Tennessee Week: Us vs Y’all

Here we go again. This time, the calendar is right.

Alabama plays Tennessee at Neyland Stadium on Saturday, 20 October 2018.

This is absolutely one of the most intense and storied rivalries in SEC and college football history. For many Alabama fans, Tennessee is the most despised rival, even over that thing we have on the last regular season game of every year. For many Tennessee fans, this rivalry’s intensity exceeds the one they have with Florida.

On the field, Tennessee has beaten Alabama 37 times. No other team on the planet can claim 37 victories against Alabama.

Tennessee has 13 SEC Championships. No other school in the league is as close to Alabama’s 25.

Beginning in 1995 with Peyton Manning as a sophomore leading the band in that absolutely awful Rocky Top song in Knoxville, Tennessee ran off a streak of seven straight victories in the series. No team in the SEC has ever beaten Alabama seven straight times and it may not ever happen again. Tennessee rightfully claims six National Championships. No other team in the SEC is as close as Alabama’s 16.

These are the two marquee programs of SEC Football lore. These are the two flagships. Florida may have more fans and more TV viewers. Georgia, too. But no two programs have done more on the field than Alabama and Tennessee. Nobody. No two programs can claim head coaching legends like Paul W. Bryant and General Robert Neyland.

Neyland said: “You never know what a football player is made of until he plays against Alabama.”

Bryant said: “Yeah, Auburn’s got a pretty good team but Tennessee is the one you gotta look out for.”

It’s 11 decades of college football at its finest and most intense.

Early in the series and up until the advent of televised football games, both teams wore their home colors. Tennessee in their bright Orange; Alabama in their deep Crimson. What better symbol of Autumn could there be than seeing these two line up against each other like that?

One of my earliest football memories was listening to the 1972 game on the patio with my father. Bama was down 10-3 late in the fourth quarter due to a very stout Tennessee defense. But the Tide somehow managed to score two touchdowns in under two minutes and pulled out a 17-10 victory. Bama play-by-play announcer John Forney was nearly unintelligible as the final seconds ran off the clock, but my father’s grin as he pulled out the Victory Cigar was all I needed to be told—beating Tennessee is special.

It’s the Third Saturday in October.

It’s Us vs Y’all.

Is Mizzou a ‘trap’ game for Alabama?

I’m just looking under the hood at a not-to-shabby Missouri offense coming in to face a suddenly vulnerable defensive secondary. The backfield that was already young and already showing it against the not-to-shabby offenses of Texas A&M and Arkansas needs growth. If you watched those games, you saw a lot of guys running around in the open field. There have been a few costly injuries too, but the loss of Trevon Diggs is going to hurt. Some guys are gonna need to step up back there. But I am not suggesting that Alabama will lose to Missouri at home this Saturday.

Missouri has what could be an NFL starter at quarterback someday. Drew Lock doesn’t have stellar numbers. He’s just under 60% completion-wise and has a blue collar-ish 137.7 QB rating. But he is a fourth year senior, he’s a good athlete and has a John Elway, Brett Favre hellwithit attitude. He’s also playing behind one of the SEC’s better pass blocking offensive lines. Missouri may be a 3-2 team, but their losses were to Georgia and South Carolina, and they put up 29 and 35 points respectively.

Alabama’s offense almost couldn’t get any better. That is a historic statement, y’all.  Tua Tagovailoa has been unearthly in his first year as a starter. He has a fleet of receivers to throw to, and he’s been spreading it around like a Democrat on election day. The guy had more touchdowns than incompletions against Arkansas. Alabama has averaged 56 points per game through the first six outings, and Tua hasn’t taken a single 4th quarter snap since 2nd and 26 in overtime against Georgia in the National Championship Game last January.

Forget any notion that Alabama’s front seven is vulnerable, porous, suspect or any other adjective meaning “less than capable.” It’s one of the meanest bunches that Bama has fielded since the 2011-12 teams. Besides, Mizzou throws first and runs later, just like the Big 12 teams they left to join the SEC. In fact, handing the ball off to a running back is almost a trick play for them.

So no, I am not suggesting that Mizzou notches the upset. I am suggesting that this game will be a tougher row to hoe than we’ve seen yet this season, and that Bama’s Heisman favorite QB may need to see some action late Saturday night.

Bama still wins it.

Alabama 49, Missouri 33

Kanye West in the White House, and it’s magic

Music mogul Kanye West visited President Donald Trump in the White House today, and it was ‘winning,’ y’all.

Two things: One: When was the last time you saw a President sit and listen while another man talked? I didn’t hear President Trump’s voice until more than six minutes into this clip. Two: When was the last time a President listen to a black man like this? Not just sit quietly while his guest spoke, but listen intently. Look at Trump’s face. The man is listening.

This is how dialog begins. You don’t have to agree with everything another man or woman says. But if you’re going to work with people you then have to listen to them. How can you find common ground with anyone if you don’t know where he stands?

One other note: Ronald Reagan won two terms by going around the media’s Maginot Line and speaking directly to the American people, and he also won working class Democrats. Trump speaks directly to the people, and if he’s able to win open-minded minority voters like Kanye, look out.

This video needs no more commentary from me. Just watch and listen (there is some NSFW language).

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On the Democrats’ Kavanaugh Debacle, Doug Jones didn’t care what his constituents wanted.

Yellowhammer News had this piece last weekend, just before Alabama’s Junior Senator Doug Jones followed the party line and vote “No” in the Roll Call vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the United States’ Supreme Court.

On CNN “New Day, “Jones was asked point blank if he thought a majority of his constituents wanted him to vote to confirm. His response shocks absolutely no one.

The key exchange comes at about the 4:18 mark in the roughly 5:00 segment. The full segment is interesting. Give the host some credit for setting a surprisingly unbiased stage for Jones, but notice that Jones completely evades any and all direct questions from the host.

Jones is evasive on the very first question and tries his best to act as if he is sad about the climate that his own party created. Remember, Jones is the only sitting Democrat elected in a statewide election in Alabama. As far as Alabamians are concerned, he is the Democrat Party in this state. He is the party’s lone standard bearer in the Yellowhammer State and he just hates to see such bitterness and turmoil?

More on how he could have changed his party’s image below the clip.

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He voted “no,” because he “was the one who spent all the time and hours…” researching Kavanaugh’s record. Before saying that, he dismissed the high probability that Alabamians approved of Kavanaugh’s confirmation, saying that the majority opinion of Alabama voters was not the “be all and end all” of this process.

Gentle readers, this is liberal groupthink through and through. Though he does not say it outright, the message conveyed in these two statements is clear: “The voters I represent are not qualified or capable of evaluating the merits of this nominee. I have done that for you, and I will do what I think is best, whether you like it or not.”

This is why Alabamians generally don’t like Democrats. We’re just fine thinking for ourselves, sir.

Had Jones’ office even bothered to consider Alabamians’ opinions on the nomination, he would have paused. He would most assuredly have found that at least a plurality—if not a clear majority—wanted Kavanaugh confirmed. And had he done so, he could have ended the national nightmare that lasted from Sept 27 through October 6. If you watched the news or followed events of those nine days online, you saw American politics at its ugliest. If you have small children, you had to hide their eyes and ears from the evening news and no parent should have to do that.

That whole hot mess could have been avoided if Jones had simply issued a statement that read:

“I have considered the testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. I have reviewed Judge Kavanaugh’s record and qualifications. I have considered the voices of my constituents. While I have concerns about Judge Kavanaugh’s positions on some matters, I cannot find any evidence that disqualifies this nominee. Accordingly, I will heed the wishes of my constituents and I will vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh.

Jones voted against Kavanaugh because Chuck Schumer told him to. The allegedly centrist independent toed the party line and made up a lousy excuse for it. Instead of taking his first opportunity to display his Maverick bona fides and buck party loyalty, he caved to the Democrat mob and followed orders.

Alabama voters have very long memories. The national political circus will move on to about 63,096 different topics between now and November 2020.  We won’t. We will remember that we gave Doug Jones a chance to be the independent he claimed to be and failed at the first chance he had.

Senator Fail: Doug Jones’ task force couldn’t find serial bomber Eric Rudolph for FIVE YEARS.

From early 1998 through early 2003, Eric Rudolph’s elusiveness was a running joke. It was a lot like Saturday Night Live (when SNL was still funny and relevant) and the Weekend Update report that Spanish strongman Generalissimo Francisco Franco was ‘still dead.’

What Rudolph did was not funny. He planted bombs in Atlanta and Birmingham, targeting abortion clinics gay bars and the 1996 Olympics. But the federal task force set up to capture him was a Keystone Kops affair that failed miserably in its efforts to bring him in.

That task force of local, state and federal law enforcement was headed up by none other than the junior Senator from the state of Alabama.

President Bill Clinton appointed Jones as the US Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama in August 1997. He became point man for the task force in 1998.

For the next five years, Rudolph successfully evaded capture. He wasn’t caught until May 2003 when a rookie cop in a small town in North Carolina saw a bum rummaging through garbage for breakfast. Five years. Millions of federal dollars. And it took the sharp eye of a 21-year old Barney Fife to bring him in.

When Jones ran in the 2017 special election to fill the seat left by former Senator and eventual Attorney General Jeff Sessions, President Donald Trump correctly labeled him as ‘soft on crime.’ Local and national media raced to his defense and gave him all the bandwidth and column inches he needed to talk about his ‘record as a prosecutor.’

But no one asked about his miserable role in the task force that couldn’t find just one man. One man who had no outside help, no money, no job, no nothing. That one man was atop the FBI’s Most Wanted List for five years and had a $1 million bounty on his head.

Ask him today why a former federal prosecutor sits on exactly zero Senate committees with responsibility for law enforcement. Ask him why he has sponsored exactly zero Senate bills on the issues of crime and law enforcement.

He won’t answer because the one opportunity he had as a federal prosecutor came up empty. For five years.

“Chuck Schumer, name one person on this list that you think is acceptable.”

Democrats may have wrecked their chances for House control

A heartfelt thank you to creepy porn lawyer Michael Avenatti. For he has blessed President. Donald. Trump. in ways he never imagined.

If Democrats fail to win control of at least one house of Congress in the 2018 midterms, it will be because they overplayed a bad hand in the Brett Kavanaugh Confirmation Debacle. And Avenatti held the losing hole cards.

Historically, the party not in control of the White House loses a significant number of Congressional seats in midterm elections. It has been a traditional means for the electorate to communicate that executive overreach will not be tolerated. But when the party out of power itself overreaches—as it did with their Kavanaugh Debacle—history rewards the aggrieved.

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Multiple pollsters now warning Dems they may fall short of winning the House https://t.co/6bsUSjTBWh

— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) October 8, 2018

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Currently, The RCP Average generic ballot poll has the Dems with a +6.6 advantage. Due to the geographic advantage Republicans have owned since the bloody red waves of 2010 and 2014, this translates into a dead heat. At no time since January of this year have Democrats enjoyed a +10.0 advantage, a number that has typically signaled a midterm Congressional turnover for Democrats (see 2006 for example).

Democrats can thank ex-President Obama for this—the midterms of 2010 and 2014 destroyed the state and local power and infrastructure that used to be their advantage in get-out-the-vote operations. That apparatus is in control of the GOP now. The short analysis is that if the Democrats want to wrest control of gavels and committees on Capitol Hill, they will need a repeat of 2004, and today’s polls say that ain’t happening, y’all.

Had Democrats gagged the creepy porn lawyer and told him “nay, thou shalt NOT pile on with even more ridiculous allegations,” Christine Blasey-Ford may have successfully derailed Brett Kavanaugh’s ascension to SCOTUS.

They didn’t, and look what’s happening now.

Congratulations to Justice Kavanaugh. And shame on Senator Doug Jones

Congratulations to Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Doug Jones should be ashamed.

On Saturday, October 6, 2018, Judge Kavanaugh was confirmed by the United States Senate to the Supreme Court. He becomes the 114th Associate Justice in the history of the highest Court in the country. He replaces retiring Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Kavanaugh was appointed by President Donald Trump on July 9 and toiled through a bitterly partisan vetting process and confirmation hearings. He was accused of vile sexual assaults by people that he didn’t even know and probably never met. They trotted out bare allegations with no supporting evidence, no witnesses, no nuttin’.  It was a confirmation process that shouldn’t have happened.

Jones didn’t agree to meet with then Judge Kavanaugh until he was hounded by the media and Alabama voters, inventing an excuse that he wanted to see his performance in “the hearings” first. That was bullshit—Jones was never going to be a Yes vote for confirmation and had no reason to meet with a man that he was never going to support.

Jones also repeated a lie he propagated throughout 2017’s special election campaign—that he was an independent voice and would not toe a party line. Jones isn’t an independent. He’s the Senator with the lowest seniority rank in a minority Senate conference run by Chuck Schumer. What Schumer says, Jones does. He’s a buck private in Schumer’s army of thugs.

Doug Jones did nothing to stop his “colleagues” or warn them that such partisan character assassinations are beneath the United States Senate—the world’s most deliberative and collegial legislative body. Their tactics were totally out of bounds in the advice and consent role Jones was elected to fulfill.

The Democrats made it clear that they would stop Brett Kavanaugh’s ascension to the Nation’s highest court.  On the very same day that President Trump announced Judge Kavanaugh as his Supreme Court nominee, Schumer promised to “oppose Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination with everything I have.”  When he said everything, he meant letting his fellow Democrats assault the character and reputation of an accomplished jurist who has done more to advance the role of women in the judiciary than any other Judge on his Court. It also meant making sure that little man Jones stayed in his place and kept his mouth shut as a national disgrace played out before us.

As an Alabamian, I was horrified.

Jones may object, pleading that there was nothing he could do.  That is another bare faced lie.

Jones could have put a quick end to the whole embarrassing and divisive confirmation by saying, “I have listened to my constituents and I have evaluated the Judge’s qualifications. I will vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh.”

Jones turned his back on Alabama. He turned a deaf ear to the people of this state, and their representatives in Montgomery and Washington, DC.  By a nearly two-to-one ratio, Alabamians supported Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Every elected leader from the state supported his confirmation. Senator Richard Shelby—who met with Kavanaugh very early in the confirmation process—strongly supported the nomination and proudly voted for it.

Jones voted against it, along with all but one honorable Democrat—Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Jones also stayed silent as his fellow Democrat henchmen tried to make Judge Kavanaugh out to be a serial sexual predator. Despite his fellow thugs’ best effort, Kavanaugh was confirmed by a 50-48 vote.

The Court will survive this mess, just as it has survived the 1991 “high tech lynching” of Justice Clarence Thomas.

Jones should be absolutely ashamed of himself.

Wait until Hollywood sees what’s really in the Trump Tax “Cut”

Spoiler Alert: It’s a net tax increase for the wealthiest people in the bluest of states, who have ridden the state and local tax deduction to billions in tax breaks.

While everyone living in states that impose an income tax have enjoyed this deduction--myself included--people living in states like California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York have had it much better. Those states impose truly burdensome taxes on their citizens and their only respite has been that those taxes are deductible at the federal level.

Not anymore. Ed Morrissey at HotAir.com breaks it down:

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The SALT deduction really only comes into play for people who can itemize enough to outstrip the standard deductions, so its benefit plays mostly to the wealthy anyway.

It also plays mostly to the benefit of a very few states. California and New York taxpayers soak up almost third of all benefits from SALT deductions; add in New Jersey, Illinois, Texas, and Pennsylvania, and they account for more than half of its benefits. Taxpayers in most other states end up footing the bill.

Not only do other taxpayers end up subsidizing the wealthy, they also indemnify blue-state politicians against the consequences of their tax policies. Next year, taxpayers in California, New York, and other high-tax states will have to truly pay for their own taxes rather than foist them off on everyone else. When that happens, will high tax rates be politically sustainable?

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Why does this matter, you may ask.

It matters because states like California and Illinois have budget problems that if their magnitude were extrapolated to the federal level, there would be blood in the streets and a torch-and-pitchfork parade to Capitol Hill. Those massive budget outlays for all of the feel-good social programs, state employee salaries & pensions, abusive regulations and general nanny state intrusiveness are paid for in large part by the federal subsidy through the now-gone SALT deduction.

That means people in Alabama pay for people in California to have the state regulate everything from their driveway size to their garden hoses. Immigrant resettlement and sanctuary state services. 10-year full vesting in retirement benefits. Free healthcare, free food, free gas, free cellphones, free internet. All paid for by working folks from Birmingham to Malbis.

Because tax years, budget calendars and revenue streams won't coincide for another 2-3 years at the earliest, the real pain won't be felt until after the next Presidential election in 2020. By 2021, Hollwood, Wall Street and the Southside will start to feel the pinch. People who have gotten rich by foisting off the burden to the average Trump voter for decades might rethink their options, and the everyday working folks in those states might decide that the blueness of their states ain't such a good idea anymore.

I've been telling everyone who'll put down their smartphone long enough to listen that the 2018 tax cut will prove to be transformational. I won't be proven right until either Trump takes his second oath of office or his successor does.

But mark my words--the transformation is going to happen.

Extra point:

Who else enjoyed Donald Trump saying "Roll Tide!" earlier this month at the White House? I can tell you who didn't--Democrats, establishment Republicans and people suffering from Saban Derangement Syndrome.

Video starts at the sweet spot.

Stop trying to rescue your wet phone with dry rice

It doesn't work. Well, it might. But there are better options and in fact, plain white rice was dead last among all other options tried. 

The only thing that fared worse than closing up a wet phone in a bag of plain rice was closing up a wet phone in a bag by itself.

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Uncooked White Rice Ain't Cutting It

After 24 hours, the sponges were weighed again to see how much weight had been lost. And would you believe it—according to the results, uncooked white rice placed dead last in effectiveness as a drying agent. Here's the list, from best to worst.

Open-air sponge - 7.6 mL lost
Silica gel - 6.1 mL lost
Cat litter - 5.5 mL lost
Instant couscous - 5.0 mL lost
Instant rice - 5.0 mL lost
Instant oatmeal - 5.0 mL lost
Uncooked white rice - 4.0 mL lost
Sealed-container sponge - 0.7 mL lost

Cat litter, instant couscous, instant rice, and instant oatmeal all performed better than uncooked white rice—everyone's favorite damn drying agent.

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I've been trying to tell people this for years. I used to work with high end GPS equipment. More than a decade ago, every time our equipment got wet it was opened and placed in front of an ordinary table fan to air dry.

In the real tech industry wet equipment is disassembled, wiped with rubbing alcohol and then air dried.

Look again at the list above. What came in first as the best way to dry out something that was sopping wet? Sense a pattern?

This information is not new.

The same people who proved that rice is next to useless for drying out your phone (or your vape, or your tablet, or your V/R gear, or...) have some tips on maybe saving it.

So, what really happened when you put your soggy iphone in a bag of China Doll and it got "fixed?"

I'll let you in on a secret. First, you have to be virtuous. It does not work for the wicked. Ever. 

Second, you have to say a little heartfelt prayer over your nearly dead device. Then you leave it in the rice overnight.

The Rice Fairy comes in the wee hours and takes some of the rice to cook for her little Rice babies. In her gratitude she waves her magic rice wand and restores your phone. Amen.