Don't get me wrong

SPORTING GOODS

I love college football and all, but

In NCAA football, one team can salute after a touchdown but another can't. In NCAA football a group of players are banned for five games for selling autographs and other trinkets, while the Heismann trophy winner's own father shopped him around to schools for hundreds of thousands of dollars and got away with it completely. In NCAA football they ban some players for selling those same trinkets while another player is sheltered, protected and allowed play on despite his actions and his threats directly leading to the tragic death of a young woman.

Happy new year, everyone.

Thanks, BO

MANIFESTO

Item:

American troops are focusing on fighting Taliban militants and defending vulnerable towns on Afghan soil, as it has become practically impossible to stop insurgents from slipping across Afghanistan's vast border with Pakistan, a senior U.S. military commander said.

"To secure the border in the traditional sense" would "take an inordinate amount of resources," Army Col. Viet Luong acknowledged Tuesday. It also would require far more cooperation from the tribes inside Pakistan who often provide Taliban fighters safe passage, he said.

So, the insurgents are inaccessible, but we still keep plugging along on a "mission" that obviously can't be completed. But the big fool says to push on.

And the fact that even a Vietnamese military man can see this makes this situation all the more strikingly ridiculous.

It's official

MANIFESTO

Conservatives are wimps.

A study to be published next year at University College London ... shows that people with conservative tendencies have a larger amygdala and a smaller anterior cingulate than other people. The amygdala -- typically thought of as the "primitive brain" -- is responsible for reflexive impulses, like fear. The anterior cingulate is thought to be responsible for courage and optimism. This one-two punch could be responsible for many of the anecdotal claims that conservatives "think differently" from others.

Who knew that Fox News had a handle on such cerebral phenomena?

Quote of the Day

MANIFESTO

"I'm a Christian, I've made mistakes myself, I believe fervently in second chances, but Michael Vick killed dogs, and he
did [it] in a heartless and cruel way. And I think personally he should have been executed for that."

— Tucker Carlson on Michael Vick

The fact that the first half of the self-proclaimed Christian's statement contradicts the second half seems to have been lost on him. But he still makes the big money making such inane comments on a host of media outlets.

Another tale from the Banana Republic

MANIFESTO

Amy Lee reports this morning that

the number of Americans lacking healthcare has swelled beyond 50 million, according to a sobering new report from the Kaiser Foundation.

... The number of Americans without any health care coverage grew by more than four million in 2009. That left almost one-fifth of non-elderly people uninsured. Among those between 19 and 29 years old, nearly one-third lacked coverage.

The study underscores the degree to which the recession has accelerated the loss of basic elements once viewed as inextricable pieces of a middle class life. The number of Americans lacking medical coverage now exceeds the population of Spain.

And in the midst of this, Orangeman can be heard to say, "We can dent this, kick it, slow it down to make sure it never happens. And trust me, I'm going to make sure this health care bill never ever, ever is implemented."

You asked for it, America.

And good riddance

MANIFESTO

With just a few days of her administration left—and with too many people praising her ostensible accomplishments—it turns out that Governor Clubwoman has been just a bit mendacious during her curtain call.

A Tale of Two Cities*

SPORTING GOODS

One can feel the excitement building regarding the Patriots' march to the Super Bowl®.

In New York, not so much.

*Title is not original.

Dog bites man

MANIFESTO

Golly. East Haven's Italo-Americans don't like the browns in their town? I'm shocked.

This long-known situation has given the burg some national publicity it may not have wanted.

Today's Poll

MANIFESTO

Four in 10 Americans, slightly fewer today than in years past, believe God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago.

Or, as the Sage of Baltimore once put it, "The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind."

Steve Benen comments.

Jackass comes to Broadway

MANIFESTO

For the love of God, can OSHA or some other cooler head just close Spiderman before somebody gets killed?

Under cover

SPORTING GOODS

This is hilarious:


And if this guy doesn't look like a Modell's employee, I don't know who does.

Senator Septuagenarian Update

MANIFESTO

The US is crazy enough these days as it is. Nevertheless, it'd be even crazier if Arizona's rambling wreck had won the last presidential election.

Straining credibility

MANIFESTO

Kevin Drum reports that

Richard Holbrooke's last words, spoken to his Pakistani surgeon before he was sedated for surgery a week ago, were "You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan." The White House has since taken pains to tell us that he was speaking in jest.

To think that one of the most respected US diplomats of the last thirty years would make a joke about that very occupation while going into life-threatening surgery shows just how desperate the Obamans are these days regarding their joke of a foreign policy.

It also shows how callous they are as they desecrate a true statesman in order to justify their idiocy.

Bob Feller

SPORTING GOODS

In the mid to late-60s, Reingold beer—one of the Mets' sponsors at the time—started one of its tv commercials with the line, "They come from places like Van Meter, Iowa and Alvin, Texas ..." Somehow, the ad then segued into selling beer.

Anyway, the "they" in the commercial were pitching phenoms. Everybody in the NYC area knew who the Van Meter, IA denizen was, and it just so happened that the Mets had on the team a 20-year-old fireballer from Alvin, TX named Nolan Ryan that they were portraying as the next Feller.

And they STILL traded him!

Anyway, it seems to me prescient that Reingold made this call 45 or so years ago, because it seems to me that Nolan Ryan has pretty much become the Bob Feller of this generation of baseball fans.

Requiescat in pace.

Query

SPORTING GOODS

Dan Shaughnessy asks a question this morning that's occurred to me. Viz.,

Can we just start the NFL playoffs right now? Like tonight?

When you are playing the way the Patriots are playing, it cannot get better. You want to bottle this ...

It's certainly been an entertaining couple of weeks, and I'm just hoping that various principals (spelled T-o-m-B-r-a-d-y) don't get hurt and that the team isn't peaking a month or so early.

Shaughnessy adds:

[During] "Monday Night Football" vs. the Jets and Sunday’s winter carnival in Chicago, I found myself wishing the Jets and Bears could have at least put up a fight.

Not me: I always think the Pats should win in a rout and am very disappointed when they don't.

Here's hoping I don't get disappointed through February.

Nothing to add

MANIFESTO

The US is essentially done for, and Bernie Sanders has explained why.

I'm dizzy

SPORTING GOODS

With the utterly unexpected signing of Carl Crawford pretty much a done deal, the Sox certainly look like they have MLB's best offense.

Given this, I wondered what their 2011 lineup would actually look like, and at least one blogger is all over it. Viz.,

Ellsbury
Pedroia
Gonzalez
Youkilis
Crawford
Ortiz
Lowrie
Drew
Saltalamacchia

would score approximately 5.77 runs per game.

As much as I hate to disparage what looks like money in the bank, I've got to think the Sox will be relieved when they no longer have to pay an apparent number eight hitter $14 million a year in 2012.

At any rate, Crawford's signing sure has taken the red hot Patriots off New England's front pages.

Bread and Circuses

SPORTING GOODS

OK, so every political blog or article I read gets me depressed, we're still fighting a war that's now going on longer than Vietnam, and it is really really cold in Boston (wow, the rumors are true!)

But at least the Red Sox will score lots and lots of runs next year!!!

Right now my teams are all playing great in their respective games. Pats, Celtics, even UConn, Sox playing the free agent game like kings. OK, all but one of my teams. Team D down in Washington is on a major losing streak.

Given that, maybe I should just focus on espn.com and stay off of every other website.

Stating the obvious

MANIFESTO

Bob Reich's latest post is aptly titled "The President’s Last Stand Is No Stand At All: Why the Tax Deal is an Abomination." Indeed, Reich points out the idiocy of a policy that

will cost $900 billion over the next two years — larger than the bailout of Wall Street, GM, and Chrysler put together, larger than the stimulus package, larger than anything that’s come out of Washington in years.

It makes a mockery of deficit reduction. Worse, the lion’s share of that $900 billion will go to the very rich. Families with incomes of over $1 million will reap an average of about $70,000, while middle-class families earning $50,000 a year will get an average of around $1,500. In addition, the deal just about eviscerates the estate tax — yanking the exemption up to $5 million per person and a maximum rate of 35 percent.

And for what?

Wealthy families won’t spend nearly as large a share of what they get out of this deal as will middle-class and working-class families, so it doesn’t do much to stimulate the economy.

The deal further concentrates income and wealth in America — when it’s already more concentrated than at any time in the last 80 years.

BO's plan is just to keep borrowing to support the wealthy, and the future be damned. This approach is so much like the Bush-era supply siders that it's mind boggling.

And Congressional liberals aren't happy—to which our enabling president gives the lame response,

"if [adhering to one's principles is] the standard by which we are measuring success or core principles, then, let’s face it, we will never get anything done. People will have the satisfaction of having a purist position and no victories for the American people. And we will be able to feel good about ourselves and sanctimonious about how pure our intentions are and how tough we are, and in the meantime, the American people are still seeing themselves not able to get health insurance because of pre-existing condition, or not being able to pay their bills because their unemployment insurance ran out."

Remember when BO ran on a platform of change? Certainly, one of the changes I anticipated in a BO administration was the notion of integrity over politics. If I'm any barometer, a number of liberals must be disappointed beyond words.

45-3!?

SPORTING GOODS

Could another golden season be in the making?

Turn out the lights; the party's over

SPORTING GOODS

Don Meredith (the second player placed in the Cowboys' Ring of Honor) has died. He's probably better known, however, for his broadcast career when he, Frank Gifford, and Howard Cosell dominated Monday night television in the 1970s.

A nice recap of his career can be found here, but perhaps the most famous of all his stints in the booth occurred at Franklin Field in Philadelphia when

On November 23, 1970, announcer Howard Cosell was apparently drunk during a nationally televised broadcast of the Eagles-New York Giants Monday Night Football game. After throwing up on color commentator Don Meredith's cowboy boots shortly before halftime, Cosell left the stadium and took a taxi back to New York City. Meredith and play-by-play announcer Keith Jackson made little mention of his departure during the second half. Later, denying drunkenness, Cosell claimed that he had been dizzy from running laps around Franklin Field's track before the game with track star Tommie Smith.

What's left out of this narrative is the fact that immediately after Cosell's vomiting, Meredith said to him in that delightful drawl (into a live mic and without irony), "Howard, why do you always do that to me?"

Requiescat in pace.

UConn and the BCS

SPORTING GOODS

What a great win by the Huskies on Saturday night. As I told DarLucky, I truly didn't think the incredibly inconsistent Dave Teggart had it in him, but both the 50 yard field goals were as good as any one might see on a Sunday.

And now on to Arizona, where, I have to admit, I'd hoped the now 25th ranked Huskies wouldn't end up. It seemed like a geographic no-brainer for UConn to go to Miami and the Stanford Cardinal to go to the Fiesta Bowl, but, alas, more plutocratic heads prevailed, and so the Huskies will have the pleasure of being destroyed by a vastly superior Oklahoma eleven.

The first line I've seen is Oklahoma by 18. I wouldn't be hesitant at all in giving those points.

Ron Santo

SPORTING GOODS

I doubt if I ever had any more respect for an opponent than I had for Ron Santo, who in 1969 was the Cub I most feared as I cheered for the Mets to win their first championship. His .289, 29 homer, and 123 RBI season that year was better than Hall of Famers Williams's and Banks's years were, even though he's not in Cooperstown—just one of the many setbacks he had in his life.

I didn't know Santo was a double amputee; his histrionics during Cubs games certainly didn't give his condition away.

If Ernie Banks was "Mr. Cub," I think most people can agree that Santo was, in the words of Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts, "the heart and soul of Cubs fans."

Requiescat in pace.

Today's idiocy

MANIFESTO

Seasons greetings from your legislature, oh great unwashed:

Thousands of Americans are set to begin losing unemployment benefits after Congress failed to agree on extending aid to the long-term unemployed.

In a replay of a dispute earlier this year, lawmakers are deadlocked over how to finance an extension even as the aid starts to lapse. Democrats yesterday offered to extend benefits for a year, with the $56 billion cost financed with borrowed money.

Republicans balked, demanding the extension be offset with savings elsewhere in the government’s budget ...

The government spent about $160 billion on unemployment benefits in the fiscal year that ended Sept 30, or about what it cost to run the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There's obviously a lesson here, but those who have ears can't hear it.