End the Bailout Madness

GoneGator    Economy    

Somehow I missed this gem amid the holiday buzz: “Developers Ask U.S. for Bailout as Massive Debt Looms.” Mr. Obama and Congress, I beg of you — end the bailout madness! We cannot save every industry that made bad business decisions. And we cannot save individuals who racked up huge loan and credit-card debts as they pursued lifestyles way beyond their means!

Mele Kalikimaka, Mr. Obama

GoneGator    Uncategorized     Barack Obama, Hawaii

Obama: An Inspiration to Overweight Nation

GoneGator    Uncategorized     Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Smoking

Hailed as a savior on many fronts before even taking the presidential oath, Barack Obama revealed during his recent Hawai’ian vacation that he’s also working on physical perfection — and is damn close to achieving it.

In doing so, might he inspire an overweight nation?

The Obama Administration has declared health care reform to be one of its top priorities, and nothing would go further to resuscitate the health care system than the lightening of America.

In 2004, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ranked obesity as the No. 1 health threat facing the nation. A recent study published in JAMA said obesity results in an estimated 400,000 deaths annually, and NIH estimates the health care costs at nearly $122.9 billion a year.

Imagine the positive impact to the system if we could reverse the obesity trend.

Such a reversal starts with children, who are growing fatter by the minute. Barack and Michelle Obama seem to have a knack for inspiring kids. Maybe Barack’s six-days-a-week workout regimen (a mix of weights and cardio) will inspire some of them to put down the video-game controller and get out and exercise.

That goes for the older generations too. Barack, at age 47, isn’t just talking healthy living; he’s modeling good habits in advance of revealing his plan for reforming health care.

Obama has inspired me. If the soon-to-be leader of the free world can find time to exercise daily, I certainly can. Now that I’m 40, I really should lose my baby fat.

And perhaps during brisk walks during lunch hour, I will discover an Obama flaw.

He can’t really be perfect. Can he?

P.S.  Before many of you remind me that Obama is a former smoker — and perhaps a current closet smoker — spare me. He seems to have worked hard to kick the habit and has vowed to Michelle that the White House will be smoke-free during his Administration. Now, take that literally, and Obama certainly could find a corner of the White House gardens for a quick smoke, but whatever. He’s trying.

Bowl Preseason Wasn’t Pretty

GoneGator    College Football, Prognostication    

The bowl “preseason” was not kind to me — I correctly picked the winner in only 3 of 8 games (though I am quite proud of my Notre Dame pick). The real games start today with both FSU and Miami trying to kick off their 2009 campaigns in style. I hope they do; I picked them both.

Let’s Go Bowling!

GoneGator    College Football, Prognostication, Uncategorized    

I know you’ve been anxiously anticipating my bowl picks, so without further delay, here they are — with the bowls’ older, traditional names where at all possible. Screw the sponsors.

Please Stop Your Crying!

GoneGator    Economy    

I’m going on the record as being against any kind of bailout of the automakers. They’re not the only industry in dire straits due partly to conditions out of their control. Companies come, they grow, they decline, they fail to reinvent themselves, and then sometimes they go. That’s Darwinist capitalism, people!

Tebow’s Plight Recalls a Tale of Heismans Past

GoneGator    College Football, Florida Gators, Sports     Florida Gators, Heisman, Oklahoma Sooners, Peyton Manning, Sam Bradford, SEC, Tennessee, Tim Tebow

That Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford won the Heisman Trophy last night came as no surprise to me. The second consecutive sophomore to win the bronze prize had unbelievable numbers for the BCS Championship Game-bound Sooners, and is a very deserving winner.

But two things did surprise me in the final Heisman tally:

• Florida quarterback Tim Tebow garnered the most first-place votes (309 to Bradford’s 300).
• Tebow was not named on 17 percent of the 904 ballots that were tabulated.

Are you kidding me? There are 153 Heisman voters who did not think Tebow was one of the top three players in college football in 2008?

Well, let me share a little story with you. From 1993 through 2002, I was fortunate to be a Heisman Trophy elector as a sports journalist. And at the end of the 1997 season, I left a noteworthy name off my ballot — that of Tennessee quarterback Peyton Manning. He ended up finishing second to Michigan’s Charles Woodson.

How, you might ask, could I leave such a great quarterback off my ballot then, but criticize those who left Tebow off this year?

Very simple. Peyton Manning never beat Florida.

Manning set 42 NCAA, SEC or school records in four seasons in Knoxville. He led the Vols to the 1997 SEC title, an 11-1 regular season and a spot in the Orange Bowl de facto national championship game (which they lost to Nebraska). And Manning remains the all-time winningest SEC quarterback with a record of 39-5.

But four of those five career SEC losses came to the Gators, by a combined score of 161-86.

Had Manning beaten Florida in ’97, there is no doubt the Heisman (including my vote) would have been his. But the Gators handled Manning in a 33-20 victory over Tennessee. And with that, I decided I could not include Manning on my ballot regardless of how the rest of the season went.

I made a statement. And I took heat from fellow Southern college football writers when I revealed my intentions to those “Heisman watcher” media polls.

To this day, I have no regrets. But those who left Tebow off their ballots this year should.

Unlike Manning, Tebow has beaten all of Florida’s rivals. After the Gators’ lone loss this season, 31-30 to Ole Miss, Tebow vowed to work harder, play harder and push harder the rest of the way. The results: In the final nine games, Tebow led the nation in passing efficiency — completing 64.5 percent of his passes for 1,707 yards, 22 touchdowns and 2 interceptions — while rushing for 439 yards and 10 touchdowns. Florida went 9-0, beat No. 1 Alabama for the SEC title, and earned a spot opposite Bradford’s Sooners in the BCS title game.

What do you think? Was I crazy or justified to leave Manning off my ’97 ballot?

And can you justify anyone dissing Tebow in 2008?

Heisman Prognostication

Lev Davidovich Wuerffel    College Football, Florida Gators, Sports     BCS, Colt McCoy, Heisman, Sam Bradford, Tim Tebow

The Heisman will be awarded tonight, and my esteemed co-writer no longer has a vote, so that’s one less for Timmy, I presume. I figure Tim will end up third, actually. Despite all the talk we’re hearing about it here in the Southeast, where I live, most voters are going to be swayed by the bigger numbers of the Big 12 duo of Bradford and McCoy. I figure it’s Bradford first, then McCoy and Timmy.

And really that’s as it should be. For years the Heisman has been about gaudy offensive numbers. That’s why uninspiring players such as Andre Ware and Ty Detmer and Eric Crouch have won. Timmy’s reward is in Heaven, aka the BCS Championship Game.  What are your thoughts and predictions, o readers?

Class Warfare

Lev Davidovich Wuerffel    Politics     Bill Clinton, Cannibalism, Cheney, Republican Douchebaggery, Unions, W

One trend I’ve loved in the last eight years has been watching Repubs scream “class warfare!” any time regular folk (or the very rare politician) criticizes the absurd tax breaks and other financial advantages given to the wealthy in this country. The irony is so palpable it’s like a 16-ton-weight falling on the speaker from the sky as in one of the old Monty Python bits. Repubs scream about welfare, despite that program’s being nearly gutted (beginning under Clinton, I might add), and always find a way to suggest that the problems of our country come from the bottom up, particularly from Black people who live in cities, while simultaneously paying fake homage to the hypocritical pieties of rural, small-town white folk. Their ability to derail any honest discussion of class-based inequities in our society has kept many middle-class (and lower) Americans from noting that the GOP hasn’t been putting forward policies that help them.

Our latest evidence is the (so-far) unattributed memo sent to Senate Repubs urging them to vote down the auto bailout package. It contained three bulleted suggestions, including this one:

This is the democrats first opportunity to payoff organized labor after the election. This is a precursor to card check and other items. Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it.

If there was any doubt among any sentient beings that the decision the Repubs made has no relation to what’s best for the country, this memo eliminates it. Their vote was purely based on an effort to take a shot at unions and hurt a key Democratic constituency. Union-bashing works for the GOP in many places, of course, where non-union people have allowed attention to the (sadly, real) corruption in some of the very biggest unions (UAW, SEIU) to lead them to ignore the VERY NECESSARY protections and comforts offered to workers by unions. The auto companies helped the Repubs by not fighting the nonsense “Auto union workers make $73/hour! They need a pay cut!” arguments they levied against line workers, not explaining that that number included their retirement, health benefits, and group pool payments into one big number and then divided it by the number of workers. Given that kind of calculation, the assistant manager at your local Burger King makes $35/hour. It’s bullshit, and they know it.

The Bushies’ efforts to gut worker safety and other OSHA provisions, coupled with the Repubs’ desperate fight against card check and any other methods of organizing that give workers a better chance of coming together to protect their rights and pay, show that class warfare is always alive and well in this country, but it’s almost always the upper class making war on everyone else. Try it in the reverse direction and you’re a SOCIALIST (not a designation this author, obviously, would resent, but which still amazingly carries a taint in our mentally ill society).

Using tax money to rescue automakers from their ridiculously bad business models disgusts me, but the alternative (potentially up to three million lost jobs, the collapse of the economy in many of the Rust Belt states, bands of cannibal Michigan State fans howling through the woods of the Upper Peninsula) is certainly worse. How ironic that W. and Dick see the need to do this bailout, recognizing that whatever shred of a chance they have to not be seen as the men who completely ruined this great country rests on their ability to get this bailout done.

Thank you Mack Brown

GoneGator    College Football     Mack Brown

How about this little nugget out of Fort Worth: “Mack Brown votes for Florida ahead of Texas, OU”. With the Gators edging out Texas by .014 in the final BCS standings, that vote from Coach Brown certainly helped.