The idea of PCL Baseball sounds cool, but the atmosphere comes across on TV like high school ball. As someone already pointed out, the true joy of minor league ball is being there. However, as Jim Bouton observed in 'Ball Four', the biggest divide in baseball is between the Big Leagues (as they are still charmingly called in Philippine newspapers), and Triple A. The minor leagues, Bouton wrote, are all very minor. (Hey, I used tags!)

No doubt I'm alone on this, but after last year's World Baseball Classic, what I'd really like to see is Korea's Bigs, and Japan's Central and Pacific Leagues. Televise the games live for diehards like me, overnight in the U.S. time zones. That's where MLB's best prospects are coming from these days, anyway. And sumo. We are definitely going to need a lot more sumo. There is a lot of great "World" Sport out there. Is ESPN (and Fox, etc.) listening?

On a not unrelated note, I caught the NFL Europe World Bowl (and I didn't know their season had even started). Former Wyoming QB Casey Bramlett led the Hamburg Sea-Devils (who have cool uniforms) to their first-ever championship over perennial power Frankfurt. It was a good game, with big plays; and it looked like they had a big crowd. (Bonus: the NFL announcers were careful to pronounced it correctly as "HOM-burg".)

"Surely [the U.S.} can collectively soak up part of this surplus." -- Nancy Ott

Demand has never been greater for the best and/or most expensive French wines; and yes, worldwide consumption is skyrocketing, including the U.S. Ordinary French wines, however, are being badly outsold in the middle and at the low end of the market; yet French producers generally have refused to lower their prices. Hence, the current glut.

Wine writers for years have been warning the French to heed the "forces of globalization" (read: be more commercial like Australia, and make the kind of bold, fruity reds preferred by Robert Parker). Thus far France has resisted, in favor of tradition; and all things being equal, I prefer the more subtle, aromatic, acidic French wines. But things are not equal; and while wine is not a commodity, the fact is there are a lot of good wines available in the U.S. for under $15 (per 750 ml) -- but in my opinion few of them are from France.

France's marketing problems were worsened by the weak dollar and the Freedom Fries-era boycott; but something deeper is occurring. Wine Spectator('s James Suckling, IIRC) noted several years ago that while Paris was once the destination of choice for U.S. baby-boomers and their parents, younger Americans go to Italy. French restaurants are no longer the obvious choice for a nice dinner out; now it is just as likely to be Spanish or Indian (or Cambodian!). In short, France no longer holds the cultural monopoly it once held, and must stoop to re-conquer the world's imagination as well as its wine markets.

If I understand the argument, the neocons are saying that because the only role that is expressly set forth for the Vice President in the Constitution is "President of the Senate" the OVP therefore exists in some sort of legal netherworld -- not quite in the legislature, not quite part of the executive. Indeed, most vice presidents have done little except exist as presidents-in-waiting; and while every president as far back as I can remember has promised to give his running mate a "real" role in his administration, none really did so -- until Al Gore, who actually accomplished things such as reduce the federal bureaucracy.

Comes now Cakewalk Cheney, whose special projects include killing a half-million people in Iraq for the sake of permanent U.S. bases atop the oil; and suddenly what no doubt began as an exercise in some neocon think tank has the White House asserting, in effect, that everything the OVP has done in the last six years has been without any constitutional authority whatsoever. Because if the OVP is not part of the executive branch, then what is the source of its authority to do anything other than wait around to break ties in the Senate? And therefore hasn't everything ol' Deadeye Dick done since 2001 been illegal?

Of course, limiting the OVP's power to breaking ties in the Senate requires thinking like a strict constructionist judge. Maybe Old Cakewalk will get lucky, should the legality of his actions ever be challenged, and find himself in front of a liberal judge who legislates from the bench and is willing to "read into" the Constitution the implicit authority for the OVP to be doing the kinds of things Dick's been doing since January 2001. You know; the sort of reasoning the Supreme Court used to protect our privacy in Griswold and Roe v. Wade.

1. "The Iraq war is not about Iraq." -- PoliticalUnrealityOnline

Good to know. That explains a lot.

2. ". . . the tyrants in Tehran and Damascus . . ." -- Id.

Actually, a "tyrant" is someone who seized power unlawfully. Bush-Cheney are "tyrants" to a far greater degree than their equally obnoxious (but elected) counterpart in Iran.

3. It took RealName 1500 attempts over the tedious course of just 86 days, but he/she finally wrote a good letter. Indeed this particular GOP Dick is already on record that his newly-discovered "opposition" to the occupation is just political theater and that he will continue to vote in the Senate for whatever Bush-Cheney want, no matter how silly.

4. Listening just now on CNN Int'l to Junior Bush harangue a captive audience about how the Iraqi insurgents are "the same people who attacked us on 9/11" and other nonsense, I found myself wondering whether he really believes his own lies. Does Junior know he's acting the fool as a front man for a military-industrial complex that wants permanent U.S. bases atop the oil, or does he sincerely believe the absurdities Cheney tells him? That will be the only real question for the historians concerning this, the worst presidency ever.