Late breaking

LINTHICUM, Maryland August 5, 2013-  Today, Alex Rodriguez was suspended through next season, a penalty that will last over 200 games.  It is likely to end his career.  For an athlete who started his career as a consensus Hall-of-Famer, it is the saddest ending possible.  What's worse, Rodriguez could actually be in the Yankee's line-up tonight in Chicago if he elects to file an appeal of his penalty.  Such an appeal would clear the way for him to play about five games pending his appeal hearing.  Rodriquez has not played this season due to a variety of injuries.  He last played in the playoffs last season and looked terrible.  Oriole pitching ate him alive, and in game four he was pinch hit for after striking out several times.  He did not play in the decisive Game 5 of that series. Things have gone downhill from there...obama's decision to close 21 US embassies for an entire week has drawn criticism and skepticism world-wide.  Almost every critic sees it as a desperate ploy by the White House to divert attention from the several scandals that have reached the boiling point.  Foremost among those is the Benghazi affair, where late reports continue to insist that the White House has pulled out all of the stops to keep CIA agents and others in the foreign service from talking about the sordid affair that saw four Americans, including our ambassador to Libya, tortured and killed by Islamic Terrorists at the American Consulate in that embattled City.  More and more rumors have it that the ambassador was spearheading a ramped-up obama effort to supply Syrian Rebels with arms in their battle with the Assad regime.  Both the governing regime and the rebels are thought to be Anti-American.  I guess it should be said that I was writing about the Syrian Regime...