Liberty and Justice for All!

A recent poll states that only 8% of Americans want Congress to be reelected. This is just about as dumb as the congressional approval rating polls. Why are such polls meaningless? Because at the end of the day, incumbents typically have a 85%+ reelection rate for Congress.
Usually people disapprove of Congress as a whole. However, they love their own Congressman for “bringing home the bacon needed economic development funds”.  Pork is often defined as tax dollars that Congressmen who don’t represent you bring home to their districts. This is why Republicans can get away with bashing the stimulus while using the funds from the stimulus bill to promote what a good job they are doing as an elected official.

I find it likely that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the GOP will use this poll as “proof” that America is unhappy with the Democratic ran congress. I also find it likely that many conservatives will believe them without thinking about what the poll actually says (which is nothing).

On WDSU and WWL, they have reported that the NOPD have started to crack down on people using ladders in a manner that violates the city ordinances. Jeff over at the yellow blog is one of the more vociferous members of the New Orleans Blogosphere when it comes to the fact that the NOPD should be enforcing the rules on ladders on parade routes. I bet he will be thrilled!

Here is one report.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Talk about wishful thinking. If what that guy is taking is not illegal, it should be!

Now seriously, the discussion of Reggie Bush and what the Saints should do with his 20 million dollar salary over the next two years has been a hot topic on the sports discussion. People are saying that we should trade Bush away because he is not worth the 8 million he would get paid next year.

So let me get this straight. People think Reggie Bush is not worth the contract he is owed. If that is the case, how on earth are the Saints supposed to trade for him? Who else would take him for 8 million dollars? It would be like me telling you “my house is worth $150,000 but I need you to buy it from me for $200,000 because that is how much I owe”. And even if we did give some prospective team some cash (say $2 Million) as an incentive to take the contract, we would still be paying $2 million more than we should for whatever running back we would replace him with.

Besides, his measurable statistics might not be worth $8 million but those things that he does that cannot be measured on a stat line are why I think it would be worth it to pay him the money he is owed. However, I think that if we were to offer him a renegotiated long term contract (perhaps $6 million a year for 6 years) I think we could lock in his talent up for a while.

I liked Reggie Bush even when he would try and run sideways because of those things that cannot be measured. I like him even more now that he is running north-south and running over people.

I also would like to be able to keep my Bush jersey!

Tonight was a wonderful parade to celebrate the amazing season of the New Orleans Saints. This was unlike any Mardi Gras parade I have ever attended. It was packed wall to wall but there was no real jockeying for position (at least where I sat). We all crammed in, talked about the season and how great it is to have such upstanding men playing for our city. We cheered with joy at those former Saints riding on floats (including Mike McKenzie and Michael “the Beer Man” Lewis). As we waited for floats we cheered Saints cheers and just had a good time.

Now, I have no clue who planned the parade route. However, the planning doesn’t seem to have taken a lot of thought. Estimates on the radio had the number of people attending the parade at 800,000. This is 800,000 people who watched a parade that had most of its route surrounded by Loyola, Canal, the River, and the Pontchartrain Expressway. No uptown or mid-city portions.

Think about it. How many routes did traffic have to get out of the area? And how many more people were in the area because of how compact the route was? When I watch Bacchus, I typically watch it from around Lucy’s. I will go park in the Harrah’s parking garage and even with the fact that it exits out onto Convention Center Blvd, it usually takes me no more than 30 minutes to get out of the garage. Why is it so easy to get out? Because many of the people have watched it in other parts of the city.

I left my wife in a parking garage downtown at about 8:20pm, and then walked to my car (that I had parked outside of the parade route before work). She just got out at 11:20pm. Ignoring the ineptitude of the building/parking management for a second, the fact that people were compacted in such a small area meant that getting out of garages would take much longer than usual.

Back to the ineptitude of the management. There was nobody outside of the building directing traffic. As cars tried to come out of the building, they could not make any progress because nobody was there to make sure that cars could flow out of the garage at a steady (even if slow) rate. It was not just the parking garage my wife parked in that was a problem. Listening to WWL on the way back downtown to see if I could just come get my wife and have them leave the car overnight in the garage, I heard many horror stories of people who could not get out of their garages either. One garage allegedly had an SDT garbage truck blocking the exit. Other garages just could not move. By the time I made it back from the West Bank to the CBD, I saw other garages still letting their customers out (at this time 2 hours later). You would think that they would have been able handle a very simple idea of hiring people to direct traffic out of your building. By the time I got downtown, their car was moving and I was not needed. I was still able to make it back home before they got out of the garage.

Hopefully, the next time we win the Superbowl, we will have learned our lesson. However, I wouldn’t think that a city that is so adept at throwing a parade would be so inept about making a smart route.

What a great game. The Saints played well on all sides of the ball and our boys in black and gold showed the world why we should have never been considered underdogs. Brees was awesome,Vilma was brilliant, Hartley was dependable, Morestead was clutch, and apparently Porter broke Twitter.

But this whole season was an amazing one. The Saints have broken many records this season, some Saints firsts and others NFL firsts. Enough cannot be said about Sean Payton dipping into his own wallet to make sure Greg Williams would be our Defensive Coach.

It was really nice to watch, after the fact, the replay of all the pundits and players who picked the Colts to win. Makes you wonder why they get paid so much.

Those same pundits are saying how this loss really hurts Peyton Manning’s legacy. Just as they exaggerated the Saints likelihood of losing, I think they are exaggerating what this game does to his career. He is still a great QB and I cannot take anything away from him. Tracy Porter, on the other hand…

SAINTS WIN THE SUPERBOWL!

(And by the amount I predicted as well, I might add)

As my wife says… WHO DAT BITCHES?!?!?!?!?!

That’s right, it’s official. I am watching SportsCenter and as I predicted over on the Yellow Blog, Chris Berman picked the Indianapolis Colts to win the Superbowl! That is better news for the Saints than Dwight Freeney injuring himself! (Actually, I want Freeney healthy because I know the Saints can handle him and I don’t want the Colts fans to make any excuses when they lose). When Chris Berman picks against us in big games, we win.

Now, that is not the only reason I believe the Saints will win the Superbowl. One of the actual reasons that they will win is for the same reason that Manning won the MVP. Manning has less weapons on his team so he plays a larger part in the success of the Colts. Brees, on the other hand, has many weapons to throw to. This is one of the reasons why the Madden simulation picked the Saints to win. However, I have been making this argument since the Saints won the NFC Championship.

Let’s look at the other numbers. During the regular season, Brees had the highest passer rating. Brees had less INT than Manning. The Saints had the #1 overall offense in the league.

Meanwhile, the Colts had the least total rushing yards in the league, was ranked 31st on yards per carry, and was 16th in rushing TD. This makes them one dimensional. And while Manning is a great dimension to have, it allows the Saints to apply pressure to force Manning to throw early OR to drop back in coverage and double team their good receivers.

Greg Williams is adept at hiding his blitzes. This makes it harder for Manning to audible at the line, one of his strengths. When Reggie Bush is on the field and goes in motion, he can make the defense reveal if they are in a zone defense. This gives Brees a huge advantage.

People question the Saints only beating the Vikings by three even though they got 5 turnovers, forcing 4 of them. Well, you have to remember that the Vikings had the 6th best defense in the league. The Colts were ranked 18th. And while the Saints were ranked even lower on defense in the regular season, people seem to forget that early in the year, the healthy Saints defense was ranked in the top 10. The Saints are currently healthy and have played tremendously this postseason.

People are also saying a lot about Greg Williams and his comments about how they will go after Manning. Well, the job of the defense is to go after the guy with the ball and tackle him. So obviously the first guy with the ball after the snap is the QB (usually). Will Greg Williams tell his players to hit Manning in such a way that causes a penalty and extends drives for the Colts? OF COURSE NOT! However, this is football and you may get hit. If you don’t like it, perhaps you should watch ballet.

To get to the Superbowl, the Saints had to beat 2 QB with 30 years of combined experience and 2 Superbowl rings. The Colts had to beat 2 QB with 3 years of combined experience.

At the end of the day, the Saints just have the overall better numbers. And when it comes to the big games, our players step up even more. We beat Eli Manning, Tom Brady (embarrassingly so), Kurt Warner and Brett Favre. I think there is room for one more QB on the shelf.

Saints win by at least 2 TD.  WHO DAT?!?!?!?!??!?!!?

I said that President Obama should step up and denounce the proposed legislation in Uganda. What better place to do it than at the prayer breakfast that is organized by “The Family” (the group with ties to those sponsoring the legislation in the first place.

The ad can be viewed here. It is really good (and it is good to see that they went in a similar direction as I suggested, not that they got the idea from me)

Obama said: “You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college”.

Because of that comment, the Mayor of Las Vegas said that Obama will no longer be welcomed in the City of Las Vegas.

So let me get this straight. The Mayor of Las Vegas WANTS people to blow their college savings in Las Vegas? Yeah, there is a real winner right there.

Vegas does a really good marketing job selling itself as a place to go to have a lot of fun and spend a lot of money. Because of that, it is likely going to be one of the first cities people think of when they think of a vacation spot. The fact that Obama has used Vegas multiple times only goes to show that the Las Vegas marketing plan worked.