The Bocker.com

For those of you who don’t know it’s Abraham Lincoln’s birthday today. If he were alive today he would be 199 years old which would make him not only one of the best president’s of all time, but also the first person to beat that nasty mortality that everyone seems to have. Abe is best known for his Gettysburg Address and the end of slavery, but his greatest feat was pulling off the mustache-less beard look. He was so famous for his beard that his style of facial hair is now called a Lincoln. (Note: That last fact may or may not be true.) When you think of a Lincoln you immediately think the Amish, or Mormon’s in 1876, but Abe Lincoln was it’s most famous wearer.

Could a man with a beard, or even a mustache, get elected to the office of the president in this day an age? I would say no. Facial hair just isn’t in style these days. It has become fashionable to wear that five o’clock shadow look, but whiskers can make you look sloppy and childish. Voters want someone who shaves and cuts his hair. Perhaps a man with a mustache could win the election but never a bearded man. Not in today’s climate. And if you are planning on running for president, make sure you cut your hair short. America may vote for a woman, but we aren’t ready for an 80s era Bon Jovi to take office.

Speaking of elections, right now the democratic candidates are in a tight race for that party’s nomination. Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama by only 12 delegates as of the last counting. It is my understanding that you need a minimum of 2,025 delegates to win the democratic party nomination. Delegates are handed out based on the percentage of votes you win in a given state. Which I believe means, if a state has 100 delegates, and Clinton gets 46% of the vote and Obama gets 42% of the vote, then Clinton would get 46 delegates and Obama would get 42 to represent them for that state in the Democratic National Convention this summer. Of course I could be completely wrong about all this, which brings me to my point. Does anybody know how delegates even work? And why aren’t candidates picked based on a majority vote?

On top of all of this you have certain delegates that are designated as superdelegates. Granted, I could look up what superdelegates are, but shouldn’t this make sense to people that don’t have doctorates in political science? Who are these superdelegates and how are they chosen? Do they have special powers, like increased intelligence or super spelling? Do superdelegates meet at an unknown location to vote on the presidential nominee, kind of like the Justice League? I just wish our electoral process wasn’t so convoluted. It may have worked for us so far but it is also the reason why George W Bush was elected in 2000. The process is very confusing and as a result many people feel disenfranchised and removed from choosing their leadership. In high school when we had to pick a class president we put the name of the person we wanted in a hat and all of the votes were counted up. The person with the most votes one. We didn’t vote for people to be on a committee who would meet and then pick our class president. We actually picked the class president. Is this too hard to do on a national scale? You would just need a bigger hat.

Roger Clemens meets with Congress tomorrow morning. I won’t say much on this, but I just want to see him get the punishment he deserved. I have strong opinions towards cheaters and anyone who take steroids, or any other performance enhancer, in MLB is a cheater. Clemens, and Barry Bonds, are the worst of the bunch because they think they are above everyone else and still believe that by denying the mountains of evidence against them, we will somehow start to believe that investigators are out to get them. Clemens tried to clear his name with a few feeble attempts and he came off looking more suspicious. I’ve just had enough of player’s lying to the public and I want them to start being held accountable. A lot of money is tied up in what they do, and personally I want to keep the sports they play clean and their accomplishments meaningful.

“I think that point needs to be emphasized and will be emphasized,” Trembley said. “That’s one of the things that everybody needs to realize. ‘Don’t underestimate yourself and don’t sell yourself short.’ These guys are major league players. We’re not conceding anything to anybody.”

I read this quote in The Baltimore Sun and I thought it was funny, so I’m reprinting it here. The speaker is Baltimore Orioles manager Dave Trembley and it is a response to a question of whether or not the Orioles feel overmatched in the AL East after trading their two best players, Miguel Tejada and Erik Bedard. It’s nice to hear that Trembley is confident, but c’mon, the Orioles have no shot in the AL East this year, and very likely, for the next two years even. They are a young team going against the two best teams in baseball, the Yankees and Red Sox, and a very tough Blue Jays team. The AL East is by far the most competitive in baseball, thought the AL Central is beginning to challenge them for that title. I will say that it is nice to see that Trembley is confident. You never want your manager to admit defeat. Maybe he could have joked a bit more about it and mentioned that they were rebuilding. But hey, if he can get this team to overachieve I’m all for it. Personally I’m excited the Orioles are finally starting fresh with young talent and I think with some good coaching, in four years they could be challenging for a playoff spot.

I had to link to this article because Paula Abdul lives in an entirely different universe, where she is not only loved, but apparently relevant. I know she’s on the biggest show on television, American Idol, but you don’t see Randy Jackson or Simon Cowell trying to stay in the public eye as much as Abdul does. She wouldn’t even make it through the first round of her own show and yet she’s been trying to resurrect her career for seven years now. Her reality show was a disaster because it portrayed her as insane and unable to grasp even the simplest task. She continually broke down in bouts of crying and exhibited all of the signs of diva behavior. Her Super Bowl performance showed her visibly lip syncing and her dancing was worse than MTV awards Britney. I mean, she’s not even a singer, she’s a backup dancer who got a record deal, and she doesn’t even dance anymore. It’s time for Paula Abdul to take some time off and just do some soul searching. At the very least she should stop making records and let people get some time off from her.

Finally, I just want to put up a link from The Washington Post that gives the views of Obama and Clinton on four main issues facing our country.