Vox Popoli

Last week: 11-5 Overall: 20-11

L – Washington Redskins over Giants

L – Kansas City Chiefs over Panthers

W – Indianapolis Colts over Titans

L – Green Bay Packers over Bears

L – Pittsburgh Steelers over Ravens

L – St. Louis Rams over Falcons

L – Denver Broncos over Jaguars

W – New Orleans Saints over 49ers

W – Detroit Lions over Texans

W – Seattle Seahawks over Buccaneers

W – New England Patriots over Cardinals

W – Oakland Raiders over Bills

W – Dallas Cowboys over Browns

W – New York Jets over Chargers

W – Cincinnati Bengals over Dolphins

Minnesota Vikings over Eagles

The game that makes me nervous is the Patriots over the Cardinals. This is the sort of game that has potential upset written all over it, even though the Patriots are the superior team in almost every way. But sure things in the NFL have an uncanny way of exploding in your face. The Vikings game could easily go either way, but at the end of the day, I have more confidence in Daunte and his receiving corps than McNabb and his. The Vikes destroyed a decent Cowboy squad coached by Bill Parcells, the Eagles destroyed a lousy Giants team coached by Tom Coughlin.

Detroit vs. Houston makes me nervous too, but Chokechain assures me that Houston looked horrid last week. I just find it as hard to imagine Detroit starting 2-0 as Indy starting 0-2. But, as the Sports Guy said, this is a tough week to call and he’d be happy to go 9-7. I’ll settle for 10-6, as long as we drop our low-weight games.

That scratching sound you hear is the White Buffalo desperately taking notes down. He’s hoping to stay ahead of Annabella this week. If he slips any lower, we may have to start calling him Annabella.

UPDATE – yeeouch! Dropping six of the 12:00 games is downright painful! I watched the Falcons play last week and NEVER thought they’d stay with the Rams. Chicago was a fluke, as if Ahman goes in from the 2, it’s 17-14, and anyhow, no one will have had the Bears so that shouldn’t hurt too much. The Carolina win hurts badly, though, although starting DeShaun worked out well. I’m not surprised he picked up a ton of yards and a score, I’m just surprised Priest Holmes didn’t pick up more. 10-6 is still possible, just not very likely.

UPDATE 2 – But unlikely is still possible, and one more win will do it. Skol Vikings!

Actress Nicole Kidman was met by a chorus of boos at the premiere of her shocking new movie Birth – which sees her fall in love with a ten-year-old boy. The redhead, 37, stars as Anna, who believes a young boy, played by Cameron Bright, is her reincarnated dead husband…. The movie’s director, Jonathan Glazer, was disappointed by the reaction but is thrilled it is the front-runner for this year’s prestigious Golden Lion award.

Apparently pedophilia is okay as long as you think it’s your reincarnated dead mate. It’s too bad Mary Kay LeTourneau didn’t come up with that one quick enough, I’m sure it would have flown in court. Not that I’m inclined to shed too many tears for the poor young soul who was forced to share a bathtub with Nicole Kidman for the sake of his budding art, but it’s the precedent and the implicit advocacy that are truly apalling.

If the essence of art has been reduced to the goal of producing shock, shouldn’t Hollywood be giving the Oscar to whoever is behind the al-Qaeda beheading flicks?

Eric Muller chronicles the history of a Malkin post:

First it was a misdirected attack on Julie Chen. Now it’s a misdirected attack on Norman Mineta (who does not oversee the Transportation Safety Administration, which is in Tom Ridge’s Department of Homeland Security).

If you can’t even post without making multiple errors of easily established fact, you really have no business trying to delve into matters any more complex than Bush Good, Kerry Bad.

The funniest thing is that Malkin even complains Julie Chen wouldn’t respond to her email, which is doubly ironic considering a) her own continuing refusal to answer my questions, and, b) the fact that Julie Chen never said anything about her book to President Bush.

Sure, maybe she got the wrong Chen, but that’s irrelevant. As we know, Malkin believes in collective guilt where those treacherous yellow dogs are concerned.

Robert Novak writes:

Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, one of the most liberal of Republican congressmen, Tuesday won an unexpectedly easy Republican nomination for a 12th term from his upstate New York district after receiving support from abortion rights activists, the White House and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Boehlert in 2000 defeated conservative Dr. David Walrath by fewer than 3,000 votes but this time won with 58 percent of the vote against the same opponent. Gingrich surprised conservatives by campaigning for his onetime comrade in the House despite Boehlert’s 39 percent lifetime American Conservative Union rating. Earlier, presidential senior adviser Karl Rove attended a Boehlert fund-raiser in keeping with White House support for all Republican incumbents.

In 2002, Boehlert received the third largest amount of pro-choice contributions among all House members. The $33,700 given him this election cycle was $24,700 more than House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi received.

It’s probably correct to say that conservatives were surprised, but it shouldn’t be. If you’re suprised the first time you’re stabbed in the back, that’s completely understandable. Maybe even the second time. But if you’re still surprised by the fifth or sixth time it happens, much less the fiftieth or sixtieth time, you’re just being wilfully stupid.

Notice that when it’s close, the Republican big guns are always run out on the side of the liberal.

One of the personal benefits of the end of the Kobe Bryant trial for me is the end of a long and seemingly endless stream of emails from a psychotic woman who has been emailing me nonstop ever since I mentioned the well-established fact that women constantly lie about being raped. With literally every twist-and-turn of the case, she would email me the latest update, always punctuated with the usual idiot’s commentary of the all-dismissive “LOL” and whatnot.

I had no opinion about Kobe one way or the other, but after months of these stupid emails – I finally nuked her after a while, but I checked my killfile a few weeks ago and they were still coming – I found myself ready to pop open a bottle of champagne myself when the prosecution dropped the charges. The knowledge that somewhere out there, this pest is completely beside herself, choking with helpless outrage, doesn’t quite make me laugh out loud, but my lips may have twitched a little.

The female tendency to lie about rape is quite easy to establish, as one has only to compare the percentage difference between arrests and convictions for rape with those of other crimes. The fact that it’s easier to convict someone when the victim is actually dead and cannot possibly, short of courtroom necromancy, testify, demonstrates the extent of the problem.

According to a nine-year study conducted by former Purdue sociologist Eugene J. Kanin, in over 40 percent of the cases reviewed, the complainants eventually admitted that no rape had occurred (Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 23, No. 1, 1994). Kanin also studied rape allegations in two large Midwestern universities and found that 50 percent of the allegations were recanted by the accuser.

Kanin found that most of the false accusers were motivated by a need for an alibi or a desire for revenge. Kanin was once well known and lauded by the feminist movement for his groundbreaking research on male sexual aggression. His studies on false rape accusations, however, received very little attention.

Kanin’s findings are hardly unique. In 1985 the Air Force conducted a study of 556 rape accusations. Over one quarter of the accusers admitted, either just before they took a lie detector test of after they had failed it, that no rape occurred. A further investigation by independent reviewers found that 60 percent of the original rape allegations were false.

Girls crying rape will continue to be a problem until intentionally making a false allegation of a crime is punished as severely as committing the crime itself. No doubt the fastest way to reduce the incidence of American “rape” will be to lock up a few of these lying hussies as an example to the Sisterhood. Then arm the rest of the girls against the real rapists.

But, as Fred has so eloquently said, America isn’t actually interested in solving its problems.

From NRO’s Corner:

Until I saw this headline, I had completely forgotten my first journalism class at the Univ. of Montana. It was titled “Introduction to Journalism”, but we ONLY read Dan Rather’s book, as if it were the Bible. It was all we studied for the entire quarter. I changed my major after that class.

Holy wasted tuition, Batman! They would have been better off reading The Hobbit.

As those few whose interest in the NFL is entirely too active may recall, the Grim Reaper is a label that Chokechain stuck me with. This is due to my tendency to draft one or two of the better backups to some of the league’s more fragile running backs, such as Stephen Jackson (Marshall Faulk), and DeShaun Foster (Stephen Davis). Imagine my chagrin when I saw the following headline, considering that I’d dropped Foster just prior to the start of the season:

Panthers may lose Davis for up to five weeks

But then I remembered that my foe for the upcoming week had picked up Foster and dropped him again! Ha! I quickly zoomed over to our league site and welcomed Foster back to the squad – I’d also had him and Davis last year – and will take great pleasure in unleashing him against a weak KC run defense on the wretched Wallabies this Sunday.

I was just wondering what percentage of the voting public is either hopelessly a) stupid or b) self-centered. I’d like to see someone propose a referendum requiring the government to pay everyone over the age of 18 one million dollars on January 1 every year. What percentage of people would vote for that? I’m guessing at least 25 percent, although you might see higher turnout than normal as you have to imagine that the complete morons would turn out in force for that one.

“Hey, man, check it out! A million dollars?”

– hits bong – “Dude, we so gotta vote!”

I have to admit, I’m getting a little tired of the right-wing blog world getting into an uproar everytime something minor happens in Podunksville or when the left dares to run an ad. The Dan Rather stuff is major, but someone tearing down signs isn’t. Sure, a crying little girl makes for good theatre, but what does it tell you? That left-wing activists are boorish? Hardly news. These are the same people who advocated killing her three years ago, so she’s lucky she got away with merely losing her little sign.

And the Move-On ad with the American soldier trapped in quicksand is not outrageous either. The present situation does resemble that to a certain extent, although I think that Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby are probably a more accurate one. It seems that as we gain more influence, the more we behave like those about whom we have complained about for years. I find that troubling.

There’s enough real outrage in the world; no need to generate the fake stuff.

1. Direct foul language or undeserved insults at another commenter.

2. Continue to repeat a question after it’s been answered.

3. Post trollish comments on every post regardless of whether they are relevant to the post or not.

4. Immediately leap to a tangential objection after your initial objection has been shown to be irrelevant.

5. Show a disingenuous inability to comprehend what you’re reading.

6. Annoy Space Bunny.

7. Defend Nate or Bane. (I’m just kidding, everyone knows there is no defense for those two.)

8. Refuse to answer a specific question when I demand it of you.

9. Constantly asking questions while refusing to answer any.

When DK convinced me that this blog would be much better if, unlike most media commentators, I allowed comments, I was dubious, but I figured it was a worthwhile experiment. I’ve been delighted with the results, and to be honest, I’m shocked that I’ve only had to ban three people in 11 months, as when I first turned comments on, I expected I’d have to ban that many every week.

People can disagree with me all they want, as long as they’re civil Regulars here know that happens all the time. I don’t even mind being mocked and taunted when I deserve it, especially if it’s by those who have earned the right to do so through familiarity and friendship. But if you’re going to challenge me directly, you’d better have a coherent point and be able to back it up. If you don’t actually have a specific case, and all you can fall back on is vague generalities and things that “everybody knows”, then I strongly prefer that you go pester someone else, somewhere else.

I don’t have any problem admitting when I’m wrong. I’ve done it before and I’m sure I’ll do it again in the future. There are plenty of very smart people here and I found myself having to do it twice last week, as a matter of fact. So, if you’re going to comment here, you had better be prepared to do likewise from time to time.