Atta J. Turks (moderately) Trust NFL Picks

Please pretend I'm actually picking these games on the point-spread rather than straight up because it is less embarrassing. I went 3 and 3 last week making me 16 and 14 for the year. But hey, that's pretty good if you're dealing with the Rams.

Rams at Jaguars: Look there are some tough games this week -- and then there are some ugly games. Last week these two teams were outscored a collective 79 to 10. These teams are playing the kind of beautiful football you'd expect when a State Teachers College is matched up against one of the undefeated NFL clubs. Nevertheless, in spite of their dodging the bullet of being owned by Rush Limbaugh the Rams will lose, and lose big.

Speaking of Limbaugh, notice how his supporters have really really gone after one possibly inaccurate quote of his, ignoring the dozens of other racially inflamatory quotes the guy has made over the years? This is truly the GOP method of denial -- harp on one thing that cannot be proven so as to drawn attention to the mountains of evidence of what you have done wrong. Bravo assholes, bravo.

Eagles at Raiders: I admit it, I like to start off picking the easy games because it enables me to at least win something. So sue me? What are your damages. Well, if you have to watch the Raiders and Spergeon Wynn II play quarterback those are REAL damages. That is three plus hours of your life you will never ever get back. I predict that the Eagles will win this game big. Donovan McNabb, who by his third season was a Pro-Bowl QB will throw twice as many passes as Jamarcus Russell and complete twice as many and average twice as much per attempt. It just isn't fair to start a criminally unappreciated NFL QB against the worst one in football.

Ravens at Vikings: As a Viking fan I admit this game scares me. The Ravens are going to be angry, they're going to be desperate, they've lost two straight. But, the fact is both teams have flaws. And the Ravens are on the road, so I'm going to pick the home team. Also something is happening in the NFC-AFC interconference match ups, the NFC is starting to look like the better, deeper conference. However, at some point Favre and Ray Lewis will run into each other on the field and the announcers will have a multiple orgasm of over-inflated praise. I'm not sure that much man-love can survive a normal NFL broadcast. God forbid this year somehow end with Favre and Tom Brady playing against each other in the Super Bowl. I'm not sure we as a nation are yet prepared for that.

Giants at Saints: Funny how in a couple years Eli Manning has gone from looking hopelessly lost and depressed to looking the same and seeming impervious to pressure. I guess that happens when you are so close geographically to Derek Jeter -- or something. I mean it's happening for A-Rod isn't it? I think the Giants are the best team in football (well other than any team led by Tebow -- and let me tell you, that guy is all set up to take Brett Favre's place in the groins of our nation's color commentariat -- except for the fact he'll be a huge bust in the NFL [somewhat weak arm, never plays under center, that moderate speed isn't enough, etc.], but I complete this digression by saying they will lose this week. Home team wins -- dome will be rocking.

Bears at Falcons: With the media's collective Favregasms and Tom Brady-concern trolling you don't hear much about these clubs, especially the Falcons. But they are both very good, the Falcons crushed a good 49ers team on the road. Though Jay Cutler is certainly playing better than he did in the opener I think the Falcons will win under white-bread talent Matt Ryan. In addition, I really cannot the Bears this week because Jay Cutler looks like the "half-man" actor on Two and a Half Men -- which considering the kids age must be Two and Three-Quarters men by now. By the way, be careful looking up "Jay Cutler" on yahoo images, unless you like to see steroid abuse in its most obvious manifestations.

Broncos at Chargers: Against my better judgment I am going to pick the Chargers. I can say "against" my better judgment and go against it because that is pretty much my mantra in life. After all it's seven in the effing morning and against my better judgment I'm sitting here and writing blog posts comparing Jay Cutler to a child-actor. That cannot be good. But after a compiling a career record of 69-87-1, Norv Turner and his compromising pictures of various owners and GM's will finally produce results on the field and give the Chargers a big win.

If Hollywood really ran the world...

Before Barack Obama became President, African-American Chief Executives were only the product of Hollywood movies...movies that always involved cataclysmic natural disasters.

In the universe's desire to make Hollywood seem real we present...if Hollywood really ran the world...

An asteroid named 2009 TM8 just passed only 216,000 miles from Earth, racing at 18,163mph. That's closer than the moon. But don't worry, there'll be plenty of opportunities to panic, says the JPL:

If it's typical density, it would create a 4 kiloton explosion in the Earth's atmosphere if it were to hit, which of course it won't. You'd expect an object of this size to fly within the orbit of the moon every few days or so.

Don't say Roland Emmerich and President Morgan Freeman/Danny Glover didn't warn you.

Shocking!

Not that FoxNews fired a liberal commentator, but that they had one.

I hope someone tells President Snowe

CBO grades both major House Health Reform plans as being both cheaper and providing greater coverage (far far greater) than the Max Baucus piece of warm shit.

Yeah, I suppose that would be true when Mommy buys you your own place

Yes, it's a real tragedy when people make fun of your vanity:



Tell it to the unemployed, the uninsured, and the under military contract asshole. Tell it to people who don't have a rich mommy or famous daddy.

I'll let Glenn Beck cry for you.

How the modern media goes

As I said about Balloon Boy yesterday, OH, THE INANITY.

Morning Joe and his besweatered co-dependent have spent about half their show today disparaging media coverage of Balloon Boy...and yet they keep talking about him.

Health care, Afghanistan, the economy, who cares, a six-year barfed.

No need for reform

Just watch this through to the winner.

Figures to Die By

This section of a post at "the Seminal" by Jim White is so good and so profound I'm just going to past it all:

In an article at CNN.com, we learn how much money is being spent in an attempt to prevent real health care reform:

The health care sector has spent $263 million this year lobbying Congress for changes to reform plans, a government watchdog group estimates.

That’s a huge amount of money. How many people could purchase health insurance with that much money? According to USA Today, the average health insurance premium for an individual is $4824. Dividing $263 million by $4824 tells us that 54,500 individuals could have purchased health insurance with the funds spent by the health care sector in their lobbying effort this year.

Last month, we learned that 45,000 people a year die in the US due to lack of health insurance.

That makes one sick.

Wrong again

Remember when the right-wing blogs said the Stimulus not only wouldn't help, but that it discriminated against areas where Republicans are strongest?

WRONG AGAIN! But it is a day ending in "Y" so I guess there's that mitigating factor.

Businesses reported creating or saving more than 30,000 jobs in the first months of President Barack Obama's stimulus program, according to initial data released Thursday by a government oversight board. Military construction led the way, and states in the South and Southwest saw the biggest boost.

It is depressing though that "military construction" led the way.

Bonfire of the Inanities

Earlier this week I posted about one of my State's Senators, Charles "140 Characters" Grassley and his descent into imbecility.

Well in a world where:

* You can accuse the white GOP donors of the NFL of depriving a white man of his "inalienable right" to own things because the President is the "magic negro";

* The Washington Post can publish editorials saying accepting a Nobel Prize is unconstitutional;

* Magazines can publish op-eds accusing Obama of being a fraud without mentioning it was written by a guy in Federal Prison for being convicted of Fraud;

* The broadcast media can stop it's coverage of quasi-celebrity divorces only long enough to focus on getting to the bottom of "balloon boy and his story" ("OH, THE INANITY!").

It is then no surprise that Grassley has managed to learn one thing -- the crazier the better.

"I'm not a lawyer, but let me tell you, I've listened to some lawyers speak on this. And you know, it's a relatively new issue. I don't think we've ever had this issue before of having to buy something. And a lot of constitutional lawyers, saying it is unconstitutional or at least in violation of the 10th Amendment. Now maybe states can do this, but can the federal government? So, I have my doubts."

That was in response to the idea of individual insurance mandates, an idea ol' Chuck used to love until there was a possibility -- love it or not -- that Democrats might actually enact it. And, of course, it also happens to be an argument that is completely bullcrap -- and it's something each and everyone of us make note of when we pay taxes -- well maybe not some of Chuck's base, but the rest of us.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Thank goodness Balloon Boy is alright because now I can state...

OH THE INANITY!


The whole thing was like a episode of "I Love Lucy".

Ricky: "Now Looose-ey, you and Ethel stay avay fwom the baw-woon while I'm at the Tropicana playin' the babbaloo and for some reason Fred is with me."

Good luck with that one...

Via Instaputz:

LIMBAUGH FANS STARTING A punt the NFL campaign? “I have cancelled my DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket package (including the Supercast). I will not watch ONE MINUTE of NFL games or coverage this season—including the Super Bowl.”

Um, yeah. Good luck with that one.

Maybe you guys can take up following another kind of football? I can see all those folks loving say the English Premier League.

Perhaps Rush can put a bid in on a major team in the top French flight?

But then again, I'm not sure Rush could be a fan of any sport that outlaws "hand balls".

The GOP: Objectively Pro-Rape

Michael Steele might want to add that to the website.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Rape-Nuts
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

Letters from a Mor(a)n in Jail...

Hey look who they have writing for the National Review?

The president’s reform plan has been seen by almost everyone to be bunk, and hackneyed bunk at that. His political capital is evaporating and, while it was disgraceful for a congressman to scream at him “You lie!” (which he was, about health care for illegal immigrants), this is more understandable and likely to be more habit-forming than an Iraqi journalist’s throwing shoes at his predecessor.

Conrad Black is the author of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom and Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full.

For those of you who have forgotten, Conrad Black wrote this letter from Coleman Federal Correctional Complex where he is an inmate serving a prison sentence for fraud.

National Review just so happened to forget to mention that little fact.

Screaching Morans

Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) [congratulations Arizona] fresh off demanding to root out any muslim staffers who by his definition equal terrorist then had the unmitigated gall to step forward and say about health care reform:

what we’re really getting here is we’re not just getting single-payer care. We’re getting full on Russian gulag, Soviet-style gulag health care

So in one day:

Muslim = Terrorist
Health Care Reform = Gulag

But

John Shadegg = Freedom Fighter.

It takes no genius

To know when Chuck Schumer gets in front of a microphone (not a rarity) and says the Public Option is up to Harry Reid -- it means it's fodder for a leadership battle next term (if Reid returns) rather than saying the Public Option is going to be there.

Idiots

Thers is right and Susie Madrak's point is patently obvious -- which is why our geniuses in Congress never even contemplate it as an argument -- because the notion never occurred to them:

I just got off a conference call with Arlen Specter where I asked him why the Democrats don’t talk about the wave of entrepreneurship that would be unleashed if people knew they could leave their jobs, start a business and still get affordable health coverage for themselves and their families.

He was surprised, said it hadn’t occurred to him...

Priorities

Unemployment, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Banks, the Markets, let alone health care reform and whether we pesky liberals managed to get a public option into it -- just more grist for the mill. B-O-R-I-N-G!

What is the most important news story? Certainly not the current situation in Afghanistan, a discussion of which was interrupted by this CNN-proclaimed "BREAKING NEWS"...

A white man being deprived of his alleged inalienable right to own whatever property he desires by his fellow white men.



Attention Accomplished! The Blog-o-lution shall not be (only) twitterized!

I shall now alert CNN the next time I discover a place of business does not accept my American Express card.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Looks like they hired the teabaggers' accountant

I thought Enron put Arthur Anderson out of business, but I guess not:

The Chamber of Commerce regularly brags that it has more than 3 million members. But as Mother Jones reports today, its actual number is closer to 200,000.

Bonfire of the Inanities

I will let you all discover the "awesome" inaneness of this gathering of the twitterati for your own jaw-dropping bemusement.

Future leader of the Republican Party. I remember when you used to have to have had your photo taken with someone who had at least bombed another country or repressed colonial subjects of a different hue in order to make your way up the GOP ladder, but we live in a new age.

Thanks to Watertiger for alerting me so I could take the proper precautions in advance.