here we go again: the pirates are sellers at the trade deadline

Once again, the Pirates have unloaded one of their top veteran players in a midseason trade with a contender. This time, they shipped leftfielder Jason Bay, easily the team's best, most visible player this decade, to the Boston Red Sawx. Much of this is not surprising, of course: The Buccos' new management has said from the start that it will try to build from the bottom -- that drafting, scouting and development within its farm system will be paramount to the big club's success. Of course, when you've been hearing that same sort of dribble drivel for as long as Pirates fans have, it has a tendency to go in one ear and out the other. We are, it seems, in Year 16 of an endless 5-Year Plan. But there does seem to be something a bit bolder and forward-thinking about the moves new GM Neal Huntington has made to shore up the shamefully barren system he inherited last fall. The analysis from Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke? is cautiously optimistic, concluding as it does with the following dose of reality: "[T]he reason we've been rebuilding for fifteen years is that nobody's actually managed to do it right. Huntington's still got a long ways to go and a tough job ahead of him, but this trade is exactly what he needs to be doing." We shall see.

That said, I want to go on record with this: If the franchise is unable to sign top pick Pedro Alvarez by the Aug. 15 deadline, I hereby renounce them. They will no longer deserve my attention, or my heart. I'm serious about this. The Pirates have been woefully mismanaged for close to two decades now. As stated above, the new regime wants to develop talent in order to win, and I'm fine with that; they deserve a chance to right all the wrongs that were done before they took over. After years of drafting players they knew they could sign, the Pirates did the right thing and got the one they so obviously needed by picking Alvarez. But if they still can't buck up just to get him to report, then there will truly be no hope. There will truly be no need for them to exist as a Major League team. And there will truly be no reason for me to waste my time and energy caring about what they do. Yes, gentle reader, it's come to this: The Pittsburgh Pirates are on the clock with my heart.

harrisburg is crawling with thieves, charlatans, crooks

OK, raise your hand if you pay attention to the goings-on in Harrisburg, our state capital. Yeah, thought so -- state politics can often be as interesting as watching metal rust, paint dry, or soccer, all of which are equally tainted with tedium. But stick with me on this, gentle reader, because you need to understand what I'm sayin', and not just because the Capitol Rotunda really is a breathtaking structure. Our General Assembly, that less-than-august body of public servants that really is supposed to serve at our behest, is the second-largest state legislature in the country, and the largest that actually works full-time [pause for laughter]. But while you were off doing something else with your life, our lawmakers have proven time and again that they care not a wit about you, that they can take advantage of the fact that you're not paying attention because, hey, they can get away with it. And they do so in a true spirit of that notorious campaign word "bipartisanship," since Democrats are Republicans are equally crooked. In 2001, just after the dot-com-bubble bust, these bastards, with the blessing of then-Gov. Tom Ridge, wrote themselves a pension increase of 50 percent. But that was nuttin'. By 2005, in the dark of night, they literally stayed up til 2 a.m. [poor things] to write themselves a hefty pay increase. That time, anyway, the pigs were pretty much caught in the trough, and several of them were tossed out in the 2006 elections, when 50 new members were swept into office with promises of -- wait for it -- reform. Now, of course, comes word that 12 current and former state House Democrats have been charged by the state attorney general with paying bonuses to their employees to do campaign work. With taxpayers' dollars. Not only that, but according to John Baer's column in the Philadelphia Daily News the other day, only 18 of our 253 state House and Senate members -- why, again, is our legislature that big? -- have signed a petition calling for Gov. Rendell to hold a special session on ethics. Why? Because nobody's paying attention, that's why. Baer also notes that "56 percent of House members and 75 percent of Senate members seeking re-election face no opposition." Got that? Our legislature is an incumbent-protection racket, too. It gets worse. You know those casinos Gov. Rendell and others who lack the will to cut government spending have touted as a cure-all to pay for stuff without tax increases? Well, guess what: One of the guys in Philly who received a slots license is facing felony counts for perjury, while the guy in Pittsburgh who won his license even though another bidder promised to completely finance a new sports arena for the city is out of fucking money! This is all the fault of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, but still: three of those jerks are appointed by the governor, while the other four are picked by the General Assembly. How could they have possibly vetted the backgrounds of these guys without knowing one had lied to them while the other was broke? It stinks on ice. All of it. I say throw the bums out this November. All of 'em.

esquire on 'how to drink alone'

A nice, tidy guide from Esquire magazine on how best to savor the subtle pleasures of sipping in solitude. I'm not so sure the time of day matters so much, nor do I think liquor is necessarily essential to the experience, as beer can certainly suffice. There is, however, much to be said for good lighting, so as to allow for good reading. And it never hurts to begin your barstool beguine by quietly uttering a toast to yourself, preferably something along the lines of, "Here's to absent friends. Fuck 'em."

a shallow thought

So I was driving down Street Road in Warminster this afternoon, and I couldn't help but notice two things that were affixed to the back of the Nissan Maxima that was tooling along in front of me: a license plate frame that reads, "Jesus Loves You," and one of those bumper stickers from Geno's Steaks that says, "Joey Vento of Geno's Steaks Says, 'This is America, When Ordering Please Speak English.' " Does that mean Jesus really only loves people who know how to say "Wiz wit"?