In a couple of hours, Yankee Stadium will host its final professional baseball game. It has seen an obscene parade of stars over the years, from Ruth and Gehrig to DiMaggio and Dickey to Berra and Ford and Mantle, and winding up with Jeter and Mariano.

Growing up in New York City (or "the city" as it's known to the locals), I spent my share of afternoons at Yankee Stadium enjoying the winning ways of Reggie and Munson, and the not so great years of Winfield and Mattingly. It was a wonderful run for me, capped off by my very last game at the stadium -- Game 5 of the 2001 World Series. (I was sitting just beyond the left field wall for that game, and got a close look at Scott Brosius' game-tying homer in the ninth inning. In fact, stop the video at 12 seconds and find the "M" in Moments on the Kodak sign -- I'm wearing a bright blue jacket about one inch above the M.)

It's a shame things didn't work out this season and the last game played there will not be in the playoffs. I have no doubt, though, that come next year we'll be right back in the thick of things where we belong. We'll just be missing our old friend Yankee Stadium, but we'll have our new friend Yankee Stadium to keep us company.

A new semester has started, but the same old story continues. Textbooks still cost too much, and most cost even more than last year. The number of major textbook publishers has gotten lower, meaning an increasingly smaller hegemony of publishers is dictating what we'll use and how much we'll pay.

On the bright side, many classes across the country are looking to more open-sourced solutions. Professor notes, collections of readings, and online resources (like those we feature here at www.College-Cram.com) are taking the place of traditional textbooks in more and more classrooms. Keep up the good work, everyone!

P.S. Here's a shout out to the latest websites that are finding our resources valuable to their visitors, such as SkyLine High, and those incorporating us into their WebCT/Blackboard courses (like the accounting classes at University of Houston and Chippewa Valley Technical College).

Late comedian Richard Jeni had it right when he categorized the polarizing political climate in this country: "If you're on the far left or the far right, you know what you've done? You've gone too far."

I've always had a problem with this sort of extremism, as it blinds people to realities. Personally, I tend to be liberal in some areas and conservative in others (which probably makes me somewhat of a pariah to both sides... Move over, Joe Lieberman.)

Anyway, enjoy this clip that captures our political system so perfectly. 

The Democratic National Convention is upon us, and tonight Hillary Clinton will address the crowd. What will she say?

She put up a long, hard primary fight and blew what almost everyone considered a lock for the nomination; she stands at a crossroads now, and none of the options look very good. She wants to be President, almost as badly as Bill Clinton wants her to be President. BUT...

I mentioned in an earlier post about a possibility for a last-minute Clinton move that could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The pieces are falling into place as I predicted:

• Barack Obama got the Florida and Michigan delegations full voting rights
• Obama picked Biden as his VP -- an establishment old white male (hardly indicative of "change")
• Clinton supporters are angry over his apparent dismissal of Hillary as a VP choice
• Hillary will be voted upon as a nominated candidate
  
• Bill got dissed in his speech topic (national security instead of the economy, which he believes he excels at)
  
• The vaunted Obama lead in the polls over John McCain has vanished

Her options at this point are few:

1. She throws full and active support behind Obama, and when he wins resigns herself to the fact that she'll never become President.
2. She throws half-hearted support behind Obama, and when he wins resigns herself to the fact that she'll never become President.
3. She throws full and active support behind Obama, and hopes he loses so she can run in 2012.
4. She throws half-hearted support behind Obama, and hopes he loses so she can run in 2012.

Well, #1 and #2 won't cut the mustard. As for the other two, hoping Obama loses is one thing but helping that happen with half-hearted support will royally piss off the Democratic Party, and she can kiss goodbye any election chances in 2012. That leaves #3, but it'll be hard to work hard for an outcome she doesn't really want.

The alternative to #3 is to pull off the Clinton Ambush. Convince her followers to vote for her nomination, while convincing a hundred or so superdelegates not to vote for Obama on the first ballot. That opens up the floor to the real question -- is Obama really best positioned to capture the White House and lead the country?

Both options -- work hard and hope he fails, or pull off the Clinton Ambush -- are fraught with peril. If she wants to be President, though, she'll need to make a hard choice. Still, making hard choices is the hallmark of a good President, isn't it?

An idea has been percolating in my brain over the past few weeks, as I witness the media event that is the Obama world tour. I'm watching him continue his domination of the news with little real substance, and yet McCain is still on his tail in the polls. This has to be troubling the Democratic Party leadership.

Then it hits me... there's something going on underwraps, and I'm going to blow the lid off it.

Except that I'm not the only one who's been thinking, and someone else beat me to it.

When the Democratic Convention gets underway at month's end, there could very well be some serious drama up to, and possibly including, a nomination for Hillary Clinton as Democratic candidate for President.

Think back, her delegate total wasn't that far short of Obama's. His big lead was on the superdelegate side -- those government and party bigwigs that are focused above all on taking back the White House and have no problem switching allegiances. In fact, if Hillary can get a hundred or so supers to switch positions or even just sit out the first vote, Obama won't have enough votes to get nominated on the first try. After that, the "pledged" delegates can vote for whoever they feel like.

In a further show of arrogance, Obama is calling for party officials to fully seat the delegates from Florida and Michigan and grant them full voting rights. Apart from potentially causing chaos next primary season, this move increases Hillary's pledged delegates and makes it easier for her to blindside him. I love this quote from the article:

This is proof that the man should not be negotiating with Ahmadinejad. If he cannot think strategically and recognize his vulnerability to a last minute ambush at the convention, he would be eaten alive in big league world affairs.

This convention is going to be more interesting than any of us realized...

Yesterday's news broadcast reported yet another drop in gas prices, for the 20th day in a row. Good news for sure, but plenty of room for more improvement there. After all, with gas still so high it's premature to do any celebrating. Still, falling gas prices is a good trend.

So what's causing prices to drop?

It isn't speculators, that's for sure. Speculators have been blamed for rising prices, but they are no more than investors gambling on which way prices will go down the road. They're smarter than the slot-machine jockeys you'll see in Atlantic City or Reno too -- if they bet prices will go up, that's because there's a good chance prices will go up. It's a cause-and-effect thing lost on many of our Congressmen, who seem to think that prices go up because the speculators "bet" it up. By that thinking, will black come out on a roulette wheel because I bet the farm on black? I don't think so...

It isn't Iran either. Sanctions remain in place, with talk of additional ones, due to continued intransigence over their nuclear plans. In the past, skittishness over this subject has goosed up prices. Didn't happen this time, though. 

Think back a bit, what happened about three weeks ago that could have caused this steady drop in prices?

On July 14, when a barrel of oil cost $144, President Bush reversed the executive moratorium on offshore drilling. It meant little at the time, we were told, because Congressional and state bans were still in place. Besides, as many Congressmen assured us, we can't drill our way out of high gas prices. Drilling wouldn't bear fruit for ten years, they said.

Curious how quickly "ten years" have passed, though. Prices started dropping almost immediately on this first step by our government down the road of "we're not going to take it anymore." Poll after poll shows the American voter overwhelmingly wants this drilling, if only to help reduce prices. Congress, meanwhile, has utterly failed to do anything to help. Plus, in an ironic twist, the ban they refuse to consider voting to lift may expire from their inactivity.

By the way, a barrel of oil is down to $118. 

Have I mentioned that I'm really not happy about Congress, or that our only two real choices for President -- McCain and Obama -- are Congressmen?

Richard Nixon had it when he first ran against JFK. Thomas Dewey had it back in the 40's. Al Gore was so overflowing with it that he refused the help of a two-time incumbent. More recently, Hillary Clinton had much more of it in the early primary season than anyone else.

So what is it... Money? Power? Media attention?

Nope. What they (and countless others) all have in common is the secret weapon that can seal the outcome of the election -- arrogance.

It's that swagger that says you're a winner, or the attitude you can afford to take with some journalists and politicians. It shows in the way you can pack them in from miles around when you make speeches, no matter how inconsequential.  It's right there in your campaign funding, where you only need to wish for cash and it seems to magically appear. Barack Obama's sure got it these days.

Trouble is, that level of arrogance almost always comes back to bite you in the ass. Witness:

• Nixon's arrogance led to his stunning defeat by Kennedy, directly contributing to his subsequent heightened paranoia and ultimately to the Watergate/resignation scandal.
  
• Dewey's campaign coasted to the finish line because he thought the game was in the bag, but who can forget that infamous "Dewey Defeats Truman" newspaper headline?
• Al Gore... He declined Bill Clinton's assistance (which may have been a smart choice in retrospect), but he couldn't even win his home state.
• Hillary was christened the presumptive nominee for so long that she forgot to run a primary race, and that could cost her a legacy.

John McCain tries his best to get on the evening news, but he can't seem to compete these days with Obama. Likfe Truman before him, McCain keeps plugging away while rock-star Obama keeps wowing the crowd.

As I look at the latest scenes of Europe screaming for Obama, and listen to the US news media fawning over his every breath, I have to wonder when the shine will suddenly come off this bandwagon. Obama had better learn from history and tone it down some -- American voters love attitude, but they love tearing down the favorite even more.

I saw the new Pixar movie Wall-E this past weekend, and it was a visual marvel. I've long since stopped really noticing that these animated movies are animated, because the techniques and tools have progressed so far. (Did you even notice the appearance of actual live non-computer-generated footage?)

From a straight movie perspective, it was ok -- certainly not my favorite Pixar movie. But what it lacked in strong actor presence it made up for with educational value. Here are the top seven things I learned about life from watching Wall-E.

** Warning: Potential Spoiler Alert **

1. Capitalism is bad --  The movie takes place some 700 years after an exodus of humanity from a trashed and poisoned Earth. Presumably, this is the result of the "benign" rule of the BnL corporation. So, the big bad corporation is the cause of the downfall of Earth. (I'm guessing that between the technological requirement of Wall-E and the political requirement of a corporation taking over a united Earth, I'm pegging the exodus at a hundred years or so from now.)
2. Apple is good -- Talk about product placement, way to go Steve Jobs! From the still functioning 800 year old iPod to the Macintosh startup sound when Wall-E reboots, it's nice to see that the rumors of Apple's imminent demise have been (greatly) exagerated.
3. People are sheep -- We let the corporation take over the world, we let (helped?) them trash and poison it, and then we let them talk us into running away from the problem. Then, given the "Shangri-La" environment of the Axiom, we devolved into overweight, glowing screen addicted blobs. (Oh wait, that last part isn't really evolution, now that I think about it...)
4. People are adaptable -- After a seeming lifetime of relative ignorance, the Captain stays up into the night querying the ship's computer (Sigourney Weaver in her finest ship performance since Futurama) about Earth. John and Mary instinctively seize on their new-found freedom once made aware of the "real world" by Wall-E, and sacrificed their own safety to protect a sliding mass of children on the Ledo deck. Seemingly nobody on-ship objects to returning to Earth and starting anew. Yes, people seem to have an inherent attraction to what's fundamentally right and a curiousity about what's around them.
5. Computers are evil -- The autopilot deviously tried squashing concrete fact in order to maintain its hold on power. (Where have I heard that before?) The repair bots tried to "fix" EVA in a move reminiscent of Nicholson in "One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest". Hell, EVA tried blowing Wall-E away on several occasions. They just can't be trusted. (Except, of course, for the computer I'm typing this on... heh heh...)
   
6. Robots are good -- EVA and Wall-E were just doing their jobs, but realized that there was a new directive worth striving for. The "broken" bots also pitched in to help them achieve that goal, as did the writhing mass of humanity. Ultimately, the bots tried to do what's best for us.
7. Stuff lasts forever -- Come on, a Rubix Cube, iPod, and Atari 2600 that are still in one piece 800 or more years later? I have a cube that didn't last 5 years in my closet, and who knows where my 2600 is. Still, the idea that our trash is still around hundreds of years later rings true. After all, I've been to New Jersey.

CNN reports:

"A new survey from CNN and the Opinion Research Corporation suggests Americans are nearly as pessimistic now about the state of the economy as they were in 1992 — the year Bill Clinton defeated then-President George H. W. Bush by running a campaign focused largely on America's economic woes."

According to the new poll, three-quarters of all Americans think the country is going through a recession, and a majority thinks it will last at least a year. Close to a quarter of Americans expect it to last more than two years."

OK, times are tough -- I totally agree on that one. There is an election coming up -- another agreement there too.

Here's where we diverge, though: the President is not the prime mover of the economy in this country, the Congress is.

Who writes the laws in the US? Congress. Who passes legislation that guides the regulatory bodies? Congress. Who authorizes money to be spent on various programs? Congress. (Sense a pattern here?) Oh, and who has done pretty much nothing since the present economic difficulties began? Guess who... yep, Congress. The President can stump and scold, suggest and cajole, but in the end it's Congress that passes laws.

So if the tone of this election mirrors the "It's the economy, stupid" theme of the 1992 election and the knee-jerk reaction is the throw the bums out, then shouldn't we be looking at tossing the Democrats out of Congress? Besides, if we examine the timelines, didn't this current economic slowdown coincide with the Democrats taking over Congress?

Hmmm.... 

Last month I listed the five most controversial Republican Vice Presidential Candidates. I just thought of another, so here goes... hold onto your hats because this one's a doozy...

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger -- Senator McCain has a history of working across the aisle, as evidenced by the McCain-Feingold finance reform and McCain-Kennedy immigration bills. Picking a VP that also shows such a willingness to work across the aisle would be crucial to proving that his ticket is not looking for business as usual in Washington DC. Like Senator Obama, choosing a VP candidate like Arnold would show that he is in fact a candidate for change.

As Governor of California (an unquestionably red governor of a decidedly blue state), Schwarzenegger has broken down the divide between the aisles and has reached out to both sides of the state legislature. He has sweet talked and strong-armed Republicans and Democrats alike in pursuit of (what should be) everyone's goal of getting the best for Californians.

But wait a minute, I can hear you saying. What about that minor technicality called the US Constitution which specifically prohibits a foreign born citizen from seeking that position?

Well, there's that whole "constitutional amendment" thing that gets tossed around from time to time. Don't hold your breath on that one leading to a Schwarzenegger presidency -- it'd take way too long, and without a compelling candidate on the Democratic side to sway those voters I can see them dragging their feet if things started steamrolling. Besides, its' impossible to get that working in time for this fall's election, let alone the Republican convention.

There is a quick and dirty solution that's perfectly legal, though. With it, we could see a President Schwarzenegger in our lifetimes.