State of the State

New polls means it's time to look at November's matchups.

CO - 1, 2, 5,6: The incumbents all roll. (D-DeGette, D-Polis, R-Lamborn, R-Coffman)

CO -3: A poll commissioned by Republican challenger Scott Tipton showed him with a 4 point lead over incumbent John Salazar. I realize this is a poll commissioned by Tipton but I'm still surprised at the result. He got thrashed by Salazar in 2006 and most people thought it was a shoe in again. I'll feel more comfortable if I see some independent polling on it but my eyes are now open to the possibility of a Tipton win. Cook Political has had this race as lean Dem for a while now but I could never figure out why, I though Salazar was well liked. Mistakenly I guess. One thing about the poll is that it showed low support for both candidates (43-39, I believe). If Salazar is really only pulling 39% being as well known as he is, he's in big trouble.

CO - 4: Incumbent Betsy Markey seems to be doing her best to hide from everyone in hopes that people will forget shes a Pelosi clone. Recent clips show her trying to flip flop on big ticket issues to please whoever shes talking too. Cory Gardner hasn't exactly been lighting it up but given the state mood polls, he should still be the favorite.

CO - 7: Magellan Strategies released a poll showing incumbent D-Ed Perlmutter trailing Ryan Frazier 40-39. More low numbers for both guys is better for Frazier as he is a former City Councilman with low name recognition while Perlmutter is well known. Perlmutter's strategy of stockpiling a billion dollar war chest and not doing anything in public seems to not be working. I guess the good people in CO-7 are looking for some answers about the state of the country and Perlmutter has been so off the map he makes Markey look like a leftist Sarah Palin barnstorming the country.

GOV: A new Rasmussen poll shows Hickenlooper leading tea party candidate Dan Maes by only 8, 41-33 with spoiled baby spoiler Tom Tancredo stealing 16 percent. A two way race between Hick and Maes is tied at 45. Maes seems to have the big mo but if Tancredo stays in the race, he can't win. It's amazing he's got within 8 and it shows how vulnerable Hick is. Hick spent this last week pissing off almost everybody by backtracking on liberal talking points while saying taxes are as low as they can go. Democrat enthusiasm is already low, Hick can't afford to depress them even further by distancing himself from traditional left wing positions on taxes, energy and the environment.

SEN - Ken Buck is up by 6-9 depending on the poll and is clearly in front as Bennett seems to be drawing the ire of liberals for saying the trillion dollar stimulus hasn't shown any results. Hard to see how a zero like Bennett can reverse the trend here.

Republicans have a realistic show of carrying 5 of 7 Congressional seats (1&2 are lost) and the Senate seat. If Tancredo comes to his senses and drops out, Maes becomes a contender as well. Colorado GOP has a history of blowing momentum so it's way too early to be confident but the candidates seem way more competent than the state party so everything looking good. November can't get here fast enough.

Funk Chowder

As I watch the the talking heads on ESPN dissect the Pats/Rams preseason tune-up, I waited and waited for the glaring story from the game.

We got roughly 74 hours worth of Tom Brady to Randy Moss analysis sprinkled with a healthy dose of Rob Gronkowski. Clearly the Pats put on a scoring display.

I guess I was the only one who noticed that every time NE scored they were still losing.

This is the 3rd preseason game where the starters and seconds play well into the second half. The Ram starters, minus Donnie Avery and with rookie Bradford, went into the half up 20-14 and went up 27-14 in the third before winning 36-35. Hell, the Pats even got a special teams TD and never went on top.

I've seen nothing that leads me to believe that NE is any different than last years frauds. Will the offense be good? Sure, except it won't have a running game and Brady is going to take a lotta hits. As we saw last year, you can't just outscore everyone playing in Foxboro, Buffalo and New York all year. You need a stout D and at least a little ability to play ball control. Right now they can't do either and the Rams spanked em.

NFL Preview - AFC East

If Tom Brady feathers his hair anymore he's going to look like the post op tranny version of Farah Fawcett circa 1970. That doesn't have anything to do with football, I just don't like the guy. He was annoying at the beginning of his career with all that aw schucks/Belichek robot talk, then he was tolerable during the Bridget Moynihan Era and now he's just plain insufferable.

The Pats aren't going to be that great this year either. The average O-line already has injuries blocking for the Fred Taylor, Lawrence Maroney, Ben Jarvis Green Ellis, Sammy Morris pu pu platter. Yikes. Randy Moss is in a contract year, whatever that means, Wes Welker may or may not be back from his knee obliteration and you've never heard of any of the other WR's. The same D that got crotch chopped by the Ravens in last years playoff is the same except now Ty Warren is out for the year. Can anybody explain how these Pats are any better than the team that got blown out by Baltimore? Nope.

Oh you rascally Jets. It's hard not to like a fat blowhard like Rex Ryan. His team generally looks solid but there are significant red flags. First is at QB. Lost in all the Sanchize panty dropping was the fact that he threw 20 INTs last year and if the Colts and Bengals aren't mailing it in at the end of the year, the Jets don't even make the playoffs. Shonn Greene should be fine but the Curse of LT is scary as is the prospect of relying on Braylon Edwards and Santonio Holmes at WR. The defense should be fine because I expect Revis Island to be open for business on week one but if he's not, look out. Those other DB's suck and the aggressiveness of the D only works if Revis has locked down half the field. I would expect the Jets to take the division though.

I'm not sure what to make of the Henne love in Miami. I understand that they're high on Brandon Marshall but the Fins are a running team and the bulk of the work is going to come from Brown and Williams if they can stay healthy. The real addition was Karlos Dansby on D. You take him and a couple of stout rookies on the DL and you might just have a playmaking D to go with the ball control offense. Worry about the secondary though. Thank god 2 of the 3 QB's in this Division can't throw.

Has Buffalo moved to Toronto yet?

Really? They haven't? Hmmm. Wonder why not. Maybe it's because the Leaf doesn't want any part of the worst team in the league. No QB, 2 of 3 RB's on the shelf, no WR's (Lee Evans is a glorified #2 and you know it), less than no OL, No D, No ST. This team is a decade away from contending. Bad drafts, no free agents, lack of foresight. Think Oakland right after the Super Bowl loss.

PROJECT FINISH:
NY JETS
MIAMI
NEW ENGLAND
BUFFALO.

FANTASY KRYPTONITE - Tom Brady. I've seen him go in both round 1 and 2 in recent drafts. No way he should go this high. People only remember the 50 TD year. think half that and your good to go. Take M. Turner or S. Greene in round two and target Romo in 4 or Favre (6) or Kolb (8-10).

FANTASY SLEEPER - Greg Caramillo. In a PPR league he will play Henne's Welker option. Lots of catches, not huge yards, close to Marshall in production but you can get him 8 rounds later.

Uh, Anytime Guys

It's been positively giddy in Raiderland these days. Jason Campbell actually looks like a professional quarterback, the defense has been feisty with Rolando McClain and Kamerion Wimbly added to the mix. Hell, we've even heard that DHB is finally blooming into something resembling a pro WR.

The only problem is, when it comes to DHB, we haven't seen it. Quite frankly, aside from seeing him drop a pass in the first preseason game, I haven't seen him at all. This is concerning. I've read on some websites that he's suffering from "fatigue" and that's why he hasn't been playing. If this were the 80's I'd be convinced he was doing massive amounts of coke. Since it's not, I can only assume that he still sucks or is hurt. Either way, I'm calling shenanigans on this one.

Come to think of it, you could say the same thing for Darren McFadden and Chaz Scheilens as well. D-Mac was supposed to finally be ready to stop being a injury prone fumble machine and get sick with Bush in the backfield. Chaz was supposed to be back from that foot injury and ready to be the No. 1 guy. As near as I can tell, these guys have the same amount of snaps I do.

I think they could live without D-Mac. Bush and Cartwright should be good enough and only having one back might actually make Cable give the bulk to Bush. I think Chaz is tougher to replace though. Lou Murphy is fine but Johnny Lee Higgens, Kevin Miller, Jacoby Ford, et al. are scary indeed.

Hell, DHB might start if he ever gets his rest.

Andy Dick Is Available

Sweet Jesus I've now seen two independent reports about an upcoming Valerie Plame movie, wondering who will play the fraud, er, outed CIA agent.

Is the world fully gone insane? Even when the truth of that sordid situation came out did it not matter at all? I guess not, so let's recap some important facts.

#1 - Plame Wasn't A Classified Agent
Plame had been back in the US doing normal agency work. She wasn't in deep cover, nothing was blown, she wasn't put in any danger regarding her career or life. Most people in the media seemed to know she was in the CIA anyway. You can't be outed if your not in any kind of hiding.

#2 - Joe Wilson Is A Liar
Plame and Wilson claim they were outed as punishment for Wilson's report questioning the intel on Iraq trying to buy uranium from Niger. This is only partly true. Wilson went on the mission but never actually did any work. By his own recollection he spent most of his time drinking tea and bullshitting in local cafes. Some of what was in the report actually supported Bush's claims, the rest was just pap.

#3 - There Was No Conspiracy
This is the real reason the movie shouldn't be made. There simply wasn't any attempt to do Plame any harm. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Scooter Libby, etc. had nothing to do with the situation at all. Plame's name and job made its way into the media because Richard Armitage is a big talking DC operative. He admitted it! He told Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald that it was him at the very beginning of the investigation, Fitz just kept going in case he could get anyone to forget what they said in an e-mail two years prior and misstate it on record. Scooter Libby fell into that trap and was thrown to the wolves. There is no story here. An out of service CIA agent's name was blabbed at a cocktail party by a notorious gabber. The only remarkable thing is that the agent happened to be a media whoring left winger who was married to another media whoring media member and they both wanted to get famous and screw over Bush. End of story. No victims.

MY SUGGESTION
Get the producers of Who's Nailin Palin back together to shoot this baby like it deserves. The plot could essentially be the same as what actually happened (not the NY Times fantasy) and cast a remarkably ghoulish looking Jenna Jameson as Plame. A little Ron Jeremy as Joe Wilson, Peter North as Scooter Libby and it essentially shoots itself, no pun intended. You could call it Deep Cover Blown, or EXXXPOSED! something schlocky like that. It may not have the je nais se quoi of a Streisand Hollywood flop but it would be more reflective of what the real motivations of the characters are. After all, whether you do it for money, fame, power or the fun of it, whoring is still whoring and we should treat all involved with the same amount of dignity.

Ok, maybe less for Plame. This is why Hollywood sucks. Here's a trailer for a movie that actually looks good.

Have We Learned Kiddies?

It was announced today that the last combat brigade has left Iraq, leaving appx. 56,000 non-combat soldiers behind. This announcement startled me a bit not because the decision is so atrocious but because you don't really hear anything about Iraq in the news anymore as Afghanistan is getting worse and worse by the day.

This is a curious development and devastating to liberals.

Afghanistan was the good war. It was approved by the UN and it became a joint NATO operation. It had all the telltale signs of a liberal wet dream. A community of nations coming together in agreement and harmony to vanquish a common enemy.

Iraq was the savage war of choice, unilaterally spearheaded by cowboys in DC and London and looked down upon by most of the world.

Which one has been going better? If liberal world view ideology was correct, Afghanistan should be a Utopian example of what can be accomplished through a little peace, love and understanding. The only problem is that Afghanistan is sliding back into a hell hole because the liberal world view doesn't exist. The initial part of the war went well because the United States is so good at destroying the enemy. The UN and NATO were more than happy to step aside while we kicked ass and we were happy to do so. However, when the time came for the real work, the political and societal rebuilding combined with security, they pretty much took a pass there too. With the exception of the Brits, who have been solid of course. The rest though didn't want to fight, they didn't want to provide security, they didn't want to pay for anything. They wanted the US to act unilaterally only with there approval and under the umbrella of the idiotic NATO/UN rules of engagement which are designed to lose wars.

There were no such illusions in Iraq. That was the killing war, the Shock and Awe war. Now don't get me wrong, the aftermath of combat operations didn't go well and the insurgency that followed was a horribly bloody affair. The difference was that the Iraq war didn't have to follow the intergovernmental, bureaucratic nonsense that they did in Afghanistan. While the UN and NATO happily sat on their ass and watched Afghanistan crumble, the US/UK coalition in Iraq made the tough choice to increase troop levels and increase violence to end the insurgent threat. No meetings or UN resolutions but more bloodshed. That's what stabilized Iraq.

If Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia, Somalia haven't taught the lesson, let Afghanistan do it. Intergovernmental agencies like the UN and NATO don't exist to get anything done. They exist to give all the nations of the world cover for doing nothing. It's an excuse to let bad things happen while world leaders talk endlessly about international law (which doesn't exist), treaties and the rights of mankind. It reflects most leftist programs on any level as they only give the appearance of compassion without the trouble of actually having to do anything.

I applaud what the coalition has been able to do in Iraq but it troubles me what is going on in Afghanistan. It would be far better to pull out of there now if it's only going to be fought on NATO terms. If the soldiers there aren't allowed to aggressively kill the enemy, they are simply providing life sized target practice for Taliban fighters which is an unacceptable situation to simply allow to exist in a war zone limbo. Let them do what they were trained to do or get the hell out of there and get ready for the next war, which will surely come after this particular display of weakness.

Gee Thanks

GM announced today that they will go public soon, selling shares of their company to the public to help pay off the bailout money they received.

I wonder what kind of a gall it takes to sell someone a lie so publicly.

Last I heard, and saw on many commercials, was that GM had already paid back all the money, plus interest, ahead of schedule. We always knew that was complete BS but at least GM now admits it. That is hardly the most offensive aspect of the stock offering though.

The original bailout came from the taxpayers. Now, GM wants to sell stock to the same taxpayers in effort to pay off the original bill. "Congratulations! You now have the opportunity to finance your own swindling. In a related sale, can I interest you in an affordable grave? You have to dig it yourself but at least it's yours."

Essentially, the government extorted money from the people to bailout GM. Now, GM is going to swindle the people to give money back to the government, which will never give it back to the public. Final score, Taxpayers pay twice, GM gets paid twice, the Government collects money into eternity.

This is very reminiscent of the scene in Traffic where the couple in Mexico has their car stolen, then the police give them the number of the guy who has it so they can buy it back. The only difference is that in that deal the couple would get the car back if they paid. The American taxpayer just gets to keep paying and never gets the car back; unless they happen to be in the United Auto Workers Union.

Can I recommend a Ford to anyone who'll listen?