HometownSource Blogs

The Minnesota Twins were 79-83 last year. That was with center fielder Torii Hunter and pitching ace Johan Santana. The Sporting News projects the team to win 76 games this season and finish in fifth place in the five-team Central Division.

I think the Twins will edge Kansas City for fourth place (whoopee) but I think the SN is being generous in the number of victories. Try 74. That calculates to a 74-88 mark, 14 games under .500 and a couple miles out of contention.

That’s not good. The good news is that baseball experts are predicting some great pennant races this season. I agree. There should be plenty of reasons to follow America’s summer pastime. There’s reason to think our focus will be on the game’s numerous attractions rather than its abuses.

With that in mind here is how I see this year’s pennant races.

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I am of the generation that believes a cup of coffee doesn’t taste quite right without a newspaper in hand. The feel of newsprint is something I came by honestly, having been raised by parents whose day wasn’t complete until they caught up on the news and sports in the local paper.

I tried to raise my children that way, but I failed and have accepted the reality that none of my three children will ever spend much time with a newspaper. But they are extremely adept at getting their news from many websites, downloading their music from the Web, watching videos on the screens of laptops tethered to You Tube or other places in cyberspace and on-line chatting with friends around the world. What we have here, dear readers, is a generation gap that is challenging companies such as Thisweek to provide the news and information through many channels and formats “

In the wake of a staggering amount of data calling into question the entire theory of climate change (only two more months until it becomes global warming again), Al Gore confidently points out there is only a “tiny, tiny” few cave-dwelling denialists:

I think that those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they’re almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat.

He then announces the commencement of a $300 million ad campaign raising awareness about the issue. Pardon me for pointing out the obvious: If non-believers were comprised of such a “tiny, tiny” group of conspiracy crackpots, why do we need $300 million in Awareness Raising!^TM

It sounds like a pretty wasteful use of resources, given the planet is dying and everyone knows it.

In case anyone is wondering why I haven’t posted on Hillary’s “misspeak” about Bosnia, it’s because I was busy avoiding the shrapnel falling from the sky over the weekend.

Oh wait. That was snow.

Actually, it’s because there is very little that is remarkable about Hillary playing the fabulist. Dick Morris gives an abridged list of her “misspeaks” here.

What is remarkable though, is that Chelsea Clinton seems to remember the Bosnia landing the same way. Which, in light of video evidence to the contrary, makes Hillary’s “misspeak” suddenly appear much more like a coordinated effort to exaggerate the incident.

Hmm…

The blogosphere is exploding with Forest Lake High School’s decision to cancel the Vets for Freedom National Heroes Tour. Drudge has it, as does Power Line, Malkin, Blackfive, and many, many more.

The Forest Lake Times is reporting the event was moved to the American Legion after the school received “negative calls and e-mail” about the event. Objections to the Heroes tour focused primarily on concerns the event would be too political, but according to Pete Hegseth, the agreement was to keep the event non-political:

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Via Powerline, the AP gives us another chance to play “name that party:”

Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, a one-time rising star and Detroit’s youngest elected leader, was charged Monday with perjury and other counts after sexually explicit text messages contradicted his sworn denials of an affair with a top aide.

Anyone? Bueller?

As of 11:35 a.m. Monday morning, no mention of Kilpatrick’s political affiliation in 22 paragraphs about his liaisons and resultant perjury.

For the record, Reuters did find it noteworthy.

The Barack Obama campaign has released a photo of Bill (not Hillary) Clinton shaking hands with the now-infamous America basher, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. For someone who talks constantly about making a “change” in the politics-as-usual of D.C., this seems an awfully politics-as-usual move, following a week of politics-as-usual moves.

The HRC campaign’s e-mail response is hilarious:

Urgent indeed — a picture — oooooooo!

(Cleaning nose projectile coffee from keyboard, give me a moment)

One can only wonder what conclusion we are intended to draw from the release of the photograph. Is there to be some moral equivalence between having a 20-year relationship with “uncle” Wright and a photo op at a prayer breakfast attended by roughly 130 people? Read more »

No question, as HB notes in this post, that McCain made a verbal gaffe yesterday in suggesting Iran was training as Qaeda. He said so. But in doing so, did McCain actually stumble upon a truth?

Among other things, the New York Sun reports (excerpted to save space): Read more »

Have you got your bracket sheets filled out for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament? I finished mine Tuesday night. And, if the trend of past years continues, my brackets will be pretty much obliterated by the end of play Sunday. My track record isn’t very good.

How do you pick your winners? If you’re doing it as part of a pool and money is involved it’s best to follow the sports betting line. When I started this occupation in the early 1970s I never thought betting odds would some day become a regular item in our daily newspapers. They did many years ago and I think many readers make the “latest line”

There is something profoundly typical about a politician who is willing to throw his still living grandmother to the wolves in order to lessen the political impact of his pastor’s hateful value system.

UPDATE: ABC catches Obama engaging in another not-so-rare moment of politics as usual.

On a day when Barack Obama was delivering yet another classic challenge to the broken conventions of Washington politics, Candidate McCain puts his own new spin on Iraq War fear-mongering.

Sen. John McCain, traveling in the Middle East to promote his foreign policy expertise, misidentified in remarks Tuesday which broad category of Iraqi extremists are allegedly receiving support from Iran….

McCain said it was “common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.” A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate’s ear. McCain then said: “I’m sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda.”

Foreign policy expertise. Yes, I just can’t imagine how Obama will counter that kind of experience in the general campaign. Maybe Maverick can assure us that Lieberman will be there too, when the phone rings at 3 a.m.

“As leadership, you have some obligations to the caucus. It doesn’t mean dissent is stifled.”

That quote is attributed to the DFL’s Gordon Voss, chairman of the tax committee in 1987. Michael Brodkarb notes that it was published by the Star Tribune in May of that year.

As much as I am loathe to, I must take issue with Don’s post on the state Republican Party’s purge of the “infamous six,” in which he concludes:

This is not a government of, by and for the party.

The reason we have political parties is because it is simply impossible for every citizen to get to know every candidate on a personal level. As such, parties are established with a clear set of platforms in order that voters feel more comfortable with the ideology of a given candidate.

Over the years, both parties have engaged in purges. Read more »

Are you surprised that activist Republican Party members are eating up their candidates because they crossed over and voted for what’s best for their district? They had the audacity to vote what’s best for the districts they represent.

Imagine, not only were the infamous six stripped of their committee leadership assignments, but their own party members are trying to deny them the IR endorsement.

This is not a government of, by and for the party.

I particularly have in mind the sacking Rep. Kathy Tingelstad and Rep. Jim Abeler of Anoka County, who are being scourged by their own party leaders.

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News of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s high-dollar rendezvous with a prostitute and his subsequent resignation this past week have brought an uncomfortable human truth into the media spotlight once again.

To err is human “

This is the time of year many people eagerly page through seed catalogs, envisioning that bountiful garden that lies ahead next summer.

Me? I’m checking magazine counters for those pre-season baseball publications, assessing the outlook for the upcoming season. Which teams will be contenders. Which won’t.

I snatched up my first ones last week – The Sporting News, Athlon and Scout magazines. According to their experts, the Minnesota Twins are in trouble folks. The Sporting News projects Carl Pohlad’s revamped squad for fifth place in the American League’s Central Division. Athlon and Scout tab Minnesota for fourth place. Remember, there are just five teams in the division.

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