more i love money, pirates, president obama and the new gop

First and foremost, there was a brand new I Love Money 2 last night, and it was a good one.  For the first time in weeks it looks like Taylor Made is not in charge anymore.  Prancer, Myamee and Ice made an agreement to work together until the end, leaving Taylor Made and It high and dry.  Although they should be safe until Frenchy and Saphari are gone, unless they start winning some challenges and become paymaster, it may be

over soon for the two guys left on the show.  After 20 Pack got bounced last night (Myamee decided not to honor his deal with Taylor Made) there are no dominant male competitors left, so it really is anyone's game.  I'm excited to see what happens.

In other TV news, MTV has started up the Duel 2, and its season premier was awesome.  CT punched out a dude and the challenege was a rugby hybrid.  Not to mention there are no teams, so no one will be throwing challeneges.  I really like I Love Money, but the Duel 2 has more athletic competitors, hotter girls, more intense challenges and a better house, so it may be my new favorite reality TV program.  I'll be sure to comment on Wednesday's new episode.

Also in the news, Somali pirates recently attempted to highjack a U.S. merchant ship in the Indian Ocean near the Gulf of Aden.  Although unsuccessful, they did manage to take the ship's captain hostage for a few days.  However, the U.S. Navy was quickly on the scene, sending the U.S.S. Bainbridge, a destroyer which leads the U.S.'s antipiracy battle group, to deal with the situation.  As I'm sure you heard, during the negotiations the pirates became "hostile" and so orders were given to do what was neccessary to protect the captain.  Navy snipers shot and killed three pirates and another was captured.  The captain was unharmed.  

First, I want to praise Obama's handling of the situation.  Reportedly he gave the order to "do whatever was necessary" to maintain the safety of the captain if the situation grew more intense.  He trusted the military officials to make a good judgment and do their job, and that's exactly what they did.  The SEALs that attacked the pirates along with the Navy commanders on the Bainbridge are the best trained warfighters in the world, and Obama was right to allow them to handle the situation and not to take any options off the table.  He sent a message that the U.S. does not negotiate with terrorists/pirates and projected American strength thousands of miles away from our border.

The next question is what will the pirates in Somalia do next, and how will the U.S. react.  In the aftermath of the rescue mission, officials from several European countries condemned the U.S. action, stating that it will only prompt an escalation in the piracy.  Fuck that.  These are the same officials who think it is great that shipping companies are paying tens of millions of dollars in ransom to have their ships and crews returned unharmed.  Let's see.  If you were a pirate and you could attack one of two ships, the first bears the flag of country with a powerful navy that has already killed three of your colleagues and taken a fourth captive, while the other bears the flag of a country that will assuredly pay a hefty ransom for the ship without any type of military conflict, which would you choose?  International law regarding piracy is clear.  It is perfectly legal to use force to defend against pirates attacking a ship, and a sovereign nation is in the right to defend its nationals on the high seas, whether that means destroying the pirate presence or capturing them bring back to the home country for trial.  As far as I am concerned, shoot them all.  Its the only way to send the message that unlike Somalia, the U.S. is a nation of laws and that piracy is an abrogation of those laws which we take very seriously.  That message will be much more resounding than paying a ransom.  

Now although I think Obama handled this foreign crisis well, his lack of a plan for his domestic agenda has been disturbing.  For some reason, the Obama "change" mantra was a pop culture phenomenon, and even after his election it seems as though people still think he is this great savior, without really asking any tough questions.  Obama is cut more slack in both the media and by the mainstream public (by mainstream public I mean people who have no idea what politicians in Washington are doing, or what they do ever) than any major political figure since FDR.  Doesn't it scare you that the president of the United States has not articulated his philosophical direction for the country as whole besides the fact that we need change?  

Obama has never stated what his ultimate goals for the country are.  If I could ask him one question it would be, what do you want the United States too look like in 50 years, and how do your policies put us on the path to getting there?   I have a feeling that many Americans would not like his answer to that question.  He will take us down a path of less freedom to run our own lives, massive debt, and government controls over almost all aspects of our lives.  The problem is the Republicans are not forcing his hand.  They are not articulating an opposing view point on the issues Obama has decided to push.  

The GOP needs to return to its classical liberal roots.  Republicans need to put their foot down, say government is not the answer to all life's problems, and start providing free market solutions to the problems that face us today.  We are going down the unsustainable path of a entitlement society that will bankrupt the country.  The Government Accountability Office estimated last year that the federal government's unpaid obligations for social security and medicare is over $43 trillion.  That's over three times the countries GDP.  That is unsustainable.  And we are only moving down an exponential curve.  As the baby boomers retire and try to start cashing in on social security, the federal deficit is going to go to unheard of levels: upwards of 10-20% of GDP.  And that's not federal spending, just the deficit.  At that point government spending will be well over 50% of GDP.  

Republicans need to stand up now and say that the American people won't stand for it.  We are turning into a society where 50% of the population pays no income tax and the top 10% pay over 75% of the tax burden.  And its going to get worse.  We need to go back to where Americans relied on themselves, and not the government to run their lives.  The american dream has always been that if you work hard you can move up in the world.  That's what relying on a market economy does.  It rewards hard work, which is what our society is all about.

This is the sickest picture ever:

bye bye buckwild and tax shelters. hello world champion philadelphia phillies

First of all, sorry for the delay in between my last post and this one. I have been golfing a lot (since I'm not going to be able to go as much as it gets closer to finals) and I have a draft of a 30 page term paper due next Monday, so I have been a little busy. I do want to comment on a couple of recent events though. First, there was last night's episode of I Love Money. Also, I want to discuss all that happened (or actually what didn't happen) at last week's meeting of the G-20 nations. Lastly, I want to welcome back the World Champion Philadelphia Phillies, and try to put together a quick preview of their season and try to preview the rest of baseball.

Well, I am very happy that Becky Buckwild got kicked off I Love Money last night. With Taylor Made's alliance in full control of the game at this point, it was inevitable that she would be going home at some point, but I'm glad it was sooner rather than later. Becky was thoroughly annoying all season, not to mention she is just plain gross to look at. I also hated her because she was the number one challenege thrower when there were still teams, which definitely made the game less interesting to watch. At this point I really think its anyones game, and I think 20 Pack's move to accept Taylor Made's deal and send home Buckwild was very smart on his part. He is by far the most athletic person left, and if he can win either next week's or the following week's challenge, I think he has a good shot at stealing a couple people from Taylor Made's alliance and making it to the end. We will see. If I had to handicap the race for the $250k at this point (I'm not doing odds, just picking favorites), I think Prancer is the favorite, Ice is second, Myamee is third, 20 Pack is fourth and Taylor Made is fifth. I really think Taylor Made, despite being the leader of the largest alliance, I too un-athletic to win, and eventually someone will turn on him.

Next, President Obama addressed the leaders of the other G-20 nations last week, and despite the tremendous pressure that is being put on him to help turn the global economy around, he really didn't do much (which I am very happy about). His main thesis in the speech is that the global community should attempt to crack down on tax havens, many of which are located in small islands, especially in the Caribbean. According to Obama, these countries cost governments all around the world billions of dollars a year. If the global community does not work together to stop them, then governments all around the world will have their efforts to fix their own economies undermined.

What bull shit. Do you know what I think tax havens real function is? To provide low tax competition to big tax, socialist governments all over the world. The only true effect of eliminating these tax havens would be for the average global tax rate to go up, lowering the incentive for investment, slowing growth even further, and lower the average standard of living in the world. No one wants a large percentage of their income to go to the government, especially when Obama's tax plan will have the top tax payers paying well over 50% of their income to federal and state taxes. Tax havens serve as a check on governments who raise taxes too high. If their rates grow out of control, those who wish to avoid the tax burden will simply move their assets to a tax haven. Rather than trying to compete with the very reason that the countries are attractive to investors and other entrepreneurs, the G-20 just demagogues these countries and try to make them illegal. Obviously, they think its a competition that they couldn't win. In times of economic downturn, rather than trying to eliminate the from competition countries that are still doing ok because of their belief in the free market, maybe the G-20 countries should try to emulate what makes them successful. However, that won't fit their socialist agenda.

Finally, the World Champion Phillies (yes I am going to write WORLD CHAMPIONS as many times as I possibly can) opened up play against the Braves on Sunday night. Although they lost 4-1, it is only one game, and there are 161 to go. They will be fine. Our lineup is potent, but we faced a tough sinkerballer in Derek Lowe. The Phils have always struggled against sinkerballers, and if you watched you saw that they started hitting as soon as Lowe got out of the game. But regardless of how they played the other night, I feel really good about this Phillies team. Obviously they lost their best right handed bat, and one of the team's leaders in Bat "The Bat" Burrell, but this is a resilient team, and they will be able to move on with Burrell in the clubhouse. What really struck me was how many Phillies lost weight in the off season. Both Ryan Howard and Brett Myers looked twenty pounds lighter. Right now it may not look like a good thing. Howard went 0-4, and Myers allowed four runs through six innings, all from three home runs. But I think it will be good for both of them. I'm always in favor of pro athletes getting in better shape in the off season, and that's what they both did. Howard will come around, and hopefully his off season conditioning will lead to a faster start. And despite the fact that I was screaming profanities at Brett Myers all night on Sunday, he really didn't pitch that bad. He had 3-4 mistake pitches, and the Braves made him pay on every one. Other than that, he didn't let a Braves' runner reach third base.

Looking at this team as a whole, I think the key to the offense is going to be two out fielders, Jayson Werth and Shane Victorino. These are going to be our only two bats who will be in the middle part of the lineup who can bat right handed (Victorino is a switch hitter). With Burrell's departure and the signing of Raul Ibanez, this team doesn't have a true power bat from the right size. I think Werth is very capable at filling that role, as he showed at times last season.

However, the key to the season, as it always is, is pitching. I think Cole Hamels will compete for a Cy Young this year after getting in the national spotlight when he won the World Series MVP. I think Myers will recover, and have a solid year because his stuff is just so nasty, and he just needs to get his head straight. Jaime Moyer is my hero, and he will be a very adequate number 3. The bullpen will be solid once we get back J.C. Romero, as we have everyone back from a great bullpen from last year. The real questions are the 4 and 5 starters. Joe Blanton and Chan Ho Park? Really? Not that impressive and we need at least one of them to win 12 games. If the both get to double digits, we win the division easy.

Well below are my predictions for the season. I will pick my MVPs, ROYs, Cy Young Winners, Division Winners, Wild Card Winners, and who will beat who in the playoffs (seed in parentheses). I would be very interested to read comments with other people predictions. Well here they are:

NL

MVP: Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals
ROY: Cameron Maybin, Florida Marlins
Cy Young: Cole Hamels, Philadelphia Phillies
East: Philadelphia Phillies (2)
Central: Chicago Cubs (1)
West: LA Dodgers (3)
Wild Card: NY Mets (4)

NL Championship: Phillies v. Mets

AL

MVP: Josh Hamilton, Texas Rangers
ROY: David Price, Tampa Bay Rays
Cy Young: Roy Halladay, Toronto Blue Jays
East: Tampa Bay Rays (1)
Central: Minnesota Twins (3)
West: LA Angels of Anaheim (2)
Wild Card: NY Yankees (4)

AL Championship: Angels v. Rays

WORLD SERIES: PHILLIES over Angels

Well, the current WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS have to be the favorites, right?

A couple of random things

I want to address three main issues in this post:
1) What happened on last night's episode of I Love Money 2;
2) President Obama and Sec. Geithner's plan for dealing with toxic bank assets; and
3) A few of the reasons I don't buy 95% of what comes out of Paul Krugman's mouth.

Now numbers two and three deserve their own posts, but unfortunately I don't have the time to write three separate posts right now. So instead I am going to introduce my arguments and hopefully come back to the issue at a later time. Let's see how it goes.

First, it finally happened. Frank "The Entertainer" was kicked off of I Love Money 2 last night. I have been waiting for this to happen for weeks. Frank was a stupid person who yelled so loud that he could manipulate many of the people with feeble minds (cough, cough, 20 Pack, Onyx, Frenchie, Heat) who were on the show. Finally enough dumb people were gone so that an alliance led by Tailor Made finally was able to stand up to him. After winning the episode's challenge, Tailor Made convinced It to join his alliance. It was then able to convince Saphari that if she didn't vote Frank into the box, she would be the one put in the box herself, along with Myamee and It. She would then be the person went home, which is all most likely true. Instead Myamee, It, and Saphari's votes for Frank were enough to stalemate the vote, allowing the paymaster, Tailor Made, to choose who was put in the box. He obviously chose Frank, and after making Saphari sweat for a little while, sent him home. I couldn't be happier, and I can't wait to see where the show goes now that the individual challenges are starting.

Secondly, I have read a few reports on the Obama administration's new bank asset relief plan, and as you may have guessed, I am not impressed. As I understand it, and I may be wrong because I am not particularly well educated on these types of securities, first the banks will auction off the assets, often taking losses just so that the bad investments are off their books. Next, the treasury will use the remaining $100 billion or so in unused TARP funds to go in as a 50/50 partner with the private investor who wins the auction. However, instead of requiring full payment for the asset, the private investor and the treasury will only be required to put up 1/14 of the purchase price each. The rest of the price will be paid for from a FDIC in the form of a non-recourse loan which would be lent to the new public-private partnership at a 6-to-1 debt-to-equity ratio.

This is simpler to understand using the example given by the treasury department. Say a bad bank asset is really worth $1, but it is sold at the auction for $0.84. In this case the private buyer and the treasury would each put up $0.06, while the remaining $0.72 would be financed buy a loan by the FDIC. Basically the tax payer is on the hook for 90% of the investment.

The first problem I have with the plan is the pairing of private investors with the treasury, each sharing profits. After seeing how the house acted last week when AIG used federal funds to pay their top executives, why would anyone in their right mind want to accept federal funds to buy a troubled asset. Imagine, for example, that some lucky investor ends up purchasing a tremendously undervalued asset (not out of the realm of possibility), and sees tremendous profits. I can just see Nancy Pelosi now, yelling on the house floor about "windfall profits" and attempting to implement a 90% tax retroactively on private investor despite the fact that the federal government will also see similar profits.

Secondly, tax payers bear way to much of the risk. As I stated, the treasury will match the private investors capital investment while the rest will be financed through FDIC and federal reserve loans. Although the toxic bank assets may turn out to be undervalued, there will undoubtedly be a large number that will fail, and the federal government, well actually tax payers, will be forced to front the bill.

Lastly, although this system may work for banks that are not in terrible shape, there is almost no chance it will work for someone like CitiBank. There assets will most likely be sold at such a low price at auction that they will be unlikely to accept the price and the loss associated with it. Executives who accept short term losses like that see stock prices tumble even farther, destroying their compensation and most likely costing them their job. A more likely scenario is that the will refuse the sale price, and in order to keep them on their books continue to hoard funds and refuse to lend. Basically it will be exactly the opposite of the desired goal of the plan, as the markets will fail to be recapitalized.

Now like I said, I will continue to follow the proposal and will comment as new ideas and issues emerge. Hopefully, this will work, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it won't, and that Congress will step in a few months with now with actual legislation that will only further exacerbate the problem or cause brand new ones. For a better alternative check out the blog that I follow (Link in the box to the right) entitled The Road from Serfdom. Although it isn't written yet, I am going to force my roommate to write it tonight because I don't want to take credit for what I think is a very good idea. So get writing Andy Maran.

Finally, I just want to write a paragraph or two on a few of the reasons I don't think Paul Krugman really knows what he's talking about when he attempts to predict the future of the economy. Now Krugman is an excellent research economist, and his work won him a noble prize in 2008. However, he has a history of being a very poor forecaster, based mainly on his reliance on Keynesian models. For one example, see this link which outlines how he wrongly predicted massive inflation in the 1980's while working for the the Council of Economic Advisers for the Reagan administration.

Now I can't base my entire dislike for his theories one one prediction, but when he doesn't believe one the the most fundamental issues of my economic beliefs, that inflation is a pure monetary phenomenom, then how can I accept anything he says. In his memo Krugman uses indicators such as oil and commodity prices as well as exchange rates to predict further inflation. However, these indices are not inflation causing, they are only inflation spotters. Inflation is caused by nothing more than in an increase in monetary supply relative to output. If output and monetary supply remain the same, then there is little or no inflation. When the monetary supply increases faster than a nation's output, that nation will experience inflation.

Krugman also uses misrepresentations to make political points as well. For example, Krugman's attack on Milton Friedman's theory that the federal reserve's failure to end its tight money policy prior to the great depression may have been a contributing factor to the extent of the economic downturn (Link to the article here). Krugman claimed that since the monetary base (i.e. currency and central bank deposits within the federal reserve) had risen rapidly prior to the current downturn and has failed to curb the current economic fall, so the federal reserve could have done nothing to soften the great depression. However, the truth is that Friedman's argument was that the fed's failure to increase the true money supply (i.e. money contained in deposit accounts and currency in circulation) made the great depression worse. And that also explains why an increase in the monetary base has not helped soften the current downturn. Banks are currently hoarding money with deposits at the Federal Reserve. This explains the increased monetary base and in reality the true money supply has not increased recently, perhaps exacerbating the current downturn.

Anyway I'm tired of typing. I'm sure I'll complain more later.

20 Pack, The Drinking Age, and the State of the Union

First, quite a bunch happened last night on I Love Money 2. Once again, someone on the green team (both Milf and Becky Buckwild) threw the challenge. The other members of the green team did what I thought was smart, and put those two and the weakest other team member, T-Weed, in the box. Frank the Entertainer then voided T-Weed's check. But that's when it got interesting. The guys had to choose who they thought was the most loyal guy, and the girls chose who they thought was the most loyal girl. The guys choose 20 Pack by a large margin. I thought that was a little weird. 20 Pack was an original captain, but he never took any responsibility. He just had the Entertainer choose his whole team. So I guess he has been loyal to the Entertainer, but why would Buddha vote for him? And why didn't anyone vote for Bones? He is definitely the most loyal person on the show.

The girls ended up picking Saphari, which I totally didn't get. Wasn't she paymaster last week, and didn't she send home Leilene, who shed] claimed to be great friends with? That doesn't sound loyal to me. Regardless, it turned out that 20 Pack and Saphari were the new team captains. One guess who didn't get picked. Of course it was Buddha. Well at least we don't have to deal with the Entertainer constantly bitching about Buddha anymore. But the strangest pick was definitely 20 Pack's second pick, which was Buckwild. Now Buckwild has been very open with the fact that she is in an alliance with Saphari, and has thrown challenges to keep that alliance. So why the hell would 20 Pack pick her when Saphari is the captain of the other team? He is just asking for her to throw challenges down the road. I really hope she doesn't though. My biggest complaint with the season so far is how easy it is to rig the challenges. In the game's current format, since a member of the other team gets to choose who goes home, there is a large incentive to simply throw challenges. If you do it consistently, then you will never go home because the other team will want to keep you around. It's stupid. It makes the challenges meaningless, and all that mattered was which person from the green team was sent home this week.

On a non-reality TV front, I saw a special on 60 Minutes on Sunday (it came on after the Nova-Cuse game, and i was too lazy to change the channel as I was doing dishes) about the 21 year old drinking age in the U.S. Now 60 Minutes is usually a liberal, populist, crappy show designed to scare old people into thinking that young people want to kill them and that government, not personal responsibility, is the solution to all of liefs problems. However, this week they highlighted the failed system we have in the U.S. to stop drinking under the age of 21. Personally, I think a minimum drinking age is ridiculous. Everyone always makes the point that you can be drafted and go to war at age 18, but you can't drink a beer. I think there is an even more fundamental problem with a minimum drink age. As any young person will tell you, there is a very strong and entrenched market for underage drinking. People are going to do it regardless of what the government tries to do about it. Now if the enforcement penalties are made stronger, it will deter people at the margin up to a certain point. No matter what the government makes the penalties, there will always be some people who want alcohol (see prohibition).

Now when a market exists for a product, the market can be governed by one of two sets of rules: either the rules imposed by the government, or the rules of a black market controlled by an illegal, non-governmental group. When it comes to underage drinking, the supply for its black market is provided by a variety of groups: people over the age of 21, teenagers with fake ids, theft, and corrupt store owners. The problem that occurs in a black market is that there is no forum for resolving disputes created in the market. The government's court system provide this service in a governmentally regulated market, but I doubt a 17 year old is going to file a fraud claim when his 22 year old neighbor rips him off when he picks him up some delicious keystone lights. Now this isn't as big a deal for underage drinking, because there are so many suppliers the market can regulate itself. Unhappy with your neighbor's service? Just go to your cousin.

However, there are many other black markets where this is a much more serious problem.
For example, take the market for illegal gambling. Historically, this market in the U.S. has been shunned by the government and controlled by racketeering organizations like the mafia. Because the official governmental position in most jurisdictions is total prohibition, there are many fewer suppliers for the market. In order to serve this illegal market, the supplier must be well organized, powerful and able to defend its market share. Due to the government's non-participation, governmental rules will inevitably be disregarded by the market's service providers. Think about it: if you are serving an illegal market, and one with strong penalties no less, why would you act legally to maintain you market share. There are limited incentives to do so. The same can be said for today's inner city gangs controlling the illegal drug market.

The moral of the story is that when a good or service has an inherent market, there will always be people who are going to be willing to serve that market. When the government creates a prohibition for that market, they are doing nothing but taking themselves out of the game. Obviously the government prohibition will deter some people, but as the number of suppliers drops, as will happen with a prohibition, the cost of the goods or services goes up, creating a larger incentive to enter the market. Eventually the price will reach a point where it is extremely profitable to serve the market, and since the service is already illegal to provide, there are few incentives to maintain market share in a legal way. At the end of the day, the suppliers will eventually become the people who will do the most, usually violently, to maintain control over the supply.

Now I'm not saying we should immediately make drugs and gambling legal, and end the minimum drinking age, but I do think we need to rethink some failed strategies. If you could buy currently illegal drugs at the store, you would be able to take away a major source of power and wealth from inner city street gangs. It is also one of their largest sources of conflict. It may be possible to reduce the number of violent crimes related to this illegal market by allowing the government to step in and regulate its sale. Additionally, it would vastly reduce the number of jailed inmates, eliminate the costs of fighting the war on drugs that has failed over the past 40 years, and take power from violent criminals that currently control the market. Just some food for thought.

Lastly, Obama's first state of the union address is tonight. I'm definitely going to watch it and am interested in what he is going to emphasize. I'm sure I'll be back in a day or two to complain about it, but for now here is a cartoon I found funny (click to make it larger).

Ramblings

I don't really feel like putting together a coherent article right now, so I am just going to ramble for a little bit. This is basically my stream of consciousness during any given day.

How is it that A Rod can get away with admitting to using steroids from 2001-2003 (he had sick numbers all three years and won the A.L. MVP in 2003), and Phillies reliever J.C. Romero gets suspended for 50 games to start the 2009 season for taking a supplement he bought at GNC? Romero told Phillies trainers about it as soon as he bought it, they Ok'd it, and he was repeatedly told by player's association officials that anything bought OTC in the U.S. was fine. Does this make sense? I know that is the way it is, and I'm not even that pissed about A Rod. I'm just pissed the Phils are gonna to have to defend their title the first half of the season without a sick left-handed, set-up man.

George's Cafe sucks. It's over-priced, and although the hippies do provide good service, the selection of food other than the breakfast tacos blows. For a better lunch, I would recommend the Texas Expresso Cafe.

I had a frito pie for the first time ever on Sunday night. Why do they not have those things up North? One of the most delicious things I've ever eaten.

I'm pretty sure Keystone Light orange cans do not exist. I must have gone through 50 24-packs and never found one.

Leilene may have been the most manipulated person on any VH1 show, EVER. Throughout I Love Money 2, people would yell at her, and she would immediately cave and do what ever they wanted. It is fitting that she got kicked off by one of the people she thought was her best friend (Safari). She may be the biggest pushover in america.

Speaking of reality tv on VH1, I may be done with tool academy. Now that Tommy's gone, the rest of the contestants really suck. You have a little chump from jersey with a girlfriend whose got 50 lbs on him, a dude that goes by Matsuflex who hasn't ever had sex with his girlfriend, and a guy who originally came on the show with two girlfriends and finds it necessary to say dude and yell all the time. Weak.

I'm really hungry. I could go for a frito pie right now.

I recently had a small debate over which receiver would rather have on the Eagles: Anquan Boldin or T.J. Houshmandzadeh. I love T.J. but I had to go with Anquan. He is big, physical and 5 years younger. I just love the flexibility he gives your team. He is a threat on quick screens, crossing routes, and deep over the middle. He is exactly the type of physical receiver the Eagles need.

Old people are ruining/bankrupting the United States. Greatest generation my ass. So what did they do? They won WWII and elected the officials who have ballooned the size of the federal government. What's so great about that. Everyone hates Nazis, and they just left tremendous amounts of debt for their grandchildren to pay off. And now they want more and more money through social security and medicare. And they can't drive. And they walk slow. Ruining america.

I don't know what to do about my middle irons. My swing has been to armsy lately, causing a bit of a hook, so I have been trying to drop my hands a little bit. My friend Matt says I may need to rework my grip. Suggestions appreciated.

Dell computers are really cool. Look what you can do with the webcam. You should buy a dell. Call 1-800-761-3355 today!

If I could choose five athletes to spend one day with they would be Tiger Woods, Ocho Cinco, Pat Burrell, Brian Dawkins, and Shane Victorino.

I think the Texans red alternate jersey may be my new favorite NFL jersey. My least favorite is the Cowboys white.

That's about all I got.

quality television programming

Several times my friend's and I have had what I call a "Television Channel Draft." How it works is that you get a group of people together and you begin picking tv channels in a traditional draft format. The premise of the whole thing is that for the rest of your life you can only watch programs and games on the channels you pick. Now as many of you probably would have guessed, my first pick was always espn. However, after that it starts to get a little more challenging. I'm a huge fan of the discovery channel, the history channel, and comedy central; however, over the past year or so two channels have emerged as my personal picks for the second and third best channels on television. Coming in at number three has to be A&E. I'm sure many of you are thinking, isn't A&E that channel that had Murder, She Wrote and McGyver when I was a kid. Well yes, but over the past year or so A&E has become a powerhouse in true reality television. Groundbreaking shows such as The First 48, I Survived and my personal favorite, Intervention, have moved A&E to close to the top of my list. But there is another channel that has come even further than A&E in terms of upgrading its programming. Of course, that channel can be none other than the infamous...VH1.

I used to feel very differently about VH1 and the programs on it. VH1 used to be one of the worst channels on television. Shows like Pop-up Video and Behind the Music were flat out terrible. Even some of VH1's relatively recent shows like I Love the 70's/80's/90's and those stupid countdown shows were the same bullshit over and over where the network took a sort of funny concept and killed it when they added the commentary of some of the worst comedians on tv. But about a year or two ago VH1 came up with one of the biggest innovations in TV history: celebreality.

The original show that started the change was the infamous Surreal Life. Although the show itself was relatively hilarious copy of MTV's real world, its lasting legacy is that it was the great-great-grandfather of all of the great shows currently showing on VH1. It began with a pretty terrible spin-off called Strange Love which was a love show between surreal life celebs Flavor Flav and Brigitte Nielsen. However, Flav and Brigitte's love didn't flourish, so Flav did the only responsible thing and went on a bachelor type show called Flavor of Love and the rest is history. Over the next few seasons several other spin offs were spawned and excellent titles such as I Love New York, Rock of Love, Charm School, Real Chance of Love, and the ultimate spin off, I Love Money, began being broadcast. If you love stupid people making asses out of themselves, then you will LOVE all of these shows. Currently, there are three absolutely awesome shows airing new episodes on VH1: (in no particular order) Rock of Love Bus, Tool Academy, and I Love Money 2. As each of the seasons progress I'm sure I will comment on all of these shows, but for now I want to talk about last night's episode of I Love Money 2.

Heat is an idiot. Actually he may be one of the stupidest people who has ever made it on tv (Tamara excluded obviously). I can't believe how big an idiot he is. In the episode's challenge, Heat was his team's captain and got to choose who on his team would get to box in each round of a best of seven series. His team was up 3-2 with only two fights remaining, and Onyx was due to fight with for the other team. Now before the challenge Onyx had formed an alliance with Heat, the Entertainer, and 20 Pack to throw the challenge. All Heat had to do was put anyone with half a chance up there, and the challenge was over. Instead he chooses the smallest girl on his team, Prancer, which basically meant there was no way Onyx could throw the challenge without exposing the alliance. So Onyx beat Prancer setting up a chance for Heat's team to lose the cahllenge. Although Heat's team still ultimately won the final fight and the challenge, he ended up exposing his spy on the other team, destroying an excellent opportunity to sabotage later challenges. And that wasn't even Heat's biggest mistake! During the power outing, Heat went out with Onyx, Buckwild, and Leilene to try to determine who he would send home. Of those three Leilene was obviously the worse competitor and was the only one not offering to be a spy for Heat. However, during their one-on-one time Heat was seduced by Leilene and they began to make out. Heat asks what she would be willing to do to stay, and although you don't really hear an answer (cough...cough...blowjob), Heat decides to keep Leilene and send home Onyx, destroying his chance to hurt the other team. What an idiot. The exact same thing happened on I Love Money 1: Heat fell in love with Destiny, lost focus, got his girl stolen by the Entertainer and then was sent home. I predict a repeat performance. Heat is an idiot, and he will be gone within 5 episodes. Regardless I am real excited for next week's episode, and hopefully the green team, my personal favorite, can get a win and send someone like Heat, 20 Pack, or the Entertainer home. And don't forget about the series premier of T.I.'s Road to Redemption tonight. Although it's on MTV and not VH1, you've gotta love that celebreality!