A bad first week for the Yankees, another bad week for cruise ships

- I take back everything I’ve said for the past few months about the war in Iraq and what a debacle it is. W. is right, we’re winning and we can achieve victory! After all, what says that we’re winning like a prominent Iraqi cleric issuing an anti-American order for the country’s army and police to band together in the fight to expel the “archenemy” from their country, America being that archenemy? Can’t you feel the momentum train a-rollin’ down the tracks, ready to quash……aww, screw it, I can’t keep typing these lies. I’d like to go all patriotic and say that someone issuing and order like this is crap and that we need to take this guy out, but here’s the problem: while his solution is bogus, the problem he sees is real and his anger is valid. We’re in their country, trying to keep military rule and tell them how they need to run their nation. The reason we’re in this position is because we invaded without just cause, under false pretenses (WMD’s, suuuuurrrre) and now we refuse to leave because our president is a ginormous horse’s ass who is too proud and/or stupid to admit that this has become a complete debacle. Muqtade al-Sadr might not be a person you’d invite over for dinner, but tell me you wouldn’t be pissed if someone invaded your country, overthrew your government and refused to leave until…..well, I don’t know what could cause us to leave Iraq, because W. doesn’t seem to have that part of the plan hammered out yet. But rest secure, America, because our lying leader continues to insist that things are just fine and that everything will work out A-OK, so nothing to worry about here…..except everything.

- Glad to see that Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is keeping his eye on the ball. Huckabee is pissed at fellow candidate Mitt Romney over that most important of campaign issues, lying about being a hunter. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am saddened to report that Mitt Romney lied about being lifelong hunter and has, in fact, only been hunting twice in his life. This lie ranks right up there with Watergate, lying about the WMD’s and Bill Clinton lying about the whole Monica Lewinsky situation. To insist that one has been a hunter all his life, then to admit that is not the case is devastating. Dare I say, it even makes a person unfit to serve in office. Either that, or it’s a trivial, pointless piece of information for a man who clearly has bigger problems, chiefly that he’s named after a piece of baseball equipment. Huckabee clearly wants to establish that Romney is a liar and not trustworthy, and you can be sure that he will use this insignificant incident to try and establish that if Romney will lie about being a hunter, he’ll lie about everything else and blah, blah, blah……..AWW, SHUT YOUR MOUTH, MIKE HUCKABEE! If your campaign is so feeble and desperate that you’re clinging to something like this more than a year away from the election, then you don’t have much hope of winning anyhow. Like I give a crap whether Mitt Romney is a hunter or not. What you have ensured, Huckabee, is that I won't be voting for you, even if I were dumb enough to vote for another Republican after the eight-year running joke of a Republican we will have had in the Oval Office by the time 2008 comes to a close.

- More developments in the case of the Greek cruise ship that crashed into a volcanic reef off the coast of Santorini last week. With two French tourists missing (maybe they simply surrendered to the first person they saw with a weapon, as is the French custom?) and finding himself under indictment on charges of negligence, the ship’s captain is doing what all truly courageous, stand-up men do in times of crisis; he’s trying to push the blame off on someone, or rather something else. The captain is blaming rough sea currents for the crash, a wise move on his part because it’s kinda hard to go back several days and measure the sea currents in the middle of the Aegean, where the water provides and ever-changing landscape and there’s no definitive way to prove or disprove the captain’s claim. On the plus side, this does give me another entry for my list of cruise ship hazards, going right below Norovirus, volcanic reefs itching for a collision and ice bergs. So add blame-averse ship captains to the list, and be on the lookout for the next cruise ship disaster that is sure to come some time this week. Isn't it awesome to have something to look forward to every single week?

- Let this be a lesson to all of the high schools, colleges and universities out there that are procrastinating when it comes to finding a speaker for your institution’s graduation ceremonies. Ah-nold Schwarzenegger, the Gover-nator, has been chosen to speak to British Conservative Party about the environment at the party’s annual conference. Ostensibly, the BCP actually sought out the Gover-nator to be its speaker. Party leader David Cameron is trying to sell that lie, but it’s about as convincing as O.J.’s search for the real killers. Nobody actually wants Ah-nold to speak to their group for a special occasion, unless your group is sci-fi dorks who are debating the social significance of the Terminator movies and trying to predict when the actual war between man and machines will happen. This is what happens when you whiff on your first four or five options for a speaker and end up with, say David Hasselhoff as your special guest at graduation. Plus, the BCP is going to have the added expense of hiring a translator for Ah-nold so they can actually understand what the man is saying. Next time, save your money and bring in Jerry Seinfeld or Dane Cook, it’ll be a lot more entertaining and probably just as informative.

- Most “developments” this early in the Major League Baseball season aren't worth much. Teams have played one week’s worth of games, six or seven of 162 contests that aren't enough of a sample to make significant judgments on. However, it’s never too early to revel in a bad start to a given season for the team everyone outside of the Brooklyn/Bronx/Manhattan area loves to despise, the New York Yankees. The Yanks ended their first week of the 2007 season with a record of 2-3, with not a single starting pitcher making it out of the fifth inning in any of the five games, their starting left fielder Hideki Matsui on the disabled list with a strained left hamstring and third baseman Alex Rodriguez on his mercurial, roller coaster act that so endears him to Yankee fans on an annual basis. On opening day, A-Rod dropped an easy pop up for an error and made an out in a key situation, a blunder he then repeated in the second game of the year. Most teams can overlook a slow start, but when your payroll is more than $200 million and you have the most impatient owner in all of sports, George Steinbrenner, you don’t have that luxury. The Boss is probably already pondering who he can fire or trade, and the bad news for the Yanks is that despite a stacked offense that should score a lot of runs this season, their pitching isn't going to miraculously get better, not with the immortal Brett Rasner in the rotation. Here’s hoping this is the season the Yankees finally miss the playoffs, if for no other reason than it’ll be fun to see the looks of utter despair and shock on the faces of Sal from Brooklyn, Joey from the Bronx and their loathsome owner as Big Stein blows a gasket.