'Twas Two Nights Before Christmas...

The Fam and guests will be arriving in a couple of hours for Christmas festivities so this will probably be it for today. We know it sounds trite but take a moment over the next few days to ponder just how good we have it here. Honestly, despite all the hand-wringing and doom and glooming we get bombarded with on a daily basis, we as Americans are so fortunate to be living in the time and place we are now.

Take a moment also to express some skyward gratitude to our men and women in uniform who are deployed overseas and aren't able to be with their loved ones. Its because of them we are able to fight with family, eat and drink to excess, exchange half-hearted warm wishes and generally lose perspective of what this season should be all about in our fat, dumb and happy state as Americans circa 2007.

So on behalf of St. Nick and Marshall, we at Beers with Demo want to wish everyone a safe and blessed Christmas. Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Ad Update

KT at the Scratching Post hooked us up with Fred Thompson’s Christmas ad. Its here. And following Mongo’s suggestion we have something here, in lieu of a Mitt Romney Christmas ad. This is the kind of support we truly appreciate. Thanks guys! Both have been linked at the original post here, as well.

Think it was Elvis who once said that the key to writing a good pop song was setting happy lyrics to a sad melody. Well, if it was as easy as that how come more people don’t do it? And similarly, with T.V. commercials, how come we don’t see primates in every damn one of them. Ask yourself when was the last time you saw a commercial with chimpanzees in it that wasn’t absolutely hysterical. And then ask yourself what it was the commercial was selling. Don’t know, don’t care? You loved the ad, though and that’s all that mattered.

Which brings us to Fred’s ad. Images of soldiers, sailors and marines set to a Ken Burn’s-style parlor piano “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” absent voice-overs from Fred or anybody else. The simple, spare “Fred Thompson” at the end is a man’s man way to sign off. Great spot. You simply can’t go wrong with an ad like that. And similar to chimp commercials, you have no idea what Fred is selling and you don’t have any better idea of what Fred is about other than asking us to remember the men and women in our Armed Forces this Christmas….. you only know that you enjoyed the ad. And maybe that’s O.K. Maybe its alright to just have a simple ad that intones respect, admiration and gratitude towards the military.

So why doesn’t everyone do this? Well, we know why candidates from one party don’t…. they can’t. It may not have personally been any of the Big Three but their fellow leaders in the Democrat Party have spent the past 3 or so years doing everything from prejudging the Marines involved with the Haditha case (John Murtha, who is being sued by one of the Marines because of these actions), scoring cheap political points with Abu Ghraib (Kennedy) and claiming U.S. troops were “terrorizing” Iraqi women and children (Kerry). These are just the prominent examples that came to mind. There were many more.

Clinton, Obama and Edwards’ own party have painted themselves into a corner such that if any one of them tried this no-brainer of a “chimp spot” it would appear hypocritical to most of us and worse yet, it would anger the kook-left in their respective camps. It’s a damn shame – it shouldn’t be that way. It shouldn’t be in this great country of ours that one of the two major political parties in this country can’t make a simple ad that shows unabashed and unqualified support for the military. They have no one but themselves to blame, though.

Christmas Shopping Shouldn't be This Easy

We never learn. Despite the family going the secret Santa route the past few years, its seems there are still quite a few gifts to be bought for Christmas and we tend to let it go to the last minute as Christmas will be celebrated with the family… tomorrow. Yikes.

What to get? Where to go? These are question that vex us seemingly each and every year when we are deciding where it is we will go shopping. And despite coming to the same conclusion every year, the idea dawns upon us as a revelation or some sort of “road-to-Damasacus” awakening each year as well.

Ladies and Gentleman, may we present the BwD Christmas shopping “easy button”:
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Christmas (and Holiday) Ads.... Who Ya Got?

Friday has usually been KBwD day when we discuss a little music and present a band that we really like and then…. we throw you over to a YouTube clip of that band for some grainy video and crappy audio. Don’t get us wrong – Love YouTube but as the staple format for our featured artist its lazy, it doesn’t do justice to that particular band and its insulting to you, so until we figure out how to, at the least, upgrade the audio content were going to put KBwD Fridays on hold.

So as you won’t be deprived of any music this Friday, we want to spread some holiday cheer by linking the Holiday/Christmas ads from the leading Presidential candidates all right here. We haven’t found anything from Fred or Mitt (oh, that’s right, Mitt's not a Christian) so we’d appreciate anyone throwing us a link of one or both guys. We’ll save our comments for later but please feel free to express your own feelings about the ads.

We’ll do the Democrats first:

Here’s the Breck Girl, John Edward's ad.

… and Hillary’s is here

Obama and Family can be found with a “stake in each other” here.

Now to the Republicans:

Rudy’s is here.

McCain taking a trip down memory lane, here.

… and here’s Huckabee’s now-famous “floating cross” ad.

Our thoughts:

John Edwards: Classic Edwards. Dripping compassion and sincerity for the “other America”. Honestly, would you have expected this guy to come up with any other ad? Well, he’s got his formula and he sticks to it but it falls flat. Bill Clinton would’ve knocked this same ad out of the park – not lil’ Johnny Edwards, though.

Hillary: The woman is an alien. There’s no other explanation for this ad. Rudy’s is the only other ad that includes campaign “planks” but just look at how good Hil’ feels about herself when she finds and gifts you and I “Universal Pre-K”. Only a person and a campaign lacking any sort of common touch would generate something this void of warmth and humility.

Barack Obama: Scary, as in scary good. Great call having the daughters at their knees and the wife doing the lead-in. This is precisely why this dude worries us more than Hillary… look at both ads and imagine who’s going to have a easier time selling us Universal…. whatever.

Rudy: We like it…. we think. This almost looks like an out-take while they’re trying to get the lighting right because Rudy seems loose and into it… maybe a little too loose. Points for foregoing the conventional… its definitely the anti-McCain ad of the bunch.

McCain: McCain will always get points from us for his service to our country which included time at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton”, so while this is an intensely personal ad, the weary cynic in us’ first thought was, “… now, did that really happen?”

Mike Huckabee: No. 2 behind Obama. Just your pastor-next-door dropping by to wish you a Merry Christmas. We watched it and just focused on Huck and his words and came up with a simple Christmastime litmus test: If you know, see or read about anyone making a stink about the “floating cross”.... that person is a loon. Period. End of story.

Let us know what you thought of the ads....

...Aw, what the heck. Here's a taste of one of the coolest songs of all time... from YouTube!

Christmas ad update.... Fred's is here... and by Mongo's suggestion we have this in lieu of a Mitt Romney Christmas ad. Our thoughts on Fred's ad are here.

So.... Whaddya Think?

For those of you who have been reading along here at Beers with Demo (much appreciated, by the way), you’ll note the format change. No real reason but it does appear to allow for bigger pictures (not that that’s always a good thing, right, Vlad?) and the backdrop does make for some easier reading (we all get older every single day). We like the more open, free-flowing format… Bloggers without Borders…. but we’d love to hear what you think. Drop us a line.

We’re off to the Poinsettia Bowl this evening. Navy v. Utah. We’ll be hooking up with B-Daddy, Mongo and others for some tailgating beforehand. The Poinsettia Bowl represents what bowls used to be about before the BCS. Two solid teams that would not make any playoff or BCS bowl but had good years nonetheless (one of which, Navy, ended 40+ years of futility by beating Notre Dame) and are rewarded for it by playing in a game that presents a good matchup and a nice send off for the seniors who have toiled for 4 years in their respective programs. Go Navy!

We’ll miss the Steelers/Rams this evening which has playoff implications obviously for the Steelers but for the Chargers as well, as far as who they may play in the playoffs. The Steelers’ backs are against the wall but we like Steven Jackson against a defense that suddenly can’t stop the run. Take the Rams at home and the 8 pts.

And we’ll try to have some thoughts formulated for tomorrow on Bobby Petrino’s hasty beat feet retreat from Atlanta and Bill Parcells taking a front-office job in Atlan….errr… in Miami.

Vlad

TIME Magazine chose Russian President Vladimir Putin as its Person of the Year (runners-up were Al Gore, “Harry Potter” author, J.K. Rowling, China’s big cheese, Hu Jintao and our choice, General Petraeus).

We thought the choice curious but after reading TIME’s explanation, we just shrugged our shoulders and said, “O.K.. sure.. whatever”. Was it really that unspectacular a year? We guess that after taking last year off with the cop-out “You”, the folks at TIME tried their best to put some effort into the choice this year.

And TIME has always taken grief for not adhering to some sort of moral standard in making the selection. For TIME’s part here is some verbage pulled from their explanation of how they do their choosing:

"TIME's Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is not an endorsement. It is not a popularity contest. At its best, it is a clear-eyed recognition of the world as it is and of the most powerful individuals and forces shaping that world—for better or for worse."


Fair enough. But “most powerful individuals…”? Probably explains why our boy Mahmoud didn’t make the cut.

And speaking of moral standards… just what is it with magazines and their insistence in throwing the crotches of their Alpha-male cover boys in all our faces? Enough!

Now This is More Like It.

Its been trending like this for a couple weeks now and we wanted to see if it had legs before we made this proclamation but the Republican primary race is now officially more interesting than the Democrat's.

Its seems Mitt’s Mormonism speech nearly 2 weeks ago has kick-started a transformation from what has been mostly a boring processional…. for some that were forced to watch the Republican debates and how they were conducted it was tantamount to Chinese water torture… to quite a rollicking affair with moments now that have bordered on the sublime.

Ron Paul was asked for a reaction to Mike Huckabee’s “Floating cross” Christmas ad and after quoting Sinclair Lewis, “Fascism… will come bearing a Cross”, we’re convinced he’s the same guy at cocktail parties who, trying to impress others with his intellect and erudition, says other retarded crap like, “Religion has been the cause of more deaths than any other thing in mankind’s history…” Who knew Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, etc. etc. swung that way? (Link above courtesy Hot Air)

The Mitt-Mormonism blacklash is now experiencing a backlash. Read article here from Michael Medved which generally parallels our feelings.

And we're calling B.S. on Mitt’s Meet the Press appearance when he said he pulled his car over and wept when he heard on the radio that the Mormon Church had accepted blacks into the Church back in the late 60s. What radio station in Massachusetts would report that?

And Ann Coulter thinks Huckabee’s surge is the fault of the Main Stream Media. Link here. We’d do drinks with Ann but we wouldn’t date her. Her contention of a conspiracy to send Huck to slaughter in the general election does a disservice to the good name of conspiracy. Those people aren’t clever enough to figure how to conspire.

And Fred…? Well, Fred’s just being Fred. In just the past week, when asked what his most prized possession was he replied, “My trophy wife” and when asked who was his favorite President from the opposing party, Freddy responded, “Martin Sheen”, who played Josiah Bartlet in the television series “West Wing.” Well, now that he’s got the frat-boy vote, we’re still wondering when he’s going to give us an indication that he’s in this for the long haul… we’re not gonna sell out for this guy if at the last minute he just pulls the plug on it and in Bob Newhart fashion claims it was all just a wacky dream.

Forget the polls, kids. This thing is going down to the wire and as opposed to the Democrat primary which is now a match race between Hillary and Barack.... Fred, Mitt, Huck, Rudy and McCain, well... not McCain.... all have legit shots.

The "Tiffany Network" gets Its Man

In the grand tradition of college football, “back-ins”, this is perhaps one of the most fortuitous. We’ve seen some dandies lately…. Nebraska backing into the BCS title game after getting whipped by Colorado in their final regular season game in ’01 and Oklahoma doing the same two years later after getting crushed by K-State in the Big 12 title game.

Ohio State in a supposed rebuilding year, finished up their one-loss regular season this year by beating Michigan which put them in the 5 hole in the BCS standings on November 19th. Nice season. The Buckeyes were eyeing a trip out to the Rose Bowl to renew some classic 70s match-ups with USC. Of course, zany antics and hilarity ensued in the subsequent weeks and when the Bucks regained consciousness after their tryptophan-induced coma, they found themselves in the title game against LSU. (Yep, there’s a system that works).

Anyway, after Michigan… ummmm…. after Lloyd Carr stepped down as the Michigan coach it became painfully obvious that they weren’t used to hiring head ball coaches. The last time they actually went through the head coach hiring process is when they brought in Bo Schembechler from Miami (OH) nearly 40 yrs. ago. Subsequent hires, Gary Moeller and Carr were all “company men” that had been in the Michigan program for years.

Michigan clutzed around with Les Miles of LSU and Greg Schiano of Rutgers before backing-in to Rich Rodriguez the now former West Virginia coach and the guy they should’ve been going after all along. This is significant for no other reason than Rodriquez is the man primarily responsible for socializing the college football world to the “spread-option” offense that is currently the rage. Irony being, Michigan, itself, couldn’t stop this offense when playing App. State and Oregon in its first two games of the season.

And after being eyed suspiciously by much of college football as being “gimmicky”, the fact that Michigan has hired its guru is now a tacit acknowledgement of the full acceptance of the spread-option offense.

Let’s face it… Michigan is the CBS of college football. They are the embodiment of the stodgy, gray-flannet suit establishment of college ball. And like CBS, Michigan’s presumed dominance has been taking some hits of late – the program was showing its age and subsequently the ratings… and rankings were beginning to slip.

This is a great hire. This will inject life back into the program and rejuvenate the rivalry against Ohio State that had become rather one-sided of late with head coach, Jim Tressel being the man, for all intents and purposes, that forced Lloyd Carr into his resignation.

Ohio State, another “establishment” program though far more forward-thinking than Michigan, has had trouble themselves with this offense losing in the BCS title game to Florida last season and Ron Zook’s Fighting Illini this season.

With the Michigan/Big 10-type athletes Rodriguez will have, its going to take a couple of years to fully implement this offense but it will be fascinating to see how the Big 10 and the rest of the nation will now respond to the “nod” given by college football’s “Tiffany Network” to the glitz, hype and flash of the spread-option offense.

For the Democrat Party Presidential Nomination, BwD endorses.... Dennis Kucinich???

Here’s another one of those Presidential match-maker interactive questionnaires to which we’ve become addicted. This one is cool because one can weight the importance of each of the 11 issues questions to suit one’s preference (…and oddly enough there are no abortion questions. Go figure.).

And proving the vagaries of these things, the highest scoring Democrat that this particular Dr. Neil Warren has fixed us up with is….. Dennis Kucinich. We’ll check ourselves in after this post. Honest.

Incidentally, Fred, Mitt and Sam Brownback run 1,2,3 on the Republican side.

One of the aspects, though, that throws a monkey-wrench into these polls is “how” you weight each of the issues. For example, “global warming’ and “health care” as stand-alone issues are not nearly important to us as “tax reform” or “immigration”. However, these issues being what they are and with the baggage that is attached to each of them has us very concerned because we fear the potential of these two issues being leveraged for more command-and-control policies being implemented at the expense of our liberties.

So we weighted the issues “prima facie” without consideration for the implications of each and the results above are what shook out.

Another wrench: We got an equal bump in the “tax reform” column for both Hillary and Fred Thompson though we merely favored a long-term solution of a “flat tax” over Fred’s preference to extend the Bush tax cut which we certainly favor in the short-term and which both are infinitely preferable over the “tax the rich (wink, wink)” schemes Hillary is advancing. It would appear they haven’t got the all-or-nothing algorithm worked out, yet.

And if these match-making services are being completely honest with us, they would be asking questions like, “How much would you hold it against a candidate that had an extra-marital affair?” or “What do you think of Mitt’s hair?”… and Fred’s lack thereof? Of course, those wouldn’t get asked but if you don’t think those “issues”, legit or not, get as much play as some of the issues questions contained therein with many voters, you’d be kidding yourself.

For whatever its worth, the people who took the poll like the Republican candidates more than the Democrat candidates. Though, if the comments are any indication, it looks like a possible case of ballot box stuffing by the Ronulans. They remind us of why we never became libertarians.

At any rate, these things are fun and have become our “toy” for the election season.

3 out of 4.... Not too Shabby. Now the Real Work Starts.

Congratulations to the San Diego Chargers who wrapped up their 3rd AFC West championship in 4 years and who secured a spot in the playoffs with a 51-14 drubbing of the reeling Detroit Lions.

And congratulations to the Miami Dolphins who escaped the possible infamy of being the first team ever to finish 0-16 with an overtime win over the Baltimore Ravens, 22-16. The Ravens….. couldn’t have happened to a more deserving team and a more deserving head coach.

Back to the Chargers, though…. can’t recall a more bizarre year for our Bolts. After starting 1-3, it looked as if the “continuity” justification of hiring Norv Turner was an abject failure. Combine, though, weak conference competition with the defacto offensive coordinator, Turner, finally pushing the “easy button” in games early and often with L.T. ...and defensive coordinator Ted Cotrell coming around to the apparently heretofore unknown fact that Shawne Merriman and Shaun Philips are pretty good at getting to the QB and, voila…. An 8-2 run, a 9-5 record overall, a division championship and most importantly, a guaranteed spot in the dance.

And proving that were getting far too curmudgeonly as fans, we’re still not convinced that the Chargers turned any sort of corner even after a 37 point win. Honestly, there’s not a whole lot one can learn about one’s team when the opponent turns it over 6 times. But hey, we’ll take it. In the most hyper-competitive sports league on the planet, a win is a win. The Chargers are right where they're supposed to be.. in the playoffs… lets see what happens.

And thanks to the Jerry, Joanna and Kitty for their Christmas gift to BwD. It will serve as possible inspiration to a future post as to why Sid Gillman is quite possibly the most underrated figure in the history of the NFL.

KBwD is on the Air.

Didn’t get around to it yesterday because we really enjoyed the Wall Street Journal Opinion article by Peggy Noonan and commenting upon it pre-empted what we hope to make our usual Friday music feature.

Our home-cat KT at the Scratching Post turned us on to Pandora Radio a few weeks back. We haven’t toyed with it extensively but the few test spins we have taken have been pretty cool. Enter an artist or a song and Pandora will create a virtual radio station streaming songs in the genre of your selection. Click here.
We’re not sure how to clear/delete the “stations” created so just consider “the Gourds”, “Calexico” and “the Beat Farmers” and “The Monkees” (via KT), our gift to you.