Controlled Chaos

Iraqi Abuse? By Don Feder The Arab world is shocked and incensed by the alleged abuse of Iraqis in one U.S. military prison. Shame on Uncle Sam, say the sons of the desert. As Steve Martin would say: Well, excu-u-use me! If Muhammad’s mob ever showed an ounce of compassion toward non-Moslems, their outrage would be more credible. That’s no excuse for what supposedly happened at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. Still, some of the allegations seem mild compared to the horrors that routinely go on in the dungeons of Middle Eastern regimes. Initial reports said prisoners were made to wear women’s underpants, or stripped naked and forced to lie on top of each other – which sounds more like a fraternity initiation than a KGB interrogation. Other allegations are far more serious. If true, the perpetrators should be severely punished. On seeing some of the photographs, like the prisoner standing on a block with wires attached to his hands (he was told he’d be electrocuted if he fell off), President Bush expressed disgust. "This treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people," Bush told reporters. Six Army reservists face courts-martial for mistreating prisoners. They are a tiny fraction of the 3,400 reservists who are guarding terrorist suspects at 16 military prisons in Iraq. There’s been a shakeup at the Abu Ghraib prison. The General formerly in charge (who says she had no knowledge of the abuse) has been replaced. In others words, everything that could be done has been done. The soldiers charged with brutality await trial. Their superiors have been reassigned or rotated to the States. There’s an on-going investigation. The situation would not have come to light in the first place had other military personnel stationed at the prison not blown the whistle on their fellow soldiers. None of this has stopped members of the religion of peace from issuing blanket condemnations. The reaction in the Arab world was reported in a May 2, USA Today story ("Arabs outraged by photos of U.S. forces humiliating Iraqis"). The nation that rid the region of Saddam Hussein -- a megalomaniac who’d invaded two of his neighbors in the course of a decade -- is excoriated both by Arab media and street. (When Saddam was in power, Iraqi dissidents found it next to impossible to interest the Arab press in the rapes and the torture-killings that went on in beautiful, downtown Baghdad on a daily basis.) But now that it’s infidels who are at fault, you’d think the U.S. had turned Iraq into Auschwitz without the amenities. The New York Times informs us, "such degradations (forcing prisoners to simulate sex acts)…are particularly humiliating to Arabs because Islamic law and culture so strongly condemn nudity and homosexuality." "The Shame!" screamed the headline in an Egyptian newspaper. "Shame on America," sputtered Cairo resident Mustafa Saad, repeating this theme. "How can they convince us now that it is the bastion of democracy, freedoms and human rights?" the irate Egyptian asked USA Today. Apparently, Mustafa is unconvinced by the fact that America has taken action. America is investigating. If crimes were committed, America will meet out punishment – to her own. If America were Egypt, the culprits would get commendations, promotions and a weekend at the beach. Coptic Christians, who constitute 10 percent of Egypt’s population, are routinely persecuted and occasionally murdered by Moslem mobs, to enormous yawns from the Egyptian government. Remember Jessica Lynch, the American private who was captured by the Iraqi army? Lynch was gang-raped (anally) by her captors. Apparently, the rape of a female POW doesn’t offend the Arabs’ exquisite sensibilities. Do you recall Americans blaming: a) all Iraqis B) all Arabs c) all Moslems for this bestial behavior? Do you recall protestations of outrage in the Arab world? But then, Lynch was an infidel Crusader and a defiler of the sacred sand of Islam, and – as such – probably had it coming, from the humane perspective of enlightened Arab opinion. (She was also out of burqa.) While the Arab street seethed over the revelations of what reportedly went on at Abu Ghrabi prison, Palestinians murdered an Israeli woman who was eight months pregnant and her four children – ages two to 11. Tali Hatuel, 34, who lived in a Jewish community in Gaza, was riding in a convoy when poor, oppressed Palestinians began firing on Israeli cars. After Hatuel’s white Citroen swerved off the road, gunmen approached the vehicle and shot the woman and her four children at killing range. The Arab Affairs correspondent on Israel’s Channel Two quoted Palestinian sources saying the attack was intended to hasten the departure of Jews from Gaza. In other words, the Palestinians deliberately shot a pregnant woman and her four children (one of them two years old) at close range because their hatred of Jews is boundless, as well as to achieve their objective of making part of Israel Juderein. The thugs who call themselves the Palestinian Authority (who receive millions annually from the U.S. and European Union) fully approved of this atrocity. If Arafat saw pictures of the bullet-ridden bodies, instead of expressing disgust, most likely he chortled in glee. When you come to it, when did the Arab/Moslem public last express the least regret over: machine-gun attacks on churchgoers in Pakistan, the anti-Christian jihad that’s resumed in Indonesia, genocide and slavery practiced by the Islamic regime in Sudan, the 2003 bombings of Istanbul synagogues, the recent spate of church burnings in Nigeria, the ongoing persecution of Iranian Jews by that nation’s mullah-ocracy, the orgy of destruction visited on Serbian churches and monasteries in Kosovo by Albanian Moslems, the deaths of over 100 in a 2002 attack by Chechen terrorists on a Moscow theater, the March 11 Madrid train bombing (death toll: more than 200) or the slaughter of more than 3,000 Americans in a single day by 19 airborne Saudis? It’s only the civilized who are horrified at brutality – even when the brutes are their own kind, even when the victims are their sworn enemies. On the other hand, with certain honorable exceptions, the Moslem attitude seems to be: If it was done to an infidel, they possibly/probably/definitely had it coming. Were they living on land Moslems claim? Were they 110-pound female Crusaders who had sullied Islam’s sacred sand pit? Were they dhimmis (Christians and Jews living under Islam) whose existence is tolerated, at best? Were they pregnant "settlers" and two-year-old Zionist imperialists? If the six reservist guards are found guilty of offenses against their Iraqi prisoners, maybe they should be treated with the same severity as those who commit crimes against Christians/Jews/Hindus etc. in the wonderful world of Islam. After the Arab street is through lecturing us on the humane treatment of prisoners, perhaps David Duke could address us on racial tolerance, Al Sharpton could comment on responsible social activism and al-Qaeda could instruct us on ecumenical relations.

I'm getting married in 137 days!! Some say god help me, but I'm excited to get to that next point in my life.

Happy Happy B-Day!!!

British pics might be fake. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,118852,00.html I don't know anything factual about that picture of the man beaten to death. Do you? I haven't seen it anywhere else. Do you know if he was attacking the soldiers? Did he try to escape...was he fighting back? I don't know...Was he beat to death for fun? I don't know, but neither do you. The difference is I'm willing to give our guys the benefit of the doubt and you are ready to crucify every soldier over there. Yes there are some bad people as soliders...In fact it's where a lot of bad kids go to straighten out....BUT the majority of our men and women over there are good people and I support them. I read the wires weren't connected to anything and that they did it to scare him. While I don't agree with it, it is a BIG difference from what you accused them of. I'm guessing you read the same thing I did about the wires, but it wasn't conducive to your story of the, big bad mean American Soldier, so your version had him possibly falling and getting electrocuted. Either way...I think what the soldiers did was wrong and they should get reprimanded... As for reading the news wire....What reports SMASH my idea of them not being beaten?? You have shown one picture and I know nothing about it. All I know from "hot off the wire" is info straight from an Iraqi prisoner...and he says nothing about being beaten. He just complains about having to be stripped once for about 15 minutes. I'm not so sure my idea was SMASHED. I know you would like to SMASH every idea that is positive about this war and glorify every thing that is negative You are as left as they come and I will not waste my time arguing or debating with you as we will NEVER see eye to eye.

I believe it should have been aired...I don't think they needed to show the pictures. We are at war....We know this will be twisted on Al Jazerra and will probably end up helping the terrorists in the long run...Whether it be with recruiting or just anti-american sentiment. I think a reprimand as punishment is appropriate. I think it was bad what they did and I don't agree with the soldiers at all. It was stupid and immature and they deserve to be punished, but war criminals they are not. They humiliated these prisoners. They didn't physically harm them. They made them stand around naked and pile on top oif each other...Inappropriate and Uncalled for?? YES! War crime?? NO!!!! I have read articles with people calling for jail time. Hell, I even had my friend tell me these acts were atrocious and they should all get 10 years? (Of course, he doesn't read anything and only uses lke CBS for his "news") I was like dude 10 years?? You don't even get 10 years for killing someone. Hell Jayson Williams admittedly shot a guy, tried to cover it up, tried to convince friends to cover it up and he probably won't even get 5 years. He'll be out in 2. What they made these prisoners do was wrong, but nothing compared to what they have done to us.

I can't belioeve this s***. Let's just look at some facts...and by the way I really have not been following this so much so if I'm wrong please correct me. Fact 1: He shot the guy Fact 2: It was his gun Fact 3: He tampered with evidence Fact 4: He tampered with a witness Fact 5: He fabricated evidence How in the hell they couldn't agree on this one is beyond me.... Reckless manslaughter definition: A person is guilty of manslaughter if that person recklessly causes the death of another. Id say shooting and killing someone with your shotgun is pretty reckless...

That was part of my point about the poll....it's kinda misleading....cause YES I do think it's politcally motiviated. However, I also think it's a good idea to remember the dead. I just hate to see Koppel do it. It's a disgrace to show these people who sacrificed their lives on a network that has yet to show what these men have accomplished.

Would it be possible to see AB's in here SS2K?

Cotts has looked great! That's what I was tellin my friends last night. He is throwin with confidence now and each time he has innnings like this he will gain more and more confidence. See, now I think he goes up there and is like "You can't hit my stuff" Where as before it was kinda like..."I'm not sure if you can hit my stuff" Great game!!

I don't like the way your poll is worded. I mean what is your question? tribute or slam? When you add in (We do not need to hear the names) it kinda changes the poll. Do you want to know If I think it's political? Yes. But that doesn't mean I don't want to see the names. I am well aware of how many people have died. They say it every single day. I think most people who watch the news know the number. I just think it's kind of hypocritical for ABC...who has had the worst war coverage of all, to show these names and pictures. If this show was on FOX NEWS I would fully support it. Fox has shown some of the good that has come from this war and I think when they show a picture of a solider it is more for honor than shock value. ABC has focused on all the most negative aspects and now they want to display the names and pictures of our soldiers, not because they deserve to be honored, but because it might have shock value with the masses. If they cared about our soldiers, if they cared about what they are doing over there....they would show it once in awhile. That's my opinion anyway.

Ok, I have had to leave work 3 times this season right before the ninth. Twice we had the lead and I went home feeling good. One of those(opening day) we lost...the other one we lost the lead and won in extra innings. now Yesterday we were losing 8-4 when I left work...So I was pissed off on the train being like...Jesus we got swept by the Indians. I get home to find out we came back and won!!!!! Moral for me is never count a win or a loss till the 3rd out of the last inning. So from now on if I leave work and I don't know the outcome I will be neutral on the train and on my walk to the train. oh yeah speaking of walk to the train...I'd like to apologize to that old lady I knocked down yesterday after work. But I could have sworn that was a feather in her hair and war paint she was wearing. Anyway...sox won...my bad.

It seems like a pretty logical question to me....

Yeah I posted the pics a while ago, but it didn't get too much recognition. http://www.soxtalk.com/index.php?showtopic=16785&hl=

oops my bad. Keep watching cbs, nbc and abc, they give it to you straight.

I second that.

Always!! I just tell the guy when he is counting change....just give me 3 bucks back or whatever it is to leave him with at least dollar, but usually dollar and change. THEY BUST ASS. The beer guys bust ass anyway. I'm not sure how it works for the other vendors. I do agree though the prices are f***in ridiculous and it makes ya not want to tip. I think it's 5.50 a beer?? So you by a round with 4 guys it's 22 bucks. Tip it's 23-24. If you do that twice you just spent almost 50.00 on beer...add in your ticket and a hotdog or something and it costs you 100.00 to go to a game. Beer prices make me f***in sick!!!! :fyou :fyou

I'm gettin a lil disgusted here!

E6 run scores!!!!

Found: Saddam's WMDs By Kenneth R. Timmerman Insight Magazine | April 28, 2004 New evidence out of Iraq suggests that the U.S. effort to track down Saddam Hussein's missing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is having better success than is being reported. Key assertions by the intelligence community that were widely judged in the media and by critics of President George W. Bush as having been false are turning out to have been true after all. But this stunning news has received little attention from the major media, and the president's critics continue to insist that "no weapons" have been found. In virtually every case - chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic missiles - the United States has found the weapons and the programs that the Iraqi dictator successfully concealed for 12 years from U.N. weapons inspectors. The Iraq Survey Group (ISG), whose intelligence analysts are managed by Charles Duelfer, a former State Department official and deputy chief of the U.N.-led arms-inspection teams, has found "hundreds of cases of activities that were prohibited" under U.N. Security Council resolutions, a senior administration official tells Insight. "There is a long list of charges made by the U.S. that have been confirmed, but none of this seems to mean anything because the weapons that were unaccounted for by the United Nations remain unaccounted for." Both Duelfer and his predecessor, David Kay, reported to Congress that the evidence they had found on the ground in Iraq showed Saddam's regime was in "material violation" of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, the last of 17 resolutions that promised "serious consequences" if Iraq did not make a complete disclosure of its weapons programs and dismantle them in a verifiable manner. The United States cited Iraq's refusal to comply with these demands as one justification for going to war. Both Duelfer and Kay found that Iraq had "a clandestine network of laboratories and safe houses with equipment that was suitable to continuing its prohibited chemical- and biological-weapons [bW] programs," the official said. "They found a prison laboratory where we suspect they tested biological weapons on human subjects." They found equipment for "uranium-enrichment centrifuges" whose only plausible use was as part of a clandestine nuclear-weapons program. In all these cases, "Iraqi scientists had been told before the war not to declare their activities to the U.N. inspectors," the official said. But while the president's critics and the media might plausibly hide behind ambiguity and a lack of sensational- looking finds for not reporting some discoveries, in the case of Saddam's ballistic-missile programs they have no excuse for their silence. "Where were the missiles? We found them," another senior administration official told Insight. "Saddam Hussein's prohibited missile programs are as close to a slam dunk as you will ever find for violating United Nations resolutions," the first official said. Both senior administration officials spoke to Insight on condition that neither their name nor their agency be identified, but their accounts of what the United States has found in Iraq coincided in every major area. When former weapons inspector Kay reported to Congress in January that the United States had found "no stockpiles" of forbidden weapons in Iraq, his conclusions made front-page news. But when he detailed what the ISG had found in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence last October, few took notice. Among Kay's revelations, which officials tell Insight have been amplified in subsequent inspections in recent weeks: A prison laboratory complex that may have been used for human testing of BW agents and "that Iraqi officials working to prepare the U.N. inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the U.N." Why was Saddam interested in testing biological-warfare agents on humans if he didn't have a biological-weapons program? "Reference strains" of a wide variety of biological-weapons agents were found beneath the sink in the home of a prominent Iraqi BW scientist. "We thought it was a big deal," a senior administration official said. "But it has been written off [by the press] as a sort of 'starter set.'" New research on BW-applicable agents, brucella and Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever, and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin that were not declared to the United Nations. A line of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, "not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 kilometers [311 miles], 350 kilometers [217 miles] beyond the permissible limit." "Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited Scud-variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the U.N." "Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1,000 kilometers [621 miles] - well beyond the 150-kilometer-range limit [93 miles] imposed by the U.N. Missiles of a 1,000-kilometer range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets throughout the Middle East, including Ankara [Turkey], Cairo [Egypt] and Abu Dhabi [united Arab Emirates]." In addition, through interviews with Iraqi scientists, seized documents and other evidence, the ISG learned the Iraqi government had made "clandestine attempts between late 1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300-kilometer-range [807 miles] ballistic missiles - probably the No Dong - 300-kilometer-range [186 miles] antiship cruise missiles and other prohibited military equipment," Kay reported. In testimony before Congress on March 30, Duelfer, revealed that the ISG had found evidence of a "crash program" to construct new plants capable of making chemical- and biological-warfare agents. The ISG also found a previously undeclared program to build a "high-speed rail gun," a device apparently designed for testing nuclear-weapons materials. That came in addition to 500 tons of natural uranium stockpiled at Iraq's main declared nuclear site south of Baghdad, which International Atomic Energy Agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky acknowledged to Insight had been intended for "a clandestine nuclear-weapons program." In taking apart Iraq's clandestine procurement network, Duelfer said his investigators had discovered that "the primary source of illicit financing for this system was oil smuggling conducted through government-to-government protocols negotiated with neighboring countries [and] from kickback payments made on contracts set up through the U.N. oil-for-food program" [see "Documents Prove U.N. Oil Corruption," April 27-May 10]. What the president's critics and the media widely have portrayed as the most dramatic failure of the U.S. case against Saddam has been the claimed failure to find "stockpiles" of chemical and biological weapons. But in a June 2003 Washington Post op-ed, former chief U.N. weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus called such criticism "a distortion and a trivialization of a major threat to international peace and security." Lt. Gen. Amer Rashid al-Obeidi (left) and Lt. Gen. Amer Hamoodi al-Saddi (right) speak to an unidentified French intelligence officer at the Baghdad International Arms Fair in April 1989, and another French officer listens in (behind al-Saadi, facing camera) The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction concluded that Saddam "probably has stocked at least 100 metric tons (MT) and possibly as much as 500 MT of CW [chemical warfare] agents - much of it added in the last year." That assessment was based, in part, on conclusions contained in the final report from U.N. weapons inspectors in 1999, which highlighted discrepancies in what the Iraqis reported to the United Nations and the amount of precursor chemicals U.N. arms inspectors could document Iraq had imported but for which it no longer could account. Until now, Bush's critics say, no stockpiles of CW agents made with those precursors have been found. The snap conclusion they draw is that the administration "lied" to the American people to create a pretext for invading Iraq. But what are "stockpiles" of CW agents supposed to look like? Was anyone seriously expecting Saddam to have left behind freshly painted warehouses packed with chemical munitions, all neatly laid out in serried rows, with labels written in English? Or did they think that a captured Saddam would guide U.S. troops to smoking vats full of nerve gas in an abandoned factory? In fact, as recent evidence made public by a former operations officer for the Coalition Provisional Authority's (CPA's) intelligence unit in Iraq shows, some of those stockpiles have been found - not all at once, and not all in nice working order - but found all the same. Douglas Hanson was a U.S. Army cavalry reconnaissance officer for 20 years, and a veteran of Gulf War I. He was an atomic demolitions munitions security officer and a nuclear, biological and chemical defense officer. As a civilian analyst in Iraq last summer, he worked for an operations intelligence unit of the CPA in Iraq, and later, with the newly formed Ministry of Science and Technology, which was responsible for finding new, nonlethal employment for Iraqi WMD scientists. In an interview with Insight and in an article he wrote for the online magazine AmericanThinker.com, Hanson examines reports from U.S. combat units and public information confirming that many of Iraq's CW stockpiles have indeed been found. Until now, however, journalists have devoted scant attention to this evidence, in part because it contradicts the story line they have been putting forward since the U.S.-led inspections began after the war. But another reason for the media silence may stem from the seemingly undramatic nature of the "finds" Hanson and others have described. The materials that constitute Saddam's chemical-weapons "stockpiles" look an awful lot like pesticides, which they indeed resemble. "Pesticides are the key elements in the chemical-agent arena," Hanson says. "In fact, the general pesticide chemical formula (organophosphate) is the 'grandfather' of modern-day nerve agents." The United Nations was fully aware that Saddam had established his chemical-weapons plants under the guise of a permitted civilian chemical-industry infrastructure. Plants inspected in the early 1990s as CW production facilities had been set up to appear as if they were producing pesticides - or in the case of a giant plant near Fallujah, chlorine, which is used to produce mustard gas. When coalition forces entered Iraq, "huge warehouses and caches of 'commercial and agricultural' chemicals were seized and painstakingly tested by Army and Marine chemical specialists," Hanson writes. "What was surprising was how quickly the ISG refuted the findings of our ground forces and how silent they have been on the significance of these caches." Caches of "commercial and agricultural" chemicals don't match the expectation of "stockpiles" of chemical weapons. But, in fact, that is precisely what they are. "At a very minimum," Hanson tells Insight, "they were storing the precursors to restart a chemical-warfare program very quickly." Kay and Duelfer came to a similar conclusion, telling Congress under oath that Saddam had built new facilities and stockpiled the materials to relaunch production of chemical and biological weapons at a moment's notice. At Karbala, U.S. troops stumbled upon 55-gallon drums of pesticides at what appeared to be a very large "agricultural supply" area, Hanson says. Some of the drums were stored in a "camouflaged bunker complex" that was shown to reporters - with unpleasant results. "More than a dozen soldiers, a Knight-Ridder reporter, a CNN cameraman, and two Iraqi POWs came down with symptoms consistent with exposure to a nerve agent," Hanson says. "But later ISG tests resulted in a proclamation of negative, end of story, nothing to see here, etc., and the earlier findings and injuries dissolved into nonexistence. Left unexplained is the small matter of the obvious pains taken to disguise the cache of ostensibly legitimate pesticides. One wonders about the advantage an agricultural-commodities business gains by securing drums of pesticide in camouflaged bunkers 6 feet underground. The 'agricultural site' was also colocated with a military ammunition dump - evidently nothing more than a coincidence in the eyes of the ISG." That wasn't the only significant find by coalition troops of probable CW stockpiles, Hanson believes. Near the northern Iraqi town of Bai'ji, where Saddam had built a chemical-weapons plant known to the United States from nearly 12 years of inspections, elements of the 4th Infantry Division found 55-gallon drums containing a substance identified through mass spectrometry analysis as cyclosarin - a nerve agent. Nearby were surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, gas masks and a mobile laboratory that could have been used to mix chemicals at the site. "Of course, later tests by the experts revealed that these were only the ubiquitous pesticides that everybody was turning up," Hanson says. "It seems Iraqi soldiers were obsessed with keeping ammo dumps insect-free, according to the reading of the evidence now enshrined by the conventional wisdom that 'no WMD stockpiles have been discovered.'" At Taji - an Iraqi weapons complex as large as the District of Columbia - U.S. combat units discovered more "pesticides" stockpiled in specially built containers, smaller in diameter but much longer than the standard 55-gallon drum. Hanson says he still recalls the military sending digital images of the canisters to his office, where his boss at the Ministry of Science and Technology translated the Arabic-language markings. "They were labeled as pesticides," he says. "Gee, you sure have got a lot of pesticides stored in ammo dumps." Again, this January, Danish forces found 120-millimeter mortar shells filled with a mysterious liquid that initially tested positive for blister agents. But subsequent tests by the United States disputed that finding. "If it wasn't a chemical agent, what was it?" Hanson asks. "More pesticides? Dish-washing detergent? From this old soldier's perspective, I gain nothing from putting a liquid in my mortar rounds unless that stuff will do bad things to the enemy." The discoveries Hanson describes are not dramatic. And that's the problem: Finding real stockpiles in grubby ammo dumps doesn't fit the image the media and the president's critics carefully have fed to the public of what Iraq's weapons ought to look like. A senior administration official who has gone through the intelligence reporting from Iraq as well as the earlier reports from U.N. arms inspectors refers to another well-documented allegation. "The Iraqis admitted they had made 3.9 tons of VX," a powerful nerve gas, but claimed they had never weaponized it. The U.N. inspectors "felt they had more. But where did it go?" The Iraqis never provided any explanation of what had happened to their VX stockpiles. What does 3.9 tons of VX look like? "It could fit in one large garage," the official says. Assuming, of course, that Saddam would assemble every bit of VX gas his scientists had produced at a single site, that still amounts to one large garage in an area the size of the state of California. Senior administration officials stress that the investigation will continue as inspectors comb through millions of pages of documents in Iraq and attempt to interview Iraqi weapons scientists who have been trained all their professional lives to conceal their activities from the outside world. "The conditions under which the ISG is working are not very conducive," one official said. "But this president wants the truth to come out. This is not an exercise in spinning or censoring." For more on WMD, read Weapons in Syria Article Link Found: WMD's]

This just seemed like a really f***ed up game for me. Garland pitched good enough....6 duck snorts??? I mean s*** happens sometimes. We hit pretty good...except for Rowand...uggh!!!!!!!!!! I think Adkins had Vizquel K'd. The ump blew it big time. Then Vizquel gets on with a slow grounder. Then he gets squeezed on his next pitch and that's all it took. He's young....once it gets in his head how perfect he has to be...he got wild. Started thinking too much instead of grippin and rippin. I mean he struck out Lawton with ease...and he looked to handle Vizquel with ease too. I thought his first pitch to Gerut was a strike, but it was called a ball...then the wheels in his head started spinning and all hell broke lose. He'll be ok. He has good stuff. This isn't a game I'd say the sox got beat...this is a game I'd say the sox lost. Let's take em shoey!!!!!

Thanks for catching that. My enthusiasm must have blurred my vision and I forgot it was a 4 game series, but yes there's still reason to me optimistic. The chemistry is great...and so is the attitude. I'm quite sure Oz is nipping in the butt!! That's why these guys are so alert in the dug out. Gone are they ways of the congratulatory ass slap...the oz has brought in the ass nip for recognition as well as mental awareness..

I'm not so concerned about swinging for the fences by everyone. Ozzie will nip that in the but. I mean we were just praising this team a couple weeks ago for hittin to the opposite field and now we are saying that they all swing for the fences. It's only been about 5-10 games difference. We'll be fine. I think Crede will end up in the top echelon of major league 3rd baseman. 25 Homers, 90 RBI's, and .293 avg. Yeah it's going out on a limb...but I think he's gonna get it turned around. Come on JC!!!!!

I know it seems like we need controversy or negative happenings to keep the board interesting, but let's take a look at some bright spots. This is the beginning of the season...and we are in great shape. There's usually some kinks to be worked out in the first month. We have a new manager and a new coaching staff and a new approach. I was expecting a learning curve, but overall the sox have pulled it together. We have handled one of our division nemesis pretty well, going 4-1 over our first 5 games against KC. We're finished with the Yankees and took a split 3 & 3 and we grabbed 4 out of 6 from Tampa Bay. We did this without Buehrle having his best stuff. Frank missing some games. Jose being out of the lineup. Rowand not hitting. Crede not finding his groove yet and Lee struggling the last 10 games. We will be fine... Takatsu is gaining confidence. Konerko is back. Thomas is consistently smackin the ball...Maggs is steady and will produce the same numbers he always does. Lee will turn it around and Crede always starts late. There have also been some nice surprises such as Olivo hittin the ball well. Uribe is pounding it and Gload is showing why he deserves to be here. Schoeneweis has surprised us all!! We are 3rd in the AL with a 3.99 era. Our starting pitching has been solid and our bullpen is coming together. We have turned 26 double plays(league tops) to show that if our pitcher gets in trouble we can bail him out. We have had some good comeback wins...and some good games from start to finish. We have had some tough losses that could have easily been W's. We are always aggressive on the basepaths and constantly have the other teams concerned about it. This is a solid team top to bottom. When everyone is hitting on all cylinders...watch out. The team has good chemistry and is playing good ball. We are 11-7 and 4-1 in our division. We are playing hard and aggressive. There is a good reason to be optimistic right now... Let's go SOX!!!

It's possible. My dad owned what is now Jimbo's back in the day. It was called the Magical Mystery Tap. (M&M Tap) Beatles fans I guess. My parents know everyone from over there, but I moved when I was too little to remember people. The only name I remember cause I dated the girl years later was Caponeigro. 3 brothers and 1 sister so usually someone knows the name. Anyway, most people know my dad...so I just throw his name around.

I also like to say God Bless my friend Bern Walsh. He is a Diehard sox fan. This was the second opener he missed since he started going with us 8 years ago. Bern has a BA from Winona State in MN. He had a good job with Northern Trust Bank, down here in the loop. Wore a suit to work everyday...we always busted his balls about lookin like Mr GQ banker with his little glasses and fancy ties and s***. Anyway, after 9-11, you saw the patriot come out of Bern. At 27 years old, he decided to quit work and join the Army. This is a guy who had everything going for him and dropped it cause he wanted to serve his country. He is now the medic at the Rangers school in Ft Benning, GA and will be trying out to be a ranger over the summer. He is upset he hasn't been able to help his comrades and is eager to get into some action He came in last year after boot camp and went to the sox game all 3 days. He was last heard from when he called my buddy from the Braves Cubs game ,where he was doing his duty by verbally abusing the flubs. Anyway, it's a real similar story to Tillman's(without the millons of course) and just wanted to share it with you and say GOD BLESS BERN!! A TRUE PATRIOT!! I'm proud to know a guy like him.