My Cowboys lost to the NY Giants today in the NFL playoffs. While I am sorely disappointed with the outcome, I’m not necessarily shocked by it. Look, the Giants aren’t that bad of a team, and considering that the Cowboys already beat them twice this year, one needs to take into account how hard it is to beat the same team three times in a row. The degree of difficulty of beating any team in the NFL three straight times in the course of a season is higher than most would probably guess. That said, I still expected the Cowboys to win and am now relegated to cheering for the Packers against the Giants (of course I have to cheer against the team that beat my team; plus, I’ve been to Lambeau a few times and can’t help but root for Favre).

A few thoughts on the game:

1) We got no pressure on Eli and they were all over Romo, particularly during the second half. IMO, that made all the difference in the end.
2) Our secondary sucks. I already knew that, but that fact was driven home today. Roy Williams is a good player and all, but he totally sucks in the passing game. Great run supporter, terrible defender of the pass.
3) Penalties killed us. 11 for 84 yards compared to 3 for 25 yards for the Giants. Some calls were lame, as always, but the culprit here has got to be coaching.
4) Speaking of coaching, Wade Phillips is now 0-4 in the playoffs. Jerry Jones says he’ll be back as head coach next year. Will be interesting to see if that changes when the Dolphins come calling for Jason Garrett.
5) Patrick Crayton sucks. He had three drops in the game, two of which were key. He’s done this consistently throughout the season. You are a professional athlete paid to catch balls. When the QB puts the ball in your breadbasket, you catch it. It’s your job.
6) This loss wasn’t Tony Romo’s fault and anyone pointing to the weekend in Cabo with Jessica Simpson as the reason for his mediocre play has probably never played sports before. I thought he looked fine save for the occasional brain fart, which I’ve grown accustomed to over the past two years. He certainly appears incapable of getting rid of the ball when under pressure (I yelled repeatedly for him to throw it away throughout the game), which is frustrating but which also allows him to make plays that most people can’t, so it’s a tradeoff, I guess.
7) Gotta love a week that treats us to tears from both T.O. and Hillary Clinton.

I used to love Paul Krugman. Back in college, when I was convinced that I would become a professional economist someday, I read his books religiously. However, since then he has become a regular contributor to the NY Times and has, in my opinion, leaned way too liberal in his ideology. Many of his columns just rub me the wrong way, including this one where he basically argues against free trade while at the same time proclaiming that he’s not a protectionist and, of course, avoids any recommendation for solutions to his claim that free trade in its current form (i.e. importing low cost manufactured goods from countries whose average wages are a small percentage of ours) is not good for the average American. Such annoyance aside, I have found his writing on the current state of healthcare in America to be enlightening. In a recent blog entry, Krugman alluded to a study conducted by the Commonwealth Fund which compared international rates of “amenable mortality” — that is, deaths from certain causes before age 75 that are potentially preventable with timely and effective health care. In the study , which included nineteen developed nations, the U.S. ranked dead last, just behind Portugal. While I’m not necessarily a proponent of universal healthcare, those countries that embrace the concept seem to be doing just fine.

Please read about these lunatics and their leader, Joseph Kony. See what happens when a psycho gets religion.

A friend forwarded the below to me today. Not sure where it came from, but I totally agree with the sentiment. I truly believe that America has gone soft, so it’s nice to put things into perspective with a list like this.

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930′s, 40′s, 50′s, 60′s and 70′s!!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank Kool-aid made with sugar, but we weren’t overweight because,

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day.And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD’s, no surround-sound or CD’s, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chat rooms…….

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

I love how fired up people have gotten about Bill Kristol getting his own column at the NY Times. Sure, the guy’s an unabashed cheerleader of the neoconservative agenda, which has certainly done its part to make the world a more dangerous place; however, what’s wrong with the liberal NY Times allowing some airtime for the “other” side?

As an ideological independent, and as a loyal reader of the IHT, which publishes the NYT OpEds, I’m actually looking forward to hearing what Mr. Kristol has to say, which places me squarely in the campe of Jack Shafer over at Slate. I’m sure I won’t agree with a lot of what he has to say, but I’ll certainly hear him out, and I definitely won’t go screaming into the hills like some uber-sensitive liberals have shamefully decided to do. Besides, they need someone to help offset that beacon of liberalism that is Paul Krugman, and I think Kristol might just be the man for the job.

Just to give you a taste for what Kristol will bring to the NYT, here’s a quote from his first column, which went to press today:

Who, inquiring minds want to know, is going to spare us a first Obama term? After all, for all his ability and charm, Barack Obama is still a liberal Democrat. Some of us would much prefer a non-liberal and non-Democratic administration. We don’t want to increase the scope of the nanny state, we don’t want to undo the good done by the appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, and we really don’t want to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory in Iraq.

Say hello to the future of Notre Dame football. Yesterday was the annual U.S. Army High School All-American Football Game, which featured 14 ND recruits. These two gentlemen pictured above are QB Dayne Crist (#10), ranked by most recruiting services at #1-3 nationally at his position (ESPN has him #2), and Michael Floyd, a top-10 WR recruit from Minneapolis. These two hooked up for a 56-yard TD during the game and were said to have developed great chemistry during the week of practice. Floyd went on to catch 4 passes for 118 yards and 2 TDs and was the second-best player on the field (behind game MVP Terrell Pryor) according to recruiting analyst Tom Lemming. Also, over in another all-star game, top-10 WR recruit Deion Walker ended his recruitment by committing to the Irish over Florida, USC, Florida State, LSU and Penn State. That helped soften the blow of losing beast of a nose tackle Omar Hunter, who decommitted earlier in the week and is rumored to be heading to Florida. Thus far, the Irish have secured 22 commitments and its class is ranked #1 by several recruiting services. Signing day is February 6th and a lot can happen between now and then, but it certainly looks like things are looking up in South Bend. If this class sticks, and maybe even gets a little bit stronger, this will go down as the best recruiting class the Irish have put together since the late 1980s. Combine this class with the solid classes that Weis put together the two year prior and it would appear that BCS glory isn’t too far off!

The incomparable Christopher Hitchens wrote a piercing and heartfelt piece in Vanity Fair last month about a young American soldier who was killed in Iraq. The young man was a fan of Hitchens’ and even cited some of his writing as prompting him to enlist. The piece is a very touching recounting of the soldier’s life and how his family is coping with their loss. It’s a fantastic piece of writing. The tone is perfect and Hitchens’ tortured sentiment is conveyed brilliantly. While he usually uses his pen for spewing venom at his ideological adversaries, this work illustrated his ability to in fact use his phenomenal gift with words to honor a fallen hero in a soothing voice.

Is it possible that Morgan Spurlock (of Supersize Me fame) managed to do what the U.S. military has failed to do for years, which is find Osama bin Laden? His new film, Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?, debuts later this month at Sundance, and it’s being hyped as the real deal. Someone who worked on the film is quoted as saying that they’ve definitely got “the holy grail”. Can you imagine how embarrassing a development an indie filmmaker tracking down Osama would be for the Bush administration? Color me skeptical, but it’s fun to imagine the possibility!

Of all the things we outsource to India today, it appears that it is now possible to actually outsource childbirth. Just send an egg, some sperm and $20,000 or so and you can have a baby carried to term in the comfy confines of a specially-designed delivery clinic.

Follow this link for a fun collection of odd news stories from 2007. My favorite was the Russian woman who lit her ex-husband’s penis on fire as he watched television while sipping vodka in the nude.

And finally, Harper’s magazine had a nice and succinct yearly review.

Also, some highlights from this month’s Harper’s Index:

- 25% of the U.S. population has lived only under presidents named Bush and Clinton; if Hillary Clinton wins in November, and is reelected four years later, that percentage would increase to 33%.
- 55% of U.S. women dye their hair.
- 41% of people worldwide lack access to a toilet or an outhouse.
- 33% of U.S. men fail to wash their hands after using the restroom.
- 33% of FBI office computers have access to the Internet.

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.