...Punch the Hippies!

Some time off over the Christmas holidays and a nagging head cold has allowed for some time to assess and evaluate the candidates in the Republican field. After being initially underwhelmed, we feel better about the lot of them than we did perhaps as recently as 3-4 weeks ago.

“Fear” and “electibility” are terms we have heard quite a bit lately and which have been used here at this blog with regard to the rationale behind choosing a candidate. We’ve put these two elements aside for the selection of our candidate because the choice should not be based on mere electibility and certainly not out of fear.

These early primaries are horrible because a) we’re talking politics over the Holidays and b) they’ve caused panic among some voters and alleged “kingmakers” who have responded to their own fear and made endorsements based upon electibility rather than the candidates’ positions on issues (case in point is Pat Robertson endorsing Rudy Guiliani).

We fed into that fear back in the ’03 California gubernatorial elections when we voted for Schwarzenegger rather than the guy, McClintock, who was most aligned with our own political beliefs and now look where we are: We have a Governor who spends even more than the guy we kicked out but has us all over a barrel because he is the one man who stands athwart granting driver’s licenses to (hard-working and family-oriented) illegals. What are we gonna do?

We’re kicking fear to the curb. We as Americans are better than that. We don’t fear a Hillary or Obama Presidency (Edwards…? maybe a little). If it goes down like that, then fine – bring it on. This country is too strong and the people living in it too decent for anything to be done for fear. It’s a discredit to the Union and a slap in the face to the men and women in uniform who, at this very moment, are trying to snuff out something precisely so that we don’t have to live in fear.

As such, we want someone who takes Islamofascism and terrorism seriously and one who will be short on diplomacy and long on the hammer in dealing with it. We want someone who recognizes how out-of-control Federal spending is and is serious about doing something about it. We want someone who respects the rule of law especially when it comes to illegal immigration. We want someone who desires to see less government in our lives and who holds an appreciation and is dedicated to the most trampled-upon (or outright ignored to be more accurate) amendment in the Bill of Rights. We don’t think we’re asking for a whole lot, in fact, we really want less of what nearly all the candidates are offering.

These are the reasons why we’re coming out for Fred Thompson and why Fred Thompson has Beers with Demo’s endorsement for the Republican Party presidential nomination.

That and the fact that he has some of the most kick-ass 3rd party campaign ads around. Click here.

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Still a little bit more time to vote in the Skunkies.....

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Have a safe and happy New Year's!

Not Anywhere Near Our List of "100 Things to do before Death"

Video sent courtesy Road Dawg, a former member of the 82nd Airborne Division. A Hoax? Check it out by clicking on image below. Pretty wild stuff.

And if the Presidential candidates can sling a little mud during the holiday season then why not a 19th century philosopher at an 18th century one? Forgot where we first saw this so we apologize for not giving due credit. Click on Friedrich for a metaphysical attack ad.

Hooray, NFL!

Perhaps you’ve heard already but in an unprecedented move, tonight’s New England Patriots/NY Giants game which was to be aired on the NFL Network will also be aired on CBS and NBC as well. This will be the first time since the first Superbowl that an NFL game will be broadcast by multiple networks (CBS and NBC both carried that game as well).

(click on image, por favor)

Why was Fox left out? The commenters over at Awful Announcing were all over this and had generally solid reasoning: Its an AFC road game so CBS would’ve broadcast the game were the NFL Network to broadcast another game (Fox manages the NFC side of the house) and NBC was thrown this bone because they broadcast the primetime game on Sundays (yes, but its Saturday… NBC will broadcast Titans v. Colts on Sunday evening as scheduled). Look, we aren’t sure. All that is known is that America will have its choice of 3 different sets of commercials to watch tonight.

And what brought about this change of heart from the League? Well, Congressional pressure, that’s what. Proving that they may yet have some benefit to society, Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Arlen Specter (Rino-PA), and Pat “Leaky” Leahy (D-VT) expressed their displeasure that fully 60% of America (that don’t have access to the NFL Network) will not be able to see a potentially historic game where the Pats go for the 16-0 grail.

And how was this done? The Senators broke out the “anti-trust” stick, something they do from time to time, and threatened to “reconsider” the League’s exemption from the same (shrieks of panic could be heard emanating from League headquarters in Manhattan after Specter and Leaky, the two ranking members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued their edict).

Its been no small source of amusement to us over the years how quickly things get done, for better or worse, whenever Congress threatens to get “involved”, particularly with regard to professional sports.

Funny thing is, at its core it’s a hollow threat. But the NFL and MLB to name the two most prominent examples, snap-to as the mere thought of being subjected to the root-canals that are Congressional hearings affects immediate action.

Anyway, enjoy the game(s). Lots of good stuff on today including some fine college hoops matchups.

Catching Up with an Old Friend

Arthur Schelsinger, Jr…. remember that guy? Well, we should hope so. Schlesinger, who passed away in February of this year, was one of those handful of people for whom the very mention of their name was done in a nearly hushed, reverential tone. And not wanting to expose ourselves as self-absorbed Gen-X philistines, we never questioned the man’s credentials or impact on American society because, well…. he was a very important man and he was a very important man because other important people said he was.

(By the way, the gentleman to the right..... not Schlesinger)

All the while, we wondered what, precisely, did this man do to achieve such acclaim. Well, thank G#d, we’re not alone. Click here for our man P.J. O’Rourke’s (pictured at right) skewering and (non-) review of Schlesinger the man and his memoirs…? diary…? titled "Journals".

… and here for another O’Rourke offering on baby boomers, the first of whom recently applied for Social Security. O joy. Islamofascism, illegal immigration and the boomer social safety-net entitlement bills, the first installment of which just arrived in America’s mailbox, are the Big 3 as we see it over the next 10-15 years.

Holiday Bowl 2007

Don’t forget to check out the nominations for the “Skunkies”, here.

Thanks to B-Daddy for taking the wheel while we were at the Holiday Bowl yesterday. Texas beat Arizona St. 52-34 in what was….. the coldest flippin’ Holiday Bowl we can remember. As the score would suggest, it wasn’t much of a game so thankfully the game itself has nearly become an afterthought over the years to the main attraction which is, of course, the tailgating festivities. Marinated and spiced brats, Pop’s Chili, Oriental garlic wings, lumpia, tequila, cervezas…. and that was the fare only before the game. Afterwards, the grill was fired back up for carne asade’ and cayenne spicy wings.

Laydown area for the grills and tables is essential as it is difficult to have a safe and effective working/serving area unless one occupies a parking space in the Qualcom lot next to one of a handful of the highly-coveted “end pieces” (see below) at the end parking rows. Our 1130 arrival afforded us the opportunity to land this nice little piece of real estate.

Honoring the Flag during the national anthem. Flag was borne by Marines from Camp Pendleton.

Fly-over at end of national anthem by 4 F-16s. (The fourth, rightmost in formation is obscured by smoke from fireworks set-off during the anthem... a pet peeve of ours, by the way). Also, for the first time in memory, there was no jump-in by the Navy SEAL parachute stunt team. Members of the team jump out of helos from 10,000 ft. and bearing flags of the two respective football teams and the U.S. Flag, they land on the field itself... a completely unreal sight.

The 200+-strong Texas Longhorn marching band on the field at half-time.

The stalwarts braving the bitter high-40s conditions after the game.

Traffic is starting to die down a little but we better throw some more carne on the grill just to be on the safe side. Hate getting caught in that gridlock at the exits.

The Great White Whale of "End Pieces" was located on the way out. Next year!

Memo to GOP: Run Against Congress, Not Against Clinton

Prior to the start of tonight's post, I wanted to pause to pay respects to Benazir Bhutto. Mrs. Daddy opined over a month ago that it was only a matter of time before Mrs. Bhutto would be murdered and she was prescient. I know Mrs. Bhutto was heavily criticized for corruption on some right-wing blogs, but she represented a choice for democracy in the midst of growing Islamic fascism; and for that she was killed.

Now, some strategery. I think running against the Democrat controlled Congress is the political equivalent of the "Easy Button" in today's environment. This was first perfected 60 years ago in the 1948 election by Harry Truman who ran against a "do-nothing" Congress. Well what do you know, some things don't change. Here are some of the key advantages to this strategy:

All the leading Democrat candidates are current or recent members of Congress. It allows one to be on the attack against Clinton, Obama and Edwards without directly being on the attack. Truman showed how effective this could be by exploiting the divisions between the GOP presidential nominee, Thomas Dewey, a New York Republican, and the more conservative GOP members of Congress. (The GOP had taken the majority two years before, another coincidence?) Dewey did not respond to the attacks, thinking himself above the fray and look at the results.

Attacking Congress is also helpful in demoralizing the net-roots segment of the Democratic Party. The eventual Democrat nominee is not going to be near as gung-ho about pulling out of Iraq as the bloggers at DailyKos, MoveOn, or MyDD. (An interesting aside, Obama is taking some hits at MyDD for opining the obvious, that Bhutto's assassination is the result of terrorism. "Obama sounds too much like Bush." BDS strikes again.) Reminding the net-roots of the failure "their Congress" to do anything about pulling out of Iraq, coupled with the Democratic presidential candidates having mostly semi-reasonable positions on the war may drive them to self-inflict some wounds.

If the enemy general is obstinate and prone to anger, insult and enrage him, so that he will be irritated and confused, and without a plan will recklessly advance against you. Art of War-Sun Tzu

Further, This Congress has made itself an easy object of ridicule. After pledging to end the "culture of corruption" of the Republican controlled Congress, the Democrats have passed record amounts of pork barrel spending under the earmark system. (Remember, it was through the use of earmarks that Randy "Duke" Cunningham, may he rot in jail, was able to reward those bribing him.) As commented in a recent article by George Will:

Hell bent on driving its approval rating into single digits, Congress adjourned after passing an omnibus spending bill larded with at least 8,993 earmarks costing at least $7.4 billion -- the precise number and amount will be unclear until implications of some obscure provisions are deciphered. The gusher of earmarks was a triumph of bipartisanship, which often is a synonym for kleptocracy.

Beyond their only success at getting their snouts in the trough, the Democrats of this Congress can be lambasted for the things they attempted but fortunately failed at. The Congress did not end international communications intercepts, they did not end support for the troops by stopping funding for the war. This plays well to Americans who actually like divided government, and are worried that with Congress and the White House in the hands of Democrats, they might run amok.

Let's get this party started. I fear all of the Democrat leading candidates more than any on the GOP side, except Ron Paul (maybe a post on him later). Like handing the ball to LT in the Red Zone, hit the easy button and campaign against Congress.

The "Skunkies"

Since we didn’t get around to any sort of TIME magazine-like “Person of the Year” award, it was decided to come up with something similar yet altogether different and… much more fun. Without any further ado, its time to kick off Beers with Demo’s first annual “skunkies” (because what’s the worst thing that could happen to your beer… besides spilling it?)

Like Time Magazine’s this award is certainly not an “honor” but unlike the Time award there is a “standard” of sorts in the way of incompetence, ineptitude, cowardice, skullduggery and general god-awfulness that needs to be attained by each of our nominees.

Ladies and Gents, the nominees:

The NIE Report on Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program: The NIE is pretty darn sure that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program back in ’03 and won’t start it up again… until they do. From the people who brought you the botched Iraq WMD assessments comes this report with a enough wiggle room in it to do the Twist. Of course, this was spun as a huge PR victory for Mahmoud Ahmedinejad over imperialist neo-con-in-chief, George Bush (our thoughts on this matter here) but at the end of the day, we would just like to remind everybody that whatever certainty can be extracted from this report… its still, as the very title would suggest, just an estimate.

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The Amnesty cabal: From President Bush to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Weekly Standard and to members of Congress and pro-illegal alien groups…. the whole lot of them are getting thrown together for this. For their tireless and unceasing efforts to make the illegal legal and the unjust just for non-citizens, we’ve nominated the cabal for this year’s skunky. You see, what the cabal has never understood is that the failed Amnesty legislation wasn’t just some public policy initiative that could be routed around Capitol Hill and be subjected to deals, compromises and general wonking as virtually all other legislation is. The Amnesty legislation involved a fundamental concept of right and wrong and of justice… real justice not this poppy-cock notion of “social justice” for which many lefty groups within the cabal clamor. Thusly, the average American’s own moral compass was revealed to be much truer than that of our elected leaders. (For archived posts, search: “Amnesty”)

Harry Reid/Nancy Pelosi: This two-headed hydra swept into power this past January promising to bring change to Capitol Hill. Performing a bean count of their “accomplishments” or attempting to quantify just how it is they changed the culture of D.C., however, would be too restrictive and narrowly focused…. one has to step back and take in the big picture with respect to these two. So let’s just say that Harry and Nancy enjoyed broad bi-partisan support for making the collective legislative bodies over which they preside some of the lowest rated ev-ah in terms of public approval. Incompetence of this magnitude is never accomplished through mere negligence but only through a day-in and day-out effort to secure failure and defeat at every turn. Harry, Nancy… Congratulations on your nomination! (wild applause)

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The Mitchell Report (on steroid and banned substance use in baseball): Like the Amnesty cabal, this skunky nomination casts a wide net to include anyone who had anything to do with this sad excuse of a “report”. We wondered if it ever occurred to MLB commish Bud Selig that directing former Senate majority leader, George Mitchell, to generate this report might not be such a hot idea since Mitchell has a minority ownership stake in the Boston Red Sox… and when, after the fact, there are 15 Yankees and only 2 Red Sox named in the report. And the athletes that are now coming forward to admit to steroid use have provided some of the lamest excuses we have heard in ages. Epitomizing this is ESPN analyst and former major-leaguer, Fernando Vina who made such a tortured explanation as to his steroid usage on ESPN last week, it was difficult to watch…. “…it wasn’t like I was taking steroids to hit more homeruns or anything…” Dude, shut up!

Mahmoud Ahmedinejad: You didn’t think we’d forget about this guy, did ya? In quite an eventful weeklong stay here in the U.S. which included speeches at the U.N. and Columbia University where by inference he claimed Iran had a cure for AIDS, brother Mahmoud catapulted himself to the top of the International Bad Actor’s Club, an august body that counts Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and Kim Jong-Il among dues-paying members. (For archived posts search: “Mahmoud”)



That’s it. Get ye to the polls and as always….. write-ins are highly encouraged.

Everybody Done Opening Presents? Good, Now Back to Work.

A few words about our Chargers from the game last night:

The commentators spent plenty of time during the Charger’s 23-3 win over the Broncos, opining on the reason for the Charger's turnaround this season (they are currently 10-5 after a 1-3 start). There was talk of an “adjustment period” and of “buying-in” to the new coaches’ philosophies on offense and defense and there was even talk of a players-only meeting headed-up by LT which coincided with their current 5-game winning streak.

All that may have played parts in the turnaround but here is one thing we do know: These Chargers are looking more and more like the ’06 Chargers. The Chargers at the beginning of the season looked nothing like this and we put this fact squarely at the feet of Norv Turner and Ted Cottrell. While the apologists at the San Diego U-T were falling all over themselves covering for the coaching staff, we were wondering why it was that the best all-around running back in the game (Tomlinson) wasn’t being utilized more and why the two best edge-rushing outside linebackers (Merriman and Philips) were playing in pass coverage? We’ll credit Turner and Cottrell only for finally waking up to the obvious.






Back-up QB, Billy Volek is uhhhh… how to say this politely… is a disaster. The commentators were saying how with pending free agency after this year, Volek was “auditioning” for a payday. If that’s the case, then Volek is the ’04 Presidential candidate, John Kerry. It seemed to us that every time Kerry made a public appearance or made spontaneous remarks out on the campaign trail, his numbers immediately dropped 2 or 3 points. Whether it was his dainty Brahman fingers doing delicate battle with a Philly cheese steak sandwich or emerging from the woods in Wisconsin with 7(!) ducks (over the limit, we were informed), we can’t remember a candidate who had more flat-out bad photo ops.

But we were talking about Volek, weren’t we? What happened to this guy? He used to be a very serviceable back-up who acquitted himself quite nicely in some spot-starting for the Titans just 2-3 years ago. Now, he’s botching hand-offs when that’s all that’s asked of him and throwing interceptions…. on screen passes, no less (in Tennessee a few weeks back). This is particularly worrisome because the starter Rivers is hobbling around on a bum knee and Volek may very well see some playing time in the playoffs.

And what’s happened to the Broncos? Well, a lot of things. Head coach, Mike Shanahan also makes all the player personnel decisions. This arrangement simply doesn’t work. The head coach in the NFL has too much on his plate to be making personnel decisions as well. This is compounded by Shanahan’s hubris in thinking that he can plug any ol’ 7th round draft pick running back from Humpty-Dumpty St. into his zone-blocking (and legal but ethically-challenged chop-blocking) running game and produce a 1,400 yard rusher. Now, Travis Henry ain’t chopped liver but the fact remains there has been zero continuity at the running back position for the Broncos since Terrell Davis retired 6-7 years ago. Eventually, this is going to catch up to your team.

OK. We’ll stop while were behind. Going to try to put something together here shortly in way of an end-of-the-year poll which we think you all will enjoy.

Merry Christmas

WHISKEY - TANGO.....

Are they serious? That’s it? What good is taking off Christmas Eve if in the entirety of the sports universe there is only one game on today. No meaningless bowl games? No college hoops tournaments from Hawaii or Alaska? We could’ve gone into work today and still have been home well in time for the Charger game tonight. This was supposed to be our do-nothing, decompression day after the Christmas family onslaught of yesterday and there isn’t “A Christmas Story” marathon in sight. Unbelievable.

A Christmas Wish of Our Own

These pictures of the 2007 San Francisco Fleet Week Airshow were passed along to us by Road Dawg. Thanks, ‘Dawg. Click on link provided here for complete photo album (some amazing shots) and here for video clip of the high-speed sneak passes by the Blue Angels. Yeah, not too shabby.

The DoD should package videos and stills like this from airshows and Fleet Weeks around the country and send them off to members of the International Bad Actor’s Club (Mahmoud, Hugo, Kim Jong Il, etc.) as Christmas cards to just let them know what tip-of-the-military-industrial-complex-iceberg goodies are setting underneath our own Christmas tree and how we’re just… you know… doing this for fun.

At one point in this sneak pass, it appears the jet can't be any more than 15 above the water. Woo-hoo!, indeed.

'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.