Monday stuff: Politics, Scrappy, and Hockey

First today, I thought I'd bring up the middle east situation because of a wise comment I saw on Facebook this weekend.  Before I begin, let me just clear the record on Hamas.  They are a terroist group, period.  I know a lot of Israel bashers out there would like us to think of them as a cuddly bunch of freedom fighters, but let's be frank.  They do not have as their goal the improvement of live for their "co-religionists" in Gaza and Palestine.  They have two goals: To destroy Israel and Israelis, and do enough of the first goal that countries that also hate Israel such as Egypt, Syria, and Iran will keep sending them arms to do so.  They have no legitimate good purpose on the face of this earth.

That said, the comment that sparked this went along the lines of, "I said immediately when (Hillary Clinton) was dispatached there she will now get her Nobel Peace Prize and earned about like (Obama) did his."  And I think that is true, except that to earn hers like he did his, Hillary would have to have received it BEFORE she got on the plane over there.  But now, let's take a look at this from the "players" standpoint.

Hamas certainly came out okay, they met their two goals by killing Israelis and getting their names in the papers yet again, making Israel "look bad", which no doubt earned them further care packages from Cairo, Teheran, and what's left of Damascus.  Egypt gets to be a big winner, because Morsi- who's own people are pissed at him, accusing him of "wanting to be Pharoah"- gets to look like a peacemaker, shoring up his international image (despite the fact that he probably had a hand in stirring up the latest attacks, and covering his weekend power grab).  Obama looks like a genius yet again for supporting him (depending on the type of glasses you wear),  Hillary gets her name submitted to the jokesters at the Nobel Commision, Israel probably gets some weapons deals from Hillary for saying "Oy, all right,"  And everyone comes out a winner.

Except the dead in Gaza and Israel.  But who really cares about them?

Moving on, Scrappy got an e-mail birthday card from his doctor.  Now, we don't actually know his birthday, he was a "rescue animal" and was estimated to be between 8 months to a year old when we got him.  That was like five years ago, and his "birthday" is basically when he got to visit the vet for the first time for...um... "parts removal".  Not sure you want to celebrate that day, but as he's never complained about missing them, I suppose he's all right with the date.  Anyway, lets see if I can get this link to work so that you can watch it too.

Damn... how much is that in dog years?

Finally today, the boys from Yaroslavl played Sunday in Bratislava in Slovakia against Slovan, and it went about as well as the game in Prague  did.  Libor Hudacek lit us up for 2 goals- one that gave Slovan the first lead halfway through period 1, and the other just 34 seconds into the third that gave them the 3-2 lead and the win.  Emil Galimov tallied #4 just 38 ticks into the second to tie it once, and Niklaus Hagman tied it again at 2-2 in the second with his 7th, but Slovan goalie Jaroslav Janus topped his save percentage  coming in by three notches,  stopping 39 of 41 Lokomotiv shots.

In the meantime, SKA was coming from 2-0 down to beat Vityaz 4-3 and tie Dynamo Moscow for first place overall.  And after the game, in a real head scratcher, the SKA board told coach Milos Riha that the team hadn't done good enough according to their expectations, and fired him!  First place in the league and 19 more goals than anyone else, but that wasn't good enough?  Assistant coach Mikhail Kravets now gets the unenviable task of figuring out how to top a 19-6-3 record the rest of the way.  And former Lakers coach Mike Brown thought he had it bad getting fired after just 5 games!

Back in Yaroslavl where some sanity remains, our boys will be hosting Ak Bars Wednesday, and Salavat Yulaev on Friday.