Just politics as usual in the windy city

I hope any Democrats out there stop with the talk that Republicans are the only party of the unethical and corrupt. Even though Republicans recently have been suffering from a bad rash of problems with Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Tom Delay, et cetera, it was only a matter of time before a major Democrat was caught doing something illegal. Today, the FBI arrested Democrat Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich of what the FBI calls a “corruption crime spree”. As many of you know, if a senator dies, is elected to a higher office, or another strange circumstance, the governor of the state appoints someone to finish out the term. After Obama was elected President, that left an open seat for Governor Blagojevich to fill. Instead of doing the research to properly fill the seat with a qualified individual, he basically set up a secret and illegal auction of sorts where he would fill the seat with the highest bidder. This is of course another black eye on Illinois politics which has a long history of corruption. Blagojevich will be the 4th Illinois Governor in the past 35 years to be arrested while in office and serve jail time. That is amazing.

1. In a few hours, I am leaving to go see the Minnesota Timberwolves game vs. the Utah Jazz with an old buddy. Unfortunately, Kevin McHale is still with the Wolves but yesterday he fired another coach. He is without a doubt the worse GM in the history of sports. A good GM has three roles. 1) Hiring/Firing coaches. 2) Negotiating contracts. 3) Conducting drafts/trades. Unlike baseball or football where there are lots of position, in basketball, the teams are so few players that it makes the job easier but when you make decisions, they have to be correct. Let’s go step by step. 1) McHale has done a horrendous job hiring/firing coaches. Whomever he hires to replace Randy Wittman will be head coach number FIVE during his tenure. 2) His contract negotiations have been dreadful from giving Mark Blount 4 year/$40 million, to Marko Jaric’s six year deal, to letting Chauncy Billups go in free agency, and on and on. 3) His worse moves have been drafts and trades. He has made one good movie in this area – drafting Kevin Garnett a dozen years ago. He has traded so many good players like Ray Allen, Brandon Roy, KG, for basically nothing that it is embarrassing. His drafts are always busts. It is so frustrating being a T-wolves fan.

2. I watched the John C. Reilly, Will Ferrell movie, Stepbrothers yesterday. I give it a B/B+. It’s not great but worth renting. It is an extremely crude movie that starts out slow but has several very very funny moments as the movie progresses. I would rent it if you’re bored this weekend.

3. Everyday more and more bad news hits. Today, Sony laid off a few thousand. Yesterday, Budweiser laid off 6% of their workforce. This weekend 3M had a big layoff. And those are just some of the companies! Yesterday, my sister was informed that she was being laid off. She had an office job with the University of Minnesota. She’ll be fine but it still is unfortunate.