The Internet Is Like Crack

Yesterday, after weeks without internet, and nearly a year without TV, I got both in one swoop. And holy-information overload batman, let me tell you that it's almost hard to sleep I've got so much going on now. Back to email. Back to fantasy baseball. ESPN for the first time in nearly a year! (For those of you who have known me for some time you know that at many points in my life you wouldn't have believed I could go half a day without ESPN ... I went 11 months, so what now? :-) The funny thing is that in the moment I couldn't tell that I was missing any of this, but within twenty four hours I can't remember how I was living without it ... crazy.

Anyway, now that I'm back up and running, here are a couple of quick hits:

• The NBA draft is tonight, and the story isn't "who's being drafted," but, rather, who's going to be traded to continue the preparation for the "summer of LeBron." It's an amazing thing that right now as many as eight team (or over one quarter of the league) are maneuvering to make a run at LeBron, but in seven days it's at least somewhat likely that we will find out that LeBron is going nowhere. I wrote about the likely destinations for LeBron a few weeks back, and I'll generally stick by those percentages (although Dallas seems like a less likely destination now than it did then), but it's amazing that all of this might be for naught in no time.
• This oil spill, meanwhile, continues to make me sick. I was sitting at work the other day as a co-worker spouted the "you can't blame Obama for the oil spill" tag line, which I quickly agreed is true. But what people don't get is that it's not the spill itself that sane people are blaming the administration for. Less than two years into this "new era" of politics we are in the same place we were in 2005, and that's the thing that people should be frustrated about. A president who is hit by a massive natural disaster that was out of his control. The president is too slow to respond forcefully, and seems to be contemplative when the circumstances call for rapid response. Before you know it, the American people are blown away by the inaction of the administration, and are frustrated while suddenly questioning the intelligence of the man they put in power. The oil spill is to Obama what Katrina was to Bush. And it's not a good thing that this parallel is so clear. I'm a big fan of Obama's pragmatism, and the fact that he doesn't rush to decisions that don't need to be rushed to. That said, there are times when as the President of the United States you need to be able to act quickly and decisively. This was one of those times, and Obama has failed brilliantly.
  
• As for Obama's decision to remove General McChrystal from command in Afghanistan, and to instead put General David Petraeus in, these things will happen. Anyone knows that you don't choose to criticize the captain of the ship without acknowledging that you risk being thrown overboard. While McChrystal's comments weren't so overboard that this move was a no-brainer, they were still inflammatory enough that this move was probably the logical next step.
  
• And, finally, congratulations to the Chicago Blackhawks! I proudly wear my jersey and shirts, and have for a number of years. It's nice to have one of my teams actually pay off my devotion. Yes, I'm calling you out Bears, Cubs and Hoosiers.