More Failure
I was going to write about - surprise! - the Junta and its utter failure to stop terrorism, and indeed its success in actually growing and increasing it. But screw that. It's much too nice a day to contemplate such ugly things.
Things like today's WaPo front page news analysis (they do love them their front page news analysis - it's as though somehow they though their opinion was more important than the actual news!): "Rethinking Embattled Tactics in Terror War." Seemingly, Congress and allies and other normally powerless parties are ganging up on the poor Junta and telling them to stop the awful, awful things they're doing in our name.
Funny, huh?
And so they might actually start to think: "nothing is working. Better try something else." No, obviously I'm kidding here. These guys have never changed tactics and never will. They think: "nothing is working. It must be somebody else's fault. Better do more of the same."
Whatever. They're just going to dig the hole deeper until we get them out of there - if we ever do get them out of there. Thank you, Diebold!
No, I'm here today to discuss football. I'm getting ready to start my uncanny prediction machine for 2006-07, and it occurs to me just how deeply the Patriots have been dissed (yes, I said "dissed." Do you believe that I lack street "cred?" How dare you!) by the league. That is, the first weekend of the year goes on without any prominent role for Belichick's boys.
The first weekend has become something of a celebration of the sport. Prominent teams battle it out in much-anticipated early showdowns. The Super Bowl champ often plays the team they defeated in the conference championship game (as the Pats beat the Colts in 2003 and again opening day 2004).
The Monday nighter and Sunday nighter are also games of interest and bring in a large audience after so many months without football.
But this year, the three-time champions start the year at Buffalo - a team that only the most die-hard fans would give a chance at being a .500 team. And not even them.
My theory is that the league's darlings, the Colts, have been foiled too often by the team-first Patriots. Where the Colts constantly talk and say amusing, media-friendly quotes, the Pats plays rarely talk and only then in the sort of vanilla "we respect our opponents" stuff that the league and the media hate.
The Colts are a me-first bunch of personalities you can profile. The Patriots are short on personalities - even Tom Brady seems a reluctant superstar, while Peyton Manning does his best to get on every cereal box.
And the coaches could not be any more different. Tony Dungy is a Black man who has succeeded more than any other Black coach in the sport's history. He has an opinion on everything. Belechick is a drab 40-something white guy who does only has opinions on football (that he shares with the world) and then even not so much.
I've done the Colts-Pats thing before, but I bring it up again as my little conspiracy theory about the NFL keeping the Pats down. The Pats beat the 16-1 Steelers two years ago to keep them out of the Super Bowl. They beat all the darlings and set a record with a 21-game winning streak, knocking out all those endorsement dollars along the way.
The Patriots are all about the business of winning football games, and nothing else. They are epitomized by QB Brady, who realizes he has his whole life to do Lite Beer commercials, and only a few years to win more trophies.
As he quoted his old equipment manager at Michigan: "what's my favorite championship? The next one."
Mine, too.
Things like today's WaPo front page news analysis (they do love them their front page news analysis - it's as though somehow they though their opinion was more important than the actual news!): "Rethinking Embattled Tactics in Terror War." Seemingly, Congress and allies and other normally powerless parties are ganging up on the poor Junta and telling them to stop the awful, awful things they're doing in our name.
Funny, huh?
And so they might actually start to think: "nothing is working. Better try something else." No, obviously I'm kidding here. These guys have never changed tactics and never will. They think: "nothing is working. It must be somebody else's fault. Better do more of the same."
Whatever. They're just going to dig the hole deeper until we get them out of there - if we ever do get them out of there. Thank you, Diebold!
No, I'm here today to discuss football. I'm getting ready to start my uncanny prediction machine for 2006-07, and it occurs to me just how deeply the Patriots have been dissed (yes, I said "dissed." Do you believe that I lack street "cred?" How dare you!) by the league. That is, the first weekend of the year goes on without any prominent role for Belichick's boys.
The first weekend has become something of a celebration of the sport. Prominent teams battle it out in much-anticipated early showdowns. The Super Bowl champ often plays the team they defeated in the conference championship game (as the Pats beat the Colts in 2003 and again opening day 2004).
The Monday nighter and Sunday nighter are also games of interest and bring in a large audience after so many months without football.
But this year, the three-time champions start the year at Buffalo - a team that only the most die-hard fans would give a chance at being a .500 team. And not even them.
My theory is that the league's darlings, the Colts, have been foiled too often by the team-first Patriots. Where the Colts constantly talk and say amusing, media-friendly quotes, the Pats plays rarely talk and only then in the sort of vanilla "we respect our opponents" stuff that the league and the media hate.
The Colts are a me-first bunch of personalities you can profile. The Patriots are short on personalities - even Tom Brady seems a reluctant superstar, while Peyton Manning does his best to get on every cereal box.
And the coaches could not be any more different. Tony Dungy is a Black man who has succeeded more than any other Black coach in the sport's history. He has an opinion on everything. Belechick is a drab 40-something white guy who does only has opinions on football (that he shares with the world) and then even not so much.
I've done the Colts-Pats thing before, but I bring it up again as my little conspiracy theory about the NFL keeping the Pats down. The Pats beat the 16-1 Steelers two years ago to keep them out of the Super Bowl. They beat all the darlings and set a record with a 21-game winning streak, knocking out all those endorsement dollars along the way.
The Patriots are all about the business of winning football games, and nothing else. They are epitomized by QB Brady, who realizes he has his whole life to do Lite Beer commercials, and only a few years to win more trophies.
As he quoted his old equipment manager at Michigan: "what's my favorite championship? The next one."
Mine, too.
posted by fiduciary at 8:57 AM
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