Lactose Intolerance

Marlins management is unable to get a new stadium deal, cannot keep free agent players, and just generally cannot turn a profit, but boy can they stick it to their batboys.

Milk does a body good, but it didn't do good for one batboy.

On a dare, a Florida Marlins batboy tried to drink a gallon of milk in under an hour without throwing up. But not only did the batboy not succeed in the challenge, his mere attempt cost him his job for six games, the Miami Herald reported Wednesday.

The Marlins suspended the unidentified batboy for the team's upcoming six-game homestand against the Cardinals and Mets from Aug. 28 through Sept. 4 for accepting the dare Sunday from Dodgers pitcher (and former Marlin) Brad Penny.

Penny offered the batboy $500 if he could drink a gallon of milk in less than an hour before Sunday's game without throwing up. Penny told the paper the boy drank the milk and didn't throw up, but didn't finish the gallon in the allotted time frame to win the dare.

As Penny points out, "It's kind of ridiculous that you get a 10-game suspension for steroids and a six-game suspension for milk."

If the Marlins franchise only took winning that seriously...

Bits

• The brother of Delegate Anthony Brown from Prince George's County said that he believes that the reason his brother volunteered for a tour of duty in Iraq was politically motivated. I sure hope that is no the case here.
  
  
• Maybe the price of gas isn't so bad when adjusted for inflation.
  
  
• I would be a very happy Orioles fan if the team would release Sosa, Palmeiro, and Ponson. Today.
  
  
• It did not take the media long to start with Katrina and the Waves jokes in regards to Hurricane Katrina.
  
  
• I would be willing to bet that the voting participation rate to name the new panda will exceed the voting participation rate in next year's Maryland General Elections.
  
  
• How many Republicans will really wind up running for President? So far there are at least a dozen candidates not just whispering about running, but actively taking steps to explore a run. So how many of the group (Allen, Tancredo, Gingrich, Giuliani, Pataki, Huckabee, McCain, Hagel, Brownback, Santorum) will make it to New Hampshire? And will they be joined by other potential candidates?
  
  
• Regardless, I think that Marylanders have a few other important elections to make it through first..
  
  
• To tie those two thoughts together, will there be more Republican candidates for President in 2008, or Democratic Candidates for the U.S. Senate in Maryland in 2006? Every other day, it seems like more candidates actively talking about enetering the race. The common wisdom was that after Van Hollen skipped the race, it would be primarily a Cardin vs. Mfume affair. Now, with more and more names looking at the race, it seems like the Democratic Primary could became as unpredictable as once thought.
  
  
• And will there be more candidates for U.S. Senate or for Cardin's now vacant 3rd District Congressional seat?
  

Numbers Never Die

I can sympathize with the position of Frank Robinson and Curt Schilling when it comes to Rafael Palmeiro's career numbers. Nobody has quite explained how to account for said statistics, however, if they were removed from the record. Better yet why are they not complaining about other cheaters. As ESPN's Jayson Stark pointed out, there is not exactly a run to throw Gaylord Perry or Whitey Ford out of the Hall of Fame. Nor is there a cry to invalidate the 1961 American League Batting title Norm Cash won with a corked bat. Is George Brett not Hall-of-Fame worthy after the Pine Tar Incident? And, as Jim Caple asks, what about football?

The point is that while there is righteous indignation about the Steroid Era's statistics, the numbers must remain. Baseball is consistent in recognizing numbers, even if the numbers were achieved in a nefarious manner. Did Palmeiro cheat? Absolutely. But he gets to keep his money, the standings are not altered, and the numbers will never die.

Baldwin Redux

The Orioles righted a wrong yesterday, by claiming RHP James Baldwin off waivers from the Rangers yesterday.

It seems just like last month (wait a sec, it was last month) when the O's were over .500 and James Baldwin was pitching extremely well as a long-reliever out of the 'pen.

Then the walls came tumbling down. Baldwin was designated for assigment in advance of the impending A.J. Burnett trade that never happened. It was soon after Baldwin was claimed by the Rangers that Ponson and Cabrera both got hurt, Lopez and Chen forget how to pitch past the third-inning, and the bullpen was stretched too thin. There were too many innings to go around, and the team has paid a price for it ever since.

I do not think that the Baldwin move was the one thing that brough the Orioles to where they are today, but Baldwin's presence in the bullpen would have made a bad roster situation much easier to deal with.

Buyer Beware

I hope that Mayor O'Malley and the Baltimore City Council read this from Bloomberg before jumping feet first on their hotel proposal:

First the binge, now the hangover.

A headline in the Aug. 10 Omaha World-Herald succinctly sums up the state of affairs at the city's new convention center hotel: ``With Too Few Conventions, Hilton Can't Pay Its Way.''

The story described how the city of Omaha, Nebraska, would have to tap reserve funds to make payments on the bonds it sold to build the hotel in 2002. When the city sold the $103 million in bonds, it also promised to make up a portion of the debt service, if hotel revenue fell short. In part because of that promise, Ambac Financial Group Inc. guaranteed the bonds.

The hotel, owned by the city and operated by Hilton Hotels Corp., is meeting its goal of filling two-thirds of its rooms, but not at the rates originally projected, which were $143.43 in 2005 and $147.07 in 2006. A couple can stay there this weekend, for example, for as little as $109 per night.

That's not all. It looks like the city will have to increase property taxes in 2007 to pay debt service on the bonds it sold to build the convention center. The center has booked 14 conventions for 2006, and only six in 2007, the newspaper reported.

``2007 is a big problem,'' the newspaper quoted Dana Markel, director of the Greater Omaha Convention and Visitors Bureau. ``We are very concerned about it.''

Welcome to the convention business. Now get ready to raise taxes.

Looks like Baltimore taxpayers better look out for yet another O'Malley Tax.

Red Storm on the East

China is certainly dealing with interesting times these days. While the ridiculously named "Peace Mission 2005" Sino-Russian War Games are launched as a message to the West, the Communist Chinese Government is dealing with some serious challenges to internatal stability.

On the one hand, there is a fuel shortage in China that is creating long lines and causing considerable discord between state-own gas companies. Lines at Chinese gas lines are reminiscent of gas lines from the 1970's. The Chinese state-owned oil company is trying to consolidate the remaining gas stations and gas industry in China under one entity, much as they are trying to consolidate their international oil international holdings through additional purchases of oil companies in Kazakhstan, Venezuela, and the attempted purchase of American-based UNOCAL.

On the other hand, the socialist utopia that goes by the "from each.../to each..." model apparently lost its way. Seeems that there is a growing social instability from the gap between the rich and the poor in China. To be fair, the Chinese model has been less doctrinaire communist in recent years, and more focused on a capitalist-style business enterprised combined with an authoritarian government and societal structure. From the sounds of it the model, while succesful in business enterprises, may cause Glasnost like fissures in the Chinese system.

On top of all of this stability, we are still dealing with a Chinese government and military strucutre that is prepared to fight to reunify Taiwan with the mainland, and is prepared to challenge U.S. hegemony in the Far East and South America.

While terrorism remains a concern at the front of our national security structure, we cannot forget to keep a wary eye on the machinations of the Chinese.

Setting Sun

Think the Sun has problems when it comes to spinning stories about Maryland politics? Take a look at the issue involving columnist Jules Witcover, whose last column was Friday.

Was his "contract not renewed" as the Sun contends? Or was he fired, as Witcover tells the Post?

I certainly do not agree with most of the things that Witcover wrote, but to dismiss such a tenured columnist in such a manner is odd and bizarre. (I mean, with all of the disgrace Olesker has brought the paper, he still has his job). And with all of the circulation problems the Sun has (its 11-percent decline in circulation is one of the highest overall declines in the country) , the paper's management continues to find new and creative ways to anger its readership.

The Sun is continuing its road to nowhere to lower circulation and diminished relevance at breakneck speed.

So What?

With all of the problems with schools, taxes, and crime in the state of Maryland, can somebody explain the obsession of some with the absolute minutaie of the Ehrlich Administration?

First, it was the Governor's Personnel Practices, which will finally come to a head on Monday with the begenning of the General Assembly's Kangaroo Court proceedings. Now, the consternation is over the Governor's golf game.

Rightfully so, the administration has not provided Common Cause the names of the Governor's golf partners as of yet. Nor should they. There has been no allegations of wrong-doing leveled at the Governor in this matter. This is completely unlike the Bob Taft situation in Ohio, where Taft's no contest plea was just the latest act in a series of long running corruption investigations in the Buckeye State.

Here, Common Cause is merely piling on to the multitude of other baseless allegations that have been lobbied against the Ehrlich Administration. I wish those worried about such things would work on real solutions to real problems instead.

Strange Indeed

Add "Strangelets" to the list of killer objects from outer space that may get us:

FORGET dangers from giant meteors: Earth is facing another threat from outer space. Scientists have come to the conclusion that two mysterious explosions in the 1990s were caused by bizarre cosmic missiles.

The two objects were picked up by earthquake detectors as they tore through Earth at up to 900,000 mph. According to scientists, the most plausible explanation is that they were "strangelets", clumps of matter that have so far defied detection but whose existence was posited 20 years ago...

The scientists looked for events producing two sharp signals, one as it entered Earth, the other as it emerged again. They found two such events, both in 1993. The first was on the morning of October 22. Seismometers in Turkey and Bolivia recorded a violent event in Antarctica that packed the punch of several thousand tons of TNT. The disturbance then ripped through Earth on a route that ended with it exiting through the floor of the Indian Ocean off Sri Lanka just 26 seconds later - implying a speed of 900,000 mph.

The second event took place on November 24, when sensors in Australia and Bolivia picked up an explosion starting in the Pacific south of the Pitcairn Islands and travelling through Earth to appear in Antarctica 19 seconds later.

According to the scientists, both events are consistent with an impact with strangelets at cosmic speeds. In a report about to be submitted to the Seismological Society of America, the team of geologists and physicists concludes: "The only explanation for such events of which we are aware is passage through the earth of ton-sized strange-quark nuggets."

It's almost a wonder any of us go outside anymore.

10,000 Other People to Bother

A story in today's Capital indicates that 2,403 tickets were issued for seat belt violations in Anne Arundel County during seat belt checkpoints that were part of the "2005 Maryland Chiefs Challenge" program that ran from April 5 to June 5.

As of right now, there are more than 10,000 outstanding warrants in Anne Arundel County.

Which issue would you rather see law enforcement commanders tackle when distributing their resources?

This Dynamite was a Dud

Finally rented and saw Napoleon Dynamite over the weekend. After watching, I cannot understand what all of the hype was about. Funny in places, less so in others. But not the groundbreaking comedy lots of folks said it was.

Of course, the film was desperately in need of a plot, so perhaps that was the minor problem I had with it.

Going Nowhere Fast

The federal transportation bill, as I mentioned in my previous post, often has more to do with bringing home the bacon than it does with meaningful transportation projects. The same, unfortunately, is often true on the state level as well.

The problem for the residents of the 31st District is that rarely, if ever, do we see the benefits of meaningful transportation projects. For example, there have been four significant transportation projects in the Pasadena area in the past ten years:

• The addition of reversible lanes on Mountain Road;
• The reconstruction and reorienting of the intersection of Edwin Raynor Boulevard and Fort Smallwood Road;
  
• The addition of a second lane to the Catherine Avenue bridge across Route 100;
• The reconstruction of the intersection of Mountain Road and Edwin Raynor Boulevard.
  

And that is the extent of the projects. With all of the traffic problems in the Pasadena area, that is the extent of the problem solving that has been undertaken by state and county leaders.

The project at Mountain Road and Edwin Raynor Boulevard actually made traffic worse by creating backups for those trying to turn from Mountain Road to Edwin Raynor. That project solved a problem that was not calling for a solution, instead of dealing with one of the real problems at that intersection; a lack of dedicated right-turn lanes from Edwin Raynor onto Mountain Road in both directions. That is the genesis of a majority of right lane backups on Edwin Raynor during the rush hours, and would been of significant assistance to the traffic problems. Instead, we have backups from the light at Mountain Road to the light at Old Crown Drive in the morning, and backups from the light to the offramp from Route 100 in the evening. Even a simple solution, such as extending the right lane on northbound Edwin Raynor from before Deerfield to closer to the bridge, has been kyboshed by the addition of annoying little pylons on the right shoulder.

The fact of the matter is that our elected representatives in District 31 have done little, if anything, to fix our transportation woes. I guess for some folks there are issues that are just too important to ignore. Instead of dealing with one of the most basic quality of life issues our community faces, our leaders are too busy with other issues to face and other offices to run for.

Oink

The transportation funding bill recently signed by President Bush contains so much pork and wasteful spending, the bill itself should oink.

Every year, the people of this nation are treated to billions of dollars of questionable road improvements on the taxpayers’ dime. All of them contained in that year's transportation funding bill. And both parties are guilty of exploiting this convenient trough from which they can bring home the bacon to their constituents.

The most ridiculous example of this style of profligate spending is the $2.3 million being used for landscaping along the Ronald Reagan Freeway in California. President Reagan vetoed a transportation-spending bill he deemed to expensive in 1987, so I can only imagine how chagrined he would be at the thought of such a bill being passed out of a Republican controlled congress.

Other shining examples of this kind of waste include a $220 million bridge in Alaska to connect a town of 50 people to the mainland, leases to the Apollo Theater in New York, another half-billion dollars in seat belt enforcement grants,

There are a few projects funded that will help our state in the long-run. Ten million dollars were earmarked for the Inter-County Connector. What do the residents of Anne Arundel County get out of this pork-laden bill? We get money to:

• Construct the Broadneck Peninsula Trail
• Construct Phase 1 of the South Shore Trail in Anne Arundel County from Maryland Route 3 at Millersville Road to I-97 at Waterbury Road
• Upgrade MD 175 in Anne Arundel County between MD 170 and BW Parkway

It strikes me as curious, given the need for transportation improvements in the Baltimore area, that so much money was earmarked for non-highway related funding projects. I like scenic trails, however I do not think that federal dollars should be spent on their construction, never mind those dollars being spent in lieu of more necessary projects. Did anybody tell Congress that Fort McHenry has a visitor's center? Because the construction of one is earmarked funding in this bill. And I have yet to understand how a pedestrian bridge and parking garage at Coppin State falls under any federal transportation guidelines.

The Federal Government has a necessary role in modern times in the funding of transportation projects. The Interstate Highway System, as well as the secondary National Highway System is important parts of our infrastructure. They are important to our national defense as well as the continuation of interstate commerce. Members of Congress should focus on those important aspects of transportation in America, and leave the parking garages, the trails and the beautification to state and local governments.

O'Malley's Folly

Mayor Martin O'Malley cannot seem to avoid a bad idea when it is thrust in front of him.

The Mayor's persistance on building a city owned hotel in downtown Baltimore is an absolutely absurd concept. I have yet to understand where the city of Baltimore has the capital or the ability to construct a hotel at a cost of over $300 million dollars. Even more absurd when you consider that private developers have offered to buy the land and build the hotel for far less than the $300 million price tag.

This in a city that continually runs deficits in its school system. A city where the crime rate remains one of the highest in the country. A city where drug dealers rule many streets. To spend that amount of money on a business venture is nearly criminally absurd.

What makes it more absurd is the failure of other publcily financed projects of similar magnitude in other major cities. As the Sun cites, similar projects in Myrtle Beach, St. Louis, and Sacramento have been built at tremendous costs to the taxpayers, but without the expected benefits in bookings and revenues the city expended. And on top of those projects, the Rocky Gap resort in Garrett County and our very own Compass Pointe Golf Course are local publicly financed projects that have run in the red since their conception.

What is the point of this hotel? Is it political patronage? Is it a legacy within the city? Is it connected to his gubernatorial campaign? It is hard to determine O'Malley's motives. But in the long run, the project will be known as O'Malley's Folly: a monument to blind ambition at the cost of one's community.

Unhappy Desk Jockeys

Governor Ehrlich and Comptroller Schaefer exercised wised judgments as stewards of the people's money today. The two men teamed up to block the purchase of $2 million in desks for the new Office Building for the House of Delegates at this morning's Board of Public Works meeting.

It humors me that House leaders think that furniture built by prison inmates is not good enough for their needs. Of course, that is easy to say when you are spending millions on another new, opulent legislative building.

Those who are upset by the lack of new desks (for the moment) at least need to realize that they are the stewards of the peoples money. I cannot wait to see how the Democratic legislators who are in support of these desks will defend their support of these purchases in lieu of their never-ending criticisms of the Governor for underfunding education.

The desks are a symptom of the rampant culture of overspending that pervades the General Assembly. I am thankful that we have a fiscally prudent Governor who is in place to combat such ridiculous expenditures.

The Joys of Overlegislating

It is state law in Maryland that if the windshield wipers of your car are on, you must also drive with your headlights on.

I saw three Anne Arundel County State Police cruisers nearly simulatenously at Mountain Road and Edwin Raynor Boulevard that had wipers on without headlights.

Maybe our elected represenatives, come this January, should spend a little less time campaigning and pontificaitng, and a little more time working to ensure that bad legislation is not passed, and introduce legislation that would see bad laws repealed.

It is certainly a better use of one's time that standing on the side of the road.

On Mazz...

The Lee Mazzilli firing at this point of the season seems to be a bit too little a bit too late. Management can say that they did something to address the problems the team had been having. But if things were as truly noxious in the clubhouse as recent reports seem to indicate (like Miguel Tejada saying that the team needed to win despite Mazz) then it was the right move.

The most interesting story surrounding the firing is not that firing, but Angelos' role in Mazzilli's hiring. Angelos has oft been criticized for taking too much of a role in the team's day-to-day operations. However, it was Angelos' decision to let Jim Beattie and Mike Flanagan make the decision on the new manager in 2003 that led to their selection of Mazzilli.

Angelos' first choice? Sam Perlozzo.

But so far so good. The O's are now 2-0 under the new skipper....

Death Spiral

That is pretty much what the summation of Orioles current situation. Perhaps Erik Bedard's "miss three starts" injury situation should have been the sign.

The team has not been able to pitch, nor has it been able to hit, since the All Star Break. On top of that, the bullpen has been taxed. The two guys considered "innings eaters" who were supposed to spare the bullpen both got hit in the hand with batted balls within 72 hours of each other.

And then there is Rafael Palmeiro. What else is there to say. The situation is sad at worst, bizarre at best. You know the story has gotten weird when the President of the United States and Jose Canseco are coming to your defense.

If the O's can salvage the season, it will be one of the most remarkable turnarounds in baseball history. We will have to wait and see what happens in Anaheim tonight to know where we go from here.