Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Mike Gundy needs a new person to rant about, criminals need to be smarter and terrorists need my advice

- Not that beating a child is ever acceptable in any way, but if you're enough of an a-hole to beat a kid, shouldn't you also be smart enough not to do it in public and in a place that is heavily surveilled? Just as you wouldn't shoot heroin in the middle of a crowded shopping mall or counterfeit money in the lobby of a busy casino, you also shouldn't be abusing a 2-year-old inside of a convenience store, a place with a lot of video cameras and surveillance. Joseph Gray, 27, of Detroit was arrested over the weekend after surveillance footage showing him beating his son at a local convenience store aired on several local news broadcasts. On the tape, this tool can be seen hitting, kicking and stepping on the boy during a four-minute span. Of course, that beatdown wasn't enough for Gray, who also hit the tiny tot with a cooler door repeatedly and paused when other customers came around. Good one, idiot - or at least it would be if you weren't in a place with at least a half-dozen surveillance cameras. Two lessons for you to learn here, Joe: 1) stop beating your kids under any and all circumstances. There are a lot of suitable parenting methods to choose from, but physical abuse is not one of them, and 2) when committing a crime, make sure you're not doing so in a place where your crime will be caught on camera from multiple angles. I'd say there are other lessons to learn here, but judging from your act here, my man, you're pretty stupid and two lessons might be all you can handle for now.....

- Finally, a college president with the balls and brains to stand up against the status quo and actually advocate the incredibly sensible step of creating a playoff system in Division I college football. The president in question is University of Georgia president Michael F. Adams, who said in a public letter to NCAA president Miles brand that he supports an eight-team playoff to decide the national championship, with the opening rounds to be played in the four major BCS bowl games. He proposed the change be made as soon as the contracts that govern the BCS expire. Unlike the ass-hat president at Ohio Stat,e Gordon Gee, who said we could have the current system to dispose of it when we pried it from his cold, dead hands (don't tempt me, Gordon), Adams doesn't seem to have his head firmly planted up his own ass. He complained that the BCS has become a "beauty contest largely stage-managed by the networks."
"This year's experience with the BCS forces me to the conclusion that the current system has lost public confidence and simply does not work," Adams said in news release. "It is undercutting the sportsmanship and integrity of the game." To be fair, it should be pointed out that Adams' quest is more than a little self-serving. Georgia did not win its division of the Southeastern Conference and did not play in that league's title game, but was widely regarded as one of the best teams in the nation as the college football season closed. The Bulldogs went to the Sugar Bowl instead of the BCS Championship Game, where some believed the team belonged. Under his proposal, the schedule would return to 11 games from its current 12, with playoffs beginning at the major bowl games and extending two more Saturdays, and a selection committee would seed eight teams to the four major bowls. "If one of those bowls chooses not to participate, another game could be found to fill the void," he said. Yeah, he's looking at you, Rose Bowl. The Rose Bowl fought like hell to stay independent of the current system because they're so over-protective of their tradition and history, so you'd have to guess that if any bowl game would be dumb enough to oppose this plan, it would be the Rose Bowl. Adams becomes the second SEC member president to advocate a playoff in the past year. Last year, University of Florida president Bernie Machen -- whose Gators played in the BCS Championship Game and won the title -- said the time had come for a playoff system, but backed down from his position after conferring with his fellow SEC presidents. Adams admitted that he has long opposed a playoff system, largely (and fraudulently) for academic reasons and because the season is already too long (again a load of crap). However, he said in his letter to Brand that he was "troubled about the commercial influence over how the college football season is played out." He said it is time for the NCAA's member institutions to regain control over the college football postseason -- control he said is now concentrated in the hands of the television networks, the major conferences and the bowl commissioners. "The television networks ... have grown too powerful in deciding who plays and when they play, and indeed, whom they hire to coach," Adams wrote in his letter to Brand. "The Bowl Championship Series has become a beauty contest largely stage-managed by the networks, which in turn protect the interests of their own partner conferences. The situation may not quite rise to the level of collusion, but it leaves an air of dissatisfaction with the fans of most institutions, even as they celebrate successful seasons, I believe the time has come for the NCAA to take control of the college football postseason, and in so doing to create a system that our players, coaches, friends and fans can support and appreciate." Thanks for coming around the something most of us have known for a long time, Mike. Sorry it took your team getting screwed to spur you into action, but at this point I'll take what I can get. It's bulls**t for D-1 presidents to complain about the academic and schedule problems as reasons a playoff wouldn't work when every other division of college football, most them filled with schools whose academic requirements surpass those of D-1 schools, have a playoff system and teams play as many as 14 games in a season. The rest of you college and university presidents need to grow a pair, take your head out of the sand and follow Adams' lead right about now.

- Welcome to another day of the Roid-ger Clemens soap opera. No sooner had Clemens, a.k.a. Pocket Rocket, done a totally weasel-ly thing by recording a phone call to Clemens' former trainer Brian McNamee without McNamee's knowledge and used it in their war to discredit his allegations that he administered 'roids to Roid-ger, than McNamee's own lawyers fired back. Earl Ward, a lawyer for McNamee, called on Congress to demand a copy of and make public the recording of a December interview between his client and two private investigators hired by Roger Clemens' attorneys. A lawsuit filed Sunday by Pocket Rocket against his former trainer contains an excerpt of the interview, which took place Dec. 12, but Ward wants the whole thing out there for all to hear. That date was one day before the release of the Mitchell report, in which McNamee accused Clemens of using steroids and human growth hormone, allegations Clemens took his sweet time addressing, then put out statements through lawyers, agents and videos on his website before hand-picking Mike Wallace, a noted Yankee fan, to conduct a soft-hitting interview on 60 Minutes about the allegations. "They should ask for the entire tape of the interview back in December. That's the tape they should ask for," Ward said Tuesday. "According to Brian, they tried to get him to recant. Brian said, look, what I told the [Mitchell and federal] investigators was the truth." On Monday, McNamee's lawyers released faxes purportedly signed by Clemens and Andy Pettitte that stated investigators Jim Yarbrough and Billy Belk work for the law firm representing them. They asked that Clemens' attorneys voluntarily release the entire Dec. 12 recording. Ward said the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which has asked Clemens and McNamee to testify Jan. 16, should ask for the recording. "I think it would be important for Congress to show how consistent Brian has been," Ward said. At present, no request for the tape has been made. When questioned by federal prosecutors, McNamee told them he injected Clemens with performance-enhancing drugs in 1998, 2000 and 2001. Prosecutors had him repeat those charges to Mitchell. When Roid-ger finally did get around to directly addressing McNamee's allegations at a news conference Monday, a recording was played of an ambiguous 17-minute conversation last Friday between the Pocket Rocket and McNamee. "I thought the tape didn't really add anything to the case," Ward said. "It was really just a very emotional and tormented Brian McNamee, who clearly demonstrated that what he is doing is something that he's tormented by. At that point he still had tremendous reverence and adoration for Roger." I would have to agree with Ward here. If you've heard the tape, you can hear a frustrated, confused McNamee, but a man who also does not recant his allegations. Clemens and his legal team are trying to bully their way out of this one with a heavily strategized, structred attack that has been anythign but convincing. It would also help if Clemens weren't a ginormous a-hole, but maybe I'm just being petty there.....no, on second thought, he really is a ginormous a-hole. You suck, Roid-ger.

- Now who is Mike Gundy going to defend in his volcanic, maniacal rants? This past season, Gundy went off in a post-game press conference on local writer Jenny Carlson for a piece she wrote criticizing Oklahoma State quarterback Bobby Reid as being a soft mama's boy who wasn't mentally tough enough to hang onto the starting quarterback job. Now comes word that in a surprisingly weak move, Reid is leaving OSU after losing his starting job and not playing much after that point. Gundy said Reid, the backup quarterback defended by the coach during a now-famous rant, had not spoken with him about the situation. But Gundy didn't doubt the credibility of a report claiming that Reid's mother Rajika has said her son will not return to play for the Cowboys next season. "I can't speak for them, but I think it's something everyone kind of anticipated," Gundy said Friday during a conference call with reporters. "...I think it was kind of understood that it was going to happen." Why? Because he is FAT? Because he's a momma's boy who couldn't hold the starting job and couldn't deal with losing it either? Reid, a junior from Houston, entered the season seemingly entrenched as the Cowboys' starter, having held the job since midway through his freshman season. But after he left a Sept. 8 game against Florida Atlantic with an injury, Zac Robinson stepped in and started Oklahoma State's last 11 games. To be fair, Reid did graduate from Oklahoma State in December with a bachelor's degree in education, so he does have a reason to move on. Of course, coming on the heels of a season in which he passed for just 602 yards and two touchdowns and rushed 19 times for 15 yards, it does look like he's a quitter. Doesn't sound like Gundy is all that sorry to see him go, either. That's surprising because of that now-famous rant in which Gundy looked like his head was about to explode as he went off and crossed more lines than you can count in his rant against Carlson. He was totally wrong, calling Reid a kid when in fact he's 21 years old, an adult in every facet of the word, and it wasn't as if Carlson delved into his personal life and revealed embarrassing medical or personal secrets. Now none of that is relevant, because Reid is gone, jumping ship on a coach who made an ass out of himself for Reid. Cheer up, though, because Gundy still has an entire roster full of players he can blow a gasket defending, and I have a feeling he'll be back in a rage in no time.

- A very happy new year to you as well, al-Qaida. In the terrorist network's first message of 2008, it's American spokesman went on an hourlong rants during which he spouted loads of anti-American rhetoric, tore up his American passport and urged al-qaida fighters to meet W. with bombs when he visits the Middle East in a few weeks. Now you all know I hate W. and believe with all my heart that he's a tool and an ass hat, but I have to oppose this plan from al-Qaida. As much as I despise W. and believe he's the worst president in the history of the world, I can't advocate you all blowing him up. So how's about we strike a compromise here? Instead of blowing him up, why don't you all just take him hostage for, say, the next 10-11 months? At that point, we'll have elected a new president and W. won't be in power any longer. You win because you get to capture and, um, treat rudely a man you believe is the devil, and Americans win because we miss out on the final few months of a presidential reign of terror and ineptitude that has taken our country right down the toilet, through the plumbing and into the septic tank. Adam Gadahn is the spokesman in question and I'm going to allow him to pitch this idea to al-Qaida in lieu of what he suggested. I know it's not the terrorist way, but it's a fair deal and as W. travels to the West Bank, Gaza, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, you all should at least consider a straight-up kidnapping instead of a bombing. Trust me when I tell you that most Americans wouldn't miss W., but if he were killed it woudl start a war. Think about it, al-Qaida, I'm here if you need any other ideas.

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