Smoke Screen

The smoke has gotten so thick that Rush Limbaugh has become the mouthpiece of the GOP. The last eight years of President Bush's incompetence has caused the thickness of the smoke to be measured by the failure of the conservative agenda and the conservatives fall from power. It's time for poor and middle class Americans to tell this group to shut the hell up and get the way out of America's future! I am tired of people who only see the negative and still call themselves patriots. I'm sick of people who are convinced Democratic polices have no future and that the days of American prosperity are over.
Eight years of unparalleled greed and unbridled capitalistic furor has caused the smoke to become as thick as the darkness. Turning over the nation to lobbyist, sucking up to Big Oil and giving tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans who used them to live high on the hog has caused the darkness to become pitch black.
Someday, hopefully soon the smoke will clear and the light at the end of the tunnel will become visible. Until that day arrives all those Limbaugh fans should be made to watch "It's A Wonderful Life" one hundred times.

Lightly Toasted

Television as we know it is changing. February 17th was supposed to be the day all broadcasters were to flip a switch turning off their analog broadcast and begin a digital format. Supposedly millions of Americans have no clue about this change so as of midnight on the 17th all they are going to see is snow when they hit the remote control. These millions are probably the same people who don't know which side to butter their bread or that you even need a knife to butter the bread.
God forbid the government would ever keep anyone from watching Jeopardy or American Idol so the deadline has been extended to June 12th 2009. Now all those pea brain Americans will be able to butter their toast and never miss a minute of Good Morning America, that is if they can find the butter and a knife!
I for one did not wait until February 17th. I've had a digital television for almost two years and have been watching full high definition broadcast for a long time. The free over the air digital broadcasts are very good in my area. The pictures are sharper, sound quality is fantastic and there's even more content. I never cared for jelly on my toast so the free over the air digital high definition broadcasts are plenty filling for me. I dumped pay TV sometimes in the mid 1980s and have never really missed it. Most people pay around $100 a month for their television broadcasts so in 28 years I saved around $33 thousand by watching free over the air television broadcast. I sure hope you've enjoyed watching Jeopardy, American Idol and Good Morning America because it's cost you $33 thousand and the meter still running at $100 a month.
With six television stations in the Austin area I only need an antenna to watch all the free TV I want. So hold the butter and jelly, I'll take mine lightly toasted.

Laughing Stock at 188.001 MPH

American stock car racing opens it's season this week at Daytona Beach Florida. NASCAR once again pushes it's Car of Tomorrow onto the high banks of Daytona Raceway. What a joke! The Car of Tomorrow doesn't even have a trunk that opens, the headlights and taillights are paper decals, it has a welded tubular frame, a body made of thin sheet metal and a V8 motor that uses a carburetor. There is nothing stock about this car other than it's the laughing stock of racing. It's been illegal to sell a new car that uses a carburetor in America since the mid 1980s and no one in their right mind buys an automobile with a V8 anymore. The so called Cars of Tomorrow are using 1960s technology. They are big and boxy unlike the cars the public drives today and they consume gas faster than a wildfire does. Where are the fuel efficient engines that the public needs for today's high gasoline prices?
The Big Three automobile companies fund most of NASCAR in one way or another so where is all our tax payer bailout money going? NASCAR is no different from the Big Three, both have squandered millions and millions of dollars on things that have no use in today's real world. They should have been spending money on research and development that would help the USA rid itself from dependency of imported oil.
I rant and rave about NASCAR but I'll be watching their automobiles travel in circles this weekend only because I like the race track they will be running on. The track is a relic of the past but unlike the relics of technology used by NASCAR, sometimes relics are a good thing. This track is so fast that NASCAR restricts it's cars to half their normal horse power and yet the pole position for this years race is 188.001 miler per hour.

Forgotten 1969

The Super Bowl is the centerpiece of the most successful league in American sports. The 2009 Super Bowl was played Sunday and what a game it was. Almost 100 million people saw a game that had a little bit of everything, a goal line interception that was run back 100 yards for a touchdown, 18 penalties, almost the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history and a game ending touch down pass to win the game.
Do I think the winning team, the Pittsburgh Steelers are the best team ever to have played in a Super Bowl? No, but I do think this game ranks in the top five of the best Super bowls ever played. My list of the greatest Super Bowls is probably different from yours so give me some feedback about the list. I don't remember much about the first two on my list. I was a little foggy minded during both of those games so I have only the published reports of the games to classify them two of the greatest.
1: 1969 Jets 16 Colts 7 Marijuana was $60 a pound in 1969, do you really expect me to remember any of that game?
2: 1989 49er's 20 Bengals 16 Budweiser was $6.50 a 12pk, do you really expect me to remember any of that game?
3: 2009 Steelers 27 Cardinals 23 Clean and sober Oh what a game
4: 2008 Giants 17 Patriots 14 Clean and sober Oh what a game
5: 1991 Giants 20 Bills 19 I stopped drinking at halftime so I could have sex with my girlfriend and watched the second half while in some of the most unusual positions. I am still a little bit confused about that game, maybe the sex should have made 5th place
Since I am a big Cowboys fan I'll throw in a couple of their Super Bowls even though they lost both games.
6: 1976 Steelers 21 Cowboys 17
7: 1979 Steelers 35 cowboys 31
Since I am making Greatest List what about the greatest Quarterback to ever play in a Super bowl?
1: Montana
2: Bradshaw
3: Brady
4: Aikman
5: Elway
The Super Bowl rarely lives up to it's hype but the last two games have been classics, showing the NFL in all of it's brutal and battlefield glory. The exhausting emotion, the wild swings of momentum and the precise work under crushing pressure is all part of why the NFL is America's favorite sport.