With the signing of Pedro Martínez and Carlos Beltran, two of baseball's best Latin players, and the broader implementation of what the Dominican-born, Queens-bred Minaya refers to as his ''global development plan,'' the Mets are now engaged in the most overt acknowledgement yet of the game's changing demographics. That plan includes, among other things, dispatching coaches like Mets' missionaries to run free baseball clinics around the world. While major-league teams have been harvesting Latin America for 50 years, the Mets are going a step further, self-consciously rebuilding and, no less important, rebranding themselves as an international team whose ethnic makeup will reflect the increasingly Hispanic city they represent. The team's Latin-inflected style of play -- fast, aggressive, emotional -- will be unmistakable and, if Minaya's hunch is correct, irresistible to New York. But the birth of the so-called New Mets points up a cultural shift in the game as much as a stylistic one. Long one of the great institutions of assimilation -- immigrants once studied box scores so they might sound more American -- baseball now celebrates, even exploits, its diversity.

¶ 12:31 PM 0 comments

Throughout Central America, too, prosecutors are pursuing cases against current and former leaders who lined their pockets while in power. In Nicaragua, former President Arnoldo Alemán has already been convicted of diverting state funds for his personal use and is appealing a 20-year sentence. Costa Rican prosecutors have accused two former presidents of taking kickbacks to award lucrative government contracts. And in Guatemala, the state's attorneys are seeking the extradition of former President Alfonso Portillo from Mexico on charges he embezzled $15.7 million.

With control of all three branches of government, with the press snoozing and Democrats powerless to stop them, Republicans are feeding at the public trough, like, er, well, like Republicans!

¶ 2:12 PM 0 comments

• Bush can claim victory here. But it absolutely shows how far he has fallen. This is a minor accord with a tiny, tiny economic footprint. Back in late 2003, when the negotiations were ending, never would I have EVER thought this would've received much opposition. The fact that the Imperial President himself had to spend over an hour on Capitol Hill yesterday lobbying for this is shocking. Cheney and some other cabinet minions were there throughout the night, essentially promising everything and the kitchen sink to establish free trade with a region that represents less than 1% of our total exports. Not exactly where Bush would like to have had to spend his political capital, huh?
• What's the deal with the compromise that says jeans manufactured in the Cafta countries and sold in the US have to have their pockets made in the US? How the hell is that free trade? That's ridiculous. Bush and Delay were for free trade before they were against it.
• This vote will, in the end, hurt Republicans more than Democrats. All of the "arm twisting" and "bone breaking" that Delay had to do to get this through ending up bringing on board many Republicans whose districts are extremely skeptical of free trade. Though Cafta won't really do anything to harm those districts per se, the perception that it is harmful is there. Combined with Bush's tanking popularity and collapsing domestic agenda, not to mention the Iraqi quagmire, the 2006 mid-terms will be rough on these guys. Watch them get tarred and feathered with this vote. Will Bush be there stumping for them then? Perhaps, but his job approval ratings might be in the 30s by then, and I don't think he'll get too many invitations.

¶ 9:39 AM 0 comments

• I have a big bottle of it.

• Swallowing echinacea, colostrum, and a glass of orange juice at least makes me feel like I am doing something to try to get better.

“Research into implausible remedies rarely produces useful information,” wrote Sampson, who was not connected to the study.

¶ 9:27 PM 0 comments

Gibson is due to begin shooting the film, titled "Apocalypto," on location in Mexico in October and is aiming for a summer 2006 release, spokesman Alan Nierob said on Monday.

As with "Passion," Gibson will direct and produce the Mayan-language film from his own script through his own company, Icon Productions, and he will not appear in the movie.

The film's cast will consist of unknown performers native to the region of Mexico where the film is being shot, Nierob said. Few others details about Gibson's project were revealed.

¶ 9:15 AM 0 comments

• He’s a populist politician from a southern state, just like the last three Democrats to win the White House.

• He’s a self-made millionaire venture capitalist with the deep pockets to fund his own political ambitions, not to mention important ties to big business.

• He was raised in Indiana, so he can also speak mid-western, albeit in a Southern drawl.

• He’s gaining national recognition as chairman of the Governor’s Association (which is meeting this week in Iowa, conveniently enough).

¶ 7:47 PM 0 comments