Reckful Baseball Predictions / 3-31-11

Baseball!

For your amusement (and your amusement only), here is how the 2011 season will play out. No no, it's true, I confess, I'm cheating a little here, because 0.12 percent of this year's games have already been played. And I'm not taking a whole lot of chances. Whatever the opposite of reckless is -- that's how my foreseeing organs foresee the future.

American League, Final Standings

WEST

1. Oakland, 88-74

2. Texas, 85-77

3. Seattle, 77-85

4. Anaheim, 76-86

CENTRAL

1. Minnesota, 90-72

2. Chicago, 88-74

3. Cleveland, 79-83

4. Detroit, 78-84

5. Kansas City, 67-95

EAST

1. Boston, 101-61

2. Toronto, 89-73

3. Tampa Bay, 86-76

4. New York, 83-79

5. Baltimore, 59-103

National League, Final Standings

WEST

1. San Francisco, 89-73

2. Los Angeles, 86-76

3. Colorado, 85-77

4. San Diego, 80-82

5. Arizona, 56-106

CENTRAL

1. Milwaukee, 91-71

2. Cincinnati, 90-72

3. Chicago, 88-74

4. St. Louis, 81-81

5. Houston, 66-96

6. Pittsburgh, 63-99

EAST

1. Philadelphia, 99-63

2. Atlanta, 90-72

3. Florida, 82-80

4. Washington, 76-86

5. New York, 67-95

Playoffs (aka Crapshoot Rounds)

American League

Boston def. Oakland 3-1

Minnesota def. Toronto 3-2

Boston def. Minnesota 4-1

National League

Philadelphia def. Cincinnati 3-1

San Francisco def. Milwaukee 3-2

Philadelphia def. San Francisco 4-1

World Series

Philadelphia def. Boston 4-1

Explanations and Rationale, Top Ten Style

10. So fun to root against the Yankees. They are one significant pitching injury away from a .500 season. (Bad year for NY, with the Messed-up Mets finishing in last place.)

9. Mariners will surprise the world by reaching .500 in August. Then they will fold, as expected.

8. Yes, everyone is picking Boston and Philly. There's a reason for that. Many reasons actually. Both teams are deep, flush with starting pitching and offense, and both squads are hungry for more success than they experienced last season.

7. Blue Jays will profit most from the Yankees' temporary demise. Toronto last made the playoffs in 1993. That was before the wild-card was invented. Now they get to be one.

6. A's win a weak AL West; Giants overcome injuries to take the NL West almost by default.

5. Seriously, never root against the Twins. What are you, an idiot?

4. Ichiro racks up 240 more hits and bats .355, second in the league.

3. Cliff Lee is the World Series MVP. (Risky predictions are overrated.)

2. Batting champ Dustin Pedroia is the AL MVP; Tim Lincecum is the NL MVP and Cy Young; AL top pitcher is Trevor Cahill.

1. A record six no-hitters are pitched. One by Felix Hernandez, one by Lee, one by some guy nobody has ever heard of before this season. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens both serve time in jail for perjury, and nobody hits 50 home runs. Coincidentally.

No, Huck You / 3-19-11

Fox "News" commentator, former Arkansas governor, and sometime presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, lecturing on same-sex marriage:

"The ideal world is a man and a woman, you don't go ahead and accommodate every behavioral pattern that is against the ideal, that would be like saying well, there's some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them."

His words verbatim, from a radio interview February 28 of this year with host Steve Malzberg.

This has to stop. Comparing relationships between loving adults to relationships between molesters and molestees -- this has to stop. This can no longer be part of our national conversation, and that kind of talk needs to be called out for what it is: one part fear-mongering, another part ignorance, and clearly part insult.

I get it, though. Huckabee believes -- or at least pretends to believe, for political expediency -- that marriage is a covenant reserved for heterosexual unions. He doesn't want to expand that covenant outside that circle. That's the way it's been for millennia. I get it. Tradition!

So just say that. And stop there. Just state that gay couples are barred from marriage, for reasons of gender. If that's all it is. (It may be less defensible to acknowledge that you think that inheritance rights, visitation rights and custody rights are special privileges reserved for state-sanctioned heterosexual lovers. But that is the legal core of what you're implying.)

Anyway. More sentences beginning with "just": Just admit that you want traditional marriage to continue in its present form. There is very little shame in sticking to the dictionary definition of a term. Just take that route and you'll at least escape with some decency left.

Or even... just say "you don't go ahead and accommodate every behavioral pattern that's against the ideal." Leave out the incest line.

Just say that traditional marriage is the ideal, and no substitutions are permitted. That's all. Leave room for the other side to politely argue that gender doesn't figure into the ideal. Have your conversation on those grounds.

But don't say that marriage between two women will lead to creepy old guys marrying their great-niece. Then you join the haters, and you deserve to be called out for it.

And no, it's NOT ironic to call someone hateful. It's not an ironic act for me to heap scorn on a hateful statement. I don't become hateful or intolerant for doing so. I become the person who brings daylight to a dark comment. When we get home from a two-week vacation and I tell you, "Oh man, the fridge is broken," and you open it, and you get tackled by the ripe stench of rotting asparagus dipped in curdled milk, you don't blame me for pointing out the malfunctioning appliance. (Well, not successfully, at least.)

I'll give people a chance to retreat if they want from cruel remarks. I say stuff I regret. I have compassion.

However, I don't have to tolerate hate.

To wrap up neatly: If the day comes when more than just some crackpot pervert wants to legalize incest and possibly brand it with a governmental seal of approval, then at that time, we can have that conversation. But this isn't it.

You Probably Won't Even Remember This Headline / 3-16-11

I'm not a history scholar by any means.

But it sure seems to this untrained observer that world events move at a different pace now.

In 1989-1991, an entire empire (one built on the quicksand of totalitarianism disguised as communism) disappeared from the face of the earth, just like that. My senior year in high school, a whole quarter of our social studies course was to be dedicated to studying the U.S.S.R.; it was naturally meant to fall under the rubric of geography. Yeah. That ended up being a history lesson instead.

We marveled at the breakneck speed of revolution. Boy, were we ever young.

(And before I go on, hell yes, those were awesome times to be a teenager! The world was on fire. [Hey! Billy Joel is NOT playing in the background. You're not hearing that song. You're really not. You might be hearing this one, however.] Relatively bloodless revolutions toppled regime after regime in Eastern Europe. Borders opened, walls fell, and a speedy war in Kuwait placed America so very squarely on top of the international food chain. Outside the food chain, even. For a decade.)

And to think, at the time, we didn't even have cell phones, the Internet, digital cameras, music downloading, DVD's... those things spent the 90's becoming ubiquitous.

So instead of experiencing another round of political upheaval, we held on the rest of that decade for dear virtual life as technological advances raced ahead with maniacal all-obsoleting speed. CD's used to mean something. Cordless phones used to mean something. 1 megapixel used to mean something. Digital cameras used to mean something. Huh. 128 megs of RAM was once considered ostentatious.

But you were there. You know all this.

What does it mean?

It means we're living in an uncertain era of change, and sometimes we don't even know what brand of change is lurking around the calendar's corner. Unhyperbolically, we're passengers in an era of hyper-accelerated cause and effect. Facebook and Twitter and other platforms have brought the reality of constant motion and constant contact to every doorstep, or to every doorstep's neighbor. You can be unconnected, but it takes an advanced degree in Hermitology and a will of titanium. Or a trip to the inner reaches of, say, Congo. (In a pinch, a week of watching Fox "News" will fill you with enough untruths that your connection becomes spotty.)

Everything is everywhere -- even in Congo, truth be told -- if only we want it. Sometimes when we don't want it, hm. The next thing is always about to happen; the last object in your rear view mirror is way, way, way farther than it appears.

Sudan voted to split into two nations way back in January. Remember? More than 100 people died in a bombing in Moscow a couple weeks later. Anyone recall the New Zealand earthquake that killed 200 people? Yeah, me neither. That was all the way back in February. Three weeks ago already.

Who was the president of Egypt from October 1981 until last month? Can't think back that far. That was one 9.0 quake, one tsunami, two near-government shutdowns, one bloody civil war, five major civil unrests, one oil spike, four nuclear explosions, one stock market hiccup and one Charlie Sheen ago. (Come to think of it, Charlie's kind of old news.)

I'd like to offer three conclusions from the observations above:

1. No longer does the phrase "We've always done it this way" carry any weight. For better or worse, traditions are measured in weeks and months, maybe years, but certainly not decades or longer. One-day-old news is exactly that. No, not news -- one day OLD.

2. People resistant to change are going to have a very, very, very hard time the rest of this century.

3. September 11, 2001 will be 10 years old when we go back to school after summer vacation. It might as well have happened a thousand years ago.

For Nothing / 3-13-11

I don't mean this in a rude manner, because there are serious cataclysms going on, but posts on Libya and Japan can wait. (There's still, in any case, at least three weeks until the Rapture, by my meticulous reading of biblical fortunetelling texts. And shouldn't there be locusts first anyway?)

No, the Wisconsin shenanigans have pissed me off, and the blood continues to proverbially boil, even a few days later.

(Six points of reference before the real post begins: 1. WI is a middle-of-the-road swing state and should be governed as such and not as some wet-dream political laboratory for the far right; 2. Stripping collective bargaining rights from teachers but not from firefighters? Really? I mean, really...; 3. Why have quorum requirements at all if they be bypassed with trickery? Makes no sense; 4. The WI Senate probably violated open meeting laws; 5. Don't try and disguise your power plays as budget solutions; 6. It's just plain wrong to try and legislate unions out of existence.)

Recent events in the Midwest (Ohio and Indiana passed similar measures, although to be fair, how would you know, with Charlie Sheen leading a band of Libyan-Egyptian rebels as they seek to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act while dodging suicide bombers) have been jarring. They have managed to push me back from the terrifying brink of courteous bipartisanship, where I tried to live last week, and have thankfully returned me to my natural home of unvarnished partisan liberalism.

With that out of the way, I think it's safe to say now, politely, factually, but also aggressively, that the Republican Party is officially the Party Of Against.

Somethin' like this has been said before. It was fashionable in many circles to call the GOP the "Party of No" immediately following Obama's election, and for good reason: that was their only move, outnumbered in Congress and the West Wing of the Mixed-Race House. In those happy months, the few remaining R's were virtually powerless to stop the slothlike, icebergian, tectonic-plate-speed advancement of Democratic-sponsored legislation. After all, all they said -- whimpered -- during that golden age was No, no, no.

And while that was adorable for a while, elections have consequences, and R's enjoyed a giant Boehner for the duration of 2010, which climaxed with them retaking the House and almost the Senate, and pushing the president EVEN farther to the right.

But back to the polite, factual, aggressive mutilation promised earlier. And maybe less gutter humor along the way, you ask? Eh. We'll see. I guarantee nothing.

Rules Of The Game: I will make none of the following statements up. I might embellish with Johnvented words. You can't stop me. All claims will be accurate; all opinion will be supported with D-cup arguments. (All worked up, can't help myself.)

I'd wager that some statements found below will even be perceived as complimentary, in the eye of the right kind of conservative beholder.

Crucial Disclaimer: I may generalize at times (i.e., not every Republican disbelieves in climate change), but that will not and should not detract from the accurate nature of what follows.

Opening Salvo: The Republican Party is best defined not by what it stands for, but instead by what it sets its sights on blocking.

List Of Illustrations:

1. R's are against more regulation anywhere, in principle.

2. R's are against more power being consolidated in the federal government's hands.

3. R's are against taking steps to combat climate change.

4. R's are against allowing a certain legal procedure to be performed. (We all know which medical procedure this refers to; it's the one the Supreme Court has declared legal in each of the past four decades.)

5. R's are against legalization of marijuana. 'Cept for my Kentucky buddy Rand Paul, The Perfect One.

6. R's are against same-sex marriage. One fair poll here.

7. R's are against taking steps to prevent accidental gun deaths (30,000 a year). When trigger locks become mandatory, they do their darndest to overturn that kind of life-saving legislation. Next.

8. R's are against universal health care. (Except Mitt Romney, 2006 model year.)

9. R's are against raising taxes in any economic situation on any segment of the population, for any reason. (Still trying to decide if that's hyperbole or not. Still trying.)

10. R's are against any expansion of the social safety net.

11. R's are against the power of unions to collectively bargain. Ohio, Indiana and now Wisconsin legislatures have removed those rights. Michigan's working on it. Pennsylvania too. Conservative darling and New Jersey Governor -- and noted liar -- Chris Christie is tinkering with the idea.

12. R's are against Muslims and Islam in general. (Link, link, link, more links are easy to find but that should be enough.) Free admission: this is a broad generalization I make here. But a good one. And by good, I mean highly defensible. Click the links.

13. R's are against amnesty for illegal immigrants and their children, no matter how long any of the family members have lived stateside. Besides Reagan, of course, he was a fan. But nobody listens to him anymore.

14. R's are against campaign finance reform.

15. R presidents are, in practice, squarely against balancing the federal budget. They're against even trying.

16. R legislators are against equal pay for equal work legislation. The vote in the House two years ago on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act: 250-177. (The big number was the Democrats. The teeny tiny number was the other guys. Emphasis on guys.)

That ought to do it. Did I forget anything? (Like reparations, or habeas corpus, which I didn't forget, but decided to leave out?) Well, if I did, this guy probably said it, since his like-minded post went live while I took a break to work for a living. Jerk.

Madison, Egypt / 2-21-11

Tunisia and Egypt threw off their Dictator-Presidents earlier this month. Hundreds of protesters perished last weekend in Libya; the carnage there continues today.

Why?

It's simple. They've been oppressed for decades. Centuries.

All they want is some freedom. Self-governance. Civil liberties. Economic freedoms. More guaranteed rights. Just like the ones a lot of other humans enjoy. Freedom engenders a righteous envy.

Most basically, they want more flavors of liberty.

It makes perfect sense: Freedom is delicious. Far from blaming Tunisians, Egyptians and now Libyans for causing trouble, we admire their efforts and wish them success.

Meanwhile, nobody has died in Wisconsin (U.S.A.) during the week of protests against Governor Scott Walker's plan to remove certain collective bargaining rights from nurses, firefighters, teachers and cops.

And Mr. Walker has only been in office eight weeks. He's not yet eligible for dictator status anyway.

Plus, he's not proposing to suspend religious freedom. Or curtail free speech. Or revoke the Second Amendment. He's just trying to break unions.

But this is where comfort might come from tonight: Human beings a continent and a half away are selflessly shedding their own blood, in pursuit of more rights. And thankfully, respecting their sacrifice, enough of us in this freest of nations continue to resist those who would nudge us (even if only a little) back toward the ugly place from which so many North Africans are trying to flee.

Carry on, Wisconsin protesters. And any lovers of liberty worldwide, you too.

Can M.J. Come Out and Play? / 2-20-11

Quick, get your pot now, while it's still cheap.

And still illegal. You know, if you like the risk factor.

Because the end of Pot Prohibition is at hand. (Optional joke: We're going to turn can'tabis into cannabis!)

Anyway, The Economist (worthless gossip tabloid) and YouGov (legitimate market research gurus and polling pros) released a poll earlier this month that shows a majority of Americans favor decriminalizing marijuana and letting the government treat it "like alcohol and tobacco."

Not just a small majority, either. 58 percent favor decriminalization if the parameters are set just right, with the feds taxing it, regulating it, and keeping it out of bounds for minors. 23 percent oppose such a plan.

Breaking down the numbers, 60 percent (!) of respondents ages 34-60 came out in favor of legalizing pot.

More breaking down: the poll's very first question shows that respondents have a mostly unfavorable view of President Obama. These aren't a bunch of hippies and twentysomethings in this sample.

Now granted, a different wording of the same question will get a different result.

"Should potheads get out of jail free?" will score less than 40 percent.

"Should marijuana be made legal?" will score, most times, 40-50 percent of the vote. It did so in a Gallup poll in October of last year with a healthy 46 percent.

"Should marijuana be regulated in the same way as alcohol?" will score the highest. As it did here.

(Bonus Fun Fact: "Should alcohol be made illegal?" scores very high among people living in the 1920's.)

But what is most striking about the numbers is the margin. 58 percent is a strong majority, for sure, but 23 percent against is a puny, sad minority. A minority which won't go mellowly into the night, let's be honest; but if there's something politicians are good at, it's reading polls. 58-23.

58-23. (58-23!)

If another reputable polling outfit can duplicate the same result (without too much cheating), then game over on a national level.

(P.S.: Cool state-by-state info available here.)

144 Or Less, Vol. IX / 2-18-11

You know who's not dominating the airwaves right now?

Sarah P., that's who. (Isn't.)

We saw her a-plenty in 2010, endorsing candidates, writing "books" (that should help with future pesky gotcha-type questions!!), feuding with her son-in-and-out-of-almost-law, railing against the Ovalest Socialist, being lampooned, doing "reality" shows, and generally being the life of the (tea) party.

This year, not so much. Which is great. I mean, she has a large, needy family and all, so good for her.

She also has been printing money. Gobs of money.

I guessed last year that the main reason she quit that inconvenient day job of hers was to cash in while she could. And looky here: various news outlets estimate she made between $12 and $14 million in 2010.

Again, good for her. But what's her next move now?

Please run, Sarah. Pretty please.

(Word count: 144)

144 Or less, Vol. VIII / 2-18-11

Something Baby Bush DID get right:

"The desire for freedom resides in every human heart. And that desire cannot be contained forever by prison walls, or martial laws, or secret police. Over time, and across the Earth, freedom will find a way.

Granted, he got himself some speechwritin' help there, as is usually the case with presidents (but only usually), yet the point remains: Freedom gonna do its thing.

Totalitarian regimes tremble today across the Middle East (Tunisia, Egypt, maybe Bahrain, then Iran?). Made me recall the run-up to III (Illegitimate Invasion: Iraq), when conservative apologists continually insisted that a free Iraq would set off a neo-domino theory in which long-awaited civil and economic liberties sweep the region.

They were probably right. Doubtful our military "assistance" was needed, but still.

To conclude, more W: "This young century will be liberty's century."

Hoping.

(Word count: 142)

Second Amendmen't / 2-10-11

Just in time for Valentine's Day, a post on guns. Because how better to express your love than with the gift of violence?

Self-inspired by my thoughts on what God isn't, (yes, I do know how self-absorbed that sounds), this is a post on what the Second Amendment does NOT state.

Oh, I know what it SAYS all right. I have it memorized; after a certain number of debates, that's advisable. (You can believe me, or you can imagine that I dialed up www.usconstitution.gov/billofrights/amendment2.htm and cut-and-pasted it, but don't do that, because I probably just made that web page up.)

Amendment No. 2 says, "A well regulated militia, being essential to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

Alternately, in the version ratified by the states, "A well regulated militia being essential to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Much brainpower has been dedicated to what meaning the commas, or absence of commas, bring to the text. I used to obsess on this topic, but have nothing new to bring to the discussion. Scholars argue that the commas either limit or enhance the amount of individual liberty regarding gun ownership. Naturally, whichever way these brilliant scholars interpret the commas reflects their own bias, or the case they are trying to advance at the time. Curiously, some propose this neat little theory: the commas are inconsequential, that the framers had commarhea, if you will. (Groan.)

No, commas are boring. (Disclaimer: I love this book, which is the second result on Google auto-complete if you enter "Eats.") Instead, I want to waste my time tonight doing some more of that negative thinking. I'm putting up a list of erroneous conclusions that can be drawn from the Bill of Rights, Chapter Two. Then at the end, I'll offer my own interpretation of the text, because I can't help myself.

The Second Amendment does NOT say:

"Return your guns to the government."

"You can have as many semi-automatic submachineguns as you want."

"A waiting period for handguns must be in place."

"Federal legislation supersede local laws."

"Militias are awesome! Go put one together! And government oversight is optional."

"Heavily regulated ownership of firearms make our country safer."

"An armed society is a polite society."

"Because the government owns stealth bombers and nuclear submarines, our collective security is assured, and we should all get rid of our hunting rifles."

"City handgun bans are unconstitutional."

"Concealed weapons in bars, that sounds like a good idea."

"It is illegal to hunt deer with an AK-47."

"Anyone can keep and bear a Glock."

That was fun.

What DOES it say, though? I'm roughly 10 percent as smart as the dumbest guy in the room at the time they were concocting the Bill of Rights. Therefore, I'm qualified to paraphrase. (The commonly accepted threshold for bloggers is 0 percent.)

The best I can come up with is:

"Threats to our collective security abound, not only on the national level, but also on the borders of our states, and from even within our own population. It is evident that a tyrannical government might still arise from our experiment in representative democracy, as we are embarking on a seldom-traveled political journey while living on a continent populated with both friends and enemies. For these reasons, it is vital to our survival that reasonably regulated armies of citizens be allowed to form. It follows, logically, that citizens may own firearms."

Discuss.

I, Republican, The Sequel / 2-5-11

Last night, I went out of my way to agree with Republican viewpoints on the current issues being spotlighted on gop.com. That post is below.

This entry is wonkier and clunkier. You should probably go do something else, something more useful, more entertaining, more unwonky and unclunky, and come back at the end for dessert.

The full 2008 platform is here.

Aaaand... go.

In the Second Amendment section, which interestingly, headlines the platform, I expected to find plenty to agree with. I can read the Constitution. (Indeed, I HAVE read it! The Second Amendment is there, in plain-ish English, saying well-regulated militias are OK, and because of that, the individual's right to own guns is to be protected.) Yet of the 197 words present in "Upholding the Constitutional Right to Keep and Bear Arms," I could only concur with "We condemn frivolous lawsuits against firearms manufacturers," which isn't even a complete sentence. Oh well. Moving on.

In the "Equal Treatment for All" section, there is much to like. "We consider discrimination based on sex, race, age, religion, creed, disability, or national origin to be immoral, and we will strongly enforce anti-discrimination statutes." Great.

"We ask all to join us in rejecting the forces of hatred and bigotry and in denouncing all who practice or promote racism, anti-Semitism, ethnic prejudice, or religious intolerance." Good stuff. So far, so good.

As a matter of principle, Republicans oppose any attempts to create race-based governments within the United States, as well as any domestic governments not bound by the Constitution or the Bill of Rights." I'm not sure what a race-based government is, but it sounds highly inequitable, and I'm also against inequitable, so yay. This whole section is, of course, missing one key component of the nation's present struggle against discrimination, and we all know what that component is, but it's good to see a clear denunciation of hatred, even if it could use some widening.

Skipping ahead a tab, to "Freedom of Speech and of the Press," I find comfort in: "We support freedom of speech and freedom of the press and oppose attempts to violate or weaken those rights, such as reinstatement of the so-called Fairness Doctrine." Totally agree. The Fairness Doctrine is an ill-begotten attempt to balance the opinions presented on the airwaves - i.e., if Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck are given 72 hours of airtime a week, liberal viewpoints must be represented in equal proportion, and the government has a duty to make it happen. I simplify, but that brand of"fairness" is a bad idea. Let the marketplace dictate which shows thrive, and which ideas win. (The Fairness Doctrine, in case you couldn't tell or didn't care, is not currently in effect.)

And then we arrive at abortion, or as the issue if framed in the platform, "Maintaining the Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life." (As if anyone could oppose that... but I digress.)

Deep breath. And... go.

"We must protect girls from exploitation and statutory rape through a parental notification requirement." I agree. Abortion is a medical procedure. A minor teenage girl should obtain parental authorization before having such a procedure performed on her body. To be thorough, I don't actually agree with the "exploitation and statutory rape" clause of the sentence. I just believe that parents have rights that supersede the privacy rights of their children under the age of 18.

"We all have a moral obligation to assist, not to penalize, women struggling with the challenges of an unplanned pregnancy." Yes. Although we might go about that moral obligation differently. Abortion is horrifying, after all, no matter where you stand on its legality. We should be helping girls and women in any way we can in their neediest moments.

"We salute those who provide them alternatives, including pregnancy care centers." This is what I'm talking about. Don't nudge people to abortion - offer alternatives. Yes. Do this.

So, logically, the next plank in the platform is entitled "Preserving Traditional Marriage." So, skipping ahead to... but wait! Wait wait! I found something, I found something! Two sentences even! Extra exclamation points on their way!!!! (*sarcasm off*)

"The two-parent family still provides the best environment of stability, discipline, responsibility, and character." So true. Studies confirm this. Google it. (I did.) Homes with two parents do produce, statistically, better-adjusted children.

"Children in homes without fathers are more likely to commit a crime, drop out of school, become violent, become teen parents, use illegal drugs, become mired in poverty, or have emotional or behavioral problems." I will second this if I'm allowed to substitute "homes without fathers" to "single-parent homes." Otherwise, I have to agree with it only as it pertains to children raised by single moms compared with children raised by two parents.

The section ends this way: "As the family is our basic unit of society, we oppose initiatives to erode parental rights." Duh. I'm guessing that this is meant to tie back to the abortion issue. Now if this reasoning is used to rationalize or defend spanking, then we need to chat, Mr. and Mrs. Ray Publican. Otherwise, carry on.

Carrying on to "Safeguarding Religious Liberties," where this turns up: "We support the First Amendment right of freedom of association of the Boy Scouts of America and other service organizations whose values are under assault, and we call upon the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to reverse its policy of blacklisting religious groups which decline to arrange adoptions by same-sex couples. Respectful of our nation’s diversity in faith, we urge reasonable accommodation of religious beliefs in the private workplace."

If you're going to take government money, you need to play by the government's rules. No discrimination in hiring. But if you want to form a private organization and intend on minding your own business, I'm with the R's on this: let people exclude whomever they want. the Scouts want to bar gays -- fine. Their call. Churches want to not perform gay weddings -- totally cool with them declining. But once you're on the government's dime, that all changes.

Less controversially, sort of, the "Preserving Americans' Property Rights" section ends with the sensible "We urge caution in the designation of National Historic Areas, which can set the stage for widespread governmental control of citizens’ lands." Private property is not to be trifled with. Capitalism still works better than other systems, and it only functions if the government shows restraint.

There we are. That is precisely how Republican I am. (Don't measure it.)