The Bust That Is JaMarcus Russell

I've read about the aftermath of Sunday's awful game. The thing that strikes me as odd was Tom Cable's reaction. He seems to be under the impression that the Raiders practice hard, but do not practice well.

Cable’s messages remain the same _ stay the course, find something to believe in, practice better if not harder. It’s not the effort that’s the problem, it’s the execution.

Really? How is it possible they practice hard at all? For all intents and purposes, the Raiders defense is beyond serviceable, with competent players all over the place. Even if they are having issues, Nnamdi is still on the team. The man is the consensus best corner in the league.

Tom Cable would have the Raider Nation believe that all that hard practice somehow involves JaMarcus Russell beating Nnamdi Asomugha on a consistent basis. Are they saving Russell's fragile ego? Is he doing well in practice? No, he cannot be doing well in practice.

The Raiders secondary is doing well, and I'm guessing that Russell isn't finding anyone open when they practice. He isn't checking down and he has zero pocket awareness. Is this me parroting other analysts? Not really. I've seen Russell play. He was sacked on Sunday by a guy not coming from behind, but from his side. Does he have no peripheral vision? I saw him throw an out that landed 5 feet in front of the receiver. He may have a "laser rocket arm" but he has zero touch.

I had great fun at the expense of a Charger fan I used to work with when discussing Ryan Leaf. Well, I can't have that kind of fun anymore. How does a QB get worse? The final 4 games of last year, JaMarcus looked like a star on the rise. He looks like a fool today. If he continues to underperform, bench him. I don't see what the issue is. If he's the franchise, then the franchise is doomed.

There are excuses being made to cover up what are huge problems. "He's had different offensive coordinators with different schemes, he's young, his wideouts are dropping passes". Well, no. Whatever the schemes are, he should still be aware of potential sacks. He has a man who is respected as one of the best QB coaches in the league, it does nothing. His youth should not be an issue, as other young QB's seem to be doing quite well. His guys are dropping passes because they are poorly thrown.

Is it unfair to lay the blame at Russell's feet? Yes and no. There are other issues within the organization that need to be repaired. That has nothing to do with his work ethic, or his desire to win. Bench him, suspend him, fine him. Whatever it takes to make him realize that this is something more than a game. He can stay as a man willing to lead. He can leave and the rebuilding can finally begin. He cannot continue along as he has.

Let's Talk Sports

This has been, since it's inception, a political blog. Today, I'm going to move away from that for an article or two. I'm a conservative. I'm an atheist. Neither one of those items is going to change. The one thing I don't blog about is my favourite sports team. So, if you don't like sports, or the NFL, then I suggest you walk on by.

My team, since 1980, has been the Oakland Raiders. I have seen some horrible Raiders teams over the years. I have never seen anything as horrible as yesterday's first half against the New York Giants. That was, without doubt, the most inept Raider team in the 50 year history of the franchise. It was the worst game I have ever seen. The previous winner was the Super Bowl where Gannon was picked more times than I care to remember.

That team, that last playoff team, was a great team that had an abysmal game. This year, it is an horrendous team that had a half decent game. That game was the game against the Chargers. That game gave the entire Raider Nation hope. It was smoke and mirrors, because we have seen that the Chargers aren't very good, either.

So, now, the dwindling fanbase of the Oakland Raiders sits and waits for Al Davis to die. His formula for success on the field is no longer viable in today's NFL. His formula for recruiting has been forgotten. What we are left with is a bunch of overpaid underachievers who don't care to execute an archaic offensive scheme.

What has been forgotten by the front office in Oakland is why the Raiders are the Raiders. The Daryle Lamonica days of Mad Bombing are long gone. They were gone when Kenny Stabler took the reigns. They were gone when Jim Plunkett took over because Pastorini broke his leg. The attempts to recapture the magic of Lamonica has ended poorly every time it was tried.

What made the Raiders the Raiders was not the touted vertical offense, it was the players. It was the team of last chances. The misfits of professional football had a home in Oakland. The players deemed "too old" elsewhere were given a second chance and they thrived. The last time this worked in Oakland, the Raiders dominated the AFC West.

Now? I don't know what the heck is going on. I'll take a Jeff Garcia with a chip on his shoulder with something to prove over a JaMarcus Russell with no interest in the game. I'll have a Javon Walker who worked his ass off in the offseason to get healthy and took a pay cut to boot over Darrius Heyward-Bey who doesn't care. I would put Mike Mitchell anywhere I could on Defense and lose one of the less than stellar players in the secondary, and there are a couple of them.

It's difficult to watch a team do the impossible: simultaneously implode and explode. The Raiders have done just that. I don't know when their fortunes will turn around, but it will coincide with the death of Al Davis or a career ending injury to JaMarcus Russell.

Carbon Capture is, Apparently, Sheer Folly

At least, so the CBC and Globe and Mail say. The report was ordered by the Munk Centre for International Studies. So, We'll just take a look at what was written about the report and then look at the report to see if there's some kind of confirmation bias.

The CBC link has the following

The report, written by Edmonton Journal columnist Graham Thomson for the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto, concludes investing in carbon capture is currently too risky as neither the proper science nor the proper laws are in place.

Well, let's see what we can find out about Edmonton Journal Columnist Graham Thomson and if he's qualified to draw the conclusion he did. From his bio:

Graham Thomson writes on political issues for The Journal.

A graduate of the University of Waterloo's English co-op program, Graham has worked in radio, television and print as a reporter, producer and political writer. Since starting work with the Edmonton Journal in 1995, he has reported on assignments in various parts of the world including Russia and Mexico and has been embedded with Canadian troops for two tours in Afghanistan. Graham has won a National Newspaper Award, a national B'nai Brith award for human rights reporting and was a Canadian Journalism Foundation fellow at the University of Toronto in the 2008-2009 school year.

At any rate, farther down in the CBC story, we find this:

Other experts have dismissed concerns about leaks saying the likelihood is small, given that natural gas has stayed trapped underground for millions of years. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded that leakage risks are minor, especially from aquifers thousands of metres below groundwater supplies.

Ah, so it might not be sheer folly at all. We should look at the paper, when it gets released to the public. As of this posting, the link at the Munk institute leads to the Globe and Mail story.

I don't know enough about the paper to draw any conclusions. I can't draw any conclusions until I see it. It sure doesn't look as though this is one of those "case closed" things. If Carbon Capture is going to do more harm than good, let's scrap it. If it will allow us a bit more time with old technology as we transfer to nuclear, then let's move forward.

Let's not make any decisions because of a headline full of hyperbole.

I'm Iggy, and I'm Spinning My Wheels

I watched Iggy's press conference yesterday. What a mess it was. The least idiotic thing that I heard was his partially valid critique of the difference in spending on H1N1 awareness and the stimulus package. I don't know, but I'm thinking that the media has done a good job, free of charge, relating the H1N1 situation to the public. There was some hyperbole, but it remains the quickest way to get info out there, and do it for free.

Iggy's critique of the deficit might have had some teeth, and I say might, if he had actually spent a second or two opposing stimulus. He was on board, to the point of wanting more money spent. In the same press conference, he suddenly wasn't so much opposed to the deficit, but where the money was being spent. It was almost as if he was throwing stuff against the wall to see what would stick.

The final item that really brought home the idea that Iggy was abroad for 20 plus years was the notion that the Liberals killed the deficit with no undue hardship to Canadians. I think that those of us who lived here at the time would say something slightly different on that one. I'll be the first one to say that cutting the deficit was necessary and that measures needed to be taken as soon as possible.

Iggy floated a trial balloon, and it needs to be popped. He wants us, the people who lived here during the recession and recovery, to think that very little was sacrificed to get us back on track. When we clawed our way out of recession and debt, we did it with deep cuts across the board. These cuts affected everyone from every walk of life. We paid the necessary price.

That there is a deficit now is of some annoyance to me and other fiscal hawks. I think, however, there is a consensus that it is necessary and it is manageable. It will not be as bad in any sense, as the horrific mismanagement of the Trudeau Liberals or the Mulroney Tories. The recovery will not be as painful as it was in the 90' s under the Chretien/Martin Liberals. The one thing that Canadians did learn over the past 30 years is that we appreciate bland, boring balance.

Iggy is bland, he is boring but he is utterly unbalanced. The longer this protracted election campaign continues, the worse he is going to look. The press conference itself was pointless and the press seemed annoyed they were being asked to cover a quasi campaign speech about what Iggy would do if Iggy were PM.

Colin Thatcher's "Book"

The one thing, I think, that can be universally accepted as a good thing is the legislation passed that doesn't allow criminals to profit from their crimes.

Hey Thatcher: there is no special sekrit evidence that exonerates you from the murder of your ex-wife. You, sir, were found guilty. You exhausted all your appeals. Odd, that your amazing stuff didn't sway any appeals court judges. Were they in on the frame as well? Were you so powerful and well connected that the only way to take you out was to frame you for the murder of your ex-wife?

Go away. You didn't get away with it, and you will not get retried in the court of public opinion. We know what you did. There is no reason for your book, because you cannot clear your name.

The Recession Is Over?

Well, according to the Bank of Canada, it is. In overall terms for the country, this is a good thing. We survived this without going insane with stimulus spending. The fiscal prudence of the Canadian government, including those of the Liberal party, is the reason why we are coming out on the other end of the storm relatively intact.

The political games will continue. The Liberals miscalculated, once again. Had Iggy pulled the trigger in the spring, he probably would have been PM Iggy. Instead, he withdrew and allowed the Conservatives to set the agenda and set up the optics that they saved the day.

I don't think we'll see an engineered non confidence vote this Fall. On what level can the opposition mount attacks? The recession? Swine flu preparedness? Trade? Those ships have sailed. The only thing that can help is a Tory implosion. I doubt it, simply because Harper runs a tight ship.

The item I have been bringing up for quite some time can be taken as true. For years, the Tories have been unfairly branded as a party with a "secret agenda" who would do all manner of evil to everyone. Now that they have been in power and nothing evil has happened, actually quite the opposite, the opposition will get more extreme and less relevant. When you tell the public at large that the Tories will make Canada a police state and imply that minorities will no longer be safe, what expectations does the public have? Well, anything not that extreme is a success.

So, here we are, at the brink of a possible election with a fractured opposition that just screams "no" at everything and offers no alternative. They sound much like the discredited Republican party down south.

Saskatchewan Finances

Well, what can you say about this? To wit:

GRF revenues totalled $12.33 billion, nearly $3 billion or 31.6 per cent higher than the 2008-09 Budget estimate, primarily due to higher resource revenues, as well as higher sales tax revenue:

• Potash $1.36 billion (up $1.01 billion)
• Crown land sales $928.25 million (up $735.75 million)
• Oil $1.62 billion (up $561.47 million)
• Sales tax revenue $1.11 billion (up $190.63 million)

GRF expenses totalled $10.36 billion, a 13.6 per cent increase over the 2008-09 Budget estimate, largely due to accelerated spending for infrastructure projects across Saskatchewan.

"Our good fortune last year allowed the government to address the priorities of Saskatchewan people through infrastructure spending, debt reduction and significant tax relief," Gantefoer said.

The government lowered income tax by over $300 million dollars last year and committed an unprecedented $1.5 billion to construction of infrastructure projects.

Seeing as how this information will go down the memory hole on the left-o-sphere, people can click the link and find the report. The revenues exceeded projections even though the prices of the exported goods was lower than expected.

Stuff like this is why the population will not get into a tizzy about much. The economy is good. We are weathering the global recession. It's a good time to be here.