Welp, I was wrong about the Iggles. That’ll teach me to talk smack again. From here on out, I will leave that sort of thing to the experts.
I still reserve the right to play the Brady video again, however.
Bradrocket’s silly man-crushes are up just a field goal (more on this later) on the Eagles at the half. This despite Bradrocket bragging his Pats would easily cover the 24-point spread.
Meanwhile, nobody told the Iggles they were supposed to roll over and let the Patriots crush them. Nobody told J.R. Reed, No. 30 in your program and No. 666 in Wes Welker’s eardrums, that he was supposed to meekly allow the Pats’ traveling air show easy egress into the endzone.*
And getting back to that field goal that separates the teams at the half … what was that LOLpat Bradrocket so smugly posted? Oh, yes … “field goal on 4th down? DO NOT WANT” … and yet … and yet … and yet:
Second quarter … 14-14 … Pats on Eagles 5-yard-line … fourth down … Belicheat … wait for it … Belicheat KICKSKICKSKICKSKICKSKICKSDOESN’TGOFORITCAUSEHE’SSCARED ANDHEONLYGOESITFORITWHENHE’SUPCAUSEHE’SAHYPOCRITEANDAPOORSPORT!!!!1!!!
Prediction: Eagles 35, Pats 27
*Fuck, am I channeling Easterbrook, or what?
Bradrocket adds: Belicheat only goes for it on fourth down when he’s running up the score. Otherwise, he’ll take the three points. This is why he rules.
Adding, that if the Pats could very well lose this game. This is about as poor as I’ve seen them play in a long time. Yeah, that Moss offensive pass interference call was BS, but hell, they had three more downs to work with and came away with nada.
Overall, Andy Reid has done an excellent job preparing his team for this game. I like the aggressive approach he’s taking of going for it on fourth and on successfully employing an onside kick. The Patriots aren’t generating much of a pass rush, and their secondary has made AJ Feely look like YA Tittle at times.
That said, the Patriots are still leading by three points at halftime and they get the ball back to start the second half. We’ll see what happens.
I’m afraid we’ve all been a tad derelict in our duties around here of late.
In past years, the denizens of Sadly, No! had already begun discharging their responsibilities as the vanguard of the War on Christmas Wehrmacht. This year, it seems we’ve been a little lax, for which you have our apologies. I would also like to offer you a present as a small token of penance.
“What?” I can hear you asking yourselves already. “But, Jillian, how can giving someone a present be a blow in the mighty battle against Christmas that all good liberals must wage? Surely, giving presents is part and parcel of what Christmas is all about. Have you betrayed us and our noble cause”?
Rest easy, my friends. For, while I do indeed have a present for each and every person who reads this, you need to bear in mind that the present is a link to every single known recording of the abomination that is the song “Last Christmas”.
You want it done punk? They have it done punk. You want it done reggaeton? They have it done reggaeton. In fact, I think the only version they’re missing is a Tuvalese throat singing version – but give them time.
Just try and have a Merry Christmas now with the strains of Bollywood “Last Christmas” stuck in your head forever.
Merry effin’ Christmas, losers!
Clif adds: Jillian, I see you and raise you one video.
I dare anyone to make it through the entire song which is, arguably, the worst Christmas song ever written.
Devoted readers of The Atlantic are an inquisitive bunch. I think, however, that I have stumbled across a question which may even overwhelm their prodigiously deductive natures: which interests Megan McArdle more, basic facts about the Constitution or shopping for shoes? Let’s find out!
In which the Constitution proves to be far less interesting than shopping for shoes, part the first:
The inimitable Marie Gryphon catches Naomi Wolf in a very odd statement–at least, odd if you’re Naomi Wolf:
Naomi Wolf’s eulogy for American democracy in today’s Washington Post contains the following, very curious passage:
“Few young Americans understand that the Second Amendment keeps their homes safe from the kind of government intrusion that other citizens suffer around the world; few realize that “due process” means that they can’t be locked up in a dungeon by the state and left to languish indefinitely.”
Has the third wave feminist and former Gore campaign consultant suddenly discovered the importance of the right to keep and bear arms?
I assume she was referring to the Fourth. But then, once you’ve seen one amendment, you’ve seen ’em all . . .
Megan really likes shoes!
The Fifth Amendment:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
(Emphasis added by persons other than the Framers, for the benefit of persons other than the Framers.)
This also ignores the fact that certain interpretations of the Second Amendment actually do make the argument that its purpose is to protect us from unreasonable government intrusion. But let’s just work with baby steps here; once we can get McMegan to correctly identify the amendments in the Bill of Rights, then we can start worrying about whether or not she actually understands any of them.
In which the Constitution proves to be far less interesting than shopping for shoes, part the second:
Speaking of Paul Krugman
I wonder what happens to his career on January 21st, 2008?
Have I mentioned how much Megan likes shoes?
20th Amendment
The term “Lame Duck” originates in the mid 1700’s. It is applied to an elected official who has not been reelected, but still holds office. For example, in the United States today, the President is elected in November, and inaugurated in January of the following year….
I realize this one’s a little harder; it involves knowing that George Washington was first elected in 1789, then subtracting that from 2007 and dividing by four….carry the one….
Or, you know, just turning on the television.
But I take my duty as an educator seriously, and therefore do the only thing that can be done under such circumstances.
(Incidentally, does my jumping on the McMegan bandwagon mean that I am now a part of the Old Boys Network? Will I have to get a sex change for that? Will Matt and Ezra challenge me to a duel now?)
I didn’t want to blog about the Patriots today, but the dastardly Dr. Atrios has left me no option. His crime? He dared to suggest that his Philadelphia Eagles will beat the 23.5-point spread in tonight’s Sunday night game.
Needless to say, this will not happen. Not only will the Patriots beat the Iggles by over 24 points tonight, but it will be incomparably, hysterically funny. Bill Belichick will run up the score. He will go for it on fourth down when up by more than 30 points. Tom Brady will still be tossing bombs to Randy Moss late in the third quarter. Mike Vrabel will catch another touchdown pass. Vince Wilfork will probably eat one of the Eagles’ players. And there is nothing that they can do about it. I will be sitting comfortably on my couch, LOLing for the whole game.
[Another update: El. Oh. El. The Bills lost today, which means that the Patriots have already clinched the AFC East. Wowsers.]
I know I’ve developed a bit of an obsession with Michael Medved lately. I’ve been hard pressed to figure out what’s behind it – is it the smug glibness with which he mangles history? His baffling simplemindedness when it comes to understanding the role of the U.S. in world affairs? Why am I compelled to keep reading his drivel?
It was only when looking at one of the more recent examples of his total insanity that it finally dawned on me: it’s the mustache.
Look at it! Look at that amazing, manly lip caterpillar! It sucks you in to its dense thicket with endless questions…does it have a life of its own? Does it crawl off his face at night, looking for souls to devour? Is the final, awful truth about the source of Michael Medved’s stupid hidden in there somewhere, waiting for the individual brave enough to venture in and find it? Can you tell what he had for dinner last night by huffing it? I have found myself staring into the mustache, seeking answers to these and other questions, but was alarmed to find myself muttering disjointed and irresponsible things about “The black pit,” “the carven rim,” “the protoShoggoths,” “the windowless solids with five dimensions,” “the nameless cylinder,” “the elder Pharos,” “Yog-Sothoth,” “the primal white jelly,” “the color out of space,” “the wings,” “the eyes in darkness,” “the moon-ladder,” “the original, the eternal, the undying,” and other bizarre conceptions after doing so for too long. I fear it may be too late for me.
Wait. Where was I? Oh, right. Medved’s contention that nothing can stop the Mike Huckabee surge. Quoth Medved:
Are voters ready to get behind a Presidential candidate whose undergraduate degree is from Ouachita Baptist University? Republican insiders face that question because of the powerful surge in Iowa for former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.
That “powerful surge” has taken Mike Huckabee all the way to twelve percent in the latest Iowa poll – one point ahead of Guiliani and three points ahead of that impressive candidate “Not Sure”. This also puts him ever so slightly behind Mitt Romney, who is at 29%.
Well, if Mike Huckabee is both beating Not Sure in the Iowa polls and garnering the support of the Mustache, we are all powerless to resist. Huckabee/Keyes ’08! Just think what it will do for our relations with Canada!
You dig and you dig and you find things. Sometimes you find one of your favorite things!
This band, The Pack, released two singles — one somewhat less impossibly-scarce than the other — and then a 4-track EP with mostly the same songs, and then maybe a couple other things with mostly the same songs. There’s a total of about six songs, some in different versions.
When I say ‘impossibly scarce,’ I mean that I’d rifled through record bins for years in New York and New Jersey, picking up stuff and noticing this unknown thing and that one-off oddity, and then saw a Pack single earlier than the one I’d previously found in someone’s collection in Germany, and freaking scoured England’s record bins, auctions, and set-sale lists to find one — which I eventually did, paying about two dollars for this weird record that nobody especially wanted. This is it, in any case. I eventually sold mine with a huge bunch of other stuff, to pay for college.
Anyway, Kirk Brandon, the singer, later did Theatre of Hate and Spear of Destiny, both of which had some really good songs. The general theme was ripping off the first PiL album, with its heavy guitar and Jim Walker’s drumming. (Walker, a Canadian somewhat adrift in London, soon quit PiL and turned up here and there in a general axis of bands whose members included The Pack.) The drummer here, I think, is Rab Fae Beith, who was later with the UK Subs. Boring bird-watching stuff, anyway. But here’s a super-unseen video.
Personally, I can’t listen to the Kirk Brandon bands much anymore, because he projects a certain grandiose narcissism that I think I was afflicted with (and sympathetic with) in my 20s, but that just makes me cringe now. There’s a vid of the Theatre of Hate song, Westworld, below, and I think it speaks for itself in that respect. Ee-yow.
My self-indulgence for the week. I hope someone else can understand what a nugget this is. Holy God! On YouTube!
The Vindication of Rush H. Limbaugh
Above: Ee-woo.
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard.
* Ms. Lopez has never, to our knowledge, had a boyfriend.
** Were you by any chance aware that the Bush-following Australian PM, John Howard, has suffered a defeat via the Labor Party’s Kevin Rudd?
Another day, another political career ruined by George W. Bush:
Conservative Prime Minister John Howard suffered a humiliating defeat Saturday at the hands of the left-leaning opposition, whose leader has promised to immediately sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and withdraw Australia’s combat troops from Iraq.
Labor Party head Kevin Rudd’s pledges on global warming and Iraq move Australia sharply away from policies that had made Howard one of President Bush’s staunchest allies.
Howard follows in the proud footsteps of Tony Blair, Jose Aznar and Silvio Berlusconi as leaders who made the grave political mistake of allying with Preznit Terra. It’s doubtful that any future leaders will make any similar oopsies.