Milwaukee Bucks 2009 Season – D-O-N-E

Heard today that Michael Redd tore his MCL and ACL in the Bucks Saturday win over Sacramento….I’m no expert, but when your best player and on-court leader goes down for the season, there is not much hope that you’ll make that up.  I’m hoping that the Charlie V’s, Andrew Bogut’s and Richard Jefferson’s of the world will step up their games (along with ALL of the roll players) and make this a magical season, but honestly it’s just that – HOPE!

Theocracies….Who Needs ‘em?

I don’t normally comment on religious issues, as I already am towing the line on political discussion, but this most recent article coming out of Indonesia really annoyed me.  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090126/ap_on_re_as/as_indonesia_yoga_ban  Looks like the ever tolerant and educated clerics in the Ulema Council have banned the use of Hindu rituals, like chanting, while doing yoga, stating concerns that it would corrupt their faith.  HUH?  (Side Note: the decision was made after hundreds of theological “experts” met at a weekend conference – EXPERTS?!?!?  That’s a decision that EXPERTS came up with?!?!?  Just saying….)  How weak in your faith do you have to be to take a yoga class, chant a bit and then walk out and say to yourself, “WOW, with all of that chanting and such, I’m going to completely throw all of my beliefs out the window and become a Hindu.”?

Now the good news to this idiotic ban is that it’s not “legally binding”.  Whew, I would hate to have to go in front of  judge (who probably marches to the beat of the Ulema Council’s drum) and defend myself against…..CHANTING.  It sounds sarcastic, but I am serious.  I actually would HATE to have to defend myself against such moronic accusations.  Sorry for the inflammatory wording, but to pass down this edict/fatwa tells me many things (of which I’m not going to comment on because it’s slightly more politically incorrect). 

I’ve done yoga.  I never really got into the chanting or “spiritual” part of yoga, but if I did, you can be rest assured that my Christianity wouldn’t suffer.  I think I’m a little too smart and cemented in my faith to haphazardly jump off the Christianity bandwagon and start worshiping Vishnu.  Which leads me to my last point.  In the article, they touched on the fact that there are some Christian fundamentalists and secularists that are challenging the use of yoga in schools around the U.S..  Again I say, HUH?  They say the roots of yoga (Hindu) conflicts with Christian beliefs  So what?  Yoga classes, I would imagine, take place in a gym, with mats, while you are wearing a T-shirt and shorts; not in some church with a pastor handing out sermons and following a liturgy.  Bottom line is, people (all over the world) need to lighten up about things such as whether or not you chant during your yoga EXERCISE and worry about things that are important.  As Sgt Hulka told Psycho in the movie Stripes:  ”Lighten up Francis!”

Quick Hit – And So The Bureacracy Begins – Wisconsin Style

Leave it to good ‘ol Jim Doyle to start the expansion of government jobs by announcing a new office in his adminstration called – The Office of Recovery and Reinvestment.  What a joke.  The President is only 3 days into his adminstration, and our Governor is already expanding the state government (even though we’re in a 5 billion dollar hole)……Gotta love Wisconsin, gotta love Wisconsin politics – They never disappoint.

 http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/38234629.html

Goodbye George Bush

I am a George Walker Bush supporter.  I know saying that is almost like saying you support the devil, but that’s a whole different discussion.  Now, I do not support him 100% mind you, considering my mantra is “The only politician I agree with 100% is me.  If you agree with another person (especially a politician) ALL of the time, I have to question your free will.”  I honestly can say, though, that I am better off now (by leaps and bounds) than I was 8 years ago.  I realize that is not the case for the economy, as it currently stands.  I also realize that there is much work to do when it comes to finding a fix for our current economic woes, but I digress. 

This is more of a post regarding the end of an era, one that was mired in many successes, tragedies, and tense moments.  This era is one that I believe will be debated for decades to come, both positively and negatively.  It didn’t start very well, considering he had to go all the way to the Supreme Court to become the POTUS, and as we see now it did not end well.  As for the middle portion of his administration, I will touch on but not expand upon the highs and lows of a President that I believe has been unfairly construed as a liar, cowboy, and overall pariah.

To accurately portray George Bush’s legacy (or anyone’s for that matter) you need to take the decisions that were made and the outcomes of those decisions and compare that to the situation at hand.  Take 9/11 for instance.  To quote an ”intellectual” on the left, ”he grandstanded over the wreckage and the dust of the dead at his feet.”  No, what he did is what any good president should do and that is show strength in a time of despair, show solidarity in a time of fear, and show support for the men and women that perished at the hands of monsters.  My first thought, after the attacks in NY, D.C. and Pennsylvania, was GET THEM, get them with everything we have.  Did George Bush (the “Cowboy”) go in, half-cocked, bombing every country that has either sponsored terrorism or turned a blind eye to it?  No, he was calculated, methodical and poised in a time when people were clamoring for action.  That action did not take place until October 7, 2001, nearly 1 month after we were attacked.  So much for the “cowboy” moniker.

Iraq;  has been categorized by scads of people as an “endless war”, “Bush’s war”, “unnecessary war” (my favorite, by the way), amongst others.  All of those could be further from the truth.  We all know that Bush’s father had already had a run-in with Saddam Hussein, but what people fail to realize is that Bill Clinton, in 1998, had signed the Iraq Liberation Act, which called for a regime change in Iraq on the basis that Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, oppression of Iraqi citizens, and attacks upon other Middle Eastern countries.  http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/Legislation/ILA.htm  Following 9/11, there was intelligence that indicated that Hussein not only had WOMD, there was a proven willingness to attack rival nations (Iran and Kuwait for example), there were UN resolutions, a U.S. congressional Act signed by the previous president, and it was known that Saddam Hussein’s regime was brutal and aggressive to the U.S..  Why wouldn’t we go in, liberate, and expel a known aggressor to the U.S. and the rest of the world?  Once in Iraq, the intelligence was proven to be faulty, but at that point what was Bush to do?  Uproot and leave a fledging country to fend for itself.  We saw what happened when Saddam was taken out – the terrorists tried to take over.  For awhile it seemed like this was another Vietnam, but to his credit, Bush was not going to allow the terrorists to win.  He along with General David Petraus came up with the ever successful “troop surge”.  A policy and strategy that to this day, should be lauded (certainly not criticized – like Barak Obama did).  There is much work to do in Iraq and the Middle East as a whole, but to say that we not only didn’t win the war, but lost it, are naive. 

Another watershed policy enacted by President Bush in the wake of September 11th that have been ridiculed and chastised was, The Patriot Act.  An act that expanded the ability of the President to counteract terrorism with a variety of different tools.  The knock on the particular piece of legislation is that it infringes on the rights of Americans and flies in the face of the constitution (another knock on President Bush, and I quote “shredded the constitution at every turn….”).  The left LOVES to throw this back at Bush, but do you know that when the legislation came up for a vote in October of 2001, 98 out of 99 Senator’s voted YES and 366 out of 423 Congressmen also voted YES?  Wait, it gets better.  In March of 2006, when Bush’s approval ratings were plummeting, the same two groups voted in the following fashion: Senate – 89 YES, 10 NO  – House of Representatives – 238 YES, 138 NO.  If Bush’s utilization of this act was soooooo unconstitutional, shouldn’t the congress been a little more “boisterous” with their opposition?  The question isn’t whether this is constitutional or unconstitutional (it is), the question is “does it work”?  The answer to that is – YES, and it should be continued.  The other tool used in the war on terror, that has been criticized, is the use of the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to hold terror suspects.   Without going into too much detail, this is the absolute best place to house and detain those that choose to commit terrorist acts against the United States.  They are enemy combatants and as soon as they are released all they will end up doing is partnering up with their cohorts and start up their terrorist ways (see attached link for up to the date proof)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090123/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_yemen_al_qaida

The years between 2001 and 2007 were filled with an ever booming housing market, questionable investing, and other financial chicanery that came to roost the 2nd half of 2007 to the present.  Was George Bush culpable for the downturn in the market, housing and the like?  Sure, but the amount of criticism heaped onto his shoulders is nothing more than piling on, by the same people that allowed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to approve and administer loans they knew to be bad.  That in and of itself did not create the current economic woes, but it is endemic of the attitudes on the left (and the right) to just look the other way because of political correctness, or some other platitude.

There are other issues that I could discuss (Katrina – how a President can be absolutely lambasted for a natural disaster is beyond me, deficit spending, etc) but I just don’t have the time.  I am going to finish off by stating George W. Bush was not the greatest President to ever sit in the oval office, but by no means was he the worst.  Where would I put him in the pantheon of Presidents?  That’s hard to say, but given the difficult times that were layed out in front of him, I believe he did a pretty good job.  After 8 years of war, economic boom and subsequent downturn, and everything else in between, I believe everyone will agree that George Bush’s legacy (for good or bad) will always be remembered.  I guess, for me, the view of that legacy is a little brighter than the current American voter.  We’ll see in 10-15 years how history views him.  My guess is, way better than the left will ever care to admit…..

Quick Hit

Since it’s the new year, I thought I’d change the theme up a bit and see how that works…..

Favre Fallout and Subsquent Results

Now that the season is over for the teams and players “involved” in the Brett Favre debacle, it’s time to step back and take a look at the success, or failure, of each teams experiment.  The teams and the quarterbacks I am speaking of are as follows, TEAMS: Packers, Jets, Dolphins and Lions (just wait I’ll get there), PLAYERS: Aaron Rodgers, Brett Favre, Chad Pennington, and Dante Culpepper.  We all know the drama that the Packers and Favre went through, so I will not belabor that point, but what I want to do is provide an opinion on each teams decision, how it effected the team, grade each teams season, and long term prognosis.

 

At the start of the 2008 season, the Packers had traded Favre to the Jets for conditional picks (ended up with a 3^rd round pick because Favre stunk the last 5 games and missed the playoffs).  With Favre at Jets camp, they no longer needed Pennington, hence his arrival in Miami.  Not sure what Culpepper’s status was in Miami, at the time, but he was either gone, or soon to be exiting and moving up to Detroit; all this while the Packers were giving the keys to the 14-4 sports car to Aaron Rodgers.  As for where each team stood when the 2007 season ended, the Packers were 14-4, the Jets were 4-12, the Dolphins were 1-15 and the Lions….well who cares.  This season, there were some changes.  The Packers went 6-10, Jets 9-7, Dolphins 11-6 (made playoffs & won their division) and the Lions ceremoniously went 0-16.  At first glance you’d have to say that the Dolphins were the biggest winner in the Favre drama, which for 2008 is true, but let’s look at this a little further. 

 

The Jets, being 4-12 in 2007, took a risk and brought in the aging, drama-queen Brett Favre.  They structured the deal to limit their risk, and in my opinion, did an OK job at that.  The trade was looking REALLY good for Mangini and the Jets when they were 8-3 and then they go and lose 4 out of their next 5 in December.  A little too cold for you Mr. Favre?  Experiment result – FAIL.  Now, they only had to give up a third round pick for the risk, but with Favre’s recent comments telling the team they may need to go in a different direction, who do they have to take his place and what piece of the puzzle could that third rounder have given them?  I hope the Jets fans appreciated a winning season this year, as sour as it was, because 9-7 will not be seen by that franchise next year and possibly in years to come (assuming they have a typical Jets off-season). 

 

The Dolphins, with their complete and utter joke of a 2007 season turned into the Cinderella story of 2008.  They go from 1-15 in ’07 to winning the division in ‘08?!?!?  I realize there’s parity in the NFL, but a 10 game turnaround?  Unbelievable!  Now I know cleaning house, and hiring a new coach has some benefits, but other than Atlanta, this was the story of the season.  Unfortunately they saw what Jets fans saw much of Chad’s career, in their latest playoff loss, and honestly will probably see a lot more of in 2009 and beyond.  All in all a great story, one that would not have been possible if not for Pennington’s consistent, calming play.  The problem is, Chad still has a weak arm, he is not a spring chicken, and the Dolphins have a decent amount of holes to fill to make playoff appearances and division championships a regular occurrence. 

 

I cannot in good conscience spend too much time on the Lions, because they are just too pathetic.  0 and 16 (NFL record for most losses in a season – I believe) is deplorable, especially for a franchise that is not an expansion team.  They, in gross desperation, took Dante Culpepper off of the scrap heap, hoping to do “SOMETHING”.  Too bad Dante’s best days are, and have been, long gone.  I can’t blame the Lions for going after Culpepper, and for Dante accepting their offer, it’s just that neither party was going to be successful.  In turn the whole thing looked unbelievably horrible.  I’m not sure where that franchise is going, and as a Packer fan, that has attended a game in Detroit, I DON’T care.  Side Note: I’ve been to Chicago and their fans, as much as they hate the Packers, are not nearly as jerkish as Detroit fans, so kudos to all of the Detroit opponents.  I applaud each and every team that beat them (even Minnesota and Chicago) because it warms my heart that the collective group of Lions fans paid good money (either in person or on TV) to see THAT team play each week and got to see history – good for them!

 

Now for the Packers; for clarity sake (if you hadn’t figured it out yet) I am a Packer fan, but one that is realistic.  I predicted a 7-9 season after this whole Favre thing, and came within one game of that prediction.  I’ll also tell you I can’t stand Ted Thompson.  His handling of the Favre mess was unprofessional, arrogant, and stupid.  I realize he saw something in Rodgers and wanted to get him out on the field, but how he got there was embarrassing.  I do believe that Brett Favre would have been, albeit slightly, better than Rodgers this year for the Green and Gold, BUT I also believe that Aaron Rodgers will be a better long term QB for this franchise for the foreseeable future.  His statistics were significantly better than I expected.  His poise, leadership, toughness and athletic ability were much better than I imagined, and I am very confident in his ability to lead this team to great success, especially in the unbelievably weak NFC North.  Rodgers is the real deal.  I am certainly not going to go on and say that this is equivalent to Young taking over for Montana; I’m just saying that I am happy with his ability and future, especially when you compare it to the teams in the North.  Rodgers in the next 2-3 years will be in that tier of QB’s like Philip Rivers, Jay Cutler, etc.  He can, if given the weapons, protection, and coaching reach that Pro Bowl level.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

 

This all leads me to the grades for each team.  I will measure them on the decision to make the change, the result of that decision and the long term ramifications for each team.

 

INITIAL DECISION

Packers            B          (would have been an A, had it not been for Ted Thompson’s joke of a management style.)                                           

 

Jets                  B          (can’t blame them for bringing in a HOFer who just came off of a                                              14-4 season KNOWING the team he was under contract with,                                          didn’t want him)

 

Dolphins           B          (Had to do something with the QB “pen” they had.  They picked                                               up a guy who had career numbers and made the coach and Parcells                          look like geniuses.)

 

Lions                F          (just because they went 0-16)

 

RESULT

Packers            D         (I realize going 14-4 in 2007 was not a true reflection of that team                                             – they were a .500 team then as well, but going 6-10 is bad, period)

 

Jets                  F          (After going 8-3 and in the drivers seat, they go and lose 4 out of                                               their last 5 and miss winning the division AND the playoffs.  Bye                                           bye Mangini and Favre.)

 

Dolphins           B+       (Would have received an A if it were not for Pennington’s 4 INT                                               playoff appearance, but considering they were 1-15 last year,                                        Dolphin’s fans should be ecstatic.)

 

Lions                F          (Does it need to be said, again?)

 

FUTURE

Packers            B+       (Jury’s still out on many positions, but at the skill positions, they                                                 are young, talented, and improving)

 

Jets                  D         (Favre’s gone – more than likely – coaching position is vacant,                                      several holes to fill, and their receivers are getting older and less                                                effective.  I’m not too confident.)

 

Dolphins           C         (I’m impressed by the Sparano/Parcells team, Pennington probably                               has another decent year or two in him and you never know what                                          can happen….)

 

Lions                F          (Even though they have nowhere to go but up, going 2-14 next                                      year will still be 2-14.  There are so many holes to fill I wouldn’t                                            even want to start to analyze their “future”.

 

Good luck to all (except of course Detroit) and always realize, this is the NFL – anything’s possible.  Just ask the Dolphins!