Hello!?!

Herm Edwards, while coaching the Jets in 2002, said that the greatest thing about sports is this. "You play to win the game. Hello!?! You play to win the game!" Herm's just the best, I don't know why he isn't still coaching (something about his teams always being mediocre and never winning anything, you say? Whatever, that describes half the coaches in the NFL). This is easily one of the top five sports quotes of all time, and you can't tell me any different. We'll get back to Herm in a minute.

There are 365 days in a year. I think the best way to get through life is to try and find something that can make each day tolerable. 17 Sundays a year, the NFL gets the job done with room to spare. All the games, plus the added fantasy football fun, football rules. It always leaves you with a nice feeling of satisfaction before the beginning of the work week (unless your team loses, then screw football and everyone involved in it, but not really, because it was still fun to watch). But, after week 16, I mainly felt annoyance, even a certain elevated level of contempt. There were three reasons.

For the purposes of today's post, I'll be grading my level of annoyance at each game I mention on my scale of 1 to Laura Ingraham. 1 being barely annoying enough to notice and Laura Ingraham being so annoying I could punch a baby every time I see her and not even feel bad about it because if the baby knew who she was, the baby would understand.

The day ended with the Washington Redskins pulling a total no-show against Dallas. This gets a 2.5 on the Laura Ingraham Annoyance Scale (or, if you prefer, you can use the acronym, IGNORANT. Wait, is that right? I'm terrible at acronyms). Just a pathetic disaster of a performance all the way around. At no point in that game did I believe Washington had any chance to win. Even worse, this was the second week in a row this happened to the Redskins, both on national TV. I'm not sure we should even let them play their last game.

I might not have been annoyed by this at all if it was just a game, because I think Washington was at least trying. But, for one thing, the Redskins aren't some upstart franchise, Washington is a serious NFL team. Also, it was the only game on at the time, on the Sunday between Christmas and New Years, which means there was absolutely nothing else to watch. So I just had to sit there and live through it. I would rather watch a porno starring Oprah and Dr. Phil than see another Redskins game this season. The only silver lining for Washington? Herm would be OK with their performance, they played to win the game, they were just terrible at it.

Earlier in the day, The Giants tried to hang in the playoff race with a home win against the Carolina Panthers. They started the game with a good drive, fumbled away a chance to score first, and then completely quit. This gets a 6 from me. I was noticeably annoyed watching this game. The Giants looked genuinely surprised to find that the Panthers were actually trying to beat them. The Giant coaching staff showed no ability to steady and re-focus the team. It was like watching a car accident in slow motion. I heard LT, who was there for the last Giant home game at Giant Stadium, left at halftime. Also, when Madison Hedgecock dropped a meaningless touchdown pass, costing my fantasy team 4 points from Eli, I almost punched a hole clean through my couch.

This performance by the Giants was an embarrassment. I've said here before that I don't like the Giants one bit, but they're still a New York team (sort of) and when they embarrass New York like that, it just makes me like them less. I'm not sure how Herm would feel about this one. I think the Giants showed up intending to play to win the game, but they seemed to abandon that plan pretty quickly.

Finally, the Colts. The Colts get a solid 9.5 on my annoyance scale, only missing the full Laura Ingraham because I think the football gods will punish them and that will make me happy. The Colts should be ashamed of themselves, Colts fans should be ashamed, really anyone who ever watched a Colts game, or drove through Indianapolis, or ever rode a horse should be at least little ashamed.

Now, I like the Jets, and I'm glad they might get into the playoffs. So there's a part of me that says I shouldn't complain, and Jets fans definitely shouldn't complain. I also realize there's an argument to be made for resting guys and avoiding injuries. Having said all that, if you watched the game, you know what you saw. You saw a 14-0 team getting booed at home. You saw a back-up quarterback getting thrown into a situation he clearly had no chance of handling. You saw the Jets defense go all Chuck Norris for a half (their chief export was pain). You saw an NFL team make a conscious decision to not win a game.

Even worse, this decision was made prior to the beginning of the game. The Colts decided, at some point before the game started, that they were going to pull Peyton Manning and basically forfeit (both the game and the perfect season) at some point in the third quarter, regardless of the game situation. The rest of the game was hard to watch, and this is coming from someone who wanted to see the Jets win. Curtis Painter will need years of therapy. Colts coach Jim Caldwell, who may or may not be an inanimate object, should be getting his ass kicked by the football gods for the rest of his career. Peyton Manning, who I still think has to take special medicine so he doesn't cry like a little girl every time he gets hit, actually came out looking like the real man on the Colts sideline, because it at least sort of seemed like he wanted to stay in.

Hello!?! You play to win the game! You don't just play to play, you play to win the game! I say the Colts should be forced to play Curtis Painter for the entire 2nd half of every playoff game. Either that or we give their playoff spot to a team that hasn't stopped trying at any point this season. I know a lot of teams will rest guys this week, and no one will complain. It seems hypocritical, but if you watched the Jets game last week, you know what I'm talking about. It just felt wrong.

The Bush Legacy

The end of a decade is a good time to look back and try to put the events of the last ten years into some kind of context. It's a time for top ten lists of the most important events of the decade, the teams of the decade, the music videos of the decade (for the 2 or 3 people who still watch music videos on MTV7 or wherever you can find them now). Frankly, I'm a little disappointed so far. The E! channel should be counting down the 25 most embarrassing celebrity moments. Some network should be telling us about reality TV's 20 most obvious signs of the coming apocalypse. ESPN should be engrossed in an orgy of all-decade teams by now. I demand pointless nostalgia and unfair comparisons. How will I know what was important to me this decade without someone on TV telling me?

Luckily, as always, I'm here to help. I don't think it's a stretch to call George W. Bush the most influential politician of this decade. He was the President for 8 of the 10 years and, for better or worse, his administration shaped American foreign policy for decades to come. I made a quick comment about the Bush legacy earlier this year, and now's as good a time as any to explore that a little more.

First, let me say that I voted for President Bush twice. And, for all the mistakes and questionable policies that followed, I'm still not sure you could convince me that I had a better option in either election. It isn't my intention to defend the Bush administration or to kick dirt on a guy who, for the most part, has left the stage pretty gracefully now that his time is up. I just want to take a closer look at a few points and try to figure out how we'll remember the 43rd President in 20 or 30 years.

About a month or two ago, I commented that the real Bush legacy was actually somewhat decent ideas executed incredibly poorly. I was talking about no child left behind, and I haven't changed my opinion. If you sat down during the 2000 election and made a top 5 list of important things you wanted to see the next President tackle, you would have had to put public education on the list. President Bush set out to be the education President, and he could have been. I don't have to lay out a whole case about how President Bush never got the job done on education. All I have to tell you is, if you made the same top 5 list today, a decade later, you'd still have to put public education on the list.

I have a theory about Presidents. I think, each President, if he or she really tries hard, can be transformative for the country on one major issue. Over time, if every consecutive President pulls his or her weight, we get most of our big problems solved. President Obama has chosen health care (at this point, I think the guy from Indiana Jones would say he's chosen unwisely and then watch the President's face melt away). President Bush had his chance at education, and he couldn't get it done. I'm not saying all the bad public education from here on out is his fault, but we may have missed our window.

I'd say this is too bad. For a President to go down in history as the guy who saved public education, when we know how important education is to a country, that would have been a pretty good legacy. Instead, our students are still losing the race in math and science and our country is in danger of losing the race for discovery, for innovation. It's a missed opportunity, nothing more, nothing less.

One of the most interesting pieces of the Bush legacy is Africa. President Bush's record on aid to Africa, and specifically helping to fight AIDS in Africa, is incredibly good. If you're reading this, and you're a real Bush hater who doesn't know anything about his record on Africa, take some time to look into it. It will be jarring, you'll feel like Neo when he found out about the matrix. It's such an outlier compared to the rest of his foreign policy reputation. There are two things I find especially interesting about this.

First, I find it interesting how little this gets mentioned by the media. I'm not one of these liberal media conspiracy theorists, but if George W. Bush had spent his eight years not helping Africa, but instead trying to screw different African nations out of oil or diamonds or something, Keith Olbermann would still be doing a nightly segment about it. It's a little disappointing.

I also find it interesting how little the Republican party talks about this. It's as if they decided that helping Africa wouldn't play well with their base, so they'd just sort of keep quiet about it. I find this especially odd since Barack Obama got something like 113% of the African-American vote in the last election. I wonder if any Republican strategist even tried suggesting that maybe some African-American voters would be interested to find out about the last Republican President's excellent record on Africa.

Obviously, the big deal for the Bush administration is the two wars. It should also be obvious that this is where the poor execution most disastrously hammered the Bush administration. So, let's talk a little about war, specifically Iraq. Why not Afghanistan? We all know the story there. We got attacked, we identified a country that provided a safe haven and support to the group that attacked us, so off to Afghanistan the troops went. Support for this war was pretty broad, it started off pretty well, then we decided to invade some other country and, well, like I said, we know the story. So, on to Iraq.

(Before I get into this, quick war sidenote. I recently saw a facebook group that was titled something like "soldiers aren't heroes." The premise seems to be that just because someone wears a uniform, it doesn't automatically make them a hero. OK, fine. But, in a country with a volunteer army, at a time when anyone who volunteers can be absolutely sure about being sent to a country where things unexpectedly explode on a regular basis, isn't it at least a little heroic to walk into a recruiting office and raise your hand? Really? Not even a little? I only mention this because, when I hear people say they hate the war but support the troops, I think about how Vietnam Vets were treated when they came back and I think, "holy crap! we learned something." Let's keep it that way.)

Poor execution example number one: Lying about why we needed to invade Iraq. Don't start with me about this conservatives, we were told Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, they didn't. You can call it whatever you want, but those of us living in reality call that a lie. This is poor execution because I feel like I would have supported the Iraq war if I had been told the truth about it. I can't say for sure, because we don't know the whole truth, but if we had been told that Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, who oppressed his people and hated us, who would harbor anti-American terrorists and develop weapons of mass destruction if given the opportunity, wouldn't that at least have been a case worth considering? Yes, it's not a slam dunk, still pretty hypothetical, but still somewhat compelling, and also true, which people generally like.

Poor execution example number two: Exit strategy. I don't think it would have been easy to develop a workable exit strategy. We were overthrowing a government, there's not a three month exit strategy you can just tack on to the end of that. Maybe there was no exit strategy once we decided to go in. Still, sometimes I wonder if the administration started believing their own story about being greeted as liberators. Cheney and Rumsfeld and those guys seemed honestly surprised sometimes by the difficulty of the post-invasion period. That's a pretty disastrous miscalculation.

Poor execution example number three: This is the one that always baffled me. Why didn't the Bush administration draw a clear line between the invasion and the re-building effort? Why not say the war was over after the successful invasion and characterize everything else as nation building or peace keeping or whatever? Wouldn't this have played better domestically and abroad? Wouldn't it also have been at least somewhat true? Maybe they felt like people wouldn't buy it. Maybe they felt like it needed to keep being a war to fit into the whole war on terror thing. I don't know, but I'm still a little confused by this.

Bottom line, I think the former President honestly believed Iraq was going to be a serious threat one day. I think, right or wrong, he did what he honestly thought was best for the safety of Americans. I don't think you get points for effort when you're the President, so if he was wrong, he was wrong. I also think it's shocking how badly he and his very experienced cabinet and advisers handled both wars. Lots of people probably expected policies they didn't agree with out of this administration, and maybe even some bad guy stuff, but I don't think a lot of us expected gross incompetence. That was a curveball.

Then there was hurricane Katrina. The botched federal response and the President's perceived indifference to this disaster were really what rendered him politically irrelevant for the rest of his second term. I think this was so surprising for everyone because President Bush had a history of really good instincts when it came to reacting to disaster.

Think about the days and months after September 11, 2001. A few days after, the President made remarks at ground zero, most famously including telling us that "the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." What a great moment. It didn't make anyone safer, but I think it was the first time since the attacks that a lot of us felt like we could feel safe again one day. A couple of months later, President Bush threw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium. No one would have blamed him for shying away, not going out into the middle of a big crowd like that. But he did, he ran out in an FDNY jacket and threw a strike from the mound. People talk a lot about how the terrorist attacks gave President Bush a mandate for action, how we all got behind him because we were scared. But they forget how he rose to the moment, how he gave us someone to get behind.

This is why hurricane Katrina was so jarring for everyone. The way the President seemed so disengaged, so unfamiliar with what was happening, so barely interested. The best theory I have is that a hurricane wasn't terrorism, and after four years of worrying about nothing but terrorism, the President couldn't remember how to get up for something else. I don't know, but this effectively ended the Bush presidency, and with it, any chance the Republican party had of holding onto power.

Some quick hits on things I don't have full paragraphs for:

The patriot act: Ben Franklin suggested that those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither, so there's that. (some people will argue that Franklin actually said "essential liberty". So? Isn't it all essential liberty?)
The economic collapse and subsequent bank bailout: President Bush isn't blameless for this, but he's also no more to blame than anyone else in the federal government, they all get an equal piece of that mess.
The 2000 recount: Jim Baker and the Bush people outsmarted the Gore campaign and the Supreme Court. Maybe they didn't play fair, but there's a lot to be said for winning.
Fiscal Responsibility: This one makes me crazy. There are like four things left that I still agree with the Republicans on, one of them is not spending the country into oblivion whenever it can be helped. Six years of controlling the White House and Congress and all we got was this lousy exploded deficit.
The Constitution: From Dick Cheney's assault on separation of powers to ignoring certain amendments when they were inconvenient (1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, for example), the Bush administration's record on the Constitution can best be described as atrocious.
Medicare Part D: Honestly, I don't know much about this, but from the little I do know, it seems he was trying to make medicine cheaper for people, so that's mostly good.

So, what's the Bush legacy? I don't know, that's for everyone to decide on their own. My take? I think George W. Bush was a President with clear leadership skills and a great deal of potential whose better angels were too often shouted down by his demons (be they metaphorical or Vice Presidential). I think hardly anything is ever as good or as bad as we remember it being. I think the two wars are a spare that Barack Obama or some future President has to pick up for Mr. Bush. I always thought it was a cop out when the Bush people would say they'll let history be the judge, but maybe they were right. There's a lot of history to be written before we close the book on George W. Bush.

Christmas In The NFL

For me, this is one of the most boring weeks of the year. I had work until the 23rd, but there weren't any students around, so there wasn't a lot to do. TV is especially Christmasy, which makes me especially not interested in it. Even most sports talk radio guys take the week off. This means I have to find a way to keep myself entertained, so welcome to what might be my longest blog post ever. I'm getting Christmas presents for every team in the NFL. Sure, I could just make NFL playoff predictions like most other people are doing around now, but where's the fun in that? Here we go...

I'm getting the Oakland Raiders paper bags with eye holes cut out, so they can re-gift them to their fans. This won't cost as much as you think, paper bags are cheap and there can't be more than a few hundred Raider fans left. I know they beat a few playoff teams this year, but I've seen the Raiders play four times (Giants, Jets, Thanksgiving at Dallas and for some reason the NFL thought I needed to see them play Washington week 14) and every single one of those games was an abomination. Their punter is, at worst, their second best player. If you objectively ranked every team in the NFL each week based on the last week's performance, I think the Raiders would have landed squarely at the bottom more than any other team this season.

I'm giving the San Diego Chargers two tickets to Disneyland, because I say this is the year they win it all. I feel like I'm out on a limb a little here. First, I'm backing Norv Turner in the playoffs, never smart. Second, they'll have to win in Indy, not easy. Still, I don't trust the Colts and I don't trust the Saints, and a team with this much talent has to win sometime, even with Norv Turner, I say the time is now.

I feel like the Denver Broncos will never really get over John Elway. The quarterbacks they've had since him aren't helping. I'm getting them a cloning machine. But, they can only use it to make another Elway. If they make any other clones, they can't keep the Elway clone. This sounds like a fair deal.

I've always liked the Kansas City Chiefs. I was willing to kidnap Larry Johnson for them, but they seem to have gotten rid of him on their own. So, what do you do when you have a great gift for someone and then you find out at the last minute that it's ruined? That's right, I'm stopping at 7-11 and getting the Chiefs a card and some stale chocolate.

I'm getting the Tennessee Titans big signs for their locker room and sideline. The signs will say "give the ball to Chris Johnson!". We may also need a smaller sign for the inside of Vince Young's facemask, in case he gets any crazy ideas about throwing the ball to other people. I can't remember the last time I saw one football player be so much better and more valuable than everyone else on his team. This happens more often in other sports, I feel like it's rarest in football. Also, four teams drafted running backs before him last year, everyone involved in all four of those decisions should be fired immediately.

The Jacksonville Jaguars are the easiest team to shop for. They're getting some moving vans, because they clearly aren't hanging around Jacksonville too much longer. This was a terrible idea to begin with. At no point in my young, pre-Jaguars, life did I ever think "man, I can't believe Jacksonville doesn't have a football team."

For the Houston Texans, a better name. Houston Texans is a little to close to Shelbyville Shelbyvillians for me. I know! How about the Oilers? That would be perfect. What? You think someday they'd move the Houston Oilers to Tennessee? No, who would be stupid enough to do that? Why would anyone move a football team to Tennessee? All opinions are valid here, but you have to use some logic.

I'm getting the Indianapolis Colts a whole team of world class, super intelligent doctors. These doctors will be responsible for Bob Sanders, and only Bob Sanders. No more important NFL player is more often injured for big chunks of the season than Bob Sanders, and I think it's why the Colts don't win the Superbowl this year.

The Cincinnati Bengals are getting new uniforms. I could give a lot of teams new uniforms, but I think the Bengals are most in need. The Halloween colors, the ridiculous tiger strips all over the place, the constant mixing and matching of shirt and pants colors, just a total mess. This is really a gift for the whole country.

The Cleveland Browns are an atrocity. I can't remember another instance of a team with so much talent becoming a team with so little talent so quickly. I'm getting them a one-way ticket to somewhere in Canada, they're joining the CFL. I think a fresh start would do them some good, and that leads us right to our next gift...

...I'm moving the Baltimore Ravens back to Cleveland, because it's the right thing to do. And because people in Baltimore should be rooting for the Redskins, the way god intended.

What do you get the Pittsburgh Steelers? They already have so much great stuff. I think I'm getting them a new coach. Why? Because I think every NFL team should have the chance to be coached by Mike Tomlin for a couple of years, so we've got to get moving on this and get him out of Pittsburgh. This isn't really a gift for the Steelers, you say? Think of it like one of those Christmas movies, where the real gift is learning how to share.

The New York Jets are getting a copy of Madden 10. Why? Living in New York (technically Connecticut, but I choose not to recognize that) I see the Jets every week. The Jets' offense is atrocious. Not so much the turnovers, that happens, it's more about the actual plays for me. I hate almost every offensive play the Jets run. I'm not just talking about the play calling, the plays themselves bother me. It's like the Jets' offense was designed by the same guys who designed the Ford Pinto (take that, 1970's Ford executives!). I think Madden would help them play around with some ideas, maybe some new formations, really get them thinking.

If I'm a fan of any NFL team, it's the New England Patriots. So, I'd like to get them something nice. I'd like to give them back their old name, let's call them the Boston Patriots again. I know plenty of people from other New England states who root for the Sox and the Celtics. I don't hear them bitching about how those teams don't represent all of New England. Also, Boston's super cool, what team wouldn't want to be from Boston? New England's not even a real place, it's just sort of a hypothetical area of states. This would be like calling the Seahawks the Northwest Seahawks. Stupid, right? I started this paragraph as a joke, but now I think I'm serious, somebody should do something about this.


I had a few ideas for the Buffalo Bills. I wanted to get them some nice skin lotion, but I wasn't sure everyone would get my clever reference. Then I thought maybe I'd get them a new NFL rule that says if they get to the Superbowl again, they automatically win, because it just gets depressing after a while. I don't really like tinkering with the rules though. So, I settled on hot wings for everyone, and plenty of blue cheese.

The Miami Dolphins need a way to get Bill Parcells to stay around for a while. You know he's leaving soon, he can't help himself. So I'm going to work on getting them some good dirt on Bill, I think that's the best way. He seems like the kind of guy who does plenty of things he shouldn't do, I just need some pictures.

My gift to the Philadelphia Eagles will be very similar to what I'm getting the Titans. More big signs, the Eagles' signs will say "give the ball to DeSean Jackson!". But, since we're dealing with Andy Reid, I may have to get creative and have them say something like "give the ball to DeSean Jackson and win a free pizza!" Did you see DeSean Jackson destroy the Giants last Sunday? He looked like a division one college star playing against a pee wee football team, it was unreal. Six teams drafted wide receivers before him last year, once again, I suggest immediate firings.

Clearly, the Washington Redskins need a new owner. I'm perfectly willing to step in and do it myself. I bid $300. Going once, going twice...

I'm getting the Dallas Cowboys tickets to Miami for February 7th, because I've got them winning the NFC. I'm not at all that confident in this pick. In fact, I just went through all seven NFC contenders in my head, and I hate all of them. But, Dallas can run the ball, their defense may be peaking at the right time and somebody's going to have to beat the Saints in New Orleans, which the Cowboys just did. (holy crap, did I just pick Norv Turner vs. Wade Phillips in the Superbowl? Yes. I'm also picking hell freezing over this winter and pigs flying later this year)

The New York Giants are getting a lump of coal. I don't know what it is about the Giants, they just annoy me. Maybe I've just seen too much of them in my life. Maybe it's because they don't even play in New York. Maybe it's just how constantly irritating Tiki Barber and Michael Strahan have been since they retired. I don't know, but they get coal, and no playoffs this year.

I'll need to iron out some of the details on this one, but I'm getting the Minnesota Vikings some kind of addiction counselor. Why? Because I fear they're in danger of becoming addicted to Brett Favre. I can see two, maybe three (maybe 12) more summers of him retiring, and then maybe unretiring, but then he doesn't want to come to training camp, but then August is almost over and he misses football. This could go on forever, the Vikes will need help, someone to help them get clean and move on. I wonder if one of those guys from Intervention on A&E would do it.

I think it's obvious what the Green Bay Packers want, they just want some cheese. Eight home games of having to look around at all the fake cheese on peoples' heads has to make you hungry for some real cheese. I'm pretty sure I know someone who used to work in a cheese shop (either that, or I know someone who never worked in a cheese shop, but my brain has decided she did for some reason, I do that sometimes, I'm not sure why) so I can get this done.


The Detroit Lions are another obvious one. I'm getting them a wide receiver in the first round of next year's draft. Obviously, they just didn't give Matt Millen's plan of drafting nothing but receivers enough time to work. And, frankly, they still don't have two good ones.

The Chicago Bears are one of the more difficult teams to shop for. I look at them on paper and think they should be a pretty good team, but every time I see them on the field it's a total disaster. I'll have to invent a gift, not really invent, just modify something else that already exists. I'm getting the Bears a football on a string. Jay Culter can tie it to his wrist so he can't give the ball away anymore. Yes, it's going to be difficult to score this way, but it can't get any worse, so why not give it a shot?

I'd like to give the Tampa Bay Buccaneers some patience. I really like their new coach, he looks like he knows what he's doing. They've been terrible this year and I'm already hearing that he's on the hot seat. I'd like to see him get a couple of more years, I think he may be worth holding onto. If I can't get them patience, how about just a truckload of their old uniforms so they can start wearing them again. Those things were great.

The Carolina Panthers obviously need a quaterback, and I'm here to help. No, they can't have an Elway clone. They need the number one pick. It's too late for this year, so I have to work for next year. What's the best way to get to 0-16 and the number one pick in the 2011 draft. Four words: New coach Rod Marinelli. We can make this happen Carolina, together.

I wish I could get the New Orleans Saints tickets to Miami for the Superbowl, but they just seem to be cracking a little at the wrong time. I hope I'm wrong about this, I'd love to see them bring a championship back to New Orleans. I feel like the Saints may need a new name too. I know, Saints makes good sense for the city, but I'm not really afraid of the Saints. Ohhh, the Saints are coming to get me. See what I mean? How about the New Orleans Swamp Monsters? No. The New Orleans Witch Doctors? Closer. Got it. The New Orleans Voodoo. Done.

The Atlanta Falcons may have been the hardest team to shop for. After a promising season last year, this season has been one disaster after another. Matt Ryan almost murdered my fantasy team all by himself (luckily for me, neither Matt Ryan's toe or Ronnie Brown's annual season ending injury can stop Chris Johnson from carrying me to a championship). Honestly, I just don't care that much about The Falcons. What do you get for the people you don't care about? That's right, I'm sending the Falcons a fruit cake.

Next up, the St. Louis Rams. What do you get for the team that has nothing? I may need a loan for this one, but I think I'm getting them a new stadium. I know they aren't the only dome team, but there's something about the Rams' dome that I especially don't like and while I can't afford a new stadium for every dome team, I'm hoping my generosity will inspire others to buy new stadiums for all the dome teams. That's my campaign slogan when I run for President, "An end to dome football in our lifetime."

I'd like to get the San Francisco 49ers some talent. Mike Singletary is my favorite NFL coach, narrowly beating out Mike Tomlin. When I take over ownership of the Redskins, I'm offering him whatever he wants to come be my new coach. Problem is, his team is terrible. His awesome coaching has them scratching out 6 to 8 wins a year, instead of the 2 they ought to be getting, so they don't get high draft picks and they don't get any better. They're trapped in some sort of crazy loop of great coaching and terrible players, I need to step in and free them.

The Arizona Cardinals play in University of Arizona stadium. That's kind of embarrassing, right? It's not like Arizona's even a great football school. Cardinal stadium would be boring, that's not any better. I need to get them some corporate sponsorship. Something that fits their distinguished history. Something that says perpetual failure. Wait, actually, forget the corporate sponsorship, Arizona Cardinal stadium might be perfect.

I was ready to move the Seattle Seahawks to Canada too, because ideally, we'd like to have an even number of teams after I move the Browns. But Seattle just had the Sonics stolen from them, and I couldn't do it to the good people of Seattle. In fact, I think the Seahawks and their fans deserve something special. I may need some help on this. Can we get them Pearl Jam to play a concert before every home game? How awesome would that be? I could also kidnap the Sonics from Oklahoma and bring them back to Seattle, but then Oklahoma would steal them back again. Eventually, I'd wind up having to destroy the entire state of Oklahoma, I'm not sure I'm up for that.

Tilting At Windmills

I was watching CNN Sunday night and...wait, stop right there. Why was I watching CNN Sunday night? Well, the Mad Men season is over, Fox was showing re-runs and my favorite part of Sunday Night Football (other than Collinsworth) had already happened. For my money, the best part of SNF is when the players introduce themselves. I especially enjoy the Miami guys, as in "Bryant McKinnie, The U" and "Jon Beason, The..U already know". And yes, I saw the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary "The U" and yes, it was awesome. Also, the tag line, "What if I told you college football was hit by a decade long hurricane?", best movie tag line ever, I will accept no other nominees. That was my quickest digression to date, back to CNN.

CNN's Planet in Peril series had taken our intrepid reporter, one Anderson Cooper, to Hawaii. Anderson has a tough job. We were learning about the early stages of Hawaii's energy revolution, which is important because going to Hawaii is like a 17 hour flight for everyone, so I think they owe us all some oil. Of the many things I saw, two stood out.

First, some science guys have decided to air condition about 40 buildings in Honolulu by piping sea water in from offshore (and deep down, so it's cold) and running it through a pipe system which would cool the buildings, sort of like how refrigerators work. When I worked in Manhattan, I worked with a guy who couldn't afford an air conditioner for his apartment. His genius plan was to put a big bowl of ice in front of his fan. I'm sure the sea water AC guys thought their plan through a little more thoroughly than my old co-worker, but this still sounds more like a harebrained scheme than a great idea.

Second, we saw a 20-turbine wind farm in Maui. The turbines use computers to harness the wind in the most efficient way and they power about 9 percent of the island. This sounds a little more promising. The only problem is, anytime you want to put these things somewhere, the locals go nuts because nobody buys beachfront property so they can look at windmills. That's what happened in Maui, these 20 turbines didn't get built until oil prices went so high people just couldn't take it anymore. This stood out in my mind because it really epitomizes the way most people seem to feel about the environment. We're not anti-environment, but the things we have to do to improve the environment are annoying and inconvenient, and why bother saving the planet if we can't have a clear view of the pretty ocean?

I already had climate issues on the brain, because the President was over in Copenhagen last week at some sort of U.N. climate meeting. (Sidenote: I also saw Glenn "Goldmember" Beck recently announce on his show that he refuses to pronounce Copenhagen correctly. If I had the time, I think my blog would just be me watching every episode of Glenn's show and pointing out how consistently stupid he is. He's the best.) I, for one, was impressed with what the world's leaders got done in Denmark. They seem to have struck a very important deal to all go back to their respective countries and pretend they struck a very important deal. Good for them.

Truth is, if I was China or India or a number of other developing nations, I wouldn't be interested in a climate deal either. Picture this. You and I get stranded on an island. We've got water, but very little food. After a few weeks of eating dirt and whatever plants we figured out weren't poisonous, a plane flies over and randomly drops two big, delicious steaks on our island. I find them first and eat one right away. Then you show up, you see the one empty steak box and deduce that I've clearly eaten what was inside, and you go to eat the second steak, but I say you can't. I say it's all the food we have and we better ration it. Would you be cool with that? No, of course not. You'd say I got to eat my steak and the second one is yours and you can do whatever you want with it. We spent quite a bit of time burning fossil fuels with impunity and building our big shiny country. Now other countries want their industrial revolutions and we're telling them they need to watch their emissions and think about the planet. We may be right, but it isn't exactly fair (and sure, life's not fair, but try telling that to China, damn communists).

So, there's a lot of stories swirling around these days about the environment and climate change. Copenhagen, stolen e-mails from scientists, our liberal Congress making noise about trying to do some environmental stuff before they get thrown out of office next November. I have to admit, I'm a little torn on the climate change/global warming issue. I'm not one of these deniers who thinks we can ignore giant pieces of Antarctica breaking off because it still gets cold in the winter (Sean Hannity thought it was hilarious that it was snowing in Denmark during the U.N. conference. Does it ever stop snowing in Denmark? I'd like to see an episode of Jeopardy with Sean, Glenn Beck and anyone from Fox and Friends). And I'm not one of these people who thinks the science is still up in the air, mostly because that's what idiots say about evolution too, and whenever I hear it I get the sudden urge to hit someone over the head with a monkey.

I'm torn on climate change for the same reason you haven't seen an entire blog post from me complaining about MTV's Jersey Shore (I watched like seven minutes of an episode last week, just long enough to get a sense of what was happening but not so long that I could no longer control the urge to kill myself. The apocalypse is coming people, there's nothing you can do about it now). We all agree it's a very bad thing, but can we really do anything about it? Short of giving up all the cars and electricity right now, can we really fix this problem with gradual emissions reductions and solar panels?

Then I think, maybe I'm disheartened because our current ideas for responding to climate change are so crappy. Exhibit A, ethanol. Yes, ethanol produced from sugarcane has done a lot for Brazil, but we don't have sugarcane, we have corn. Currently most (or maybe even all, I don't know, or really care) of our gas is 10% ethanol. Hooray? I can't remember where I heard this, maybe an episode of The West Wing, but I once heard somebody compare dealing with an oil shortage by subsidizing ethanol to dealing with a gin shortage by subsidizing tonic water.

Exhibit B, cap and trade. This is where businesses that pollute get some sort of cap on how much they can pollute. If a business comes in under the cap, they can sell their extra pollution allowance to some other business that just can't help itself, creating a cash incentive for polluting as little as possible. I feel like I shouldn't even have to explain how stupid this is. This is like telling a criminal who killed 20 people this year that he can only kill 15 people next year, and if he wants to kill anyone else, he has to buy more murders from some other, less homicidal criminal. In theory, you'd get some murder reduction, but wouldn't you kind of be missing the point? That murder is bad and reducing it by a little bit only makes things a little bit less bad.

This is where I'm stuck. Are there better ideas out there somewhere that can reverse whatever climate change is already happening? Or, are our efforts to fight climate change just futile attempts that only serve to make us feel better? I don't know. I'm not saying this would mean we shouldn't try. 200 years from now, when our clever descendants have learned how to live under the sea, it would be nice for them to be able to look back at us and say "at least they tried".

This isn't one of those times when I say we need to either come up with a great idea or just shut up and die. I think we should keep trying. Sometimes good ideas come from bad ideas. Like, maybe if we make enough ethanol, we'll create ethanol based leprechauns who can use rainbows to clear all the carbon dioxide out of the sky. This is a great idea because, of course, as leprechauns, their rainbows would all lead to pots of gold, so it's a win all the way around. But let's be realistic, we're at least 15 years away from leprechaun technology. In the mean time, isn't it possible that we're just tilting at windmills with our alternative energies and clever pollution cap schemes?

The good news? The planet isn't going anywhere, the planet will be here long after we're gone. When people say we should save the planet, they mean we should save ourselves. If the worst fears of climate change scientists are realized, life might suck for a while, but we're smart (well, some of us are, a few at least) and we'll figure out a way to get past it. The really good news? If programs like the wind turbines in Maui get more popular, we'll have plenty of windmills to joust with.

Totally unrelated PS...I learned something today. Did you know Toys for Tots is run by the Marine Corps Reserves? I didn't know that. There are a lot of worthy charities out there, and it's hard to choose, but Toys for Tots allows you to help out, ya know, tots, and also the Marines. http://www.toysfortots.org/

Love and Baseball

Welcome to the first of what will probably be three or four comments on baseball's endlessly entertaining off-season. Baseball easily has the best off-season of any sport. Of course, the things that make the off-season so much fun, like the lack of a salary cap, also make the regular season less fun in the form of no hope for certain teams (Hello Pittsburgh!). So it's a trade off, but one I'm happy to take as a Yankee fan.

Now, I can't just plop a bunch of opinions about what's happening so far down in a blog entry and expect people to read it, where's the fun in that? I need an angle, some kind of idea. And luckily, I have one. I've always thought the off-season in baseball is very analogous to love. The courtship, the successes and failures, everyone trying to find just the right person, even though hardly anyone ever does. How some people are just hopeless (hello again Pittsburgh!). It think this works, so let's try it.

I went to a wedding last month. The two people who got married, they're the best couple ever, a winning combination, like alcohol and night swimming, or peanut butter and jelly (good jelly, not that crappy jelly that's hard to spread and gets all over everything except your sandwich. Maybe that just happens to me). Anyway, my point is, excellent couple, long happy life together. My buddy Steve told me he set them up, if that's true, he should scrap his going nowhere lawyering career and start up some kind of match making service.

This is how I feel about the Red Sox and John Lackey. Lackey's exactly the kind of surly bulldog type that Boston fans love and he's exactly the kind of surly bulldog type that won't care if they hate him (which, ironically, is why they'll love him). He fits perfectly into what will absolutely be the best rotation in baseball, and they probably still have the best bullpen in baseball. This is a good fit for Lackey, too. I've never been sold on him as an ace, I think he's a number 2. Beckett and Lester give him the kind of supporting cast that means he doesn't have to pitch beyond his ability, like he had to in Anaheim. So, as a Yankee fan, why aren't I bashing my head against the keyboard right now?

I have a theory. I think it takes two people to be in love. I don't think you can say you're "in love" with someone unless you have some reason to believe they feel the same way. You can have a crush, you can love someone, but you can't say you're in love with someone unless you can reasonably believe they're in love with you.

This brings us to Jason Bay and why I'm not scared of the Red Sox. I think the Sox would tell you they're in love with Jason, and why not. He's a great fit there, he drives in runs and keeps his mouth shut. He basically gives you about 85% of what Manny Ramirez gave you on the field while giving you 0% of what Manny gave you off the field. Problem is, I don't think Bay feels the same way. I think if Jason Bay wanted to re-sign in Boston, it'd be done already. He knows no one except the Yankees can outbid Boston, and the Yankees don't seem interested. I think Bay's looking for a way out of Boston. Maybe the town's too big for him, maybe the rabid fans annoy him. I don't know, but I don't think he's going back unless the offers he gets from other teams are really unremarkable. No second date for Bay and the Sox, sorry.

Sometimes you meet someone, and you'll do things with that person that you wouldn't do with anyone else (no, I'm not talking about that, get those dirty minds out of the gutter). I'm talking about, for example, somebody once got me to try sushi. I don't eat fish, uncooked fish? That's like double fishy fish. Would I do it again? Hell yeah! Why? Because sometimes what you're doing is far less important than who you're doing it with.

This brings us to Andy Pettitte. The Yankees just signed Andy to a one-year deal worth $11.75 million. 11.75 million dollars for a 37 year old, number three starter who went 14-8 last year on a really good team. Pettitte's last dominant year in the American League happened in 1997. He hasn't had an ERA under 4 in the American League since 2002. I can't imagine the Yankees wanted to spend next year paying $11.75 million for Andy Pettitte, but they will. Why? Because he's Andy Pettitte. The team loves him, the fans love him, he had a great post-season, he's Andy Pettitte. Do I think this was a really smart baseball move? No. Do I think Pettitte wins more than 12 games next year? No. Do I have a strong objection to this move by the Yankees? No.

Sometimes finding love means tough choices. Sometimes you meet someone great. They're attractive, interesting, fun, all the things you know you like. But, the two of you just don't click, you don't fit together, something isn't right. So, what do you do? Do you pass on what looks like a good opportunity because you know it doesn't feel right, or do you try to make it work?

This brings us back to the Yankees, this time, for Curtis Granderson. Lots to like about Granderson, speed, power, he's the legit center fielder the Yankees have been lacking. I just don't think he's the right fit. He's a career .272 hitter who hit .249 last year with a .327 on-base percentage, so he's not a top of the order guy, which means you still need to either bring back Johnny Damon or find someone else to hit second. Yes, he should hit 40 home runs next year if he stays healthy, but I think they gave up a lot for a guy who hits 5th or 6th next year, especially when hitting down in the order like that blunts the value of the speed he brings. Plus, he'll be 29 when the season starts, which means we may only be a couple of years away from stories about how he's lost a step and can't play center field anymore(I don't think people brought this up enough when the trade happened, I'd be about 13 times more excited about this if Granderson was 26). I think I would rather have taken Edwin Jackson in that deal. He's not a better player than Granderson, but he's a younger player at a more valuable position.

Sidenote: I heard yesterday Johnny Damon won't re-sign with the Yankees for anything less than they paid him last year. Bon voyage, Johnny. I can't remember the last time I saw a fast guy get so slow so quickly. It was like A.J. Burnett and Nick Swisher pranked him by putting 20 pound weights in his shoes, only he never figured it out and they never told him.

Speaking of tough choices, sometimes you have a choice between settling for someone who you're not that crazy about or going it alone for a while. Maybe you haven't met someone who's right for you, or maybe that person isn't interested, but either way, you have the choice between second best or nothing at all.

This brings us to the Mets. This whole franchise is some sort of bizarre debacle. I, by the way, don't hate the Mets, I don't understand why Mets and Yankees fans hate each other. I'm from New York, I want New York teams to win, if the Yankees aren't playing, I'm all for the Mets winning. This is an imagined rivalry promoted by idiots. Having said that, the Mets franchise is a total disaster. They play in the world's best city, and they have their own network, but John Lackey is too expensive. They couldn't get in on Roy Halladay because nobody wants anything in their farm system. Now, they seem to be focusing on Jason Bay. Unless Jason has decided to take up pitching, he can't really help them that much. Oh, but don't worry Met fans, they just signed some Japanese guy, that always works out great.

So what's left? They can sign one of the second rate free agents, Joel Pinero's my favorite, and I wouldn't hate him for the Mets, but he isn't a number 2 and doesn't bring what they need. They can make a trade, but they don't have anything good to offer, so it would have to be for someone who's current team doesn't like him that much and wants to dump his salary. Maybe Aaron Harang or Bronson Arroyo. Bleh. Mets fans, the best thing your team can do is stay single for a while, it may seem miserable at times, but you're better off, trust me.

Finally, the big three team deal (or was it two different deals involving the Phillies? Wait, don't answer, I don't care). I don't know if I have any love analogies for this one. Maybe some kind of weird three-way where two of the people don't really know each other that well, but they're putting up with it because they both really wanted to have sex with the third person. That doesn't necessarily have anything to do with love though, let's just get to the trade.

Speaking of love though, I love what the Mariners are doing. Cliff Lee for some prospects, I don't care what Baseball America thinks the guys they gave up could become, Cliff Lee is already Cliff Lee. I've always thought of Lee as a number 2 pretending to be an ace, so putting him on a team that already has an ace makes perfect sense. Felix Hernandez will be the best pitcher in the American League next year (I would have said best period, but Roy Halladay's going to the NL and might not give up a run all year). Great one-two punch at the top of the rotation, young arms to fill it out, Chone Figgins joins Ichiro to give them a fast and exciting top of the order (I'd bat Figgins lead off and let Ichiro get his 225 hits while Figgins and his speed are standing on base). I love this team, they need one more bat, but they're on the right track.

The Phillies? I'm not sure how I feel about this for them. Yes, Halladay is a real ace, so a bit of an upgrade. And yes, I think it's possible Halladay pitches to something like a 0.19 ERA in the National League (OK, I'm exaggerating, but honestly, can you tell me you can't see him having a Bob Gibson type season next year? It's at least possible, right?) And Halladay gives them a righty to go with Cole Hamels, who should bounce back next year and still has a good career ahead. But all they gave up? Including their best pitching prospect, just to upgrade from Lee to Halladay? I don't know, I'm not sold.

Toronto fans? I don't know what to tell you. I hope you're enjoying hockey season, because you can look forward to years of spirited battles with the Orioles for 4th place. I don't know how good Kyle Drabek is going to be, but I know when he gets there Toronto will trade him or let him go sign with the Yankees. Whatever, Toronto's a hockey town.

I'll be back to this a couple of times between now and spring training. We still don't know where Matt Holliday is going, I'd like to see him stay in St. Louis. Jason Bay is still up in the air, although I think it's possible he reluctantly signs with Boston because no one else really wants him, unless the Mets make a big push. I could also see Florida getting involved there as a late surprise. Lots of 2nd tier pitchers still out there, I'd like to see the Yankees grab one. Also, I just heard the Yankees are close to signing Nick Johnson. I like this idea, and it's good for Nick too. If he's a DH, he might not get hurt quite so constantly.

Ironically, as similar as I think they are, I know quite a bit about baseball, and very little about love. So, if you disagree with anything I said about love today, you're probably right. But, if you disagree with anything I said about baseball today, you're wrong, sorry.

Canadian Baby Boomers And The War On Christmas

I was watching TV during lunch today and I saw the President give yet another speech designed to get feckless Senate democrats to just use the majority they have and do something useful already. Good luck with that, Mr. President. He talked a lot today about the deficit and CBO scoring, so I guess he figures the biggest obstacle to a health care bill is the cost. Well, the biggest obstacle he can talk about out loud anyway. He can't just come out and say that Joe Lieberman is bought and paid for by health insurance companies and is just blocking health care reform for campaign money and political revenge, because that wouldn't be nice. He also can't say that Joe Lieberman is only an independent because neither party really wants him, that too wouldn't be nice. So, I'll get to the war on Christmas in a minute, but first, all this talk about money and health care gave me a new idea.

Insuring so many more people would cost money. A public option would cost money, subsidies would cost money, adding more people to medicare would cost money. Everything costs money. The President optimistically believes a good reform bill would ultimately save us money, and it might, but there's no guarantee. At the same time, the federal deficit is under increasing stress from retiring baby boomers qualifying for medicare and social security. This makes it even harder to sell anything that costs money. So here's the idea, send all the baby boomers to Canada.

I love this idea. First of all, Canada is great. They have hockey, maple syrup, snow, health care, more syrup. And baby boomers may be too old to learn a new language, but I don't think they're too old to learn a cool new Canadian accent. Also, I'm not 100% positive on this, but I'm pretty sure everyone who becomes a new Canadian citizen gets a free moose. If Canada doesn't like it, too bad. We've been putting up with their Celine Dions and their Trebeks for years, it's really the least they can do. You think we would miss our baby boomer friends and relatives? That's why Canada is such a fantastic idea. It's right there. I was in Detroit once, I could have traveled right to Canada via bridge OR tunnel. How much easier does it need to be? So there you go, I solved health care, what's next?

Oh yeah, the war on Christmas. I don't know if I can solve this one so easily. On the other hand, this is another one of those times when I get to disagree with everybody, so there's that. First though, let me say that I don't blame Bill O'Reilly (who is sort of the king of this issue) or Glenn Beck (who is a good bet to cry at some point in the next nine days about how there isn't a nativity scene somewhere) for talking about this. It's an interesting debate, it gets good ratings and the outrage they show isn't anymore disingenuous or fraudulent than the outrage they show about anything else. So I'm laying off Bill and Glenn today (and Glenn's lucky, Monday night he did a whole show about how environmentalism is really just a way to replace god with the planet, because god gave us liberty and if you replace god then government can take away our liberty, I almost threw something at my TV). I'm talking more about the people who listen to them, or argue with them, the people who really get up for this issue. I suppose my only real question is, why?

I guess I can sympathize with where Christians are coming from on this, at least to an extent. If you believe in your religion, and you perceive the country to be burying it when it used to be such an accepted part of the culture, I can see how that would be concerning. I just have one problem. If you told the Jesus in the bible that some places don't want to put Christmas symbols on public property, because it makes people of other faiths uncomfortable, do you think he'd say "screw those people! They're gonna look at little plastic baby me on the state house lawn and like it!"? If you wished him happy holidays, would he respond by putting a big "we say merry Christmas" bumper sticker on his donkey as a passive aggressive FU to all the happy holidays people? I know I'm the last person who should be telling religious people how to be religious, but I went to 12 years of Catholic school, and I feel like I have an OK grasp on the basics. So, do you really think Jesus would be that dickish about Christmas? Probably not, right?

The other people, the people who act honestly offended by Christmas, I have considerably less sympathy for them. I understand the church and state implications of religious symbols on public land, and I don't want religion anywhere near public schools, but sometimes you just say "who cares?" Is anyone honestly offended by Christmas? Really?

First of all, Christmas is barely even a religious holiday anymore (I know Christians hate this, but shhhh for a minute, I'm on your side for once). Everyone gets off work for Christmas, and the people who have to work usually get overtime or weekend pay or a floating holiday or something. We treat Christmas the same way we treat the Fourth of July, it's a national holiday. So, I say anyone who complains about seeing Christmas symbols has to go to work next Thursday and Friday while the rest of us are going to church (or in my case, sleeping late). They have to sit in their empty offices and be sad and not get any extra pay for it. Deal?

Second, Christmas is just fun. There's lights and cookies and a big fat guy with presents. You have parties where you can watch your stupider co-workers jeopardize their jobs. It's an excuse to give presents to people you care about. We get weeks of awful television and music that I can't stand, but other people seem to enjoy. I like fun things, don't you like fun things?

Also, I really don't like political correctness, not even a little. I'm not talking about not saying words that are legitimately offensive and hateful and have no place in society. That's not political correctness, that's being a grown-up. Here's an example of what I'm talking about. I used to work in an office where we had a secret santa gift exchange every year. Then, one year, we called it secret snowflake, and we weren't allowed to say secret santa anymore. Everytime someone said secret snowflake to me, I lost a few brain cells in a tiny explosion of rage in my mind.

Christmas is also an excellent chance to do good things. It's a chance to donate to a charity or bring food to a soup kitchen or give toys to poor children. Would I like to think that if there was no Christmas we'd find other reasons to do these things? Sure, but for now we have Christmas, so why not take the opportunity to do something good. We can argue about which religion is right, or if god is even there, in January, after people get food and toys and jackets.

I'd like to see a truce in the culture war, just for Christmas. If you celebrate Christmas, and someone wishes you happy holidays, just say something nice back. If you don't celebrate Christmas, and someone wishes you a merry Christmas, I promise they aren't secretly trying to indoctrinate you and your kids. I think most people already get this, but for everyone else, Christmas is a good time to be nice to people. Christmas can be crappy for real reasons. Christmas sucks if you're alone, it can suck if you lost a family member recently, it sucks if you lost your job this year and you can't afford gifts. It can suck even more if you try to reach out to someone by saying happy holidays and you get an earful because they say merry Christmas. It can suck even more if you can't afford gifts for your kids, but you can still take them to the park to see the big shiny tree, only it's gone this year because someone called it offensive. Dramatic scenarios? Sure, fine, all I'm saying is, everyone be nice for a couple of weeks, because it's Christmas. And if you don't celebrate Christmas, just be nice because there's a way to be a person.

Is it ironic for me to start by suggesting the deportation of baby boomers and end by asking everyone to be nice? Sure, as always, I'm a puzzle. What do these two things have to do with each other? If you're one of the millions of Americans who can't afford health care, and you spent all year hearing about how the President and Congress were on the job, and now you see that we're getting either a craptastic health care bill or no health care bill, wouldn't that be the crappiest Christmas of all?

Afghanistanimation And American Exceptionalism

Super Troopers is a great movie, isn't it? Unfortunately, we don't have time to talk about Car Ramrod and chugging maple syrup, because, as usual, we're like four moves away from world war 3. So, I should talk about how the President just decided to send another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. I should talk about this because it's important, but also because it gives me the opportunity to do something I love doing. I get to completely disagree with both sides of an argument. There was a lot of reaction to President's decision, and I think almost all of it was pretty stupid.

First, you have your conservatives. They started by spending two or three months whining about how the President was taking too long to act. In Sean Hannity's world, you look for excuses to send troops to other countries (especially countries with brown people in them). When you get an excuse, you don't sit around and talk about it. Talking is weak, just like reading and thinking. Then, the announcement came, and they kept complaining. They complained that we're only sending 30,000 troops when General McChrystal asked for 40,000. They complained that we're giving it 18 months before we start bringing troops back home, instead of just saying we're staying until whenever we decide the job is done. They complained that the President's speech wasn't emotional enough, and that he didn't talk about winning enough.

First of all, shut up! You got what you wanted, just stop talking for a little while. There's still plenty to complain about with health care and environmentalism and other scary liberal things. Second, we have to leave sometime. You can't call this operation a success until the United States can leave Afghanistan without it immediately spiraling into chaos. Finally, the speech. I know Dick Cheney's idea of foreign policy is whipping his cock out and waving it at other countries while challenging them to some kind of duel (now that's what I call a metaphor! Also, did I just make you picture Dick Cheney whipping his penis out and waving it around? Your welcome), but in the real world, sending troops into battle isn't exciting or fun or something to get really happy about. I'm glad the President sounded a little somber and even conflicted, it tells me he hasn't forgotten how to be a person yet.

Then, you have your liberals. I think I actually saw Keith Olbermann cry after the announcement (OK, I'm making that up, actually, I'm boycotting Keith until January because I think he talked about Tiger Woods too much and I think he knows better). Liberals would like the war to be over now. Great idea! Hey, speaking of great ideas, I had drinks with a friend Friday night, someone I'm really very fond of, she's the best. I'd like to get her a unicorn for Christmas, I think she'd really like it, it's possible they grant wishes, and I think they do a lot of work with rainbows....aaaaaaand, back to reality! You can't just overthrow a country's government and then leave when it gets messy. Failing to help rebuild Afghanistan after the cold war is how we got here in the first place. I understand we have to leave them on their own eventually, if it becomes clear that it just isn't going to happen there, but I think the President should probably at least, ya know, try first.

I've heard a lot of people lately, on TV and in real life, ask why this is America's job. You could say it's our job because it was our idea to invade in the first place. So the real question is, why was invading in the first place our job? This brings us to American exceptionalism. It seems some people, like the previously mentioned Mr. Cheney, think American exceptionalism means that we're somehow inherently better than other countries. That our values are superior, that we don't have to play by everyone else's rules. That our nuclear weapons are totally cool, but everyone else's are crazy and dangerous. That our god is better than their god. That it's not torture when we do it. These people are idiots.

I do, however, agree that America is an exceptionally good place to live. That's why I always find campaign debates about illegal immigration to be so silly. If we built a 50 foot wall between us and Mexico and covered it in electrified barbed wire, people would still find a way in. Because the crappiest life in America is still better than whatever they're currently doing in Mexico. That's American exceptionalism, it's an awesome place to be. And that's the answer. Why is this all America's job? It's the price we pay for being free, wealthy, healthy and secure all at the same time.

And what do I think about what the President is doing? I think this is why we should vote for the smartest guy and not the most likable guy (we lucked out this time, the smartest guy turned out to be the most likable guy, it won't be so easy next time). I think this is one of those times when being the President is the hardest job in the world. I think this is one of those times when the President earns all the cool perks that go with the job. Inheriting a war is a crappy deal for a President, and two wars are double crappy. The power of the Presidency rests in the office, not in the man who occupies that office. A President has a responsibility to, um, responsibly follow-up on whatever the last guy was doing, even when he doesn't like it. It doesn't mean you can't change course, but you can't change course in a destructive, ya know, catastrophic way.

Truthfully, I don't care what I think, and neither should anyone else, because I've never been to Afghanistan and I have no idea what I'm talking about. Sometimes people forget how our government is designed. The people we elect aren't charged with doing whatever we say. They're charged with doing what they think is best for their district, state and country. If we disagree with their judgment, we get to vote against them next time. I hope the President doesn't listen to polls and opinion journalists on this issue. I hope he listens to his military advisers, and no one else.

What about other politicians? Congress has become incredibly whiny and increasingly hysterical, and I don't really care what they think either. There used to be a saying in Washington, that politics stopped at the water's edge. Not anymore. So, as long as Congress continues to base their opinions on Afghanistan (and Iraq, for that matter) on what they think will get them the most votes, I will continue to call them stupid and say I don't care what they think.

I've decided to shut my brain off on this issue and get behind the President, at least for now. I say we give him some time to try and get this done without having to listen to us bitching about it. Why? Because it's a terrifying world out there, and everyone has guns, or missiles or plutonium, and he's doing the best he can.

Defending The BCS

I was driving today and found myself at a red light behind a perfectly nice white Toyota (buy American damn it!). This was memorable because the owner of the Toyota had put the word "champaine" on the back of the car in big black letters. I know that's not actually how you spell champagne, but the owner of this Toyota didn't. My point is, sometimes people do things, and it's best not to waste time trying to figure out why. Why would someone want to have champagne written across the back of their car, and why wouldn't they find out how to spell it first? I don't know, and I'm not going to waste what little sanity I have left on trying to figure it out.

For a long time, this is how I felt about the BCS. It was stupid, it made no sense, and I just didn't have the energy to care. But last weekend, as I watched Texas almost blow it's spot in the national title game, and as I listened to the ABC announcer tell me, after every play, how many minutes we were away from BCS chaos, I had an epiphany. I've seen the light. The BCS is a great idea, maybe the best idea in the history of sports. The rest of us were just too damn stupid to see it. But not me, not anymore.

See, sports have had playoffs for years, it's been done to death. Just thinking about some sport having all the best teams play each other on the field in some sort of tournament to decide a champion makes me yawn, that's sooo 20th century. The BCS is so revolutionary, so modern. They've got voters and computers and statistical formulas, and probably some robots and talking monkeys too. TCU, Cincinnati and Boise St. probably don't like it this year, but if they wanted to contend for championships, they should have thought of that before they decided to not be Alabama or Texas. This is the wave of the future, and I'm on board. I don't want all my other favorite sports to get left behind. So, here are some ideas for how the other sports can be more like college football. We need to get to work on this right away, before it's too late.

First, a few rules. Number one, the BCS still has a championship game, I guess they figured they'd throw the dinosaurs a bone, so we're not picking the best team, just the best two teams. Number two, we need to stay as far away from on the field competition as possible, I'm getting sleepy just thinking about it. Finally, you'd still have the same regular season, just for kicks, like college football does. We're just replacing the playoffs.

Baseball. My first thought was some kind of home run derby. But those happen on the field, that feels too much like honest athletic competition, not what we're going for. My second thought was letting the two teams with the nicest ballparks each year play for the title. The problem there is that ballparks don't change much and you'd get the same two teams a lot. College football has taught us that you really need a good rotation of like four or five teams. But I was on the right track with this.

I propose that baseball decide its two championship contenders each year based on the quality of ballpark food. Teams can change this pretty drastically from year to year if they want, so it won't always be the same teams. Plus, this would help with baseball's parity problem. I haven't been to the new Yankee stadium yet, because I don't own my own company, but the food at the old Yankee Stadium sucked. In contrast, I saw a game in Cincinnati once, they had pulled pork sandwiches and chili. The Reds kick the Yankees' ass in food. I also heard the San Francisco Giants have garlic fries at their ballpark. Garlic fries! Right there at the ballpark! You see where I'm going with this, any team can win the food competition. I don't care who the judges are, as long as I'm one of them.

Basketball. First of all, to be honest, if you suggested quality of stadium eats as a system for all four major sports, I wouldn't argue with you, but I'm trying to be creative here. A slam dunk competition has the same problem as a home run derby. I thought maybe just taking the two teams with the two tallest players. That would be funny, because teams would have to spend the off-season searching the world for the tallest freaks they could find, but you'd still need basketball talent for that championship game. Funny, but not really fun.

I've got it! Hip-Hop records. I've noticed a lot of basketball players make rap albums. I've heard they're mostly terrible, but maybe it's because they're not trying hard enough. So here's the pitch. At the beginning of every season, every player makes an album. Over the course of the season, the team works together to pick the best album they have and make it better. At the end of the season, the two teams that produce the two best albums play for the title. This would be great both for basketball players who always wanted to be rappers and rappers who always wanted to be basketball players. This would also allow the Knicks to spend an insane amount of money on a whole team of terrible rappers they can pair with their current team of terrible basketball players. I think this is a win for everyone.

Football. This was the easiest one. Three words: Cheerleader Beauty Pageant. This should appeal to most football fans and keep the same high ratings the playoffs currently get. Everyone would love it and it would lead to even more attractive cheerleaders than we have now. Sometimes life's just that simple.

Hockey. This is the toughest one for me, I've already written here about how much I like the hockey playoffs. But when it's time to move on, it's time to move on, and I'm a team player. I thought about taking the two teams with the most Canadians on their rosters. Sadly, I'm afraid this might seem vaguely racist to non-Canadians. A drinking competition would be fun, but almost every hockey player I've ever met has seemed like a genuinely nice guy, so let's not destroy their livers for sport. Zamboni races? We should definitely have them, but I don't think they're right for this.

I thought about this for a while, and it finally came to me. A beard growing competition. This is perfect because it keeps one of the traditions of the old playoffs without all the boringness of actual playoffs. Beards would be judged on length, thickness and general creepy appearance. Bonus points for cool beard design, like if you were able to cut your beard into the shape of a hockey stick. Points off for dyed beards, that would be the beard competition equivalent of performance enhancing drugs. The two teams with the highest average beard scores play for the cup.

So, there it is. If I didn't cover your favorite sport, I'm sure you can think of some ideas on your own. Think this was stupid? I dare anyone to explain how any of my ideas are any worse than the BCS. I double dog dare you.

Movies I Need To See

When I say "I need to see", I don't mean it as in "hey, I need to see that new Star Trek movie". By the way, I saw the new Star Trek movie on DVD recently, solid effort, I'm sure nerds worldwide had some sort of problem with it, but I recommend it. What I mean is, I need to see these movies get made.

Last week, I started a blog entry complaining about how Invictus is the first movie in which Morgan Freeman plays Nelson Mandela (I won't let myself get started on this again, but I mean, really, come on!). My buddy Dave commented that we don't have any good World War 1 movies and suggested a prequel to Saving Private Ryan that explores post-WW1 Germany and the rise of Hitler. This is a great idea, and certainly the story of what could happen with the resulting power vacuum and desperation of a war torn nation is something we would do well to take note of as events continue to unfold in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also, a good movie about the true evil of Adolf Hitler might help us finally stop some people from comparing everyone they don't like to him.

This discussion gave me an idea. Look at all the crappy movies we put up with every year. Did anyone see semi-pro with Will Ferrell? I did, and if you did too, you have my sympathy. Larry the cable guy has made multiple movies. Someone responsible should be punished for that, preferably by having to watch them over and over again until they prove that it's possible to die from stupidity. So here are seven movies that need to get made, like right now, and don't tell me Hollywood has better ideas than I do or there isn't money to make these, because semi-pro, anything involving larry the cable guy and the hundreds of other cinematic turds we've been subjected to over the years completely destroy both of those arguments.

7. I think it's time for a movie about the Monica Lewinsky scandal. I know HBO is doing something like this soon, but from what I've read, the HBO thing seems to be more about Tony Blair's frustration over how distracted Clinton was by the scandal. They're not even getting anyone to play Lewinksy, they're just using archival news footage. What a crock! I remember thinking all sorts of things about this scandal when it was happening, but none of them were "I wonder what the British Prime Minister thinks about this?" I think this needs to happen with Lewinsky as the main character. This would be the TRUE story of some random 22 year old having an affair with the President of the United States. Tell me that doesn't sound interesting. You can't. I rest my case.

6. The Audacity of Hype: The Brett Favre and Tim Tebow Story. This movie would follow the lives of two quarterbacks and their journeys from mere mortals to star football players whose media hype far exceeds anything that anyone could actually do on a football field that exists in reality. One movie, two touching stories, but the real selling point is the twist at the end, when we find out that Tim Tebow is the illegitimate son of Brett Favre and a bayou alligator.

5. I know remakes are sometimes considered sacrilege by movie buffs and fans of the original, and I get that. But I think remakes have some merit. Eventually, even a great movie gets old enough that it just doesn't look and feel right to the new generation. This is when a remake can come in and expose a whole new generation of fans to a great movie. So, I propose that it's time to remake Slap Shot. I know, I know. I can hear every hockey fan who reads this booing me as I write it, but hear me out. Hockey is struggling, we all know that. The NHL needs a game changer, something to get it going again with a influx of new fans. I submit that a Slap Shot remake can do for hockey what Rounders did for poker, maybe even get it on ESPN (imagine that).

4. Isn't it time for a Michael Jordan movie? This guy is the most important athlete since Babe Ruth and one of the most interesting people we've seen in sports in a while. For most big time athletes, you'd say we already know too much about them for a movie to be interesting, but not MJ. The gambling, the trash talking we never got to hear, the random and suspicious adventure into baseball and the subsequent sucking at baseball. I could be wrong about this one, but I just feel like there's a lot of unexplored territory here. You know this movie happens eventually, why do we have to wait until people are dead to make movies about them? Wouldn't this movie be like 10 times better if you paid MJ enough to be involved and tell the whole story about everything?

3. I'd like to see a comedy set entirely in hell. This movie has two dimensions. First, we get to see Norm Macdonald as the devil, wandering around hell and making smart ass remarks while he oversees the ironically hilarious eternal torments of evil people, carried out by his mostly incompetent hell staff. The broader plot would be something like the old Pinky and the Brain cartoons. Every night, satan Norm tries to outsmart god and take over heaven, but his plan is always foiled by his witless sidekick, possibly played by Steven Colbert. Am I really just looking for something to put Norm in? Maybe, but I still think this can work.

2. I like sci-fi movies sometimes, so here's one I think we need to see. The movie takes place on a planet, the people living there aren't humans, but they're humanoid enough so that humans can play them in the movie (always a key to alien movies). Most of the plot would be relatively generic. Aliens come to our little planet and make contact with the inhabitants. At first, the aliens seem nice and say they want to do good things. As the movie goes on, we learn they have sinister motives. But here's the big idea, we don't see the aliens' faces until right near the end of the movie, when we find out that they're humans. It's us doing sinister things and taking over this planet. I especially like this because it has prequel potential if it goes over well. Wouldn't we then need to find out what happened to Earth and why humans are now roaming the galaxy and taking over other planets? We'd want to know that, right? Then you get a sequel with what happens after we take over the planet. This could be a whole franchise.

1. Finally, I need a Guns n Roses movie. First, how many great GnR stories are there? Like how Slash supposedly died one time. Or the story of how Steve Adler is somehow not dead. I feel like this movie could be five hours long and not have a boring moment. Second, and more importantly, if we pay all the guys enough money to play themselves in the movie, we could get a GnR reunion. If I put 200 million dollars into this movie and it made 20 dollars at the box office, it would still be totally worth it for a reunion. I would give my other six great ideas away for free, and this one too, just to have someone do this and get Axl, Slash, Izzy and Duff on a stage together again. Matt Sorum can be the drummer, I don't need Steve Adler for a reunion, I don't even know how he's still standing up on his own.

Things I Don't Care About

Before I start, I just have to make one movie comment, about Invictus. Did it really take this long for someone to cast Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela? Seriously, how did it get this far? And the movie isn't really even about him, he's a supporting character, the movie's about rugby, and I'm all for movies about rugby, but how have we possibly gone this long without a movie in which Morgan Freeman plays Nelson Mandela? Every time I see the commercial, I want to go to Hollywood and punch everyone who makes movies in the face for not doing this sooner. I could go on all day about this. Let's get to the blog.

There are, in fact, a great many things I don't care about. I've found that the less things you care about, the less disappointing life becomes. Put that on a bumper sticker. If I posted a blog listing all the things I don't care about, I'd be here for weeks, so we're obviously not going to do that. But here's a few, just to give you an idea.

Soccer. I can't force myself to watch a soccer game. First of all, what's with the no hands rule? Evolution gave me hands, and they're incredibly functional. I can do all sorts of things with my hands. Why would a sport not allow me to use my hands? It doesn't make any sense. Also, anytime I do turn on a soccer game, I see most of the players standing around watching soccer. Other sports have plenty of standing around and watching, but this happens in soccer while the ball is in play. Players have nothing to do while the game is actually happening. I played soccer for a year when I was little (I think) and I didn't even care about it while it was going on around me. So, next summer, when the U.S. team inevitably gets knocked out of the World Cup, I won't be heart broken, I won't even notice, because I don't care.

Reality TV. From American Idol to The Real World to whatever goes on at VH1 most of the time (20 bucks, right now, to anyone who can tell me who the f*ck Ray J is). Come to think of it, I could write a whole blog entry on VH1 too. Last week, I saw Brett Michaels wearing what was absolutely a Brett Michaels t-shirt. If there was a button on my remote that allowed me to cause whoever I was currently looking at on the TV to be kicked in the groin, I would have used it. Reality TV makes stars out of the talentless and rewards stupidity. More importantly, it's just lazy. Instead of writing good TV, they just follow psychopaths around with cameras. So, over the next year, someone will be the best singer, and someone will be the best dancer, and someone will win whatever herpes olympics VH1 is currently running. And maybe someone will ask me what I think about one of those people, and I won't think anything, because I don't care.

Tennis? Local news? Fashion? Video games that don't rhyme with Yadden? Don't care, don't care, don't care, don't care. So what's the point? Of all the many things I don't care about, the one thing I care less about than all the others is what famous people do when they're not doing the thing that makes them famous.

We recently found out that Andre Agassi was a meth head. The only thing that shocked me about this was how shocked people were. Really? The tennis player who never ran out of energy, who started with long, stringy hair and then shaved it for no apparent reason, the one with the crazy eyes? That guy was into meth? No way! Come on! OK, I'm wandering. My point isn't my lack of surprise. My point is that I don't care if Andre was mainlining heroin during commercial breaks. I didn't watch him play tennis because I thought he was drug free (I didn't watch him play tennis at all, but hypothetically, if I had, it wouldn't have been because I thought he was drug free).

More recently, we found out that Tiger Woods cheated on his wife. Again, really? The relatively good-looking, relatively young, super rich dude who spends most of his time traveling the world away from his family? That guy had sex with some other women? Unbelievable! This one is especially annoying for a few reasons.

First, people are just obsessed with it. The Agassi thing only lasted a day or two and mostly stayed in the sports media. Even supposedly real news channels can't go 15 minutes this week without talking about where Tiger's penis has been.

Second, some people just love covering this story. Like they've been waiting 15 years just to bring this guy down. I'm not going to try and talk people out of wanting to take down guys like Tiger, because I won't get anywhere with that. So I'll just say this, Tiger's life is still like 26 million times better than yours, so there.

Finally, this sports guys as role models thing has come up again. How did this not go away permanently with OJ? How did that not teach us, once and for all, that all we really know about sports guys is that they're good at sports, so we shouldn't look to them for anything else? If you want your kids to learn how to hit a golf ball, tell them to watch Tiger Woods. If you want them to learn anything else, try teaching it to them yourself (or don't, whatever, other people's children also fall into the I don't care category).

I also don't care about this story because I don't care about cheating. Look, I've never cheated on anyone, and I never will, because I don't see the appeal. But it seems like every week we find out that some famous person cheated on his or her (OK, mostly his) spouse. Senators, Congressmen, Governors, athletes, actors, etc, etc, etc. And every time we act totally shocked. We're like Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates. I turned 30 today, and I was considering posting a blog with 30 things I've learned in the last 30 years. I still might sometime next week. One of those things would be this: People cheat, frequently. If you don't like it, try not cheating on the person you're with and not worrying about what other people are doing.

So, people, if you can't find something you'd rather watch on TV then more stories about what Tiger Woods did, just turn your TV off. Go read a book, or take a walk, or just bash your head against the wall until you pass out. And news people, if you can't think of anything going on right now more news-worthy then Tiger Woods, just turn the cameras off and shut up for a while.

I, by the way, am not defending Mr. Woods. Just because everyone else is doing something doesn't make it OK. Remember this? "If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?" Tiger apparently jumped off a bridge and landed in at least three other women's vaginas. Not OK. He cheated on his wife, who seems like a perfectly nice lady. Over the next year or two, she'll probably become a perfectly nice lady with half of his stuff. All I'm saying is, why do we all have to be watching while it happens?

Where's My Food-A-Rac-A-Cycle?

Let me just say, I don't want this to be the anti-Fox News, anti-Glenn Beck blog. I have no desire to be that guy. For one thing, I don't know any of those Fox guys personally, and I'm sure they're perfectly decent people in real life (or, ya know, not). Also, I fully realize that I don't have to watch anything on TV I don't like and nobody's forcing me to sit through Glenn's rants. Sometimes though, I just feel like Fox is baiting me.

Just a little while ago, during a Monday Night Football commercial, I flipped briefly over to the Hannity Hysteria Hour. I didn't stay long, but in the short amount of time I was there, I heard Sean bitching about how President Obama has yet to do a lot of the stuff that Sean doesn't want him to do. Just before that, Dick Morris was out from under his bridge, lurking around the studio, and he and Sean were both complaining about the President sending more troops to Afghanistan. Of course, if the President had decided to not send more troops to Afghanistan, both of these guys would have set themselves on fire. But somehow, President Obama doing exactly what these two wanted him to do is still a valid reason for the usual whining and general contempt.

As usual though, nothing beats Beck. He's the Shakespeare of incoherence. Last Wednesday, I came home from work and flipped around the news networks a little before I started my long weekend. As is his usual custom, Mr. Beck was on the verge of tears while waxing poetic about America's founders. In about 20 minutes, Glenn's show progressed in the following way.

First, when I got there, he was on some sort of nonsense about the myth of separation of church and state. I don't want to go into a whole thing on this, so I'll just say, if you think you can avoid laws respecting an establishment of religion, as Glenn's buddies the founders said we have to, without keeping religion separate from the state, then you might be what I'd call "reality challenged".

It seemed I'd stumbled into the middle of one of Glenn's tangential adventures, because the topic of the show didn't have anything to do with church and state. Eventually we got back to his point, which was property rights. First, Glenn pointed out how smart the founders were to replace property in the Declaration of Independence with the pursuit of happiness. Once again, Glenn's assertion is that the founders' strategy of ignoring slavery and hoping it would go away was genius. I also enjoyed how Glenn was able to talk for basically the whole show about how important the founders thought property rights were without ever mentioning how they screwed the people who already lived here out of all their land. I'm sure this was an oversight on Glenn's part. Glenn wouldn't ever willfully omit the fact that the founders weren't so wild about property rights for people who had, let's say, a certain lack of whiteness.

So what do Fox's usual adventures into fantasy land have to do with food-a-rac-a-cycles? Two things, we'll get back to the second one in a minute. But first, Glenn's ranting about our founders reminded me that independence was our first big, bold idea as a country. It was a good idea and it turned out pretty well, but it took some courage at the time, it's not like winning the war was a slam dunk. Since then, you can follow a series of big ideas through the timeline of America. The story of our bold advances is the story of our nation, and this brings me to the Jetsons.

I feel like my generation was implicitly promised, by the Jetsons, a great, technologically advanced future. As best I can remember, the Jetsons lived in a big building on top of a giant pole. I don't remember anyone in that show ever using the ground for anything (looking back, this was probably the result of some kind of matrix-style catastrophe that blocked the sun below the clouds, but I didn't think of things like that when I was six, so it just seemed cool). How awesome would a groundless society be?

The Jetsons also had a robot maid. I know we have robots now, but Rosie, the Jetsons' maid, she had wheels. When I see robots on the news, they rarely have wheels, and a maid on wheels is much better. Also, Rosie was sassy, these robots we have now aren't sassy.

Most importantly, the Jetsons had a food-a-rac-a-cycle. George could go up to a machine in his apartment, push some buttons or whatever (I don't remember exactly, sorry, it was like 25 years ago) and it would just give him what he wanted. How cool is that? Jane must have had to buy ingredients for it or something, why else would George have had to put up with Mr. Spacely? Still though, how great would it be to just walk up to a machine in your apartment and order whatever you wanted. I know, Star Trek had even better food technology, and I'd love to be a guy on a star ship, but we're taking baby steps here.

I also remember flying cars, and there was a lot going on with sprockets and cogs. My point is, I was promised a cool future. So, where's my bold new advancement? Where's my big new thing? The internet, you say? Bleh. I have a confession, I'm not a big fan of porn. Some people are, and for them, the internet is better than a whole garage full of flying cars, but not me. For me, the internet is just a convenient way to take work home (and do this, but if I didn't have a blog, I'd probably just make my co-workers listen to my rambling).

Cell phones? Double bleh. When I was a kid, people could leave their houses and be left alone for a while. Now? People expect you to be constantly available. I continue to assert that cell phones, while they're useful sometimes, are really more of an annoyance then anything else. And really that's it. That's what we got. Where's my flying car? Where's my jetpack? Where's my awesome machine that makes whatever food I want?

I'm sure there are a lot of perfectly sane reasons why we don't have these things. For example, I know that jetpacks have actually been invented, they're just incredibly dangerous and use a ridiculous amount of fuel. Still, I am not satisfied with these excuses, my cup is less than full, and I think it starts with leadership. In 1960, President Kennedy said to the nation "hey, I'm gonna get these science nerds together and they're gonna put someone on the moon by 1970." I may be paraphrasing. My point is, Kennedy said it, and then it happened. This is the kind of bold idea I'm talking about. It starts with a difficult goal, but we find a way to reach it, and in the process, we make other discoveries and advances. Eventually, I get to have steak in my apartment without having to, ya know, know how to cook a steak.

Where's the leadership now? I recently read somewhere that President Obama wants to promise an 83% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. Why not just promise a 13 billion percent reduction in carbon emissions by the year 3900? And anyway, who gets excited about reducing carbon emissions? I want to hear some political leader demand that we cure cancer by 2015, or build a working nuclear fusion reactor by 2020 (and by working I mean it both powers stuff and doesn't annihilate us. Is this even possible? Probably not, but people didn't think the moon was possible either, that's sort of my point). Or how about just saying we're going to Mars by the end of the next decade?

I'm not hearing the bold ideas from our leaders. And you know whose fault it is? Yours (caught you off guard there, didn't I?). It's my fault too, it's all of our faults. If President Obama stood up at January's state of the union address and announced that we're sending people to Mars by 2020, here's what would happen. First, the news media would mock him and say he needs to worry about the economy and jobs and security. Then the Republicans would latch onto that message and make it part of the 2012 campaign. Then, enough of us would fall for it and the President wouldn't get re-elected. The other option would be for the President to drop the idea and never mention it again. This is what happened when George W. Bush said he wanted to send people to Mars. He got made fun of, he saw polls that said people want him to focus on other stuff, and he never mentioned it again.

This where Fox comes back in. We get the quality of journalism we deserve. Fox exists because enough of us watch (myself included). In a democracy, we also get the government we deserve. We have to be willing to believe that our leaders can focus on more than one thing at a time. We have to let them do big, abstract things without accusing them of ignoring the smaller, more concrete things that effect us everyday. We have to be willing to let our leaders reach for bold goals and fail sometimes without bitching about it and electing someone else.

I think, if President Obama wanted to point us to Mars, he wouldn't say anything, because it wouldn't poll well while the economy's in the toilet. And I think it's a shame, because it's hard to make amazing new advances when you're not trying to do anything that requires amazing new advances. I don't want a newer, smaller cell phone that does more stuff other than make phone calls, I just want a damn food machine, and maybe a jetpack.