Lawmaker

Jon Tester, Montana’s junior democratic Senator, has decided that Montana needs a Navy vessel named after it. He wants a submarine named after Montana. According to the AP, Tester said “there’s never been a U-S-S Montana.”

Some of my fellow veterans from the Navy side said he was only doing this to kiss up to the Navy folks in Montana over the remark he made about Congress spending money like drunken sailors.

According to my research through the Navy and some other websites, Montana’s had three ships named after it – but many years ago. The first ship, USS Montana ACR 13 (Armored Cruiser) was renamed the USS Missoula in 1920. This ship had a great history. The second one, the Montana BB 51 (Battleship) was scrapped before it was completed in 1923 and the third, Montana BB 67 (Battleship) had its construction stopped in 1943.

Conn, sonar! Crazy Ivan!

Lawbreaker

It looks like Atlanta Falcons Quarterback, Michael Vick, has agreed to enter a guilty plea in the dog fighting case. He will probably get prison time – at least a year and some are saying 18 months. He will probably serve about 80% of the sentence with the last part being served in a halfway house.

Sometimes it makes me wonder why someone who has so much potential does something so dumb. Vick has a contract that paid him around $137 million over 10 years. He received a $22 million signing bonus and he will probably lose some of that. He will probably be suspended from the NFL for an indefinite amount of time. He may get a very long suspension if gambling was involved. I imagine his days as an Atlanta Falcon are over.

Will Vick tell on others? Maybe there are some other NFL players involved?

He’s 27 years old. In a couple of years, if he’s not suspended for life by the NFL, some team will pick him up, probably an NFL team or if he cannot get into the NFL, then by a Canadian Football League team. He’ll still be very good at 29 or 30.

One thing that has always bothered me about suspensions in professional sports is that sometimes they suspend players before they are found guilty in court. I don’t think it’s fair. Vick was told by the commissioner to stay away from the Falcon’s camp. This was before he made a plea agreement. The professional sports leagues do have a “conduct detrimental to the team” deal that they use in these issues. It only seems fair to me that the leagues should presume their players are innocent until proven guilty. Then they can nail them and they should.

Lawbreaker AND Lawmaker

Democratic Representative Robert Filner of California (Chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee) is in a bit of trouble over his luggage. Supposedly it was taking too long for his luggage to arrive from his flight. It looks like he pushed a United Airlines employee out of the way and went into an employee only area. Assault and battery charges were filed against him by the employee.
Note to Rep. Filner: Next time just use carry on luggage