Nobrainer’s Think Tank

With the run for the Nextel Cup and Clemson’s football season at an end, I don’t plan to be thinking about sports for at least a couple more months. Maybe this will work out and give some well deserved attention to Oliver Purnell and the Clemson basketball team.

I will once more refer to Brit Hume’s grapevine. He makes note of some of the ridiculous comments in USA Today from singer Linda Ronstadt.

“People don’t realize that by voting Republican, they voted against themselves,” she says. Of Iraq in particular, she adds, “I worry that some people are entertained by the idea of this war. They don’t know anything about the Iraqis, but they’re angry and frustrated in their own lives. It’s like Germany, before Hitler took over. The economy was bad and people felt kicked around. They looked for a scapegoat. Now we’ve got a new bunch of Hitlers.”

Ah yes, the Hitler argument. I particularly like that one. When I think of Hitler’s reign, I think about the Holocaust, socialism, and imperialism. The last I checked, the United States is not trying to banish any groups of people from the world (Ok, maybe the members of terrorist regimes, but I think that’s justified). It seems the Republicans are also not big fans of socialism. The last I heard from the Left was that all Republicans are just tools for the capitalist “Big Business”. So which is it? It seems fairly certain to me also that we have not invaded any of our neighbors. I don’t think there are any Canadian invasion plans. And I don’t think that Republicans would want Canada if it was being given away. So while we have gone into Afghanistan and Iraq, it was not to enslave their populations and pillage their natural resources. Otherwise the urban centers of Iraq would have been nuked and the oil pipelines would be pumping so much oil that Americans would be swimming in it.

I think my primary problem with her logic is why pissed off people would re-install the current administration. Perhaps some anger overflowed, leading us into our current conflicts. But angry, frustrated people tend not to re-elect their leader. Whatever the administration did during the last 4 years gave the people confidence to re-elect Bush instead of the hype, rhetoric, and promises of John Kerry. The fact is, the economy is on the upslope. The draft will not be re-instated. Elections were held in Afghanistan. Elections will be held in Iraq.

Linda Ronstadt needs to realize that she does not represent anything main stream. People voting Republican are not hurting themselves. Perhaps famous people like her are the ones with self-inflicted wounds. I would encourage her to kindly shut the hell up. But on second thought, keep up the good work.

It was clear that I had no love for U. of South Carolina before. Like most of the Clemson alumni and Tiger faithful, I severed all ties to SC once my acceptance to Clemson became official. In those nearly 6 years, Clemson’s all around reputation and performance have been improving. SC, of course, has been moving in the opposite direction. While their football program is somewhat better than it was six years ago, it is nothing to be proud of. Head-to-head Lou Holtz was able to win only 1 of 6 games against Tommy Bowden. This year SC had the opportunity to keep Clemson from a bowl game by denying them bowl eligibility. Anyone who looks at some of the stats (like: USC ran 55 plays with four of them starting in Clemson territory) can tell that SC was never in that ball game. They were dominated. It was impossible for their play to keep Clemson from going bowling for the 6th straight year under head coach Tommy Bowden.

… Oh the agony. The latest news:

Clemson University announced Monday that the school will not accept a bid for its football team to play in a bowl because of the brawl during Saturday’s game against the University of South Carolina.

Despite overcoming so much this season to gain bowl eligibility, Clemson’s lack of self-control, and ultimately mental toughness, finally came back to bite us all in the ass.

There is plenty of blame to spread on both sides of that brawl. I wish there wasn’t.

But now both universities (and I use that term loosely with USC) are going to decline bowl invitations. I hate it for all the players who kept their heads, for all the coaches and support staff who just do their jobs, for the fans who had already blocked off vacation time for the bowl season, and ultimately for everyone who lost something because of that fight.

But these self-imposed penalties do not fix everything. The animosity between schools and fans alike surely cannot be expected to decrease. Every interaction between both sides will grow more bitter. At this time next year, the two teams will meet once again. The 103rd game in the series will be met with an increased anticipation and desperation. The motivation for next year’s rivalry has been given an amazingly solid foundation.

So the schools are trying to atone for their errors. The basic problem is not solved. Both schools hate each other. Denying bowl games only increases the hatred. Keeping the teams out of bowl games is not the wrong decision, but it sure as hell ain’t right.

Too much money slipped through my hands this weekend. My liver was forced to work overtime. Most importantly, Carolina played it’s role and was once again soundly embarrassed by the Tigers. I hope now that the deal with Steve Spurrier falls through. It’s not that I’m concerned about Spurrier coaching SC, it’s that I think it would be hilarious to see the hopes of SC fans dashed once again. I must say, though, that SC fans may show more unfounded optimism than I have ever seen anywhere anytime. So I guess they’ve got that going for them, which is nice.

Just a reminder to all of you already using the new Firefox browser. The full version 1.0 is now available at getfirefox.com. If you aren’t using Firefox yet, I still highly recommend it. It will only take a couple minutes to download (with a fast connection). It will install in just a few minutes, and you won’t have to deal with Explorer anymore.

And speaking of Microsoft failures, we get this report from Fox News. It claims that Bill Gates is the King of junk email. No, he apparently is not the one creating the junk mail. He receives more junk than any of the rest of us, upwards of 4 million items per day.

Ballmer said Microsoft has special technology that just filters spam intended for Gates. In addition, several Microsoft employees are dedicated to ensuring that nothing unwanted gets into his inbox.

“Literally there’s a whole department almost that takes care of it,” he said.

I always assumed that Bill would have a private email separate from the one that apparently 4 million people know. But here’s what gets me. Microsoft has this special software just for Gates. When is the public going to get it, if it’s so good? Then again, how good can it be if there is a department people dedicated to filtering the leftover mail? Now I ask myself why I should trust Microsoft at all if they can’t even create software to filter email for one of the richest people in the world.

I’m starting to seriously doubt the people at MS… almost as much as I doubt the people in the federal government, especially the post office. God help us all.

To my new visitors:
If you feel the need to make a comment that you think might get deleted, it probably will. Please save yourself the time and effort of creating trash so that I don’t get stuck wasting my time and effort deleting it. Actually, you can post whatever the hell you want as long as you own up to it (i.e. no anonymous posts, or posts attributed to others).

To my regular visitors:
If you notice any comments that seem out of the ordinary, just ignore them. They’ll be deleted at my first opportunity. I imagine you have already been ignoring them. Keep up the good work.

I’ve been pretty focking busy the last few days, so I haven’t really kept up with the news? Has anyone important died? Has France done anything to redeem themselves? Has the Left Coast floated into the ocean, or seceded into Canada?

Oh well, as long as the world’s still turning and the sun is still burning (”planet or star when that thing burns out we’re all gonna be dead” - ‘Harry Caray’ - SNL) then I’m all right.

So in less than 48 hours I’ll be traveling again to Clemson via Charlotte. That will take me over 400 miles in both directions. Next week, of course I’ll be heading back to Ohio for Thanksgiving. Turkey and Olive Garden, here I come! By the time I’ve made it back to Charlottesville in a couple weeks I’ll have covered about 1800 miles. Hopefully everything goes according to plan.

Aside from that, I just got my first copy of the National Review. I’ll give the nobrainer review once I’m able to start reading it.

Hopefully I’ll be back in ranting form in the next couple days.

I’ll end with this information from Galley Slaves about how John Edwards helped his ticket:

Edwards’s home precinct, Precinct 111, Raleigh:
Kerry-Edwards 362 - Bush-Cheney 847

Edwards’s home county, Wake County:
Kerry-Edwards 162,750 - Bush-Cheney 172,563

Edwards’s home state, North Carolina:
Kerry-Edwards 1,488,278 - Bush-Cheney 1,919,903

Edwards’s boyhood home, Robbins, N.C.:
Kerry-Edwards 13,360 - Bush-Cheney 24,420

Edwards’s birthplace, Oconee Cty, S.C.:
Kerry-Edwards 8,326 - Bush-Cheney 18,715

Edwards’s state of birth, South Carolina:
Kerry-Edwards 648,443 - Bush-Cheney 920,072

-nobrainer