The Failure of Palestinian Nationalism

The Failure of Palestinian Nationalism: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Warsaw Summit demonstrated that the popularity of the Palestinian cause continues to decline, suggesting that Palestinian nationalism has failed. Historically, the positive elements of Palestinian nationalism have been offset by

Founding Palestinian Myths

Founding National Myths: The vast literature proving the historic Jewish connection to the Land of Israel has been extensively manipulated and distorted as part of the Palestinian politics of nationalism. Propaganda, indoctrination, and socialization, both domestically and

NFL Games Of 2019

The NFL's 100th season has been as compelling as the league has been for almost all of its existence.   Of course it takes time to build something and the NFL did just that.   Amid controversy over officiating, pace of play, etc. the 2019 season has seen quite a number of stunning games.   A video presentation below:


Lions at Cardinals

A rare tie seemed to bode well for both the Detroit Lions - who now appeared to be buying into coach Matt Patricia after a rough 2018 - and the Cardinals with first year coach Kliff Kingsbury, in his first ever pro game as a head coach, as well as rookie quarterback Kyler Murray.



Bengals at Seahawks

The Seahawks started a spectacular march through 2019 edging a Bengals team with new coach Zac Taylor that looked a lot more promising than it had been the previous three seasons but which fell into failure with a winless rut not ended until December.




Texans at Saints 

In the periodic Bum Phillips Bowl, the Saints started their own spectacular surge through the season as - speaking of Houston Oilers notoriety - they erased a 21-10 Texans lead and surged to a 27-21 lead, but in the final minute the Texans stormed to the lead, then the Saints booted the 58-yard field goal on the last play.



Giants at Bucs

New Bucs coach Bruce Arians got striking improvement out of the erratic Jameis Winston and an early example was this stunner where the Giants nonetheless erased a three-touchdown gap for a one-point squeaker.



Chiefs at Lions 

The game lead tied or changed eight times and combined for 895 yards and five fumbles.   The game lead changed four times in the final seventeen minutes and Darrel Williams' second score of the fourth quarter won it for Kansas City.




Chargers at Titans

While not an especially high-scoring affair it was a turning point in the season as the 2-4 Titans gave up on 2015 first rounder Marcus Mariota and went to ex-Dolphin Ryan Tannehill.  Tannehill responded by delivering the Titans to a tight win, their second over the Chargers in the decade after going winless against San Diego since 1992.  



Bucs at Seahawks

74 combined points, 910 combined yards, a missed Seahawks FGA, and the lead tying or changing eight times wound up meaning one thing - it had to be settled in overtime.   And the Surging Seahawks and Russell Wilson delivered again.



Chiefs at Titans 

For the eighth time in nine meetings the Titans upended a team coached by Andy Reid.  The two teams exceeded 900 yards and the lead tied once and changed five times as the Titans rushed like it was Eddie George.   It was Titans special teams that proved decisive in the final two minutes after a failed Tannehill fourth down conversion; after three straight Chiefs run plays the Chiefs gagged the FGA and it turned into an intentional grounding penalty; from there Tannehill turned into Steve McNair on an eighteen yard rush, a twenty yard completion, then a twenty-three yard touchdown strike.   The Chiefs raced to the Titans 34 but the kick was blocked.



Seahawks at Forty Niners 

The undefeated Niners hosted the surging Seahawks and the battle of NFC powers was a brutally tight affair as the Niners erased a 21-10 Seahawks lead, forced overtime, then the Seahawks stormed to the Niners 4 in nine plays but Russell Wilson was intercepted.   Jimmy Garoppolo clawed the Niners to a FGA that failed.  Two punts followed and the Seahawks finally ended this affair at the end of overtime.



Eagles at Dolphins 

The Dolphins under new coach Brian Flores were supposed to tank the season to draft Tua Tagovailoa; for most of the season they were terrible, but then started to win a few games.  The Eagles were supposed to challenge for the NFC East and a playoff bye; the division proved so weak that 7-9 threatened to be the record needed to win it, and the Eagles fell to 5-7 at Davie, FL in a game where they led 28-14 but the Dolphins stormed back to win.



Colts at Bucs

2003's 21-point meltdown to Indianapolis forever haunts the Bucs and this shootout threatened to add more misery but the Bucs kept firing, despite a hand injury that sidelined Jameis Winston for part of the third quarter.  Winston rallied the Bucs as they trailed almost the whole game and surged to a 38-35 shocker.  



Arguably this is Game Of The Year - Forty Niners at Saints

The NFC as of December is defined by the Niners, Saints, Seahawks, Packers, and Vikings, and two of them exploded in the Superdome in a chaotic affair that stormed past 100 combined points and reinforced the NFC West showdown combined with a shocker loss by the Seahawks later that night. 



This page is still under construction.   Please be patient.

The Warrencare Scam

Liz Warren presented a healthcare proposal that can only collapse because it claims healthcare is a right - it isn't, it's a service to be acquired by honest exchange, like food is something acquired via honest exchange - and she makes the mistake of using her own private history - which ought to be questionable on its face given her serial dishonesty about her putting the fix into everything in her life rather than actually earn anything - to justify it

2019 Musket 250

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The Iran-Israel War Is Here

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Yes to Nationalism, No to Imperialism

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The Frauds In The El Paso And Dayton Shootings

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The Left's Economic And General Illiteracy

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UK Hides Epidemic Of Muslim Rape

Tommy Robinson: 'Our Free Speech and Our Rights Are Disappearing in the UK'

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The Demon in Liberalism

'Why has Sweden become the North Korea of Europe?' and other forms of liberalism's descent into dictatorial thuggery.

Hurricane Haley Hits Daytona

NASCAR's change of its 2020 schedule has moved the Firecracker 400 weekend from July to early September, making 2019 the last Independence Day weekend for the time being at Daytona.   We suspect the date will return to its tradition sooner instead of later a la the Southern 500.    But amid all that an unwelcome semi-tradition returned - rain.   It affected the Chicago 400 last week and plagued the Firecracker 400 weekend as well.


The weekend began with an interview with NASCAR President Steve Phelps where "he doubled down on his support of the 2019 (Winston) Cup rules package" and stated "We are looking for the most entertaining racing we can put out there."

It has led to the usual griping about the racing not being "racing," with a Clint Bowyer quote about how at Michigan he passed a car then four others passed him back.   Ryan Preece then added, "It's not what we grew up doing.....(we were) throwing a car into a corner harder, not driving in as hard, using the brake, letting it roll and pick up the throttle sooner.....(where now)...We're wide open....it's not easy because you still have to find the balance of your car but that's what it is."

It's impossible to take Clint Bowyer's opinion seriously because he's objecting that rival drivers are passing him. This is what competition entails. As for Preece, he won twenty two times (for team owners Jan Boehler, Eric Sanderson, and Eddie Partridge) on the NASCAR Modified Tour, where the cars are far more secure to the track and thus open throttle able than regular fendered racecars - though an interesting caveat is in twenty three starts at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, the tour's Daytona, he has seven top fives, five other top tens, 244 laps led - but is winless. 

It brings to mind a scathing review of F1 and Indy 500 champion Jimmy Clark in Chris Economaki's bio LET 'EM ALL GO!

"....of every Formula One race that Clark competed in, you would find that he never passed anyone. He started on the pole in a Lotus and he left.

"When he was forced to battle wheel to wheel with someone, he invariably lost. I saw that at Riverside. Dan Gurney was driving Rollo Vollstedt's car and he beat Clark who was at the wheel of a superior machine.***  In 1963 (at the Indianapolis 500) Clark should have blown Parnelli Jones off and won the 500, but he didn't.

"Clark in my view was never comfortable with someone alongside him....to me he could not handle racing face to face with someone on the racetrack."

This has been manifestly true of a great many road racing drivers and also more than a few oval trackers -  I've never been all that impressed for one with Bill Elliott, who certainly is a Hall of Fame champion but who always seemed to have a lower limit of combativeness on the racetrack.   It bears repeating that not only did the 1998-2018 period of NASCAR showcase that the tracks with more horsepower and throttle response produced far lower incidence of passing than the plate races, but that a high number of quality drivers such as Rusty Wallace, Alan Kulwicki, Ricky Rudd, Carl Edwards, Kasey Kahne, Juan Montoya, Marcus Ambrose, and more recently Kyle Larson never won a "plate" race, where talent is ostensibly smothered. 

The reality remains talent isn't being smothered, it's being exposed for what it is and what it is not.



That real talent comes from passing and repassing was showcased in the rain-plagued Firecracker 400 weekend.

It began when Brad Keselowski cheap shot William Byron - during practice - then afterward gave a confusing response stating he was angry at blocking and at crashing in a bevy of races the last few seasons.  "I'm not going to lift," Keselowski stated.   

Payback proved to be a Dani Beck when Kevin Harvick - famously benched for a race after a cheap shot in a Truck race in 2002 - after getting tagged off Two by Keselowski later let Keselowski have it - and the fans cheered.   

But the big mess came when Austin Dillon stormed into the lead, threw a massive block on Clint Bowyer, and Bowyer hooked him a la the Sterling Marlin-Bobby Allison crash at the similarly-flaky 1986 Talladega 500.

The end result was Justin Haley, who'd stayed out when everyone else pitted, got a win nobody - least of all him - thought conceivable, especially as he'd been pretty much MIA all race.   He is the first first-timer since Chase Elliott last season and the biggest upset winner maybe since Keselowski himself at the 2009 Winston 500.

The biggest upshot of the whole thing is the bizarre win is payback to NASCAR for its indefensible yellow line rule that cost Haley the 2018 Firecracker 250.  

And controversy was still circulating the day later over his team, Spire Motorsports, owned by the sport's largest driver agency and which put Haley in its #77 basically because Haley is one of their clients.  The term "cash grab" has been used to describe Spire's tactics because the team was purchased from the remains of Barney Visser's former title winning team, and yet Spire didn't field an actual team, instead getting Premium Motorsports to do so.  The company's co-founder Jeff Dickerson purchased the franchise because no one else tried to buy it.

Is there conflict of interest here?  Frankly it seems no one knows with certainty, a point shown as Dave Moody recounts how Big Bill France raced in his sanctioning body's events and series sponsor RJR also sponsored Travis Carter's car in the 1990s - and it crosses over to Indycars where Marlboro sponsored races and the series as well as individual racecars, most famously Emerson Fittipaldi.


And suddenly the 2019 Winston Cup season, already by far more competitive and interesting than seasons of the last fifteen-plus seasons, gets more interesting.

*** 1967 Rex Mays 300, Riverside International Raceway. Gurney won after leading 68 laps; Clark fell out after 25 laps with a burned valve.

Terrorism Forgotten

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Daniel Pipes on the Real Threat to Europe

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Arab Spring: The Second Coming?

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1976 Purolator 500

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The Real Face of the Muslim American Society

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CAIR Report Conflates Anti-Muslim Bigotry with Opposition to Islamism

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Hezbollah As Prince Of Latin Powder

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Palestinian Blackmail

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The Endless Immaturity Of Leftism

Leftism has undergone the usual insanity with Robert Mueller, hailed as a hero when appointed to investigate Donald Trump and now vilified because his investigation proved Trump innocent, despite face-saving effort in the verbiage used by Mueller. Then crooked lawyer Michael Avenatti vowed to take down Trump - and instead failed. Then ex-CIA honchos John Brennan and James Clapper went after Trump in relation to the Mueller investigation - and got exposed as liars by it. James Comey of the FBI became a Trump enemy and thus was hailed as a hero - then exposed as a liar.

"The common denominator in progressive fluidity is not traditional worry about government surveillance of American citizens, but whether a bureaucrat can prove a temporarily useful idiot in the grand design of removing Donald J. Trump before the 2020 election."

CAIR Pushes Springtime For Hitler

CAIR Official: "i wish hitler was alive to f*** up the jewish ppl"

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Single Payer Economics Don't Work

"Any sensible reform of US healthcare must confront the problem that the consumers of healthcare do not have sufficient incentives to control costs. A California single payer system doubles down on this issue because it would eliminate virtually all incentives by consumers to control costs.

That Parallel NASCAR Universe

In his Southeastern 500 recap Jeff Gluck includes an engaging satirical bit "from a parallel universe" taking off on Kurt Busch's comment to the effect of wanting to spin out his brother Kyle to win the race. Given how radical "what if?" pieces can be the speculative genre is both a fascinating one and also one that can spiral out of control. With that in mind a further look into that parallel universe......

OFFICIAL PROGRAM

40TH ANNUAL AUTO CLUB-LOS ANGELES TIMES 500

83rd RACE, NASCAR WINSTON CUP GRAND NATIONAL SERIES PRESENTED BY SPRINT TELECOMMUNICATIONS AT  ONTARIO MOTOR SPEEDWAY
NOVEMBER 24, 2013


-----------


"They Don’t Boo As Much"

NASCAR's stars reflect on the sport's lengthy period lacking fan rancor


Kyle Busch has heard the boos.   It’s inevitable; he's won over forty Winston Cup races and 91 races in the Busch and Craftsman Truck Series.  He also happens to be defending champ of the Auto Club/Times 500 - and a former winner of the Miller Beer 500 in March; fans still talk about the fourth-turn melee with Joey Logano and Jimmie Johnson; three abreast all the way around? They almost pulled it off then, and they may do it come Sunday.

Jimmie Johnson has heard them.  He's won five titles and 68 races, including three here at Ontario, twice in the Auto Club/Times 500; he and Busch are drivers trying to match Richard Petty's still-standing NASCAR record of six Winston Cup titles; they've come close, Dale Earnhardt came close, all at five titles.

Kenny Irwin, yep he's heard them too; when you win, as he's done eighteen times over the years, you'll start hearing them.   Davey Allison, co-owner of Irwin’s #42 Dodge within the three-car Lorin Ranier-Felix Sabates organization - Irwin is Aric Almirola’s teammate there with two-time Grand National champ Matt Kenseth - has heard them. 

Even Richard Petty, forever the most popular figure in the sport, would hear them as a driver in his heyday.  He's co-owner of Petty-Curb Motorsports, and his Dodge drivers - AJ Allmendinger #43, Buckshot Jones #44, and Richard's grandson Adam Petty #45 - yes, they'll hear booing, like at Pocono when Adam made the mistake of beating Dale Earnhardt Jr. in a wild scramble in the Purolator 500, or even more when AJ won by his entire hood over Junior and Almirola at the Daytona 500.

And Dale Earnhardt?  Even as co-owner of DE-AK Racing's Chevrolets wheeled by his son Dale Jr. - #8, now the perennial Most Popular Dtiver winner - by #7 David Gilliland,  Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in #15, and Jerry Nadeau in #81 - he hears them, just like he did throughout his driving career.

But the booing is more muted than it traditionally has been.  Sure the fan anger is still there - it always will be; they still talk about all the beer cans thrown at the stripe at Talladega, at Pocono, at Bristol years back in controversial outcomes; Kyle Busch taunted fans throwing at him after his Miller 500 win at Ontario.

But it's not the same.  Often the boos are just good-natured teasing or simple immediate frustration.   When Junior wins - as he did at the Atlanta 500, at the Miller Beer 500 at Michigan, at the Brickyard 450 - he gets the most cheers.  He doesn’t get booed; even when he doesn't win, he gets the most cheers.    A whopping eight second place finishes this year earned him almost more cheers than his wins; the booing went to the guys who beat him those days.

The four networks’ NASCAR analysts - Dale Jarrett of ABC, Darrell Waltrip of CBS, Tim Richmond of FOX, and Kyle Petty of NBC - they all discuss the curious lack of rancor in a sport where fan anger is inevitable and forever has had an edge to it that isn't found in most sports.  They and others all agree it involves multiple causes.


*****


The first of which is the last twenty years really haven’t seen any one or two drivers take over and dominate.  When someone wins too often even the garage area can turn against someone, as David Pearson has noted about his historic 1976 season.  “It got to where after the Southern 500 (that year) a lot of people refused to even speak with me,” Pearson says.  “We haven’t really seen that the last how many years.”

“The last real time somebody dominated was five or six years ago,” says Kyle Petty.  "The last eighteen or so years it’s rare somebody wins more than seven races.  This year especially we had nineteen guys win.  The most anyone’s won is five by Kyle Busch and Jimmie and Carl (Edwards).  A lot of the others who won are stuck at two and three or even one.”

Kyle certainly knows, not just with fourteen wins to his credit.  His son Adam has eleven wins since starting in 2001.  Only twice has he won more than one race in a season.   At RCR Clint Bowyer has been solid with ten wins overall, but only once did he win twice in a season; his one win so far this year is that Winston 500 triumph.

“With more winners,” Tim Richmond says, “there’s a mixture of more pressure to win more but also a sense of mission accomplished.   Fans see how everybody's averaged fourteen or so winners a year since 2001, they're better appreciating how hard it is to win even for guys who win a lot in a season.  Basically nobody’s winning ‘too much.’”

"All our teams kept winning," Alan Kulwicki, the 1992 series champ with Ford, states.  "I got some backlash with the alliance with DEI and the switchover to Chevrolet, but that went away when we won.   Winning validates a lot and people calm themselves down as a result."


It goes not only with drivers and teams, it goes with manufacturers. Fans now are used to the rivalry not being just Ford and Chevrolet.   This year it's been tighter than usual as Chevy won eleven races, Dodge and Toyota ten apiece, and Ford nine.   Fans are also used to two tire manufacturers in Firestone and Goodyear - Firestone cars won twenty-two races this season.  It isn't that brand loyalty doesn't exist - far from it.  It's been tighter and that tightness has muted some of the booing.

By most measure it's been the most competitive season in years.   The season has seen nineteen winners involving ten different teams, over 1,000 lead changes, the four-wide photo finish won by Bowyer at the Winston 500, the near-photo win by Adam Petty at Pocono, another such at the Pepsi 500 at Michigan won by Kenny Irwin, a total of twelve races where the lead changed on the final lap (though only seven were official last-lap passes). The "plate" races (Daytona and Talladega) stood out, but so did quite a few other races. "I led the last four laps (of the Daytona 500)," AJ Allmendinger says. "But we all saw Junior pass me then Kyle Busch then Almirola and I just sidedrafted the hell out of everyone to win it. And it's been like that almost every other race."

So with so much for so many some of the frustration doesn't develop.  But the booing of rivals will always be there.


*****


The other angle TV's analysts look at is that fans better appreciate the drivers as a whole, "because we might not have had them," Jarrett says, noting the rash of career-ending crashes among a dozen major star drivers in the 2000-05 period.   TV still shows Earnhardt's Chevrolet snagging Daytona's Turn Three fencing; still replayed are Bill Elliott and Ernie Irvan wrecks where weeks later both drivers announced their retirement.  At the NASCAR Research Center in Charlotte one can see what's left of Jeff Gordon's Chevrolet when the entire back third was torn off at Richmond.

"I know what I felt when the whole nose of my car got sliced off," says Richmond about the crash here at Ontario that proved to be his last race. "I knew what I felt afterward meant I couldn't get back in the car and commit the way I needed to."

"Nobody forgets moments like that," Waltrip says.  "My own wreck at Charlotte (at the end of 1996), that's when I started realizing I'd better get out.  Fans don't forget, they know what can happen, and they seem to better appreciate how it can disappear in a snap."

This past season overall has been noticeably cleaner than a lot of years. "Here in (the Miller 500 in) March we tore up some cars," David Ragan, winner at Kansas in the #98 Gardner-Jenkins-Thorson Toyota, says. "But the wrecking has been more concentrated on a handful of races. Daytona, Darlington, Talladega, Bristol, those are usually where the most wrecks happen, but this year Charlotte, Atlanta, Richmond,  and Watkins Glen were the big problem spots." While the Daytona 500 and Winston 500 at Talladega did have ten-car pileups, the Firecracker 450 won by Harvick was uglier with five crashes involving nineteen cars.  And even with that seemingly more races than normal were largely free of wreckage.

"One area fans still boo is Bristol," AJ Allmendinger says.  "Since redoing the asphalt we have two grooves to run on and we don't just slam each other out of the way.   The racing is good, really good, but the bump-and-run isn't there and some fans hate that."

When Kurt Busch, driving the Hendrick Chevrolet #25 once wheeled by Richmond, passed his brother Kyle to win the Food City 500 there, the booing may have been the loudest of the season and evoked memory of the "good" old days. "I had the chance to race my brother clean so I took it. There was no issue between us, but some fans didn't like we raced clean," Kurt says. His brother Kyle adds, "I got beat, there was nothing else to it. I know Kurt has said he'll wreck me to win a race, but he didn't have to. I was surprised fans reacted the way they did."

With this Times 500 maybe the fans will throw more beer cans after the end. Though we doubt it; the fans seem more to enjoy good racing instead.

Such is a parallel universe, and there's more from later......

OFFICIAL PROGRAM

51st ANNUAL AAA LONE STAR 500

99th RACE, NASCAR WINSTON CUP/MONSTER ENERGY GRAND NATIONAL SERIES PRESENTED BY SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS AT TEXAS SUPERSPEEDWAY
NOVEMBER 3, 2019

----------

Bad Blood

The season has been driven by aggressive driving and conflict between drivers



Another Ernie Irvan. And Another Ernie Irvan. And another Ernie Irvan.

Drivers like Darrell "Bubba" Wallace, Ricky Stenhouse, Michael McDowell, and William Byron have been called this. So has Byron's teammate at Hendrick Motorsports, Chase Elliott.  It's not meant to be a compliment, despite Irvan's 28 career wins.  Aggressive racing is the point of the comparison.   Even today Irvan is remembered for a multitude of crashes and resulting bad blood.

"Yes, I hear the comparisons," Irvan says. "I know what I had to go through. My deal with Sterling in particular, we never really could get along, and I know I rubbed people the wrong way. I wanted to lead, I had to lead, and these young guys, they see they have to lead."

Irvan had to publicly apologize to drivers in a prerace drivers meeting. He earned one-race suspensions twice in his career. He'd see a hole to pass cars through, he took it - even if it was grossly ill-advised.

Now with only four races left in the season the aggressive driving and bad blood between drivers hasn't let up. All those drivers unflatteringly compared to Ernie Irvan have won races this year - in fact Wallace, Elliott, Stenhouse, McDowell, and Byron have combined for nineteen wins, in a season where sixteen other drivers have won.

So it's pretty crowded in the winner circle this year, and the aggression level field-wide has by all accounts increased markedly. NASCAR's Points Playoff round - the final ten races see a 50% increase in points awarded plus a striking 100 point bonus for each win - has only added to the intensity.

And the bad blood.

The Daytona 500 melee is where it really started, Chase Elliott vs. Aric Almirola, then Bubba Wallace vs. Denny Hamlin.  There were multiple different leaders on the final lap - more and more the common outcome at Daytona and Talladega where Penske Fords, Petty-Curb and Ranier-Allison-Sabates Dodges, the Chevrolets of the Richard-Alan-Dale alliance and Foyt-Haas-Stewart, and the Toyotas of Gardner-Jenkins-Thorson and Bowers-Rocco Motorsports have won 40 of the last 44 Daytona-Talladega Winston Cup races - and a semi-bystander - the RAD Alliance's Austin Dillon, in Dale Earnhardt's iconic RCR 3; he led 29 laps so bystander is underselling his effort - wound up passing everyone, escaping two big wrecks on the last lap, and being the winner.

The anger between drivers was just beginning.

The Miller 500 at Ontario brought it out between Kevin Harvick in FHS Racing's #4 and Kyle Busch in Joe Gibbs' 18.  Busch won that one, chased by seven tightly packed pursuers; Harvick then sideslammed him coming to the white flag and won the Coca Cola 500 at Atlanta in a five-car scramble. The two let each other - and those listening and watching - know it was getting personal.

"Seeing the bad blood early in the season," NBC analyst Jeff Burton says, "I wasn't sure what to make of it.  Harvick and Kyle having to be separated at Atlanta, that raised a lot of eyebrows.   When it seemed to calm down, then it kept going." The Champion Spark Plug 450 at Dover Downs International Speedway was a David Ragan win over Martin Truex Jr., this while Kenny Irwin and Adam Petty bodyslammed each other - and the SAFER barrier - for third. That one curiously was laughed off by the two. "That's their nature," Davey Allison, co-owner of Irwin's #42 Dodge. "They're intense but they don't carry it out of the car."

The Winston 500 by Geico, though, wasn't laughed off by anyone. In most circumstances a shocker of a win by Bubba Wallace in only his second season would have evoked the loudest cheers anyone would ever see, especially in a 27-car fight to the end. But when Harvick swerved past on the backstretch and Wallace blasted him in Turn Three, no one was laughing. "I should have been calmer," Wallace says. "He sideslammed me and I lost my cool and it wiped out almost everyone. We won the race, but I told Richard (Petty), Mike (Curb), and Trent (Owens) afterward I didn't want to win that way." The fight in the garage between Harvick and Wallace after the race caught everyone's attention as a fight naturally will.

The Coca Cola 600 was another apex of aggression and driver fireworks.   Three crashes involving thirteen cars marred the last twenty laps and Clint Bowyer this time was one of the ones, as he and David Ragan crashed out of the win following a tag from winner Chase Elliott.

"By the 600," Darrell Waltrip says, "it had stopped being just racing. Now it had gotten personal. The drivers weren't speaking to each other, they were throwing punches. Another big wreck, another fight in the garage. Nothing anyone could do could calm anyone down." It didn't calm down in a vicious Brad Keselowski-Wallace crash at Pocono won by Wallace's teammate Adam Petty, nor in Wallace swerving Harvick to win the Pepsi 500 at Michigan, nor in Harvick's Brickyard 450 win over Joey Logano and Busch, nor in Bowyer's win in the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte over Hamlin.

And now Texas begins the stretch run for the title and the fivesome of Harvick, Elliott, Kyle Busch, Keselowski, and Matt Kenseth in the RAS Dodge. Kenseth hasn't been immune from bad blood; after winning at Bristol he raced around and plowed into Logano, aftermath of the two almost crashing on the last lap.

And the season is still waiting for cooler heads.

That darned parallel universe.

"Creeping Theo-Progressivism"

Progressives are embracing Islamic savages.

An area where such embrace is in action is Brooklyn, where Islamic "vigilantes" are quietly imposing oppressive culture on the area in the guise of "neighborhood watch."

Combating it meanwhile is Quebec as it seeks to ban the hijab - headdress imposed on women by men in Islamic culture as a form of social control, headdress that didn't exist until Islamic terror regimes began springing up in the late 1970s - on its government employees.

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Wayne State Prof Peddles Fake Islamic History

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What The Winston Cup Schedule "Should" Look Like

With all the inevitable squauking about the 2020 NASCAR schedule, a semi-idealized alternative is presented, including a few flights of fancy to illustrate a few historical tracks that objectively should still be here.   The 2020 calender is used as the template - most weekends would entail double or tripleheaders involving the Busch-Xfinity Series, Gander Truck series, or both, with ARCA Menards Series on some weekends as well


JANUARY 26
WINSTON WESTERN GRAND NATIONAL, RIVERSIDE INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY - Once the shakedown season debut for the Cup tour, nowadays the speedway empires of International Speedway Corporation, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and Speedway Motorsports Inc. would in some combination have "rescued" tracks like Riverside and kept them in the Cup tour.



FEBRUARY 16
DAYTONA 500 

FEBRUARY 23
PENNZOIL 450, LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY 



MARCH 1
TICKET GUARDIAN 500k, PHOENIX/ISM RACEWAY 

MARCH 8
MILLER HIGH LIFE/AUTO CLUB 500, ONTARIO MOTOR SPEEDWAY - As with Riverside the modern speedway empires ISC, IMS, and SMI would likely link together in some fashion to preserve OMS, the crown jewel of superspeedways, and thus nullified the need to construct the present Cal Speedway in Fontana

MARCH 15
FORD MIAMI 450, HOMESTEAD MIAMI SPEEDWAY 

MARCH 22
FOLDS OF HONOR ATLANTA 500, ATLANTA MOTOR SPEEDWAY

MARCH 29
INTERSTATE/O'REILLY 500, TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY



APRIL 5
FOOD CITY 500 , BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY

APRIL 12 - OFF

APRIL 19
KANSAS 450, KANSAS SPEEDWAY

APRIL 26
STP VIRGINIA 500, MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY



MAY 3
WINSTON 500, TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY

MAY 10 - OFF

MAY 17
MASON-DIXON 450, DOVER DOWNS INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY

MAY 24
COCA COLA WORLD 600, CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY

MAY 31
MAPLE LEAF GRAND NATIONAL, CANADIAN TIRE MOTORSPORTS PARK - much has been made of the Truck Series here; while not ideal for the series Mosport certainly has history and the Canadian market is served



JUNE 7
PUROLATOR 500, POCONO RACEWAY

JUNE 14
MILLER HIGH LIFE/FIREKEEPERS CASINO 500, MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY

JUNE 21
GO BOWLING WATKINS GLEN GRAND NATIONAL

JUNE 28 
BASS PRO SHOPS 500, BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY 



JULY 5
PEPSI FIRECRACKER 450, DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY

JULY 12
CAMPING WORLD 450, CHICAGOLAND SPEEDWAY

JULY 19
FOXWOODS CASINO 300, NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY

JULY 26
CHAMPION SPARK PLUG/GANDER RV 500, POCONO RACEWAY



AUGUST 2 - OFF

AUGUST 9
BRICKYARD 450, INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY

AUGUST 16
TOYOTA/SAVE MART GRAND NATIONAL, SEARS POINT RACEWAY

AUGUST 23
PEPSI 500, MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY

AUGUST 30
QUAKER STATE 450, KENTUCKY SPEEDWAY



SEPTEMBER 6
SOUTHERN 500, DARLINGTON RACEWAY

SEPTEMBER 13
FEDERATED AUTO PARTS 450, RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY

SEPTEMBER 20
DELAWARE 450, DOVER DOWNS INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY

SEPTEMBER 27
HILLYWOOD CASINO 450, KANSAS SPEEDWAY



OCTOBER 4
BANK OF AMERICA 500, CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY

OCTOBER 11
COORS ALL-AMERICAN 450, NASHVILLE FAIRGROUNDS - reportage to the effect some element of NASCAR is seeking to refurbish the Fairgrounds in the context of holding the annual season-ending banquet in the city has led to speculation of returning some series here.

OCTOBER 18
DIEHARD 500, TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY

OCTOBER 25
ALAMO/AAA 500, TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY



NOVEMBER 1
COPPER WORLD 500k, PHOENIX/ISM RACEWAY

NOVEMBER 8
SOUTH POINT 450, LAS VEGAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY

NOVEMBER 15
LA TIMES 500, ONTARIO MOTOR SPEEDWAY



No doubt sharp-eyed fans will notice what isn't there.   A few tracks in this schedule have lost their second Winston Cup dates.   The reason is simple; if people are serious about shaking up the schedule then at least two of the short tracks presently on the tour - three of the sport's weakest markets - would need to lose a date apiece; asking the bigger tracks to sacrifice dates for weaker markets (New Hampshire sacrificed one of its dates, but for the Vegas market) isn't smart business. 

Also not here is a return to the presently-shuttered Rockingham track, this despite reportage that the area government will spend money to refurbish it.   Rockingham had its chance when Andy Hillinberg reopened it; his effort deserves praise, but it proved futile in the end. 

And the two non-point races, the Busch Clash and All Star Race?  They really no longer serve a purpose for the sport.


Flight of fancy, yes, but also a more realistic assessment of what the NASCAR schedule needs to be.

The Unlamentable Mueller Report

Robert Mueller in the 1980s worked to abet the FBI's coverup of framing four men for the 1965 murder of minor Boston mobster Teddy Deegan. The framing was to protect two FBI snitches - Joe Barboza and Steve "The Rifleman" Flemmi. So Mueller's integrity was already worth suspicion when he launched his investigation of Donald Trump.

"It followed the Soviet style: 'Show me the man and I'll show you the crime.'"

New Zealand Plays Denial On Islamic Terror

"New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has vowed never to mention the name of the perpetrator of the massacre at two mosques. Calling the killer 'terrorist, criminal, extremist,' she has asserted, 'He will be, when I speak, nameless.' It is part of New Zealand's overall attempt to ban footage of the incidcent under the theory that any images or mention of the perpetrator will somehow glorify him."

The problem is this is a form of denial about it. There has never been any reduction in aggression because we deny the identity of the perpetrators.

NASCAR Short Track Myopia And Schedule Puzzlement

NASCAR's first Winston Cup weekend hit Martinsville and soon after the 2020 schedule was released to great fanfare and a lot of wild speculation, some of which turned out to be true. 


First up is the Virginia 500 weekend.   Brad Keselowski annihilated the field for his second win of the season and Chase Elliott wound up second, the best finish so far for Chevrolet.   But two issues rose above everything else - first was the dismal effort by Jimmie Johnson, and more than a few analysts noticed how badly he ran, with the inevitable speculation about what's wrong.

The other big picture story was that the writers suddenly noticed that aero matters on short tracks.   The gripe was the bigger spoiler was somehow creating aeropush, but that's false.   Aeropush was always there and the bigger spoiler allowed the drivers to blast through the corners more strongly.  It wasn't harder to pass in this Martinsville than it was with low downforce; actually the opposite was the case - lower downforce made passing harder. 

That aero was suddenly noticed at Martinsville shows how ignorant of history a lot of people seem to be.   Bobby Hamilton in the 1990s was the first to articulate that aeropush was and is a short track issue.   And the aero rake on short track cars - especially dirt cars - long ago proved aero is more, not less, important on short tracks - pavement late models look more like superspeedway cars than modern superspeedway cars look. 

People need to give up this myth of "making the cars less dependent on aero."  Because that's all it's ever been - "less dependent on aero" is a myth, through and through. 


*****


The other story two days later was the unveiling of the 2020 Winston Cup schedule.   Social media had some ridiculous speculation that some tracks would lose dates in favor of unimpressive locales like Villenueve Circuit, Mosport, Iowa Speedway, even Indy Raceway Park.   That didn't happen as any sensible analysis could have predicted. Also not happening is elimination of the playoff format, the source of a pre-Martinsville rumor.

What did happen though led to expected puzzlement.   The most bizarre is Pocono Raceway has to stack both of its Winston Cup dates into just one weekend - late June.   Back to back 400 milers (they should be 500 milers) in two days compresses into too tight a window for teams with inevitable attrition, bringing back memory of the track's 1969 birth where it ran short track races on its now-defunct 3/4-mile interior oval and its ration of entries was always cut because of attrition at other tracks running the night before.   Plus it is just one weekend, a revenue-generation reduction by any measure.   No Steve O'Donnell (his presser transcript here), crushing two big races into one weekend isn't "terrific for the fans."

The bizarre move - the only such doubleheader - appears forced because NBC is airing the Summer Olympics in 2020 in July and August that year - which brings to mind the sport should not have constricted itself to two networks but instead should be getting four or five with CBS, TNT, etc. being brought in.   It also leaves one wondering if this is thus a one-off experiment, one the sport really doesn't need.


The other changes are moving the Brickyard 400 to July 4 and the Firecracker 400 at Daytona at the end of August.   One struggles to see what need ever arose for such changes, and Steve O'Donnell dressed Daytona's move in terms of NASCAR's misbegotten playoff format, since the Firecracker 400 is now the "regular season" finale and the Southern 500 kicks off the playoffs. 

Darlington, Richmond, Bristol, Vegas, Talladega, Charlotte's stupid roval, Kansas, Texas, the Old Dominion 500 in November instead of September, and then Phoenix are the playoff races.   This even though the playoff concept has never worked - indeed the fact of a rumor circulating to the effect of ending the experiment indicates there is understanding in the racing industry the playoff format has not worked despite NASCAR's stubborn insistence on shoving it down our throats. 


In all the new schedule is "fixing" what had no need for a makeover.   If NASCAR thinks this will spur renewed interest they're kidding themselves. 

NASCAR 2019: Better Racing, Continued Controversy, And Coop-etition

NASCAR's 2019 season has now run five races and the racing has noticeably gotten more competitive with the phase-in of the new draft duct package, the use of tapered engine spacers producing some 550 HP, and concurrent larger spoiler.  And the TV ratings have improved noticeably each week, a good sign of momentum that needs to be maintained for the sport.

But as is common in racing there is a confluence of different yet at times related issues worth a look.


*****


The race that stood out aside from the Daytona 500 - competitive but poorly driven amid multiple crashes and a strikingly low number of finishers - was Las Vegas, where the full draft duct package kicked off after a promising January test. The result was not what anyone expected - there was no two-abreast battle of drafting packs and the draft appeared schizophrenic.

There was though a striking battle for the lead - scoring indicated there were some 47 lead changes, official and otherwise, by any measure an eye-popping number and an indication the draft duct package is indeed working.

The race looked at in some circles as a big test was Fontana, and it proved less than expected.   Kyle Busch won it after a late yellow and subsequent showdown with Atlanta 500 winner Brad Keselowski and Vegas champ Joey Logano, but the general consensus was it wasn't a particularly competitive race despite a few spots of intense dicing.


Pieces quickly came out critical of the draft duct package from Jeff Gluck and Matt Weaver - Weaver as has been his wont oozed condescension in criticizing the draft duct package and shoehorning advocacy of more short tracks even though short tracks are inferior competition models for major league racing.

Both completely ignore the worn out asphalt at Fontana (and also Atlanta and Chicagoland) and how teams were chasing the racetrack, trying to manage tires - do everything except go for the lead.   What would Fontana have looked like had it been repaved by now?  Like this.

....and also like this.   

A sharp observation from one social media observer is that Fontana needs to be repaved.....but also rebanked, higher, up to 28 degrees.   In the past I was not an advocate of rebanking tracks because the racecars were the issue, but with successful up-bankings at some tracks over the last two decades I'm not necessarily opposed to the practice.   If anything Fontana, Pocono, Michigan, and perhaps Chicagoland and Kentucky can benefit from some up-banking (as well as where needed new pavement).   The shuttered Nashville Superspeedway would benefit greatly from up-banking and also conversion to asphalt. 


****


There is clearly a divide in motorsports in fans, sanctioning bodies, etc.   As one social media observer has noted, a lot of fans want pack racing and NASCAR has been listening to them.   Of course given the superior level of competition fans should want pack-type racing.   The core criticism I hear of pack-type racing is that somehow "anyone can do it."  Following the Vegas race Kyle Busch - now of 200 wins between Winston Cup, Busch-Xfinity, and the Truck Series - mouthed off as he'd done in the January test that the package has taken "skill" out of the drivers' hands.   Ryan Newman - another who has spoken out of turn over and over - claimed fans in the grandstands can now drive these cars with this package.

It brought a needed rebuke from MRN's Dave Moody.   It's worth reminder of talented drivers who never won or haven't to date won a draft-pack aka restrictor plate race -


Rusty Wallace
Ricky Rudd
Geoff Bodine
Martin Truex
Kyle Larson
Carl Edwards
Kasey Kahne
Alan Kulwicki
Juan Montoya
Marcus Ambrose
Kyle Petty
Ricky Craven
Steve Park
Jerry Nadeau
Johnny Benson
Jeremy Mayfield
Joe Nemechek
AJ Allmeindinger
Lake Speed
Elliott Sadler


The claim "anyone can run these races" simply isn't true.   NOT anyone can do what they're doing out on these racetracks. And it absolutely takes legitimate skill to compete in draft pack racing.   Moody for one notes the drivers "have traditionally been poor spokespersons for their sport." 

It shows again when the issue of "putting on a show" comes up.   Pete Pistone of MRN has had conversation to this effect recently.   The opinion has circulated from the driver fraternity that "their focus is on succeeding and dominating, not on creating a good 'show' or an entertaining race."   Which is true, but misses the point.   The sanctioning body is supposed to set the competition parameter and the drivers compete within it.   When the parameter is set where drivers are slicing and dicing for the front on a regular basis then it is "putting on a show" because it is competition in its purest form - combat for the win. 

And while drivers seek to dominate, objective reality is the accomplishment is inherently diminished when it is domination.   Kyle Busch's much-celebrated 200 wins across the Winston Cup, Busch-Xfinity, and Truck Series saw a disproportionate percentage of uncompetitive affairs, and even his Fontana win wasn't the accomplishment a hard-fought affair would have been. 

To put Busch and Newman's opinion on its head - anyone can outrun the field; it takes a true racer to outright it


*****


Also getting a lot of ink has been Tony Stewart's interview with the Virginian Pilot, his now-famous "rich kids" interview.  First he pushes that NASCAR needs more drivers with "personality," though what this actually looks like remains nebulous, and if anything the sport has choked on personality the last two decades.

He espouses one of the hoarist gripes in motorsports - one Richard Petty made in his 1986 biography with William Neely - the claim "kids with rich fathers and deep pockets that put them in racecars.....because they're eighteen years old, they think they deserve to be in a Cup car. I have a hard time with that."

Stewart of course doesn't name names, even though his argument would be more credible if he did - name who should be removed from Winston Cup rides and which of these "hundreds of thousands of racecar drivers across the country that have clawed and scratched their way at Saturday night short tracks and worked on their cars all their life to get where they are" should take those rides over. 

Should NASCAR remove Austin Dillon and Paul Menard from their rides?   How about your own driver Daniel Suarez, Tony?  Suarez is a Drive For Diversity poster boy - diversity initiatives are another form of favoritism - who has had quality rides with JGR and now Stewart-Haas, and even won three Busch-Xfinity races and won at Phoenix in the Truck series - all in 2016 - and who since then has just ten top-five finishes in a combined 93 Winston Cup/Busch-Xfinity races - and just 87 career to date laps led in Winston Cup.   Less with more.   He would seem the kind of driver who should be yanked from his ride and replaced. 

And the bigger question - is it possible the reason these hundreds of thousands of short trackers don't get Winston Cup rides because their fundamental skill set isn't compatible with Cup anymore?   This is in essence why open wheel short trackers stopped getting Indycar rides even when the IRL went out of its way to put sprint car and midget car drivers into Indycars, only to find in test after test what National Speed Sport News quoted one team owner saying in 2002 - "We could never get them to stop lifting for the corners."

Stewart's general sentiment is sympathetic, but practicality and sympathy aren't the same thing.


Stewart also renews his idiotic advocacy for dirt tracks for Winston Cup.   It bears reminder that the reason he wants Winston Cup at Eldora - despite the weak competition level there and inability to hold more than 13,000, never mind no particular evidence of sponsor interest for major league racing there - is TV money; the Trucks get nothing for TV money.

It's the same for the Busch-Xfinity Series and the other tours of NASCAR - and the real answer goes ignored.   NASCAR needs to completely revamp its TV deal and get more networks involved into more series.   CBS, TNT, TBS, and MAVTV - and even ABC despite the gross qualitative regression of ESPN - need to be involved with FOX and NBC to provide more TV money at lest cost to each network, with genuine TV money going to the other tours of NASCAR.   Make the Truck Race at Eldora worth the financial while of the track so it doesn't need Cup.  Get more TV money so Iowa, a track not capable of a Cup date despite sanctioning body ownership, is worth its while not having a Cup date. 


*****


There's a Darrell Waltrip-ism that fits with this scenario - coop-etition, a mixture of cooperation between sides that aids their own competition endeavors.   It's a term he coined to describe push-drafting by rival cars at Daytona and Talladega; cooperation that directly benefitted the competitive effort of the two cars involved. 

Coop-etition fits to try and turn around the disaster that is Chevrolet's Winston Cup effort.    It is known, as Andy Petree stated in 2018, that there is no inter-team cooperation within Chevrolet's Winston Cup program, and the signs point to that Chevy seriously cut its NASCAR budget.   So the lack of inter-team engineering exchanges is baffling and harmful to the effort.   If Hendrick, RCR, Ganassi, Petty, and the Brad Daugherty team opened up their engineering information to each other - a la the old Childress-Earnhardt-Petree alliance and the pioneering Pontiac inter-team alliance involving Petty, Sabates' team pre-Ganassi involvement, Joe Gibbs Racing when it ran Pontiacs, Bill Davis Racing, and Chuck Rider's team - they would far more effectively find and solve engineering, setup etc. issues with their cars - and be able to fight the Fords and Toyotas for wins.

Coop-etition.

Pigs Of The Left

The idiotic and shoddy treatment of Martina Mavratolova for speaking out against the sick freak show of trans-phony men masquerading as women shows the increased viciousness of identity entitlement.

The Failure of Palestinian Nationalism

"The Warsaw Summit demonstrated that the popularity of the Palestinian cause continues to decline, suggesting that Palestinian nationalism has failed." When it's a lie - and Palestine is exactly that - then it's bound to fail in the end.

How the Ilhan Omar Antisemitism Resolution Backfired

"The drive to condemn US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar over antisemitism backfired disastrously on Wednesday in Washington." It backfired because it wasn't sincere - Democrats couldn't bring themselves to admit she is a troglodyte, and she isn't alone in being a fraud.

'ISIS Bride' Hoda Muthana - Enemy Propagandist

'ISIS Bride' Hoda Muthana is portrayed as "a misguided, 'brainwashed' girl who simply made a mistake." The reality is she's an enemy propagandist.

The Modern Intellectual Campaign Of Lies

Intellectuals have always pushed social lies. Nowadays the gap between truth and what Intellectuals claim keeps getting worse - and the lying ever shriller.

Jill Abramson's My Truth Lie

New York Times ex-editor Jill Abramson is pushing a book defending dishonest journalism under the euphemism of its title - Merchants Of Truth.    But apart from the fraudulence of her premise, she's been exposed as a serial plagiarist by the Vice website and by CNN personality Brian Stetler.  To Stetler Abramson went on the attack claiming "I don't see it that way," even though it's not her place to deny clearly-proven plagiarism.  Instead she dredged up the tiresome and dishonest "my truth" defense.

There is no such thing as "your truth," Jill.

Lying Still To Justify Abortion

Why Democrats Can't Talk Honestly About Abortion

“Most advocates of late-term abortion will do anything to avoid describing the unpleasant realities and consequences of their increasingly radical position.”

Pope Francis Gets The Muslim World Wrong

Pope Francis goes to the Middle East with a flawed understanding of its history of aggression against the West dating to the 13th century.

Iran Going After Syria

From the Middle East Forum site - How Tehran Plans to Control Syria

For Rest Of NFL Now What?

Superbowl LIII overanalysis will happen in due course, but right now it's best to take a quick look at the other thirty teams and where they stand entering the off-season.

Worth noting is the universal hatred of the New England Patriots.   That the Patriots keep winning AFC Championships inevitably has gotten boring and tiresome to most, as objectively speaking one should want other teams like Tennessee, Kansas City, etc. to break through.   The Patriots though are not supposed to roll over. 

So these other teams need to figure out how to beat them.




AMERICAN FOOTBALL CONFERENCE -



Kansas City Chiefs - Perhaps no team has more to work with now than the Chiefs.  The biggest issue facing them is their history.  In fifty-nine seasons they have 479 total wins, but just ten of them are playoff wins, among the weakest playoff records in league history - and five of them came in the AFL era with three AFL titles and Superbowl IV.   They have now lost to all five AFC East legacy teams (this includes Indianapolis, an AFC East team 1970-2001) and their legacy has not been Hank Stram, 65 Toss Power Trap, or that long-ago Superbowl; their legacy now is a team of heartbreak.

Rearming for 2019 should not be a problem; overcoming their history is the issue.   Certainly Patrick Mahomes looks to be the one who can do it, having once and for all proven he can handle the playoffs.



San Diego Chargers - Yeah I know they play their home games in a rinky-dink soccer stadium in LA and are supposed to be part of the Rams' new LA Stadium Entertainment Park in Inglewood, CA in 2020, but there is zero LA audience for the Chargers.   They also showed some glaring coaching weakness in the rout at Foxboro with a defensive gameplan that never seemed to be adjusted even as the Patriots kept on scoring   Philip Rivers had a superb overall season but 5-6 in the playoffs and a pedestrian 84 passer rating within at his age indicate we've seen the best of him and now the Chargers need to start preparing for a successor while also addressing coaching gaffes on display in Foxboro.



Denver Broncos - Since starting 7-3 in the 2016 season it's all fallen apart for John Elway.  The Broncos are now 13-25 coming out of their 2016 bye week and they now do not have a viable quarterback.   One feels bad for Case Keenum after his spectacular 14-4 season with the Vikings but it's now obvious he was a one-season wonder, and Elway's competence as a GM becomes more of a question.   Right now the Broncos look like a team in long-term struggle.



Oakland Raiders - After Jon Gruden's first year back as head coach, what are the Raiders?   They have a big problem for 2019 of not having a home stadium with their deal at Alameda County Coliseum now done, to where they may play out the season in San Antonio's Alamodome.    Yet an overlooked aspect of their season was they got better in the final seven games, winning three of them including tense affairs against the Cardinals and a Steelers team they've largely owned since 2009.   So the more Gruden guys come into the team, the better it would seem they are becoming.   How much better they can get remains the big question.


*****



Buffalo Bills -  They made the playoffs in 2017 but with rookie Josh Allen they faltered to just six wins.   Allen had the usual rough rookie season for quarterbacks but his was rougher than most with his completion percentage stuck in the 50-percent range almost all season until he broke through with three scores in the season finale's 42-17 rout of the Dolphins.   Offensive Coordinator Brian Daboll and his history of weak offenses did Allen no favors, so what he truly can be may not show up in 2019, though improvement is certainly a must.



Miami Dolphins -  The Ryan Tannehill era may be over and Patriots Defensive Coordinator Brian Flores may become Miami's new head coach - already scuttlebutt is Patriots WR coach Chad O'Shea will take over as OC.   More scuttlebutt is the Dolphins will tank the season to be able to draft one of the hotshot passer prospects coming out for 2020, a strategy that worked for the Suck-For-Luck Colts of 2011.   But the Colts still had a history of success at that point and Luck largely kept that reputation going - the Dolphins haven't had much success since 2003, and it's hard to envision a turnaround in 2019.



New York Jets -  The Jets may have played Suck For Sam in 2017, but is Sam Darnold truly as good as expected?  Darnold accounted for all four Jets wins but was stuck at 57 percent completion and came under fire for his effort against the Vikings, a game where the 3-3 Jets went into a Jet-like collapse of 1-9.   Adam Gase - Miami's ex-coach - takes over after the failed Todd Bowles experiment, but how much better if at all is Gase?


*****



Baltimore Ravens -  The Ravens won the AFC North and have hitched to Lamar Jackson, but Jackson's mediocre passing ability throughout the season after replacing presumptive cap casualty (and possible trade bait) Joe Flacco stood out even as he won six of his eight total starts.   He posted passer ratings in the 100 range twice in a three-week span, then regressed down to the 78-81 bracket, and his weak effort in the playoff loss to the Chargers bodes poorly down the road - he's another athlete who thinks he's a quarterback but doesn't play the position credibly; that he finished a close second in rushing behind Gus Edwards is a bad sign for a quarterback.



Pittsburgh Steelers -  No evidence of a disciplined culture.   Finger-pointing.   Players carrying themselves as entitled brats.   Coaches doing nothing discernible to correct errors.    Such is the Steelers and their third season this decade out of the playoffs - and just 3-5 in playoffs since losing to the Packers in the Superbowl - raises anew the question of how a team this poorly run can win as much as it does.   Certainly the talent is there in bunches; the effort, though, leaves everything to be desired.



Cleveland Browns -  In contrast the worst team this decade or any other may actually be becoming a genuine contender.   Baker Mayfield may be a jerk who patterns his game after the wrong guy - Mister Interception Brett Favre - but it's clear he's the quarterback they've desperately needed all these years.   Winning five of their last seven games and the heartbreaker at Baltimore indicate a Browns team that's finally going somewhere.



Cincinnati Bengals -  The Marvin Lewis era is over and with the reported hiring of Zac Taylor as head coach and Brian Callahan as Offensive Coordinator, the Bengals have to get more out of a talented squad that fell apart after starting 5-3.   Andy Dalton is presumptive starter for 2019 but it's clear he plateaued in his first five seasons; Jeff Driskel won just once in five starts in 2018, so we doubt he can be the answer there.


*****



Indianapolis Colts -  It's clear Andrew Luck is back.   It's also clear that isn't enough.   Losing to a Chiefs team the Colts have owned since 1990 is a terrible sign going forward.   The overall comeback after Luck's lost 2017 and the 1-5 start to 2018 certainly bodes well going forward.



Tennessee Titans -  Injuries to Marcus Mariota helped ruin a positive debut season for coach Mike Vrabel, but the loss of Delanie Walker in the first week wound up hurting the offense all season.   The loss to San Diego wound up being the one that got away on the missed two-point conversion, but getting embarrassed by the Colts again is exactly what now is stopping this team from advancing farther.   The second year for Vrabel and a revamped staff will be a sign going forward, and keeping Mariota healthy is a necessity.



Houston Texans -  Deshaun Watson's comeback boosted the Texans to the division title, but an utterly listless performance in the playoffs raises questions not only about Watson but also coach Bill O'Brien, who finally broke out of his 9-7 rut with eleven wins.   Now the Texans need to see if Watson, only into his third season, can advance his game; his 103.1 passer rating is fantastic and all but the same as his injury-shortened rookie year.   So there's ample reason for optimism here.



Jacksonville Jaguars -  Shockingly for a Tom Coughlin team the Jaguars regressed into the kind of undisciplined gaggle of ego-drunk losers that never goes anywhere.    The rumor of a trade for Joe Flacco should tell you everything about the irrelevance of Blake Bortles now, but getting this team back into a disciplined program is paramount. 




NATIONAL FOOTBALL CONFERENCE -

 New Orleans Saints - No, Gayle Benson and everyone else - not calling pass interference on the late Rams drive (it simply isn't as clear cut as people say it is, especially given the real officiating problem is over-officiating) is not the problem here.   The problem now is squarely Sean Payton and Drew Brees.   That Brees failed to top 4,000 yards for the first time in his Saints career was surprising but ultimately irrelevant.   The reality is Payton and Brees presided over blowing a two-touchdown lead just as the Eagles had blown a two-score lead the week before.   They now have a playoff record of 8-6 together, certainly nothing to be ashamed of but also not a record befitting the hype that periodically engulfs discussion about them - and more fatefully not a positive sign going forward given their age.   The overall roster is manifestly better now after the 2014-16 period of losing records; finding answers they have had trouble finding in the playoffs is the key for 2019.



Atlanta Falcons -  The Steve Sarkisian period is now over and can't be considered much of a success.   Now the Falcons have to figure out how to become a playoff contender again with a new staff, and also try to get more out of Matt Ryan, whose career has been defined by underachievement.   Shoring up line play is certainly a necessity; Ryan wound up getting sacked 42 times in 2018 despite a passer rating of 108.



Carolina Panthers -  Cam Newton is now the problem.    The team's owner's comments about his shoulder before Newton underwent surgery carried with them inference that the Panthers are tiring of Newton, whose game has not shown sufficient growth and in fact looks stuck in neutral, especially after the season collapse endured by the Panthers.   We're not sure Kyle Allen, winner vs the Saints, is the answer there, but it's worth keeping an eye on.



Tampa Bay Buccaneers -  So is Jameis Winston the answer, or the problem?  Is ex-Cardinals wonderboy Bruce Arians the answer?  Ryan Fitzpatrick started seven games and his 100 passer rating tops Winston's 90, but Winston won three games to Fitzpatrick's two.   They combined for some 5,100 passing yards, but just five wins out of that doesn't augur well.   Neither does Tampa's less-than-inspiring run defense that gave up 1,900 yards on the ground, nineteen scores, and 4.7 yards per carry   It hasn't been working for the Bucs, we're not sure 2019 will see much improvement.


*****



Dallas Cowboys -  Sean Payton to Dallas?   That rumor recirculated following New Orleans' playoff loss, but seems unlikely.   Certainly the Cowboys took a step forward in 2018 after a 3-5 start and their defense against the Saints late in the regular season opened a lot of eyes.   But it's clear Jerry Jones' boy Jason Garrett does not have what it takes to coach in this league.



Philadelphia Eagles -  Remember Lane Johnson's stupid rant about the Patriots not having any fun and his team being a fun team?   Fun teams don't win and the 2018 Eagles proved that again.  The upshot is Nick Foles had to come in as a relief quarterback just like in 2017 and darn near replicated his preposterous Superbowl rally again.   So now the Eagles have to ask themselves - is Carson Wentz really that good?



Washington Redskins -  Now the league itself is getting tired of Dan Snyder and his incompetent meddlesome ownership as the Skins finished 7-9 after a 6-4 start and losing new quarterback Alex Smith to gruesome injury against the Texans.   It's impossible to forsee any improvement here.



New York Giants - A 1-7 start and a finish of 0-3 - with a 4-1 middle - was another subpar season for Eli Manning, the guy they can't get rid of - which leads to the question of how hard they're trying to get rid of him.    This is another team where improvement is difficult to forsee.


*****



Chicago Bears -  Believe it or not there's reason for optimism after a stunning 12-4 season.  Mitchell Trubisky showed legitimacy in throwing for 24 touchdowns and a passer rating of 95.   The defense got hype galore with the trade for Khalil Mack and leading the league in fewest point allowed.  The drawback is they didn't face more than three legitimate quarterbacks and their only win against one was Week 2 vs Russell Wilson's Seahawks.   So the Bears still have to shore up things, especially on offense.



Green Bay Packers - The Packers fired Mike McCarthy but didn't try to get a coach who will challenge Aaron Rodgers.   Instead they looked for a cipher and Matt LaFleur does not look like someone who will challenge Rodgers.   The Packers are letting Rodgers run the offense and that's a sign they will keep losing after going 13-18-1 the last two seasons. 



Detroit Lions - Offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter was fired after being elevated to the position  halfway through 2015, and Matt Patricia's rough first year now needs to start getting better and the culture of the team needs to begin changing.   Player resentment at Patricia his first season was open but the old Lions way wasn't and won't work, so they need to listen to Patricia and start doing what they're told.     



Minnesota Vikings - The Vikings didn't listen to the truth about Kirk Cousins - a loudmouthed mediocrity who never elevates his game when needed.  They're thus stuck as a team 8-8 or 9-7 despite a good defense and a strong overall roster.    Don't expect improvement with Cousins.


*****



Arizona Cardinals - Normally one-and-out isn't the right approach for handling the coach but a paltry three wins and dismal performance from the highly-touted rookie Josh Rosen are more than enough to justify firing the coach.   Everything needs to get better here. 



San Francisco 49ers - Did the Jimmy Garoppolo era end before it began?   Another season, another season-ending injury, and Garoppolo's streak of wins as a starter ended and he won only once in three starts.   CJ Beathard's career is an obvious failure at 0-5 last year.   Nick Mullins, the undrafted walk-on for the 2017 Niners, wound up starting half the season beginning with a delightful 34-3 embarrassment of the Raiders.   He won just three of his eight starts, but it's a start nonetheless, so we await what transpires next.   His four touchdowns in a losing effort against the Rams was also noteworthy and a good sign going forward.



Seattle Seahawks -  A roster makeover several years in the making is now paying off as the Seahawks started 4-5 then won six of their last seven and most impressively had a plus-16 turnover differential.   Russell Wilson's 35 touchdowns got overlooked in the aura of Patrick Mahomes and others, but they showed anew Wilson is for real.  Not much improvement is needed here. 



So it goes as the Superbowl counts down.

The Scam That Was Cassius Clay

Muhammad Ali's "Beautiful Soul" was nothing.   He was a fraud and it’s worth remembering who he actually was.

Rahaf Case Exposes Some Inconvenient Truths About the Islamic World

A refugee from the Islamic world serves as a reminder of what that world actually is.

Abortion Deception

A look at how people lie to each other - and themselves - about abortion.

Media Fabricates Story From Transgender Myth

The media is now pushing the claim that "transgenders" are now the target of hate murders. Except it isn't true, and several cases of "anti-trans" violence are nothing of the kind but in fact are terrible people doing terrible things.

The Open Borders Lie

"The idea of 'open borders' is to open one's heart and arms to everyone in the world, open one's country to all comers, to encourage everyone to come. 'Open borders' is an increasingly popular idea in the West."

Except "open borders" open irresponsibility and aggression. Reality is walls work and open borders don't.

Anti-Semitism is Fashionable Again

"In Western countries, it is once again respectable to claim that Jews are the cause of social ills, that Jews bring many problems, and that Jews are evil. The brief post-Holocaust moment when it was regarded as poor taste to vilify Jews is long past.

Iranian Meddling In Iraq

"Is Iran's Influence in Iraq Growing, or Has It Reached a Plateau?"

The Forgotten Jihadist Of Oklahoma

Alton Nolen, an Islamic savage responsible for a 2014 attack, is now slated to be executed in Oklahoma.

"The September 24, 2014 attack in Oklahoma is somewhat notable in the annals of many officially uncalled terrorist strikes in that he emulated a favorite ISIS death tactic no doubt learned online."