Armageddon Approaches

We're nearly there. 40 hours from the BYU-Utah game that has more at stake than any of the other holy wars that have preceded it. BCS. MWC Champion. Top 10 Ranking. State bragging rights. The rights to all of the future superstar state athletes. The supremacy of the color Blue or Red. My sanity. The sanctity of marriage. The end of global warming. The reawakening of the financial system....wait, I've wandered off the reservation just a bit. There isn't quite as much as I would like on the line. There is, however, more on the table than there has ever been in any previous match up. The sad aspect of this game with enormous implications is that Utah is favored. The odds makers currently have Utah favored by 7. The supposedly wise men at ESPN are predicting a Utah victory. Lots of lame Utah fans are guaranteeing a win (not that they matter now, or ever). I'm worried for various reasons. This game, like every year, goes a long way towards making or breaking BYU's season. Add to it the possible BCS birth and a conference championship for the Utes if they win, and a BYU loss is potentially suicidal.  This isn't like 2005 when Utah had all of the same rewards awaiting them if they beat BYU; BYU was bad, Utah was ridiculous, and minus the death of Alex Smith, nothing was going to stop Utah. This year is different. Take away one horrific half of football at TCU, and BYU is ranked higher and probably favored to beat Utah. Take away one bad half of football at TCU, and BYU is a dark horse to sneak into the National Championship game. Erase 30 minutes of hell and BYU fans are confident of a victory on Saturday. You have fans that drink blue kool-aid, wear blue goggles, smoke blue doobies, and then you have fans like me--we always lean a litte towards the side of pessimism. We always see the worst case scenario as a possibility. So when we lean that way, we can't forget 30 minutes of vomiting on a field in Texas. We can't forget 30 minutes of what-the-hell-is-Max-Hall-a-girl. It puts me in a position of handling my grief after BYU loses, and putting me in a state of dangerously high euphoria if they win, but it creates a dark mood preceding the game. I ultimately think BYU will lose, and I don't know if that's my distorted pessimism, or accurate football perception. I would rather be wrong and have BYU win, than right and have my prediction vindicated. Either way, I'm attempting the most accurate, evenly weighted prediction I can proffer. Utah wins 38-28. The good that comes from this tragedy is the large pot of cash the BCS bowl provides to all MWC teams, and the sight of Utah being demolished by a superior team. The hurt will fade when BYU beats a bad PAC-10 team and Utah loses badly, and in spite of the loss, they give BYU a fat wad of cash. 

Good vs. Evil

Saturday. Good vs. Evil; Jesus vs. Satan; Obama vs. Bush; Mormons vs. Catholics; Me vs. My Pathetic Brothers on the ping pong table. Saturday brings THE showdown of the year for both teams. The game on Saturday will be the biggest, most important game in the history of the BYU-Utah rivalry. This game will determine once and for all if the Church is true. There is no way God will let his chosen University lose to the evil ones up north; meaning a Cougar loss proves the Catholic Church is true. I'm serious. Think about it. The Utes have obviously made a pact with the devil to have an undefeated season (it's the only possible explanation) and it's up to the Strippling Warriors to end this less than savory deal. More to come later, but be prepared for the 2nd War in Heaven...(Lucifer will lose again)

Sports Writer

I don't want to brag...but I've made it to the bigs! I'm gonna be a sportwriter for the Spanish Fork News! What, you're not impressed? With the Spanish Fork News? It's sort of like being the mayor of Wasilla--it may get no respect, but it can be a stepping stone...to things like the presidency...or the Daily Herald. Actually, for someone who has never written anything for the reading public outside of the blogosphere, this is a step in the right direction. I can't host Pardon The Interruption and have my own sports column for some big newspaper without working up the to tum poll. For all of my big fans--mom, wife, 3 year old son, 92 year old grandma--I'll make sure to post links so you can see my scintillating tales about Spanish Fork basketball and...brace yourself...high school wrestling!! Yeah, that's right, wrestling. I may not have let on before, but I'm obsessed with WWF. I had daydreams of marrying Hulk Hulgan, and spending the rest of my life shooting roids' and watching my man bash people with chairs. Alas, I had to forgo that dream for Stacy, but this is an awesome consolation prize. Anyway, stay tuned for mind bending stories about the unsung heros of the high school wrestling community--one legged victors, hermaphrodite champions....you get the point.

The 7 Aphorisms

Pleasant Grove has been in the national news this week due to a case pitting the city vs. a religious group. The group, Summum, asked the city to display a monument with the 7 Aphorisms on it--these were apparently on the 1st tablet Moses received from Jehovah--but the city declined. The issue deals with religious freedom, government speech, and the intermingling of the two. Pleasant Grove's Pioneer Park has a monument with the 10 Commandments on it, and it also has a stone from the original Nauvoo Temple. Pleasant Grove is claiming that because the city accepted the monument and chose to display it, the monument is government speech and therefore Pioneer Park is not a public forum. If this is the case, then the argument is that Pleasant Grove is endorsing one religion over another, violating the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. If it isn't government speech, then the park is a public forum, meaning the city can't deny Summum's 7 Aphorisms from being displayed. Pleasant Grove claims they chose to deny Summum because they display artifacts that have links to the city's history and heritage--something Summum can't claim. That defense still doesn't answer the question of whether or not the city has violated the Establishment Clause. Some would argue that it is impossible for the 10 Commandments in the park to be considered government speech, because Pleasant Grove obviously didn't make up the 10 Commandments--but this fails to absolve Pleasant Grove because once again, that makes the park a public forum. The current Supreme Court generally splits down the middle with Justice Kennedy acting as the tie-breaker, so it will come down to how he views this. I guarantee that Justices Roberts, Thomas, Scalia, and Alito will back Pleasant Grove, and that Breyer, Bader-Ginsburg, Souter, and Stevens will support Summum. A decision isn't expected for at least a couple of months, but the court's behavior on issues surrounding religion is somewhat predictable--they could prove me very wrong, but this is my prediction. I believe the city should be allowed to determine what to display in the park, but I also believe they shouldn't be allowed to display such overtly religious artifacts if they want to have that right. Certainly Pleasant Grove is primarily Mormon--and Christian--but there are also members of the community that fall outside these groups. By accepting one religious faith's monument, while rejecting another, the city is creating in-groups and out-groups. They are saying that Christianity is more valid and accepted than other faiths--whether they defend it with other excuses like heritage or not--and doing so clearly violates the Establishment Clause. The citizens of Pleasant Grove could also push the city to sale the park to private donors, and those donors could then display whatever religious artifacts they choose. Such a move would likely end up in court, but it would be a possible loop-hole. They could put a referendum on the next ballot, and then have an open bidding process if the citizens approve the sale--they would just have to hope that someone in a minority group didn't outbid everyone else. Anyway, it's an interesting issue that will certainly be referred to in other cases regarding religion and government. 

Rise Against

I had the good privilege of seeing Rise Against last night at Saltair. They are really, really cool. It's the third time I've seen them at Saltair, all with my brother-in-law, Brett. Anyway, this is a video of them playing one of their new songs.

Taxes

Debating about tax policy played a large role in the Presidential election. Taxes have been a major issue in every election since our nation's founding--in fact, even before that. President Obama plans to undo President Bush's tax cut for those making more than $250,000 a year. To many conservatives, this is part of Barack's larger socialist agenda.  A little research shows that since the US instituted income taxes, the wealthy pay less now than they have at any other time in history. The wealthy paid a higher tax under President Clinton, which unsurprisingly, along with a more fiscally responsible approach to governing, led to a budget surplus of a billion dollars when Clinton left office. In the last 8 years, President Bush has doubled our national debt--from 5 trillion to 10 trillion--and taken our yearly deficit from a surplus of 1 billion when he took office to a deficit of around 500 billion this year. This is a combination of war, tax cuts, and other irresponsible spending. How do conservatives expect us to pay for the war--which they support--and to fund the bailout, which a Republican administration pushed for? How do we fund the massive costs of researching and developing alternative fuel sources? How do we improve our public school system? A small portion of wealthy individuals control an enormous portion of the wealth in this country, yet more often than not, they pay a lower tax percentage than than those in the bottom income bracket. How? With all sorts of maneuvers that exploit the tax code. In 2006--the most recent data available--those earning the most (the top 1%) paid an average income tax of 19%, while the lowest wage earners paid an average of 21%. Anyone who assumes that the wealthiest Americans are over-taxed just isn't paying attention. The tax debate comes down to 2 simple points:

1) We have millions upon millions of Americans who work hard, but they can't afford health care. We should care about the welfare of our neighbors. We should care when good, hard working people are forced into bankruptcy because of health problems. We should care when older people spend every cent they have on medications so they can try and have a decent quality of life. Many conservatives are religious. They should ask themselves what their religion teaches about helping those in need. This isn't about providing lazy people with flat-screen televisions, it is about helping them, and even moreso their children, when they need to see a doctor. This isn't a socialist viewpoint. This isn't a call for nationalizing industry, and taxing the rich at a rate of 70%. It is about doing something we are capable of doing. Every other industrialized country in the world--except South Africa--provides some form of guaranteed health care. They treat it as a service, not a business; they choose not to let people go bankrupt so they can get the help they need. We should join them in providing health care for everyone in this country. It is the morally and ethically correct thing to do, and hopefully President Obama can get this done. 

2) Many of our schools are failing. Lots of schools are overcrowded. Teachers are expected to teach too many kids without the tools to do so. Lots of schools have horrible funding and they can't provide books and computers for the students. They can't pay teachers enough to stay around. It is hurting our country and most of all, it hurts those that are already hurting. The poor, impoverished parts of our country are the ones with the worst public schools, yet the kids that attend these schools are in tremendous need of a good education. We don't want a welfare state, but we also haven't provided the tools to help the segment of our society that needs schooling the most, so they can change their lives for the better and eliminate the cycle of poverty in their families. We need to put a lot more money into the school system--especially these poor areas--by providing more money for books and computers, paying teachers much more and recruiting the best educators out there to come to these schools. We need to build more schools and upgrade old, crumbling facilities, and make sure we provide a world class education not just to kids in the beverly hills school district, but also to those in the 9th Ward in New Orleans. 

There are lots of other issues, like are old, crumbling infrastructure, and the need for improving are industrial system so it harms the environment less. We need to develop better fuel sources, ones that are renewable and that harm the environment as little as possible. These kinds of things can't be done if we don't put money in our treasury. It's amazing that we can find conservative support for 700 billion dollars when it comes to banks and Wall Street, but that kind of money could have boosted the economy in other ways. We could have put that kind of money into schools, infrastructure, health care, and alternative fuels, improving our country and creating millions of new jobs in the process. We can't rebuild the middle class, and help those most in need, by taxing the richest among us at the lowest rate in our nations history. We need to make changes to the tax code that eliminate loop holes, and simplify things so that everyone pays the tax rate assigned to them. We shouldn't tax the rich at enormously high rates, but we should tax them in a way that helps America as a whole--a utilitarian approach. Republicans have pushed for lower taxes--especially since Ronald Reagan took office. The idea is that if we let the rich keep more of their money, they will reinvest it and create more jobs, thereby bettering all Americans. Well, this theory has been turned on it's head. Since 1980, the average real income (factoring in inflation) for the bottom 60% of Americans has dropped, while the income for the highest portion of American has risen by more than 300%. We have created an income gap only equaled by Russia--where most of the country rots, while a few billionaires live it up. We have created the kind of income gap last seen in our country in the booming 1920's, right before the depression. We knew then, and we know now, that massive income gaps destroy the middle class and that the rich don't let any trickle down, they keep it amongst themselves. Our tax policies should be created with all of America in mind, doing what is best for everyone, not only the rich. I hope President Obama can help restore our financial security, rebuild the middle class, provide basic, necessary benefits to the poor, and check the extreme excesses of the ultra-wealthy on Wall Street. This isn't a call for egalitarianism, it's a call to tax in a way that allows us to pay our bills as a country. It's a call to tax in a way that allows us to provide health care for everyone, and to improve our schools. That is not socialism. It is good, decent, humanitarianism. It is the approach we should all support. It is very achievable, it just calls for a little less greed, a little more kindness, a little less ignorance, and greater thriftiness by all of us.

Day 1, A.R. = Day 1 after the Republican Party's Demise

When President Bush was reelected in 2004, he and the right-wing media, proclaimed that he had a mandate, political capital, to spend. This was following a loss in the popular vote in 2000, and a 2% win in 04. Today, right-wing pundits are quickly claiming that Obama has no mandate. Interesting. Not only did he win the popular vote by 6%, he doubled up McCain in the Electoral College, and Congress become much more blue. If a dominant victory, coupled with a large majority for Obama's party in Congress isn't a mandate, then what is? With a sitting President who has the lowest approval ratings in the history of such polling, and a clear rejection of the Republican Party across the board, I think that not only Obama, but the entire Democratic Party, has been given a mandate by the American people to change the state of our Nation. Loudly and clearly, we have declared the Republican government of the last eight years a failure, and we have let the Democratic Party know that it is their chance to change things for the better. They will have no excuse if they fail to improve things--a clear majority in Congress, a Democratic President--and if they do fail, a reserves of 2008 probably awaits in 2012. Republicans, Fox News, and other supporters of the right can spin this election anyway they want, but their method of governing has been clearly rejected. It may return, but we are at least 4 years away from that possibility and in the meantime, the Democrats can get to work cleaning up Bush's mess. 

President Barack Hussein Obama

It's official. Barack Obama is our President-Elect. Our 44th President is an African-American, raised primarily by his white grandparents, abandoned by his father when he was young, who realized the American Dream as much as it has ever been realized. He didn't just win, he won by a huge margin, mandating change. A multiracial President with a Muslim name is now going to be our President. I am an Obama fan so I'm more excited than McCain fans, but anyone who is an American should be proud of our country today. We should all be proud of how quickly we've come since the 1960's, when Blacks still weren't treated like human beings. Now, a Black man is going to be in the most powerful position in the world--one that he is fully deserving of, and fully capable of doing a remarkable job. President Obama will has a tremendous set of challenges awaiting him as soon as he takes office, and it will be impossible for him to satisfy everyone with the course of action he charts, but I believe he will lead us in the best possible direction we can go under the current circumstances. He will select a remarkable set of advisers, and unlike our current president, he will listen to all of them, develop consensus, and make smart, analytical, well thought out decisions, not gut decisions. Today really is a remarkable, historic day, for the United States of America. I feel proud to be an American today. I'm proud of the fact that I voted for the first African American President in our Nation's history. I'm proud of the fact that I convinced my wife and my mom to do the same. President Barack Obama will be a good president, and I believe he will help repair our international image, help improve our domestic quality of life, and lead us in a positive direction, away from the last 8 years. Congratulations President Obama.