Bill Maher put together a nice Dickheads of the Year list for Rolling Stone magazine. For a little taste, here’s his shout-out to Larry Craig (pictured above):

A man who consistently voted against gay interests, but turns out to be not just gay but the kind of gay who likes to get it in public restrooms. Don’t people like Larry Craig and Ted Haggard and Mark Foley prove that being gay really is a hard-wired thing — not, as the conservatives always claim, a “lifestyle choice”? If anyone could choose not to have gay sex, it would be these guys, since their whole careers are built on not having gay sex.

Approximately four years ago, Bill Gates said that the world would be spam-free by 2006, thanks in no small part to the efforts of Microsoft engineers hell-bent on solving the email menace. However, as we enter 2008, spam continues to reign triumphant, with over 200 billion blast advertising messages sent out daily to unwilling and unsuspecting email users worldwide. Sadly, those users spend an average of three minutes per day sorting and deleting unwanted spam. And you thought reading this blog was a waste of time!

Two more solid reviews for There Will Be Blood, this time from the New York Times and the WSJ.

Some highlights:

“…the film is above all a consummate work of art, one that transcends the historically fraught context of its making, and its pleasures are unapologetically aesthetic. It reveals, excites, disturbs, provokes, but the window it opens is to human consciousness itself.”

“Daniel Day-Lewis’s portrayal is not just the performance of the year — there will be injustice if he doesn’t win an Oscar — but a creation of awesome proportions.”

“…it is also directly engaged with our cinematically constructed history, specifically with films — “Greed” and “Chinatown,” but also “Citizen Kane” — that have dismantled the mythologies of American success and, in doing so, replaced one utopian ideal for another, namely that of the movies themselves.”

“…[the movie] exhibits much the same qualities as Mr. Anderson’s previous work — every shot seems exactly right — but its narrative form is more classical and less weighted down by the pressures of self-aware auteurism. It flows smoothly, linearly, building momentum and unbearable tension. Mr. Day-Lewis…seems to have invaded Plainview’s every atom, filling an otherwise empty vessel with so much rage and purpose you wait for him to blow. It’s a thrilling performance, among the greatest I’ve seen, purposefully alienating and brilliantly located at the juncture between cinematic realism and theatrical spectacle.”

In case you can’t tell, I’m beyond exicted to see this film.

Solid article about Anderson on Slate today, which includes a couple of good clips from his previous films.

Kudos to Neil for sending along this fun little joke, which I’m sure my Cheesehead friends will enjoy.

God is interested in finding out more about the character of professional athletes and decides to do his research by asking questions of three quarterbacks.

God asks Peyton Manning first: what do you believe?

Peyton thinks long and hard, looks God in the eye, and says “I believe in hard work, and in staying true to family and friends. I believe in giving. I was lucky, but I always tried to do right by my fans.

God can’t help but see the essential goodness of Manning, and offers him a seat to his left.

Then God turns to Tony Romo and says, “what do you believe?”

Tony says, “I believe passion, discipline, courage and honor are the fundamentals of life. I, too, have been lucky, but win or lose; I’ve always tried to be a true sportsman, both on and off the playing fields”..

God is greatly moved by Tony’s sincere eloquence, and he offers him a seat to his right.

Finally, God turns to Brett Favre; “and you Brett, what do you believe?”

Brett replies, “I believe you’re in my seat”

I’ve decided to switch gears professionally and try my hand at sports writing. I came to this life-altering decision after reading that Rick Reilly, whose work as a Sports Illustrated columnist I had come to admire over the years, was lured away by ESPN for an amount said to exceed $3 million. Bristol, CT here I come!

I came across this interesting WSJ article today about how a group of internet vagrants infiltrate the websites of political candidates to spread online vitriol in an effort to undermine their campaigns. The piece is interesting in and of itself, but it also stood out to me for other reasons. Notably, one of the “trolls” featured in the piece – a 33-year old senior at Northern Kentucky University – appeared the physical manifestation of a douchebag, and the story’s narrator was more than annoying in his delivery (why do you speak so slowly…are you drunk? and why mess a name like Timothy up by calling yourself T.W.?). Not sure why, but this guy really rubbed me the wrong way. Click on the interactive clip in the story and see if you get as annoyed as I did with the commentary.

Did you know that Jesus wasn’t actually born on December 25th? That instead Christianity’s historical framers decided to “make it so” in order to make the holiday more palatable for the newly-converted masses, who were already used to celebrating the winter solstice around the same time? This isn’t the only thing that was copied out of the playbook of other religions and cultures. In fact, the entire history of a holiday that Christians hold so near and dear is plagued with copycat antics, representing a plagiarized hodgepodge of pre-Christian (pagan) beliefs and practices; this, by the way, holds true for the whole of Christian religiosity itself, but that’s a note for another day. In the meantime, read this brief history of Christmas that I came across the other day in the WSJ. It provides some nice historical perspective and helps add some levity to Bill O’Reilly’s totally contrived and outrageous war on Christmas.

Five Things I Love

1. Britney Spears’ little sister is pregnant at the tender age of 16.
2. Tony Romo is playing like a young Brett Favre and dating Jessica Simpson.
3. The Mavs might trade for Jason Kidd.
4. The “feels like” temperature in Tokyo is 47 degrees right now. It’s 20 degrees in Chicago.
5. Everything ever written by Christopher Hitchens.

Five Things I Hate

1. T.O. is complaining again about not seeing enough of the ball.
2. Tony Romo is playing like a young Brett Favre and dating Jessica Simpson.
3. The Texas Rangers recently signed the much-maligned Milton Bradley, adding to the long legacy of my sports teams being comprised of misfits.
4. Michigan hired Rich Rodriguez as their new coach (spells bad news for the Irish).
5. I am ranked third from last in this season’s pick-5 standings with an embarrassing record of 27-42-1. I suck.

Desperate for some form of television entertainment, Lizzi and I downloaded Edward Burns’ new film, Purple Violets, the other day. This film is notable for two primary reasons. First, it was the first movie to go straight to iTunes for download (rather than going for mass release in the movie theaters). Second, it really, really sucked. I like Burns. Not exactly sure why but I like the guy’s previous work. However, his first turn as the writer/director/star jack-of-all-trades was, in my opinion, an unmitigated disaster. While the directing was decent, the acting was atrocious and the story totally sucked. The screenplay was painful and there were numerous parts of the movie that just really annoyed me, including the brutal black and white striped scarf that Burns’ character wore the whole movie. I’ll stop there with my bashing of the flick. Just know that it sucks so don’t bother!

In other fun television entertainment, Lizzi recently introduced me to the reality show Run’s House. This show features the life and times of the Simmons family, whose patriarch is Run of Run DMC fame (who also happens to be Russell Simmons’ brother). He’s now a reverend and the ultimate family guy who has assembled quite the fun family. Though Run’s kids can be quite annoying at times (especially his elder son, JoJo, who is a total tool), and I hate his wife’s whiney voice, the show is actually very entertaining. I highly recommend it to all my reality TV-watching comrades.

Fresh off my rant about the lack of commitment and loyalty among coaches – those greedy bastards in constant pursuit of a bigger payday – I came across this article today by Michael Lewis of Moneyball fame. It’s an interesting and worthwhile read that basically accuses the NCAA of running a racket, using gifted young athletes to stuff their coffers for free. Sure, a full ride scholarship can be assigned an economic value of a very material amount. However, when Lewis estimates that Vince Young would probably have commanded upwards of $5 million during his senior year with the Longhorns in a system that resembled more a meritocracy than a serfdom, the value ascribed to an education alone falls well short.

Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats should be ashamed of themselves. The American people wanted a change in political leadership, and they supposedly got it by spanking the Republicans out of the majority in the last mid-term election cycle. However, despite the clear mandate the Democrats were given, they have repeatedly refused to block anything that Bush wants to get done in the last few months of his lame duck presidency. Bush and his cronies have continued to run roughshod over Congress post the leadership shift, which means there hasn’t been a change in the status quo ever since Pelosi and her colleagues ascended to their theoretical positions of authority.

Thanks to Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald, I came across the following excerpt from a recent CNN article, which I believe adequately captures the collective lack of political spine among Democrats today.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Democratic lawmakers and staffers privately say they’re closing in on a broad budget deal that would give President Bush as much as $70 billion in new war funding. The deal would lack a key provision Democrats had attached to previous funding bills calling for most U.S. troops to come home from Iraq by the end of 2008, which would be a significant legislative victory for Bush.

Still, Democrats are trying to sell $70 billion in new war funding as a partial victory for them. They point out that while the final numbers are still in flux during intense private negotiations, Bush is likely to get far less money than he originally requested.

“What is for sure is he will not get all $200 billion,” said one senior Democratic lawmaker. “Whatever number it is, it is much less than what the president asked for. For the first time in this war, he has received less than his request.”

But senior administration officials privately say they expect to be able to get at least of the rest of the president’s $200 billion request passed through Congress next year.

So they are celebrating as a “victory” the fact that they only gave Bush $70 billion of his $130 billion request (when, mind you, the likely most effective way of ending our disastrous foray in Iraq is to cut off funding), and he knows he’ll likely get as much as he wants once they come back from holiday. Sure smells like victory!

Alas, our politicians are not sitting completely idle. Turns out the House managed to pass a new resolution recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian religion earlier this month. Among other things, the resolution recognizes the following: 1) Christians believe in the salvation from sin offered to them through the sacrifice of their savior, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and who, out of gratitude for the gift of salvation, commit themselves to living their lives in accordance with the teachings of the Holy Bible; 2) the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith; 3) the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world; 4) Christmas is celebrated as a recognition of God’s redemption, mercy, and Grace; 5) Christians and Christianity have contributed greatly to the development of western civilization; and 6) expresses its deepest respect to American Christians and Christians throughout the world. The resolution passed 372-9. Glad we got that figured out! You can find the appalled response of the bill’s sponsor, Steve King of Iowa, to the nine “NO” votes here. Having leaders like him make me fear for our country’s long-term prospects.

I’m sure Bobby Petrino is a plenty nice guy. Probably loves his wife, spends time with his kids, pets his dog when he comes home. However, his latest case of wandering eye calls into question his integrity and his sense of professional etiquette. As you may or may not have heard, the now former head coach of the Atlanta Falcons inexplicably walked away from his team with three games left in the season to join the Arkansas Razorbacks as their new head coach. Not only does this make Petrino look downright horrendous, but it brings to light an issue that I believe plagues sports in general and college sports in particular. Coaches skip out on contracts for greener pastures all the time, and surely the fact that Petrino left before his first season was complete was even more egregious a display of selfishness. Thusly, I quite enjoyed Pat Forde’s slam job of Petrino on ESPN.com the other day, and my distaste for the man was magnified upon learning more about the execution of, and circumstances surrounding, his departure.

The whole situation is lame, and it has been this way for years. This lameness permeates the coaching ranks of virtually all sports, but it appears most blatant in basketball and football. It annoys me to no end to think about coaches spouting high and mighty words of wisdom designed to make their charges compliant in their loyalty and dedication to the team. Take ownership of your actions, see it through to the end, don’t start something you can’t finish, put the interests of the team before yourself. Actions clearly speak louder than words, and these coaches are no more dedicated to the good causes of brotherhood and teamwork than Catholic priests are to celibacy.

Plain and simple, these guys are mercenaries, willing to sell themselves to the highest bidder with little-to-no consideration paid to the legions of fans and players left their wake.

An interesting side note to all of this is the fact that this isn’t the first time Arkansas has prematurely plucked an in-over-his-head former college coach from the NFL; Lou Holtz bolted the 3-10 Jets (same record as Petrino’s Falcons) with one game left in the season for the Hogs in 1976. Talk about precedent!

It’s also interesting to think about how often wildly successful college coaches fail when they attempt the leap to the professional level. Clearly being instructors of boys doesn’t translate well to becoming leaders of men. Bobby Petrino, Nick Saban, Lou Holtz, Steve Spurrier, Tim Floyd, Rick Pitino and Kevin O’Neill are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

I love how often people who survive some sort of tragedy give thanks and praise to god for sparing their lives or giving them the strength to persevere. It’s common to hear “god was with me that day”, “someone higher up must have a plan for me” or some other nonsensical justification for their being lucky.

I was reminded of this by reading on CNN.com about the security guard who helped take down that psycho kid that decided to shoot up a church in Colorado.

Here’s a portion of what she had to say:

“I give the credit to God. And I say that very humbly. God was with me and the whole time I was behind cover — this has got to be God, because of the firepower that [the gunman] had vs. what I had. I did not run away and I didn’t think for a minute to run away, I just knew that I was given the assignment to end this before it got too much worse. I just prayed for the Holy Spirit to guide me.”

She said she was on the third day of a three-day regimen of fasting and prayer, wanting to know God’s will for what to do with her life, when the shooting took place.

“I was weak, and where I was weak, God made me strong,” she said. “He filled me and he guided me and protected me and many other people. And I’m honored that God chose me.”

After the recent Omaha mall shootings, some survivors were quick to hand out thanks to the almighty while appearing oblivious to the eight bodies left in the shooter’s wake. Why doesn’t anyone ever wonder why god would let any of this crazy sh*t happen in the first place? And what about the poor people who didn’t make it out alive? Are their loved ones to believe that god wanted them to die that way, that others’ lives were more worthy of saving? I find it offensive and selfish for people to toot their own existential horns while other families mourn the loss of loved ones.

Good old god – gets all of the glory and none of the blame.

I read an article in the Asian Wall Street Journal today that focused on the tendency for China’s elites to dye their hair in an effort to appear younger. It occurred to me that it is indeed rare to find older men of influence throughout much of Asia with gray hair. Just look at China’s new lineup of political leaders (pictured above). Despite ranging in age from 52 to 67, one would be hard-pressed to find a gray hair among them. Surely Confucious, who believed that hair was an inherited trait that should not be tampered with, would not approve.

Such treatment of the dreaded gray color in places like China stands in stark contrast with a place like Japan, where age commands a premium in virtually all facets of life, making gray hair a decidedly positive attribute.

Also noteworthy in the article was the mention of the refusal among Chinese elites to give up their potbellies in an effort to look young, as having a gut is a sign of wealth and influence. This reminded me of similar anecdotes I’ve heard relating to other relatively poorer countries, including parts of South America as well as India. More fun is the Italian take on the concept, where I’ve heard the wives of men without potbellies are looked down upon as bad cooks!

I came across an article today on ESPN.com that caused me to scratch my head in confusion as I pondered the question of how many lives Isaiah Thomas gets as a basketball executive. Seriously, what in the world does this guy have to do to get fired? And how many chances is he going to get to screw things up? To provide some context, let’s quickly recap his front office career. I stress front office because there is no debating the fact that he was one helluva player during his day. That said, let’s recount his debacle-laden experiences in the executive suite:

- Did an OK job as part owner of the Toronto Raptors, but was basically forced out amid accusations of improper gifts for college players and inappropriate conduct with team staff.
- Went on to become one of the most monotonous commentators in the history of television broadcasting for the NBA on NBC.
- Became owner of the Continental Basketball Association (CBA), which subsequently went bankrupt and folded. Many managers blamed mismanagement and overspending on the part of Thomas for the league’s failure. Note that Thomas bought the league outright for $10 million in 1999 and was offered $11 million for the league, plus a share of profits, by the NBA in 2000. In a brilliant move clearly demonstrating his feel for all things business, he declined the offer, only to revisit the transaction just four months later when he was offered the head coaching job of the Indiana Pacers (the NBA requires one to forfeit such ownership rights to avoid any potential for conflicts of interest). At this point, the NBA had moved on to form its own developmental league, and Thomas was forced to place the CBA into a blind trust so he could coach the Pacers, basically leaving the CBA in the lurch. The league went on to fold with over $2 million in debt. Teams were offered back to their original owners for $1.
- Met with limited success in Indiana, leading the Pacers to a 131-115 record over three seasons. While the record was moderately respectable, he failed to build on the success of his predecessor, Larry Bird, who took the Pacers to the NBA Finals just prior to the arrival of Thomas. Thomas’ Pacers teams were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs in each of his three years.

Now, we get to watch this trainwreck of a coach/executive work his magic with the New York Knicks, where the situation has gone from bad to atrocious. Seriously, the situation with the Knicks has eclipsed comical and has now entered the realm of the absurd. Since he took over as president of basketball operations, he has presided over one of the worst salary cap hackjobs in NBA history, signing players to ridiculous contracts with no apparent regard for ability (Jerome James for 5-years and $30 million, as you were giving away Nazr Mohammed?) or team chemistry (why sign Steve Francis when you already have Stephon Marbury?). His 2005-2006 Knicks squad had the highest payroll in the NBA yet finished with the second-worst record in the league. Moreover, that payroll was $124 million, putting the Knicks $74.5 million over the salary cap. The overshoot resulted in them having to pay roughly $62 million in luxury taxes, which are redistributed evenly among non-tax-paying teams. Just ridiculous.

Since he took over as coach of the Knicks, he has accumulated a record of 39-62, including 33-49 last year and 6-13 so far this year. His record last year included a fantastic nosedive during the last month of the season when the Knicks still had an outside shot at qualifying for the playoffs. The team went 4-12 when it counted the most, including losses in five of their last six and seven of their last nine.

His record this year includes an embarrassing 45-point loss to the Celtics, a game in which several observers noted that the Knicks players simply had given up on their coach. Then you’ve got the reportedly Thomas-inspired brawl with the Denver Nuggets last year, the decision to trade a potential lottery pick to the Bulls for the perennially underachieving Eddy Curry, and the Stephon Marbury fiasco. And, of course, the doozy of them all – Thomas and his employer, Madison Square Garden, were sued for sexual harassment by a former employee, who went on to win her case and receive a whopping $11.6 million as a reward, one of the largest sexual harassment judgments in history.

Yet, despite all of the above, the representative owner of the Knicks, James Dolan (he’s actually chairman of the board of Cablevision, parent company of Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall), who actually extended Thomas’ contract before the court decision, remains stubbornly loyal to his coach. So you are routinely accussed of harassment and even racism throughout your career, you bankrupt a basketball institution that had been around since the 1940s, you consistently underachieve as a coach, you demonstrate very little knowledge of how to actually manage a payroll and roster, AND you manage to lose a sexual harassment case that costs your employer almost $12 million, yet you STILL have a job as head of one of the most storied franchises in professional sports. What in the world is going on here?

Remember that Dolan, whose Cablevision also owns the New York Rangers and New York Liberty, signed Larry Brown to a 5-year, $50 million contract to coach the Knicks in 2004, only to fire him one year later at a buyout cost of $18 million. That means Larry Brown was paid $28 million to do a poor job of coaching for one year.

The above anecdotes are precisely why I would like to work for Mr. Dolan. If history serves as a guide, I can basically suck at my job while resting assured in the knowledge that this guy will continue to dig deep into his pockets to reward my suckiness for an unreasonable period of time. What could be better?

You might be wondering how Mr. Dolan came into this position of authority, as clearly it wasn’t because of business acumen or in-depth sports knowledge alone. Well, you see, his father, Charles Dolan, is the founder of HBO. Money makes money!

Due to popular demand, I have decided to change the format of my posts. From now on, I will make a concerted effort to keep my posts shorter in length, though I reserve the right to launch into long-winded diatribes at any moment. Bite-sized posts are said to be easier to digest for my loyal blog readers and, of course, I am here to please. As such, you can expect that my posts will be shorter in length and more frequent in occurrence going forward. In the spirit of change, I have also decided to alter slightly the layout of Eddyfication. Figured it was time to spice things up a bit.

I was pleased to learn today that the government of Germany has decided to pursue a ban on Scientology. Basically, the country considers the cult a habitual abuser of human rights operating as a commercial enterpise that “threatens the peaceful democratic order”. What a brilliant concept! The only question is, why stop there? There are plenty of other money-making, mind-altering scams out there worthy of relegation to the trash bin of history.

In the extremely immature and tasteless department, it appears that a few Penn State students decided to dress up as Virginia Tech murder victims during a Halloween party this year. Surely they feel good about that decision.

I was reading GQ’s latest Men of the Year edition, and was intrigued by Alex Rodriguez’s interests outside of baseball. Turns out the guy reads a lot of business books and admires people such as Warren Buffett and Jack Welch. And his favorite movie is Wall Street. I think it’s interesting how heroes in one realm (e.g. sports) often admire heroes in other realms (e.g. business) and vice-versa. So many successful businessmen are huge sports fans that sometimes accumulate impressive memorabilia collections, while sports stars often find themselves enamored with titans of business (see Lebron James’ newfound friendship with Warren Buffett). There’s a “grass is always greener” comment somewhere in here.

For those of you interested in good sports writing, you should check out Alexander Wolff’s profile of distance runner Alberto Salazar on CNNSi. It is very well done and provides a number of worthwhile anecdotes on competitive running, including the following:

“As big as we are, we have fewer people to draw on. In Kenya there are probably a million schoolboys 10 to 17 years old who run 10 to 12 miles a day. . . The average Kenyan 18-year-old has run 15,000 to 18,000 more miles in his life than the average American–and a lot of that’s at altitude. They’re motivated because running is a way out. Plus they don’t have a lot of other sports for kids to be drawn into. Numbers are what this is all about. In Kenya there are maybe 100 runners who have hit 2:11 in the marathon–and in the U.S. maybe five. . .”