That makes this the fourth year in a row. This year was much less challenging than last year. I was in first place in the 3rd week of April and stayed in First place all year long. My pitching staff nearly fell apart in the second half after phenom Strasberg went down (I picked him up) but after picking up Daniel Hudson, Gio Gonzales, Brett Myers, and Brian Matusz, I was able to stop the free-fall while holding on to Tim Lincecum and Ubaldo. It also helps when you are able to roster 5 great closers, which I was fortunate to do, and none of them went down with injuries this year, thank god, otherwise it would have been a tighter race in the last month.

Once again it is proven that you shouldn't pick up speedsters before the 10th round, and you should only pick 3 or 4 pitchers (2 starters, 2 closers) in your first 11 picks. There will always be 10 pitchers who surprise or out-perform their expected stats in any given year, and there is another 10 pitchers who can have a 2 month span of quality that you can use.

GinoNapoli©August2010

GinoNapoli©August2010.

GinoNapoli©August2010

The native Bostonian is hella funny. And he pulls no-punches with the best sarcasm akin to Jonathan Stewart, except Matt does it in writing.

His recent piece in the Men's Journal is a ribaldry about Sport's figures getting busted for both petty and serious crimes during the off-season called The Jock's Guide to Getting Arrested.

For those of you new to Taibbi, be forewarned, he is typical East-coastt in his "spicy" language and often explicit but accurate sexual references.

From the same source in the last post with Dr. Bea, the Geologist from Berkeley.

WB: The chief electronics technician on the Deepwater Horizon said that the Macondo well was originally drilled in another location, but that “going faster caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools”, and that BP abandoned that well. You’ve spoken to that technician and looked into the incident, and concluded that “they damn near blew up the rig.” [See here and here].

Do you know where that abandoned well location is, and do you know if that well is still leaking?

Bea: The abandoned well is very close to the current well location. BP had to file reports showing the location of the abandoned well and the new well [with the Minerals Management Service], so the location of the abandoned well is known.

We don’t know if the abandoned well is leaking.

"Geology is fractured, relief wells may fail, and oil will leak for years...BP is using a "cloak of silence, and refusing to share even basic data with the government."

Oh ... but the brown people wanna put a mosque in downtown manhattan.

Follow the money.

Click here for the story.

Few people in the world know more about oil drilling disasters than Dr. Robert Bea.

Bea teaches engineering at the University of California Berkeley, and has 55 years of experience in engineering and management of design, construction, maintenance, operation, and decommissioning of engineered systems including offshore platforms, pipelines and floating facilities. Bea has worked for many years in governmental and quasi-governmental roles, and has been a high-level governmental adviser concerning disasters. He worked for 16 years as a top mechanical engineer and manager for Shell Oil, and has worked with Bechtel and the Army Corps of Engineers. One of the world’s top experts in offshore drilling problems, Bea is a member of the Deepwater Horizon Study Group, and has been interviewed by news media around the world concerning the BP oil disaster.

From Dennis G. at Ballon-Juice

It is the month where we learned about shark attacks and Gary Condit while George Bush ignored a security warning titled “Bin Laden determined to strike in US.” It is the month where wingnutopia talking points for invading Iraq was manufactured and tested. It is the month that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth began running ads about John Kerry while the rest of wingnutopia went crazy about the flip-flop meme. It was the month of Katrina. It was the month when Karl Rove convinced most of the media that he had “the math”. It was the month when the Palin traveling carnival of hucksters was introduced to America. It was the month of death panels. It was the month the Tea Party sprang forth from well fertilized astroturf. Now it is the month to worry about secret moooslims building things or terrorist cell groups of anchor babies. And always it is a month where the dumbest mother fuckers in America try to drive our National discourse with fear, ignorance and hatred.

Newsflash. They aren't building it on ground zero. It is two blocks away. Not even adjacent to the building at "ground zero".

Across the street from ground zero is a strip club.

But don't believe me. Click here for google map of the location.

Have you seen a picture? It is more like a community center that caters to a lot of the black muslims living in the lower East side, and mostly consist of native muslims (not arabs). From the above link by Matt Sludge at Huffington Post:

In addition, the building planned for 45 Park Place is a cultural center with a prayer room -- not a single-purpose house of worship for Muslims, which is probably what we should reserve the word "mosque" for. As Haberman also explains, "That it may even be called a mosque is debatable. It is designed as a multi-use complex with a space set aside for prayer -- no minarets, no muezzin calls to prayer blaring onto Park Place."

The so-called "mulah" is actually a man of peace who was actually co-opted by the Bush administration and the CIA/FBI to help root out potential muslim extremists.

This issue is Rethuglican hypocrisy based upon nothing of substance BECAUSE THEY WANT TO DISTRACT THE NATION FROM MATTERS OF REAL IMPORTANCE.

Muslims are no more a unified "they" than are Christians. Baptisms, Seventh-day Adventists, Episcopal, Methodists, Mormons, and Catholics are all different sects. Muslims are the same way. The image of Muslims all being dominated by the Holy Mecca is just as ridiculous as the Catholics all being dominated by the pope in Rome, or the branches of Christianity the evolved from the English Colonies either.

The 19 Egyptians and the 1 Pakistani who "attacked us" on 9-11 were not from the evil religion of muslims, and they are no more representative of the muslim faith than the people who shoot doctors in the name of Jesus, or the child molesting preachers in the Christian churches. It is unfair to paint with a broad brush all the of the people of faith just because of the crazed actions of a few.