novatownhall blog

Not that it’s remotely likely to happen, but it would be wonderful for San Diego and poor old Norv Turner to knock off the Patriots.

At this juncture, the Chargers have shown they can control the game and also cannot score. It is 14-12 Patriots leading at the end of the 3rd quarter. Chargers play a lot of great football and then kick field goals; Patriots stumble around and every once in a while put it in the end zone. It just isn’t fair.

But if Norv could pull this one out … what a difference it would make for HIS particular head coaching career, the guy who despite his technical knowledge has seemed to show an inability to instill killer instinct in his players. What he has instilled so far over the years has seemed more like “I don’t want to disappoint my mom.” But the Chargers are playing well, especially in defense. If they could just get into the end zone once…

UPDATE: Well, it’s interesting, the Chargers are the third team this season that definitely had the Patriots figured out, but just could not close the deal. On the plus side the Patriots win will make it that much easier to take sides in the Super Bowl.

[If you can say a very condescending "awwww" sound I want you to say one right now. Helpful hints: Begin with a mild "g" and include a very slight audible Darth Vader exhale. "g'hawwwww!!" Good, this will come in handly shortly.]

The Dallas Cowboys just announced that offensive coordinator Jason Garrett has decided to turn down the Baltimore Ravens head coaching job and return to Dallas next year. But not only that:

But Garrett also received more than a title, getting a reported salary raise in the $3 million per year neighborhood.

That was the reported price range the Ravens and Falcons were offering Garrett to become head coach. Instead, Garrett is now making the same as Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips, although a pay raise of his own could be in order, especially after a 13-3 regular-season record in his first season as head coach.

While Garrett received quite a bump in salary, he didn’t say he was offered anything more from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, like a handshake deal or promise that he would some day replace Phillips as the Cowboys’ coach.

The world we live in is complex and multifarious, but not so much so that anyone who’s ever held a job could not immediately recognize the significance of an assistant being wooed by the same compensation package as his “manager”.

Especially after the manager has just been through a very tearful stretch, which could have been so different, “if not for a couple more key plays.”

“That’s why it was so disappointing is we played almost well enough to win,” Phillips said, “and most of the indicators that you usually win by we accomplished but didn’t win the game. I’m still sick over it.”

Wade Phillips, the article says, is “heartsick.” Ok, friends, now it’s your turn: Say it with me:

g’hawwwww!!

Isn’t that just too sad? Let’s hear it one more time for Wade Phillips: g’hawwwww!!

Now, let me clarify something for the heartbroken one: Wade, you did not play “almost well enough to win.” You, in fact, sucked. You brought in a team thinking they were riding a wave and expecting the win to come to them, and you lost to a New York Giants team which came in determined to TAKE the victory. Yes it was close and there were some bad calls, but you should have dominated the injury-plagued Giants. You were driving a Ferrari in November, but then you left her sitting on the beach for six weeks.

This was one of the great underachieving teams in NFL history. Jason Garrett is next in line in Dallas.

A very interesting segment ran on Lou Dobbs tonight.

A coalition of organizations is planning to run a $100 million+ advertising campaign following the national political conventions at the end of the summer. The goal of the PR campaign is to convince the American people to support amnesty for this nation’s tens of millions of “unauthorized” inhabitants.

The gist of the marketing message, as far as I can tell, will be to cajole, delude, wheedle, suck up to and put a bit of a guilt trip on America’s legal residents in order to encourage them to vote for pro-amnesty candidates at every level in the fall.

The pro-illegal lobby has enormous financial resources, which gives them a definite edge, but they also lack brains and understanding, which works in the favor of us rebels.

At present, the public face of this effort is Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together. There is nothing relevant on their Web site yet, but on the Dobbs program MATT exec Lionel Sosa gave a hint of the organization’s angle by opining that the root cause of the illegal immigration problem in the U.S. is that U.S. citizens “invited” Mexicans and Latin Americans to enter our country illegally

It’s all “our” doing, don’t you know, so we will just have to suck it up and do the right thing by making all of the trespassers invited guests. (This will also include all of their relatives, by extension, but I’m going to take a wild guess that THAT fact won’t exactly be highlighted in the advertisements.)

Sosa also noted that a consortium of U.S. industries profiting from illegal labor – agriculture, hospitality, construction – along with the Mexican government, would be sponsors of the PR campaign.

This will be a fascinating political interlude. How will the American people respond to a massive propaganda campaign on behalf of corrupt American companies and one of the king-hell corrupt countries on the planet?

How stupid are we as a nation? This episode might answer the question definitively.

Heh heh heh heh heh. I knew there was something off about these guys, but I had no idea ….

The Virginia-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) recently disclosed that its employees killed more than 97 percent of the dogs, cats, and other pets they took in during 2006…

So yesterday we wrote to the Commissioner of Virginia’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) with a simple request: Since PETA behaves like a slaughterhouse, it’s time to officially label it a slaughterhouse.

There’s something about hypocrisy that is so gosh darn entertaining.

On the other hand, it’s pretty grim that to these folks, “Ethical Treatment of Animals” in the vast majority of cases means killing them.

When you hear a PETA rep use the word “ethics,” reach for your gun.

The Blonde One Who Is Smarter Than I Or Thou has spoken:It’s Romney:

One clue that Romney is our strongest candidate is the fact that Democrats keep viciously attacking him while expressing their deep respect for Mike Huckabee and John McCain.

This point was already extensively covered in Chapter 1 of “How To Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)”: Never take advice from your political enemies…

The candidate Republicans should be clamoring for is the one liberals are feverishly denouncing. That is Mitt Romney by a landslide.

It is well argued, as usual, although I’m not 100% sold on Romney yet. Go read it all if you are looking for a good chuckle this afternoon.

Maybe I can clear something up for our visitors who have become entangled in the recent long discussion. You see, there is a significant strand of modern liberal thought which is deeply vested in the notion that white America is inexorably racist. The only way this condition can be cured, the theory goes, is through major structural reforms.

As most of us know, the whole “major structural reform” concept is a dear one to the left, particularly if it mitigates against anything that might be considered remotely “traditional” about our nation and our culture.

You know, our horrible, patriarchical society where sex is deeply repressed (funny how people have kept getting themselves reproduced, though!), our values such as personal self-sufficiency and personal responsibility are unfair, and where the whole dirty thing was basically born out of the sin of slavery.

For a number of reasons, many of those on the left are invested in this interpretation of reality. This is why our friends like Zimzo see bigots behind every tree. And in a sense, this is true, because in that reality being white means you are likely a bigot unless you are a leftist like Zimzo (although, as we have seen, Zimzo has had serious problems overcoming his own original sin in this regard.)

In fairness, we do need to allow that many “liberals” – whom I do not equate with “leftists,” which I might delve into further in another post – simply have not thought this one through. They are TAUGHT that whites are by nature bigots, and it may take time for them to overcome this cultural “bad parenting.”

Since our cherished yet ultimately misguided resident liberals are clamoring for someone, ANYONE to respond to the notorious post #9: Your eagerness touches me, so this time I will tell you what I think:

I think H.E. is seriously pissed off, but from all of his or her previous posts over the past two years I do not think the person is a racist at all. They demonstrate a fair amount of worldliness and have indicated they live in a multi-ethnic neighborhood – either Sterling or Manassas. I can tell you that both of these areas have been heavily Hispanic for a long time, but the you-know-what has only hit the fan in the past 7 years.

H.E. has in fact agreed with the thesis that illegal immigration has its worst impact on black Americans. I don’t see this individual shying away from brown or black people in the supermarket check out line.

The gist of H.E.’s axe to grind seems to me to be not a problem with who or what “they” are, but with what they DO – i.e. not demonstrating a willingness to play by the rules, jump through the proper hoops, and in general take the necessary steps to become American.

I have written about this phenomenon that migrant workers are akin to “renters” writ large in the context of our culture: They have no investment in it, and do not intend to become part of it, and therefore create their own enclaves.

(I know Zimzo argues that the lessons of 1908 should guide our policies today. I strongly disagree, but that is an argument for another post.)

I get the sense that H.E. has some direct experience with the subculture of illegal domestic employment. He or she has spoken with apparent personal knowledge about conditions in the public schools and social services agencies. If H.E. lives in one of the areas of Manassas with higher population of illegals, it does not surprise me that his or her rants might occasionally take on a tribal tone because I have heard the same thing from many other longtime residents who would not otherwise be classified as racist in the least.

I fall on the side of libertarianism when speech is involved, as you all know, and I think our nation is raising a generation (or two) of crybabies, so even though they were characterizations I would not use, I would not call H.E. a bigot. I’d just say H.E. is ranting, so deal with it.

But it is a fascinating topic how speech is interpreted nowadays when so many otherwise intelligent people are wearing bigot-seeking goggles, so thanks for asking.

Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling and Attorney General Bob McDonnell recently rolled out their legislative agendas. It was heartening to see that both focused on immigration, mental health, public safety, and government reform… however I was a bit surprised to see that only the LG went further in addressing issues of importance to commonsense conservatives. As far as I can tell, only he addressed abusive driver fees, reigning in spending, protecting Virginia taxpayers with comprehensive proposals, the 65% solution for education, abstinence only education programs, and second amendment rights. Unfortunately, the AG’s legislative package doesn’t appear to be as aggressively conservative and tackle some of these important issues.

While not addressing some of the more core conservative policy issues, it’s worth noting AG’s package did propose banning the use of phosphorus in detergents for household dishwashing machines.

The bottom line is it appears that the LG is a bit more focused on conservative issues Republicans care about. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays into the looming 2009 battle.

More soon…