Whipped Cream Difficulties

Unleash the kraken 1972 Miami Dolphins auto-text! Plus, we all live in a nuclear submarine, TMQ has a new book out, and more, in this week’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback! After the jump…

TMQ’s teams “with the best chance to hoist the Lombardi Trophy in New Orleans”: Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Green Bay, Houston, New York Giants, New England, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco.

“Any of City of Tampa, Minnesota and Seattle could round out the postseason bracket. My chips for surprise playoff entrant are on Indianapolis.”

(As a side note: every year we say “Houston teams will break your heart.” We still believe that. But after Sunday night, we’re starting to wonder…maybe, just maybe, this year?)

TMQ’s new novel, The Leading Indicators, comes out today. Noted without comment:

Your columnist has written a number of well-regarded books, but never had a commercial hit. Having one would keep me going, in more than one respect. Your views matter. I ask your help: buy the book, then say what you think on the Web.

Sweet: Denver – Carolina, New Orleans – Atlanta. Sour: Dallas – Philadelphia. Mixed: San Diego – Tampa.

“Don’t New Orleans coaches worry about reproductive health?” Dear Gregg: the next-to-last thing we want to think about is the reproductive health of New Orleans coaches. (The last thing we want to think about is the reproductive health of Andy Reid.)

(Speaking of which, we’re still confident Andy Reid, Rex Ryan, and Norv Turner are on the way out. “…under Reid, the Eagles have made the playoffs nine of the past 12 seasons.” Yeah, and gotten nowhere in them.)

There is tremendous potential to use streamlining and consolidating to cut the cost of government, while maintaining services. Twice Obama has promised this, then never followed up. Talk is cheap.

Should Romney have picked Rob Portman over Paul Ryan?

If Romney had picked Portman, there’s a good chance he would have carried Ohio, and his odds in Florida would have been better.

Bears – Texans. Alabama, why didn’t you run the ball? (“TMQ hopes you watched the game; football doesn’t get any more exciting.” Yeah, we missed it. We’re not big Texas A&M fans, either, but we have to say, way to go, guys.)

Maybe after you pass the guards and biometric scanners to enter the SCIF room at Langley, what you find is an iPad on a table with Gmail open.

Borepatch, care to comment? Or can you? (We kid, we kid.)

But the White House looks worst in this affair. During the campaign, Democratic operatives kept saying theirs is the party that respects women, including women’s private choices, while asserting Republicans were engaged in a super-sinister “war on women.” Just two days into his new term, Obama presides over the release of information calculated to humiliate Paula Broadwell. Her offense was what, being sexually active? Liking the military?

Having sex with another woman’s husband?

The Framers feared the anonymous accusation, and you should, too. The Framers’ view was that if there is enough evidence to charge a person with a crime, then charge that person in a public court; if not, say nothing.

Well said, TMQ.

And the Framers thought government should enforce laws but not dictate morals. The four people named in this scandal may have broken vows, but government should care only whether they have broken laws. Otherwise, government gets into the business of declaring what constitutes proper or improper private behavior. That road leads to witch hunts.

Also well said, but we hold out little hope TMQ will remember saying “government should enforce laws but not dictate morals”, given his past history.

What is it with the Rams and long field goal attempts? Why do aliens need gold? (A much better review of “Cowboys and Aliens” can be found here.)

Not Christmas creep, but impossible to tell from the real thing. Da Bills.

Were you looking for a long list of high school games where more than 100 points total were scored? TMQ has it.

California has wacky playoffs, too. (But “Rancho Bernardo High made the playoffs at 1-9, while Otay Ranch snuck in at 2-8”? Gregg, we never want to hear you criticize the Texas system again.)

Chicken-<salad> kicks: Jacksonville, Jets.

Last week, the assumption that money buys votes simply was wrong.

1. If true, that’s awesome. Can TMQ and other folks shut up about Citizens United and campaign finance reform now?
2. Can you really say “the assumption that money buys votes” was wrong, given the amount spent by the Obama campaign?
3. We have heard other folks complaining about the money spent on campaign ads. But that money wasn’t just piled up and burnt; that money went to newspapers and radio and television stations. Folks should be happy all that money was spent on campaign ads; that money propped up the dying mass media for a little while longer.

In one of the sweetest traditions in sports lore, on opening day of every NFL season, each surviving member of the 1972 Miami Dolphins…

If Gregg Easterbrook can drag this out of his AutoText, then by Ghu, we can repeat what we wrote in 2010:

The Dolphins item is my single biggest yearly annoyance with TMQ.
First of all, it’s lazy writing. Literally, lazy writing; Easterbrook brags about how he has the entire paragraph in his Microsoft Word AutoText, and plans to keep it there “because no NFL team’s going to go 19-0″. I’d root for the Detroit Lions to go 19-0, if it would just shut TMQ the heck up.
Second of all, it’s wrong. Wrong wrong wrongity wrong. I can’t believe readers haven’t written in and told Easterbrook this; it’s on freakin’ Snopes, for crying out loud! Given the amount of time and space Easterbrook devotes to bashing other non-fiction authors and publishers, it seems odd that he continues to knowingly and willfully repeat this error.

In a related note, the useless Poynter Institute‘s tenure as ESPN ombudsman has ended. Perhaps the new ombudsman will be more receptive to observations about TMQ’s repeating debunked myths in his column.

Some days you get the bear. Other days, the bear gets you.

Oh, look. TMQ thinks “Last Resort” is unrealistic. And…you know…he kind of has a point, at least as far as a first strike on Pakistan diverting attention from American wrongdoing.

“Why would the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have a listening post in the South Pacific?” Uh, why not? (Edited to add: to clarify, we are aware it is the “North Atlantic” Treaty Organization. However, both NATO and the Soviet Union did not operate exclusively in the North Atlantic.)

The Jimmy Carter, a Seawolf-class submarine, can board and discharge commandos while submerged, a feature that cost taxpayers nearly a billion dollars.

We would love to see a citation for that billion dollar figure.

My car makes a GPS log of its position.

Wow. As a struggling blogger, we can’t afford a car with a fancy feature like GPS logging of its position. We have to rely on…our $200 cell phone. (Also, GPS signals don’t work well under water, especially at the depths a nuclear submarine would operate at. We wonder if the show actually used the term “GPS logging”, or if that’s just an Easterbrookian interpolation?)

Jones was caught from behind by the punter.

Hey, we saw that replay: that was a great effort by the punter.

Last Friday night, Pulaski faced only two fourth downs in the entire game.

And a one, and a two, and a one two three: Who did they play, Gregg? (The Vilonia Eagles. You’re welcome.)

More chicken-<salad> kicks. We’re with TMQ on Vick’s $7,875 fine; we don’t much like Vick, but we think a fine for a “routine football mistake” is excessive.

Who can go the distance? We’ll find out, in the long runs. Creep. “TMQ believes the 2016 race will pit Jenna Bush versus Chelsea Clinton…” We were all set to make a snarky comment about this, but we checked the numbers; yes, both will be constitutionally eligible for the office in 2016. We suddenly feel very old.

Cam Newton’s sophomore slump. Wagner 31, Holy Cross 30. Union of Kentucky 60, Pikeville College 59.

Next week, TMQ takes a bye. As for TMQ watch, we’re not sure yet. Stay tuned for details.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 13th, 2012 at 3:40 pm and is filed under Books, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.