Bears at Giants 11/12/2006

This was in my pre-game opinion, the game of the season, a titanic struggle for home-field advantage in the NFC. So I bought a couple of tickets and got seats in the first tier - a great view. Unfortunately, the Giants stopped playing in the second half. I guess it really does matter when two Pro Bowl DEs, a Pro Bowl safety, your leading receiver, and a starting linebacker are all out, especially when your second receiver and a starting cornerback are also hobbling back from injuries. It didn't help having a key lineman breaking a leg in the first quarter, either. Eli Manning played what must have been the worst game of his professional career - the stats say he completed 14 passes. I must have missed the first eight because after the time I got to my seat, midway through the first quarter, he could have completed no more than 6 for the rest of the game.

This was a big-time blown opportunity for the Giants; however, this is tempered by the fact that they simply didn't have their "A" team on the field (due to aforementioned injuries). When you have to start a tackle at DE, you are in desperate straits!

The game was a lot closer than the 38-20 final score indicates; the Giants were leading for the entire first half and part of the second. The Giants' "D" deserves major kudos for an excellent performance, especially under those conditions.

We'll see you in Chicago over the winter, Bears fans. Just remember that next time we'll have the whole team there to play. Turnoversaurus Rex, keep on fumbling!


I had actually driven up from VA to NYC just for this game; it was a horrible drive, with rain the entire way and terrible traffic. What is normally a 3.5-4 hour drive became seven plus (thus I missed part of the first quarter). Afterwards I drove my friend back to the city and then drove all the way back down to VA, for a grand total of 12 hours of driving in one day.

I'm exhausted but it was nice to see my first football game in person.

GOP Loses - Should Conservatives Celebrate?

I think our chances improved overnight. Even with "our" party controlling all three branches of government, our agenda never made it to the table, except as the subject of an occasional and reluctant symbolic (never substantial) tip of the hat. We got two SCOTUS judges out of the entire six years; while I'm thankful for those two, that they are the entire accomplishment of this government in all that time is incredibly shameful.

In the post-WW2 era, there have been three core reasons to vote GOP:

1) Smaller government/lower taxes
2) Protection of liberty and repeal of restrictions/regulations on it
3) Strong national defense

The outgoing GOP government made a travesty of the first, a mockery of the second, and a farce of the third:

- Spending through the roof. No secret. First act: $1.2 trillion dollar prescription drug program the excesses of which would make LBJ blush.
- One small tax cut five years ago with an expiration date attached is not much of a claim to tax-cutting, not when more and more people are affected by the AMT, something that got no attention under 6 years of GOP governance.
- Demands for sacrifice of personal liberty from citizens, but illegal aliens subject to fewer and fewer restrictions. Did they think people didn't notice?
- Controlling the borders and the passage of human beings across them should have become an immediate national priority before noon on 9/11. This is common sense. Five years later we have a proposal for a fence that may not be a real fence and only covers a third of one of two very long borders anyway... and whether it is funded or not, and whether the funds will be spent on actually building it, those questions are still awaiting answers.
- Iraq. There are a lot of people who completely agree that Saddam needed to be taken out but were never convinced that "nation-building" was a necessary or proper step... and even among those who wanted some measure of nation-building, how many envisioned this?
- Strategically, the best reason to go into Iraq was to use it as a base from which to deal with Syria and Iran; indeed, this was a clinching argument in placing Iraq into the overall framework of the War on Terror. But instead of pressuring those nations, we allow them to pressure us instead, without consequence. We are no longer setting the terms of the conflict according to our needs.
- Who supports the soldier? Is it the one who uses him for political ends, allowing jihadis to take potshots at him from safe havens in Syria, in Iran, and in Iraq itself? Or the one that wants to empower him to get the job done and come home to his family?


Of course the Democrats are evil. They are not ashamed at all and will pretty much tell you so. But this is not an argument to support a GOP that is morphing into a second Democrat party - rather it is an argument to clean house, because we can only get our agenda on the table if we control the GOP. If we support a GOP we don't control, we are simply pushing further into the future the day when we have a representative of and advocate for our views at the national table. First, the GOP must be what we want it to be; only then can it be used as a tool to defeat the Democrats. Without first controlling the GOP there is no gain from defeating the Democrats; a lefty-controlled GOP is just as bad as lefty-controlled Dems (a redundant phrase), and worse in some cases. It is because the Democrats are beyond hope that we cannot allow the GOP to be the same.

So yeah, we got two good SCOTUS judges. But I'll tell you something, and that is that the simple willingness of the legislature to assert its Constitutional prerogative on oversight of the judiciary and the Presidency would have been a hundred times as powerful. The lack of will to do that or to otherwise put themselves out for the people who put them into office translated directly into a lack of will of the people to keep them in office.

NFL Week 9 picks

This week has some interesting lines. I'll pick:
- Giants (-13) over Houston. Thirteen points is a lot. But Giants are looking like Super Bowl contenders and Houston is losing to Tennessee. Giants play this one at home, the only danger is overconfidence. Against a weak defense like Houston's, Eli & Co. can really rack up the points. While Houston has a pretty good offense, their offensive line isn't up to the task of standing up to this Giants defense, battered as it may be.

Giants have good players even in 3rd and 4th positions all the way down the depth chart. If you think the Giants are good this year, just wait - they are full of talented young players who will only get better over time. Jacobs will pick right up where Tiki left off, and don't be surprised if the Giants pick a good pass-catching RB in the next draft.

- Kansas City (+2) over St. Louis. I wouldn't be surprised if half the fans at this game are from KC; the two cities are not far apart. This will help to moderate the Rams' home field advantage. But mostly I pick the Chiefs because I got burned picking against them two weeks in a row.

- Baltimore (-3) over Cincinnati. Ravens are putting together a complete package; Cincy has issues to sort out.

- Tennessee (+9.5) over Jacksonville. Jax will probably win the game, but Tennessee will keep it close.

- Dallas (-3) over Washington. Tony Romo looks like the real deal. Will he be consistent enough to save their playoff hopes? We'll see. Washington has nothing on them, it is still waiting for its own Tony Romo; while Brunell is not the worst QB in the league, DC can do better.

- Green Bay (+3) over Buffalo. The Pack is on a roll, Buffalo has a QB whose name might as well be Lose-man. These Packers are not a good team, but they don't suck quite as bad as some of the stinkers in the league... stinkers like Buffalo.

- Tampa Bay (+1) over New Orleans. Tampa Bay played the Giants a lot closer than the score indicated; they were two dropped passes (sure scores that should have been caught) away from a tie game. Gruden is smart enough to run extra catching drills. New Orleans' luster is coming off and they have not been playing well recently.

- Atlanta (-5.5) over Detroit. This is more likely to be a blowout than close. Cold weather or not, Atlanta is clicking in the post-Giants aftermath, and they will not play a close game with a bad team.

- Chicago (-13.5) over Miami. Ouch! Could there be a bigger mismatch? Miami won't even get close to matching Arizona's feat of almost beating Chicago.

- Minnesota (-5) over San Francisco. Vikings will be eager to redeem themselves; San Francisco continues to play below professional level football.

- Cleveland (+12.5) over San Diego. The Browns aren't as terrible as their record might indicate. San Diego isn't as good as the hype, in my estimation. Consider this my anti-hype vote of the week.

- Denver (-3!) over Pittsburgh. Super Bowl champs or no, Pittsburgh has simply been playing bad football and has made many mistakes. Denver showed what it was capable of against Indy (which is that given home field advantage, they are almost as formidable a team as the Colts). This is my slam dunk pick for the week. I should put money on it. Steelers won't make the playoffs this year.

- New England (-3) over Indiannapolis. The hardest pick of the week, I really wanted to pick Indy, especially given the points. But I got burned picking against the Pats two weeks in a row, and I can't help but think that Belichik is fully capable of exploiting the Colts' run defense in a way that the Colts can find no answer within 60 minutes. Pats also have a knack for intercepting Manning so I think this week very well will be the end of the Colts unbeaten record for the season.

- Seattle (-7) over Oakland. Oakland gives no compelling reason to believe that they can do well on the road against a decent team. On the other hand, strange things do happen on Monday Night.