Probably won't happen, they are overwhelming favorites, but I hope the Patriots lose. Beyond my typical support for the underdog to do well I have other reasons to want this team to lose. A difficult choice because they are my home team. Here are a few of the reasons:
Their coach, Bill Belichick is a heartless, cold man willing to cheat. No need to go into the details here, he and his team were fined by the league $750,000 for their attack on the integrity of the game. Cheating is something Belichick also does in his personal life, as it was discovered that he cheated on his wife for over 3 years with a woman in NYC when he was named in a contested divorce case. Belichick expects injured players to return to play sooner than any other NFL coach. An example comes from Ted Johnson, former Patriots linebacker, who tells the story of how Belichick made Johnson take off the red practice jersey (assigned by the team doctor to those players who are to avoid any contact during practice) to "see what you can do". What Johnson could do was get further injured in practice (further aggravating a string of concussions). Johnson's career would be over the next month and he suffers greatly from the countless concussions. There is a long standing unspoken rule in the NFL that "you don't lose your job due to injury" meaning if you make it back from an injury you at least get the chance to tryout for your old job, particularly if you were hurt on the field of play. When Drew Bledsoe, quarterback for the Pats went down due to a serious injury (severed chest artery) when trying to run for a first down he was out for six weeks. Third string QB Tom Brady was brought in and compiled a 4 and 1 record during that time to put the Pats record at 4-3. Bledsoe was never given any snaps during practices to suggest he was going to get a chance to win back his job. Belichick's decision was to go with Brady and send Bledsoe packing (even though Bledsoe had to come into the AFC Championship game in the first half and finish for Brady when he hurt his ankle thus allowing the Pats to go on to the Super Bowl). My anger about this still lingers and of course to most seems ludicrous since Brady has gone on to be such a Superstar. But Belichick is cold hearted. I have never rooted for the Pats since and therefore shared no joy in their Super Bowl victories.
Dirty players. Rodney Harrison who played for the San Diego Chargers and was considered by far the dirtiest player in the game was acquired by Belichick 3 years ago. Every Patriot fan in New England despised Harrison for his spearing of other players in the back with his helmet, hitting late out of bounds and taking shots at other players in a pileup. When he came to New England, fans suddenly adored his "hard play" - he also was suspended this year for being caught red handed using HGH. One of only 3 players ever caught and suspended. Belichick picked one of the other drug abusers after his suspension last year and made him their punter for the last 6 games. His name was Sauerbrun. More "quality character players" as Belichick likes to say he makes his teams from. Then there's Vince Wilfork fined 3 times this year for dirty play (knocking the Buffalo Bills QB out for 6 weeks when he dived at his knees). He also poked the eye of another player through his face mask in a high profile televised replay. Mike Vrabel several fines for dirty play - in the recent game against San Diego he dove at the knees of Ladainian Tomlinson who was injured and carried only one other time. A few plays later he tripped the SD QB Phillip Rivers as he threw, causing an interception. No penalty flag was thrown. Rivers had had arthroscopic knee surgery 4 days prior. Richard Seymour though I haven't keyed in on this, has been called a cheap shot artist by a SD player this week. He claims he's the worst in the NFL. Here's another quality character guy. Backup fullback Kyle Eckel was witness to a rape in his dorm room by his roommate, he punched a woman in downtown Annapolis and somehow got himself released without having to fulfill his duties as a Naval Academy graduate just after Bill Belichick drafted him. And how about Randy Moss...ran over a female crossing guard with his car when she would let him by quickly enough, major traffic violations and drug possession when in Minnesota and now another woman accusing him of assault. There are more but who has the time.
Running up the score this year on teams clearly down on their luck and with coaches trying to keep their jobs. In many cases Belichick could have called off the dogs and kept many scores from being lopsided/embarrassing contests. The worst was trying to humiliated Joe Gibbs of the Washington Redskins by putting up a score of 52-7. Belichick is a good coach but an ass. Within the brotherhood of coaches I think they all have absolutely no respect for him.
And New England fans. I'm surrounded by them and was once one of them. They are the worst.
Arrogant, disrespectful and pig-headed boors. The man-love that many of the male fans have for Tom Brady is, well, uncomfortable to watch.
Another reason to root for the Giants against the Pats is that they did not lay down in the last game of the season against the Pats and take the chance to rest their players. They played them tough and played the entire game. And nearly beat them. They are coming out of a wild-card slot and are vast underdogs. I don't think I'll be alone next weekend rooting for the Giants.
Please Giants, beat this team, their a-hole coach and their mouthy fans. I've had enough already.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Friday, January 11, 2008
Polls that mislead
Just wondering. The New Hampshire polls that suggested Obama would win by double digits over Clinton were way off. Clinton won by a couple of points. Obama is the leftiest candidate and Clinton a bit more the moderate. My complaint has always been that polls done by newspapers, paricularly with an agenda (e.g. NY Times, Boston Globe, Wash Post) are skewed to represent a more lefty view of the electorate. This is done by polling in areas (urban) where lefties live and by not sorting out the actual voters. Many polls screen for actual voters. Thus polls like those released before this primary vote were intended to support the Obama wave out of Iowa and bolster the hysteria that Clinton was on her way out. Agenda journalism foiled again. Keep it up voters; don't let "polls" decide elections, have real votes decide elections. By the way, I took an on line test/survey of 35 questions that revealed I should be voting for Giuliani.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Won't be fooled again.
Al Gore, Nobel Peace Prize winner, successful documentarian, vice president to liar and philanderer-in-chief Bill Clinton and phoniest human on planet earth has sucked you in hasn't he? He points and shouts and gets red in the face and blames you and anyone to the right of Karl Marx for global warming while his immense Tennessee estate could house 6 families comfortably and wastes more energy than the entire country of Lichtenstein.
A few pointers about Al Gore; he extorted money from Buddhist Monks in California during the second Clinton presidential campaign, he used a room in the White House to make campaign contribution calls (illegal), he remained silent during the discovery period of Clinton's impeachment when he could have shed important light on Clinton's perjury and cover up charges. When his sister died from lung cancer (this one really gets me) he vowed to bring down the tobacco companies but was the single biggest recipient of tobacco company donations for 7 straight years! Frikkin' hypocrit, lying bastard. Oh here's another one, in his first year as VP Gore was forced to make his tax records public. It was discovered that he, Tipper and the girls didn't donate one single dollar to charity the previous year. Oops. His next tax return showed some charitable contributions. Think of the slimiest, most dishonest used car salesman you can conjure up and Al Gore will top that guy, by a magnitude of ten.
This is the guy who is so beloved by the Hollywood glitterati and limousine liberals of every ilk that he makes tens of thousands of dollars just to appear at their dinner parties. I don't care for this guy. The Inconvenient Truth film is so rife with misstatements, exaggerations and outright fabrications that any kind of serious googling will get you thousands of scientists only too happy to refute this guy's sophistry. In fact, in Britain kids can't watch the film without being warned of its bias ahead of time.
My head isn't in the sand on our need to conserve our natural resources. I helped build a 40 foot wooden cross covered with symbols of pollution and helped raise it in downtown San Angelo, Texas 34 years ago on the first Earth Day. Try that in a conservative Texas town decades before it became hip to be environmentally conscious. I actually thought I was going to die that night as we were constantly threatened by redneck sheepherders as they circled our site .
But the warming thing is a big lie and a corner of this site will have regular links to help support my understanding of this gross exaggeration. Look at both sides of the issue and you come away realizing that it's all smoke, mirrors and media manipulation. Let's accelerate alternate energy methods such as solar, wind and fuel cell and dust off the nuclear plants again. I'm all for it. We can't sign on to treaties like the Kyoto treaty if China and India two of the world's biggest polluters are given a free ride because they are considered developing countries. What?
The scare tactics - drowning Polar Bears (not one polar bear has drowned and the polar bear population has tripled since 1900) intensified hurricanes (last 2 years have been the least intense and least frequent) rising temps (since 1998 temps have not risen and may have dropped .1 of a degree F) hottest year in the 20th century? 1934. Ali G, wrong again. This is the same guy who claims to have invented the internet!
I saw this coming...
"The real reasons for climate changes are uneven solar radiation, terrestrial precession (that is, axis gyration), instability of oceanic currents, regular salinity fluctuations of the Arctic Ocean surface waters, etc. There is another, principal reason—solar activity and luminosity. The greater they are the warmer is our climate."
In that Earth Day era of 34 years ago the headlines read "Beware of Global Cooling" it was predicted that most of Canada would be uninhabitable by now from the cooling of our environment from pollution. People bought that for about 2 years and realized it was gross exaggeration. In my opinion, it was this media generated panic that later proved to be wrong that spawned nuclear power plant generation and eventually a love for the SUV. Frankly, I worry that as global warming is further debunked people will return to an even greater habit of over consumption. If we spent more time educating people about; the rapid depletion of natural resources, the despoiling of our rivers and lakes by pollutants (including pharmaceuticals that are creating all sorts of havoc) the fact that using carbon based fuels are doing more to directly harm us (birth defects, asthma, cancers) than indirectly harm the planet (which is far, far more resilient than our species, sorry Al) we might expect a sweeping change in the way we view energy use.
You don't need over hype and lies. You need better and consistent messages to the masses for real change. See seat belts and smoking. Al Gore is an idiot snake oil salesman who will ultimately do far more harm than good. His personal wealth has skyrocketed, does that tell you anything?
A few pointers about Al Gore; he extorted money from Buddhist Monks in California during the second Clinton presidential campaign, he used a room in the White House to make campaign contribution calls (illegal), he remained silent during the discovery period of Clinton's impeachment when he could have shed important light on Clinton's perjury and cover up charges. When his sister died from lung cancer (this one really gets me) he vowed to bring down the tobacco companies but was the single biggest recipient of tobacco company donations for 7 straight years! Frikkin' hypocrit, lying bastard. Oh here's another one, in his first year as VP Gore was forced to make his tax records public. It was discovered that he, Tipper and the girls didn't donate one single dollar to charity the previous year. Oops. His next tax return showed some charitable contributions. Think of the slimiest, most dishonest used car salesman you can conjure up and Al Gore will top that guy, by a magnitude of ten.
This is the guy who is so beloved by the Hollywood glitterati and limousine liberals of every ilk that he makes tens of thousands of dollars just to appear at their dinner parties. I don't care for this guy. The Inconvenient Truth film is so rife with misstatements, exaggerations and outright fabrications that any kind of serious googling will get you thousands of scientists only too happy to refute this guy's sophistry. In fact, in Britain kids can't watch the film without being warned of its bias ahead of time.
My head isn't in the sand on our need to conserve our natural resources. I helped build a 40 foot wooden cross covered with symbols of pollution and helped raise it in downtown San Angelo, Texas 34 years ago on the first Earth Day. Try that in a conservative Texas town decades before it became hip to be environmentally conscious. I actually thought I was going to die that night as we were constantly threatened by redneck sheepherders as they circled our site .
But the warming thing is a big lie and a corner of this site will have regular links to help support my understanding of this gross exaggeration. Look at both sides of the issue and you come away realizing that it's all smoke, mirrors and media manipulation. Let's accelerate alternate energy methods such as solar, wind and fuel cell and dust off the nuclear plants again. I'm all for it. We can't sign on to treaties like the Kyoto treaty if China and India two of the world's biggest polluters are given a free ride because they are considered developing countries. What?
The scare tactics - drowning Polar Bears (not one polar bear has drowned and the polar bear population has tripled since 1900) intensified hurricanes (last 2 years have been the least intense and least frequent) rising temps (since 1998 temps have not risen and may have dropped .1 of a degree F) hottest year in the 20th century? 1934. Ali G, wrong again. This is the same guy who claims to have invented the internet!
I saw this coming...
"The real reasons for climate changes are uneven solar radiation, terrestrial precession (that is, axis gyration), instability of oceanic currents, regular salinity fluctuations of the Arctic Ocean surface waters, etc. There is another, principal reason—solar activity and luminosity. The greater they are the warmer is our climate."
In that Earth Day era of 34 years ago the headlines read "Beware of Global Cooling" it was predicted that most of Canada would be uninhabitable by now from the cooling of our environment from pollution. People bought that for about 2 years and realized it was gross exaggeration. In my opinion, it was this media generated panic that later proved to be wrong that spawned nuclear power plant generation and eventually a love for the SUV. Frankly, I worry that as global warming is further debunked people will return to an even greater habit of over consumption. If we spent more time educating people about; the rapid depletion of natural resources, the despoiling of our rivers and lakes by pollutants (including pharmaceuticals that are creating all sorts of havoc) the fact that using carbon based fuels are doing more to directly harm us (birth defects, asthma, cancers) than indirectly harm the planet (which is far, far more resilient than our species, sorry Al) we might expect a sweeping change in the way we view energy use.
You don't need over hype and lies. You need better and consistent messages to the masses for real change. See seat belts and smoking. Al Gore is an idiot snake oil salesman who will ultimately do far more harm than good. His personal wealth has skyrocketed, does that tell you anything?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)