It should have been called something like "Governor Sunshine Goes To Washington" ... or perhaps "Washington University ".
Governor Sunshine - the smiling, awwwww-shucks, Joe-Six-Pack-and-soccer-mom-supporting Sarah Palin. The governor that spent the evening giving us a lot of fluff and not a lot of stuff.
I have to admit, it reminded me a bit of the 2000 and 2004 presidential debates ... in which we had the good-ole boy from Texas show us his relative lack of knowledge of anything worldly.
So here's what I heard her say tonight ...
Black Saturday.
Need I say more?
If you were a ranked team this past weekend, you had a 1 in 4 shot of losing to a lower ranked or unranked opponent. It seems there is always an early season "Black Saturday" and this was it. There was Oregon State over #1 USC, Alabama over #3 Georgia, Mississippi over #4 Florida, Michigan over #9 Wisconsin, Navy over #16 Wake Forest, Maryland over #20 Clemson, and Houston over #23 East Carolina. That's a rough weekend for the ranked!
The rankings come out and lo and behold, we've got more SEC-love again. Alabama jumps to #2 in the AP poll with LSU #3?? What is it that the pigskin prognosticators love about the SEC?
$700 billion to bail out the apparent financial crisis - that is what President Bush has proposed. The bill went to the House today, and even the Republican party wouldn't back it wholeheartedly. The score? 228 to 208 against - so no passage in the House. Bush's own party wouldn't support it - so now he not only has a lousy approval rating with the voters, but apparently he also has a lousy trust rating with the House as well.
Shortly thereafter, there was a 778 point drop in the Dow stock exchange at the end of the trading day. For those who like numbers, that's $1.2 trillion dollars in market value.
That's a lot of zeros. In fact, it's the budget for the whole Iraq war - in one day.
If you listen to the politicians, the world is about to end. Chicken Little, the sky is falling.
John McCain went to bed one day convinced that the country was on a solid financial foundation. I remember him telling us so. He then arose the next day to discover that the economy is now of dire importance as we face an urgent global economic crisis. So the next day, the "New Maverick" went back to Washington to immerse himself in the "old politics" of Capital Hill during the heated discussion over Bush's proposed financial buyout plan. And suddenly, the man who told us he was against "more government" found himself creating - federal economic regulation - and more of it.
In the midst of all of this, he's now put his presidential campaign on hold to be the savior of our economy. Of course, going to Washington and monitoring the status of the bailout requires a lot of attention, so much in fact that he needs to suspend his presidential campaign to do so.Whatever happened to multi-tasking, John?
Dear Longhorns:
Hey, that 52 - 10 thrashing of Rice sure does look impressive. Colt McCoy is moving up the ranks of all-time UT quarterbacks, and now that he has passed Major Applewhite in career touchdown passes, I am sure he'll be able to apply for sainthood sometime soon. The defense had a memorable stand as well, stopping Rice 11 times inside the 10 yard line.
On the surface, it all looks pretty good as we head towards our re-scheduled game against Arkansas and then conference play.
But is the future as rosy as it may appear?
Technology fascinates me.
It could be cars. It could be computers. It could be just about anything.
I am not the person that has to be on the cutting edge of owning all the latest cool tech toys. But I would suspect that I am probably not too far off being an "early adopter" as Seth Godin notes in "The Purple Cow" .
Recently I have been exloring the realm of social media. Most people are at least familiar with MySpace, and maybe you've even heard of Facebook or LinkedIn. Another one of the intriguing social media tools these days is Twittter.
I will look back at this weekend as a time when the over-rated made their true colors known in college football. There are certainly a couple of solid examples. Let's start with the Big 10 and, yes, Ohio State. The Buckeyes are perenially the darlings of the pollsters. You could have 22 freshman lining up and some media hack in the Iron Belt would claim that Jim Tressel would take them to the national championship this year. This year has been no different. Ohio State is, imagine this, over-rated. Again. Beanie or no Beanie, they had their livin' Brutus' handed to them by USC. And, once again, USC is looking like it might be for real - now imagine that - again.
Let's perhaps even extend that to the Big 10 in general. Though they remind us that they have five 3-0 teams in conference, who have they played? Wisconsin only put up 13 points on Fresno State. Maybe Penn State will change my mind, but right now, I doubt it, even though I am a big fan of Joe Paterno.
Allan Besselink, PT, DPT, Ph.D., Dip.MDT has a unique voice in the world of sports, education, and health care. Read more about Allan here.