Black Monday Sweeps Through the NFL

Seven coaches were fired.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

@ampowerblog pounding the sidelines as long as he has been pounding all you can eat buffets I gather #NFL #SNF
— Em (@lamblock) December 31, 2012

Overnight, the NFL went from Xs and O's to ex-coaches and whoas.

In a head-spinning blizzard of pink slips, seven head coaches were fired Monday, leaving openings in Philadelphia, San Diego, Buffalo, Chicago, Arizona, Cleveland and Kansas City.

The dismissals included three coaches who led their teams to Super Bowls in the last eight years: Andy Reid of Philadelphia, Lovie Smith of Chicago and Ken Whisenhunt of Arizona.

Also shown the door were San Diego's Norv Turner, Buffalo's Chan Gailey, Cleveland's Pat Shurmur and Kansas City's Romeo Crennel.

Five general managers were fired: San Diego's A.J. Smith, Cleveland's Tom Heckert, Arizona's Rod Graves, Jacksonville's Gene Smith and the New York Jets' Mike Tannenbaum.

Most of the moves were long-anticipated, but the Bears raised some eyebrows by dumping Lovie Smith after a 10-win season that failed to produce a playoff berth. The Eagles parted ways with Reid, the league's longest-tenured coach, who had been there for 14 seasons. Philadelphia was 4-12 this season.

"When you have a season like that, it's embarrassing. It's personally crushing to me and it's terrible," Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie said in a news conference.

Lurie said he didn't fire Reid after last season because the Eagles had always bounced back after a down year.

"That was the history," Lurie said. "I really believed that this season, with our talent, that we would be a strong contender and a double-digit win team. Nobody is more disappointed or crushed than myself because I fully believed that that's exactly where we were at in August as we started the season."

Although the firings came fast and furious Monday, the turnover has yet to match that of 2010, when there were 10 new coaches put in place, nearly a third of the league. The day after the season ends has come to be known as Black Monday.

"You hope that those guys that obviously were victims of Black Monday land on their feet," St. Louis Coach Jeff Fisher said. "You've got guys that have been to Super Bowls and won championship games and all of a sudden they've forgot how to coach, I guess."

More at the top.

I'm taking my boys up to Long Beach to watch the Rose Bowl with my colleagues Charlotte and Greg Joseph and their kids. I'll be back blogging tonight. I'm still reading around on the reaction to the budget deal and I'll have more on that. And don't miss lamblock on Twitter. She's a riot.

NFL Playoff Picture

At the NFL homepage, "NFL Playoff Picture for 2012 Season."

And from Sam Farmer, at the Los Angeles Times, "By and bye, Adrian Peterson, others in NFL come tantalizingly close":

Two thousand steps forward.

Two big steps back.

On a Sunday when Minnesota's Adrian Peterson became the seventh NFL player to run for 2,000 yards — coming within nine of breaking Eric Dickerson's season rushing record — two teams backpedaled in a big way.

The Houston Texans and Green Bay Packers lost on the road, both blowing opportunities for first-round playoff byes.

Indianapolis beat Houston, 28-16, and the Vikings edged the Packers, 37-34, to earn the final playoff spot in the NFC.

Swooping in to secure those No. 2 seedings — which come with a week off — were San Francisco in the NFC and New England in the AFC.

The top seedings are Atlanta in the NFC and Denver in the AFC.

The Vikings' victory secured a first-round rematch Saturday night with Green Bay, this time at Lambeau Field.

The playoffs open Saturday with Cincinnati at Houston. On Sunday, Indianapolis plays at Baltimore, followed by Seattle at Washington.

The Redskins clinched the NFC East on Sunday night with a 28-18 victory over Dallas in a winner-take-all game. The Redskins won the division title for the first time since 1999, and are the first team since the 1996 Jacksonville Jaguars to make the playoffs after losing six of its first nine games.

That means the first round will feature a record three rookie quarterbacks: the Colts' Andrew Luck, and — in the same game — the Redskins' Robert Griffin III and the Seahawks' Russell Wilson.

Also, "Philadelphia Eagles fire Coach Andy Reid after 14 seasons." And, "Chicago Bears fire Coach Lovie Smith; Buffalo fires Chan Gailey."

Tourists Run for Their Lives After Spooking Buffalo at Yellowstone National Park

The tourists are smiling after that little run down, but a brute animal like that will kill you if it gets the chance:

You can see how close the tourists were to the buffalo at The Blaze, "THE STUNNING MOMENT A WILD BISON CHARGES A CHILD IN YELLOWSTONE!"

A Homosexual Civil Union Ends in Abduction

This is interesting, at the New York Times, "Which Mother for Isabella? Civil Union Ends in an Abduction and Questions":

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Lisa A. Miller and her daughter, Isabella, started their fugitive lives here in the fall of 2009, disguised in the white scarves and long blue dresses of the Mennonites who spirited them out of the United States and adopting the aliases Sarah and Lydia.

Now 10, Isabella Miller-Jenkins has spent her last three birthdays on the run, “bouncing around the barrios of Nicaragua,” as one federal agent put it, a lively blond girl and her mother trying to blend in and elude the United States marshals who have traveled to the country in pursuit.

She can now chatter in Spanish, but her time in Nicaragua has often been lonely, those who have met her say, long on prayer but isolated. She has been told that she could be wrenched from her mother if they are caught. She has also been told that the other woman she once called “Mama,” Ms. Miller’s former partner from a civil union in Vermont that she has since renounced, cannot go to heaven because she lives in sin with women.

Isabella’s tumultuous life has embodied some of America’s bitterest culture wars — a choice, as Ms. Miller said in a courtroom plea, shortly before their desperate flight, “between two diametrically opposed worldviews on parentage and family.”

Isabella was 7 when she and Ms. Miller jumped into a car in Virginia, leaving behind their belongings and a family of pet hamsters to die without food or water. Supporters drove them to Buffalo, where they took a taxi to Canada and boarded a flight to Mexico and then Central America.

Ms. Miller, 44, is wanted by the F.B.I. and Interpol for international parental kidnapping. In their underground existence in this impoverished tropical country, she and Isabella have been helped by evangelical groups who endorse her decision to flee rather than to expose Isabella to the “homosexual lifestyle” of her other legal mother, Janet Jenkins.

In a tale filled with improbables, an Amish Mennonite sect known for simple living and avoiding politics has been drawn into the high-stakes criminal case: one of its pastors is facing trial in Vermont on Aug. 7 on charges of abetting the kidnapping.

The decade-long drama touches on some of the country’s most contentious social and legal questions, including the extension of civil union and marital rights to same-sex couples and what happens, in the courts and to children, when such unions dissolve.

In this case, the passions of any divorce were multiplied by Ms. Miller’s born-again conversion to conservative Christianity and her denouncing of lesbianism as an addiction. Ms. Miller repeatedly prevented Isabella’s court-ordered visits with Ms. Jenkins until an exasperated Vermont judge said he would transfer custody.

Man, they left the hamsters to die? That's harsh.

And it's more than an "addiction." It's a perversion. It's too bad Ms. Miller got involved in it in the first place. Things aren't likely to come out too well, no matter what happens. It'll be especially bad if the child has to grow up in that homosexual lifestyle after all. A tragedy.

Oh, and the key thing here is that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, not an innate condition --- something that's going to rile the hate-addled progressives throughout the day.

Continue reading.

Memorial Day 2012

I'm always thankful for the untold sacrifices, each and every day.

See the editorials at Buffalo News and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Photo Credit: Arlington National Cemetery, via Wikimedia.

Police Release Astonishing Hit-and-Run Videotape — Teenager Survives After Being Thrown Through the Air, Flipping Head-Over-Heels

Unreal.

Sometimes you just have to see things to believe them. I'm shocked this kid is still alive.

At New York Daily News, "Buffalo cops release surveillance video of wild hit-and-run accident; teen flipped head-over-heels by speeding madman (VIDEO)."

American Airlines Winds Down AAirpass: Unlimited Frequent Flyer Program Has Too-Frequent Flyers

This is an amazing story.

I love to fly and American Airlines is my favorite carrier, but I never imagined anything like this. When something's too good to be true it's not likely to last as long as this program, and AA's pulling the plug as aggressively as it can.

At the Los Angeles Times, "The frequent fliers who flew too much":

There are frequent fliers, and then there are people like Steven Rothstein and Jacques Vroom.

Both men bought tickets that gave them unlimited first-class travel for life on American Airlines. It was almost like owning a fleet of private jets.

Passes in hand, Rothstein and Vroom flew for business. They flew for pleasure. They flew just because they liked being on planes. They bypassed long lines, booked backup itineraries in case the weather turned, and never worried about cancellation fees. Flight crews memorized their names and favorite meals.

Each had paid American more than $350,000 for an unlimited AAirpass and a companion ticket that allowed them to take someone along on their adventures. Both agree it was the best purchase they ever made, one that completely redefined their lives.

In the 2009 film "Up in the Air," the loyal American business traveler played by George Clooney was showered with attention after attaining 10 million frequent flier miles.

Rothstein and Vroom were not impressed.

"I can't even remember when I cracked 10 million," said Vroom, 67, a big, amiable Texan, who at last count had logged nearly four times as many. Rothstein, 61, has notched more than 30 million miles.

But all the miles they and 64 other unlimited AAirpass holders racked up went far beyond what American had expected. As its finances began deteriorating a few years ago, the carrier took a hard look at the AAirpass program.

Heavy users, including Vroom and Rothstein, were costing it millions of dollars in revenue, the airline concluded.

The AAirpass system had rules. A special "revenue integrity unit" was assigned to find out whether any of these rules had been broken, and whether the passes that were now such a drag on profits could be revoked.

Rothstein, Vroom and other AAirpass holders had long been treated like royalty. Now they were targets of an investigation.

******

When American introduced the AAirpass in 1981, it saw a chance to raise millions of dollars for expansion at a time of record-high interest rates.

It was, and still is, offered in a variety of formats, including prepaid blocks of miles. But the marquee item was the lifetime unlimited AAirpass, which started at $250,000. Pass holders earned frequent flier miles on every trip and got lifetime memberships to the Admirals Club, American's VIP lounges. For an extra $150,000, they could buy a companion pass. Older fliers got discounts based on their age.

"We thought originally it would be something that firms would buy for top employees," said Bob Crandall, American's chairman and chief executive from 1985 to 1998. "It soon became apparent that the public was smarter than we were."

The unlimited passes were bought mostly by wealthy individuals, including baseball Hall-of-Famer Willie Mays, America's Cup skipper Dennis Conner and computer magnate Michael Dell.

Mike Joyce of Chicago bought his in 1994 after winning a $4.25-million settlement after a car accident.

In one 25-day span this year, Joyce flew round trip to London 16 times, flights that would retail for more than $125,000. He didn't pay a dime.

"I love Rome, I love Sydney, I love Athens," Joyce said by phone from the Admirals Club at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. "I love Vegas and Frisco."

Rothstein had loved flying since his years at Brown University in Rhode Island, where he would buy a $99 weekend pass on Mohawk Air and fly to Buffalo, N.Y., just for a sandwich.

He bought his AAirpass in 1987 for his work in investment banking. After he added a companion pass two years later, it "kind of took hold of me," said Rothstein, a heavyset man with a kind smile.

He was airborne almost every other day. If a friend mentioned a new exhibit at the Louvre, Rothstein thought nothing of jetting from his Chicago home to San Francisco to pick her up and then fly to Paris together.

In July 2004, for example, Rothstein flew 18 times, visiting Nova Scotia, New York, Miami, London, Los Angeles, Maine, Denver and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., some of them several times over. The complexity of such itineraries would stump most travelers; happily for AAirpass holders, American provided elite agents able to solve the toughest booking puzzles.

They could help AAirpass customers make multiple reservations in case they missed a flight, or nab the last seat on the only plane leaving during a snowstorm. Some say agents even procured extra elbow room by booking an empty seat using a phony name on companion passes.

"I'd book it as Extra Lowe," said Peter Lowe, a motivational speaker from West Palm Beach, Fla. "They told me how to do it."

Vroom, a former mail-order catalog consultant, used his AAirpass to attend all his son's college football games in Maine. He built up so many frequent flier miles that he'd give them away, often to AIDS sufferers so they could visit family. Crew members knew him by name.

"There was one flight attendant, Pierre, who knew exactly what I wanted," Vroom said. "He'd bring me three salmon appetizers, no dessert and a glass of champagne, right after takeoff. I didn't even have to ask."

Creative uses seemed limitless. When bond broker Willard May of Round Rock, Texas, was forced into retirement after a run-in with federal securities regulators in the early 1990s, he turned to his trusty AAirpass to generate income. Using his companion ticket, he began shuttling a Dallas couple back and forth to Europe for $2,000 a month.

"For years, that was all the flying I did," said May, 81. "It's how I got the bills paid."

In 1990, the airline raised the price of an unlimited AAirpass with companion to $600,000. In 1993, it was bumped to $1.01 million. In 1994, American stopped selling unlimited passes altogether.

Cable TV executive Leo Hindery Jr. bought a five-year AAirpass in 1991, with an option to upgrade to lifetime after three years. American later "asked me not to convert," he said. "They were gracious. They said the program had been discontinued and if I gave my pass back, they'd give me back my money."

Hindery declined, even rebuffing a personal appeal by American's Crandall (which the executive said he did not recall). To date, he has accumulated 11.5 million miles on a pass that cost him about $500,000, including an age discount and credit from his five-year pass.

"It was a lot of money at the time," Hindery said. "But once you get past that, you forget it."

In 2004, American offered the unlimited AAirpass one last time, in the Neiman-Marcus Christmas catalog. At $3 million, plus a companion pass for $2 million more, none sold.

There's lots more at the link.

What a life that would be, able to lift off and go anywhere, anytime like that.

Like I said, it's too good to be true.

Local Governments Face Fiscal Desperation Amid Soaring Pension and Retiree Health Costs

I've got two related pieces that were front-page news stories yesterday at the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, respectively.

First, at LAT, "Stockton residents watch their port city slip away."

Read it all at that link. Stockton's on the verge of declaring bankruptcy and the city government is in mediation over its debt obligations:

Within the next three months, Stockton could become the nation's largest city to file for protection from creditors under U.S. bankruptcy code. Using a new California law, the City Council is trying to slow or stop the bust by entering mediation with creditors, including public employee unions. In the meantime, the Central Valley port city of 300,000 has suspended several bond payments and will not cash out vacation or sick time for employees who leave.

And also at NYT, "Deficits Push N.Y. Cities and Counties to Desperation":

Even as there are glimmers of a national economic recovery, cities and counties increasingly find themselves in the middle of a financial crisis. The problems are spreading as municipalities face a toxic mix of stresses that has been brewing for years, including soaring pension, Medicaid and retiree health care costs. And many have exhausted creative accounting maneuvers and one-time spending cuts or revenue-raisers to bail themselves out.

The problem has national echoes: Stockton, Calif., a city of almost 300,000, is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. Jefferson County, Ala., made the biggest Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing in history in November and stopped paying its bondholders. In Rhode Island, the city of Central Falls declared bankruptcy last year, and the mayor of Providence, the state capital, has said his city is at risk as its money runs out.

New York City’s annual pension contributions have increased to $8 billion from $1.5 billion over the past decade.

“We really are up against it,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said during a recent trip to Albany, urging the state to reduce pension benefits for future public employees. In a radio interview on Friday, Mr. Bloomberg noted the spreading financial woes of local governments, saying, “Towns and counties across the state are starting to have to make the real choices — fewer cops, fewer firefighters, slower ambulance response, less teachers in front of the classroom.”

And Thomas S. Richards, the mayor of Rochester, recently described a grim situation facing New York’s cities in testimony to the State Legislature, saying, “I fear that Rochester and other upstate cities are approaching the point of financial failure and an inevitable financial control board — as is the case in Buffalo — unless something is done now.”

This is the big shakeout.

And to fix things will require massive reform --- and changes in expectations for the pay and benefits for public workers. I'm hearing dire chatter about the expected fiscal situation in California over the next year, and the dreaded notion of "reductions in force" (layoffs) is being mentioned a bit more often. In the end it will be a Schumpeterian period of creative destruction, where the market forces major changes on the public sector. It's basically like a payback after years of essentially socialization of the economy. And while this process is going to take a while, it'll be a good thing. It's a rationalizing process, one that's completely foreign to the public sector consciousness.

Amazing, isn't it?

If You Think You Gonna Leave Then You Better Say So...

Tom Petty, "I Need to Know."

From yesterday morning's drive time, at The Sound LA:

8:01 - Roxanne by Police

8:04 - Before You Accuse Me by Eric Clapton

8:17 - In Your Eyes (new Blood) by Peter Gabriel

8:22 - Hey Joe by Jimi Hendrix

8:26 - School's Out by Alice Cooper

8:29 - Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd

8:38 - For What It's Worth by Buffalo Springfield

8:48 - Rough Boys by Pete Townshend

8:52 - I Need To Know by Tom Petty

8:54 - Silly Love Songs by Paul Mccartney And Wings

9:00 - Who Do You Love by George Thorogood

Jennifer Lopez Hot New Fiat Ad

I'm watching Oakland at Buffalo, which features a major ad buy from Fiat.

See: "Jennifer Lopez Previews New Single In Fiat Commercial (Video)."

P.S. The Raiders just went up 21-3 with a little over a minute to go before the half.

Lightning Medicine

At London's Daily Mail, "The incredibly rare sacred white buffalo who's one in TEN MILLION" (via AoSHQ).

I'm fascinated by Native Americans. This is really cool story.

Gauging Consequences for Republicans Who Backed Gay Marriage

At New York Times, "After Backing Gay Marriage, 4 in G.O.P. Face Voters’ Verdict":

A day and a half after he voted to legalize same-sex marriage, State Senator Mark J. Grisanti went to church.

There, across the pews at St. Rose of Lima in North Buffalo, sat 81-year-old Ann Deckop, and she felt betrayed, since Mr. Grisanti had vowed in 2008 that he was “inalterably” opposed to same-sex marriage.

“I voted for him and I’m writing a letter indicating that I will not be voting for him in the next election,” Ms. Deckop said.

But there was also Greg Fox, a 52-year-old technology industry salesman, who called Mr. Grisanti “a gentleman.”

“It’s important that we uphold Catholic values,” Mr. Fox said, before adding, “This is also 2011, so things change.”

And at the front of the church was the priest, who, Mr. Grisanti recalled, “put a hand over his heart and kind of pounded his chest, and pointed to me and smiled.” Mr. Grisanti said he was unsure what that meant.

Now, Mr. Grisanti and the three other Senate Republicans who provided votes necessary to legalize same-sex marriage in New York are confronting the uncertainty of how voters in their districts will react. Voter response will influence the balance of power in the New York Senate, where there are just two more Republicans than Democrats. And the events in New York also have national repercussions: because several Democratic-dominated states have already legalized same-sex marriage, gay-rights advocates increasingly need Republican support if they are to change local laws elsewhere in the country.

Some Republican donors, as well as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and leaders of the gay-rights movement, have promised to support the re-election campaigns of the four New York lawmakers. But the National Organization for Marriage, a group opposed to same-sex marriage, said it would spend $2 million in an effort to defeat the legislators, and key elements of the senators’ traditional political base have vowed to withdraw support.

“One thing I know for sure, these four people will not have the Conservative Party endorsement,” said Michael R. Long, chairman of the state Conservative Party. “That is certain.”

Keep your eyes out for these races. A cautionary warning for RINOs.

New York Churches React to Gay Marriage Vote

At WIVB-TV Buffalo, WIVB-TV Buffalo. A mixed reaction among church groups, but this part is heavy:

In response to the State Senate's vote Friday night , the New York State Catholic Conference released a statement saying, in part:

"The passage by the Legislature of a bill to alter radically and forever humanity's historic understanding of marriage leaves us deeply disappointed and troubled. We strongly uphold the Catholic Church's clear teaching that we always treat our homosexual brothers and sisters with respect, dignity and love. But we just as strongly affirm that marriage is the joining of one man and one woman."

Check the full statement here.

And at the Jackson Sun, "Same-sex marriage vote is a national issue."

This Day in History: Inauguration of President Ronald Reagan

Exactly 30 years ago today:

And see USA Today, "Ronald Reagan: A 'Folklore' President Who Led a Revolution":

Thirty years ago, Reagan was sworn in as president of a downbeat nation that elected him despite concerns about his age — at 69, he would be the oldest president in history at inauguration — and his ideology. Was he too hawkish toward the Soviet Union, too hostile to social safety-net programs?

Now his estimation by presidential scholars and the American people continues to rise, though skeptics say acolytes exaggerate his legacy.

In a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, nearly one-third of Americans predict history will judge him an outstanding president, double the number who held that view when he left office. Among modern presidents, only John Kennedy gets higher ratings.

A C-SPAN survey of 65 historians in 2009 ranked Reagan near the top tier of presidents, 10th of 42. A Siena College poll of 238 presidential scholars in 2010 put him in the middle range, 18th of 43, though he ranked in the top five for communication skills, leadership of his party — and luck.

His two terms marked "a clear turning of a chapter" from the Great Society liberalism of the 1960s to a new conservatism, presidential historian Douglas Brinkley says. And his personal connection to many Americans endures.

Adding to his story: surviving an assassination attempt with reassuring humor two months after his inauguration in 1981, and leaving the public scene in 1994 with a letter to the American people revealing his diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.

He was 93 when he died June 5, 2004.

"He's become a folklore president," says Brinkley, who edited Reagan's diaries. "He's as much Buffalo Bill or Kit Carson as he is Harry Truman or Lyndon Johnson."

Admirers credit Reagan with ending the Cold War — he both increased defense spending by a third and embraced Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev— and reviving the economy. After the unhappy tenures of Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, Reagan returned a sense of optimism and buoyancy to the White House.

"No matter what political disagreements you may have had with President Reagan — and I certainly had my share — there is no denying his leadership in the world, or his gift for communicating his vision for America," President Obama says in an appreciation written for USA TODAY.

"It was a hell of a record," says James Baker, who ran the campaign of Reagan's chief rival in the 1980 GOP primaries and then became Reagan's White House chief of staff and Treasury secretary. "What I mean is, you did have 25 years of sustained, non-inflationary growth. You had a restoration of the country's pride and confidence in itself. You had peace. What more could you ask for?"

Since Reagan left the White House in 1989, just about every Republican presidential hopeful has sought to claim his mantle, including those weighing bids for next year's nomination.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich has co-produced a documentary of Reagan's life called Rendezvous With Destiny; he'll screen it in Tampico at the town's centennial celebration of its most famous son.

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin routinely quotes Reagan in her Facebook postings. Indiana Rep. Mike Pence's paean to American exceptionalism recalls Reagan's oft-repeated description of the United States as a "shining city on a hill."

Read the whole thing.

The Sienna presidential poll is not to be trusted, as I reported earlier, "Who Are the 238 Presidential Scholars, Historians, and Political Scientists Polled for the SRI Presidential Rankings?"

I think the USA Today/Gallup rankings sound reasonable. And speaking of ranking, at CNN, "CNN Poll: JFK Remains Most Popular Past President." And Althouse has the nostalgia, "Half a century ago, the inauguration of JFK."

JFK died when I was two year-old. He'll always be one of my favorites, but Reagan and George W. Bush are tops for me.

Black Friday Mob Tramples Shopper at North Buffalo Target Store

A follow up to this morning's report: "No Deaths Reported So Far as Crowds Mob Stores for Black Friday!"

At KSAZ FOX 10 Phoenix, "Shopper Hospitalized After Stampede." And from WIVB News 4 Buffalo, "Shoppers Trampled by Early-Bird Rush":

Added: "Black Friday 2010: Woman Arrested, Threatened to Shoot Shoppers at Toys "R" Us."

Thanksgiving Classic, 1994: Detroit Lions Over Buffalo Bills, 35-21

My life as a sports fan has gone through many gyrations. Lately I've been blogging more than watching football and baseball, although I watch the Thanksgiving Classic every year, and especially the Detroit Lions.

Thinking about it now, I simply never forget Thanksgiving 1994, when Quarterback Dave Krieg gave one of the most outstanding performances of my lifetime. The Lions' homepage has the details:

1994 - Detroit easily controlled the four-time AFC Champion, Buffalo Bills, 35-21, with reserve QB Dave Krieg at the helm for the injured QB Scott Mitchell. The Lions set the tone on the second play of the game as Krieg used the flea-flicker to connect with a streaking Herman Moore (seven receptions for a then-career-high 169 yards) on a 51-yard touchdown strike. DT Kelvin Pritchett sacked Bills QB Jim Kelly three times and Lions S Willie Clay intercepted the first two passes of his career, returning the second 28 yards for a touchdown.

And the sports page report at the New York Times, November 25, 1994:

Quarterback Dave Krieg, a 15-year veteran making his third Detroit start since Scott Mitchell was injured, played his best football in years. His numbers were striking: 20 completions in 25 attempts for 351 passing yards, with 3 touchdown passes and 0 interceptions.

It wasn't just his numbers, though, that helped bury the Bills; it was his reads, his picking up secondary receivers and his courage to stand in the pocket and take big hits as he released the ball.

"Dave Krieg had the game of his life," Kelly said.

The Lions nevertheless cut him loose at the end of the season.

Rally for Reefer

James B. Webb hasn't been commenting over here lately. I thought he'd fried his brain on coke so hard in Las Vegas that he just couldn't get it up mentally. But apparently the problem's not just the cocaine, but the messed-up Obama opium buzz itself. Old JBW's got the downer-shakes from the bad-shit Obama junk freak-out. That pinch musta been cut with some rat poison, or something. Cuz man, that buzz for "The One" is gone, really gone: "Brain Fatigue And Rage Deficiency."

JBW commented earlier, but he's still on a downer jive, and his mind ain't up to the quick commentary. The dude needs an intellectual fix, and fast. For example, at "Zach Galifianakis Gets Stoned On 'Real Time with Bill Maher'," notice the incoherence:

My favorite thing about you Don, is your totally legitimate tea party roots: your belief that adult Americans should be free to do whatever they wish, regardless of the harm to themselves, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else.

Keep practicing what you preach and shine on, you crazy diamond!

This is interesting, and kinda sad too. The THC's left JBW, that old frisky sparring partner, intellectually impotent --- and I hope that's all!!

I've been to dozens of tea party events, and I've yet to see anyone campaigning for marijuana legalization. It's just not on the agenda. Sure, tea partiers have their libertarian contingents. But the stoners must be hanging out in the parking lot getting loaded. They haven't been protesting to "legalize it."

Can't say that for the "Rally for Sanity" fanatics, however. And these folks musta been tokin' large while drawing up these signs. "Legalize Pot." "2 Protect Children" and "Restore Sanity"?

I don't think so. See, "Why Prop 19 Would Make Bad Matters Worse."

And also, at Fox News, "Stewart's Rally for 'Sanity' Draws Insane Crowd":

“Good luck trying to get through that crowd to the stage.”

Those were the first words I heard within 15 minutes of joining the large crowd that flocked to the National Mall Saturday for the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear hosted by comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

To say that you couldn’t see the stage, or even hear it, wouldn’t be an exaggeration— many had to climb a tree (literally) to even catch a glimpse of the one jumbo TV screen.

“We did the march-of-the-penguins walk in the crowd for about an hour,” Georgetown University student Anam Raheem told me. “But it was too crowded; we had to turn back.”

Thousands of rally goers brought signs and costumes in support of politically hot-button issues.

“I came to meet some people,” said Mark Feeney, a resident of Buffalo, New York who sported a green outfit with a sign that displayed the benefits of marijuana. “But we have to be smart, not stupid. If we legalize pot, we’ll create more revenue and jobs.”

Although Proposition 19, which would legalize recreational marijuana in California, was one of the more common issues seen on signs, other topics were equally supported, such as abortion, equality for gays, space travel, and most vehemently, backlash against the Tea Party movement.

“I came to have fun,” Pennsylvania resident Eric Hafner said, “But we need to also show people that extremism is really overblown.”

And hey, man, don't bogart that joint!

Woman Survives Buffalo Attack at Yellowstone

Big animals!

Immigration Sob Story of the Day: 'Students Face Deportation to Countries They Don't Remember'

At LAT:

Early one morning in March, two Chicago-area brothers were dozing on an Amtrak train when it stopped in Buffalo, N.Y. A pair of uniformed Border Patrol agents made their way through the car, asking passengers if they were U.S. citizens. No, the vacationing siblings answered honestly, with flat, Midwestern inflections: We're citizens of Mexico.

And so it was that college students Carlos Robles, 20, and his brother Rafael, 19 — both former captains of their high school varsity tennis team — found themselves in jail, facing deportation.

Their secret was out: Despite their upbringing in middle America, their academic success and their network of native-born friends, they had no permission to be in the United States. Their parents had brought them here illegally as children.

The Robles brothers, now out of jail but fighting removal in Immigration Court, are among thousands of young illegal immigrants in similar situations, living at risk of being expelled to countries they barely remember.

Two weeks ago, a Harvard University student who came from Mexico at age 4, Eric Balderas, joined their ranks after he was arrested by immigration agents at an airport in San Antonio.

They are known in some circles as "Dream Act" kids, named after proposed legislation that would grant them legal status.

Their cases underscore a contradiction in the Obama administration's approach to immigration enforcement. Even though the president supports the Dream Act — which would provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants brought here as children who enroll in college or the military — his enforcement bureaucracy continues to pursue deportation cases against the increasing number of students who would be protected by it. It's part of a push that is on track to remove a record 400,000 illegal immigrants this year.

Sorry. Don't feel sorry for these people. Here's what's really happening behind the media's sob-story headlines. It's the "Dream Act" immigration scam. First they come at you with cap and gowns and sad faces. Then once they suck some of the undocumented into the program, they pump them full of indigenous supremacy indoctrination. It's all of a piece. You can see how it all comes together. The "Dream" activists work side-by-side with the left wing extremists, working to delegitimize the U.S. and advance the Democratic Party's neo-socialist agenda. And despite the media spin, it's hard for Americans to be sympathetic in the face of crass exploitation of the migrant poor for the communist reconquista agenda:

Native Americans Lost the Indian Wars

Stogie left a nice compliment yesterday, suggesting that my "posts lately are substance on steroids!" I'm flattered. It's kinda funny, though, since all I'm really doing sometimes is just putting down what's on my mind instead of posting what others have written.

Anyway, I was thinking of that "steroids" remark just now while reading the New York Times. Turns out there's an interesting book review in the Sunday paper on General George Custer and the "Last Stand" at Little Big Horn. See, "Books About the Indian Wars." The piece is by Bruce Barcott, and he reviews Nathaniel Philbrick's The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and S. C. Gwynne's, Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History. The first section of Barcott's review covers familiar territory --- that Custer's Last Stand was a blunderous, even ignoble, military defeat, yet American myth-making has romanticized the defeat in popular culture.

The more interesting passage is found in the discussion of Gwynne's book on the Comanches. I'm especially fascinated by the indenfication of the Comanche tribe as a "superpower":

Gwynne opens with the May 1836 Comanche raid on the Parker homestead. The Parkers were a clan of Illinois pioneers working 16,100 acres near present-day Dallas. In 1836 they represented the leading edge of white westward expansion into Comanche territory, which the tribe didn’t like one bit. They expressed their displeasure by killing the Parker men (though a few escaped) and taking two women and three children captive.

The term “Indian raid” glosses over the atrocities. Men and babies were killed as a matter of course. Mutilation, rape and torture were common. The lucky died quickly. “This was the actual, and often quite grim, reality of the frontier,” Gwynne writes. “This treatment was not reserved for whites or Mexicans; it was practiced just as energetically on rival Indian tribes.”

The Comanche weren’t merely one of many tribes steamrolled by Manifest Destiny. They were a Native American superpower, a thesis put forth in Pekka Hamalainen’s Bancroft Prize-winning study, “The Comanche Empire,” oddly not cited here. Gwynne presents the Great Plains wars of the mid-19th century as the clash of three empires: the United States, Mexico and the Comanche nation, which controlled most of modern-day Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas and Oklahoma.

“They held sway over some 20 different tribes who had been either conquered, driven off or reduced to vassal status,” Gwynne writes. “Such imperial dominance was no accident of geography. It was the product of over 150 years of deliberate, sustained combat against a series of enemies over a singular piece of land that contained the country’s largest buffalo herds.” At the height of their power in the late 1830s, the Comanche contemplated a full-scale invasion of Texas and Mexico.

What interests me is how the Comanche tribe is described as acting as a nation-state in terms of classic balance-of-power politics and maximization of rational self-interest. There's little in the discussion to indicate a helpless victimhood among the Comanches, and therefore the larger continental diaspora of Native American tribes. This fact is in diametrical opposition to the claims of contemporary radical left organizations that claim indigenous peoples are victims of genocide. As I covered in my recent reporting from Phoenix, the Mexica Movement is a fringe indigenous-people's group calling for the expulsion of European Americans from all of North and South America. The Mexica Movement combines victims' grievance claims with a vicious ideology of indigenous supremacy. They're a hateful bunch.

Yet historical analysis and theoretical exposition debunk the claims of an American Indian holocaust. There was no genocide, just simply defeat in warfare. (An interesting aside here, although not the key point in my discussion, is Guenter Lewy's, "Were American Indians the Victims of Genocide?" And see the letters to the editor in response, "American Indians." See also, "No Genocide on the Plains.") I look it this in terms of state survival in the interstate system. And that's why Barcott's discussion is interesting, in as much as the Comanche's themselves, as a great warrior nation, acted much like we'd describe today as "great powers." But note further: In 1994, scholar Neta Crawford published "A Security Regime Among Democracies: Cooperation Among Iroquois Nations." The emphasis in the paper is on how the rival Iroquois tribal units were able to escape the conflict-inducing anarchy of their international system to create a security regime of mutual cooperation. What's important for my argument is the understanding of Native Americans tribes as sovereign units responsible for their own security and survival. Thus, in contrast to popular mythologies of peaceful existence and organic close-to-the-land wholesomeness, in functional terms Native Americans operated in precisely the same way as did the so-called European colonial oppressor states. As Professor Crawford argues:

Are the units comparable? Yes, if one makes a distinction between the forms of "states" and the functions of "government." The forms of Native American and European states certainly were different from each other, but their governments performed similar functions-functions that normally are associated with states: there were within Iroquois nations decision-making structures and ways to provide collective goods; there were elected and appointed representatives as well as hereditary leadership. Further similarities exist in the area of international relations: the nations of North America used diplomatic envoys, recognized the "sovereignty" of other nations, and negotiated binding treaties. Finally, Iroquois governments had a monopoly on the use of force, although the egalitarian structure of the state meant that force could only be deployed after consensus was reached by all adult members of the nation. The Iroquois League nations of, for example, 1500 were different from European nations in that they were in general smaller, less urban, less industrialized, and more democratic than European states of the same period. But, just as the ideal of the "state" does not quite correspond to the Iroquois nations, it also does not correspond to all European-type states. In fact, there is wide variation among the states that comprised the European international system (for example in terms of provision of collective goods, the criteria for political leadership, and the degree of democracy), both in comparison with one another and over time. So, although the units of analysis are not identical, if one understands states as institutional arrangements--performing certain "governing" functions--that vary along several dimensions and change over time, then one can compare the international relations of Native North America with international relations in Europe.

The Native American tribes were not victims of genocidal European conquerors. They were ruthless warriors in their own right who ultimately failed to defend their sovereignty and national integrity on the North American continent. As Barcott notes in his conclusion, "The Comanche of the 1800s were truly a nation more like Germany. And you crossed them at your peril." Unfortunately, history lessons like this aren't the kind students are getting in their ethnic studies courses at the university.