Monday July 9, 2007

Turkey has placed 140,000 troops on its border with Iraq. That’s only 20,000 less than we’ve got there … not exactly a number that says “howdy, neighbor, care for a game of catch?” Seems the Kurds — the only people over there that actually like us — have been conducting military options in southeast Turkey, which it views as occupied territory, from bases just over the Iraqi border. The Turks are pissed (though honestly, whose fault is it after you persecuted an ethnic minority within your boundaries for decades?), but if they actually decide to act on this with military force … goodness, things are going to get WORSE over there. We’ve already got two or three wars going on in the same country at once, so I can’t see how that’s going to fix anything. Then again, maybe Turkey wants to take over the whole damn country? Hell, they actually *did* rule Iraq before World War I, when Britain went in and took over the place … I think we’ve got an exit strategy here!

Meanwhile, does anyone know how much we’re paying to have our soldiers killed? $450 billion … and another $12 billion every month. By the time we finally get to the next presidential election, when we’ll all be riding around in flying cars, another comparison to Vietnam will be made: the wars will have the same price tag.

Monday July 9, 2007

Who doesn’t love a good dystopian novel? … Okay, six billion hands in the air. Fine. No one’s subjecting you to them. Except now, and this shouldn’t be too bad:

“I am on the floor, embracing her legs, my head in her lap. We do not speak. Silence, heartbeats … And I am a crystal, I dissolve in her. I feel with utmost clarity how the polished facets that delimit me in space are melting away, away — I vanish, dissolve in her lap, within her, I grow smaller and smaller and at the same time ever wider, ever larger, expanding into immensity. Because she is not she, but the universe. And for a moment I and this chair near the bed, suffused with joy,   are one. … All this is in me, with me, listening to the beating of my pulse and rushing through the blessed second. In absurd, confused, flooded words I try to tell her that I am a crystal, and therefore there is a door in me, and therefore I feel the happiness of the chair she sits in. But the words are so nonsensical that I stop, ashamed: I — and suddenly such …”

– from Chapter 23 of We by Soviet dissident Yegveny Zamyatin (1923)

Monday July 9, 2007

At the metaphorical (if not literal) midpoint of the season, here’s a quick look at the playoff spot leaders and some thoughts on the first half:

AL East: Boston 53-34, Toronto 43-44 (10 GB), New York 42-43 (10 GB)
AL Central: Detroit 52-34, Cleveland 52-36 (1 GB), Minnesota 45-43 (8 GB)
AL West: Los Angeles 53-35, Seattle 49-36 (2.5 GB), Oakland 44-44 (9 GB)
Wild Card: Cleveland 52-36, Seattle 49-36 (1.5 GB), Minnesota 45-43 (7 GB)

NL East: New York 48-39, Atlanta 47-42 (2 GB), Philadelphia 44-44 (4.5 GB)
NL Central: Milwaukee 49-39, Chicago 44-43 (4.5 GB), St Louis 40-45 (7.5 GB)
NL West: San Diego 49-38, Los Angeles 49-40 (1 GB), Arizona 47-43 (3.5 GB)
Wild Card: Los Angeles 49-40, Atlanta 47-42 (2 GB), Arizona 47-43 (2.5 GB)

In the American League, it’s Cleveland and Seattle — who’ve been playing make-up games against each other all year in the wake of four snowed-out games in April — currently jousting for the final playoff spot. I’m not exactly comfortable with the situation, but I certainly would have taken it back at the beginning of the year. Realistically though, all three of those third-place teams (if not others) will break out of the pack at some point. I think all three division leaders will hold their leads to the wire. Fact of the matter is that the Sawx and the Angels are looking like the best teams in baseball (and perhaps the most likely to acquire more talent at the trade deadline) and the Tigers seem to be a poor matchup for the Tribe … but I’m still quite confident that Cleveland is one of the four best teams in the league.

In the National League … does Milwaukee winning the World Series sound less insane now than it did when I predicted it on New Year’s Eve? I understand why everyone said so, given that this was a team that hadn’t been above .500 since 1992 or made the playoffs in a quarter century … but damn, they’ve got a bushel of young talent and I don’t see any dominant team in the National League. New York is on cruise control and the West seems like a jumble of light-hitting teams. Chicago is charging fast, but being cursed as they are, they’ll lose a one-game playoff to out-of-nowhere Colorado for the wild card. So here’s the picks, just so you can embarass me with them later …

ALDS: Boston over Cleveland 3-2, Detroit over Los Angeles 3-1
NLDS: Milwaukee over Colorado 3-1, San Diego over New York 3-2
Champ Series: Boston over Detroit 4-2, Milwaukee over San Diego 4-3
World Series: Milwaukee over Boston 4-3 (I’ve gotta stick to my guns!)