Whipped Cream Difficulties

Might as well jump right into the first TMQ of the regular season…

…tactics on display during the NFL’s opening weekend were high school and small college all the way.

635 words down.

The Raiderettes settled with the Raiders.

After attorney’s fees the settlement works out to about $6,000 per season per cheerleader between 2010-12, and $2,500 per cheerleader for 2013, which is not much, but gets the foot firmly planted in the door for better agreements in the future — at Oakland, and the league’s other teams with cheer squads.

At least until Oakland, and the league’s other teams, decide it isn’t worth the bother and shut down the cheerleading squads.

…my Super Bowl pick is Denver over New Orleans. My alternative-jersey pick is Seattle over Indianapolis.

Noted.

They lost a 24-point second-half lead to Denver in 2012, a 21-point second-half lead to Houston in 2013 and on Monday night, an 11-point fourth-quarter lead in Arizona. The Chargers should ask to play only in daylight. They’re not night owls.

You know, it could just be that the Chargers are not, and never have been, as good a team as some people think they are. (Bonus: bad officiating.)

Sweet: Seattle. Sour: Baltimore. Mixed: Chicago – Buffalo.

In case you were wondering what TMQ’s thoughts about the Ray Rice situation were, they are here.

Rice, a first-time offender, bears guilt but is not a criminal in legal terms. He was placed into a pretrial diversion program by a New Jersey judge. Legal thinking has long held that first-time offenders should be treated leniently. Perhaps the judge gave Rice special treatment because he’s a football star. If so, that is a condemnation of society, not of Rice. If pretrial diversion is a common outcome for first-time domestic offenders in New Jersey, then the legal part of the decision was appropriate.

Isn’t the question of “how common is it for first-time domestic offenders to get pretrial diversion in New Jersey” the kind of question that TMQ should be researching, and answering, rather than speculating about? Doesn’t ESPN have some interns who could help Easterbrook research this?

Oh, by the way, TMQ also uses this as an excuse to bash the world famous Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio for not removing O.J.

As for the Hall of Fame, it might be a private facility, but it’s tax-exempt, claiming to serve public purpose. Its Form 990 shows that in 2012, the latest year for which statistics are available, the Hall of Fame sheltered $31 million from taxation. Publicly subsidized, while extolling to the public a man who committed the ultimate act of domestic violence.

Once more, with feeling: a tax exemption is not a subsidy, unless you believe that every penny belongs to the government until proven otherwise.

Peyton Manning is Best Manning. Eli Manning isn’t.

You can now watch online the original Japanese version, not the Americanized variant into which Raymond Burr was spliced to create an English-speaking authority figure.

Or if you’re not big on watching stuff online, you can also get an excellent Criterion Collection edition for short money. Just saying.

In “Godzilla” 2014, the titular character is said by a military analyst to be 350 feet tall. But when Zilla stands next to the Golden Gate Bridge, his chest and head are above the bridge travel lanes. Since the bridge clearance is 220 feet and the Golden Gate Strait is about 300 feet deep, to stand in his manner, Godzilla would need to be about 700 feet tall. Ads for the flick show Godzilla twice the height of San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid, which is 853 feet, rendering the monster at least 1,500 feet.

We’ll come back to that in a moment.

The Air Force has vanished, none of the nation’s 10 nuclear supercarriers is available and the Navy has forgotten completely about attack submarines, which would seem the ideal counter to a sea monster.

We’re not completely sure we follow TMQ’s logic here. Why would attack submarines be the ideal counter to a sea monster?

At one point, a paratrooper confidently cocks a sidearm to go into battle with a 500-foot-tall radioactive freak of nature.

Or 350-foot-tall. Or 700-foot-tall. Or 1,500-foot-tall.

When the military decides to lure the monsters toward a nuclear bomb to be set off in the Pacific Ocean, instead of simply using one of the many nuclear bombs present in a carrier task force, the Pentagon decides to ship a warhead very slowly by train from North Dakota to California. The train stops in small towns to board passengers, as if on a sightseeing tour. Then the train crosses a rickety wooden bridge that appears to have been built in 1850 by gandy dancers. Of course, at the rickety bridge, monsters attack.

TMQ misses what was our biggest problem with the movie; Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s character wanders through it like some sort of giant monster movie Forrest Gump, always in the right place at the right time. And the character has all the charisma of oatmeal.

How does a million-ton creature sneak up on someone?

Very very quietly.

Chicken-(salad) kicking: Stanford, Houston. Wine whines. More punting by Tampa Bay.

Quoted without comment:

…war-making decisions should be reserved for Congress. Which is, not to put too fine a point on it, what Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution specifies. Is Congress zany? Obviously. But the Framers meant to vest Congress, not the White House and not public sentiment, with America’s war-making powers. Two-hundred twenty-five years later, their instinct still seems correct.

What’s wrong with the Saints defense? Reply hazy: ask again next week.

Creep.

In the new issue of AANS Neurosurgeon, Canadian physicians Ross E. G. Upshur and Paul Echlin argue that sports concussions are fundamentally a public health issue.

Of course they do. When all you have is a medical degree, everything looks like a public health issue.

It is good to know that TMQ still manages to get a free 200 words for his column out of StubHub ticket pricing.

Why is Dan Snyder fighting so hard to keep the “Redskins” name? TMQ quotes Chuck Todd’s theory: this is the first time that Sndyer’s done something the fans like. We find this theory intriguing. Not intriguing enough, however, to make us watch “Meet the Press”.

TMQ notes there’s a lot of corruption going around.

Leland Yee, the state senator, was a leading legislative backer of strict gun control in the Golden State. The allegations include that once he got controls enacted, he conspired to run a gun-running operation — driving up the price for illegals guns by eliminating competition from reasonably priced, lawfully obtained guns.

And? That’s pretty much where TMQ ends it. But hey, the cheese-eating surrender monkeys are crooked, too! And besides, the stimulus is to blame! One of these days, we’re pretty sure that TMQ is going to have his road to Damascus moment and come to the realization that the more power we give to government, the more opportunities for government corruption there are. But we’re not holding our breath.

Minnesota’s reputation for clean government is being tarnished by the hanky-panky involved both in the building of the heavily subsidized new Vikings field and the crony-capitalism involved in acquisition of the 2018 Super Bowl. Check the host committee. Of the nine members, one is an NFL official, one an NBA official, four are Minneapolis development officials whose careers will be advanced by Super Bowl shoulder-rubbing, and three are corporate CEOs. There’s no one representing the public interest. The result is a deal that’s full of giveaways to the 1 percent — taxpayers fund the venue, the NFL keeps all profit, while owners receive special treatment denied to taxpayers. Why do Minnesota voters tolerate this?

Why is this stadium different from all other stadiums? Why are we concerned about crony-capitalism in the construction of this stadium? Why do we worry about this host committee being composed of back-scratchers, as opposed to every other host committee ever? Why do voters anywhere tolerate this?

The British royal family’s panic over the prospect of losing Scotland was expressed by Prince Charles’ making public appearances wearing kilts.

Is TMQ sure that Prince Charles wasn’t just participating in Kilted to Kick Cancer?

Defense. Clean electric buses. Actually, we kind of like this idea, but where will the electricity to run the buses come from? (Hint: probably either coal or natural gas.)

Last year, MIT went to California to play Pomona-Pitzer; this year Pomona-Pitzer brought its angry sailor bird to Massachusetts. Since all are Division III schools that don’t emphasize sports, why the cross-country flying?

Because it’s fun for the kids? Who are young adults and can deal with the minor disruption of a road trip?

The football gods chortled at the bad luck of Wes Welker. We say: those who chortle at others misfortune often find themselves in dire straits.

…99.8 percent of federal government’s top managers are rated “fully successful” or “outstanding.”

You know, at some point, the Romo era has to end. We don’t have an axe to grind in this matter; it’s just that eventually Romo will be unable to play effectively any longer. Question: is this the last Romo year? Question: if so, who do the Cowboys get to replace him?

Yeah, yeah, Jim Irsay’s fine is a pittance compared to Josh Gordon’s. Yeah, yeah, it would be nice if “management is held to a higher standard”. But all this whining forgets one point we consider to be key: the commissioner, the guy who imposes fines and sanctions, serves at the pleasure of the owners. You know, the guys like Irsay, not the guys like Gordon.

Bad blitzing: Cleveland.

The 500 Club is back. So are the 600 Club, 700 Club, 800 Club, and the seal club.

Not only have the football gods continued to chortle, but they’re holding a grudge from week three of last season.

Texas A&M-Commerce 98, East Texas Baptist 20.

Single worst play of the season so far: Green Bay. This is, as far as we can recall, the earliest appearance of this TMQ perennial. Maybe this too is subject to creep.

Speaking of creep, thus ends the first week of the regular season, as we creep ever closer to getting these up on Tuesday. Tune in next week.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 10th, 2014 at 8:20 pm and is filed under California Über Alles, Clippings, Guns, Law, Leland "Uncle" Yee, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.