Congrats to Matt Moore

Congratulations to Rays pitcher Matt Moore who became the first left handed pitcher in over 15 years to start a season 8-0 with a 3-1 victory over the Orioles yesterday.

You've got to hand it to the guys in the Rays scouting department. When it comes to finding stud pitchers, these dudes have got it all figured out. They seem to have an endless stream of hot pitchers coming through the system. I can't think of another team in baseball that seems so pitching rich, at least with their starters, as the Rays.

The Rays 3 game win streak has them tied with Baltimore for third place and four games out of first. The Sox, who won their fifth straight yesterday, are still in second, a half game out -- yay!

But anyway, hat tip to Matt for a pretty nice start to this season. And by the way, here's Miley making a one-piece look pretty good:

Sometimes when I read the paper . . .

Reading the Tampa Bay (formerly the St. Pete) Times can be a brutal experience for a conservative. This Sunday's edition, in the editorial pages at least, was no exception.

One article and one editorial about the horrific threat of climate change set the tone. The first from Edward Renner a professor in the Honors college at USF, starts off with a complete falsehood -- "New measurements show that the climate-changing gas carbon dioxide is at the highest atmospheric concentrations...in at least 3 million years."

A peer reviewed study was released only this year showing that CO2 levels reached as high as 435ppm a mere 12,000 years ago. That's a far cry from 3 million years! At many other times in our geological history, CO2 levels have been as high as 1000ppm and life has gone on, plants and animals have thrived. Studies indicate we are, if anything, in a CO2 drought at the moment.

The Times itself doubles down on this with its usual climate hysteria pointing out a CIA (of all people!) report issuing "...a warning that the acceleration of climate change will spark conflicts and human migration of such magnitude that it will strain the American military."

Seriously?!?!

Setting aside the fact that the CIA isn't exactly an expert on global science, the problem with all this is that we are currently in a period of global cooling right now. In fact, planet temperatures have risen only 4 tenths of a degree celsius since the mid-70's.

In point of fact, there is still no conclusive data to suggest that CO2 has any specific re-radiative properties that would contribute to global warming or the so-called greenhouse effect. In fact, studies show we have experienced ice ages with CO2 levels as high as 2000ppm.

The Times also trots out their favorite scare tactic -- rising oceans. Problem with that is that studies show that the figure used by the IPCC and other climate hysterics is 70% higher than the actual figure. The Journal of Geophysical Research -- Solid Earth finds that the actual figure for estimated sea level rise averaged from 2003 to 2012 is .16mm/yr. Extrapolate that figure out to the year 2100 and you have a sea level rise of 1/2 inch! That's hardly flooding of biblical proportions!

But climate astrologists like those at the Times continue their hysterical claims that we must turn ourselves backward to the days of horse drawn carriages to save the world from some imaginary impending disaster. And despite being proven wrong on every single prediction since Al Gore's faux science has lined his pockets with millions of dollars, the so-called purveyors of truth at the Times continues to publish this nonsense on a daily basis.

Also in the editorial section was a disturbing piece by columnist Robyn Blumner. In the wake of Angelina Jolie's revelation of her double mastectomy to protect herself from what she believed was an 80% chance of breast cancer in the future, Ms. Blumner admits she has had the same thing done.

Ms. Blumner states that in 2011 doctors found a small cancer (technically a "stage zero" DCIS), and though there was no cancer history in her family she went ahead with the procedure because of . . .

"...the single minded obsession Republicans have with repealing the Affordable Care Act."

?!?!

That's right . . . Ms. Blumner mutilated herself over a political difference of opinion! Now last I looked, Ms. Blumner is employed by the paper and probably makes somewhere close to the mid $50's. Are you telling me the Tampa Bay Times doesn't offer health care to its employees?! Where are the articles excoriating them on that? I haven't seen any. And if that's the case, why hasn't Ms. Blumner sought out one of the many personal health care plans that a person of her means could easily afford?

Because Ms. Blumner is a died-in-the-wool nanny state liberal who thinks that your tax dollars should pay for her medical costs even when she could manage them herself. She states that her double mastectomy saves her the future costs of mammograms (which are affordably offered by the baby slaughtering Planned Parenthood last I looked) and saves her from bankruptcy even though she admits the possibility of that is slight.

She closes her article with this insane statement -- "With Republicans in Congress waiting for their opportunity to kill off my medical and financial security, I simply couldn't risk keeping my breasts."

OMG! I simply don't know how to respond to someone so deranged that they do something like this. All I can say is that I pity you Ms. Blumner, I'm sorry you've let a simple political disagreement drive you to self-mutilation and I worry about your mental health in the future. This is the sort of hyper-overreaction to politics or idealogy that drives someone to do what happened in Boston earlier this year. If the sanctity of your own body means so little to you, what might you be capable of should conservatives gain control of Congress and/or the White House in the future? I shudder at the possibilities.

My God! What is wrong with liberals anymore?!

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And on a lighter note, here's some tree hugging I can actually get behind:

Not only a teacher, but . . .

. . . a budding entrepreneur as well.

Olivia Sprauer, the high school english teacher who was recently fired for having done some fairly racing modeling to pay for her grad school, looks to be capitalizing on her 15 minutes of fame.

Ms. Sprauer, who models under the name of Victoria V. James (the V is for Valentine . . . heh), has acquired a domain name and will soon be launching her own website -- missvictoriajames.com

Given some of the saucy work she's done in her brief career so far, I'm thinking her own site (probably pay or with a member's section) might be pretty interesting:

And these liberal/socialists say capitalism is evil . . . bah!

Sox take two of three from the Rays

The Red Sox snatched victory from the jaws of defeat tonight, defeating the Rays 4-3 to stay one game behind the Yankees with a 24-17 record.

In the ninth inning, Boston was down to their last strike, with the bases loaded, and facing last year's out of nowhere phenom closer for the Rays -- Fernando Rodney. Rodney followed up a 100mph fastball with an 85mph change-up to Will Middlebrooks who jumped all over it and sent a line drive double to the wall that cleared the bases and gave the Sox the lead.

Junichi Tazawa who had also pitched a scoreless eighth, finished off the ninth to seal the win.

Situational hitting has been the bane of the Sox in their current sort-of slump. Their RISP has been atrocious, and tonight wasn't much better -- I think they were 2-8 on the night. But they got the clutch hit when it counted, much like last night's huge third inning. This was the idea behind the retooling of this team with so many character players and a manager who is on an even keel. Farrell has refused to panic and make wholesale changes to his line-up when they were struggling to manufacture runs. These last two games are the payoff I think.

It was nice to see a well played series between these two teams without all the acrimony that went on last season and some of the ones before. With any luck, I can watch these guys play each other the rest of the season and be able to enjoy some good baseball. I'll hope the Sox win, but unless Boston's going for a playoff spot, I won't cry if the Rays come out on top.

fingers crossed

Looks like someone's lost a few pounds

Christina Aguilera posted of pic of herself on Twitter the other day, showing off her somewhat more slender physique:

Christina's taken a lot of grief for her weight gain over the last few years. If this is a sign that she's finally getting some control over herself and her life -- more power to her. She may not look like this again any time soon:

But she's still got some of the best pipes in the business. It would be nice to see her doing well again.

Sox get a much needed win

Mired in a ghastly slump, losing 9 of their last 11, the Red Sox got a solid 9-2 victory over the Rays last night.

A huge third inning where the guys batted around was capped by a grand slam by Stephen Drew. They didn't get much else going offensively until the eighth when Will Middlebrooks got a solo homer. The announcers were going on about just that, the hitting being held in check for most of the game. But that's the way games go. Had the Rays put together a monster inning like that, the announcers would have been lauding how they did what they had to to win.

Sort of forgotten in all this is another fine performance by Jon Lester who is undefeated in his first nine starts this season. 6-0 with an ERA in the mid-two's, Lester is now number five all-time on the Sox strikeout list.

After last night's heartbreaking 5-3 loss, due mostly because Mike Napoli couldn't judge a high pop-up against the Trop's odd ceiling, the win keeps the Sox at just two games behind the Yankees, who are still winning despite half their team being on the DL. Wild!

Anyway, tonight's game has Clay Buchholz going for his 7th win. So hopefully we'll get a series sweep here with some good hitting and more excellent starting pitching. Correction: it appears Felix Doubront has the start, not Buccholz. I'm not nuts about this as Doubront's been a bit of a disappointment this season coming into camp out of shape and not delivering on the mound. Hopefully he'll have his A-game back after a stint in the minors.

Also of note -- David Price left the game in the third inning with (airquote)triceps tightness(/airquote). Last year's Cy Young winner has struggled mightily this season with lack of command and an obvious loss of velocity. Reports surfaced yesterday that Price is suffering from an allergic reaction to the chemicals used in the clubhouse for cleaning. Saying he can't see, and has been using eye drops, etc. Funny how we're just hearing that now. Even the guys on Baseball Tonight last night were going on about Price belly-aching about not getting strikes. Won't be surprised to see Price go on the 15-day DL for his arm but more accurately for him to get his head together.

So this is what happens when we underpay our teachers

They have to augment their meager salaries with some saucy modeling jobs:

It's the fault of those damn vouchers, I tell ya! The liberals were right all along!

On the one hand, I feel sorry for Ms. Sprauer for losing her job as English teacher at Martin County High School in Florida. It's a bit prudish on the part of the school to hyperventilate over something so benign. Ms. Sprauer is a young grad student presumably working hard as a teacher and moonlighting as a model to pay for the remainder of her college education.

On the other hand, in this day and age, it's a bit naive of Ms. Sprauer to imagine that after plastering saucy images of herself on her Facebook page, even under the professional name of Victoria V. James, she wouldn't eventually be recognized. High school age boys are little hormone machines. They're already fantasizing about their teachers, especially if they are even remotely attractive. And these kids spend all day on their computers and cell phones, browsing their various social networks. Just a matter of time before some hard breathing boy recognized this full-figured beauty:

Then of course, he shows the picture to his girlfriend who probably ratted the hot teacher out to the principal out of typical teenage girl jealousy.

'Cause girls are like that