Sunday, November 15, 2009

Pacquiao - Cotto not quite one for the ages

Thrilling but one-sided.

(Manny) Pacquiao knocked (Miguel) Cotto down once in the third round and again in the fourth, pummeled him repeatedly and easily lifted the World Boxing Organization welterweight belt from the Puerto Rican with a 12th-round stoppage. The time was 55 seconds into the final round, as referee Kenny Bayless leaped between the fighters to save Cotto a more savage beating and ignominious end.

Some observers thought Cotto would defeat Pac-man late because of his size advantage (10 pounds), reach, and equivalent quickness and defenses.

Not so much.

My friend Waterman was quite a bit closer ...

Still, although no outcome will surprise me, I tend to favor Manny by TKO somewhere around the 8th or 9th round. The biggest factor, in my opinion, will be his advantage in hand speed. Pacquiao is a crisp puncher at welterweight, and Cotto’s eyebrows will not hold up. The reduction in his field of vision will make it easier for Pacquiao to deliver punches that Miguel does not see coming. And Cotto has a history of being hurt by fast punches that he doesn’t see coming – not only in the Ricardo Torres fight, but more importantly, even against Malignaggi.


Pacquiao owned Cotto from about the thrid round on and the fight was nearly stopped at the end of the ninth by Cotto's corner. It should have been. I have prepared tenderized skirt steaks that weren't as rough as Cotto's face by the twelfth, when it finally and mercifully was.

I followed the fight on Twitter and blow-by-blow online at Yahoo and ESPN simultaneously. Twitter was by far the lousiest way to do this; besides there being fifteen morons feeding the stream -- some calling action in Round 6 at the same time others were giving the Round 4 decision -- a couple of comedians would post lame jokes like "I beat Manny at Pac-Man" and such. The stream being too full, too slow, and too many repetitive tweets occurring out of chronological sequence makes this medium impossible for me to enjoy. (This same stew of fact, conjecture and rumor rushes out like a firehouse at times like the Ft. Hood shooting and the "Balloon Boy" caper. I would rather be locked in a room with fifty people all talking at me at once. Twitter is excellent for a blogger or two reporting details from a meeting, speech, dinner or some such, but not at all for breaking news.)

The Yahoo guys live-chatting the fight were way too slow on the uptake. Minutes behind the action most of the time, and that's useless when you're "live-blogging" three-minute fight rounds and one minute in-between. ESPN was by far the best. Their punch-by-punch updates were right on time, and they snapped out good summaries between the rounds.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Kay Bailey dithers on being with Dick next week

The woman just has not made a promise she can keep. Never made a commitment she hasn't waffled on.

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said in Galveston today that she hasn’t yet determined whether she’ll be able to make a Tuesday appearance and fundraiser in Houston with former Vice President Dick Cheney.

The full Senate’s first major procedural vote on health-care legislation could come Tuesday.

Hutchison has made the fight against health care the main rationale behind her decision not to resign from the Senate before her March primary against Gov. Rick Perry. At the same time, the Cheney appearance is one of the most important events of her campaign.

“We’re working on it,” Hutchison said this morning in her first interview since her campaign announced she would not resign the Senate seat before the primary. “That’s going to be a tough situation. But again, I’ll make the judgment call.”

No you won't, Kay. Next Tuesday morning, you'll take your makeup out of the refridgerator, spackle your mug, hand your purse to one of the boys whose sole job is to carry it for you, adjust your wretched-looking coiffure, prance over to the Capitol, hope a TV reporter asks you for a comment, then hang out all day in your office waiting for something to happen, someone to call you. A purse boy will bring you a salad for lunch and you'll make a few phone calls to your lickspittles here -- just to be meddlesome and overbearing -- who are organizing the Dick event.

You'll get the post-event cash wrangle report by phone on your way home, have a martini and pass out at ten p.m. (Eastern time).

This is how you get Dick's help without having to pose for a picture with him. That, naturally, might help maintain the "Democratic cross-over vote" sham you hold as your last fading hope for defeating the worst governor in the history of the state of Texas.

Good luck with both the vote and the fund-raiser, you loser.

Gene Locke plays the hate card

I told you he wasn't a Democrat.

A cluster of socially conservative Houstonians is planning a campaign to discourage voters from choosing City Controller Annise Parker in the December mayoral runoff because she is a lesbian, according to multiple ministers and conservatives involved in the effort.

The group is motivated by concerns about a “gay takeover” of City Hall, given that two other candidates in the five remaining City Council races are also openly gay, as well as national interest driven by the possibility that Houston could become the first major U.S. city to elect an openly gay woman.

Another primary concern is that Parker or other elected officials would seek to overturn a 2001 city charter amendment that prohibits the city from providing benefits to the domestic partners of gay and lesbian employees.

"The bottom line is that we didn't pick the battle, she did, when she made her agenda and sexual preference a central part of her campaign,” said Dave Welch, executive director of the Houston Area Pastor Council, numbering more than 200 senior pastors in the Greater Houston area. “National gay and lesbian activists see this as a historic opportunity. The reality is that's because they're promoting an agenda which we believe to be contrary to the concerns of the community and destructive to the family.”

So at this point you may be wondering, what does a good Democrat (sic) like Gene Locke have to do with this slime?

(Locke) strongly distanced himself from a previous anti-gay attack against her that ultimately proved to have been a hoax. But he has made recent efforts to court some of the staunch social conservatives who are either actively planning on attacking Parker's sexuality or strongly considering it.

He appeared at the Pastor Council's annual gala last Friday and was encouraged several times by State Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, a featured speaker, to stand for conservative values.

Locke has also met with and sought the endorsement of Dr. Steven Hotze, a longtime local kingmaker in conservative politics and author of the Straight Slate in 1985, a coterie of eight City Council candidates he recruited who ran on an anti-gay platform. ...

Republican consultant Allen Blakemore, a longtime Hotze associate who spoke on his behalf, said he is considering mailing out a slate of endorsed runoff candidates, and Parker's sexuality is a “key factor” in his decision.

Ah, the exquisite stench emanating from Harris County's freak right: Stephen Hotze, Dan Patrick, Allen Blakemore. And all of their minions. Did I forget to mention Paul Bettencourt? Although he thinks Locke isn't coming out forcefully enough against gay rights.

Former Harris County Tax Assessor Collector Paul Bettencourt, another Republican close to Hotze, said that if Locke wishes to unite a strong African-American base with social conservatives, they will need his assurance that he will not seek to overturn the charter amendment.

Responding to the same debate question as Parker last month, Locke said same-sex benefits allow governments and businesses “a competitive advantage” and said he “would favor that,” although it would not be the first thing on his plate.

“That's not going to motivate us to come out and vote for somebody,” Bettencourt said of social conservatives. “You cannot get the positive good conservative turnout if you're trying to undo charter amendments. It's a line drawn in the sand. You just can't have it both ways.”

Kuffner and Muse have more to say about this development. Locke's campaign is also doing something funny with Democratic precinct chairs' e-mail addresses, which is a far cry from gay-baiting the electorate but in keeping with a organization so desperate to win that they will do whatever it takes -- lie, cheat, steal, misinform, obfuscate, smear, and fear-monger.

Epic fail.

Crazy talk good for ten points in the past month

Secession, "Willingham was a monster", Washington DC is a disaster, we have a senator who is AWOL, Ill Eagles, blah blah blah.

And he's added ten points to his polling in the past thirty days among GOP primary voters.


Who is it that's drinking Kool-Aid?