good old fashioned hate

It's that time of year again. We are drawing nearer the end of another college football season as Thanksgiving rings the dinner bell and sets off many of the sports rivalries across the nation. And here I am with my attempt to extend the rivalry between my alma mater's Yellow Jackets and the cross-state University of Georgia Bulldogs.

UGA fans will try to tell you that the Georgia Tech "Bees" are not their biggest rivalry. They try to give that designation to the Florida Gators most times. Then, when it's convenient, they'll point to Alabama and Auburn or even Tennessee when they're good. Sometimes it's even as far away as LSU. But it's all a charade. When they get beaten by those teams on the field it's always because the other team was better than their beloved Dawgs (sic) and because the SEC is just so derned tough. But grown men cry when the Dogs lose to the Nerds. Which I have to admit has not happened in some time.

So that brings us to 2008. Both teams have impressive records so far this season. UGA is 9-2 with losses to Alabama and Florida, admittedly fierce opponents. Tech is 8-3 with losses to somewhat respectable ACC opponents VT, UVA, and UNC. I use the term somewhat loosely because it's tough to tell the good teams in a conference that has routinely beat up on one another. But all of that aside, Tech is still a contender for a spot in the ACC championship game and will at least have the same conference record as the VT Hokies if they happen to beat Virginia this weekend. They win the tie-breaker with their 3-point margin of victory over us in that scenario. The Dogs on the other hand? They're done for the regular season after this week but look to score an impressive non-BCS bowl berth if things go their way. Seems that the two teams they lost two are going to battle it out for the SEC championship.

All of that aside, I feel like it's time for some good ribbing of the Dogs. So here are some of my feeble attempts at making fun of the traditionally low academic standards at UGA, criminal tendencies of their athletes, interesting study paths (such as poultry science and turf management), and other easily manipulated for gain attributes of the Cesspool of the South, aka UGA.

First, let's look at one of the easily modifiable jokes of all time.

Q: What does a UGA grad call a Tech alumnus?

A: Boss.

It wouldn't be funny really because it's somewhat lame and you really could put any two dichotomous entities in that joke to make it universal. But it is ridiculously funny when you consider that a Tech graduate was just named CEO of Wal-Mart. It really is true this year!

Then there is another old standard about their academic aptitudes.

Did you hear that there was a fire at the UGA library? Pretty much every book was burned which is tragic considering that a lot of them hadn't even been colored in yet!

Har har. I know, that's not entirely fair. They do have some great programs at UGA. Such as their excellent law school. They're just not offered in undergraduate studies. (zing!) Okay, fine. It's great if you're going to study agriculture, animal husbandry or if you want to run for public office in Georgia or want to work for the AJC.

Here's another old standard.

Q: What do a UGA fan and a Tech fan have in common?

A: They both never went to UGA!

And yet another.

Q: Why can't they offer Driver's Ed and Sex Ed during the same semester at UGA?

A: They wouldn't want to wear out the mule!

And again.

Q: What do you call a UGA football player in a 3-piece suit?

A: The Defendant

Oh, I could go all day long but if you're wanting more, the AJC is actually making itself useful for once and are using their rant-page technology to allow people to publish tons more in this general vicinity. If you go there, you'll notice that a lot of these jokes are fairly unoriginal on my part.

And just so that my blog is never targeted by the Fairness Doctrine enforcement agency, we'll put one UGA joke up that is rightly deserved.

Bubba: Oh, Cledus. You know my old dog we got a while back? He's a true Jorja Bulldawgs fan. When the Dawgs beat them ol' Nerds he goes wild, justa' barking and howling like mad! It's a true sight to watch that old dog celebrate.

Cledus: Well what does he do when they lose to Teck?

Bubba: Don't rightly know. I've only had him for 7 years.

Hopefully, we'll find out what that dog does do when they lose this Saturday.

Go Jackets! And TO HELL WITH GEORGIA!

it's like entertainment tonight, but for politics

From the looks as of late, it seems like cnn.com should get a second domain name. How about ObamaCentral.com?

Or EverythingObamaAllTheTime.com

Or WhatIsTheUSPresidentElectUpToRightNow.com

Or ObamaJustTookAPoop.com

Yes, I could really do this all day long. But I won't.

ObamaJustTookAdvantageOfTheBenefitsOfInhalingOxygenMolecules.com

Ok, had to get one more in. I'm really done now.

me too!

When I was growing up, my mother got one point across to me early on in my childhood. Actions have consequences. My actions then were sometimes likely to end with me having a stinging, red behind. Now it seems like the actions of others are leaving me with a stinging, red behind.

I had a huge problem with our Federal government deciding how it's citizens should pick and choose winners and losers in the economy. Keep in mind that we didn't really have a say. All we needed was a President and his cronies (Paulson et al) to declare a crisis and demand "bi-partisan" action teaching me that I need to make sure that I have powerful friends when whatever business I'm in starts to hiccup because of poor business decision making.

The main misconception that most people have regarding the bailout is that it was caused by a lack of regulation. Untrue. It was actually caused by regulation. How? Regulations simply tell people what they cannot do. Then a bunch of lawyers and accountants get together and figure out what they can do that doesn't break those rules. They can get pretty creative as we've seen. So the answer is to ask them to be even more devious? No. The answer is to let them fail. That is the ultimate consequence of bad business practices. Yes, people will lose their jobs, an unfortunate side-effect. I doubt they'd stay unemployed for long if we stop overreacting. But it makes good copy on slow news days so I guess it's what we're stuck with.

And as even more reason to detest the bailout is that everyone is stepping up to the trough now. I mean everyone. Even Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin. Never mind that she just asked for a quarter-million dollar paycheck. I'll ask for more money for myself while I also ask for all of my workers to take less by working fewer hours. "But it's all in the best interests of our city!" Yeah.

In better news, it looks like you can apply for your portion of the government bailout. Check this link. Happy paperwork filling-out!

optimism

Ah.

The election season, which is about two years long now, is finally coming to a close. Except here in Georgia where we have a Senate runoff because of a tenth of a percent of voters. So here we look forward to having four more weeks of the nastiest campaign ads that we'll ever see, at least for about four more years. Maybe two depending on how hot and contested the mid-term elections get. Or more realistically about three months afterwards with the current running average on campaign lengths.

I have to admit that it's my fault that Barack Obama won. If I had stayed up and watched the results, I am sure that it would have turned out differently. Too bad I find the whole process superficial and what's the word...? Boring? I mean, come on. Does a guy really need to spend $6 billion dollars to get elected to a job that rakes in about $400k annually? At that rate, he can look forward to a return on investment in about 15,000 years. Good luck on extending that term limit there, buddy. Hope it was worth it. For that kind of scratch, I'd have just bought my own third-world country and been king until I die. Your wimpy President job is no match for being a ruthless ruler. Your job has expectations of greatness. Mine would demand that people call me "Greatness." People would bow down to you because they think you're a saint or something. Mine would bow to me because otherwise I would kill their goats, hose down their mud houses, and ride off on their women. Sucker.

It's funny that a good portion of the US voting population has confidence in an Obama presidency. It's ironic that the people that matter don't. You know, the ones with the money that drives the economy? People who read real history books (not crummy high school textbook versions) have seen a lot of this policy of "change" stuff before. Let's talk again in four years after this guy has proven himself to be a bigger and badderest version of Jimmy Carter.

PS - Calling Barack Obama "this guy" in that last sentence is probably a racist statement.

most historical in history

Is 'historical' even a word? It is in the dictionary but it still sounds wrong. "Historic" makes sense to me. Adding the '-al' at the end just sounds made up. It's not. Like I said before, it is in the dictionary. Doesn't mean I have to like it.

Anyhow... is this really the most "historic election" in history of all known history for historians? I disagree. Different? Milestony? (I can make up words, too!) Sure. But the most historical in history? Probably not. To be honest, the most historational election in my opinion occurred when good ol' GW (that's George Washington for those of you who know president's initials, not George Wallace who was never President or even Gail Weathers who was only president of the elementary school PTA) stepped down and admitted that the job sucks, it was more fun to go home to a farm overlooking a beautiful river, and it was someone else's turn to suffer in the position. John Adams, you sucker.

I guess there are some points worthy of making this election historical for historians of history. It is the first election where Starbucks is offering free, illegal coffee just for voting.

And as a shout-out to all the morons who waited in hours-long lines to vote early, it only took us 40 minutes from getting in line at the polls to getting in line at the local Starbucks to pay for a non-free coffee. And the voting line was significantly shorter (about half as long) when we left the polls.