Tonight, Tonight, Mike Vick Comes Back Tonight...

Ladies and gentlemen, you read it correctly. For the first time in 2 NFL seasons, Michael Vick, noted dogfighting enthusiast, will be playing for the Philadelphia Eagles. His reinstatement and signing by the Eagles has been a move that received mixed reviews, some feeling that his crimes were too heinous to garner reinstatement and that he should never be allowed to take an NFL snap again. I, on the other hand, disagree.

While his crime was heinous, he has served his sentence and complied with the terms of his release, so far as we know. In that effect he should be able to come back to his previous vocation and be allowed to once again excel at being overrated and a one trick pony...pending that would have been allowed by Roger Goodell, and it happened. As you all should know, the NFL is a business. The main part of that business is winning, if you're winning then you are doing good business. From the main office standpoint, if you're selling jerseys and making money, then you're doing good business. For the NFL, Michael Vick represents both of those goals, he gives the Eagles a better chance to win and he gives the league the opportunity to sell more jerseys. So guess what, Mike Vick isn't going anywhere.

Of course, when all of you protesting crusaders realize that your efforts to protest Vick are futile, you could always go protest Donte' Stallworth. I mean, he did kill a man and got only 30 days in jail. But then again, maybe to you the life of a human is less than the life of a dog.

If I can view the game, I'll be back tomorrow with a response to Vick, if not, then I'll be back Monday morning with a round up of most of the pre-season action from this weekend. And yes, that includes the Sunday night Broncos/Bears game. But, unless something awesome happens (i.e. Cutler gets injured), then there will be no mention of McJaygate.

I leave you with this refresher on Vick...

And you won't have Sarah Palin to kick around anymore...

On Friday Sarah Palin announced that she would resign as the Alaskan Gov with 18 months to go in her term. Claiming that she did not want to be a "lame duck" Gov as she did not want to run for reelection and that the state is wasting too much money investigating/defending her ethics violations. In my mind I would say that if your feel like your state is using too much money to look at your ethics violations maybe you should be resigning for YOUR ETHICS VIOLATIONS. Glad to see that the only time she worries about "laws" or "ethics" is when it is costing her tax payers money instead of worrying about what she is doing. Some have stated that Palin may be resigning to begin a run for 2012 President race. If this is the case then it was a pretty silly way to do it. Politically she just showed that either a) she is easily pushed and can't maintain her Governor's job whilst campaigning or b) she just flat out is a bit of a quitter. While I do not like Palin I would not consider myself anti-Palin. While I think the media did tee off on her during her campaign as V.P. (a campaign that she should not have even be in in the first place) I do not feel like it was unfair. Many said that the media did not attack Obama and Biden as much but they were also not the fresh face on the campaign and had all their motives and backgrounds analyzed by the left the right and all around. The quote from Palin in this whole thing that bothers me is "And though it's honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make (cite here)." The reason that it is honorable is that those people usually inform the press or at least their constituency what that higher calling is not just saying that "I can do more without the title." Those different standards revolve around the fact that most of Palin's moves seem irrational and borderline incompetent. Saying...

"I never believed that I nor anyone else needs a title to do this, to make a difference," she said. "I'm determined to take the right path for Alaska, even though it is unconventional and it's not so comfortable."(cite)

...tells me that she wants to be praised for the successes that follow here but ultimately not held responsible for failures. While I do not wish negatives to Palin I just wish people would step out of their political party mindsets and really look at her. The reason that the press piled on Palin is hypocrisy, it is always looked at through a microscope and is what brought so much attention to her. I think that the Republican party has some soul searching to do and I hope that they do it. I don't want a one party system in America but it is unfortunate that as opposed to the Republicans redefining themselves at all they are just hoping for a Democrat failure.

RIP Michael Jackson 1958-2009

Regardless of your opinions on Michael Jackson, it is irrefutable that today the music world lost a legend. The King of Pop is dead. I was never a huge Michael Jackson fan growing up, I mean, I knew the songs and I liked a lot of them, but I wouldn't consider myself a fan. The respect was there, though, and still is today for the great MJ. Say what you will about his eccentricities or his affections for children, but Michael Jackson the performer is still easily better than 95% of the pop acts currently out today. And for that, I say Rest in Peace. There will never be another King of Pop. And with that, I leave you with this...

Uh Oh, Three More Things...

Once again, welcome to another edition of "Three Things That Irritate Me." Tonight I will be covering politics, sports and a certain movie about giant robots that came out today. So without further ado, let us get right into it.

1. Obama and His Television Specials
Earlier this morning, my comrade in writing covered his views on this subject here. Now, while I am all for the use of technology as a means to get information to the public, there comes a point in which it is necessary to look a little deeper. President Obama is a politician, plain and simple, and by doing all of these specials he is working to present what he is trying to achieve in a way that is more appealing to the masses. Instead of presenting his plan and why he wants to do this in a speech or radio address, he is choosing to invade the airwaves of ABC to give us the necessary information through a town hall meeting format. So what is wrong with that, you ask? Well, simply put, everything. ABC has refused to allow airing of opposing viewpoit advertising during the special, leading already to a strong indication of one-sidedness in the preceedings. To go along with it, the special will be Obama fielding questions from "average Americans" who were selected by ABC News. As such you can expect to see little to no pressure on the plan and all the questions will be planned to allow answers that highlight the points they want to sell to the public. It's basic public relations, and it will be how they run this whole operation. The issue isn't his use of various forms of media to get out the information, the issue lies in the method in which he is doing so. Instead of a blatantly one-sided production, why not allow for opposing viewpoints to be addressed and responded to? What is it that you are afraid of, Mr. Obama? Maybe instead of working on health care reforms that are not currently a pressing issue, the President should focus on the economy and the wars overseas that we are still involved in. Would it be that difficult for you to make progress on this, Mr. Obama, or are you content to wait out the economy a little longer and pump in more money we already don't have that will only come back to haunt further generations?

2. LSU Wins National Championship, This Just In: SEC Dominates
Tonight LSU won the College World Series 11-4 over the Texas Longhorns in Omaha, Nebraska. Once again this year, the SEC triumphed over a Big 12 opponent in a national championship game and now the SEC has won two of the major three college sports in America. How can anyone deny the greatness that currently is the SEC? Oh wait, people still will, but forget the haters. For the rest of 2009, the SEC is the most dominant conference in college sports, and the forecast looks sunny for a great future, too.

3. Transformers
This is not my full review, that will be coming in a few days, probably Friday. I saw the film last night at the midnight IMAX showing in town and can honestly say I was blown away. After seeing the film, I lifted the review embargo and began to look at what was being said about the epic robot masterpiece. What did I find? The film being struck down by bad review after bad review. Well guess what, everyone, it is Transformers. There is no question as to what you will see when you go in, it will be nothing but robots blowing things up. The only movie that needed a story was the first, to tell the origin. After that, all that is required is a means to get from one giant CG robot fight to the next. As many of my friends know, I didn't enjoy X-Men Origins: Wolverine, mainly due to the horrible handling of the characters involved as well as the lame wrap up to try and bring the film together with the X-Men trilogy. So what is the difference with Transformers? The difference is that with Wolverine there is a major story involved and mythos that need to be followed to make a film that works and represents the property in the closest possible way. With Transformers, the only mythos you need to follow is that there are two races of robots who are fighting. Simple as that. Transformers is a solid action film full of plenty of amazing robot fighting scenes and a solid amount of Megan Fox (also look for Isabel Lucas who is definitely in league with Fox when it comes to hotness). Look for my full review Friday.

To combat some of the seriousness of this post, I leave you all with this...

Hello America...

Recently President Obama has taken to the air waves to help campaign for his health plan. There are mixed feelings about this (a little background here). ABC has dedicated itself to show pretty much everything that Obama is doing today but has said that they will have fair and "tough" questions for Obama during his town hall meeting tonight. People are weary of this because it kind of seems that the media is willing to help Obama to push his agenda but I don't feel that way. I would say that it does seem that it is a little much to be on t.v. so often but I don't think that it is inherently bad. In the time that we are living in I think it is great for a President to go on television and speak to the American people. I think that people are sceptical of the situtiaon for a few reasons. In the world of ratings we question the "fairness" of t.v. networks when the show anything about politics (although there is only one news network that I have heard to claim to be "fair and balanced"). Therefore if one channel shows too much coverage from either side then one side yells foul and says they are bias. We also wonder about the questions in general assuming that since they are on a "bias" channel then the questions must also be "bias." I don't think that ABC is crossing the line by showing Obama this evening. Maybe they are over doing the coverage a bit much but every channel does that with big programming. I think it is great that Obama is going on television to answer questions that people have about his policies and I hope that he continues to do things similar to it and I hope that in the future different channels do it as to keep things on an even keel. If these only appear on ABC consistently then yes I would say that it is too much but until then let's focus on the policies and politics and not the bull shit of the networks.

And Now For Something Completely Different...Giant Robots Blowing Stuff Up!

As many of you know, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen comes out tonight at midnight. As such, I will be seeing it on IMAX and will post a review sometime tomorrow afternoon. Let it be known now that I am a harsh critic when it comes to things from my childhood and comics. As such, I will be harsh with this film and pull no punches.

I am also going to use today as the first of the YouTube video of the week, as expected it is from Transformers: The Movie. This movie came out in 1986, before I was born, but it is still awesome and a part of my childhood. And it gave us this great song...



Being that I didn't do one last week, here is another little gem as well, play this post off keyboard cat!

Alright, North Korea, You Wanna Play Rough?

So I was flipping around my preferred news source, the BBC, and I came across this article. Despite many of the common misconceptions placed upon the Republican party thanks to the wonderful Bush Administration, I am not pro-war. I feel that we should only engage in military conflict when it is absolutely necessary, and that we, as a country, should always pursue a peaceful means to solve any conflict. Though, there are some exceptions to this that I may go into with another post. But when it comes to North Korea, enough is enough.

For years now, North Korea has done everything it can to stand defiant of the UN, defiant of the United States, and defiant of the rest of the world when it comes to nuclear proliferation. It has been a long known fact that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is not supposed to have nuclear weapons, as outlined by their acceptance of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. Their disobedience with the policies outlined in the agreement and their withdrawing from said agreement in 2003 leaves them in a precarious place in the world. Now I read that they are potentially threatening to launch missiles toward Hawaii? My views on the state aside, I am left with one response to this, "Really North Korea?!? Really?!?"

They have been defiant with the rest of the world for half a decade now, trying to play with the big boys of the world when they are little more than a wannabe. If they want to play, and go through with this launching of a missile in the direction of Hawaii, then let us play with them. No, I'm not saying go to war with North Korea or even use nuclear weapons against North Korea, what I would be calling for is a limited strike against them. Talks have been attempted time and time again, the moment for action is now. To launch a missile at Hawaii is an act of war and should not be tolerated by our current administration, especially given the history of the situation.

Only time will tell what the leaders in North Korea will do as far as testing and using their nuclear weapons. The aftermath of such an event will hopefully be well planned and implemented so as to not leave the Earth or our military in shambles. Though I am against opening a third military conflict, I do remember the way the last attack on Hawaii was received and responded. I would expect no less than a military response to another attack. Hopefully, for all of our futures, this is nothing more than a bluff on the part of North Korea.