We Three Speeches

I'm not gonna go deep here on the three political speeches given tonight, so if you're looking for that glance over to the right side of the page and click one of the political blogs.  They'll be better than me.

Let's start with the headliner - President Obama's State of the Union Address.  Pretty positive, really liked where his head is at.  Despite what the right or the left want you to believe about him, I voted the man into office two years ago because I thought he was a centrist.  And that dude showed up tonight, hitting up both what comes next and why it needs to some next.  The vision is to create a new America based investment in practical innovation leading to growth and structuring infrastructure and government institutions, but at the same time addressing our weaknesses including the debt and spending.  Now can he pull that off?  I don't know - tough to control spending when you don't hold the purse as Maddow is reminding me over my shoulder as I type this.  But it was a really good, really centrist speech that broadly addressed how we need to go forward, and the boy had his game face on.

Before I move on, just one more thing: he had some great liners in this one:  "Be a teacher.  Your country needs you."  Gays in the military right into allowing ROTC/recruiters on college campuses - that was a Paul Pierce drive into a fadeaway jumper right there.  Reforming the tax code.  Reforming the structure of government - DAMN.  He's dreaming big.

The official Republican Response by Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan was, well, sobering.  I don't want to call him a buzzkill, but he did a good job reiterating that the debt is going to be a big monkey to get off our backs, and it's gonna be on there for awhile.  And while I like the new Obama "future," Paul Ryan made sure to hammer home that the debt is a serious issue we're going to have a tough ride getting to that future.  So in context, reasonable rebuttal.  Only trick is, by itself it's got some serious issues.  I still didn't hear any substantive ideas beyond "repeal health care," which isn't enough and was very limited in scope.  And then there was the apocalyptic economic fairy tale Ryan fed to America's children as they were getting tucked in - good to see that the GOP isn't tried of riding that fearmongering pony yet (you would think the poor horse would have seen greener pastures by now).  Seriously, chill out dude.

And then there was the other response.  Apparently CNN was the only network to carry Rep. Michelle Bachmann's Tea Party response (thanks again, Rachel), and I just happened to watch it on there live.  And you know, really all it did was reinforce my belief that the Tea Party isn't really a political party at all - it's a fad.  So we're gonna talk just about the debt and spending, I got that over the past year of your noisemaking.  At least the GOP and Rep. Ryan addressed that both parties in many Congresses and presidencies over many decades have caused out debt via our growing spending problems, but like so many who have jumped on the Tea Party bandwagon in the past year or so (including Bachmann), they have a problem being selective whith their histories.  Bachmann made that case that all of the peachy awsomeness and fiscal responsibility that occured during the G.W. Bush presidency was thrown to the wind when Obama came to office, and thats why we have this huge debt to dig out of now.  Man.  I just hate people with revisionist histories.  Especially if they're crazy.  Like Michelle Bachmann.

So yeah.  Go read up more from the reliable blogs on the right.  Or turn on the TV to the cable news networks and listen to the talking heads because they're always right.  Always.

A Love Letter to the New York Jets

Dear members of the New York Jets organization and all of her fans,

I just wanted to take a moment to congratulate you.  I mean really, take a minute and pat yourselves on the backs.  Hell, take a week.  Or a few months (you've got a lot of time now, since your 2010-11 campaign is over).  I mean, you've taken all season patting yourselves on the backs already, so what's a little more time spent doing it really?  You all need to soak this in.

I had some semblance of respect towards you going into this season, I really did.  I didn't watch Hard Knocks on HBO this past summer where you all hyped yourselves up to no end, so I just thought of you as another good AFC East team.  Really, I had a much greater disliking of the Miami Dolphins than I did you, though I certainly respected your organizations equally.  In this age of pro-football parity, I like being in a division that represents all of the good that can come from it.  Three playoff contenders guaranteed, like the AL East in baseball, without any of the crap parity (see this year's AFC and NFC Wests).  It makes for a great football season.

But as the season drew on, I began to see you for what you were.  You're just a lot of noise.  The premiere defender holding out because of ego, and then you caving into his demands.  Then another player getting a DUI.  Then the foot porn thing.  Then being a-holes for a week leading up to the game of the season everyone was waiting for, creating the media-hyped "war of words," though clearly it was one directional and all of us having to suffer through it.  Sure you backed it up that game, and you beat my Patriots fair and square.  Good job.

But you're so classless in doing so.  And then all of these bandwagon Jets fans coming out of the woodwork to root for you.  People I've never seen talking shit before talking SO MUCH shit.  And you know why?  Because of your noise, because you act like it's okay to be douchebags, that it's okay to have no class.  Then you have real turds like this guy (I can't believe he's actually a professional writer) writing about how everyone should root for you because you're loudmouth showoffs that aren't good guys.  America needs more of you, he said, that you were role models for kids today.  What a joke.



And then you get beat today by the Steelers.  And nearly everyone outside of those people in New York who jumped on your bandwagon because 1) the Giants were out of it already and 2) pitchers and catchers don't report for the Yanks for another three weeks, were hoping you would because you guys are assholes.  You need to realize something, okay?  It takes a whole lot of douchebaggery on your part to be playing a team with a player who has repeatedly admitted to taking cheap shots at other players and another who was indited for rape, and for you TO STILL BE CONSIDERED THE ASSHOLES.

But now it's all over.  And I want you to really take the time to reflect on your season.  About the AFC East title you didn't win.  And the AFC Championship you just lost.  And the Super Bowl you've been saying for the past 5 months that you were going to be in that will be played in two weeks without you.  You earned yourself a spot right next to my Patriots as just another team who didn't make it to The Show.  And you've gotten exactly what you deserved this season.

Oh yeah baby, "1X"



Nothing.

Well, maybe some amateur foot fetish porn to remember the season by on YouTube.  But for almost all of you, I'm pretty sure that's still nothing.

At least you can go to sleep knowing you made sure someone out there in the world didn't get the nothing you did out of this season.

See you next time, jerks.

"One man can make a difference..."

Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr., 1915 - 2011



"One man can make a difference, and every man should try." ~ Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis

From The Atlantic, the biographer of the late Sargent Shriver eulogizes a man who may have quietly contributed more to the shaping of and accessibility to the American Dream than many in the last half century.

Steve Stossel's book can be purchased here.

West Wing Bait

Via Sullivan, Skip Oliva highlights some crazy (awesome) constitutional paradoxes.

I should have been a constitutional lawyer.

Priorities?

Is it bad that I'm as upset about Inception losing as I am about the Patriots?

How to Dream of the Stars

Last year I went down to Washington, D.C for a dew days with my folks, and one afternoon my father and I went to the Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian.  They had an exhibit there where you could walk through and there were full color, wall sized photographs of images NASA had captured via various telescopes and exploratory probes.  I was standing in front of one photograph in particular, and image one of the Mars rovers had captured of the Martian landscape, and it was as if you were standing on or celestial neighbor.  I turned to my dad and said, "If NASA wants more funding and for people to care about the space program again, they need to do more like this."  I was overwhelmed and inspired.

Via Alex Whalen, a YouTube video someone put together that attempts to capture the same spirit:

Arizona

I'll let Jon Stewart comment on this more eloquently than I can here, and ask you all to meditate upon this quote as I have:

"Be kind; for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." - Reverand John Watson