Fantasy Leagues

It’s amazing how we Americans can take something very simple, contort it ten different ways, and make it new and fascinating.  Take football, for example.  You had the forward pass, followed by the spread, then the West Coast offense.  On defense, you went from the 4-3, to the 3-4 to the Cover 2, to whatever Bill Belichik could dream up next.

Not only did play improve, but safety did, too.  Cloth helmets gave way to real helmets with face guards.  Pads were introduced.  Then we added penalities to regulate the game and protect the players.

Not only are things more interesting for the athletes, but fans have devised new and more exciting ways to watch the game as well.  If we go to the game, we tailgate, and maybe end up at the bar afterwards.   At home, we have the huge plasma screen, and entertain our friends for twenty-something consecutive Sundays as though we could afford to party all the time.

Even the geeks have found ways to improve their participation and enjoyment in the game.  First, it was Strat-o-Matic, then fantasy leagues.  We not only followed our favorite team, but found reasons to follow the other thirty-one teams regardless of how good or bad they were.  We hold mock drafts.  We trade up and down in the draft.  We even join a second or third fantasy league if we can’t get enough.

Thanks to Roger Goodell and Jim Irsay, however, we’ve come to realize that one more component needs to be added to this fantasy league bonanza.  We missed it all this time.  Why?  Because we were selfish.  We wanted OUR team to win.  We wanted OUR players to do well.  We wanted to win our fantasy league championship.

How self-centered of us?  We were missing out on the most important part of professional football.

What is that, you say?

Political affiliation.

Yep, that’s right.  Starting next year, YoHoo Sports is upgrading its fantasy football leagues to include a “political beliefs” factor for each player.  Within each fantasy league, this “political beliefs” factor will be multiplied to a player’s (individual stats) or team’s (defense) fantasy stats to determine the true points earned by each fantasy team.  Say you have Big Ben on your team, and say he is conservative.  His political beliefs factor may read .2, meaning each point he earns during the game is only worth .2 the total points.  On the other hand, Chad Ochocinco’s 1.8 rating (highly liberal) would earn him more game points.

It’s a risk some fantasy team owners may be willing to take.  Sure, it makes it difficult for owners to select conservative players, but that’s not a problem.  As the fantasy league market starts to make an impact on the pro football level, owners and GM’s will quickly learn that it is wise for them not to select conservative athletes for their teams at all.  Everybody wins – the fans, the league, and the owners.  Everybody, of course, except for the exceptional conservative athletes.

Stay Classy!

If you haven’t heard about the Miss America non-fiasco yet, read here.   If you want to read about intolerance masked as politically-correct groupthink, read here.

Between the question, which may or may not have been planted, the manufactured disdain at the contestant’s honest answer, and the retracted apology of the idiot whose name I won’t even mention (or use in my tags), I am flabbergasted.

Okay,  not really.  Of course you could see this coming.  That is, if you looked at the situation objectively, without the lens of political correctness.

You see, it’s no longer about being the “most qualified”, even if this was a beauty pageant.  It’s now the most qualified politically appropriate candidate that wins.

Don’t believe me?  Would Green Day’s American Idiot project been released had a Democrat been President?  Would they have even produced the project?  How about The Offspring’s Hammerhead?  Why wouldn’t some media outlets even review An American Carol?  Was it not a movie?  Were these not movie critics?  But they’d review Hairspray, and Harold and Kumar act like idiots…again, and any other mush-for-brains movie that came along.

The definition for “qualified” has changed.  Politics infiltrates everything.  It infiltrates religion, which can only bring religion down.  It infiltrates academia, and turns academia into the biggest intellectual joke this side of – um, er, the Potomac.  It infiltrates entertainment, because that’s the only way anyone will pay attention to it.

So an honest girl gives an honest answer and stands up for what she believes.  Sounds like a true American to me.  And she didn’t back down, much like Barry O backs down to each third world dictator.  Good for her.  Bad for the media for forgetting that the First Amendment applies to everyone.  Way to stay classy, idiots!

Light Headed

Since Kelly Clarkson’s American Idol appearance last Wednesday, this blog has been read over 300 times by people searching on some term using her name followed by either “fat”, “skinny” or “chunky”.  Note that this does not include the hits taken for the same on Carrie Underwood.  In all, this site had over 350 hits in four days because people were obsessed with other people’s weight.

Don’t these guys have anything better to do?  Obama is a train wreck, 401k plans have become 201k accounts, and Nance Pelosi wants to give authority over your kids to the U.N.  And these guys are worried about the weight of our singers.  You, my friends, are the idiot of the week.

The award, by the way, is very light.  Which pretty much matches your brain power.

A Toast to the Dying Newspapers

An ode to newspapers:

Oh, how I wish
you could ply your trade well.
You might stick around for a while.

Oh, how I wish
your paper would sell
if you reported more substance, less style.

“We don’t know what to do!”
You lament and you fret.
The new media has joined the fray.

It’s doing your job,
It prods and it vets,
And that’s why you’re going away.

Yes, the latest IOTW candidate is none other than the L.A. Times.  Seems they can’t cover the Chicago Tea Parties because they don’t qualify for coverage, no matter how many people attend.

And they wonder why their subscription rates drop like the stock market after Obama opens his mouth.  Fools.

Support your local tea parties.  A buddy told me that he can’t renew Atlas Shrugged from the library because demand is so high.  People want to know; now only if some smart newspaper would actually cover the story….

I support the Chicago Tea Party movement.  The story needs to be told.

Capitalism, not Capitol-ism

Click here to learn more about the Tea Parties.

It’s Called “The Super Bowl”

The NFL playoffs started last week, starting the progressive elimination of teams until only two remain to play in “the big game”.

The big game.

Doesn’t sound right to say it that way, does it?  But that is the way you have to say it, if you are advertising your wares and have not bought into the official licensing agreement of the NFL to use the term “Super Bowl”.  So let me, on behalf of all those companies and advertisers that could receive a boost from sales but refuse to pay licensing fees to the NFL, say something:

SUPER BOWL
SUPER BOWL
SUPER BOWL
SUPER BOWL
SUPER BOWL
SUPER BOWL
SUPER BOWL
SUPER BOWL
SUPER BOWL
SUPER BOWL

The NFL makes enough money, you’d think they could use some of their goodwill to help companies instead of taking more money from them.  NFL:  You are my idiots of the week.

To the NFL

The NFL is not the only winner of the award this week.  No, I have a winner from last week, too, but did not have time to post.   The title of this version of the award is “How Not to Show Your Impartiality”.  Tell me if you’ve heard this one:

A media outlet that has a reputation for leaning right, but occasionally conducts on air conversations with an acerbic liberal writer, schedules another TV segment with this writer.  The station knows the writer has a book to promote, and they have no problem scheduling the writer, who will increase ratings, cause additional dialog and keep their station in the news for a couple days, if not for a full week.

The author’s latest book, though, points out some glaring biases in this station’s programming and coverage of the recent election cycle.  Realizing what this could mean to the station, and how they have a reputation to uphold with their viewers, permanently cancel the interview, and replace the author with one of the most vitriolic, right-wing on air personalities.  Because, of course, the best way for this station to disprove its right-wing bias is to cancel a scheduled appointment of the liberal author and replace the author with someone even more right-wing than the media outlet’s reputation.

Right?

Oh, one more thing.  The story is actually reversed: it was a left-leaning outlet that did this to an acerbic right-wing author.  You can read about it here.  Great job, NBC in general and the Today Show in particular.  Way to show your impartiality.  You win last week’s IOTW award:

Good job, NBC

It really is a good thing that the Fairness Doctrine would fix these kinds of issues across the media.  Oh, it doesn’t affect television, only radio?  How shocking!

Predictive Blogging

Let’s just get this out of the way now, shall we? Considering all anyone will hear at the Thursday night VP candidate debate is either crickets or “blah, blah, blah”, I figured I would pre-declare this week’s Idiots of the Week.

Of course, as your dear editor and publisher of SMISLT, unlike the major media outlets, I will be more than willing to correct my mistake if I am wrong. But, for some ungodly reason, I don’t think I have to worry about that.

Let’s hit the candidates first. No, silly, not the VP candidates, the Idiot of the Week candidates (in no particular order):

• Sarah Palin – will parrot John McCain’s campaign lines, especially since playing the maverick would be completely out of line with McCain’s vote on the Senate version of the non-bank bank bailout bill.
• Joe Biden – will say lots of dumb things. After tonight’s Senate vote, he really does not need to say anything of substance anyway, since McCain and the other Republican Senators handed Obama the keys to daddy’s car.
• The RNC / McCain campaign – just for existing
• The DNC / Obama campaign – for existing as a facade, and not showing America how Obama would preside over this great nation.
• The MSM – Biden will be awesome as the affable goofball – you know, your oddball uncle? – yet still manage to look Vice Presidential. Palin will look like someone that did not go to an Ivy League school, and is out of touch with Washington DC politics. But they will get it right that Republicans sold their minions down the river.
• Fox News – McCain is doing the right thing for the country, and conservatives just need to stick with him.
• The zealots in both parties, via blogs – libs will say they are 3.5 months away from living in utopia; conservatives will say they are that far away from living in hell.

What I wrote initially upon drafting this post, prior to the Senate vote:

The winner will end up being none of them. It will be President George Bush. Why? Because practically everything will point back to his failed policies, his inability to support his base, and his overwhelming urge to “reach across the aisle” with people who really don’t want to co-habitate the Federal government. Even when things should also point to Clinton, Bush I, and Carter, they won’t. They will point to Bush, because he is the magnet, whether right or wrong. But I say, “Mostly right.”

Strike that; reverse it. Not because the sentiment was wrong, though.

What I say now is:

The winner will be the Republican Party, for failing to realize, yet again, that you don’t negotiate with terrorists and you don’t turn your back on your constituents. They just don’t get it, and deserve to die as a party. I’d say the same about the Democratic Party, but they will eventually steal the name “the American People’s Party” (or is that the People’s Party of America?) when over 60% of the voting population declares that all big industry should be controlled by the legislature.

Maybe I’ll be the idiot; regardless of how this whole mess turns out, I’ll still spend 90 minutes of my Thursday night watching the debate, if only to confirm how far the Republican Party has fallen.

Fascinating!!!

Fascinate me!
Exhilarate me!
Invigorate me!
Captivate me!

Isn’t that how you feel after the latest rounds of politicians throwing semi-true jabs at the opposing political party; entertainers going whole hog for the black democrat male and decrying the white republican female; the media vetting the white republican female100x over yet not vetting the black democrat male – actually hiding his ties to radical socialists; the Christian political establishment acting all, well, like lemmings again; and the incumbents – yes, all of them – blaming everyone but themselves for the years worth of legislation that helped contribute to the ongoing mortgage crisis?

No?!?  What on earth have you been doing then?

It has consumed me, to the extent that my schedule allows me to consumed.  It almost made me forget about all of the following:

• My beloved Cleveland Indians being swept for the weekend – a Saturday double-header and a Sunday game – by the lowly Kansas City Royals.  When does next year start?
• My beloved Ohio State Buckeyes getting slaughtered in another big game, as the same cast of characters that lost their cool and proved themselves too slow in last year’s BCS game – it only takes a handful of them to make a team totally overmatched – did it again.  (But, man, I’d love to have Malcom Jenkins as a starting cornerback on my team!)
• The Cleveland Browns proving themselves absolutely inept.  If you didn’t notice, I did not use the adjective “beloved” to describe this motley crew.

No, I did not say Motley Crue.

It also didn’t make me forget about the Vince Young saga.  This guy was on top of the world at Texas, and in his first year with the Tennessee Titans.  What happened?

That’s easy.  Fans did what they do best.  They called talk shows.  They booed Young.  They ranted on blogs.

And how did Vince Young’s mom take it?  She told the world to leave her son alone.  I wish I had as many people uplifting my self-esteem as Young has had in his many years in sports.  Think of all the money I’d have…and how difficult it would be for me to overcome failure.   This is the American Idol reality, the no-score league aftermath, the patsi-fying of our utes (yes, I said “utes”).

Failure.  It’s not your fault, and the other person really isn’t better than you.  It’s all in your imagination.  You really are special.  No one is as good as you in anything.  And everyone really should bow down to you.

You are special.  Don’t believe me?  Just ask your therapist.

Then try to get a job that promotes based on merit, and get a grip.

That wasn’t too mean now, was it?

Drawn Like a Moth to a Light

Over the past year and a half, I finally got completely dissatisfied with the two big-box political parties. You can read my rants and musings at my old blog.

Let’s just say that I am amused at the, um, “stuff” that is passing for political discourse and politicking these days.

• Oprah, who is all about empowering women, won’t have Governor Sarah Palin on her show until after the presidential election, but had no problem stumping for Senator Barak Obama early in the primaries.
• Obama criticizes Palin’s lack of experience. That’s like the pot calling the kettle, let’s see now, rainbow.
• Women on the left – that is, liberal women – want Palin barefoot and pregnant. That doesn’t sound very progressive, does it?
• Media bias is so evident, even a liberal can notice it. Well, maybe not.

But, wait, there’s more!

• Disenfranchised conservative Republicans are flocking to the PaliMessiah, because she has a conservative background.
• Palin’s views on immigration are not well known. Remember, many conservatives had issues with John McCain because he wasn’t reaching out to his conservative base, and because he was pro-amnesty. So, half the problem still exists – maybe.
• Half of the Republican ticket is now as inexperienced in tenure (heck with the actual job responsibilities, the common American doesn’t care to understand the difference) as the Democratic ticket.

And we’re still roughly sixty days away from the election!

I avoided television and radio coverage of politics as much as I could since the primaries ended. Yet I find myself eerily fascinated by the current bout of lunacy spewed by both parties and their willing accomplices in the media – including the internet pundits.

It’s kind of like seeing that accident scene on the other side of the freeway, and needing to look even though you know you will be repulsed or sad for looking.

Nah, it’s not like that at all. Even though I look at the accident, I still made the choice to look. For me, the current goings on are more like a moth’s instinctive attraction to lights. I am just waiting to get burned. But until then:

• It’s been fun watching kind, peaceful, loving liberals libel and slander a woman. Remember in the olden days, when we were taught not to hit a woman – physically or figuratively? Hillary Clinton’s rival in her Senatorial election lost many brownie points for merely asking her to commit to a position in writing. The nerve of him! Yet it is okay for people to hit the girl (Palin), and subsequently drop-kick her into oblivion. Now, you can’t hit the black guy. I guess he doesn’t have the balls to stand up for himself.

• It’s been wild watching dissatisfied, conservative Republicans – you know, the ones that can’t understand Obama’s cult of personality – deign Palin the dual savior of the conservative movement and the Republican party. They complain that Obama’s mind-numbed robots will do anything he says, much like they would currently do anything for Palin.

• It’s been crazy listening to journalists forget how to recognize sarcasm when it doesn’t work to their benefit.

• It’s been routine watching politicians attack character instead of responding to the valid charges levied against them. After all, what does a community organizer do, and why is that position more relevant to “presidential experience” than Governor is? I still haven’t heard an answer.

• It’s been scary watching and listening to the media identify how someone living in a small town, attending a non-Ivy league college, and trying to raise a relatively normal family is automatically not qualified to run for political office.

• It’s been telling, having the race card played by the black candidate, and the sexism card played by the female VP candidate.

• It’s been weird, listening to the Democrat’s Presidential nominee compare himself to the Republican’s appointed Vice Presidential nominee. Something just doesn’t jive there.

Worst of all, the last two weeks of activity focused the whole political spotlight on the two big-box candidates. You can just about wipe out any chance of third party candidates getting any coverage by the media because they are now irrelevant.

I think I now know how Nero felt as he watched Rome burn.

This week’s Idiot of the Week award is a reverse class action award. It is given to all of the Democrat and Republican Party leadership, the big-box news organizations, the celebrity glitterati, and the internet pundits who are doing their damnedest to curtail independent thought, and turn this Presidential election into another “who do I hate less” competition.

Inflation in the Modern Era

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Is your blog getting the number of daily hits that you expect?

Are you writing great material that is going unnoticed?

Looking for a pick-me-up? A little blog stimulation? Some artificial growth that lasts beyond four hours? You know, Viagra for your blog?

I have the cure, and it doesn’t have all those crazy side-effects. Well, except for the one where you worry about the mindset of the people viewing your site. But, we live in America, and are only concerned with uninhibited growth (ask our mega-churches, truth be damned!) and popularity (ask our politicians, athletes, and entertainers). Substance is irrelevant; growth is king!

We will make this post all about the numbers. Let’s go for the gold! We’ll keep it cheap and dispensable. Follow my lead:

• Pick a topic that is somewhat relevant, such as the mindless viewing and reading habits of the American male. Or the dumbing down of communication of all types – especially in ads and speeches.
• Figure out a way to include the name of a cute, skinny, white female celebrity. But, wait! I want a story with integrity, with meaning, with…with…CONTEXT! So what? Then create a dumb, boring blog that no one reads. Pick celebrities that fit the story, or just put them (Jessica Simpson) where you want. It really (Christina Aguilera) does not matter all that much. Just ask Carrie Underwood. Or Fergie. It’s all about the children (Miley Cyrus), so do what you can! Pink doesn’t count, and neither does Rihanna.
• Rinse and repeat, about as often as Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan make the news.

Hey, if politicians can convert meaningless drivel into millions of votes, why can’t name dropping (Taylor Swift, Kelly Clarkson, Nastia Luken) work for blogs?

It is inflation that I can believe in.

No skinny white chicks were hurt in the creating of this post.

Tae Kwon Dumb

The Olympics made for must-see-TV for our entire family, from me right down to my six-year-old son. My wife was taken in by the gymnastics – she always is – and my daughter enjoyed watching everything in sight. My son just wanted the USA to win everything; he is ultra-competitive and couldn’t stand it when the “home team” lost. Oh, and I think he developed his first crush, too, on this gal:

We walked into a WalMart and into the electronics area where all of the TVs were showing – of course – the Olympics. During a gold medal montage, we saw swimming, track, volleyball, and gymnastics. My son knew the names of several of the performers, but only named one. It’s not the first time that happened during these Olympics.

But with the thrill of victory comes the agony of defeat, unsportsmanlike conduct, and hot air. The hot air came courtesy of IOC President, Jacques Rogge, who saw fit to criticize Usain Bolt’s celebrations more so than to criticize China, which tried to obfuscate when journalists foraged for evidence that China misrepresented the ages of some girls on their gymnastics team. Geez, Louise, Jacque (do you like Jerry Lewis, too?), way to show off your power. I could knock on Bolt for acting like someone who just won the biggest sporting event of his lifetime, too. But I think I’ll refrain from that. I probably wrote more about the Chinese gymnastics team here than Jacque mentioned about it. What’s the Arabic term for “Chinese dhimmi” again?

Unsportsmanlike conduct was delivered by the Cuban Tae Kwon Do (TKD) competitor Angel Matos, who delivered the agony of da feet to TKD referee Chakir Chelbat for disqualifying him. Adding insult (stupidy?) to injury was Fidel Castro’s defense of Matos. Of course, Cuba’s teams are shrinking and becoming less competitive because of the draw of greenbacks from that place up north (no, not Michigan). Fidel…buy a clue!!!

(And, Fidel, karma isn’t on your side, either. Tropical Storm Gustav may have its way with you.)

Thankfully, Tae Kwon Do officials know better, and are attempting to get Matos banned from the sport for life. My kids take Tae Kwon Do, and they know the guiding principles of the discipline. Maybe Matos ought to learn them, too.

To all those Olympians who did their best – whether they won or lost – congratulations! You served your countries proudly.

To Rogge, Matos, Castro and the “Chinese behind the curtain” at the Olympics, I have one more award for you:

And now I know why Guns & Roses named their “next” album “Chinese Democracy”…cuz it’ll never happen.