2.  Will Arnett and Amy Poehler

3.  Tom Brady and Giselle Bunchden

4.  Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore (and Bruce Willis)

5.  Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson

I’d love more money in my pocket and efficiency in government as much as the next guy.  But I’d also like paved roads, some federally funded research on cancer, stem cells, and global warming, and an honest politician at the healm.  At least Obama’s general policy positions are credible, even if they’re not as specific as some would like.  Other than his proposed energy policy, I can’t think of one substantive policy distinction between Bush and McCain.  My conservative friends get annoyed at the 95% Bush-McCain voting alignment comments coming from the Dems, calling it unfair and disingenuous, but I’ve yet to hear one person explain how a McCain candidacy presents even a modest shift from current policies.  It’s always the same bullshit:  “but he’s not a big spender like Bush” or “he’s a true fiscal conservative.”  Well, I think the above article successfully refutes these popular arguments. 

McCain won’t even commit to one discretionary spending program that he would cut (including his favorite “silly bear study”); every Republican candidate (including Bush when he campaigned, and his dad for that matter) says they’ll cut discretionary spending to pay for tax cuts but few (if any) are able to do so, thus enlarging the national deficit; McCain’s military budget is sure to soar even higher, which may be defensible position but he has to own up to funding it.

McCain’s economic policy is just “silly season” in Washington again.  He’s either too shitty at math to be a viable Presidential candidate, just another politician pandering to his base, or he hates Israel.  Either way, in his own creepy-old-man-that-puts-you-to-sleep-before-class-starts voice and using his own spiteful words, “my friends … that doesn’t sound like the change we need in Washington.”  What a silly ass.

“I want to be very clear: I defend everything our guys did.  I feel actually proud of the way we handled the situation that was presented.”  ~ Rays Manager Joe Maddon

Apparently, jumping on top of a scrum and wildly throwing sissy punches at someone’s back when two other guys are already on him is behavior to be proud of.  I must have missed the memo on that one.  I think Shields plunking Coco and then fighting is fine, but Gomes sucks and is a punk to boot. I eagerly await their collapse.     

Mike Honcho

I do feel badly for her because she is such a strong candidate and it’s got to be frustrating to lose a nomination that was kind of hers to lose when this all started.  But I think she made an enormous mistake here by fighting to the death rather than bowing out gracefully earlier.  She is going to both lose this race and isolate herself from the party, and has further exposed her divisiveness and ‘ends justify the means’ view of politics to the right (which already didn’t like her). 

Besides, I never thought she had a chance against McCain, since the Evangelical and conservative republican crowd was going to stay home or vote for him, and democrats don’t mind him.  Add in the closet chauvinists, and now take away the black vote and she doesn’t have a prayer.  I recognize that most people assume that Hillary would beat McCain, but I’m not sure anyone is thinking it through.   The country may want change, but the math isn’t there for her.

Besides, this probably was/is Obama’s one shot (you get to do the hope/change thing only once.  He would have to reinvent himself to run again).  But Hilary, had she not fractured the party, could run whenever (she is running on a platform of experience).  So in my mind, she seriously damaged her long term viability as a democratic presidential nominee, in an effort to win a nomination that probably wouldn’t earn her the presidency anyway.

The Pats superbowl disaster has made the following intollerable to me: 1) Tom Petty; 2) Heineken Light (which I was inexplicably drinking during the game; 3) Alicia Keys; 4) Bill Simmons.  I will NEVER forgive him for his complete hex of the Pats in writing that article.  It’s not that I believe in curses, it’s that he made every Pats fan and every Simmons fan look like such an a-hole.  And the game was tough enough without having to live with that.  I am just now coming into my full anger on this issue, but it is approaching holy wrath, and I might some day drive to his house and [REDACTED].  I tried not to hate him for making $10M off his Sox book and riding Sox fans to famousness, and then being incapable of writing anything worthwhile about the Sox from the moment they won in 2004 on.  It was hard, but I tried.  And then came that 2007 Pats season, with his crappy articles about how it was like his fantasy team, and his unfunny arrogance about the whole thing, leading up to the huge dickhead jinx, and I just couldn’t go back.  And now for the first time ever I actually WANT to read his NBA columns but can’t because I hate him too much and I know that all I’m going to find is either a rant about how Doc is terrible or worse, an article like the one he wrote about the Pats.  Or, more likely, something terrible about his kids and his shallow wife.

Oh my lord I’m angry…

Go F yourself Bill Simmons.  And go F yourself San Diego.

I agree that it is a bummer that we as Pats fans are stuck on the defensive, and a bummer that our coach cheated.  I am pretty sure Belichick isn’t a good guy, and felt this way before spygate.  I wish I could feel like the Pats never ever did anything wrong – no cheap hits, no clawing for an advantage here and there, no poor sports, no arrogant quotes, no jerks in the clubhouse, and no cheating.  I wish this. It’s never been true of any football team, but the Pats seemed to be pretty close for a while, since they never complain about losing or getting cheated by circumstance (including a heartbreaking superbowl where they still managed to do a fantastic job of giving the Giants credit after), never give the other team pre-game fuel with ‘we’re going to beat you’ bullschit, and most players seem to stop being jerks once they get here (see Moss, Dillon, and even Rodney to a degree).  But… they cheated.

And on the issue of cheating, this article is pretty simplistic and reflects poor attention to the facts.  The Pats got caught doing something that everyone else in the league was doing, and which is universally agreed not to be a huge help.  They were then promptly (heavily) punished and moved on.  The whole Matt Walsh thing only made the story stay alive and lots of false rumors fly.  Not a single new instance of wrongdoing has come out of the months that followed.  So the Nixon analogy is utterly false – the Pats admitted the wrong thing they did right away (the Pats sent in tapes of everything they had done and no new evidence has come forward) and were promptly punished.  So how is this about “cover-up?”  It is much more about a press that can’t pay attention to detail, makes little effort to correct inaccurate stories, and makes broad sweeping generalizations about legacy and reputation because it’s much easier than decent reporting.  And this article is just another example of that.

How disappointed am I really supposed to be that we were illegally taping signals?  Pretty much everyone else in the league was doing the same thing.  See below quote from JJ.  And most experts agree that the gain from this kind of taping is minimal (contrast with the gain of taping a walkthrough.  But this is an event that never happened and an accusation on which the Pats have been entirely vindicated, though instead of recognizing that they had been vindicated, the media focused on a moronic senator shirking his job to help fix this country and wasting his time on football.  Of course, none of this is noted by Ryan).  I’m not saying it is ok to tape other teams when there is a brand new rule that says you can’t anymore even though you used to be able to, but it just doesn’t upset me that much.  It’s like stealing signals in baseball (only less effective) - everyone is trying to do it, everyone is trying not to let it happen.  If the Yankees got caught stealing signals in 2003 I would make a big deal about it because it would give me endless pleasure, but I don’t think I would truly be surprised or ‘disappointed’.  Just surprised they got caught.

People love to hate the Pats because they are the Yankees of football, and will jump all over anything they do.  People do this with every top dog.  Pats fans are on the defensive because we are great and got caught cheating and people want to make it as big a thing as possible.  And it’s a bummer, because our team is no longer what we once dreamed it might be – perfect.   But this is a zit on a supermodel that the media keeps hyperbolizing until everyone assumes that it is a disfiguring burn, because nobody knows any better.  And apparently Bob Ryan doesn’t know any better either. 

So go f yourself, Bob Ryan.  And go f yourself, San Diego.

The reason is officiating in the NBA is just a joke. Do you realize only one road team has won a game the entire second round? Give me a break, it’s unbelievable how much different the refereeing is based on whether a team is at their home venue or not. A charge on LeBron becomes a block on Pierce. A deflected ball out of bounds goes off the Cavs when it clearly hit a C’s player. It’s absolutely ridiculous and it’s not a coincidence.

More understandable but equally annoying is the star treatment certain players get. LeBron gets every call. It’s unbelievable. He’s also proven himself to be a baby, spitting out his mouthguard and checking his teeth when hit on the shoulder by Cassell, and laying face down on the floor for 20 seconds when bear hugged by Posey. But fine, Jordan got those calls. So LeBron will get them. But why doesn’t KG ever get those calls under the basket when he’s constantly getting mauled? What is the rule as to who gets those calls and who doesn’t? And did Perk sleep with the daughter of every NBA ref or what? He can’t take a dump at halftime without getting something called on him.

MLB sidebar: I am sad Corey got traded, happy Tavarez is gone, sad Lowrie is gone, and confused about how I feel re: CBuck and Lester.