Top 11 Things Troy Williamson Plans To Do In The Offseason

11. Drop by to visit friends and relatives

10. Drop F-bombs every time he's forced to watch film of the game against Denver

9. Drop acid in an attempt to escape the reality that his NFL career is over

8. Hire someone to carry his young children for him

7. Try to get a job on Dick Cheney's staff in hopes that he can drop the big one on Iran

6. Drop a few pounds to get in better shape

5. Drop hints about the hand enhancement surgery he wants for his birthday

4. Drop a grand in Vegas on the Vikings chances of making the playoffs next year without him

3. Drop the soap, if he's ever put in prison for impersonating a wide receiver

2. Drop his drawers when he gets his dropsy vaccination shot

1. Start training for his new career as an Allstate insurance adjuster

Buy My Book

Hugh Hewitt inspired me. Among other great accomplishments, Hugh is a prolific author. His latest book, "A Mormon in the White House?" made me reevaluate my life. If Hugh could put his personal feelings aside and write a dispassionate biography of Republican Presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney, then I could do something similar.

Here is the result. A special thanks to Sisyphus for the jacket cover photography:



For those interested, here are the 11 things everyone should know about this Presidential hopeful:

11. Hillary married Bill Clinton in 1975, and is proud of her fourteen years of blissful marriage

10. She is an expert on African proverbs, having even invented one of her own

9. Despite little experience, Hillary is a shrewd investor with a complex understanding of how to profit in the futures markets

8. Hillary believes in the wisdom of the children and speaks with their voice

7. Her name sounds nothing like Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein

6. Her hobbies include not baking cookies

5. Hillary is not adverse to paying bloggers for an endorsement

4. She plans to have her administration investigate Oprah Winfrey for crimes against humanity

3. Hillary was a lifetime Yankees fan, but has deep allegiances to the AAA Iowa Cubs

2. As a 2-term Senator, Hillary understands that someone who has been in that body for a mere two years wouldn't know their ass from a hole in the ground

1. Hillary has assembled the most experienced group of advisers of any Presidential candidate, including former President Bill Clinton and the ghost of former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt

Top 11 Causes For The Tiger Attack At The San Francisco Zoo

11. Cheney's secret award of no-bid contract to Haliburton to provide zoo services

10. Tiger misheard victim’s observation that “He looks just like a Tigger toy”

9. Garth Snow questioned the development the tiger was getting in the zoo and signed him to the Islanders

8. Tiger was angry that he wasn't able to see his bookie about laying big money on LSU

7. Victim disparaged Kellogg's Frosted Flakes

6. Tiger was bored from watching reruns, due to the TV writers strike

5. If we weren't spending so much money in Iraq we could afford to rebuild parts of our vital infrastructure like zoos

4. Global warming

3. Tiger mistook the victim for Roy Horn

2. The dude called him a pussy

1. He was juiced up on the steroids Barry Bonds accidentally dropped into his cage

Call Me The Neon Nihilist

One of the more clever ads of the early aughts featured Deion Sanders stumping for Pizza Hut. The point of the commercial was that you could have both pizza and wings delivered to your door. Deion illustrates the fact by answering 'both' to a bunch of questions, including 'football or baseball," 'offense or defense,' and finally '$15 or $20 million.' In that spirit, I'm going to ignore the results of the poll where our readers suggested they would prefer a post on MTV's 'The Hills' to a post on post-electoral tax policy. Like Deion, I can do both.

It surprises me that one of the bigger issues in this presidential campaign isn't the expiration of the 'Bush' tax cuts. For a middle class family of four making $60,000 a year, this would take over $3,600 (or 6% of their take-home income) out of their pocket, assuming they file the standard deduction. That is some serious cash, but the media isn't pushing the issue.

However, the media is concerned with 'The Hills' star Lauren Conrad's (LC to Hills watchers) trip to Paris. Like George W. Bush, Lauren has made some major errors in recent years. However, no error was worse than turning down a chance to spend her summer as a fashion intern in Paris at the end of season 1 so she could move in with her loser boyfriend Jayson. Well, maybe hanging the 'Mission Accomplished' banner at the speech on the aircraft carrier, but the US military still supports Bush, where Jason and Lauren have split up.

Unlike the president, LC got a second chance. She and her boss Whitney are going to Paris and MTV is filming their exploits for a bonus eight episodes that will comprise a mini-season this spring. Whitney actually seems fairly sweet and genuine, and is a nice piece of eye candy for 'The Hills," but I digress.

My guess is that a Democratic policy would seek to make permanent the 15% tax rate that is scheduled to revert back to 27.5% in 2011. I believe they will also provide some Alternate Minimum Tax relief for middle class voters. They would fund likely this by raising rates on higher income brackets, sure as Heidi Montag will look for a chance to slag on LC when she gets back from Paris.

Speaking of Miss Montag, many liken her rivalry with LC to the USA's relationship with Saddam Hussein, as the MSM likes to suggest that both were once allies. This is silly. The US never backed Hussein, any support from them was dictated by bi-polar tensions with the Soviet Union. Likewise, LC would never have allowed Heidi to become her roommate without significant pressure from MTV producers. Another difference is even Hans Blix could see that Heidi is in possession of two powerful warheads. Enriched silicone is apparently easier to come up with than enriched uranium.

Merry Christmas!

Your Complete Lack of Class Leader

Last week in a political post, I made fun of a picture of Mike Huckabee's family. Bike Bubba objected:

Gosh, I'm so happy that "my" side is resorting to Hillary's tactic of . . . ugly pictures . . . This is beanball, and shows a complete lack of class.

Apparently, Bubba isn't familiar with our work. We revel in our lack of class, especially when we can engage in schadenfreude. So it is my pleasure to remind readers that the miserable Chicago Bears pasted the Green Bay Packers by a score of 35-7. This was a Bears team so bad that the Minnesota Vikings were roundly criticized by only beating them by one touchdown last week.

How could the mighty Packer juggernaut stumble so badly against such a lowly foe? Word has it that their fearless leader made a pre-game announcement that caused a bit of a loss of focus today.

Separated At Birth?

Classy New York Islanders General Manager Garth Snow and a horse's ass.


UPDATE: Snow is the one on the left. Sorry for the confusion.

Top 11 Reasons NY Islanders GM Garth Snow Hates Gopher Coach Don Lucia

According to the Strib, Garth Snow has ripped Lucia's coaching. Here's why:

11. Snow is jealous of Lucia's hair.

10. Lucia insists that his players waste time in the classroom.

9. Lucia's teams always soundly beat Snow's alma mater, the University of Maine.

8. Lucia refused to give Snow sufficient credit for moving the Islanders past the Washington Capitals so that they are now only the second worst team in the Eastern Conference.

7. Lucia has repeatedly said that really bad backup goaltenders aren't all that important.

6. Lucia is Italian, like Rick DiPietro.

5. Lucia doesn’t seem to understand that the University of Minnesota Hockey team exists solely for the benefit of the New York Islanders.

4. Snow was shocked that Kyle Okposo lags behind other Islander prospects in terms of steroid use.

3. Confused him with Dom DeLuise, who really is a lousy hockey coach.

2. Whenever Lucia sees Snow, he bows down and says, "We're not worthy!" When they part company, he always tells Snow, "Party on, Garth!"

1. Lucia is on record suggesting that an NHL GM should have some scouting, coaching, or executive experience.

Missing 1968

A few days back my Tivo recorded Tom Brokaw’s History Channel special, “1968 with Tom Brokaw”. Although I’ve already seen countless media celebrations of the 1960s in general and 1968 in particular, I decided to watch it.

Brokaw covered all of the standard clichés of Boomer nostalgia. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll, anti-war and race riots, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and so on. My criticism is not that there is a big left wing pro-hippie bias in the show. Since it did include sharp commentary from conservatives Dorothy Rabinowitz and Pat Buchanan, I would say it only had a smallish pro-commie hippie bias. The real problem with the show is what it left out.

Brokaw narrated the show from the hippie-heaven of Haight-Asbury in San Francisco. Nothing whatsoever of lasting significance occurred at Haight-Asbury in 1968 (or ever). But 50 miles to the southeast, a handful of engineers and entrepreneurs were changing the world for real: in 1968, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore were founding Intel in Santa Clara, California.

We know all about the Mainstream Media’s liberal bias, but even more deeply ingrained is its view that only politics and entertainment are news. A corporation is only newsworthy if it is caught doing something wrong. Scientists and engineers are not newsworthy because science and engineering is hard and makes their heads hurt. Even when they cover something that is science related, such as Brokaw’s segment on the Space Program, the focus is more on the entertainment side than the technological. One exception is Tom Wolfe, who reported on Noyce and the birth of the semi-conductor industry in his excellent essay, “Two Men Who Went West”. An excerpt:

“Noyce used to go into a slow burn that year, 1968, when the newspapers, the magazines, and the television networks got on the subject of the youth. The youth was a favorite topic in 1968. Riots broke out on the campuses as the antiwar movement reached its peak following the North Vietnam’s Tet offensive. …

As Noyce saw it, these so-called radical youth movements were shot through with a yearning for a preindustrial Arcadia. … They were antitechnology. They looked upon science as an instrument monopolized by the military-industrial complex. … They were an avant-garde to the rear. They wanted to call off the future. …

If you wanted to talk to the creators of the future – well, here they were! Here in the Silicon Valley!”

“1968 with Tom Brokaw” is just fine if you want to hear a bunch of hippies talk about how they were trying to change the world, if you want to see Bruce Springsteen talk about how terribly influential the music was, or if you want to see the Chicago police bust the heads of commie-hippies (fast forward to an hour and 28 minutes in). But if you would like to read about hardworking youngsters who were really were changing the world in 1968, check out “Two Men Who Went West” (available in “Hooking Up”, a collection of essays by Tom Wolfe).

In society there is the illusion that the current generation is less distinguished than previous generations. I say it is an illusion because no one remembers the losers, ne’er do wells, the degenerates, and the incompetents of previous generations, but they can’t be missed in our own. Long term, we usually remember only those who created something of importance.

One reason the Baby Boomer generation has such a bad reputation is that they seem intent on remembering their losers and forgetting their geniuses.

I Thought Stripes Made You Look Slimmer

Mike Huckabee for President is wrong on so many levels. He's not fiscally conservative. His appeal to the "religious right" rubs many people the wrong way (although it's perfectly ok for a black Democrat preacher to run for President). His foreign policy perspective is naive, to say the least.

However, this holiday photo delivers a final verdict on Huck's lack of judgement.



Huck: Ok, family; here's what we're going to do for our card this year: prison uniforms. Lardo, Tubbs and I will wear striped shirts and jeans. Janet and Sarah will wear the orange jumpsuits. What? No jumpsuits? Ok, they can wear the tops with jeans. Can't we find an embarrassing costume for the dog? Screw it, let's just shoot the photo.

Somebody Told Me This Was Supposed To Be A Political Blog

It's been forever since I made any real political commentary. So here is my take on the recent momentum related to the two major parties races for presidential nominations.

Movin' On Up
Barak Obama - He's the big winner recently, as most of America begins to remember that Hillary's a bitch.

John McCain - Democratic Senator Leiberman's endorsement gives Johnnie Mac some much needed Joementum.

Fred Thompson - OK, OK, it's just wishful thinking on my part.

Ron Paul - Huge internet fundraising week means he'll have plenty of money for tin foil

Hanging In There
John Edwards - Still hoping the nomination is a beauty contest.

Mitt Romney - Hugh Hewitt didn't say he had the best week ever, so he must be faltering.

Joe Biden - Who the hell cares about Joe Biden.

Bill Richardson - Looking very vice-presidential.


OUCH!
Mike Huckabee - The Huckaboom is starting to Huckabust.

Rudy Guiliani - Somebody better tell him there's a campaign going on.

Hillary Rodham Clinton - She'd do better without the "Heil Hitler!" salute.

Abandoned? Not At Christmas

Minnpost shows a sense of humor, by naming NIGP blog of the day for 12/17/07. The article to the left (and up an inch or so) of this honor is about how more and more bloggers are posting less. I'll take that as a hint. Therefore, here are my top 11 songs found on Christmas specials:

11. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town - Santa Claus Is Coming to Town 10. Why Am I Such a Mistfit? - Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
9. Put One Foot In Front Of The Other - Santa Claus Is Coming to Town
8. Frosty The Snowman - Frosty The Snowman
7. Christmas Time Is Here - A Charlie Brown Christmas
6. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer - Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
5. Linus and Lucy - A Charlie Brown Christmas
4. I Hate People - Scrooge (1970 musical version starring Albert Finney)
3. Blue Christmas - The Year Without A Santa Claus
2. Snow Miser/Heat Miser Song - The Year Without A Santa Claus
1. Mr. Grinch - The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

Top 11 Choices for Word of the Year That Are Better Than W00t

It's true. Merriam-Webster has named the word of the year for 2007: w00t. Here are 11 better choices.

11. Surrender
10. IPCChicanery
9. Underfunded
8. Dogfight
7. Mormontology
6. Juiced
5. Osama/Obama/Oprah (tie)
4. Britneyglect
3. Hitlery
2. Sub-primadonnas
1. Anything

Top 11 Excuses Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak Uses To Get Out Of Lame Events

11. That's the night I put flowers on Paul and Sheila's grave

10. I broke my ankle jumping off a float at the Gay Pride Parade

9. I have to organize my sock drawer

8. I'm speaking at a women's rights conference

7. My bike has a flat tire

6. I just, uh, leased a house out in the Hamptons, and I have got to get out there this weekend and sign the papers

5. I'm having a bad hair day

4. I'm too busy writing checks to settle lawsuits against the City of Minneapolis

3. There are too many people with dangerous lifestyles in that neighborhood

2. I'm busy searching for the next great lesbian fire chief candidate

1. The battery in my hybrid car died

What, Me Post?

Amy Winehouse isn't the only one with problems. Here is my true story.

They tried to make me post on my blog but I said 'no, no, no'
Blogging's like crack but if I come back you'll know know know
I ain't got the time and if my hits go down I'm fine
They tried to make me post on the blog but I won't go go go

I'd rather be at home I say
I ain't got two or three hours a day
Cause there's nothing
There's nothing I would post
That 1,000 other bloggers already say

I could relax or take a class
Or have a beer or down a shot glass

They tried to make me post on my blog but I said 'no, no, no'
Blogging's like crack, but if I come back you'll know know know
I ain't got the time and if my links go down I'm fine
They tried to make me post on the blog but I won't go go go

Sisyphus said'why don't you post here'
I said 'I got no idea
I'm gonna, I'm gonna lose my free time
so I'd rather just drink a beer'
He said 'I thought your were impressed,
by your own top 11s, parodies, and the rest'

They tried to make me post on my blog but I said 'no, no, no'
Yes I've been black but when I come back you'll know know know

I don't ever wanna post again
I don't need no internet friends
I haven't posted for ten weeks
and now my brain is on the mend

It's not just my time
It's just I've got other things on my mind

They tried to make me post on my blog but I said 'no, no, no'
Blogging's like crack, but if I come back you'll know know know
I ain't got the time and if my hits go down I'm fine
They try to make me post on my blog, but I won't go go go

Let’s Go Snub Al

Nobel … check.
Oscar … check.
Emmy … check.
But there is a Grammy sized hole on Al Gore’s mantel and it won’t be filled this year.

Al’s lack of a Grammy is even more surprising when you consider that unlike the Emmys, which had to create a weird new category to show their love for Al, the Grammys already have a category they use to honor their favorite liberal Democrats: Best Spoken Word Album. Here are the past four winners:
2006: Jimmy Carter
2005: Barack Obama
2004: Bill Clinton
2003: Al Franken

And this year’s nominees for Best Spoken Album are:
Barack Obama
Maya Angelou
Bill Clinton
Jimmy Carter
Alan Alda

I don’t know if it is bitterness by Grammy voters who weren’t invited to play at Live Aid or if they’re still upset about Tipper’s campaign against naughty lyrics. Maybe they just hate Mother Earth. But one thing is certain: Grammy doesn’t love Al.

Top 11 Highlights of Mitt Romney’s Mormon Speech

11. Claimed he's a more observant Catholic than Giuliani

10. Predicted that Hugh Hewitt would declare the speech to be “simply magnificent”

9. Promised to annoy Iran back to the Stone Age with Mormon missionaries

8. Challenged John Edwards to a debate on the best conditioner and cream rinse

7. Took a break mid-speech to drink a refreshing glass of goat's blood

6. Explained how bigamy could help bridge the divide with Islam

5. Put a gypsy curse on Mike Huckabee

4. Agreed that "Yeah, some of this stuff is a little wacky to me too"

3. Claimed Marie Osmond's loss in Dancing with the Stars was based on religious bigotry

2. Five minute, off-topic, tirade denouncing the BCS for not inviting Iowa and Iowa State to play in the BCS Championship game

1. Not only should there be no religious test for President, but also no math test

Top 11 Names for a Teddy Bear

11. Osama

10. Obama

9. Alabama

8. Oprah

7. Smirky Chimp McHitler

6. Roosevelt

5. Paris

4. Halliburton Huggy

3. Suri

2. Rodham

1. Sisyphus