canadian writers Cristodero spoke to. There has been a profound skepticism in the Canadian media about the Lightning and their success this season, with the meme being the Lightning have benefited from extra games against the weak Southeast Division. This is easily debunked, however, as the Lightning have a better record against the Atlantic and Northeast divisions than the Southeast. For example, they were beaten twice by the non-playoff Panthers, while sweeping the Devils and Flyers. In any event, Marty is still looking good for MVP. The real suspense will be whether he wins the Selke, given to the best defensive forward. His league-leading eight shorthanded goals are a testament to his defensive prowess, as well as his league-leading plus-minus numbers. Working against is the perception that because of his size, he's really not a "shut down" type of player.

Sayeth the NY Times:

When the Republican Party chose New York City as the site of its 2004 nominating convention, the symbolism was apparent: the G.O.P. would be rallying around its nominee in the city that had come to embody the nation's resolve in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, a place where President Bush once stood on a pile of debris at ground zero, rallying the nation to unite in the war on terror.

But then came Richard A. Clarke, the 9/11 commission and a rising insurgency in Iraq. Now, as the administration faces increasing scrutiny of its handling of pre-9/11 terror threats and the wisdom of extending the war on terrorism into Iraq, the question has emerged whether New York is the best place for the Republicans to be gathering this summer.

"I would assume that it has turned from a win-win to a maybe not," said a Republican political strategist who spoke only on the condition of anonymity. Like many others, the strategist was reluctant to contradict the party line. "I don't think that it is all negative at this point, but it has the potential to turn. It's eroding slowly, and that's a real problem for them."

D'oh! (Of course the article also points out that the Democrats selected Boston before the gay marriage controversy hit Massachusetts, but the whole gay marriage issue is looking pretty trivial these days with the headlines about what Bush knew about 9/11 and when he knew it, and the disaster that is The Republic of FUBAR, er, Iraq.)

Nikolai Khabibulin and the Lightning took Game 1 of their opening round playoff series tonight, 3-0 over the Islanders. Khabibulin had been up and down throughout the year, but tonight he turned maybe his best performance in a Lightning uniform, rivaled only by his work in Game 6 of the Washington series last season, a triple-overtime affair that sent the Bolts into the second round. Habby was especially brilliant in the second period, when the Isles outshot the Bolts 15-5. He made several incredible saves, stoning Mark Parrish on two occasions in particular. And when Khabibulin was in trouble, his defense bailed him out, with Jason Cullimore (skate) and Dan Boyle (body) making saves in the crease as well.

The Lightning's offense was almost exclusively a product of Islander defenseman Eric Cairns. The first score came five minutes into the second period when Andre Roy, just off the bench, pressured Cairns at the Islander blue line, stole the puck, and came in alone and beat Rick DiPietro. Six minutes later, Cairns had the puck behind his goal to the left, and inexplicably decided to circle the goal and skate out in front, where Freddy Modin was waiting to relieve him of the puck and backhand it past DiPietro. Modin added a power play goal in the third, deftly tipping in a Darryl Sydor wrist shot.

So, all in all, a good result for the Lightning, who came out with energy and passion but were still outplayed by the Islanders for the first two periods. Game 2 is set for Saturday, and the Lightning will have to pick up the overall quality of play, as it will be too much to ask for Khabibulin to play this well again and for Cairns to literally give away two goals once again.

UPDATE: Unbelievably, the St. Pete Times this morning had a banner "Fredrik The Great" headline over the game story. Don't get me wrong - Modin did have a fine game. But there was one big story last night, and it was Khabibulin. At least he was worth a sidebar piece by Gary Shelton, but I have to wonder what beat writer Damian Cristodero has against Habby, as he doesn't even mention him until the ninth graph of the game story. The Trib was a bit more generous, with the story titled "Bolts Find Right Mix", and with Khabibulin the first player mentioned.

A week or two back, I asked why didn't the Bush administration retaliate for the attack on the Cole? Today, at the 9/11 hearings, Condi Rice was asked the same question and her answer (I have to paraphrase here, since it was about five minutes ago and I don't have a transcript) was that we didn't respond because we didn't want to go "tit for tat" with Al Qaeda. If we had attacked in response and Bin Laden survived, it would have "emboldened" him even more. Emboldened him to do something like, what, 9/11? Sheesh. An act of war against us, and we don't respond because it's "tit for tat"? As James Thompson, a Republican, followed up, how many more attacks would have been required before we responded? She had no good answer for this. The only thing she could offer was that they wanted to implement a more comprehensive response to Al Qaeda. Of course, given how documented the fact is that they paid little attention to Al Qaeda pre-9/11, this comprehensive response was never going to come without further attacks.

Here's an interesting, well-written article by Mark Schmitt on the risk that the "White South" may be in danger of overplaying its political hand.

Here's an interesting photo of the War President.

Harold Myerson of the Washington Post has outdone himself here, with a trenchant analysis of the situtation in Iraq and how it compares to the post-tsar, pre-Lenin interregnum in Russia circa 1917.

His conclusion is noteworthy:

One recent poll shows that near-plurality of Americans now favors our leaving Iraq. But precisely because this was not a war we had to fight, just up and leaving would be politically and morally duplicitous. We wrested control of Iraq when we did not have to, and leaving it to its own devices as sectarian violence grows worse would be a dismal end. The only unequivocally good policy option before the American people is to dump the president who got us into this mess, who had no trouble sending our young people to Iraq but who cannot steel himself to face the Sept. 11 commission alone.

From Rotoworld:

Mike Lamb started over Morgan Ensberg tonight because manager Jimy Williams said he wants "to get everyone into a game as soon as I can."

Can you imagine Felipe Alou benching Barry Bonds in the second game of the season so he can get everyone into a game as soon he can? Sure, Ensberg is no Bonds, but he's no Mike Lamb either.

(And yes, Ensberg is also on my team.)

I just have to run this one in its entirety:

Bush Compares a Guest to His Mother
President Bush, Unable to Help Himself, Compares a Guest to His Mother, but She Is Not Amused

The Associated Press

EL DORADO, Ark. April 6 — President Bush has a penchant for dishing out good-natured insults, and usually the victim laughs along. But Sammie Briery didn't seem much amused when Bush fired one at her Tuesday.
Bush was wrapping up a town hall-style appearance at South Arkansas Community College when he let the jest fly. It was a mother joke, a blonde joke and an insult all in one.

"You and my mother go to the same hair-dye person," Bush said to Briery, whose blondish bob bore little resemblance to Barbara Bush's shock of white hair.

The audience in the gymnasium laughed, and Briery smiled, but replied firmly: "President Bush, I'm a natural blonde."

"Oh, yes," Bush agreed.

"I'm just a natural blonde," she repeated.

"I couldn't help myself, sorry," Bush shrugged.

With that, Bush moved quickly to end the session. He turned to Bob Watson, superintendent of the El Dorado Public Schools who had opened the meeting by inadvertently insulting Bush.

"Governor excuse me, President," Watson said.

Bush muttered, "How quickly they forget."

When Watson offered to shake Bush's hand, the president shot back: "Just don't hug me."

I think he's starting to lose it. At least he didn't try to link the poor woman to Saddam.

The other day, the kids had on the movie "Kangaroo Jack". Don't ask me how it gets there, but the twist at the end is that the Jerry O'Donnell and Anthony Anderson characters were supposed to deliver mob money to a man in Australia, and it turned out that the guy was a hit man and they were the ones to be hit. (Yeah, I'm wondering too if the movie was appropriate for the kids. It has the cute kangaroo, but it's a bit darker than the promos would lead one to believe. But I digress.)

Anyway, this conceit came to mind when I read this story in USA TODAY detailing how companies offshoring work are essentially making the employees being let go train their overseas replacements:

But workers such as Myra Bronstein aren't convinced.

On a Friday in 2003, the former WatchMark software tester was part of a team of workers summoned to a meeting. There, she says, managers handed out letters explaining that the testing staff was being laid off. Managers then told the group that their replacements would be workers in India, she says. The workers were flying in and would be in the office Monday. She says she was instructed to train them.

Bronstein felt trapped. She says she believes that if she refused, she would have probably been fired without severance and would have been ineligible for unemployment benefits. If she quit, she says, she wouldn't have received severance or been eligible for unemployment.

The next week, she and the other employees facing layoffs were introduced to the workers who were taking their jobs. The workers from India, she says, would be earning a sixteenth of what she had been paid.

''I was staring hard at my shoes and trying not to cry. It was hideously awkward. I felt forced,'' says Bronstein, 48, of Mercer Island, Wash. She is still unemployed. ''It was very deflating and dehumanizing to train your replacement. I felt sucker-punched. It was as if they handed us a shovel and said, 'Here, dig your own grave.' ''

There just isn't any shame left these days, I suppose. Here's hoping N. Gregory Mankiw is forced to stay around and train his replacement this December and January.

I sure hope my undergrad alma mater doesn't become CVS College.

Despite my lukewarm reception for his band's new album, Jeff Tweedy is still one of my favorite artists, and here's hoping rehab works out for him.

I interrupt my non-blogging activity to note what a moron manager Jimy Williams of the Houston Astro is. Last year, he insisted on playing the horrible Geoff Blum nearly 50% of the time at 3B while Morgan Ensberg was hitting 25 HR. He now has the extremely light-hitting Adam Everett in the #2 spot in the batting order. And tonight, on opening night, he leaves Roy Oswalt in way too long. Up 4-1 going into the 8th, he leaves Oswalt out there despite Oswalt's struggles in the innings before. When the first batter reaches, Oswalt is still in there. Then Michael Tucker lines a single. Tying run now at the plate. Ummm...guess who? Barry Bonds. Now it's really time to lift Oswalt and bring in a lefty or the hard-throwing Brad Lidge. Nope. Williams comes out to talk to Oswalt, leaves him in there. First pitch to Bonds. Line drive HR. Tie game. No win for Oswalt. Grady Little lives.

(Yeah, I have Oswalt on my NL rotisserie team. But just imagine how Astro fans must feel).