From tonight's captains' bulletin:

To cast your ballot in person: Vote at the Writers Guild Theater, 135 S. Doheny Drive 90211. Tuesday, February 12, 2008 from 2:00 pm - 6:00 pm.

If members can't cast a ballot in person: Proxy ballots are available. To vote by proxy, download this form and fax to 323-421-9177. Proxies must be faxed in by Tuesday February 12, by 2 pm, or dropped off at the WGAW

Today's Washington Post has an article that discusses "The Downside of Obama Strategy," i.e., that he actually has the audacity to believe that every Democrat's (and, perhaps, every American's) vote should count equally. The article notes (accurately) that Clinton has done better in large, electoral-vote-rich states than has Obama, which has ostensibly provoked fears about the prospects of his winning in November. It doesn't matter that he has received more popular votes than Clinton in contested elections--which allows us to omit Michigan and Florida--and, of course, that he has won more delegates. All that matters, according to a number of quoted Clinton supporters, is the vote in large states. So what we have is an attempt to apply to the nominating process the Electoral College's effective disenfranchisement of those unlucky enough to live in states where they are the political minority and the insane emphasis on a relatively few "battleground" states . One gather that Clinton will lose to Obama in today's caucuses in Wyoming. But, hey, it doesn't matter what Wyoming Democrats think, because they live in a Republican state.

The results are in from the contest I was entered in over at Surviving Grady last week about the one person you'd want to watch a game at Fenway Park with.

And unfortunately, I did not win.

The top two were the "Grandma" and "Kevin Millar" entries, and they each won a copy of the new six-DVD set, "The Essential Games of Fenway Park." My congratulations to both of them, as they were both excellent entries. My thanks to Red and Denton especially over at Surviving Grady, for selecting my entry for the finals.

I don't where I finished or how many votes I got, but I dropped the boys at the site an email, as I'd like to know how I did. If anything, just to stroke my ever-growing ego!! (I'll pass along any more info if they can pass it on to me.)

Seriously, I received many beautiful emails from my friends from all over the country and I am really touched that many of you took the time to vote for my entry.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

C.C. Sabathia beat out Josh Beckett to win the 2007 AL Cy Young Award today. They had very similar years, but I thought the vote total would be even closer than it was. Sabathia got 19 first place votes, while Beckett got 8. John Lackey finished third and Fausto Carmona finished fourth.

Here's the vote tally:

1st 2nd 3rdPoints
C.C. Sabathia Cleveland Indians 19 8 — 119
Josh Beckett Boston Red Sox 8 14 4 86
John Lackey Los Angeles Angels 1 5 16 36
Fausto Carmona Cleveland Indians — 1 4 7
Eric Bedard Baltimore Orioles — — 1 1
Roy Halladay Toronto Blue Jays — — 1 1

No, I'm not the one planning to leave the United States.

It's none other than Susan Sarandon, who making such a "threat" should John McCain get elected president this November. She said this in a recent interview.

Good. Do us all a favor and leave if McCain gets elected.

Yep, yet another goofball, batshit left-wing liberal celebrity who takes themselves and their politics way too seriously, and really thinks we give a damn about how they feel politically, and the fact they don't want to live in this country if their candidate isn't elected. Just like Alec (Ireland, You Thoughtless Fat Pig) Baldwin in 2000 who threatened to leave the US if we elected George W. Bush.

How's life in France these days, Alec?

I wish one of these brainless nitwits would actually make good on such baseless threats.

They wouldn't be missed.

The Veterans Committee yesterday announced their selections of who was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame for 2008 yesterday. They elected former commissioner Bowie Kuhn, former Red Sox manager Dick Williams, oldtime Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss, and manager Billy Southworth to the Hall (and curiously passed on Marvin Miller, who changed the game forever in the 1960s and 1970s as head of the players union).

And oh yes, one other man was elected. Walter O'Malley.

Or as he's still called around these parts by the old timers: Sonofabitch O'Malley.

I was pleased to hear yesterday that Bill Lee, one of the Red Sox most colorful players of all-time and a semi-regular at Professor Thom's who I've had the pleasure of meeting and talking baseball with, was selected to the Red Sox Hall of Fame.

The Spaceman joins pitcher Wes Ferrell, Mike Greenwell (another favorite of mine; glad he's in, too), infielder Everett Scott, pitcher Frank Sullivan, Mo Vaughn, scout George Digby and team executive Edward Kenney Jr. as the 2008 inductees.

The Hall of Fame induction dinner will take place on Friday, Nov. 7 at Boston's Marriott Copley Hotel.

He'll never make it to Baseball's Hall of Fame, but my congratulations to Bill on this honor by his former club. For a long time there was a strained relationship between the Spaceman and the Red Sox, but the ownership of the team led by John Henry reached out to him, and brought him back into the fold. (I'll never forget at the birthday party we had for Bill at Thom's in 2006, he referred to the Red Sox as "we.")

This email was just sent to strike captains. It contains info on the NegCom vote, the Board and Council votes, the pending vote to lift the strike, and the pending vote to ratify the contract.

DEAR STRIKE CAPTAINS,

This morning, the WGA Negotiating Committee unanimously and unconditionally recommended the terms of the proposed 2008 MBA to the WGAW Board and WGAE Council. The Board and Council

National Pubic Radio does a lot of those person on the street interviews with prospective primary voters, and while they are not good for my blood pressure, they force me to confront an inconvenient truth. Here are the Republican voters I've heard recently:

• A guy whose number one priority is getting the U.S. out of Iraq. He has decided to vote for John McCain because McCain's a military veteran, and that means he's the guy who knows how to end the war and bring the troops home. One major problem with that theory is that McCain has absolutely no intention of bringing the troops home. On the contrary, he says that he doesn't mind if they stay there for 100 years.
• A woman who says that she's going to vote for Mitt Romney because "he's a committed Christian, and he isn't ashamed of it." Uh, lady -- I've got news for you.
  

For the past couple of weeks I've been blogging about how, regardless of how many states Senators Clinton and Obama each "win" tonight, the Democratic primary system is not like the electoral college -- winner does not take all -- and therefore neither one of them is likely to emerge from today as a prohibitive favorite in terms of actually securing a majority of delegates. Over at Open Left, Chris Bowers has now run some numbers, and he calculates that the largest possible delegate spread between the two candidates after this evening is likely to be no more than 75 delegates, and that as of tomorrow morning both candidates will need to win over 1000 more delegates for a majority -- probably more than 1100 -- with only 1428 pledged delegates remaining to be chosen in primaries and caucuses. Thus, in order to win the nomination without the aid of "superdelegates," either candidate would need to win more than three-quarters of the remaining pledged delegates, something that is virtually inconceivable.

Mike Piazza made it official today, and announced his retirement, after 16 seasons, and in five years from now will surely be a first-ballot Hall of Fame election. No one signed Piazza after playing an injury-riddled final season with the A's last year, so he called it quits.

Piazza will go to Cooperstown as the player with the most home runs as a catcher. He was the dominant player at his position during the '90s, and led the Mets to the World Series in 2000. Not bad for a guy who was drafted by the Dodgers in the 62nd round of the draft as a favor to Tom Lasorda.

Piazza will be remembered for a lot of things, his mammoth home runs, his dustups with the Texas Con Man, Roger Clemens (more on that later), and many other things. But I will never forget, for the rest of my life, one night that involved Piazza that stands out among all of them.

On Monday morning in September Mrs. Barrington rolled out a big poster with all the presidents' pictures on it.

Grace Campbell could not believe her eyes.

WHERE ARE THE GIRLS?
To Grace and the other astonished girls, whose living memories barely extend back to George W. Bush's first term, Mrs. Barrington's explanation that there has NEVER been a woman president hits like ice water in the face. Suddenly those girls, used to seeing female faces in positions of prominence, are perplexed.

Grace sat at her desk and stewed. No girls? Who'd ever thought of such a thing!

Finally she raised her hand.

"I've been thinking it over, and I'd like to be president."

The headlines -- most of them, anyway -- are saying that Senator Clinton beat Senator Obama 51% to 45% in the Nevada caucus contest today. Except that some reports say Senator Obama "won," 13 delegates to 12. What's up? There's a debate going on over at Matt Yglesias's blog (and elsewhere, too, I venture to guess -- especially among the spinners).

Well, there are at least three different metrics by which today's contests could be evaluated.

The Democratic Party has just stripped Michigan of its votes at the national convention because, in violation of Party rules, Michigan is holding a primary before February 1. The Party has also done the same to Florida. Under party rules, only Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina are allowed to hold primaries before February 1.

Losing both New Hampshire and Iowa can destroy a candidacy. Winning both is a sure path to the nomination.

Almost assuredly not. In fact, neither Senator Clinton nor Senator Obama is likely to be even halfway to the required total of 2023 delegates by then, and the delegate difference between them on February 6th is likely to be quite small.

This was sent out today by the WGA:

LOS ANGELES and NEW YORK – The membership of the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) and the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) today voted overwhelmingly in favor of lifting the restraining order and ending their 100-day strike that began on Nov. 5. 3,775 writers turned out in Los Angeles and New York to cast ballots or fax in proxies, with 92.5% voting

After the criticism leveled at him last week, it is a pleasure to commend David Broder for his extremely interesting article in today's Washington Post on a forthcoming conference at the University of Oklahoma, called by former Sen. and current UO president David Boren, to explore the possibility of a "non-partisan" candidacy for the presidency by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Last night I received a very nice email from Victoria G., a nice 10-year-old girl from Massachusetts, who also happens to be a Red Sox blogger. Victoria alerted me to the fact that she is in the running for the position of Captain of Red Sox Kid Nation.

Red Sox Kid Nation currently having the vote to determine the final 12 Captains, and there are 25 kids currently in the running, between the ages of 10 and 14, including Victoria. They were originally selected from a pool of 700 contestants, from all over the United States. Victoria has done some wonderful things to help people in her neck of the woods, like raising money for breast cancer research, helping her local baseball team and helping feed hungry people. And of course, she is a dedicated fan of the Red Sox.

To find out more about the Red Sox Kid Nation Captains contest and how to vote for Victoria, go here.

I'm not only a writer, I'm a GE shareholder! And I think GE's CEO Jeff Immelt deserves a lot of credit for telling the truth yesterday: The strike is hurting NBC. The negative buzz about NBC's fortunes had built for days, and Jeff Immelt faced it directly with a minimum of spin:While some media companies have denied the "Hollywood" writers' strike will hurt profits short-term, General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt said Tuesday that it's already having an impact at NBC Universal--and GE cut profit projections for the fourth quarter there. ... GE had projected a 10% to 15% growth in segment profit at its NBCU unit in the fourth quarter, but Tuesday Immelt said it will come in at the 10% low end, citing the "impact of the strike." ...

Rice grains donated by day via freerice.com

I've just been looking at some stats on the rice donation levels on Free Rice (as blogged about a few days back).

Well, not really. My friend John in Omaha, NE sent me this very funny YouTube clip of that video that The Texas Con Man put out on the Internet back in December after the Mitchell Report first came out where he absolutely denied everything regarding his alleged steroid use.

This clip is a very funny and creative edit, and in honor of Clemens' Congressional appearance today, I thought you might enjoy this,which lasts a little less than a minute and a half.

A new year has begun. For some, this means overcoming a hangover, others, time to reflect, speculate, or make goals for the next 366 days. I'm not a believer in resolutions. However, it is nice to start a new year in order to make statements like "I haven't had a smoke this year" or "The Canucks haven't lost this year". Those statements often don't last very long.

What will 2008 bring? I'm pretty excited - I think it will be a very interesting year. I feel that there is much at the tipping point. Governments, economies, real estate, beer prices. Regarding RE, I'd be along the lines of HHV's predictions. Victoria has peaked, but without the help of a major external influence, will not crash this year.

(The following is a letter from the presidents.)

To Our Fellow Members:

Today, it is our pleasure to inform you that members of the Writers Guilds of America, East and West, have voted to ratify the MBA contract with 93.6% approval. With a total of 4,060 votes cast, the tally was 3,802 to 258. These numbers reaffirm the tremendous level of support and commitment our membership has continuously demonstrated over these last few crucial months.

We are also pleased to report that the trustees of our health fund voted yesterday to follow the recommendation in our strike settlement agreement to provide additional coverage and an extension of the earnings cycle for a full quarter (three months) to participants who would otherwise lose health coverage following an earnings cycle that included all or a portion of the strike period. Participants whose health coverage is paid for by points will only be charged points if they have ten or more points as of April 1, 2008.

For clarity -- and because not everyone could get to one of the meetings last night in NY or LA -- here's a handy little FAQ for some of the questions we're hearing.

What's the 48 hour vote for again?

It's a vote on whether or not to lift the strike (which in the Constitution is called "the restraining order".) If the vote passes, writers can go back to work.

It's not a vote on the contract,

Money is not made in the light.

That is a quote from Shaw's Heartbreak House, set on the eve of WWI, whose protagonist holds off the doom of his estate and idle rich family by inventing weapons.

Jonathan Schell, among other important insights, discusses the strange darkness which envelops the reality of nuclear weapons. I highly recommend the entire interview, which reminds us of matters of great urgency which are simply never discussed in public.

The incompetent, pathologically dishonest and quite possibly insane individual who occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue never says anything that is true and sensible, but one of his latest utterances is even more delusional than the norm. Yet the corporate media, as always, have allowed it to pass unremarked upon. He says that Iran cannot be permitted to have the knowledge needed to build a nuclear weapon.

As a very recent addition to the Fallon gang, I am returning to my home state of Iowa to do what Iowans do best, caucus.

Over the last few months, my family and I have braced ourselves against the onslaught of political ads, political rhetoric, people playing politics, political mud slinging, political polls, political reporting, and most of all, a seemingly never-ending stream of politicians. Exhausting? You begin to understand what it is to be an Iowan before the caucus.

I believe the political ad that packed the most punch in our neighborhood was the Huckabee ad that declared a cease-fire for the holidays. For those of you that missed it, this was the ad the mass media focused on due to the fact that there was a cross in the background… I didn’t hear many Iowans complaining. I am not sure if this type of gesture will move votes, but it does produce goodwill, even in my house, and lets just say, we’re NPR, not Fox News.

Manny Ramirez took another giant step in his storied career toward his inevitable inclusion one day with the baseball immortals at Cooperstown with a 7th inning home run off of the Orioles' Chad Bradford for his career home run number 500 in the Red Sox 6-3 win at Camden Yards on Saturday night.

And I missed the whole thing, as I picked last night as the evening to check out the new Indiana Jones movie with a dear friend of mine in Brooklyn. (BTW, it's a good movie. Rather hokey in parts, but still quite enjoyable.) After the film I got a text message from my sister, who was there with her husband and my two nephews. That's how I found out about Manny making history.

Dustin Pedroia was indeed voted the 2007 American League Rookie of the Year today, and it wasn't at all close. Here is the official vote: