The Sports Daily

John Mara owns an NFL team, is no saint

2012-01-27T04:19:00.002-05:00

In the NJ Star Ledger there was a profile of John Mara that featured the following passage:

We only brought it up near the end of a 20-minute chin-wag Thursday because a discussion detour about a certain team that shares MetLife Stadium proved beyond any reasonable doubt that this guy is truly his father’s son — classy, gracious, discreet...

“The one thing that motivates me is that rough stretch in the ’70s, which was a torturous period for all of us, but especially him,” John Mara said. “The memories from those years still burn within me. I never want to go back to that. Yes, you’ll always have ups and downs, and you can’t win every year. But you can contend every year — the Patriots have been able to do it. The Steelers. It’s a place that we want to get to, and I think we can.”

Look, I'm sure John Mara is a decent man, and I do admire the way the Giants handle their business, but there's something about this profile of the man that still rubs the wrong way.

After all, this is a guy who was instrumental in the building of MetLife Stadium, which to my mind was just a giant clusterfuck and complete money grab. Yes, I know, NFL teams are businesses whose job is to maximize profits, but this was a team with a years long waiting list, making money in buckets, who built a $1 billion monstrosity for no real reason, that adds nothing to the experience of attending games other than higher prices and oddly being further from the field. To attend a Giants game is to feel completely gouged, right down to the $30 parking pass.

Which isn't to say he's doing anything wrong, or that he's not a good person, but it just makes you groan a little to read this kind of PR. Like fuck you dude, for the outrageous prices you guys charge, the fucking team better be good. Just watch what happens to that place if they ever go 4-12. It'll be a shitshow.

But I guess congratulations on not being a total douche?

For his career, Eli Manning has been good, this year he's been great

2012-01-27T04:02:00.003-05:00

Deadspin's Tommy Craggs makes an excellent point about how we cover athletes:

Who knows what to make of Eli Manning anymore? In his time, he has been regarded as a worthy dynastic successor, then a slackjawed legacy punk, then a draft bust, then a barely acceptable mediocrity, then a "game manager" who was good enough not to lose the Giants a Super Bowl, then a braggart, then a rock-ribbed leader of men. He's improved his touch since his first few years in the league, but he has remained more or less the same quarterback—good, never as bad as his worst critics claimed, never as great as his biggest boosters wanted to believe.

Just good.

We've chewed over this a lot in this here space, but it's worth addressing again, because it's dawned on me that the single greatest problem with mainstream football analysis right now is its inability to deal with the merely good. We know what great looks like; we know what shit looks like, too. But when confronted with a player or a team that's only satisfactory, a B at best, we lose all our bearings and get drunk on cheap metaphysics (leadership, clutchness, etc.). The Jets were a good team; they went 8-8 because sometimes good teams go 8-8, not because they were Gomorrah-on-the-Hudson.

I think Craggs is right in many respects regarding this point. I don't think that prior to this season Eli Manning has been "elite," to reference that odious discussion that's been thrust upon us this season, and I say that as one of the biggest Eli boosters of them all. He's been merely very good, but never quite touching great.

And I think he's right about our interaction with very good players, since very good is often good enough to win -- the 90's Yankees come to mind as a team made up almost solely of very good players who combined for greatness -- but it still doesn't mean that the victory itself makes every participant in it great.

But I also think Eli Manning has been great this season. Not good, but great. It's been his best season in the league by far, and were he to win the Super Bowl and then fire off four more years just like it, by the time he's 35 the verdict on Manning's career would be entirely different. We'd be talking about a great player, instead of just a fine one.

Golf's world rankings can be rather misleading

2012-01-27T03:47:00.004-05:00

I'm watching Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Luke Donald play golf together down in Abu Dhabi -- I work on Tiger's website if you're wondering what I could possibly be doing watching the HSBC Championship at 4 in the morning -- but it occurs to me that of the three it's Luke Donald who is currently No. 1 in the world.

And it's just interesting how much different golf's world rankings are than, say, tennis, where the Nos. 1-3 are so much better than everyone else and yet so clearly differentiated, as well. No matter what the rankings say, Luke Donald is most certainly the worst player of the group, which isn't to knock Luke per se, it's just a fact.

Some computer formula has churned out the idea that Luke Donald is the best golfer in the world, making that formula perhaps the only entity in the world that actually believes that.

On that same note, Rory McIlroy is going to be a great player. He'll probably win numerous majors, who knows, maybe even threaten double digits. He is not Tiger Woods. Stop that.

The Bucs hire Greg Schiano for no apparent reason

2012-01-27T03:06:00.002-05:00

Greg Schiano has been a solid, if unspectacular head coach for Rutgers for the past 7 years or so, which in the context of Rutgers football, we suppose is fairly impressive.

Somehow, however, his warranted a head coaching position for Schiano at the NFL level with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who dismissed previous coach Raheem Morris after three seasons.

Now, I have no idea whether Schiano will be a successful head coach in the NFL -- I suspect he won't be, but he could be well suited to the pro game -- but what I don't understand is what exactly replacing Morris with Schiano is meant to accomplish.

In saying this, I should point out I've studied very little of the Morris situation. Perhaps those closer to the Bucs could list all the ways he's a horrendous football coach, obviously his record would be relatively fair evidence. But this is a guy whose team went a surprising 10-6 a season ago, with the young, exuberant Morris given much of the credit.

So, sure, the team was terrible this year, and blaming the head man is understandable. But his bailing on a young, promising head coach after only three years on the job for Greg Schiano really an upgrade. It's one of those questions I think more NFL teams should consider.

One imagines that being an NFL coach is a difficult job, a job that it could also be imagined that it takes some time to really get good at. But teams these days give up on head coaches so quickly it can make your head spin. Which isn't that difficult to understand, it's such an easy move for ownership to try and signal to fans that they are at least doing SOMETHING to improve the team. Building an actual good team is difficult and can take time, but firing a head coach is instant. You just have to call in the asshole, hand him his walking papers and everyone feels better immediately.

But you're the Tampa Bay fucking Bucs, a team playing under less media and fan pressure than perhaps any in the league. Obviously, that's not a sound business strategy, but given the economic realities of the NFL, there is a floor to how poorly a team's finances can be. In other words, they can afford to give a young coach a few years to grow into the job.

But patience is not a virtue in professional sports, so in comes Schiano. But how does that hiring do anything. Does hiring Schiano really sell any tickets? Are fans excited by this hire? Obviously, perhaps the team's brass just feels that he's a big upgrade over Morris, but based on what? The fact that the Scarlet Knights have been relatively successful in a thoroughly mediocre Big East conference was just too much to pass up?

None of which is to say I know Morris is a good coach, I really have no idea. It just feels like there's something to be said for giving these coaches a little time to grow into their jobs. You don't get to be an NFL head coach without having demonstrated a pretty decent ability to coach football, it would seem it might be wise to give these fellas a little bit of time to actually do the job you were so confident they could do only a year or so ago.

Or just fire the bums, it certainly is more satisfying.

Mental Ability

2012-01-19T19:45:00.004-05:00

I was looking up inspirational sports quotes for a photo gallery I was creating for the YESNetwork.com and it's hard not to notice how many great athletes credit their own mental abilities over their physical abilities for their success.

Now some of this does have merit. After all, almost all athletes at the professional level are incredibly talented. On some level, what separates them is just the matter of who works harder, who is more mentally tough and things of that realm.

But I also think that many of us prefer hyping our own mental powers as opposed to our physical ones. For whatever reason, physical gifts seem less our own than our mental ones. The athleticism we receive at birth seems to be out of our control, while for some reason we feel fully responsible for things like mental toughness and work ethic when it stand to reason we may very well have just as little control over those traits, as well.

There's a point in this somewhere, though I'm not 100% certain what that is.

Even Trent Dilfer hates being Trent Dilfer

2012-01-19T19:18:00.004-05:00

Trent Dilfer spoke with SI's Don Banks about the frustrations befalling Joe Flacco. After all, Dilfer can relate. He was the first Flacco -- the ultimate Flacco, really -- a guy asked to manage the game, convert a few first downs and otherwise let the defense and running game do the rest. And Dilfer knows that having that rep sucks. In fact, Dilfer's career is ultimately as the guy who people refer to when arguing that a team without a good quarterback can win a Super Bowl, "Well, if you can win with Trent Dilfer, you can win with ANYONE."

And Dilfer, one can tell, doesn't love the rap:

"I think Joe in his heart of hearts probably wants to be anything but me,'' Dilfer, the former Super Bowl-winning Ravens quarterback turned ESPN analyst, said Wednesday, in a typical burst of candor.

And who can blame him, really?

But while Dilfer sounds like he's made his peace with this rap, you can tell he really hasn't.

"Unfortunately, and I do not agree with this, but it's the reality of it in today's football, if you don't put up monster numbers, you will not be considered one of the better quarterbacks,'' he said. "Whether you are or aren't one. Troy Aikman right now would not be considered one of the better quarterbacks, and I think he's one of the top six of all-time. I think Troy is by far the most underrated quarterback of all-time. But when you're in a ball-control offense, I don't care how good you are, you will not be considered perceptually one of the better quarterbacks because the audience is too simple-minded beyond the box score.

"I don't get it, and I think our perception of what quarterbacking is has been skewed by this pass-happy league and the rules that are in place that allow guys to throw for these kind of sick numbers. It's a fantasy football mentality, and it's not changing. If I'm an owner or a head coach, I'm putting in a pass-driven offense, because you can just get away with more. You don't have to fight the battles that Baltimore has to fight, because you can lose a game 35-31 and people will forgive you more than losing 17-12. For whatever reason, it helps their fantasy football team, it gives them more hope, a 35-31 loss can be forgiven. But they can't forgive a low-scoring offense. Ultimately, all people really resort back to is the box score.''

Yes, the rest of us are just too simple-minded to appreciate the subtle arts of a Trent Dilfer. To the untrained eye it might look like he often played like shit, but that's exactly what he wanted you to think, you fools! You just couldn't understand it, DON'T YOU GET IT!?

And look, I happen to think Dilfer is a tad underappreciated, as he had success with the Bucs, as well, albeit it also with a dominant defense that did finally win a Super Bowl with Brad Johnson, who is arguably a smidge better a Dilfer than Dilfer. But Dilfer had some solid statistical seasons in the NFL, and even made a Pro Bowl. He wasn't quite the Dilfer we remember.

But nonetheless, if he's implying that he was some kind of Troy Aikman he's sorely mistaken. Yes, Aikman's numbers are almost startlingly pedestrian when viewed through the lens of the modern era of football. But anyone who watched Aikman play is confident of his immense skills. Similarly, were he playing in today's game, does anyone doubt that Troy Aikman would have put up gaudy numbers. Of course, he would have. But back in the 90's, quarterbacks didn't have to do that in the same way they do today, or really in the same way they are allowed to do today given the rule changes and general evolution of the game.

Dilfer isn't Van Gogh, an artist unappreciated in his time who will soon be seen as a genius. He was a completely adequate quarterback for any team who also had a dominant defense.

Kind of like Joe Flacco.

Two Knicks fans completely panic, start finding someone to blame

2012-01-19T17:45:00.004-05:00

Here's a back and forth between a friend and fellow fan after last night's demoralizing loss to Phoenix. We pretty much both hit the panic buttons, just in different directions:

--

You know, that's really the thing about Melo is it's not like he's that fun to watch. He isn't Wade or LeBron or something you know what I mean. It's not like he's this high flyer. Like he gets the ball and it's jab step, jab step, ball fake ball fake, pull up for mid range jumper, and then sometimes drive to the basket and lay it in. But it's not that fun to watch.

The guy at postingandtoasting.com called it his 15 second jab step ballets which I thought was kind of funny.

Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:55:34 -0800
From: piddingtoned
Subject: RE: Uh, so Knicks?
To: skishii; chris.groppa

I totally get what you're saying. We had a good thing going last year. The worst part was losing Ray Felton. Do other people think he's awesome, or is super underrated? And I thought we had a shot to get him back this season. What happened there?

And your Russo statement is hilarious. I never thought I would see the day when you would have a sick athlete on your team who would make you want The Big Fundamental.

--- On Thu, 1/19/12, Brian DiMenna wrote:

From: Brian DiMenna
Subject: RE: Uh, so Knicks?
To: piddingtoned "Scott Ishii" , chris.groppa
Date: Thursday, January 19, 2012, 12:38 AM

Yeah, fair enough, I just find Melo's turning me into like Chris Russo or something. I just can't stand him.

Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:14:54 -0800
From: piddingtoned
Subject: RE: Uh, so Knicks?
To: skishii; chris.groppa

Not trying to besmirch Timmy. Just pointing out that I don't really believe you would take Tim Duncan today over Carmelo.

--- On Thu, 1/19/12, Brian DiMenna wrote:

From: Brian DiMenna
Subject: RE: Uh, so Knicks?
To: piddingtoned "Scott Ishii" , chris.groppa
Date: Thursday, January 19, 2012, 12:02 AM

Yeah so he's old, his team'll probably win 50 games a year until he's 75.

Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:46:43 -0800
From: piddingtoned
Subject: RE: Uh, so Knicks?
To: skishii; chris.groppa bdimenna

I'm going to be nice and pretend I didn't just see you write that you'd rather have Tim Duncan. And Kevin Love is just a marginally better David Lee.

And I think he's a great coach when he has a bunch of freakish athletes trackmeeting up and down the court with the best point guard I've ever seen. (not counting Magic cause i was too young.) Yes, in that situation I think his system works.

By the way Duncan's stats:
12.4
6.9
46%
1.1 blk

--- On Wed, 1/18/12, Brian DiMenna wrote:

From: Brian DiMenna
Subject: RE: Uh, so Knicks?
To: piddingtoned, "Scott Ishii" , chris.groppa
Date: Wednesday, January 18, 2012, 11:35 PM

Yeah, I guess that's a fair list. I think I'd still rather have Duncan. I'd probably rather have Blake Griffin at this point and maybe even Kevin Love. And I think Deron Williams is the better overall player. Is Westbrook better at this point? I may be being unfair, I know.

But seriously, so D'Antoni just can't coach at all. Like not at all. How'd he win all those games in Phoenix? Steve Nash is just basketball Jesus? I mean, some of those Phoenix teams weren't even that good.

I don't know, maybe they just need more time. I just find I want to punch Melo in the face. Like get out of here, we were finally having fun until you showed up. And take off those stupid rib pads.

Also, Denver's 10-5.

Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:01:31 -0800
From: piddingtoned
Subject: RE: Uh, so Knicks?
To: skishii; chris.groppa bdimenna

But this isn't a straight up Melo v D'antoni argument. I agree the team hasn't played well since he got here, but the overall reason is really shitty point guard play. And that's where I blame D'antoni the most. You're telling me he can't turn Shumpert or TD at least into a decent ball distributor? I mean that's all they need to be on this team. For Christ's sake give me Kevin Ollie 8 years ago and this team would be better.

And top 20? Come on, he's top 10. Name more than 9 players better than he is. And if you don't stop after these then we have a problem (not necessarily in this order):

Lebron James
Dwayne Wade
Derrick Rose
Dirk Nowitzki
Kobe Bryant
Kevin Durant
Chris Paul
Dwight Howard

--- On Wed, 1/18/12, Brian DiMenna wrote:

From: Brian DiMenna
Subject: RE: Uh, so Knicks?
To: piddingtoned, "Scott Ishii" , chris.groppa
Date: Wednesday, January 18, 2012, 10:43 PM

You know, I'm not gonna defend D'Antoni, because I don't like his system either, and if we chuck up one more three pointer early in a shot clock I'm going to stab someone (though I will say he's probably had more success in the NBA than Melo).

But seriously, can you name one Knick that's actually played better since Melo arrived? Doesn't it just seem like everyone is worse? And there's no chance he's one of the best 7 players in the league. Top 20 most likely, but that's really it.

I mean, maybe I'm just emotional, I'm so sick of watching this team play like shit, and his jersey will be in the rafters someday, but right now he feels like a disaster.

Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:28:06 -0800
From: piddingtoned
Subject: RE: Uh, so Knicks?
To: skishii chris.groppa bdimenna

Look, on the face of it yeah that actually sounds like not too bad of a deal. Could make a lot of sense. Couple things that I'm not sure about though. First, I hate to keep making this about D'antoni, but I think he is without a doubt the biggest negative about the Knicks at this moment. I don't want to give him a player, an elite point guard, who is going to make him double down on his ridiculous system of basketball. If he sinks us even further into run and gun no defense basketball I'm not sure I can take it.

Second, regarding D'antoni again, I don't want another significant change to this lineup which just extends his period of "well these guys are just getting to know each other. Give us some time and we'll gel into a cohesive unit". No dude, you just suck. We could give you as long as we gave Isiah and at the end of it, when you leave in disgrace, you're still going to be sitting there with your retarded mustache and your awww shucks attitude, getting swept out of the first round.

And last, 'Melo isn't just any wing scorer. He's one of the top 7 players in basketball. It's not like he's just Andre Iguodala or something. I'm not totally ready to give up on him.

Not saying the trade wouldn't or doesn't make sense. Just saying until we get rid of the Mustache I don't think it matters who's on this team. The bastard child of Mike Martz and Norv Turner can only take you so far.

--- On Wed, 1/18/12, Brian DiMenna wrote:

From: Brian DiMenna
Subject: RE: Uh, so Knicks?
To: piddingtoned, "Scott Ishii" , chris.groppa
Date: Wednesday, January 18, 2012, 2:14 PM

What do we think of this in the Chad Ford chat? Personally, I'd do that deal in a heartbeat. Can you imagine though after all that hullabaloo with the trade last year if we turned around and dealt him again within a year.

Knicks offense is offensive. Trade Melo to Nets for DWill. Makes sense for both. Nets get star under longterm contract (DWill is going to walk because they are not getting D12) and Knicks get elite PG which is their greatest need. Wing scoring they can find elsewhere. PG and C are hardest positions to fill. Thoughts?
Chad Ford (1:06 PM)

I'm not sure a move like that is totally out of the question for either team. If Nets don't get Dwight Howard, trading D Will is a real possibility and the Knicks love him. Adding Melo would give them a (tarnished) star name to build around that's already locked up to a long-term deal.

Joe Flacco knows his game

2012-01-17T23:25:00.002-05:00

Before Sunday's win over the Texans, Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco lamented his lack of credit by saying ironically:

"I'm sure if we win I'll have nothing to do with why we won, according to you guys,"

And then went out and had absolutely NOTHING to do with why the Ravens won. Seriously, Flacco couldn't have played worse. It's almost impressive to play that kind of game after making these comments in the days prior.

Oh yeah, and Ed Reed thought he stunk too. He is right.

The (only) problem with Bain

2012-01-17T11:17:00.002-05:00

I think Josh Barro is 100% right here:

Romney is right to insist that it is not the job of business leaders to hold these workers harmless—it is to make profits for shareholders. But while the human effects of these economic shifts are not properly the concern of business executives, they are the concern of government officials, and Romney wants to be president.

The question he should be asked, then, is what policy implications arise from the economic shifts of the last few decades, driven (in small part) by private equity. Does rising income inequality mean that fiscal policy should be more redistributive? Does a reduction in job security call for a stronger safety net? Do new workforce needs mean we need a shift in education and training policies?

I've mostly felt that the attacks on Mitt Romney's Bain Capital days have been off base. After all, he did absolutely nothing wrong.

Where he has gone wrong is insisting that his time running that company taught him about creating jobs, which isn't exactly true. Mitt Romney was tremendous at creating wealth, which is awesome for him. He's clearly very good at it, and he has been rightly celebrated for it.

But the questions posed by Barro above about the effect of the last 20 or so years I think are exactly the right ones, and I don't suppose to have the exact answers. But I do think that the left more so than the right is at least correct in acknowledging that those are the things we should be talking about and trying to find solutions for, while the Republican platform seems to be that it's just kind of the nature of the beast.

Which, you know, is kind of a dick response.

Why couldn't my parents make me religious or Republican?

2012-01-17T11:10:00.004-05:00

David Brooks throws this aside in his column today:

I brought my 12-year-old son on this latest trip. My rule is that if a candidate can’t relate well to a 12-year-old, they’ll never win a general election. He approached all the candidates, and they were all wonderful except Gingrich. But that wasn’t Gingrich’s fault. My son, whose heroes include John Boehner and Tupac Shakur, picked an argument about gay marriage. Gingrich engaged, but after 10 seconds signaled security to brush my kid away.

It was kind of funny to me because I read this and thought, "Of course, David Brooks' 12-year old kid likes John Boehner."

But it's interesting, the only time I can remember actually being a Republican was when I was 8 years old. It was during the election of George H. W. Bush over Mike Dukakis. It was so elemental in those days. My dad liked Bush, so I was rooting for him too. It was the last time that would ever happen.

By '92, I had already switched allegiances despite my parents best efforts.

A similar problem arose over religion. My folks tried the right things, Mass every Sunday, religious studies classes every Wednesday night, but nada, zip. It just never took. I can recall being about as young as the fifth grade and openly challenging my religion teachers in class. "Wait, you don't really think the world was created like that, do you?"

What's more interesting is that my siblings (so all four of us) befell the same fate. Two religious, Republican parents raised four atheist liberals. It's kind of a staggering record of achievement for my parents given that some suggest that as much as 71% of kids usually have the same political leanings as their parents.

I don't really have the answers for this, other than my parents for all their religion and Republican views were also fairly open-minded folks who certainly never preached at us. I don't recall my father being all that concerned with who I voted for. I should probably point out that my dad has also had something of a conversion at the age of 69, recently voting for Barack Obama and finding fault with his former party's lurch to the right.

Which is all just a long way I guess of saying I wonder if in ten years mini David Brooks won't think decidedly differently about his John Boehner phase.

Matt Every is my new favorite golfer

2012-01-14T12:38:00.001-05:00

This is perhaps one of the finest defenses of marijuana use I've ever heard. He's just like, fuck you. I'm a good dude, I smoke weed occasionally. Suck my balls.

Missing Amare and his merry men, was trading for Carmelo Anthony a mistake?

2012-01-12T18:44:00.004-05:00

The Knicks got a big win over the 76ers last night, a game in which their defense played well for the first time in years. And then I read this in the morning paper:

“This is a business and the owners or whoever makes the decision, they want to make a decision, they do it,” Gallinari said. “We just have to be players and work and try to do the best that we can.

“I thought we were having a really good season. It was a good record. People were having fun coming to see the games. We were doing a really, really good job. We had a positive record, the excitement was there. I had been three years, 2-1/2 years in New York, and the first and second years weren’t easy.”

I have to say, I reserve the right to completely change my mind on this, but I still find I miss the old Knicks.

Sure, Carmelo's crunch-time scoring can be a thing to behold, and one does love the fact that he's not shy about big moments, but there was just something so much fun about that little Knicks team built around Amare and his merry men. And I can't shake it. I still wonder what might have happened if we'd skipped that trade, still signed Tyson this offseason and then had a starting line up of Felton, W. Chandler, Gallo, Amare and Tyson. Is that a worse team than what we have now? And isn't it a little more rootable?

There is something about Anthony's ball-stopping ways, his propensity for games in which he scores 28 points on 28 shots, that do make you wonder if he's all he's cracked up to be. A gifted scorer, for sure, but a great player? I don't know.

Which isn't to say this current squad doesn't deserve time? They do. One expects they'll grow to play better together. But I can't help but shake the feeling that something was lost when we gave up on that young, improving core for one supposed superstar, something that just might have been a lot more fun.

What years of screaming "liberal media bias" will sow

2012-01-12T17:28:00.003-05:00

An interesting article on how the media ceased to be an arbiter of facts:

Something happened in our press over the last 40 years or so that never got acknowledged and to this day would be denied by a majority of newsroom professionals. Somewhere along the way, truthtelling was surpassed by other priorities the mainstream press felt a stronger duty to. These include such things as “maintaining objectivity,” “not imposing a judgment,” “refusing to take sides” and sticking to what I have called the View from Nowhere.

I think this is the clear result of a decades old campaign by conservatives to label the media liberal. It's become so commonplace for the conservatives to complain of liberal media bias that at some point you would imagine the media would react to it. As a result, you have a media so afraid of seeming biased that they no longer even view it as their job to actually point out when one side is lying.

I recall back in college I once had a classmate who at lunch said without hesitation that everyone knows the media has a liberal bias, I remember responding harshly that I thought that was mostly bullshit. What was interesting was how stunned he was. As a person who had grown up among mostly like-minded folks, he was totally unaware that that point was even disputed by anyone.

What is interesting is I do think that on whole, a majority of people in the media are liberal in their own lives, and that on a whole the media might lean more center left than the rest of the country. But is it so hard to believe that a decades old campaign to label the media reflexively liberal tended to mean that you have more liberals going into the media? After all, if the media is so awful, why would any decent conservative ever want to be a part of it?

The smearing Mark Sanchez

2012-01-11T18:34:00.004-05:00

Apparently, everyone on the Jets hates Mark Sanchez:

“At one point, he was looking at the (pass) rush and wasn’t seeing the receivers,” a team source said. “I think that’s a lack of confidence in what we’re doing. I think that's a lack of confidence in how we’re protecting him... When you get hit the way that he got hit, there were some quarterbacks that wouldn’t have made it through the season.”

“How can we when he’s not improving at all?” one of Sanchez’s teammates said. “He thinks he is, but he’s not. He has shown us what he’s capable of.”

“We have to bring in another quarterback that will make him work at practice,” said one player. “He’s lazy and content because he knows he’s not going to be benched.”

All of these are brutally harsh assessments and all apparently come from unnamed sources.

Now, Manish Mehta of the Daily News goes on to say that this was the reaction of a consensus of Jets players he spoke with. If this means a majority of Jets players it isn't quite clear.

It's hard to say what to make of this. Obviously, it's not the best news to hear from fellow players, even if the likely source would be disgruntled wide receivers Santonio Holmes and Plaxico Burress, though it isn't really clear if they are the sources either.

I'd like to say this is all unfair, but it really isn't. I think Sanchez will definitely get another year with the Jets, and that he should, but given the town he plays in, the level of fire he's come under would have to be considered par for the course. He either gets better or he doesn't.

This Barry Petchesky take on the whole thing was pretty spot on:

But these quotes are amazing. They are moralizing and provocative and dismissive without a single anecdote to back them up. The Jets are doing their best to put deskbound columnists out of business—what could Lupica sermonize that hasn't already appeared in quotes? We're now dealing with a generation of athletes raised on yelly-screamy pundits and all-caps message board rants, so we shouldn't wonder where they learned to speak in print-ready platitudes. Football players are not GMs, so we will forgive them for thinking it's feasible or desirable to have Peyton Manning backing up Mark Sanchez next year. You know, just to light a fire under Sanchez. But this venting of frustration is untethered from reality and belongs on WFAN or a blog comment section—Sign Manning! Trade away Sanchez for a pass rush and run defense and pass protection and two first round picks!—and usurps what used to be the sole bailiwick of unaccountable fans. Can we still float stupid shit if the players do it first?

Matthew Dowd pens world's shittiest Tebow column

2012-01-11T17:11:00.002-05:00

There are no words for this steaming pile:

Tebow is the kind of leader for his football team that our country needs at this crucial moment in history. Yes, the Denver Broncos streak will probably end, and the odds are a team like the Green Bay Packers will win the Super Bowl. But no matter the outcome, Tebow has shown what faith, and confidence and humility can do for a team of limited skills that was losing consistently before. This is exactly what President Franklin Roosevelt and President Reagan understood about leadership.

This economy, and our country, do not need more programs out of Washington, D.C., or legislation from Congress, or tax cuts for the wealthy, or more spending on government stimulus. What citizens and businesses need is a leader who can raise us all up to a level we didn’t know we had in us, give us confidence in ourselves, give us a common goal to work toward, and make us believe in and have faith in ourselves again.

It seems this is a leadership lesson we keep having to learn over and over again through our country’s history. It is so easy to forget how successes were achieved along the way by Kennedy-style exhortations such as “we are going to the moon.” It is so easy to default into failing Washington-style, us-against-them, to try and get short-term political success.

But maybe a quarterback who seems as much boy as man can show us all, including the candidates for president, how to win and how to get our country back on track. And how to have a little fun along the way. Now that is a leader I would enthusiastically go in the huddle with.

You read something like this and your mind goes blank. It's like, this just can't be, can it? Matthew Dowd is handsomely paid to produce this drivel, somewhat ironically, he is also a man who believes that the market fairly rewards people for their talents. There seems to be a contradiction here.

This column is so shitty it makes me hate myself. It's a column you wish could be prison-raped, or shanked in the shower.

It's just the dumbest, laziest, hackiest pice of bullshit you could imagine.

All in all, I rather enjoyed it.

Why do Republicans think they get everything they want

2012-01-10T21:44:00.003-05:00

There's an interesting moment in this Eric Cantor interview that got a lot of press, but to me the most important part of it was somewhat overlooked. It wasn't so important to me that Cantor's press secretary bizarrely interrupts -- really, this made him look better? -- to disagree with the fact that Ronald Reagan raised taxes, but rather what I found rather unbelievable was his inability to even say the word compromise. He could only muster cooperate, which isn't really the same thing.

But that's how anathema to the Republican base even the word compromise is. How can we possibly get anywhere when one party is not only unwilling to compromise, they literally can't even say the word.

And this doesn't just show up in failed negotiations over the debt ceiling, or deficit reduction, but you can see it in the unfolding of the Republican primary, as well.

Mitt Romney was a successful moderate governor in Massachusetts. He was undoubtedly a Republican, but one who held some moderate positions that allowed him to successfully run a liberal state. That should be EXACTLY the type of person you'd want as a presidential candidate. But that Mitt Romney can't show his face, because that Mitt Romney isn't sufficiently conservative for the current Republican mood.

The same could be said of Jon Huntsman -- a man whose term as governor was equally successful, but actually more conservative than Mitt's -- because he has the audacity to hold a couple of meaninglessly moderate positions.

No, instead the Republican primary is a series of litmus tests in which every candidate must prove that they are the most absolutely conservative asshole in the world. To them, the term moderation is unacceptable.

This just can not be said on the liberal side. Democratic presidential candidates don't HAVE to insist on single payer health care. They don't HAVE to side with organized labor on EVERY issue. They don't have to completely support gay marriage. Hell, they don't even have to mean what they say on things like Civil Liberties, as its clear we allow a lot of wiggle room as long as they give us something on some key issues.

Which makes sense. It's a world view that allows for the fact that not everyone fucking agrees with you. Republicans seem to want to govern as though the rest of us don't exist at all. No common ground can be found because it shouldn't even sought. So you're left with a weakened Mitt Romney whose had to tie himself into such a despicable pretzel trying to seem more conservative that it's turned off almost everyone, battling it out with a bunch of ultra-conservative nutsos that couldn't possibly appeal to more than 40% of the country.

It's a Republican party bending over backward to do anything they can to sabotage Ron Paul because he dares make sense on a few issues. And a party who lionizes Ronald Reagan, even as it fails to acknowledge his own record, nor dare admit that it may very well have been Eisenhower who was the 20th centuries finest Republican president.

It just seems like for some reason they think they get everything they want. And it's annoying.

The Internet is so open-minded

2012-01-10T17:21:00.006-05:00

One of my favorite things about the internet is that it is so open-minded, it never judges you.

You ask it, "Um, so like, I know this is weird, but you don't have any videos of like dudes having sex with shemales, do you?"

And it's like, "Why of course I do. Here's one fucking million of them! Here's a whole community of people just like you who love that shit too, and here's where you can converse with those people. Here's where you can meet your very own tranny for a consensual, discreet tryst with your dirty friend."

Or you're like, "So listen, internet, I'm kind of really fucking racist. Is there anything I can read that would back me up on that."

"SURE! Why wouldn't you be a racist, here's a few thousand pages on all the crimes of those colored devils! Here's a local group you can join to discuss the persecution of the white Christian more fully. Have at it, boys. The world is your motherfucking oyster!"

I mean, the internet just doesn't care. It doesn't judge, it doesn't make you feel weird about the things you like, it's just at your service 24 hours a day. It's really quite remarkable.

There's no more winter in New York, you're welcome: a letter from oil companies

2012-01-10T17:21:00.004-05:00

A letter from the oil industry:

So winter isn't happening in New York this year, you're welcome.

It's amazing how much shit we've been taking from you people of late, all for just daring to earn lots and lots of money at the expense of the environment, or so you say. After all, we power your cars -- ever driven one of those? Pretty fucking awesome, no? -- heat your homes -- would you prefer a freezing dungeon, you dicks? -- and provide the fuel for the fucking miracle of flight -- perhaps you'd prefer a fucking horse and carriage you ungrateful little shits.

And yet, despite all that, we've gone ahead and made it warm in the winter. Seriously, is there anything else we can do for you before we start getting a little fucking respect? It was 65 on Christmas -- CHRISTMAS! -- you could play golf, if you were so inclined. I did. Shot a fucking 74, too. Eat a dick.

Maybe you'd prefer it the old way, freezing your nuts off every time you go outside, your hands numb from the blistering, cold pain. Would you prefer that you stupid shits?

And ok, I'm sure their could be some unintended consequences of a world with no-winter, right? Yeah, like fucking year-long barbecues. Bikinis in January, and tank tops at tailgates. Anything else you bratty little shits.

So this year, we're done taking your shit America. Your search for renewable sources of energy stops here. We're drilling wherever the fuck we want, and afterward, trust us, you'll thank us for it.

You're welcome.

Tim Tebow is Doug Flutie, only maybe not as good

2012-01-10T17:20:00.002-05:00

I keep hearing that we've never seen anything like the Tim Tebow phenomenon, and yet it feels so eerily familiar to me.

Remember this:

Ron Paul might really believe the things Barack Obama used to say

2012-01-05T11:53:00.004-05:00

One can certainly understand why there are disaffected liberals who are intrigued by Ron Paul.

When it comes to civil liberties, and the end of American imperialism, he seems to mean the things that Barack Obama has only so far talked about.

Sure, Obama was often quite eloquent on the topic of justice, or of a more humble foreign policy, but as President has failed to close Guantanamo, codified indefinite detention into law, and presided over the escalation of the use of unmanned drones that has led to the deaths of innocent children.

And yet, I'd still support Obama, not only because Ron Paul would wish to end the welfare state, has a cracked idea of monetary policy, a weird obsession with the gold standard, and bizarrely published some crazy, racist newsletters that bear his name, which isn't to say that he's a racist, but just someone who at the very least displayed some incredibly poor management skills back in his hey day. But I guess I do also naiively think that the Obama of a second term might come to fulfill some of those loftier promises that have been so difficult to tackle given the enormous economic problems he faced during his first, along with the prospect of having to win another election.

Additionally, I do wish Paul well, and would actually love to see him be the GOP nomination because I think it would only force Obama to more forcefully support the things he says he's supported in the past. If you have Paul pushing him from the left, I think Obama would follow, particularly if it suddenly became a winning issue.

Sometimes, I think we want the President to lead more than he's capable of. Politicians respond to people. If people genuinely cared about the new defense authorization bill and its concerning increase of executive authority, I think Barack Obama would be more likely to care, as well. If the country had been more supportive of trying KSM in a civilian trial, then it would have happened.

Certainly, the President still must take the brunt of the blame, as his ability to shift public opinion is immense given the power of his bully pulpit. But I also think that if people put more pressure on Obama to live up to his loftier rhetoric, then it would happen.

So go get 'em, Ron. I think it would be good for all of us.

Rick Santorum completely misunderstands the term "freedom"

2012-01-04T20:04:00.003-05:00

Rick Santorum said this in October:

One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country.” And also, “Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s okay, contraception is okay. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”

And this:

Among those important public policy issues: Sex for fun. In the same video, Santorum bemoans sex becoming “deconstructed to the point where it’s simply pleasure.”

Naturally, this was as part of his faith, family and freedom tour. Think about this for a second, the idea that a man who thinks the government should play a role in a married couple's contraceptive decisions, also thinks he is an advocate for freedom.

I mean, could there be any right that is more uniquely personal than the ability to have sex solely for pleasure. Rick Santorum literally believes that there is any space at all for him to tell me the kind of sex I'm allowed to have. Me, 31-year-old married guy. Like, go fuck yourself pal.

I've been on earth a little while now, and you know, it's all right. It's not the worst place, all things considered. But were you to take away the whole "sex for pleasure" thing, well, it becomes almost intolerable. It's kind of a disastrous hell hole after that

I mean, if Santorum wants to have sex only once every three years with a bed sheet with a hole in it stuck between he and his wife, hey, that's his fucking call. But leave me and my ejaculations alone, good sir.

I seriously just don't think freedom means what these guys think it means.

Hey, Michelle Bachman, you are a fucking politician, just a sh*tty one

2012-01-03T23:35:00.002-05:00

Tonight, after finishing only ahead of Jon Huntsman in the Iowa Caucus with a meager 5% of the vote, Michelle Bachman said this:

I am a very real person, I am not a politician, nor do I hope or aspire to be a politician.

I mean, I get the point she's trying to make I suppose. She's not a politician like all those other shitty politicians we all hate, since we all know we do all hate politicians, but this is 100% bullshit. Not only ARE you a fucking politician, a sitting congresswoman to be exact. But you are ASPIRING to be the President of the United States, a political office. Like, you can't just say fucking anything because it sounds good, can you? Does it have to be at least remotely true? What if it'd been, "I am not a woman, I have never aspired to be a woman, and I've got the balls to prove it." Ok, that would have just been weird, but still? This shit makes me crazy.

Bachman has been a politician since she first ran for political office in 2000, at the time clearly aspiring and hoping to become a politician, since she previously was not one. Had she said this when running then, it might have made some fucking sense. But this isn't Ross Perot saying he's not a politician and running for President because he's different than all those phonies in Washington. I get the appeal of a message like that. I can see in the current climate why that might be a convenient thing to say, but it doesn't really work when it's completely fucking untrue.

By any definition, by any leap in logic, you are a fucking politician. You have had no other occupation for over a decade. If after a decade of doing something, you aren't that thing, then you are really fucking terrible at that thing.

Oh ... right.

Norv Turner should probably be fired, but...

2012-01-03T16:51:00.003-05:00

I tend to think Deadspin's Jack Dickey just about nails the Norv Turner retention in San Diego:

And—as if Smith's drafting wasn't bad enough—Norv has Norved the hell out of his six Charger teams. He lost division crowns to Kansas City and Denver in the last two years. And when he did make the playoffs, he settled for field goals and punts. He has a nice record with the Chargers (49-31) because he plays in a division with Oakland, Denver, and Kansas City, teams perhaps even more mismanaged than San Diego. When Norv coached in Oakland, he was 9-23. This man is not a good coach.

The Chargers pretend at success, with memorable good seasons that happened longer ago than you would have guessed. They're a middling team more than an underperforming one. (Although they underperform too.)

But they beat Baltimore and beat Oakland (in a Raiders must-win) toward the end of the season, and that looks nice, so Smith and Norv hang around. Perhaps next year San Diego will be fortunate enough to win the division at 8-8 and host a playoff game just to remind everyone what fake success feels like.

This is probably right, but I was struck by this defense of the coach by quarterback Philip Rivers.

Rivers was unequivocal in his defense of his head coach, saying the following:

"I really believe in him," Rivers said, "and I can't speak for every guy, but the guys that have been here, that know what this league is about, they all believe in him, too, and they all want him here. We all want him here.

"Percentage-wise, he's the winningest coach in the history of the franchise. What we went through this year, injuries-wise, bad quarterback play — some of that, he can't control any of that. And then to look up and go, 'Man, they're 4-7, and they fought back at 8-8.' In what many would call a meaningless game, we go out and play like we did."

"But I believe Norv is the guy," Rivers said. "I haven't followed him when he was in Washington and Oakland and everywhere he's been, but from the five years with him, he's always had a false perception on the outside. Really, it's not his fault. Since the day he got here, it was, 'Why? Why is he here?' And we go to the AFC Championship game, and we all limped out there and almost got it done (against the New England Patriots in 2008).

"Almost doesn't count, I know. I can go on and on, but I speak for most of the guys that say they love playing for him, and I think it shows the way we rebound when we go through adversity."

"In the 49 wins, it's always been because we've played good," Rivers said. "In the 31 losses, he's took all the blame. He definitely could have started shuffling on us through that six-game stretch. I threw 11 picks. I fumbled snaps. I threw picks for touchdowns.

"If there's anybody to point to in that six-game skid, point to me. I think he's done a heck of a job. I know he has."

Now, this isn't to say that Rivers' opinion here is the be all and end all, but this is not a lukewarm endorsement. Now sure, much of this may have to do with the fact that no one denies that Norv Turner is a brilliant offensive coordinator, or a guy who is wonderful at working with quarterbacks. So from Rivers' perspective, Norv is an excellent coach to work with. He's also a guy who likely isn't that interested in learning a new offense at this point in his career, or breaking in a new boss. So, sure, there's plenty of reason to not take his advice on this one.

But look, I follow the NFL closely enough, feel like I understand the game, but there's no way I know as much football as Philip Rivers does. It can't be, right? And yet, here's Rivers not just defending his coach, but seeming to this reader of his words, as though he'd go pretty far in arguing the merits of Turner were you to get into it with him after a few drinks, which would be weird since I don't think he drinks. And he's huge, so you probably wouldn't argue, but you get the idea.

It kind of reminds me of the Jets' situation, where their offensive coordinator is widely dismissed as a fool by fans and media alike, and yet, he's off to Jacksonville for a head coaching interview. By most accounts, he seems to have an excellent reputation around the league.

This dynamic plays out all the time actually. You'll hear guys like Bill Simmons rip NBA or NFL coaches almost for sport, showing no respect for the ones who underperform. And yet, many of these men have wonderful reputations from their peers. Mike Brown seems to me to be mostly dismissed as a big time coach from most of the media, and yet he was an assistant under Spurs legend Greg Popovich, a man whose coaching bonafides are beyond dispute. So maybe I kind of chuckle when I see Mike Brown, but Pop sees an excellent basketball coach, one he wants on his staff.

The same can be said for guys like Josh McDaniels or Eric Mangini, former Belichick assistants who've become almost pariahs in the minds of fans. I wouldn't hire either one, but Bill Belichick would, perhaps his sport's greatest coach.

It's kind of weird.

Perhaps a lot of this is just about degree. Obviously, all of these men are probably excellent coaches of a sort, just not good enough to be one of the handful of few capable of successfully leading an NFL franchise. Perhaps it's no different than finding a quarterback. Sure, there's many talented individuals trying to be an NFL quarterback at any given moment, but only about 10 or so are actually capable of doing the job.

Perhaps I just answered my own question.

Is there still any room in sports for fan loyalty?

2012-01-02T18:02:00.005-05:00

I totally agreed with this take on the Colts' situation by Bill Simmons:

I loved what happened with the Colts this month: They respect Peyton Manning so much that they're willfully killing any chance of the Andrew Luck era by winning these last three games. Even better, their fans are totally fine with it. How can you not root for this? Had the 1990 Celtics had a chance to lose enough games to land the no. 1 overall pick and some killer scoring forward, only we would have had to trade Larry Bird if we got that pick, you know what I would have done? Rooted for them to keep winning so Bird didn't go anywhere.

What's the point of sports, anyway? If someone like Bird or Manning passes through your life — something that might happen for a fan two or three times TOTAL in a lifetime — doesn't loyalty trump everything else? I never, ever, in a million years, would have wanted to watch Larry Legend play for someone else. It would have killed me. I'm sure Colts fans feel the same way about Manning, as do his teammates, which is why they are going to win this game. You watch.

I think this is exactly right, and one that I totally support, and yet, I wonder how many fans still do.

For me, it comes down to what's the point of being a fan if you're so detached from the players you root for that you could legitimately cast aside a franchise legend for the next great thing. Sure, all this attachment is largely illusory, but it's still necessary. Aside from Lawrence Taylor who I watched mostly as a really young boy, I've never been privileged to root for a team with a player the likes of Peyton Manning, but I hope someday I do, and I'd hope that I'd have some sense of how rare and special that is.

And yet, I wouldn't begrudge the Colts fans who'd be happy to see Manning depart to make room for Luck. After all, from owners, to coaches, to players, it's not as though the fan is showed much loyalty in this day and age. Our loyalty is so often taken for granted as our stadiums are torn down, renamed and thrust upon us with ever-increasing price tags for just about everything.

Ultimately, the Colts fan has to sort of be hoping for the mentor situation, where Manning plays a final three seasons in Colts blue with Luck waiting in the wings, a piece of good fortune that would almost be unfair, and is the thing that makes me kind of want to shove a cheese head up the ass of every Packers fan I see. It's really just too much.

An end to Prohibition

2011-12-22T19:50:00.002-05:00

Ken Burns on the end of Alcohol Prohibition:

The real turning point is the Depression. You say, “OK, we got rid of the fifth largest industry for what reason? We don’t have these jobs that we could use for what reason? And we don’t benefit from this tax revenue for what reason?” Life was so hard in the Depression. We can’t even appreciate it now, even in tough economic times, how bad it was in the Depression. When Roosevelt came in, within a week beer was legal, and the repeal of the amendment went into effect, that is to say alcohol was available, on December 5, 1933. It was almost anticlimactic. It is like, we’ve got to get going with something else more important.

I'm sorry, but how does this logic now apply to the prohibition of marijuana use. I mean, seriously, that's illegal for what reason? Can we even form a single rational argument in favor of this?

Barack Obama's drones have killed children, somehow I still think he's a good guy

2011-12-22T15:10:00.008-05:00

In a must read, Conor Friedersdorf meditates on Ron Paul's apparent racism, but this passage caught my eye reflective to my own views on President Obama:

Put it this way. How can you vote for someone who wages an undeclared drone war that kills scores of Pakistani children? Or someone who righteously insisted that indefinite detention is an illegitimate transgression against our civilizational values, and proceeded to support that very practice once he was elected?

It's so interesting to me how I totally agree with what Friedersdorf is saying here, and yet, I still wholeheartedly support Barack Obama. It's amazing either a) how much we are able to rationalize, or b) how innately brutal we all perceive the world.

I think my own thinking is somehow "Yeah, but I mean it's not like he was trying to kill children. It was just sort of an accident. So, you know, not THAT bad." And yet, I'm not sure there is any other sphere but political where I'd make such a casual and incomplete rationalization for the death of children. They just weren't any children I know, so it doesn't bother me as much, I guess. It's sick, I know, but also true.

There's no arguing that Barack Obama has personally ordered air strikes that have led to the death of children, and yet, my own view of the man is that of a decent man, one who I am looking forward to voting for again and whose worldview I largely share.

After all, his Christmas card was adorable. It had little Bo in front of a fireplace. This is a good person. Oh, and I mean he made sure today that I get an extra $40 in my paycheck. I bought a really cool case for my IPad. He cares about us, see?

Right?

Is anyone actually having fun with Jets/Giants hype?

2011-12-22T13:27:00.004-05:00

First off, fuck off Plaxico. I'm so sick of you, I can't even stand it.

But honestly, is anyone enjoying the hype leading up to the Jets/Giants showdown? Are people "excited" for this game? I mean, yes, I'm looking forward to watching it because the Giants surely need it, but it all seems like a massive lose/lose for both teams. Whoever loses gets to be the town's official loser, have their playoff hopes obliterated and spend the rest of the year just despising the whole idea of professional football.

Further, it's a battle of two decidedly mediocre teams, coming off two wholly depressing losses. I'm just in no mood for the hype. Frankly, I'd prefer if both teams just shut their pie-holes -- Giants included -- and just limped into this game with the humility it deserves.

I don't know, there's just something depressing about this game, and it's grating to witness this attempt to convince us all that it's some massive event.

Ron Paul should not be President; some of his ideas deserve more consideration

2011-12-22T12:58:00.005-05:00

With Ron Paul rather remarkably shooting to the top of the polls in Iowa, there's an interesting discussion going on regarding some racist newsletters published in Paul's name in the 1980's and 90's. Many of them are pretty ugly, racist stuff.

A good round-up can be found here:

Now, I don't know whether Ron Paul holds racist views, it would hardly shock me, but I tend to think he doesn't.

That being said, there is somewhat of a rush to bring this up mostly because Paul is now astonishingly sort of in the mix for the Republican nomination, and as such, these newsletters are being scrutinized. Which is all fair. If Paul is going to be legitimately considered for the Presidency, these questions are certainly valid.

What's interesting is to see someone like Andrew Sullivan rush to his defense, along with others of his ideological bent. I think the thing here is that Ron Paul shouldn't be President for a number of reasons, most notably because he's a monetary policy expert who seems to know almost nothing about monetary policy, along with a number other crank-like views, but perhaps also because he either held some deeply racist views over the course of his life, or was so grossly negligent about the words being printed in his name as to be equally disqualified.

But the reason you see so many probably like-minded folks rushing to defend Paul is that Paul holds many legitimately underdiscussed views that don't have an effective champion in American politics. Many of these views were hoped to be championed by Barack Obama, who often spoke eloquently about them, but has almost completely abandoned many of them once he found his way into the Presidency. On matters like the drug war, America's imperialist tendencies, our use of unmanned drones, or are continued erosion of our civil liberties, Ron Paul has sadly become the most prominent defender of these causes.

But Paul has managed to get himself above water as a national figure, and has the opportunity to bring these types of ideas to a larger swath of the American electorate than we've so far seen. And I think this is why you have a lot of people reacting to news of these newsletters with shrugs, "Old news," and hoping that they might go away. I don't think many of these people actually want Ron Paul to be President, nor do they really think he will be, but I think they'd like to see these ideas get a fairer shake, and perhaps even better to be used as a way to push Barack Obama to perhaps actually implement some of the ideas he spoke so passionately about when he was seeking the Presidency in the first place.

Does that make sense?

How tired is the Rex Ryan routine?

2011-12-19T15:24:00.002-05:00

From the AP:

"Quite honestly, I never came here to be little brother to anybody," Ryan said on a conference call. "So, it's on."

"Certainly, we were the better team the first two years," Ryan said. "We made the playoffs and went to the (AFC) championship game. To say a team's better than you that never made the playoffs is ridiculous. Clearly, we were the better team my first two years. We get to prove it Saturday who the best team is this year."

"There's a lot of talk going back and forth, most of it driven by me," Ryan said. "But I'll stand by anything I've ever said. I didn't come here to be anybody's little brother. I came here to win, to be looked at that way and to take over not just this city, even though it's the city to take over, but also this league. I haven't accomplished that yet. Saturday, I think, will go a long way to doing that.

When Rex Ryan arrived, there's no doubt he was refreshing, particularly in a town led by the likes of Tom Coughlin and Joe Girardi. One seems gruff and unpleasant, the other so impossibly boring it seems cruel to have to interview him every day. So Rex comes along and he's brash and he's fun, and everyone gets all excited. The Jets start winning, and it's all because Rex is brash and he's fun and he's exciting.

Only now the team is suffering through a pretty ordinary season and are heading into a matchup against the Giants that looked promising a few weeks ago, but has devolved into a matchup between two mediocre teams in a city that suddenly plays pretty uninspiring football.

So really, just can it for a week, would you? I know he's going to bring the game some attention, but at this point it's such obvious hyped bullshit, that I just don't understand how anyone could buy in. The two teams are limping in here off various disgraces, let's not try to spin it otherwise. I just don't think I can take it.

Obama ended a war that for most of us was already over

2011-12-19T14:35:00.003-05:00

The headline for this piece was "Obama Got Us Out of Iraq, but Voters Just Don't Care Anymore", with this being the key passage:

To be sure, which is a phrase used by journalists then they're attempting to balance a point, the withdrawal of all American troops might not have been possible without the president's decision to supplement JSOC's insurgent campaign with David Petraeus's surge -- President Bush's decision. Nor would it be feasible without the Status of Forces Agreement signed by President Bush.

But Obama correctly foresaw the consequences of the Iraq war nine years ago, and has, as president, figured out how to end it. That's to his credit.

But what a difference a decade makes: our collective appreciation for soldiers aside.... Iraq isn't on the front pages anymore, and won't be.

What's interesting to me about this, is that I think for many Americans the war in Iraq ended a long time ago. Americans have never seemed to care much about the idea of U.S. soldiers being stationed in other countries. Indeed, that's something we seem clearly to be fine with. American soldiers are stationed in hundreds of countries all over the world.

What Americans don't like that much, is when their soldiers start dying in those places. But for the last few years, we've read and heard quite little of that coming out of Iraq. As a result, in the average American mind, the war ended long ago. Barack Obama likely deserves a lot of credit for how smoothly things have gone throughout this process, credit he seems unlikely to get, but it's because he did a job that many people considered already to have been done, almost as if we ended through his election.

Knicks make another good move, man Isiah was terrible

2011-12-19T14:11:00.003-05:00

From NY Mag's Seth Rosenthal:

Meanwhile, because Davis is signing for that veteran's minimum contract, and not the $2.5 million room exception as was originally reported, that exception can be used to bolster the frontcourt. We've discussed a few available forwards already, and Howard Beck names James Posey as the Knicks' primary target at the moment. If Posey or anyone of his caliber can be lured, the Knicks will have added meaningful depth in two spots that badly needed it, and cheaply at that. Pretty cool, no?

It's kind of surreal to be so continuously pleased with Knicks roster moves. Ever since Donnie Walsh came aboard things have progressed steadily forward, but it's still almost jarring. After more than a decade of so routinely feeling bewildered, if not downright befuddled by any Knicks trade or signing, to be greeted with such a string of positive developments is rather disorienting. Is this really the same team I've been rooting for all these years? It is, it is! And now they're good!

This is so much better.

Leon Panetta continues to unimpress

2011-12-19T13:03:00.003-05:00

Not sure how this happened, but doesn't it seem odd that Robert Gates's successor seems to be to his right:

“As difficult as [the Iraq war] was,” and the cost in both American and Iraqi lives, “I think the price has been worth it, to establish a stable government in a very important region of the world,” he added.

I generally think the Obama administration is not receiving enough credit for how responsibly and competently they've wound down this war, but this kind of cheerleading hardly seems necessary. Like, really Leon? "Worth it?" Wasn't insisting that the Iraq War was a huge boondoggle unworthy of our soldiers exactly why we have Barack Obama in the White House in the first place. Sure, take a measure of pride I guess in ending it in a way that saved some face, but let's go easy on this kind of tripe.

On third parties

2011-12-19T12:04:00.004-05:00

From NY Mag's Jonathan Chait:

Whatever its impact on Obama, I think Americans Elect is bad for democracy. We have a winner-take-all system that tends to create two parties. I hate it. I would love to reform the system in order to make influential third parties possible. But without reforming the system, third parties can badly distort election outcomes. The main impact of a third party candidacy is to harm the larger of the two parties that most closely agrees with you. The result is to increase the chances of a candidate who represents a minority faction winning. Left-of-center candidates won a majority of the vote in 2000, but right-wing George W. Bush won 100 percent of the power, in part because Ralph Nader split that left-of-center vote. I consider that a procedural injustice and not just an outcome I didn’t like. Groups that don’t like the two-party system should be working to change it rather than make it work even worse than it already does.

Forget the absurdity of a group of people who legitimately believe that Barack Obama as President has not been "centrist" enough, one of the just more divorced from reality critiques of his presidency that I've seen, but I think this is exactly right. There should be room for multiple political parties within the U.S. system, but I think this is right in the way that the system as currently constructed actually makes such parties really harmful to the overall process.

Eli Manning gets asked a really dumb question

2011-12-18T22:56:00.004-05:00

After a dismal loss to the Washington Redskins, Eli Manning had this exchange with reporters:

Q: What would you tell your fans after today?

A: We’re competing and we’re trying to win. We didn’t play as well as we needed to today and Washington played better than us. We’re sorry about that, but we’re going to get back to work and get ready for the Jets.

Look, I am a Giants fan, and I wanted to smash my television watching yesterday's game. Particularly galling was, yes, that the team just seemed lifeless. Of course, that's usually what happens when you're playing like shit. Playing shitty doesn't inspire a whole lot of emotion.

But this is such a dumb question to ask Eli Manning, the one guy who's been bringing the good all season.

The implication here, of course, is also that the Giants owed their fans an apology, which if I were Eli and that were asked of me I'd tell the guy to go fuck himself. I understand that the fans pay the salaries and all that, and that the teams continuously ramp up their already grossly inflated prices to pay for the giant salaries of guys like Eli Manning, but at the end of the day no one's being forced to care about this. The Giants and Redskins played a game yesterday I was under no obligation to be interested in.

Would it have been nice if they played better? Fucking hell yes. But do I feel as though I'm owed some sort of apology.

Well, kind of.

Cultural Heritage

2011-12-16T11:52:00.003-05:00

I went to see The National at the Beacon Theater the other night and ran into about four or five people I've known in my life during varying points of my childhood. There were a few people from my hometown, some others that I've known along the way and it was just such an example of a certain type of cultural heritage.

We like to think we decide what are likes are, that we are in control of our tastes and enjoyments. But it was kind of amazing to me to think just how much the place I was born influences the things I enjoy. We were all at The National show because we grew up in a space and time that made us all likely to appreciate their music in a similar way.

It was just sort of a weird feeling, like I was destined at birth to enjoy this band, and that perhaps my thinking I had chosen them as a band to enjoy was actually a complete illusion. After all, the folks I ran into were people I don't really associate with anymore, people who for various reasons I no longer choose to share my time with, but there we were all dressed almost exactly the same, taking some respite from our grossly similar professions.

We really are just a herd sometimes.

No one wants to talk about Ben Roethlisberger

2011-12-15T16:36:00.005-05:00

Here's a look at the numbers of Ben Roethlisberger on the season, a season in which his team has again been one of the best in the sport. And yet, it's amazing how little we hear about Big Ben these days.

Although, of course, it's not that amazing. Why? Because most people think Ben Roethlisberger is probably a rapist. Certainly now, he was not convicted of the crime, nor even formally charged, so we do have to accept his innocence on some level. But I think that a majority of people, at the very least, think the Steelers quarterback was a pretty terrible date a few years back, and not someone who we feel all that comfortably celebrating.

And yet, on he goes, playing well and leading his team to victories. Someday this fella may very well end up in the Hall of Fame, a building enshrined with no doubt its fair share of miscreants (See: Taylor, Lawrence). But it's all kind of amusing to watch unfold.

Please tell me Jerry Sandusky is not going with the "Teaching Basic Hygiene" defense

2011-12-15T16:09:00.002-05:00

C'mon now:

lester's defense team, says Sandusky may have showered with boys to teach them "basic hygiene skills."

"Some of these kids don't have basic hygiene skills," Rominger told WHTM-TV on Tuesday. "Teaching a person to shower at the age of 12 or 14 sounds strange to some people, but people who work with troubled youth will tell you there are a lot of juvenile delinquents and people who are dependent who have to be taught basic life skills like how to put soap on their body."

I mean, you're kidding.

Now, I don't recall being taught how to soap myself in the shower, although I'm certain that such training probably did take place. One does wonder if such instruction requires that you actually be in the shower, but I guess that this is the best they can do.

"Your honor, I wasn't sodomizing the young boy, I was just instructing him on proper rectal disinfecting."

Hey Wilpons, Sell the team ctd.

2011-12-14T15:37:00.003-05:00

Over at Amazin Avenue is a seriously impressive run down of the Mets financial troubles.

The takeaway:

Right now, the Mets are running serious losses annually -- even including their profit share from SNY. There's no easy way for them to get enough cash to run the team, unless the Wilpons keep putting money in (if they can), and the current plan has a $240 million price tag attached to it, due 2017. They could sell a lot of their SNY stake, but that'd be a very painful sale -- and perhaps one fatal to the Wilpons' efforts to maintain their ownership of the team.

At least the Wilpons don't have to worry about Bernie Madoff any more.

Untrue: Irving Picard is still trying to recover money from the Wilpons -- somewhere between $83 million and $386 million.

And for the Mets ownership to continue to run what is an amazingly valuable franchise this poorly, one can only come to one conclusion.

It's over boys. Sell the fucking team.

The Most depressing Mets article ever written

2011-12-14T13:05:00.004-05:00

Here are some of the highlights of "Santana uncertain to start season":

“-- We do have some question marks, of course, with Santana being one of them,” general manager Sandy Alderson said Tuesday at the team’s annual Christmas party. “We think he’s going to be ready, but he might not be.”

-- Whether or not he pitches, Santana will severely limit the Mets’ payroll flexibility for the next two years, when he is owed about $50 million at a time when the team is trimming payroll by about 30 percent.

-- The team’s plan to restock the farm system with hopes of contending in 2014 or 2015 led to their willingness to listen to trade offers for Niese.

-- Turner was not on the trading block, but he was left to wonder if he would be the team’s second baseman next season, with Jose Reyes in Miami and Ruben Tejada at shortstop. “I’d like to think that maybe I earned a chance to play second base this year,” Turner said. “Maybe I earned that last year.” (Ed. note: Justin Turner hit .260 last year with 4 home runs)

Just sad, really. Really, really sad.

NY Mag checks in with Charles Smith

2011-12-14T11:56:00.006-05:00

He seems to be doing well:

He left the basketball world after retiring from the NBA, starting a digital media company that dealt with corporate clients such as Hewlett Packard. But with operations based in Manhattan, Smith was never far away from the Knicks, Madison Square Garden, or those vocal New York fans.

“It doesn’t bother me that most fans only remember me for that one incident,” says Smith. “It would have bothered me had I not given it my all, but I gave it my best effort.”

After a decade of being an entrepreneur, Smith returned to the basketball business in 2008 when he became the executive director of the National Basketball Retired Players Association, a group that looks after the welfare of former NBA ballers.

“I’ve always had a business mind,” says Smith, who first started working at age 12 as a paperboy in Connecticut. “And I’ve kept good relations with all my peers.”

33 points, nine rebounds, two blocks.

Of all the things that bother me about the Charles Smith memorial, none bothers me more than the adverse effect it had on Patrick Ewing's legacy. The above were Patrick's numbers in that game, but they do nothing to describe his brilliant fourth quarter, a period that included an improbable three-pointer that helped the Knicks get back in the game. He was phenomenal down the stretch in that game, authoring one of those moments when a big-time player says, "My team isn't losing this game."

Only they did.

Almost forgotten in the play is that in what was a typically disorganized Knicks' possession of the era, Ewing got the ball on that play behind the three-point line. In desperation, he drives toward the basket, drawing in defenders, and allowing him to find Smith seemingly wide open underneath. The rest is, as they say, history.

But it still crushes me how forgotten Ewing's performance is in that game -- as it should be, given the outcome -- but it's fitting of the whole era. Patrick Ewing was a winner who somehow never won.

I find I'll never get over the Ewing era, particularly a loss like that one in which the Knicks were the better team, who had been having the better season, and who had been nearly unbeatable at home. I've rewatched most of the crushing Knicks losses and still can't shake them. Patrick will never win an NBA championship, a thing I wanted to happen more than any sport outcome I've rooted for in my lifetime. It's sad to admit, but I find it still pains me to this day more than I care to acknowledge, and I find it almost hinders my ability to enjoy the Knicks today. Sure, I hope this current group one day wins it all, but I know there will be a part of me that still wishes it was Ewing's Knicks.

It was supposed to be them. It just was.

Tom Brady screams at coach; coach resists fighting him

2011-12-13T14:30:00.002-05:00

This was kind of crazy...

You know, I have no idea how big a deal this is, my guess is it's not much of one, but it is kind of hard not to try and imagine what might have been made of this had the player been Terrell Owens. I know, I know, different guys, with likely earned reputations, but still. My guess is it would have been interpreted a bit different.

Mitt Romney meets a gay veteran ... it doesn't go great

2011-12-13T10:47:00.002-05:00

To be honest, I feel for Mitt here. This is a tough spot. But it's striking how much his tone changes from gleefully greeting a Vietnam veteran he assumes shares his views, to being confronted with the fact that the man is gay and in a committed relationship.

But what amazes me is how flimsy the argument on the side against allowing gay couples the right to marry and all that goes with it. It's just, "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman." The "I believe" is stated as though there's no appeal to reason. There's no argument that could be made to sway someone who comes to a conclusion based on nothing but a belief. Because there's this poor fellow, a guy who fought for his country, asking so simply, "What the hell's the difference." You love someone, he loves someone, why the second-class status for him. He says it so innocently that it's so hard to not find it convincing. But Romney doesn't care, he has his belief, meeting this man could only threaten that belief, so he must escape.

Which really isn't meant to dump on the Mittster, it's an impossible spot that he stumbled into. But it's still hard to watch, and for me it gets at why so many people just don't like this guy. There is something so artificial about this guy. "A vietnam veteran! Damn glad to meet you! What's that? Gay!?!?!?! I gotta get the fuck out of here!"

Why coaches will always "ice" the kicker

2011-12-12T19:56:00.003-05:00

The statistics will tell you that "icing" the kicker (ie. calling timeout before important field goals) has no effect. This is not an opinion, it is a statement of fact. There is no such thing as icing the kicker.

But coaches will always ice the kicker. This will never end. Why?

Control.

There can be no more helpless feeling for an NFL head coach -- a group of people more predisposed to being control freaks than any collective entity on earth -- than standing on the sideline at the end of a hard-fought game about to watch helplessly as the opponent kicks a game-winning/tying field goal. So what do they do?

They ice the kicker. Why?

Because it's something dammit. I can do something. I can't get in there and block it, I can't do anything to ensure this guy will miss, but by God I can call a timeout right before he kicks it. Let's see how he likes that little mental jujitsu. Let him eat on that shit. At the very least, I can play some sort of mind game with the man sent to destroy me. In other words, I can do SOMETHING. ANYTHING.

This is why no matter what the statistics tell us, no matter how definitively this practice is determined to be of no value, there will always be coaches icing kickers. It's because there's literally nothing else they can do, and these are men who simply have to do something.

Tim Tebow may - MAY - be God's son on earth

2011-12-12T11:59:00.002-05:00

After watching the Holy Ghost seemingly inhabit Marion Barber's body, forcing him into foolish unforced errors during the Broncos' 13-10 come-from-behind victory over the Bears on Sunday, it was hard not to think that God does indeed appear to be rooting for Tim Tebow. Yes, the good Lord seems to feel it important that this kid's team continue to win.

And yet, what would the reaction have been had Barber stayed in bounds, and the Caleb Hanie-led Bears held on for a 10-7 win. Think about how bad a loss that would have been for Denver. A team in first place in their division, going down to a Bears team led not only by Hanie, but missing their only other legitimate offensive threat in Matt Forte. Additionally, the Bears were so unafraid of Tebow that they were content to run three times and punt for the entire fourth quarter. Bears head man Lovie Smith didn't even really pretend to run an offense, and might have even been willing to just kneel three times if it didn't look quite so foolish. Had the Bears hung on and won that game, what would have been the reaction to Tebow's play?

Similarly, I happened to only watch two football games this Sunday. The Hanie/Tebow crapfest at 4pm and the Eli/Romo shootout later that night. Watching the nightcap, the two quarterbacks combined for over 700 yards and 6 TDs. Each one made at least three "Holy shit" plays of some kind, throwing an array of perfect strikes seemingly all over the field. I just couldn't imagine Tim Tebow ever playing like either guy.

But maybe I'm wrong, maybe there is something to Tebow Magic I'm missing. But I don't think so, and I don't think I ever will.

On Albert Pujols and Chris Paul

2011-12-09T17:15:00.004-05:00

When Albert Pujols chose to leave his home in St. Louis for greener pastures in Anaheim, it wasn't really a case of a big market winning over a small one. Sure, the Angels technically consider themselves from Los Angeles, but it's hardly a marquee franchise in the traditional sense. It anything, it's the Cardinals who possess more innate cache. But what Anaheim could offer Pujols was a wealthy owner willing to spend a boatload of cash. It worked.

That's an option in baseball for attracting star players. It's a cash option. It's the same option the Texas Rangers took all those years ago when they convinced Alex Rodriguez to come down to Texas for $250 million. The outrageous sum was their only possible bargaining chip for a player of that caliber.

But in the NBA no such system exists. Instead, you have max contracts that pretty much ensures that players are slotted in certain dollar amounts, and enables a situation in which Rashard Lewis somehow ends up making as much as Kobe Bryant. But it's this problem which actually makes it more difficult for small markets to keep star players. The Cleveland Cavaliers had no option to overwhelm LeBron James with a big-money offer. They couldn't outbid the Heat by much at all really.

As a result, we actually see in the NBA players making decisions with their salary not necessarily being the driving force. Instead they look at the potential for endorsments, the type of city they'd prefer to live in, the team assembled or a more storied franchise. And it makes sense, if the salary's going to be similar no matter what you do, might as well go where you want.

And so we had a lockout that dragged on and did nothing to change this dynamic. Which then makes it no surprise that the owners woke up to a Chris Paul trade to realize their newly signed agreement had done nothing at all. "But wait!" they protested, "Didn't we just do something about this?"

Actually no. It turns out their system is almost designed to do just the opposite. They've incentivized players to forego dollars and instead pursue the most desirable situation, and thus given star players even more power, the precise situation they'd hoped to destroy.

It's kind of poetic in a way.

Charles Barkley sums up the Tim Tebow phenomenon

2011-12-09T16:54:00.003-05:00

I mean, pretty perfect:

"It's clearly a media-driven story," Barkley said. "They just want you to argue about Tim Tebow. Dude, let the kid play. If he can play, good. If he can't play it will show. But to have this argument every single day after five or six games is just ridiculous.

This is exactly right. We know that as we stand there are two camps. Some people don't think Tim Tebow is a legitimate long-term franchise quarterback, others think he pisses holy water. The good news is we will all find out soon enough. Let's not take the temperature with every fucking dropback.

Thank you.

Wilpons: Sell the team

2011-12-08T16:17:00.003-05:00

It's taken some time to digest the news that Jose Reyes will not be with the Mets next season, or ever again for that matter. But the most difficult part has been reading how many people not applaud the move so much, but so caustically explain that it made sense for the franchise.

After all, given the team's financial realities, the team can't expect to compete for the next few seasons, so what's the point in having an awesome player like Reyes when you can't afford to win anyway? They might as well rebuild. Which is all well and good, and maybe even wise, though to my mind having an awesome player is still kind of awesome even if your team isn't necessarily in the World Series hunt.

But the more grating part is how much the Wilpons are getting left off the hook in this analysis.

The Wilpons should be selling this team. It's clear that their financial situation has made the Mets uncompetitive in their own division, let alone in the city they inhabit. There is no compelling reason why Bud Selig and Major League Baseball should be giving the Mets loans to keep them afloat that they can pay back, oh, whenever they please, because he's cozy with the Wilpons.

Sure, owning a baseball team must be awesome, and I can empathize with Fred and Jeff wanting to keep doing that. Who wouldn't want to do that? But sorry fellas, you either were criminally negligent in your faith in one Bernard Madoff, or just plain criminal, and are now in the unfortunate position of being forced to sell your team. It sucks, but it's true. And there's no reason that an entity as valuable and ripe for success as the Mets should be forced to jettison a star player in his prime because you two idiots got fleeced.

So we can all say that giving Jose Reyes a six-year deal was some kind of monumental risk -- although, to me, in the context of Major League Baseball it's an absolutely reasonable deal -- but we shouldn't in any way absolve this ownership of the fact that it's time to give up the ghost. You're done. It's sad for you, I'm sure, but too bad.

Or in other words, go fuck yourselves. We should have fucking Jose Reyes. Sell the team.

Knicks change in direction makes complete sense

2011-12-08T15:54:00.002-05:00

The Knicks appear close to signing free-agent center Tyson Chandler:

Berger reports that the New York Knicks have emerged as the leader for Tyson Chandler, ahead of the Warriors, who reportedly offered Chandler a four-year, $60 million deal Thursday. Berger reports that the Golden State offer isn't as "robust" as the report from California indicated.

In order to make room for Chandler, Berger says the Knicks would use the amnesty clause on Chauncey Billups, or trade him, then move Ronny Turiaf.

In the wake of Berger's report, ESPN.com reports that there is a "98 percent" chance Chandler winds up with the Knicks and that the Warriors will turn their attention to Los Angeles Clippers restricted free agent DeAndre Jordan.

Now, the assumption was that the Knicks were going to be very conservative this offseason in order to maintain cap space for a run at next year's free agents Chris Paul or Dwight Howard. You'd instead see the team pursue one-year deals with players like Luke Ridnour or Kwame Brown, or other players that would make you suddenly a lot less excited for the upcoming season.

But a funny thing happened. It started to become quite clear that the Knicks weren't getting either player. It looks more and more likely that both Paul and Howard will be traded this season, and traded to destinations that would make them avoid free agency all together. Given that the Knicks have almost nothing to trade, unless they're suddenly allowed to offer free Justin Bieber tickets or something, they'd be out of luck.

So the move to acquire Chandler -- you know, the exact type of player they need -- makes a ton of sense.

But who plays the point? Well, that's a fair question and one there isn't really a good answer for except that they do have Toney Douglass and alleged high-hopes for rookie Iman Shumpert. Is that a bit of a gamble? Certainly, but a front court of Chandler, Stoudemire and Anthony is also decidedly awesome. So there's that.

What about those trading Stoudemire for Paul rumors?

Yeah, apparently that's been floated, but given that that scenario breaks my sweet, little Stoudemire-loving heart, I'm choosing to ignore it until forced to do otherwise.

Rick Perry makes an ad

2011-12-08T14:35:00.003-05:00

And it's really good!

I would comment on this, but I'll let the brilliant Ta-Nehisi Coates say it, because he's much, much smarter than me:

But what if there's something else? What if the conservatives are more perceptive and honest than the moderate liberals? I love Grant and Lincoln, but they were dead wrong in claiming that emancipation did not promote "social equality." Meanwhile the bigots who asserted that emancipation meant that Sambo would be "marryin yer daughters" were right. I wouldn't be shocked if Grant and Lincoln knew this, but also knew that to admit as much would be suicidal.

Andrew, himself, has talked about the rigorous challenge atheism presents to Christianity. Are Christians in this country actually under-siege? Will Barack Obama's grandchildren, for instance, be as Christian as he is?

Beyond that, there's a question of privilege. It's simply true that white Christian men don't enjoy the kind of luxuries that their grandfathers did, particularly the luxury of knowing, outright, that there is some class of people that -- no matter what -- will always be under you. That must have given people some amount of psychological comfort. Whatever your fights, you knew that you and people like you, always had a place in America. Not so much anymore.

I think back to the great John C. Calhoun:

"With us the two great divisions of society are not rich and poor, but white and black; and all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals."

What you had, before, was a weird kind of socialism -- exclusive rights for a mass aristocracy. Better neighborhoods, better schools, better water fountains, better rest-rooms, better pools, better everything.

And now you don't. And look -- There are the Muslims in Congress. And there are the Latinos in the Unions. And there are gays shooting guns in Iraq. And there are women dying in Iraq. And there are black ladies marrying white men. And there are black men marrying white ladies. And their children are Muslims. And their children are in the White House.

And for the first time in American history, it appears that you will have to fight to not end up on the bottom.

Damn. Things just ain't the same for gangsters.

Athletes as human beings

2011-12-08T12:03:00.003-05:00

From Alan Hahn's Knicks Fix:

Billups, meanwhile, is getting in as much family time as he can. He considered moving his wife and two school-age daughters to New York this season, but with his situation unsettled as the Knicks attempt to trade for Chris Paul , Billups figures to rent, not buy, once again.

As most of us know, professional athletes are not human beings. They are sports-playing cyborgs whose sole focus is on the games they play. Their families are generally peripheral figures who offer minor inconveniences, and whose problems are of only minor concern to the cyborgs themselves.

Ok, this may not actually be true, but it only occurs to me when I read the occasional item like the above. I wonder how much this affects a guy like Billups, to be away from his wife and kids? Most of us assume not much at all, after all he probably prefers his nights in a bachelor pad with its ample supply of road skanks and mistresses. But maybe not. Perhaps Billups is like myself, and as lame as it might sound to say, actually loves his wife and would miss her while she lived across the country.

Anyway, I'm sure he'll be fine. I think. Right?

Lay off Luke Donald, but he's still wrong.

2011-12-08T10:56:00.004-05:00

Luke Donald said this recently and it caused a stir:

World number one Donald tees off with McIlroy in golf's Dubai World Championship first round on Thursday.

And he said: "In terms of talent I think Rory has more. I think Tiger's work ethic has always been tremendous and his mindset as well."

Donald will win the Race to Dubai - and top both the European and United States money lists - as long as he finishes ninth or better.

But his comments regarding McIlroy and Woods have caused a stir. Donald later clarified his comments on Twitter, saying: "A few people aren't understanding what I meant."

He said he meant 'talent' in the context of McIlroy's "free-flowing swing" and the way he "makes everything look so easy".

But he added: "Tiger Woods has always been the best at getting the ball in the hole when it mattered the most.

"That's not just talent, that's something else too. Talent can only take you so far, you need the right attitude (mindset) and application to perform at the highest level."

Now, I happen to completely understand what Donald is getting at here, and don't think it's the most controversial thing I've ever heard. A few years ago Dave Pelz tried to argue that Phil Mickelson was a better putter than Tiger -- Ok, here's a 5-footer, and here's a gun to your head, which one would you like to take the putt Mr. Pelz -- but I also still think that Luke is wrong.

What I do think it speaks to is that Tiger has spent so much time over the years changing his swing and fighting himself, that we almost forget how naturally gifted Tiger was when he first burst on the scene. This has become even more obscured as we've watched Tiger's life implode, followed by a similar implosion on the course.

But to watch a young Tiger Woods was to experience something entirely different. Certainly, there's been no one whose talent has come close to matching Woods like Rory, but it's hard to say he's MORE talented. When Tiger arrived he was longer than EVERYONE. He had a better short game than EVERYONE. He putted better than EVERYONE. You get the idea. We forget about how much the game has changed just to deal with how awesome Tiger Woods was. Golf courses around the world are literally about 500 yards longer just to handle this guy.

So, of course, now we're all used to it and we see an epic talent like McCilroy and imagine that he's more talented, but I doubt it. Tiger Woods is every bit the talent of young Rory, it's the latter who has to prove otherwise.

Albert Pujols signs with the Angels for $250 million, I mean, love of Anaheim

2011-12-08T10:14:00.002-05:00

From ESPN:

Albert Pujols has agreed to a 10-year, $250 million deal with the Los Angeles Angels, sources told ESPN The Magazine's Buster Olney on Thursday.

The deal includes a full no-trade clause, which Pujols had been seeking and may have been a sticking point in his negotiations with the Miami Marlins.

Pujols had turned down an offer from the Cardinals, the only team he has ever played for, about a year ago, but St. Louis was still in the bidding as of Wednesday.

It really does never cease to amaze the athlete's capacity to always take the absolute most money offered. Sure, it's understandable. But here's a guy happy in St. Louis, who has a foundation there he cares about, whose family is by all accounts happy in their community and on a team he has built and established as one of the best in the game. St. Louis offered somewhere north of $200 million according to all reports, but it wasn't enough. I don't say any of this to criticize, it's more just amazing. When you talk to a lot of people who don't make this kind of money, I know most of us don't really think like this. We take into consideration where we live, how happy our families are, what the community is like in which we live and we make tradeoffs all the time. But athletes almost never do. They almost universally go to the team in which the dollar amount is the absolute most that could have been obtained. It's interesting is all.

"Liberal Hollywood's Parody of what a Republican Primary looks like"

2011-12-08T09:52:00.002-05:00

This really is true, from Will Truman:

It occurred to me the other day as I was leaving a comment elsewhere: if someone had written a TV show and the plot followed the current Republican primary, I would have some serious problems with it. Namely, I would pan the show as unrealistic. A joke. Liberal Hollywood’s parody of what the Republican Party is.

And yet the farce marches on, and poor Jon Huntsman sits at 2% and is mocked by Donald Trump. Go figure.

David Wright is scary good at saying all the right things

2011-12-06T00:08:00.002-05:00

This is almost too good:

"I think there's a professional side, the professional relationship that we had, that we continue to have, and also there's that personal friendship and really that brother-like relationship that we had. We came up together, both relatively the same age, and we've been through quite a few ups and downs in New York together. Without sounding cheesy or ridiculous, it's obviously a tough day, it's a sad day, because you kind of realize, it hits you that I'm not going to look over to my left and seem him. It's tough to know with us coming up together and playing in New York for as long as we have that one of those pieces are going to be missing going into next year."

Asked if he saw himself playing with Reyes for their whole careers, Wright said: "That was the plan. When we both signed our contract extensions, we knew that this is the place that we wanted to be, that we were signing up for that consistency of that long-term deal in exchange for bypassing that free agency at a young age. The way we were going in 2006, we never would have thought that we would have [regressed] after that and not been that playoff-caliber team year in and year out. I thought that was the plan when we originally signed our first contracts that we wanted to be here long term. And obviously things change. Let's not forget it is a business, and unfortunately sometimes these tough decisions have to be made."

Is Wright concerned about being traded? "Let's start out by saying I'm under contract for next year. I have a team option for the following year. The goal for me obviously is to play out those two years and see what kind of happens after that. But I don't think there's any question that you see what Jose has done and Jose leaving and obviously there are going to be questions surrounding what my future is going to be. That's why Sandy (Alderson) and his staff are some of the brightest minds in baseball, because they have to make these tough decisions. I understand that we're very similar as far as age and what we've endured here in New York. So I guess to answer your question I'm not sure what my future holds. But, again, that's out of my control and something I cannot control."

Is next season something to "endure" if this team takes a step back in terms of payroll, etc.? Are there more hard times coming for this team? "I think it's just my personality that I look around on the field and I don't necessarily try to predict what kind of team that we're going to have. I don't think that, for example, Arizona last year, who would have protected that they would be able to do what they've done? St. Louis in September, kind of the same thing.

"So when I take the field every spring training I look around and I expect to win. It doesn't matter what players are there. It doesn't matter what the names are on the back of those jerseys. I think that's the competitive, fiery spirit that I have. I'm not willing to sit here and say I'm conceding next year or this is a rebuilding thing. That's not the DNA that I have inside of me. That's not what my makeup is. I know one thing: I want to win. I know you hear that from everybody, but that's truly what I believe in. It doesn't matter if they're household names or if very few people outside the baseball world know who they are. It's in my makeup that every year in spring training I firmly believe we can win. And this spring training will be no different. I'm not going to approach this any differently because of the Jose Reyes situation. ...

"Obviously the formula we've had the last few years has not worked out. Is is fair to point the fingers at Jose and say that's the reason? Of course not. When he's healthy, he's been one of the few bright spots that we've had. And I think the fans love him because of his energy, his hustle, his smile. I think he's the type of player that gets an offense going and gets the fans into the game. All I know is the New York Mets. I grew up in Norfolk with our Triple-A affiliate. I came through the system. I've spent a few years here now. I bleed that blue and orange. So I understand what the Mets fans feel. But I also understand the other side of it, that when things aren't working or something is broken, you have to make these tough decisions."

Do you still believe in the Wilpons/ownership? "I believe so. I'm confident in the fact that there's a plan in place. If the reports are true, the front office had a threshold for the type of contract we were willing to give Jose. That's a plan that's in place. Sandy said it a million times that there's a plan that includes Jose and a plan that doesn't include Jose. What you want out of your front office is not only a short-term plan but also a long-term plan. If that takes running out some younger players that probably wouldn't be learning on the job the way we might have this year, then so be it. But there is a plan in place, and that gives me confidence and that should give the Mets' fan base some confidence."

But is it frustrating to have financial constraints? "I think the obvious answer is I would love to go out there and sign Pujols and Fielder and Jose Reyes and C.J. Wilson and Papelbon and Heath Bell. Unfortunately, that's not the situation that we're in. It's well-documented, the financial situation. As I've stated a million times before, ownership has probably unfairly gone through some tough times media-wise. It's tough to go through your financial situation be so scrutinized every day in the papers and talked about on the radio every day. It's a tough situation. I've stated before that I will always have ownership's back. They've been tremendous to me and my family. To play baseball for a living and to obviously make the kind of money that I make, it's a blessing. So I'll forever be thankful to ownership for that and I'll always have their backs.

"I think the perfect mix when the Yankees went on that run was they had their homegrown guys and they also had those mercenaries here and there. That's kind of the perfect mix."

Never understood Blaine Gabbert

2011-12-05T23:26:00.002-05:00

This will be a short post inspired by watching Blaine Gabbert on Monday Night Football.

But in Gabbert's senior season at Missouri, he threw 16 touchdown passes to 9 interceptions. Nice numbers, but hardly dominant. In that same season he averaged, by college standards, a pedestrian 245 yards per game. His junior season was similarly just ok. And yet, out of nowhere, the draft comes around and everyone is talking up this guy Blaine Gabbert that no one had previously heard of.

I follow sports reasonably close, and yet, had legitimately never heard of Gabbert until the draft. Which isn't to say that whether or not I've heard of a guy is the ultimate determining factor of NFL success, but if you can't dominate the Big 12, how is it your going to dominate the AFC South?

And sure, he's a rookie QB learning the ropes, and these words may come to seem completely ridiculous, but I have to say I doubt it. I don't think he's all that good, and it feels like that should have been quite obvious.

Statistics aren't bullshit; are bullshit

2011-12-05T23:03:00.004-05:00

From a New Yorker profile of Jon Gruden:

The rise of fantasy football has created a subcategory of fans for whom individual player statistics (which determine the performance of their fantasy teams) are more important than wins and losses. But Gruden abhors the “stats sluts” who try to replace the judgments of a trained eye with mathematical formulas. He says, “You know what I hate, man? Guys that you know haven’t seen the film: they just quote a bunch of statistical bullshit.” Of course, there’s something absurd about a man who loves data railing against “statistical bullshit.” As Gruden demonstrates every Monday night, it’s not possible to assess football without statistics. If anything, his voluminous appetite for game film suggests that football needs more and better statistics: a way to measure all the things that Gruden notices when he is watching and rewatching plays. But coaches, no less than fans, like to believe that there will always be a role in the game for spirit and determination—and, by extension, for coaches and for fans.

Let me start by saying that I do think generally advanced statistics are far better suited to baseball, where the variables are so much easier to control, versus a sport like football that is such a complicated group enterprise in which success and failure is truly a result of a host of actors working in concert.

That being said, I do always wonder why it is that it has to be so either/or when it comes to statistics. I do find that I sometimes think certain stats are bullshit. The fact that ESPN's QBR tells me Matt Hasselbeck is having the 7th best season by a quarterback this year, does not make me think that's true. And I don't care that Mike Smith theoretically improved his "win probability" by 4% by going for it on 4th and 1 against New Orleans, that was a dumb decision.

But that doesn't mean it's all bullshit. The guys at Football Outsiders, or Advanced NFL Statistics are doing interesting work, stuff that's worth looking at as it better informs the opinions you make from watching the tape. These two schools of thought don't need to eat each other, and I can never understand the venom from both sides about the opposing views -- though, I will admit that the most venom is certainly held by the jock school of thought angrily denying the role of nerds in appreciating their games.

Why would Celtics fans want to trade Rajon Rondo?

2011-12-05T22:47:00.004-05:00

From the Boston Herald:

Forgive Rajon Rondo for not being all that fired up about the Celtics chasing Chris Paul. [Rondo] has not been pleased to see his name mentioned so prominently in trade talks this week. But the agent for the Celtics point guard said [Friday] he believes the matter has calmed considerably. ... President Danny Ainge and coach Doc Rivers endorsed Rondo on Thursday, but stopped short of saying the club definitely wouldn't let him go. According to one source, Rondo has been angry with the sense the Celts are shopping him, but his representative used calmer language to describe the player's response. "I think he's just curious," said Bill Duffy, who was at the Celtics practice facility yesterday.

Now, I don't know how legitimate any Rondo for Paul swap discussions were, or whether the Celtics have even seriously considered the idea. And from a front office standpoint, I can certainly understand the attraction. But from a fan point of view, would a Celtics fan really endorse this trade?

I get that technically Chris Paul is a better player than Rondo, but as a fan of the Celtics, haven't you developed any affection for Rajon Rondo? Hasn't the experience of watching him grow over the course of his career, the fact that he has done it all in your uniform, and that you watched him win a championship built a certain amount of affinity for the guy? Or would you really be fine with casting him away for a player of similar, albeit slightly superior skills? In other words, let's say having Chris Paul gives you a 5% better chance of winning it all, does that make it worth getting rid of Rondo?

Now, I know where I come down on this. I wouldn't do it. Part of my fun with sports is developing a connection with players on the teams I root for -- no matter how imaginary those connections are, and I understand they are 100% imaginary, Patrick Ewing does not actually care how badly I wanted him to win a championship* -- I wouldn't make that deal. But I'm interested by those who would. It's just such a different, more zero sum way of appreciating sports.

(*Yes, he does)

No, Tim Tebow is not the MVP

2011-12-05T21:34:00.003-05:00

Seriously?

And here’s the thing: Tebow is the NFL’s Most Valuable Player.

Not officially, of course. It’s just an opinion. No matter what his passer rating is or QBR, or even his technically inept throwing motion -- not the way any youth coach would teach -- he’s more valuable to his team than any other player in the league. Aaron Rodgers is his closest competition.

When Tebow took over, the Broncos were 1-4. Now, after Tebow had yet another miracle comeback Sunday to win at Minnesota, they are 7-5.

Tebow is in first place. A couple weeks ago, ESPN reportedly did some extra deep secret research to find an explanation for Tebow. It came up with the idea that he is helping the team slightly more than he is hurting it.

It’s kind of sad when you can’t just have a fun argument in sports without someone coming up with some bogus statistic. Right now, stats guys are showing absolute proof on both sides of the argument.

Is Tebow more valuable to the Broncos than Rodgers is to the Packers? There is no right answer, no proof. The Packers wouldn’t be perfect without him. But they would win their division.

The Broncos are losers without Tebow. Now, everyone on the team believes all the way to the finish line.

I would just like to congratulate Greg Cough on his courage in penning this article. What guts. I'm sure he prides himself on his "telling it like it is" and "keeping it real."

Newt Gingrich's contempt for you:

2011-12-05T16:27:00.003-05:00

The brilliant Conor Friedersdorf couldn't be more right about Newt Gingrich's cynicism:

So if any of you felt disrespected by Huntsman for forthrightly saying that he thinks you're wrong about a couple of things, understand that it could be much worse. You could embrace a nominee who just lies to you when he thinks you won't like hearing the truth. And who tells such audacious whoppers that part of him has to believe that we're all stupid.

What shows more contempt and disrespect, telling someone you think one of their ideas is wrongheaded? Or lying to them over and over about your record, your character, and your business dealings?

Your call, Red America.

This idea of Huntsman as the moderate in the race is one of the most mystifying media narratives. Huntsman is absolutely a conservative -- really! It's true! -- but he says a few reasonable things about climate science and suddenly he's a secret liberal in a Republican tie. It's really silly.

DeSean Jackson is making $600,000 this season

2011-12-02T10:47:00.003-05:00

Now, I know. We live in extremely difficult times. $600,000 is an awful lot of money. One could do worse. But let's admit, at that salary, DeSean Jackson is woefully underpaid, and watched as the team that employs him spent all offseason like a drunken sailor and then looked at him and said, "Oh right, you. Well, you're just going to have to deal. Sorry."

And Jackson also makes his living playing football, a profession where the window for earning is incredibly small. Jackson only needs to look in his same locker room to see the cautionary tale for playing before you get a contract. Fellow wide receiver Steve Smith was the first Giants pro-bowler at the position in a generation. Playing on his rookie deal, he was one good season from a lucrative long-term contract extension before a disastrous knee injury put his career in jeopardy. Smith is playing on a one-year deal this year -- that ironically pays him MORE than Jackson -- and will likely be working for a new team again next year after an unimpressive 2011. Perhaps another full year of rehab and Smith will regain his Pro Bowl form, or maybe he won't, and he'll be out of the game and trying to figure out exactly what it is he's supposed to do now.

So is Jackson's sulking on the sideline the wisest contract negotiating strategy? Likely no, but can't we empathize a little?

I know, not really. He's just kind of a quitter. Still...

Why don't Republican primary voters think the conservative John Huntsman is conservative

2011-12-01T17:08:00.002-05:00

From Ross Douthat of the NY Times:

Huntsman is branded as the Republican field’s lonely moderate, of course, which is one reason why he’s current languishing at around 3 percent in the polls. But as Michael Brendan Dougherty noted in a summertime profile for the American Conservative, Huntsman’s record as Utah’s governor isn’t “just to the right of other moderates, it is to the right of most conservatives.”

Huntsman has none of Romney’s health care baggage, and unlike the former Massachusetts governor, he didn’t spend the last decade flip-flopping on gun rights, immigration and abortion. Meanwhile, on many of the highest-profile issues of the primary season (the individual mandate, Paul Ryan’s House budget, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), he has arguably been more consistently conservative than Gingrich.

At the same time, because Huntsman is perceived as less partisan than his rivals, he has better general election prospects. The gears and tumblers of my colleague Nate Silver’s predictive models give Huntsman a 55 percent chance of knocking off the incumbent even if the economy grows at a robust 4 percent, compared to Romney’s 40 percent.

In theory, then, Huntsman seems like he could occupy the sweet spot that Gingrich claims to have all to himself. In practice, though, his campaign to date has been an unmitigated disaster.

What's interesting about Huntsman to me, is that he literally holds only a few moderate positions, but he often espouses his views in a very reasonable sounding way. As a result, he's somehow been dismissed as basically a liberal, which is completely not the case.

It is weird to watch though, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that Huntsman would not only be the most electable Republican candidate, he'd likely also be the most conservative. Thank goodness they can't seem to figure that out.

When conservatives and liberals agree: Family values edition

2011-11-30T17:36:00.002-05:00

So wait, what is the problem here?

Mitt Romney and the flip flop tag

2011-11-30T17:20:00.002-05:00

I certainly won't be the first to point out the parallels between this election and 2004, and particularly between Mitt Romney and John Kerry.

Both received really luke warm receptions from the base of their parties, but both were seen as the most "electable" of the candidates available, and faced extremely vulnerable incumbents. Though, it is kind of humorous almost that Obama is seen as more vulnerable based on the economic conditions, much of which were inherited problems, while Bush's first term saw 9/11, the start of the Iraq War and a brief recession of his own -- naturally, some of those issues were beyond his control, as well. Nonetheless, the similarities of the two election cycles are striking.

Like every Democrat, I watched in anger at the constant use of the "flip-flopper" charge against John Kerry by the Bush campaign, but mostly because of how relentless it was, and that it seemed to be their only legitimate line of attack. But the fact of the matter was that it was a somewhat legitimate charge. Sure, every politician is forced to change their views based on political considerations, but I didn't totally disagree with the assessment that there was something a bit inauthentic about Kerry. And I can imagine him getting as tongue tied trying to answer a simple question as Romney did above. Ironically enough, Kerry's moments like this were always in the name of pleasing more conservative voters, whereas Romney just can't find any way to convince the zealots of his party to even consider him.

Of course, Europe may well collapse, sending the U.S. back into recession, making Obama a certain failure and the whole thing moot. But to date, the similarities to 2004 and the clear weakness of the GOP field have to be reason for optimism. It's still hard to see any of these guys actually winning.

When conservatives and liberals agree: War on Drugs edition ctd.

2011-11-30T17:16:00.003-05:00

This is an issue we really should all be able to agree on. Good for Christie.

Urban Meyer is a deeply principled man

2011-11-30T14:52:00.001-05:00

Q. Can you just talk about the sheer emotion of walking away from a school that’s driven you, and then the emotion when you decided to let the door be cracked for a return?

COACH URBAN MEYER: A very emotional day, not knowing that crack is still there. I don’t know that door is still there. But what I didn’t want to have happen, and I made this clear to Jeremy, if I am able to go coach, I want to coach at one place, the University of Florida. It would be a travesty, it would be ridiculous to all of a sudden come back and get the feeling back, get the health back, feel good again and then all of a sudden go throw some other colors on my shirt and go coach. I don’t want to do that. I have too much love for this University and these players and for what we’ve built.

Defense spending

2011-11-30T14:45:00.002-05:00

I've often felt that liberal denouncements of defense spending are sometimes as hypocritical as conservatives love for it. After all, defense spending naturally does create jobs. The argument that if we didn't spend so much on defense we could use that money for more worthwhile projects has merit, but it should be understood that it means moving people who are employed in defense and hopefully making up for it by employing them in other industries. On the other hand, conservatives often cry about job loss when defense spending is cut, but don't seem to make the same connection when calling for spending cuts on, oh say, anything fucking else.

Nonetheless, Matthew Yglesias cites this, which suggests that defense spending is actually uniquely ineffective when it comes to job creation:

As everyone knows, conservative politicians hate Keynesian economics and no that the government can't create jobs, especially not by spending money. The exception, of course, is spending money on the military where suddenly "defense" spending becomes a critical jobs program. The hypocrisy is galling, but are Armed Keynesians incorrect? Via Robert Farley a study from Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier finds that defense spending does indeed create jobs under recession conditions but that "$1 billion spent on each of the domestic spending priorities will create substantially more jobs within the U.S. economy than would the same $1 billion spent on the military" with "investments in clean energy, health care and education."

Interesting.

Waterboarding is torture, America doesn't torture, so waterboarding isn't torture

2011-11-30T14:38:00.002-05:00

This seems to be the conservative view:

Waterboarding is by every technical rule not torture. [Applause] Waterboarding is actually something we’ve done with our own pilots in order to get them used to the idea to what interrogation is like. It’s not — I’m not saying it’s not bad, and it’s not difficult, it’s not frightening. I’m just saying that under the normal rules internationally it’s not torture.

I think the right balance is that a prisoner can only be waterboarded at the direction of the president in a circumstance which the information was of such great importance that we thought it was worth the risk of doing it and I do that frankly only out of concern for world opinion. But we do not want to be known as a country that capriciously mistreats human beings.

This is 100% not true. Waterboarding has long been considered torture, has been proven so in numerous courts and
I'd be fine with that and willing to accept that rather than start throwing people in jail. It was a time of great terror. Horrible mistakes were made as a result. I can live with that.

Actual assaults on freedoms don't get much play

2011-11-30T11:11:00.003-05:00

This sounds scarier to me than the idea of the government paying for my healthcare:

The Senate voted Tuesday to keep a controversial provision to let the military detain terrorism suspects on U.S. soil and hold them indefinitely without trial -- prompting White House officials to reissue a veto threat.

The measure, part of the massive National Defense Authorization Act, was also opposed by civil libertarians on the left and right. But 16 Democrats and an independent joined with Republicans to defeat an amendment by Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) that would have killed the provision, voting it down with 61 against, and 37 for it.

"I'm very, very, concerned about having U.S. citizens sent to Guantanamo Bay for indefinite detention," said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of the Senate's most conservative members.

Paul's top complaint is that a terrorism suspect would get just one hearing where the military could assert that the person is a suspected terrorist -- and then they could be locked up for life, without ever formally being charged. The only safety valve is a waiver from the secretary of defense.

"It's not enough just to be alleged to be a terrorist," Paul said, echoing the views of the American Civil Liberties Union. "That's part of what due process is -- deciding, are you a terrorist? I think it's important that we not allow U.S. citizens to be taken."

It's funny, I'm getting ready to have a child, and I find myself wishing I lived in one of those countries that subsidized day care. After all, it's very difficult and expensive to work while having a child because of the need to have someone watch this kid of yours. You know, so it doesn't die while you're sitting at the office. But I imagine that any effort for government subsidized day care would be seen as a threat on freedom itself, there'd be cries that your babies would be put into indoctrination camps and made to be gay or what have you.

And yet, there's the real thing above. The real deal when it comes to a threat on liberty. It doesn't really get more blatant than that, the ability for your government to declare you a terrorist and send you to a tiny island in the Caribbean for as long as they see fit, and it garners very a peep.

Which isn't to say I don't understand why. Most people -- like me too -- just assume this will never happen to them. Just hope we're right about that.

Michael Jackson's drug dealer goes to jail

2011-11-30T10:59:00.002-05:00

Dr. Conrad Murray receives four years in prison:

Dr. Conrad Murray, the physician convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the 2009 death of Michael Jackson, was sentenced to four years, the maximum he was facing, though how many days he will actually spend behind bars remains unclear. The sentencing comes three weeks after a jury found Dr. Murray guilty

I really think this story is being reported poorly. Conrad Murray was not Michael Jackson's doctor, he was his drug dealer. He didn't pay this man so much money because of his impressive medical acumen, he paid him so handsomely because it gave him unfettered access to the pharmaceutical drugs he'd become hooked on. Murray was his drug dealer. You don't pay a doctor millions a year to be his only patient because he takes your blood pressure in a vastly superior way to other primary care physicians, you pay him so handsomely so you can get whatever little cocktail of drugs you happen to have a hankering one, and maybe tell you about totally new, totally awesome-er drugs on the horizon.

So when a judge condemns Murray's brand of medicine, he should be more accurate about what he's upset about. This wasn't a doctor mistreating a patient, it was about a drug dealer losing a customer. The guy didn't mistreat Jackson, he did exactly what he was paid to do for him.

Yao Ming starts a winery

2011-11-30T10:58:00.001-05:00

This is kind of awesome:

From the basketball court to the tasting room? That's the latest move from recently retired NBA star Yao Ming, who has started his own Napa Valley wine company: Yao Family Wines. This isn't the first venture into the business world for 31-year-old Ming, who also owns the pro basketball team Shanghai Sharks.

Under the brand name YAO MING, Yao Family Wines has released its first wine -- a 2009 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon -- which will be immediately available for distribution in China. Capitalizing on the regions' wine boom, Ming's label intends to cater to the top tier of the Chinese market. The first 5,000-case production is priced at 1,775 yuan (US $289) per bottle.

It's good to have money. Fun for Yao.

In which I feel much differently about Nick Evans

2011-11-30T10:48:00.002-05:00

From Amazin Ave:

But mostly it's the fun we had pleading the case for a decent ballplayer to whom we happened to develop an irrational, emotional attachment. And now Nick "Who?" Evans has signed a minor league deal with the Pirates, whose logo has officially been changed to this. It's a positive move for Evans, who was endlessly shuffled back and forth to Triple-A over the past two seasons, grabbing a few at-bats here, clearing waivers there, collecting a big league salary here, riding the bus to Buffalo there.

We know fans are often irrational, which naturally develops certain quirks. I could tell you for hours why I don't actually want the Knicks to get Dwight Howard or Chris Paul, which sounds weird, but it's true, and is the result of all sorts of odd biases and peculiar preferences to how I like to see my favorite teams built.

And so I can totally understand a set of fans latching on to Nick Evans, a player the Mets could never seem to get rid of, nor play often enough to make a real judgement on. He was a likeable chap, who always seemed like maybe he should be playing on such terrible teams of recent years. But my own feeling of the guy is different, I kind of can't stand him -- as a ballplayer, of course, I'm sure he's a fine chap -- because for me Nick Evans came to represent so much of the Mets futility. Why? Because how was it we kept having to rely on Nick Evans. Come September there he was. It was always the, "Oh, we're officially out of it" moment whenever you saw Evans name in the lineup. It meant we'd run out of options, so let's give that guy hitting .300 in Triple A another shot.

It reminds me of all those years that Joe McEwing was on the team. Sure, some developed an affinity for the scrapper. I couldn't stand him. I just found it unfathomable how long it took to find a replacement for such a terribly mediocre player. Really? We sill need McEwing. This hasn't been fixed yet? And so it was with Evans. I just couldn't believe we still had a need for Nick Evans.

And now he's on to Pittsburgh, a place where he probably should have been all along. So we wish him well, but no, he will not be missed.

Do Giants players just get sick of Tom Coughlin?

2011-11-29T17:13:00.002-05:00

Count me as a Tom Coughlin supporter. I'd be perfectly happy to see him be the team's coach until he decides he no longer wants the job, but it's impossible to deny the team's penchant for falling apart during his tenure.

For whatever reason -- and each season does seem unique -- the Giants crumble in the second half of seasons regularly. Worse, to my mind, is the number of blowouts in that span. The Saints have spanked us three times in the Coughlin era, always in games that were supposed to be important. Similarly, the Packers blew us out a year ago, as did the Panthers a season prior. The Giants don't just fall apart at season's end, they completely combust.

And I do wonder if part of it is just the relentlessness of the head man's personality. I tend to think the players respect him, believe he's a good coach that has them well prepared, but I do wonder if that personality just wears you the fuck down toward the end of the a long season. How long can you really listen to that guy before wanting to just lay down and die. He just seems relentless.

Wrong to pay college athletes?

2011-11-29T16:53:00.004-05:00

So says Jonathan Chait, and I think he makes a lot of sense:

From NY Mag:

The notion that we should pay college athletes has been floating around for years, and it can attach itself to any sordid event involving college sports. The trouble is that, while college athletics does need reform, paying players bears no relationship to the purported goal of helping protect college athletes. The abuses in college athletics – and they are real – stem from the growing imposition of market forces. Institutionalizing that ethos would almost certainly make all those abuses worse. That’s why the constantly expressed demand that we put college athletes on professional salary is so ill-formed. It is not so much a plan as an expression of free-floating contempt for college sports.

The whole thing is worth a read.

I've long felt that the system of college athletics makes a ton of sense to me. It would be relatively impossible to actually pay the players, and the revenue is only there based on the college-system. If you removed college athletics from the university system it would simply be minor league sports and the revenues would dry up. The connections to the schools is a big driver of the revenue. And yet, we do have to do something. So handshakes come with cash, cars are leased out favorably and all sorts of other perks (limitless supply of coeds?) are delivered. I don't know, it sort of works.

That being said, Chait suggests some reforms that also make a lot of sense to me. Worth checking out.

An ode to humans

2011-11-29T13:51:00.007-05:00

It’s often easy to look at the world and lament about the state of the human race. Between war, racism, inequality, and reality television, it sometimes would appear that we human beings aren’t the most useful bunch. It’s difficult to watch the Real Housewives of New Jersey and conclude, “Well, I think it’s safe to say this is truly God’s chosen species.”

But I’d like to say that it’s about time to give a pretty rousing applause to all human beings. Take a bow everyone. Really, I mean it. No, seriously, actually bow. Right now.

Why am I feeling so bullish on the human race, why would I like to take a few minutes to congratulate ourselves on the state of human accomplishments? For one, because I don’t think we take the time to do it often enough, and allow me to list a host of other reasons, as well.

First, we completely take it for granted now, but shouldn’t we at some point take a second to appreciate how completely, how thoroughly, and how conclusively we kicked the holy hell out of the animal kingdom? I think so. We mopped the floor with them.

Look, I’m generally an environmentalist, I believe in protecting the planet, and though I would never be mistaken for a PETA member, I prescribe generally to the idea that more ethical treatment of animals would be a good thing, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s fair to congratulate ourselves for kicking their sweet furry assess all over this planet.

Because by now we’ve so thoroughly proved our dominance it seems cruel to kick them around, but let’s not forget that when we first came on the scene it was a case of survival of the fittest like anyone else. Sure, some people feel we were biblically advantaged, that God intended us to rule, but in reality, when human beings first walked the earth we were naked as the day we were born, completely unarmed, profoundly stupid about the world around us, and there was no guarantee that we would come to rule the planet.

I mean, we weren’t as fast or fierce as many of the animals around, we had no readily available shelter, and our bodies seem completely unprepared for earth’s climate (ie. sunburns in summer and frostbite in winter, we had no reason to believe that gortex and sunscreen would soon be so readily available in only 100,000 short years!). And sure we’re smart now, but we must have been awfully dumb then. To the first men and women of earth the most common thought amongst them must have been, “What the hell was that?!?”

Lightning strike? “What the hell was that?!” Earthquake? “What the hell was that?!” Volcano…you get the idea.

And look at some of the beasts we encountered, forget just lions, and tigers, and bears oh my, but how about rhinos, and hippos, and elephants running by. All of them had enormous physical advantages, and we subdued them quickly with nothing but our minds.

Move aside gators, we’re coming through by boat; out of the way silly cheetahs, we fear not your menacing growls; pipe down rattlesnake or we’ll swing you by the neck. No matter the foe, we whipped them all with little else besides wit and guile, and a few push-ups.

Moreover, we didn’t simply beat them, we made them food. “Hmm, what’s that thing over there?”

“Looks like bacon to me.”

“Excellent idea, good sir.”

I say kudos fair humans. Brilliant.

But many of us now look around and it’s hard not to be pessimistic as we flail about, seemingly inept at being able to solve the complex problems of our time. The increasingly obvious effects of climate change remind us of our resilient addiction to that slimy substance known as oil and our inability to wean ourselves off it to solve perhaps the most vexing problem we face.

But am I the only one still somewhat impressed with that oil discovery in the first place? I wouldn’t have thought of that. We found a black sludge oozing out of the ground and we somehow figured out how to power the earth with it. I say well done. “But didn’t it turn out to be so dirty that it threatens our way of life?” Well, sure, but still, it worked for a while. That counts for something, doesn’t it?

And while it’s so easy to look at the icecaps melting, or watch in horror at our weapons of mass or moderate destruction and wonder if our contribution to the planet has been for good, let’s not forget about all of the immense accomplishments.

We saved Magic Johnson, figured out how to make boobs BIGGER, paused live television AND put it in high definition, solved the mystery of the flaccid penis, put a monkey in space AND a man on the moon. We invented the corn dog, the toaster oven, the electric car (sort of), radar, THE INTERNET, things that go really, really fast, the remote control, the concept of “wireless,” this thing, the chia pet, moving walkways at airports, the stapler, and lots and lots and lots of really cool amazing things.

So sure we’re starting to get a little too fat, sure we seem content on destroying this beautiful earth we inherited, yes, we can’t seem to get along for even one second together, but every once in a while let’s take a moment to admire the ingenuity of the pop tart or any other of our wonderful accomplishments and let us not forget that human beings have produced some absolutely staggering things.

I’d like to see you do it, animal kingdom.

Running

2011-11-28T15:58:00.008-05:00

I went running today.

I go running about once a week for about thirty minutes, or as the surgeon general would say: Never. Yes, by any reasonable measure, my running amounts to almost nothing. This is especially true when put into the context of all the actual nothing that I do.

You see, I'm not a runner at heart. I'm a sitter. Although, even sitting pales in comparison to its blessed big sister: Lying down. I never feel more natural, more in tune with who exactly it is I am then when I'm feet up, lying down, immobilized in comfort. I believe it's what I was truly meant to do.

And yet, there are those runs. Those meager weekly runs that are a sad, almost symbolic gesture to actual fitness. Although, in fairness, the expectations for these runs are far more than that.

I'll usually run early in the week. This is not because it happens to be the time it fits best in my schedule, but rather because each week I intend these runs not as a mere jog, but as the start of a life-altering routine. It is the start of something. A change in my very way of life. They mark the first steps toward the type of physical fitness that has eluded me my entire life. Each one is preceded by a brief pep talk, aimed usually at my man breasts, "This is it. This is the time when it all happens. Your time is up boys!"

What's going to start with a short run, will morph into a way of life. I'll become one of those people, those people who show up at reunions looking thirty pounds lighter and talking about all the marathons they've run. "Well, I just finished Boston, then it's on to New York, then Denver, plus I'm thinking about running the Itidarod on all-fours just to show those fucking dogs who's boss." That last one is more rare.

Of course, this never takes root. Instead, I throw a mental parade for my efforts. I ran! What an enterprising young fellow I am! I could so easily have not run, but because of my discipline and courage I got on those jogging shoes and made the effort. Surely, my waist line is now comfortably within a healthy range. To celebrate, I pamper myself with food and drink. I masturbate with impunity, dare I say with INTEGRITY even. After all, I've earned it!

The problem is really one of motivation. I've never been fit, but I've never really been THAT fat either. I've always looked like the "after" of a Biggest Loser contestant. Sure, I may look overweight, but what if I'd just lost 300 lbs? Well then I'm a miracle. I'm a God damn inspiration! So that's how I choose to think of myself. Yes, I'm about 25 lbs. over my ideal weight, but I'm about 300 short of what I COULD be. My wholly dissatisfying and downright unpleasant looking physique is another man's lifelong dream. Who am I to spit on his dreams?

But I guess more fundamentally, I resent the whole having to worry about my weight thing. I really don't understand why my body is not able to adequately regulate between what's coming in and what's being done and make the necessary fucking adjustments. What is with all the hoarding? I understand that evolutionarily speaking our bodies are set up for times of food scarcity as opposed to the genuinely new concept of excess food, but how much shit do I have to shovel in there before my body realizes that it doesn't have to worry about it? Let the fat go. We'll be fine. I promise.

Similarly, I don't feel that guilty for being counted among the most obese nation in world history, given that there's a gazillion-dollar industry dedicated to perfecting the science of flavor so that food now literally explodes in my mouth. Sure, we all laugh when KFC replaces bread with chicken breasts, or McDonald's serves a bacon, egg and cheese on pancakes and scoff at who would eat such a monstrosity. Until we actually try one, and then it's, "Holy fuck. You God damn geniuses!"

And they get us when we're young. I don't much care for the food at McDonald's. I find I've grown out of their flavors, but when I so much as see those golden arches I get a near irresistible urge to go in there. I kind of want to go in there now having just written the word McDonald's. And I literally don't enjoy the food. Immediately after, I shake my head and wonder again why it was I so desperately wanted to go in here. "Wait, why did I just eat this really shitty hamburger? There are so many better burgers than this. Did I just shit myself?" I've actually been brainwashed. It's pretty amazing.

Worse, let's face it, to eat healthy is to deny yourself. And life is not often worth the denial. Is my life really so great that I can afford to pass up on delicious? Delicious trumps almost everything in my life. Delicious is what keeps me from ordering a skinless chicken breast on a gluten-free bialy for lunch. There's so many other things in life less enjoyable than delicious that it's hard to rob yourself of delicious opportunities just in the name of vanity.

Of course, I'm also married, so my personal view of physical fitness at this point is to just maintain myself enough so as to not repulse my wife. That's the bar I've set. And she knows to let me know if I ever start to blur the line.

"Umm, honey, I'm a little concerned about that 'flap' there on the left side. Whattaya say we do something about that?"

"Got it."

But in the end maybe the problem is our sedentary lifestyles in general. Maybe this whole civilization thing was just a huge waste of time. We wouldn't have to spend all this time running in place on robotic torture devices of our own design for no reason if we were out hunting for food every day. Really, what was so wrong with that? And to replace it with the idea of the white collar professional? After all, it wasn't so long ago that we all had the same job. It was just GET FOOD. That's all there was.

"Hey, what are you going to do today?"

"I'm going to try and get some food. What the fuck are you talking about? What do you mean what am I going to DO? It's either that, or fucking starve."

"Oh ... me too."

And we all had the same hobby in those days. It was just GET LAID. For work, we got food, and for fun, we got laid. Why did we ever need any more than that? Did anyone really want to be the regional account manager for a retail paper clip supplier in the midwest when they could just be eating and fucking all day long? How did we let this happen?

Which brings us back to running. I went running today. It did very little for my personal health, or even my mental well-being. I likely won't run tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after. But I will run again, and maybe one day I will even be a runner.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I really need to lie down.

When conservatives and liberals agree: War on Drugs edition

2011-11-28T14:52:00.003-05:00

It's pretty sweet...

Rethinking Tim Tebow

2011-11-28T14:34:00.004-05:00

Watching Tim Tebow play is a unique experience. It's becoming almost like an Ingmar Bergman film, where it's hard to know exactly what to make of what you're watching.

Take Sunday's game against San Diego -- a team, it should be pointed out, that isn't good. Tebow completed only nine passes for only 143 yards. That's a pretty unacceptable level of production for an NFL quarterback, or really any quarterback outside of Pop Warner. "But he runs!" you say. Well, he ran it a staggering 23 times against the Chargers, but gained only 67 yards for a 3.0 yard per carry average. There was just no phase of the game in which he was all that productive.

And yet, there's no doubt, as someone who's admittedly rooting against him vociferously, there is something terrifying about him in the closing moments of a game. Perhaps it's just a matter of how desperately I'd like to see him fail, versus the seeming inevitability of his eventual success. He's as unafraid to take it and run in a big moment as perhaps any quarterback I've seen. And because of how strong he is, there's less of a fear of injury that you have when say a Michael Vick gets loose. He's just dangerous at the end of games. It's true. I hate it too.

Which still isn't to say that having Tebow as your starting quarterback is a long-term good idea. I wonder what any of his fans outside of Denver would be willing to trade from their own teams in order to acquire him. I'd suspect not all that much ( Although, for a lock of his hair, they'd give up just about anything). He's still just not very good for large stretches of games, and is getting an awful lot of the credit for a Broncos defense that is suddenly shutting people down.

But, I must admit, he's more interesting than I imagined he'd be, and one does have to give him credit for what he's doing. It really is ... something.

Miley Cyrus: Occupy Wall-Street-er?

2011-11-28T14:26:00.002-05:00

I've long lamented that more artists don't say anything political these days. Sure, it's not so hard to imagine, the financial rewards are such that rocking the proverbial boat doesn't make too much financial sense for stars at a certain level, but it's still been kind of depressing.

So count me rather shocked that Miley Cyrus of all folks would step up to the mantel and release a video in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement. I'm sure some will dismiss the girl for hypocrisy. A teenage gazillionaire whose father was a recording star of his own -- though in my mind, I'd be hard-pressed to view being the daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus as anything other than a handicap -- is not exactly a card carrying member of the 99%.

But whatever. Sure, the song is shit, but I still am kind of impressed. It's a ballsy move.

Urban Meyer to Ohio State, poor Ishii

2011-11-28T12:05:00.002-05:00

I have a friend named Ishii who's about as big an Ohio State fan as you can imagine. He loves Ohio State. For him, it's about as pure a passion as he had ever known. A high school defensive coordinator, he wore the sweater vest during games in homage to his hero Jim Tressel. All was well.

Then, of course, it all fell apart. His idol resigned in disgrace, the program thrust into disarray.

But now, Urban Meyer is coming and he should rejoice, right?

Well, no. You see, he despises Urban Meyer. Meyer, Tim Tebow and the Florida Gators destroyed his national championship dreams in 2006. But they did much more than that, they ruined his favorite Buckeyes team to date. That team was beloved in his heart, Troy Smith was his favorite player and Meyer's Gators crushed them like bugs. From then on, Meyer was not just the enemy, he was the antithesis of everything he believed. His longed for the day when Jim Tressel and his sweater vest would dance in the end zones of the Gators' nightmares.

And now, he'll be forced to root for this man. It's one of those fan experiences that I don't know if too many people even feel anymore. I get the sense most folks in Ohio are like, "Awesome, we have a great coach." And I get that, it's the long result of guys switching teams, coaches joining rivals to the point that all the talk of "rivals" is just meaningless drivel, not that it ever really wasn't. It's the same spirit that has Knicks fans somehow clamoring for Phil Jackson.

And I guess it's fine. Sports is supposed to be just fun, after all. But it also kind of sucks. I don't want to ever root for Phil Jackson, and I feel for my friend who has to swallow his pride and root for someone he despises. Sports really makes us whores in the end. Now, more than ever.

So now the NBA is back, will the Knicks actually be any good

2011-11-28T11:54:00.002-05:00

From Seth Rosenthal at NY Mag:

Looking outward, New York will contend only for those in the shallow end of the free agent pool. The Post named a few veteran centers, including Kwame Brown, Tony Battie, Theo Ratliff, and Aaron Gray as potential cheap options, though pursuit of any of those fellows will depend on the outlook for Harrellson and Jordan (not to mention competition from other suitors). If Carter and Mason are allowed to walk, the Knicks might also seek some back-court help, as the depth behind Chauncey Billups and Landry Fields amounts to Toney Douglas, the newcomer Shumpert, and whatever Andy Rautins has to offer.

It's very funny, as the lockout dragged on I got increasingly nervous of losing out on the first Knicks season to be excited about in a decade. And yet, now that we're here, I'm not sure I'm quite so excited about the actual team.

The Knicks are unlikely to make any move of consequence -- I'd beg for a DeAndre Jordan signing -- as they look to keep cap space to pursue guys like Dwight Howard or Chris Paul. And I know that it would be exciting to have Paul, Anthony and Stoudemire, but somehow the whole thing has me limp. I still find myself missing the early days of Amar'e and his merry men, the sense that the Knicks were building something around Stoudemire and a slew of young, home-grown talent. I still miss that idea.

It's kind of funny too to see the Knicks pursue a strategy to compete with the Miami Heat, with everyone seemingly already forgetting that it was actually the Dallas Mavericks that did win it all. The team that had one superstar in Dirk Nowitzki and then surrounded him with the right compliment of pieces to take home a championship. Which team would you rather be rooting for? Something just feels dirty about this fantasy team building that is all the vogue.

For this season, I'm oddly not that optimisitc. I'm becoming more concerned that maybe Anthony is little but a bunch of hype, a volume scorer who requires too many shots to get all his points, and a guy whose all-around game just isn't quite superstar. I also just don't really like him, I'm sorry, I don't.

None of which is to say this season isn't more exciting than any in recent memory, I just can't shake this sneaking suspicion that it's going to be a colossal letdown.

Are Obama's problems psychological more than economic?

2011-11-28T11:39:00.002-05:00

I find arguments like these very unconvincing in regards to Barack Obama's reelection chances, or as a critique of his presidency. This from Justin Frank in The New Republic:

First, some psychological preliminaries. The President's detractors are suggesting that he doesn't feel enough passion or emotion. But a basic tenet of psychoanalysis is that everyone has rage. The question is what one does with that rage, and why.

On a psychoanalytic level, Obama is someone who tries to disconnect himself from fury through intellectual exertion and by strenuously trying to keep matters in clear focus. He doesn’t simply contain his rage or hold it inside his mind; he dissociates–a psychoanalytic term for disconnecting thought from feeling. This allows him to operate in a purely intellectual state, protected from the disruptive influences of excessive passions.

I just don't buy the idea that if Barack Obama got angry at Republicans they would be more likely to except a deficit reduction deal on his terms. The economy is stagnant, I think you could argue to the extent that there was much more Obama could have done to improve it -- though likely some of the actual things he could have done involve nominations to the Federal Reserve, and other less talked about aspects of the nations monetary policy -- but it would appear to me that the Republicans have a direct incentive not to compromise with Obama. And I largely agree with this Jonathan Chait argument, that the Obama administration actually attempted a variety of different tacts to little avail because all would require a compromise with Barack Obama, or the socialist, anti-colonialist Kenyan muslim infiltrator set to destroy our very way of life.

Now as a liberal myself, I'm naturally angry at some of the gridlock and Washington and my sense that it is the GOP at fault, so I can sympathize with people who want to see the president share their angry. I'm just not convinced that it would have made a lick of difference, nor that his psychological predisposition toward calmness is actually some inherent defect that makes him unfit for the office. I tend to think just the opposite actually.

What should Obama have done?

2011-11-23T17:51:00.002-05:00

Jonathan Chait gets at Obama's dilemma when it comes to negotiating some kind of bipartisan deal in regards to cutting the deficit:

Okay, so if Obama openly endorses a bipartisan plan, he’s killing it. And if he keeps his distance, he’s also killing it. What if he tries to directly negotiate a deficit reduction plan behind closes doors? Well, Obama did that, too, this last summer. Republicans opposed it as well.

And then this:

The Republican Party has a two-decade record of perfect anti-tax absolutism. Democrats have implored them over and over and over again to accept some kind of agreement to trade entitlement cuts for higher revenues. They have offered the deal in every conceivable fashion. The answer is always no. Asking once again, in a slightly different or more urgent way, will not change the answer. This is not Green Eggs And Ham.

I think this gets this exactly right. It would seem to me that Obama tried every conceivable maneuver to try and make this work, but Republicans just aren't going to negotiate anything that he can then put his name to. In some respects, it's hard to blame them. They can read the tea leaves as well as anyone and see quite clearly that they have him on the ropes for 2012. On the other hand, it still kind of blows.

Adorable racism: Pat Robertson edition

2011-11-23T16:38:00.003-05:00

I know this is an example of rather stunningly casual racism at work, but I also find Pat Robertson adorable here. He asks, "Is that a black thing?" so clumsily, but well-intentioned, it's hilarious. Though seriously? You've never HEARD of mac and cheese. Never seen it around anywhere, walked past it on a buffet line, nothing? It's just a completely foreign concept. I find that rather hard to believe, though I guess it wouldn't surprise me if Pat Robertson ate nothing but mayonnaise sandwiches.

Also, as a white person, I'm not really ready to give up mac and cheese as definitionally not-white. It's delicious, and we have as much right to it as everyone else.

Urban Meyer is the next Ohio State Coach ... maybe, I guess, wait is he?

2011-11-23T13:49:00.003-05:00

From an espn.com report:

"I have not been offered any job nor is there a deal in place," Meyer said in a statement. "I plan on spending Thanksgiving with my family and will not comment on this any further."

"The concerns are still there," Meyer told The Gainesville Sun. "No. 1: My health. No. 2: My family. No. 3: The state of college football. I've done some research into the second one. I've found that it is possible to have balance between your job and your family, that there are coaches out there who are doing it.

"I'm in a good place right now mentally and physically. So if something happens with Ohio State, I'll have a decision to make. But there has been no interview. There has been no offer to make a decision about.

I mean, this is such one of those, "I'm not even dignifying that report..." moments where you know he's basically already taken the job. Urban Meyer is probably the next coach at OSU, and yet we all have to go through with this dance nonetheless.

The whole "I've done some research" portion is also rather amusing. Who knew it could be possible to be a football coach and say hello to the wife and kids every once in a while?

For me personally, this is a hilarious and wonderful development, as I have a close friend who's about as big an Ohio State fan as I know, but who despises Urban Meyer on a cosmic level after Florida's annihilation of one of his favorite Buckeye teams of all-time in the 2006 National Championship game. There's really no worse test as a fan. I mean, after all, what can he do, he's going to root for his team, and they are going to win, meaning he will somehow have to come to terms with liking someone he considered a sworn enemy.

We're all whores in this fan racket, there's just no way around it.

Oh right, Mariano Rivera will retire at some point.

2011-11-23T13:37:00.002-05:00

Here's Mariano Rivera talking to the NY Post:

“I don’t know what will happen,’’ said the Yankees closer, who turns 42 Tuesday and has one year and $15 million remaining on his contract. “I have one year left. I might call it over. I will know more in spring training.’’

It's funny, right? Mariano Rivera will retire at some point. It's really more amazing that he hasn't already, and yet it somehow still seems far away. Rivera has just rolled right along for so long now it's hard to really picture him not pitching anymore, but sure enough, that day appears to be inching closer.

For the Yankees and their fans, I'm sure it will be a tearful, for the rest of us it will no doubt mark some sweet relief. Why don't you try to win with Braden Looper every once in a while.

The old Brunell

2011-11-23T13:14:00.003-05:00

From ESPNNewYork:

This marked the first time this season that backup Mark Brunell received first-team reps in practice. Sanchez will start Sunday in a virtual must-win against the Buffalo Bills and, even though he's in no danger of losing his job, this mini-shakeup was Ryan's way of sending a message -- and showing some tough love.

"He's not happy with me," Ryan said with a smile, adding, "He hasn't talked to me -- for real. He has not said one word."

I have to say I don't much understand this tactic. Could somehow dragging out poor Mark Brunell to make a few handoffs in practice somehow spark the Jets offense? I suppose it's a relatively benign gesture, aimed at a guy in Sanchez who does appear to have a strong, competitive spirit -- as you might imagine most professional athletes would -- so perhaps it somehow gets the best out of him.

But I don't know, it also just seems like the kind of unnecessary news item that the Jets don't really need. One of Ryan's strengths has been to take most of the pressure off his team by placing it on himself, this move kind of heaps more of it on Sanchez at a time when it would appear to be the last thing the guy needs.

Are fans really this sensitive?

2011-11-23T11:44:00.003-05:00

These comments from Brandon Jacobs seem to be causing some kind of a kerfuffle:

From the NJ Ledger:

"That’s the best thing that they do here is boo," the running back said after the loss. "I’m not worried about that. I’ve been here for years, that’s just what you got and you’ve got to deal with it."

In Wednesday's interview, Jacobs said players don't want to hear boos from the home crowd.

"We go out there and we give our all," he said. "We practice hard everyday. We do our best to go out there and win and try to give our fans a good show. We don’t want to hear that. We don’t want to hear anybody, as we try to work hard and overcome adversity as it is already and then make it even harder for us to overcome our adversity when they do things like that. As a player, we don’t want to hear that."

Look, for an athlete attacking the fans is never a smart move. One can probably be sure Jacobs will hear plenty of boo birds the next time he's trolling the sidelines at MetLife Stadium -- God, I fucking hate writing that, I don't think I'll ever get used to it.

And yet, it does feel like one of those stories that picks up steam because the Giants are struggling, so now it fits into the narrative of a team in turmoil and the media seems to want to make sure I'm upset about this. But really, I don't much care. Jacobs is having a bad year, but he's been a good player for the Giants, albeit a hot head who may or may not suffer from bipolar disorder or one of its equivalents. That's juts a hunch.

But, to be honest, the Giants really don't have one of the great home fields. It really never is all that loud in there, and the fans are quick to boo. That's just the reality, and it's not that surprising that a proud guy like Jacobs doesn't like it. Should he probably shut up given that he's having about a poor season as could be imagined, and that his 2011 salary might equal the 70,000 folks watching combined? Probably. But I don't much care either. These types of narratives are really just irritating.

How can I know who to believe when it comes to "fracking?"

2011-11-22T15:19:00.003-05:00

Here's two takes on the issue of fracking, which as I understand it is a relatively new method by which to acquire natural gas, a cleaner -- though still not really clean -- fossil fuel, that is preferable to coal:

From liberal David Sirota at Salon.com on the dangers of fracking:

In May, Duke University documented disturbingly high levels of methane in groundwater near fracking sites in Pennsylvania. Weeks later, the Environmental Working Group uncovered a 1987 agency report confirming that fracking contaminated well and groundwater in West Virginia. For decades, the industry had been able to deny this critical case study and insist fracking was perfectly safe because, as the New York Times notes, the case’s details “were sealed from the public when energy companies settled lawsuits with landowners.” Now, though, the oil and gas industry cannot issue such denials with impunity — especially considering an even more recent EPA finding that the aquifer in Pavillion, Wyo., contained “high levels of cancer-causing compounds and at least one chemical commonly used in hydraulic fracturing,” as ProPublica reported earlier this month.

Yet, despite these findings, and despite at least some factions within the oil and gas industry finally acknowledging the validity of drilling critics’ health and safety concerns, various state governments are lately helping the oil and gas industry move fracking ever closer to major cities.

And this from conservative David Brooks in the NY Times on the miracle of fracking as the perfect bridge until wind and solar energies can become more affordable:

Like every energy source, fracking has its dangers. The process involves injecting large amounts of water and chemicals deep underground. If done right, this should not contaminate freshwater supplies, but rogue companies have screwed up and there have been instances of contamination.

The wells, which are sometimes beneath residential areas, are serviced by big trucks that damage the roads and alter the atmosphere in neighborhoods. A few sloppy companies could discredit the whole sector.

These problems are real, but not insurmountable. An exhaustive study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded, “With 20,000 shale wells drilled in the last 10 years, the environmental record of shale-gas development is for the most part a good one.” In other words, the inherent risks can be managed if there is a reasonable regulatory regime, and if the general public has a balanced and realistic sense of the costs and benefits.

The reason I flagged these two is that I consider myself a person fairly well versed on the issues of the day. That is to say, I read a lot of stuff. I think as far as the average voter goes, I'm at the high end of the information spectrum. But how am I realistically expected to evaluate these two differing conclusions?

On the one hand, fracking represents an energy revolution, has created thousands of jobs and could serve as the bridge to a clean energy future. On the other, it is a scourge on society, encroaching upon our cities and is soon set to destroy us and our environment.

Now, as a liberal, I'm naturally inclined to be skeptical of claims by energy companies, the idea that this has few adverse effects on the environment just feels dubious. But am I really going to go on to try and assess the varying literature on the subject. After all, both Brooks and Sirota cite opposing highly serious sounding research to support their own claims. How can I really know what to think?

I think this is often lost in the discussion of public opinion, that is just how difficult it is for the average person to really know the right answer on the major questions of the day. Sure, maybe we should know, maybe I should have spent less time in college sticking my head in a bucket to suck out as much pot smoke as humanly possible. But I didn't do that, mainly because it was an awful lot more fun than making sure I understood the potential dangers of fracking on my ecosystem, well that and it made masturbation just THAT much better.

These things are hard. A lot of us just don't fucking know.

Defending the indefensible

2011-11-22T14:32:00.004-05:00

Matthew Yglesias touched on this in regards to the weird dynamic that emerged over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's role in the financial crisis:

What the Newtsters involvement in this mess does remind me of, however, is the strange and slightly distressing post-2008 ideological polarization of the Fannie/Freddie issue. The way this used to work is that informed people generally acknowledged that kludgy loan subsidies for homeownership were a bad idea, but political elites across the board liked it. See, for example, Newt Gingrich’s 7-figure payday. Then after the crisis hit, a lot of conservatives started wildly over-blaming Fannie/Freddie for things and in response progressives started perversely positioning themselves as Fannie/Freddie defenders.

I think you see something of the same dynamic in Megyn Kelly bizarrely rushing to defend those police officers' use of pepper spray to a group of clearly defenseless peaceful protesters at UC Davis. Admitting that those cops are acting insanely does not mean you support Occupy Wall Street, Occupy UC Davis or Occupy anything, it just means you can clearly see that that particular use of force was clearly excessive and unnecessary.

But since it happened to a group you disagree with, the Fox News crowd is forced to the defense of "their side," and the result is the truly pitiful explanation above. It really is perverse and unnecessary.

The Super-Committee and the NBA lockout

2011-11-22T13:10:00.003-05:00

From SI:

Someday, too, the players will regret their moves, step by step along the way. As of this day they view the league's final proposal as an ultimatum. As the years go by, however, they may come to realize that the proposal of a 50-50 split and other concessions was the best offer that Stern could negotiate for them, and that while trying to herd his divided owners he was essentially negotiating on behalf of the players. This statement is going to anger players and agents, but I believe it to be true: I believe Stern wanted sincerely to save the season, and that he marshaled his political capital in forcing owners to put forth a proposal that the players may be able to accept. Everyone knows that many of those owners were not happy with the deal Stern offered.

From David Brooks in the NY Times:

In these circumstances, both parties have developed minority mentalities. The Republicans feel oppressed by the cultural establishment, and Democrats feel oppressed by the corporate establishment. They embrace the mental habits that have always been adopted by those who feel themselves resisting the onslaught of a dominant culture.

Their main fear is that they will lose their identity and cohesion if their members compromise with the larger world. They erect clear and rigid boundaries separating themselves from their enemies. In a hostile world, they erect rules and pledges and become hypervigilant about deviationism. They are more interested in protecting their special interests than converting outsiders. They slowly encase themselves in an epistemic cocoon.

The first pulled quote above is from Ian Thomsen of SI on the NBA lockout describing how both sides will rue the day they failed to make a deal, while the second is from a David Brooks column on the state of the two-party system in the wake of the Super-Committee's failure to reach a deal on how to trim the national debt.

I find both takes a little bit infuriating, as it reflects a media trend to always come to a balanced conclusion. Now, that stance often makes sense. Within any dispute, there is usually fault on both sides. But in these instances, I find it hard to make that claim.

Back during the debt ceiling fiasco, Barack Obama essentially offered Republicans the moon. He offered massive spending cuts, put Medicare and Social Security on the table for cuts -- going so far as to suggest raising the eligibility ages for those programs -- in exchange for the ending of some corporate tax loopholes on things like jets and other expenditures that should have been palatable to both sides, and yes, some tax increases on millionaires. There were massive concessions in that offer, many that would have infuriated the Democratic base. But the GOP did not just simply reject the deal, they demonized it and went out of their way to intentionally embarass the President. There was no good faith in the negotiations. So now that the super-committee has failed, again with Republicans refusing to even consider some modest tax increases on the wealthiest among us, hands are thrown up with equal blame laid on both sides of the divide. It's really unfair.

The same can be said in the NBA lockout. Somehow, it's millionaires and billionaires unable to reach an equitable division of their enormous revenues due to each sides stubbornness. But the NBA players essentially agreed to go from 57% of the basketball related income (BRI) to 50%, if the owners had agreed to some of their demands in regards to the economic system that might have allowed them to save some face. But make no mistake, going from 57% to 50% is a MASSIVE concession. That's an enormous amount of money to give back. There should have been room within that for the owners side to throw them a few bones, treat them with a modicum of respect and find a way to get a deal done. There is one side, at least in this humble opinion, clearly in the wrong here.

And one wishes that sometimes it was just reported as such.

Yes, I do despise Tim Tebow his religion

2011-11-22T12:21:00.005-05:00

From ProFootball Talk:

“If you’re married, and you have a wife, and you really love your wife, is it good enough to only say to your wife, I love her, the day you get married? Or should you tell her every single day when you wake up and have the opportunity? And that’s how I feel about my relationship with Jesus Christ,” Tebow said. “It is the most important thing in my life, so every opportunity I have to tell him I love him, or I’m given an opportunity to shout him out on national TV, I’m going to take that opportunity.”

I look at it as a relationship I have with him, I want to give him the honor and glory every time I get the opportunity,” Tebow said. “And then after I give him the honor and glory I always try to give my teammates the honor and glory, and that’s how it works. Because Christ comes first in my life, and then my family, and then my teammates. I respect Jake’s opinion, and I really appreciate his compliment of calling me a winner, but I feel like every time I get the opportunity to give the Lord some praise he is due for it because what he did for me, and what he did on the cross for all of us. I really appreciate his opinion and I respect him, but I still will give all the honor and glory to the Lord because he deserves it.”

As someone with no religious beliefs of any kind, not even atheistic ones, just no thoughts on the subject whatsoever and reasonably certain that no one has the right answer, yes, this bugs me.

I've seen folks respond to the Tebow backlash by asking incredulously how it is that some people dislike Tim Tebow because of his religion? I mean, how could this be?

Well, it's quite easy.

I don't disparage this man his beliefs. Go ahead, believe what you want. But I don't have to like it. I don't have to enjoy it. He's free to speak of his abiding love for Jesus as much as he wants, and as someone who thinks he's suffering from a delusion, who generally believes that religion is a net negative on society as a whole, I'm allowed to be irritated by it. Lots of athletes are religious, lots of them immediately thank Jesus after winning games, but not all of them seemingly seek out the cameras to strike a prayerful pose. Few are as conspicuously religious as Tim Tebow. And if it's ok for much of the media to reflexively assume his religion is inherently a good thing, it's equally ok for me to be annoyed by it, just as someone might be turned off by me if -- to use the analogy -- I were on television regularly ending interviews with "And I just want to say how much I love my wife! I have the best wife in the world and she is just everything to me! Thank you to my lovely wife, who I love so much!" Could get grating, no?

Reflexively Anti-Obama

2011-11-22T12:04:00.002-05:00

From Ezra Klein:

Either way, there’s no reason Democrats should be rejecting Simpson-Bowles on behalf of the Republicans. And, to be fair, that’s not all that’s going on here: The Obama administration doesn’t like the defense cuts or Social Security reforms in Simpson-Bowles, and they’re skeptical that the tax reform process could really generate as much revenue as the document promises. So their thinking was that they could work off of the Simpson-Bowles proposal and come out with something better.

That’s pretty much what they tried to do in April. But because that plan had Obama’s name on it, it was dismissed as a liberal nonstarter. Their strategy, in other words, was a huge failure, and over the past year, they’ve watched the deficit debate move far, far, far to the right.

Whether an effort to revive Simpson-Bowles would actually mean that the plan passes or would just mean that the debate gets recentered and Republicans have to take the blame for killing the proposal is anyone’s guess. But neither outcome is a bad one for the Democrats. Or for the country.

I think this is absolutely right, but I wonder if this is uniquely Republican. I'm sure most conservatives would say that Bush animus on the left was equally unhinged, but I don't think so. I don't think Democratic pols -- actual members of Congress, or other elected officials -- made the idea of compromising with Bush so anathema that any deal would have been seen as a betrayal. But that's exactly what has happened with Obama, and it's made it very difficult for the president to get as much accomplished as realistically should be the case.

In other words, it's fucking frustrating as shit.

Perhaps Jose Reyes departure not such a foregone conclusion

2011-11-22T11:18:00.002-05:00

From SI's Jon Heyman:

3. Jose Reyes. He has at least one offer, from the Marlins though it's been described as a "preliminary'' type bid. Sources suggest it is somewhat less than the $90 million, six-year offer it was reported to be, perhaps closer to $75 million. In either case, it is seen as a "safe'' opening salvo since it's not near the $100 million-plus Reyes is hoping to get. The Marlins are still viewed as the favorite since they seem to have him at the top of their very long list and are clearly trying hard. He would match Carl Crawford's $142-million deal except for an injury history that makes six years seem like a more realistic goal (also the Crawford deal looks like a disaster so far). The Tigers and Brewers have some interest, and the Mets have asked Reyes to come back to them for a counter once he's done shopping. Projection: $120 million, six years.

As a Mets fan, I've been operating under the assumption that Jose Reyes is gone, perhaps just as an effort to blunt the eventual pain. The assumption gained steam when the Mets announced that their plan for keeping Reyes was to essentially let everyone else offer him something and then see if it was something they could match. It wasn't a strategy that inspired a lot of confidence, and I generally assumed that someone would blow him away at some point -- which still may happen. But for now, Reyes' much-overblown injury history does seem to be doing some good -- maybe that hammy thing this year was good news! -- and to date, he has not received the type of monstrous offer the Mets would have no chance of matching. I still imagine that at some point he'll come to the Mets with his best offer so far, they'll beat it, and the opposing team will simply beat it again and that will be that. But for now, they are still in the game.

Never mind, I still need to believe he's gone. It's the only way to make this feel ok.

Tebow and MVP candidate

2011-11-22T11:10:00.002-05:00

CBS columnist Greg Doyel would like you to please look at him:

If Denver does keep winning, and keeps winning the way it has been winning ...

How could anyone deny Tebow's viable candidacy? Make no mistake, I think Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers is the far-and-away MVP at this point in the season. But just as the case with Tebow, Rodgers has to keep it up. He doesn't have to keep putting up Xbox individual numbers, no, but he has to keep the Packers winning. Every game? No. The Packers don't have to win every game for Rodgers to finish off what looks to be an MVP season. But the Packers had better win at least as often as they lose from here on out. All bets are off if the Packers limp home at 2-4.

And if Tim Tebow keeps doing his often infuriating, always baffling, mostly boring, ultimately winning thing.

Stop looking at me like that. I'm neither kidding nor being sarcastic. Tim Tebow, MVP candidate? Absolutely. It's not only that he plays quarterback for a team that has won four of its past five games. Tebow should be a legit MVP candidate -- if this keeps up -- because of the way the Broncos are winning these games.

They're winning because of Tebow. Or rather, Tebow is winning these games.

"I mean, I'm not saying he SHOULD win the MVP, just that he should be a candidate! You see the difference?! I'm being very reasonable. Why is everyone looking at me like that?!"

Thoughts on Joe Paterno

2011-11-10T12:44:00.002-05:00

Why is thinking this seemingly so hard, "Joe Paterno was a great coach, he is likely a very good man, he absolutely had to be fired immediately."

End of story.

And one can empathize with Joe Pa's desire to finish the season, but he does have to be kind of kidding with it. Joe, there was a child rapist on your coaching staff for years, raping children with your knowledge, in your facilities. You're not getting to finish the season. You're fairly fortunate you'll just get to live comfortably in retirement, with only the pain of the gnawing sense that you know you should have done much more. In the end, you're the winner here.

Excessive Empathy

2011-11-07T14:32:00.007-05:00

There's no denying what happened with Penn State's defensive coordinator represents as black and white a travesty as you could design. Officials with the university should rightfully be admonished or charged with crimes, it should absolutely signal the end for Paterno and the school must be forced to reckon with the fact they participated in the potential rape of innocent children. It's a horror.

And yet, I've always been somewhat cursed with an excess of empathy. I find myself feeling sorry for Paterno, by all accounts a decent man forced to come to grips with the idea that a friend of 30 years was committing unspeakable crimes. Similarly, I always find myself feeling such sadness for pedophiles like Sandusky, human beings cursed by a horrifying compulsion that I can only be grateful I've never been forced to battle with myself. It's one of those human failings that we absolutely can not tolerate, and yet I always just find myself feeling so blessed to have never remotely suffered from such an urge. I have thankfully no attraction to young children. I'll thank the universe for that. Or bully for me I guess.

None of which is to say we shouldn't rightfully be outraged. What Paterno did he should be forced to live with, no matter how much I can empathize with not only not wanting to turn in a friend, but probably being somewhat unable to cope with the horrifying truth at hand. The same should be said with everyone involved. What happened was unquestionably a complete disgrace.

But I don't get angry when I hear stories like these, I just get sad. I weep for our human condition, that demons like the one that tormented Sandusky even exist at all, and I wonder sometimes what it is we did to deserve a sentence like that, while of course mourning the exceedingly more unjust sentences for the poor innocent victims, who no doubt will never be the same, and did not deserve unwittingly stumbling in the path of such a disturbed soul.

It's just tough out here sometimes. It really is.

Has any article been more in need of a comments section?

2011-11-04T17:32:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure I've ever seen an article penned more intentionally designed to be divisive than Chuck Klosterman's "50 Greatest College Basketball players" currently on Grantland. For starters, the list could be more accurately titled "Chuck Klosterman's favorite college players" were it not to also feature a few names from the '50s and '60s that Klosterman naturally never actually saw play.

But to wit, here are a few of the highlights:

-- no Patrick Ewing. This is just insane.

-- Khalid El-Amin at No. 22. That's all-time. Khalid El-Amin as the 22nd greatest player in the history of college basketball. It should be noted that Richard Hamilton -- truly one of the great college players ever -- was the actual star player of El-Amin's team and also not among these 50 names. El-Amin was good fun, one my all-time faves, but also on no-ones 50 greatest anythings.

-- Stacey Augmon makes the cut, Larry Johnson does not. Stacey Augmon was the third best player on those UNLV teams behind LJ and Greg Anthony, but somehow he is the 47th best player in the history of the sport. Seems odd.

-- Gerry McNamara. The blurb standing alone tells the story: (There have been many players better than Gerry McNamara. But how many humans ever played better than McNamara during the best week of his life? His four-game performance in the ~~2008~~ 2006 Big East tournament was more extraordinary than Billy. Owens' entire career." Yes, he got the date wrong. It was the extraordinary a performance that the year slipped the mind.

Honestly, one could go on and on. I'm really not sure what this list is. I think it's just "50 college basketball players that one guy likes," or "A list to ruin your afternoon."

Personally, I'm on board with the whole Grantland experiment. I check it daily, enjoy much of the writing and will likely continue to do so. But there's no denying that this is the whole enterprise at its most insufferable.

From the "Headlines I'd never want to be a part of" department

2011-11-04T17:30:00.002-04:00

I would never want to be the "exec" discussed in this Daily News headline:

"ESPN exec: I didn’t fondle myself on plane in front of Andrews"

Just a personal preference.

Tim Tebow's failure does not disprove God

2011-11-01T12:04:00.011-04:00

If we're being honest with ourselves, Tim Tebow is awful. Wonderful kid, first rate human being, incredibly accomplished athlete, but nonetheless, just an appallingly piss-poor NFL quarterback. He's not good. He stinks.

"But c'mon," you might say, "it's only been five starts. He has no weapons. He's Jesus!"

The problem is that, for me at least, Tebow is not your typical young quarterback. All young quarterbacks struggle. It's just part of the game. But Tebow's struggles are unique. The problem is not poor decision-making, or rookie mistakes, the types of mistakes that allow a fan base to patiently wait for their precious flower of a prospect to blossom into an Aaron Rodgers. No, Tebow's problems are far more fundamental. He just simply does not throw the ball all that well, at least in the context of the NFL. This seems quite obvious.

And yet, there is an almost undeniable feeling that we have a media consistently trying to ram this guy down our throats, the feeling that we are being sold the idea that this is potentially a viable NFL quarterback no matter how little evidence there is of that.

I think this is why the Tebow backlash is so strong.

Of course, you do have a strong cadre of media people doing the opposite, going out of their way to so strongly criticize Tebow in an effort to intentionally grab headlines (See: Hoge, Merril). But I also think that some of these stronger opinions come about because to listen to people discuss Tim Tebow's potential does make one feel like they're taking crazy pills. He causes an almost uncontrollable urge to yell out, "C'mon, this guy is terrible, why can't we all just admit this?"

And because for some, the prospect of Tebow's failure seems like a crushing blow to the idea of a God in heaven alltogether. "If Christ's own chosen one Tim Tebow turns out to not be able to will himself to NFL stardom, well, then what does that say about our faith?"

Nothing, of course.

Tim Tebow just happens to be an excellent college quarterback whose skills do not hold up at the NFL level, like Danny Wuerfel, Andre Ware, Chris Weinke, Gino Toretta, or on and on and on. There's nothing so unique here. We've seen this movie before. It does not deem Christinanity a flop anymore than evolution does.

Though, if I'm being honest, Tim Tebow's godfullness does bother me. I'm sorry. As someone with no religion, his all-so-public form of belief pricks at a personal sore spot in just such a way for me to find him insufferable. His beliefs aren't just to be firmly held to his breast, they are to be shared with the world. Tim Tebow intends to save us, one fluttering post pattern at a time. Ultimately, I don't hate him his religion, but I don't reflexively praise him for it either.

CC Sabathia truly loves New York ... money

2011-11-01T12:04:00.008-04:00

CC Sabathia signed with the Yankees for one reason: ~~money~~ pinstripes. CC loves pinstripes. His pajamas are pinstriped. He actually drives that pinstriped car that Jeter's been peddling. Sure, a cynic might say that the $25 mil the Yanks topped on the end of his already enormous contract might have played a factor in his decision to forego free-agency, but that would be cynical. And no one likes cynicism. No, it was merely Sabathia's unadulterated love of New York, the great Yankee fans and the thrill of playing in Yankee Stadium that ultimately swayed the big lefty.

I truly believe that.