Oddly, this week’s TMQ gets a link on the FARK sports tab. We can’t remember the last time FARK bothered to link to TMQ.
And what does the collective hive mind of the Daily Kos FARK have to say? That, and this week’s TMQ, after the jump…
793 words down. Our favorite comment from the FARK thread:
Sweet: Green Bay. Sour: Philadelphia. Mixed: Lions-Jets.
Credit where credit is due: TMQ’s link to a Tom Lehrer song made us grin.
On the other hand, TMQ then spends 411 words pointing out that actually, Nate Silver, TMQ used a Kierkegaard quote in a column 14 years ago. And that TMQ has been beating the anti-Redskins drum for 15 years now.
This, in turn, is followed by another 1,023 words explaining why rich people shouldn’t give money to Harvard. We don’t entirely disagree with TMQ’s position here, but this is another drum he’s been beating on for years now; why keep beating this horse when there’s other things to write about, TMQ? (For example, the puntless Green Bay game.)
(Also, TMQ still thinks a tax deduction is a subsidy.)
(Also also:
So TMQ thinks $50,000 per year per undergrad is enough for a university? How did he determine that? And who appointed him the decider?)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it, Gregg: you think it’s silly that Oakland was the “home” team in London. But the way NFL football works, someone has to be the “home” team for game purposes. You’d be making the same complaint if it had been Miami. If you think the London games are stupid, fine. But at least try to make an honest argument for that proposition.
Gregg Easterbrook still thinks the “Hawaii Five-0” remake is unrealistic. Actually, he calls it “the nuttiest network prime-time series”.
Actually, in “The Silence of the Lambs” (both the book and film), Hannibal Lecter escaped from temporary quarters, to which he had been moved after claiming he could help solve the abduction of Senator Martin’s daughter. He did not escape from “maximum-security confinement”.
In “The Dark Knight,” the Joker escaped a lockup by setting off a bomb that killed all the policemen yet didn’t scratch him, though he was standing in close proximity.
We only saw the movie once, but wasn’t the Joker an entire floor below the bomb? Or at least not in “close proximity” to it?
The Santa Clara 49ers are cursed, cursed!, says TMQ. Lots of penalties, bad clock management, bad draft picks, questionable quarterbacking…
We quote the first paragraph of the next item in its entirety:
In Praise Of Sweaters: October begins tomorrow, and with it the full glory of autumn. Your columnist’s favorite season is autumn — leaves are turning, the weather is changing (I like cool weather), football is being played, the wonderful Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas holiday sequence is in prospect, and everyone looks better in sweaters.
Also, everyone looks better in sweaters?
Might want to rethink that, Gregg.
The secret to Houston’s win over Buffalo? Buffalo went pass-whacky. (These are looking like the Bills we thought they were.) Ron Rivera is a classy guy, even if he is coaching a not-great team.
…but if India can show the way to lower-cost access to the heavens, that would be the most important space achievement in some time — far more important than NASA’s space station.
But wouldn’t “lower-cost access to the heavens” necessarily involve some sort of fundamental breakthrough in technology? The kind of breakthrough that TMQ says would be required to make a Mars mission feasible?
The sun never sweats on Tom Brady. Oh, we’re sorry; the actual question is, “Is The Sun Setting On Tom Brady?”. Whenever a headline asks a question, the answer is almost always “No”. In the case of Brady, we’re inclined to believe that his problem isn’t age, but a bad offensive line. And that bad offensive line has been brought about, at least in part, by an owner who is unwilling to pay for players, even with money Brady has left on the table for that purpose.
On the other hand, Brady may be getting old. But he’s a year younger than TMQ’s beloved Peyton Manning.
Denny’s new Wall Street location offers a $300 Grand Cru Slam breakfast with a bottle of Dom Perignon.
If it is the 2004 Dom, we’re only looking at a 100% markup, depending on which online vendor you’re looking at: possibly not even that. (We’ll assume Denny’s gets the case price of $184.50. So the markup is $115.50, which is about 62% of the original price, if we did the math right. “..the “conventional markup” at New York fine-dining restaurants sees bottles sell for around three times the wholesale cost.”) Does Dom go well with bacon, or do you order the pork sausages instead?
And actually, if you look at the menu, that’s two Grand Slam breakfasts, not one. But it’s also the 2003 Dom, not the 2004, which complicates our calculations a bit. But the Daily News says that’s actually a pretty good deal, and who are we to doubt a major New York newspaper?
Damn. Now we’re hungry.
The NFL has no shame. Maybe the NCAA does, but we’ve never felt the length of scholarships has anything to do with “shame”.
TMQ does touch relatively briefly on the University of Michigan situation. It’d be a shame if Shane Morris is used to justify Brady Hoke’s firing for not winning games; on the other hand, in our opinion, Hoke deserves to be fired for not benching Morris (and ignoring NCAA policy).
Liberalism has a blind spot regarding money management — no matter what the question, the answer must always be more spending. And it’s this blind spot that harms the prospects of liberalism. The average person has no way of knowing how much a space launch or a Syria bombing campaign should cost, but everyone understands that 2½ years to replace three escalators is absurd.
While we agree with this, it should be noted that the quote above comes from one of America’s most prominent advocates of a space-based asteroid defense.
Bad blitzing: New Orleans.
The football gods chortled. We actually have some mild heartburn at the moment; we’re hoping this doesn’t turn into another night of hiccups, as we have to get up at 4 AM.
Indianapolis and New Orleans (TMQ’s Super Bowl picks) are a combined 3-5. Seriously, what’s wrong with the Saints?
Speaking of which, chicken-(salad) kicking: New Orleans.
General Motors cars have improved markedly
Really?
but GM has been embarrassed by a series of management failures under CEOs Dan Akerson and Mary Barra, especially the cover-up of defective ignition switches.
…
Based on what’s now known, it seems Akerson and Barra were substantially overpaid. The company’s own report described Akerson and Barra as failed executives who ran a management culture of “incompetence and neglect.” So why aren’t prosecutors trying to claw back their undeserved bonuses?
Why would prosecutors be involved? What law makes it a crime to overpay executives? Even ones that, in retrospect, failed?
Bottom line of the bailout? “The government gave $352 billion in aid to [General Motors and close affiliates] and recovered $377.6 billion, according to Treasury.” That does not take into account opportunity cost — $352 billion invested in the S&P in 2008 would today be worth about $560 billion. So around $200 billion is the true cost to taxpayers for rescuing General Motors and the financial company now called Ally.
Yeah, we’re not big fans of the bailout, either. But isn’t TMQ making an assumption here; if GM and “Ally” had been allowed to collapse, would the S&P today be worth anywhere near the current value? Isn’t it at least possible that the collapse of GM would have set off shock waves that resulted in a substantial decline in the value of the S&P? And that the lost value wouldn’t have been recovered six years later? We don’t know; we just don’t think the case is as one-sided as TMQ makes it out to be.
Climate change. The New York Football Giants are 2-2, and the Washington Redskins stink.
Adventures in officiating: the celebration penalty is stupid, should the Vikings have had to take the 10-second runoff, and a bad call for Dallas.
Will Gus Bradley go next? The 500, 600, and 700 Clubs. Alderson-Broaddus 67, Limestone 14.
Single worst play of the season in week 4: Pittsburgh.
And that’s a wrap. Keep circulating the tapes.