No football tee

 

So. The US is heading towards a cliff. And where's our focus? The PR firm of Taylor and Travis.

Let me say at the outset that I care about... and for... celebrities'... precisely as much as they care about and for me.

And the reader knows that none of them give damn one about me.

In the Bread and Circuses world we've become, almost the entirety of this country's attention is glued to Taylor and Travis. Those who have their attention elsewhere and , like me, suggest that out time is better spent outside of that well-panned and media-fostered black hole are accused of "attacking" (mostly) Taylor Swift for one reason and one reason only: She is a she.

We're told to shut up if we don't go along with this cleverly managed flavor of the week who has been elevated to the level of "God's Gift To Entertainment." As a male, I'm frequently attacked for my views concerning women's issues. Speaking your mind results in efforts to be silenced, ridiculed, misinterpreted and, at least on one occasion, local media's efforts to cancel me.

Well, I'm reminded of two of the hallmarks of this particular blog that I try to live by. They're on the right of this screen but they're also imprinted on my heart:

“In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

George Orwell, author of 1984

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

Dr. Martin Luther King

Our total inability to focus on things that matter, regardless of how unpleasant those things may be, results in this country being manipulated, being lied to and being put at risk.

The major issues confronting us are ignored. No one is ever held accountable for the damage inflicted and the deaths caused. Criminals are allowed to roam free. Homelessness is the worst it's ever been. Drug importation and use has literally wound up costing the deaths of 10's of thousands of lives. Crime rates continue to explode and murder rates set records. Public schools are a slow motion train wreck with mainly utterly horrific academic outcomes while schools focus on inculcating children with leftist tropes while they do all they can to mainstream the permanent sterilization, butchering and mutilation of children who can't get tattoos, can't enter in to contracts, can't own property and in many cases, can't even drive a car.

I refuse to respond to celebrity. I refuse to do anything because someone I've seen on a TV or movie screen tells me to do so.

Because here's the reality.

Americans do not WANT to think.

As a country, the people here are TOLD what and how to think and God Help those wise enough to throw off the shackles of societal expectations and political correctness to think for themselves.

Celebrities have an inordinate amount of power in forming/shaping opinion in this country, power I simply do not understand.

When a celebrity speaks? The entire world is required to listen.

How many times, for example, have we seen media on Bill Gates?

No so much for what he's done or doing, but instead for what he's saying?

I grant Gates' expertise in the field of computing. I freely acknowledge, unlike either Taylor or Travis, that Gates' company has built, perhaps, the single most impactful product the world has ever known: the Personal Computer.

But what knowledge or expertise is he imbued with beyond that?

How does that make him, or any other celebrity, an expert on anything?

I've frequently stated that my Spaniel knows more about politics than he does, yet, because of WHO HE IS, lack of qualifications or experience aside, we're expected to listen to him.

Or LeBron who knows how to play game but who knows nothing about the mechanics of government, or foreign policy, or law, or any number of things that make up the fabric of this country.

But because he's a celebrity, what he says frequently gets more attention than the president.

Who he hates, what he thinks, what he eats or drinks... all of those things are SUPPOSED to be important.

Why?

Meanwhile, as the title says, this country is beginning to sprint towards the edge of the cliff.

A $34 trillion debt. (Estimates are we'll be paying $700 billion in interest alone this year) All of the issues previously mentioned. A great many countries who seriously want us destroyed. A divide of leftist hate. A border that can't even really be called a border any more since it bears little resemblance to such a thing.

Our troops are getting killed. Countries around the world successfully play us for suckers. Terrorist supporters infest Congress. The dual tier of something called "justice" is screaming, Corruption at almost every level runs rampant. 

Post attack photo of of the Army post in Jordan

And where's the focus?

On a singer and a football player.

A few days ago after the attack on our forces in Jordan that killed 3 and maimed 40, I pointed out that neither of these people know the names of or care about any of them.

Our 3 soldiers killed in Jordan - Sgt William Jerome Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, Georgia; Spc Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, of Waycross, Georgia, and Spc Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, of Savannah, Georgia.

Neither of these people, Taylor or Travis, know the names of nor care about any of the men and women slaughtered in Kabul towards the end of the horrific and ignominious (and cowardly) withdrawal from Afghanistan.

America is blissfully (and deliberately, as it turns out) quite unaware of the world around them.

And the people of this country wouldn't have it any other way.

After all, there's celebrities to worship. And we can't let anything interfere with that, can we?

Taylor Swift. Travis Kelce. Politics and the lost perspective.

When it comes to politics, leftists excel at 2 things: labeling... and blaming.

Whenever something is going on, or something happens they don’t like, the leftist auto-response is immediate regardless of the issue. If they, themselves, cannot dominate the issue, then they have to find someone responsible for it that gives them an advantage in whatever the outcome may be.

Historically, examples abound. Mass shootings? Blame the NRA and/or “white supremacists.” Biden’s open border policies? Blame Trump and/or the GOP House for failing to bend over to their formalized open-border bills. Foreign policy debacles? Blame Trump. Out of control inflation? Trump.

I bring this up because as fast as a leftist will get involved in tearing down a Founding Father’s statue, they’re beginning to detect massive push-back against the unutterably overhyped and over exposed Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce duo,

Swift, leftists claim, is God’s Gift not only to entertainment, but to the world generally.

Therefore we, rhetorically speaking, have no choice but to bow down to the feet of this woman… sort of an extension of America’s inexplicable love affair with the billion dollar plus celebrity industry.

The unending media efforts to force us all into acceptance and support of the latest flavor of the week never cease. It’s a form of peer pressure that’s likened to being caught in a vice.

If you’re not a rabid fan of Swift, something, obviously, is wrong with you and you need to be castigated and then culled from the “cool kids” herd, left to drift alone as an outcast who doesn’t get it.

There is no doubt that leftists would, rhetorically, sell their own children to protect one of their icons. And because of America’s inexplicable desire to be told what to do by celebrities who are no more qualified, experienced or capable of ordering us about than my next door neighbor’s dog, the left’s calculous is that Swift is some sort of modern day super hero.

Therefore, she must be protected at all costs and those who don’t agree?

Well, they must be “punished.”

Here’s the reality: Swift is the highest profile leftist alive today. I believe that people around the world are far more concerned about her, her love life, what she’s wearing, what she’s eating, what brand of toilet paper she uses, and naturally, the millions of dollars’ worth of earned media she gets with every Kansas City Chief football game, than they are about our economy, our horrific public school system, our out of control borders and the impending blow up of a world war in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, I don't buy into the TS/TK hype. I wonder if she’s as remotely powerful in ordering her followers to support/vote for a clueless leftist numbskull bent on America’s destruction or not: after all, Swift got totally involved in the 2018 elections, throwing her weight behind Democrat former Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen over then Rep. Marsha Blackburn.

And how'd that work out? I ask that question to remind people of the result of her effort last time: the outcomes of the Senate race she was so public about?  Blackburn won by 10 points.

Leftist media is positively giddy about what they believe she can do to keep the clueless one in office in this year’s election, and maintain control of the Senate while getting the House back. (Of course, in the first two years of the Biden nightmare, democrats controlled all three Houses as well, and we’re still suffering as a result.)

I, on the other hand, suggest a more sober view: leftist reliance on Swift as their savoir should be sobered by her experience in the field. Her support of Bredesen resulted in a US Senator by the name of Blackburn.

Even now, we’re greeted with headlines that are essentially meaningless as the left attempts to portray Swift as a political demi-god.

USA Today, for example, bleated “more than 35000 register to vote after Taylor Swifts Instagram post.” That abysmal response notwithstanding, which means millions ignored her.

Swift, for her part, has, depending on what source you read, 272, or 274 or 275 million followers on Instagram, where told her followers to get out there and register to vote.

Leftist media literally peed their pants because, to hear them tell it, 35,000 did just that.

That’s right. 35,000. Out of 27Xmillion.

Well, presuming the 275 million follower figure is correct, that’s a compliance rate of 0.000127272727273, or 12 10000ths of 1% of her followers.

But like everything Swift does, the press releases were totally orchestrated to give the leftist media the incentive to provided her with additional millions of dollars’ worth of “earned media,” for free, claiming that their Second Coming of a political god was some sort of shaker and/or mover.

This is, of course, a mere sampling of what’s going to happen in the run-up to November. They’re going to pee on our legs and tell us it’s raining, a not unusual political ply but this time?

It’s gonna be on steroids.

As a result, leftist media will brook no nonsense when it comes to their political flavor of the week.

And the attacks have started already.

A female reporter for the LA Times asks: Ali - What's behind the right's attack on Swift-Kelce romance? Fear of a powerful woman.

Well, as aware as I and others politically to the right of Mao actually are, I find myself in contradiction to this leftist labeling crap.

To date, nothing Swift has done politically shows her capable of moving the needle politically in any significant way. If she couldn’t do it in the Tennessee Senate race, why on earth do these same people believe she can do it a national level when they offer precisely zero evidence beyond their fantasies that she actually can take over the political thinking for her “followers?”

Nevertheless, the article in question:  wants to assure everyone that “the right” is “attacking” their sainted leftist icon out of “fear of a powerful woman.”

The irony of a reporter for the LA Times, or the NY Times or the Washington Post or almost ANY media outlet, including our own democratian, discussing a “carefully constructed web of deceit” is difficult to overstate, considering these same sources of “news” beating us senseless with the web of deceit of Russian collusion or Hunter Biden’s laptop being Russian disinformation or “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” or any number of other leftist tropes used in an attempt to brutalize the right.

I’m reminded of former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid getting up on the floor of the Senate and lying about then GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, when he knowingly claimed that Romney didn’t pay taxes for the last 10 years.., a lie so obvious and blatant that even the Washington Post admitted it, in an article entitled “Harry Reid lied about Mitt Romney’s taxes. He's still not sorry.”

When he was asked about it after the election, his response?

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?”

Politics, which took up most of my post-military life for some 30 odd years, taught me a great deal. But mainly, it taught me that it’s a brutal, vicious, blood-thirsty business, and while it can, and occasionally does, bring out the best in those involved, it all too often brings out the worst instead.

And this article in the left coast’s version of Pravda Izvestia is just another in the upcoming, and for the left, hopefully deafening, series of drum beats as we begin the process of what is likely to become the most brutal, hateful, despicable campaign the world has yet seen in the US, and this time, with the excuse that those perpetrating it didn’t do it… Artificial intelligence did it.

There is no denying that Taylor Swift is a huge success at what she does, as is her boyfriend of the month. That respect is definitely a testament to capitalism for her. To rise from relatively humble beginnings as a child to what she is now can only be called a _____________ success (Fill in the blank with whatever adjective works fort you) takes talent, drive, savvy and a world view that is difficult to quantify. Her political leanings are likely a result of the generally leftist bubble she lives in, but that’s also her privilege, in spite of the fact that when it suits them, to the left?

She represents everything they hate.

(As a brief aside, I’m reminded of gays protesting for Palestine… as if they wouldn’t be executed on the spot if they ever set foot in the place for being gay.)

But all of that is neither here nor there/

I don’t fear or dislike her personally at all. I don’t know her to do that one way or the other.

But it’s getting old. Real old. And if she was as far right as she is to the left, and if she was as male as Schwarzenegger; first, we wouldn’t be hearing about her and second, even if we did, I’d be saying/feeling the same way I do about any extensively over-hyped celebrity that leftists worship because it’s convenient right now for them to do so.

How many times does anyone want to watch the exact same show? How many times do you want to eat nothing but peanut butter sandwiches?

But I no more care about this woman and who she’s hanging out with than she cares about me. And I fail to see why I SHOULD care. Other than that, I don’t fear her in the least. But my thoughts are drawn to those 3 kids Biden got killed off in Jordan and the 13 dead in Kabul when he screwed Afghanistan with his embarrassing pullout and left tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons in the hands of the terrorist state.

I go to Willamette every now and then, and I see the stones of those who put their lives on the line to make Taylor Swift capable of achieving her heights of fame. My brother is one of them and I presume I will be as well at some point.

Their reward was just a stone, a flag, and for those who survived their time in the military for many, a lifetime of pain… until that lifetime quietly ended… for those not taken fighting a war we sent them to fight.

Who has done more? Who has achieved more? Who is more important?

Well, we all know the answer to that, even if we won’t admit it.

Tyler Hilinski... a life ended too soon.

Six years ago, a young man by the name of Tyler Hilinski who had a glittering life ahead of him, took his own life.

Tyler Hilinski shortly after "The Game"

No one had a clue. I literally came close to throwing up when I heard.

Eric Johnson KOMO, perhaps the most brilliant television journalist alive today, did what Johnson does.

He wrote of his legacy. He wrote of a bright young life, like so many other bright young lives that we did not know needed us in a way we simply could not fathom.

Tyler was a backup Washington State Cougar quarterback who will be known for many things in life, particularly in the Pullman area... in what could be simply called "The Game."

That was part of Johnson's story. But it was a relatively small illustration of a segment of what happened, which was leading, perhaps, one of the most astounding comebacks in college football.

It is the story of Tyler by a man who felt every molecule of it.

Take a moment to read this. And take a moment to hold your children a little closer, or to call them if they're out of the home, just to check in.

And then, if you can, watch Eric Johnson KOMO's story, of Tyler, Tyler's fantastic family and their efforts to come to grips with this tragedy... The Secret Sadness of Tyler Hilinski.

Even as Facebook reminded me of this today, it's painful to recall but I needed to recall it.

Tyler will continue to be missed by not only those who knew and loved him, but by those who even knew OF him. Kevin Carns

A question actually 3 questions. Bring back the draft?

 A question actually 3 questions:

1. Why do we need a draft? 2. Can we bring back the draft and 3. Will it work?

1. We need a draft because American leadership has failed us.

More and more flag officers (Generals/Admirals) are promoted based on their political acumen/gender/race as opposed to their actual ability and experience.

For example, the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is not best known for any of his combat exploits. He is, however, well known for declaring that the US Air Force has too many white officers in place.

Do we have too many white officers in the Air Force?

In my experience operating weapons and other military hardware, I had yet to be queried as to my skin color or reproductive capability by the system in question before I operated said equipment.
Now, the worst possible framework for advancement has taken place: slavish devotion to fringe-left dogma of all kinds (converting all military equipment to EV to save the environment, insane costs and total lack of infrastructure notwithstanding), support of the insanity of spending hundreds of millions of military and VA funds for gender-mutilation and subsequent lifetime drugs and health care, affirmative action and support of the disastrous idea of women in ground combat... and all manner of social engineering that does not and never will make the US military a more lethal fighting force more capable of performing its mission which boils down to closing with and destroying the enemy.

We need a draft primarily because those who would mostly consider enlisting are well aware of the "woke" nature of the military, where if you tell the truth on any given subject, your career is over, and you face court martial and prison for doing so.

If you express concern over reduced combat readiness as a direct result of insane socialized policies like those inculcated into the military today, you are done. And if you don't rabidly support those policies, it's a QKR, aka a "Quick Career Killer."

In short, what used to be the main reasons for enlisting have been reduced to the point of invisibility.

During the Biden Administration, the Army has yet to come close to meeting quota. And within the past week, they hit full panic mode and reassigned 800 NCO's to full-on Recruiting Duty, instead of meeting their career progression requirements. Those redesignated had as much as 6 days warning.

The Army is so desperate that almost all qualifying requirements to become a recruiter are waved. Substantial bonuses and promotions are being offered as bait. The Air Force? They've increased the age to 42.

I get what we've been bombarded with as excuses for failing to meet recruitment goals, as instead of engaging in a bit of introspection as to why enlistments are off at a catastrophically low level, we're entertained with a "tiny" pool of eligible individuals excuse.

Too fat. Too many use(d) drugs. Too many have a criminal record, and initially, too stupid; a situation attempting to be addressed with the Army's version of "headstart," (which, come to think of it, shows no particular advantage to the students so engaged) resulting in the claim that of those actually eligible for enlistment by age, only 28% actually qualify.

Yet, during the Trump Administration, that same "pool" enabled Army quotas to be met 3 out of 4 years of his tenure.

That same "tiny pool" was all that was available for the last year we met quota (2020) and since then, the Army has been reduced to meeting McNamara's 100,000 level requirements to even get the pathetic numbers we make now, still far short of the goal.

McNamara's Folly: lowering the standards to fill the ranks.

Of course the horrific public schools we have ramming their anti-country hatred and almost total lack of academics down our kid's throats doesn't help.

2. Can we bring back the draft?

Absolutely. It would take congressional approval and funding... but that doesn't mean it can't happen. It CAN happen.

But unless the East Coast is invaded, that's hardly likely. Further, the specter of women being drafted, which, under equality laws is ultimately unavoidable, will mean that half those drafted will be horrific fighters.

Imagine. Women, who generally are very big on SITUATIONAL equality of the variety that doesn't inconvenience them, have remained steadfastly silent over the obvious inequity of the draft, where men are the ones yanked in from the street to die/get crippled/injured for their country to provide women the freedom to ignore this PARTICULAR brand of inequality, may now find themselves given the same privilege that so many man have died from, or suffered horrific pain, for.

Exclusive of the obvious hypocrisy of this failure of the so-called "women's movement," the price of freedom is not free. Which causes one to wonder why women shouldn't be given the same opportunity as men to pay that particular price.

Army offers women "equality" in career opportunities 

You'd THINK that women would be pounding on doors and clogging the streets DEMANDING this equality. Their silence is deafening as they confirm they have no interest in equality beyond the situational variety. (Not unlike fallacies like the "wage gap" and so forth.) Based on the response to current legislation, however, it seems that the only demands are just the opposite: mainly that women would continue to be draft-exempt.

But for those and many other reasons related to those reasons, no matter how bad the situation gets outside the United States, Congress/President (likely, no matter who controls either) will put their political futures ahead of the needs of the country as they so frequently do,

We've already heard from fathers claiming their "daughters will be drafted over my dead body" because they're not interested in true equality either if their princess has to shed blood for this country to achieve it. So imagine the blow-back if the draft/mandatory service was restarted.

3. Will it work?

That's an open question.

It COULD work, perhaps. Israel, by comparison has just lost the equivalent in America to 60,000 people by population. What would OUR response be to such an attack? (And, for the record, women are subject to mandatory service in Israel as well.)

Well, that depends. Under the current administration, it likely would result in commissions so a determination could be made as to who we offended so much that attacked us and how can we avoid it in the future.

The only way in 2023 or the near future a draft would work is to make the cost of avoiding the draft so expensive that kids would have hard time accomplishing that. Of course, we could expect mass evacuations to leftist countries ala Canada during Vietnam.

Naturally, parents and other family members would be terrified if their son or daughter was drafted. After all with the combination of horrific military leadership and equally horrific political leadership, who'd want to go? With the sacrifice of time and money wasted on social engineering and brainwashing the troops into believing, falsely, that women are equal to men (How many women received a Combat Infantry Badge during the Afghan/Iraq war?) instead of spending more time on the craft of destroying the enemy... *I*, a 14 year veteran of the Army, would not consider enlistment these days unless the Russians were landing in Georgia.

The al-Tanf military outpost in southern Syria. U.S. personnel based here have come under repeated attack in recent days. (Lolita Baldor/AP)
And now? Now bullets are flying. Americans in the Middle East are suffering wounds for which they might not even get Purple Hearts. (Memo to the Washington Post: football players get injured. Servicemembers in combat situations get wounded. Big difference.) At what point will the draft be reinstated? Things will have to get far, far worse than they are now, but it remains a possibility. As opposed to a likelihood.

ONE YEAR LATER: Read this if you're thinking about going with Starlink.

Starlink is now available at many locations including Best Buy, Home Depot, Amazon, Cabela, Bass Pro Shops and many other places. You don't HAVE to go through the web site.

Make sure your address is getting service, however: some few locations are still not available or overly saturated.

________________________________________

It took 6 months to get the system straightened out, or my understanding of it straightened out, to achieve what we have now:

The best system available in my area for rural internet users.

My prior ISP was the only one available: DSL on Kalama Telephone. Their DSL was so slow, we had to have (and pay for) 2 separate DSL lines at around 30 meg per month at $120. 

Each.

That did not include what we were paying for equipment (Whole home wifi, for example.)

Now because of a grant from the Fed, optic cable is finally going to be laid out here.  Once it's out here (and it isn't, as yet) their prices are insane considering the Fed gave them the money to do this.

$154.94 per month for a paltry "Up to" 200 megs. (For comparison, Xfinity charges $35 for 200 meg over their wireless system) but that would also involve an utterly ABSURD $185 "account setup charge."

As an aside, I have also tried T-Mobile's system, which costs $50 per month. ATT isn't available. Infinity can't find my address.

In spite of the claim that my rural area is ready for T-Mobile 5G wireless internet, it was not close to the demands of a combined business and casual internet use requirement, so I kept Starlink.

Starlink is by no means perfect. There have been equipment issues. One of the weaker links is the cable from the router to the satellite dish. It's a proprietary cable with proprietary connectors. It uses a system called Power over Cable (POE) because most of the actual internet is located IN the dish itself, so it offers power to a heater unit.  The problem appears to be that it's rough on the cable itself, and they become inoperable at a much higher rate than you'd expect if either of the two heater systems ("automatic" or "pre-heat") are switched on (As an aside, with mine off, the dish generates enough heat to melt most snow regardless. If you live in a snow climate... Minnesota or Vermont, for example, that may not be enough.).

I've needed two replacement routers. I've needed one replacement ethernet adapter. They have to ship them to you and you've got to send the other equipment back (which they pay for)

The proprietary nature of all this equipment, which was obviously unnecessary, remains totally in effect. Elon makes money, but he wastes a lot of it as well on issues that could be solved with a simple call. Further, the cable sent with Starlink WAS 75 feet, I'm hearing that has been reduced to 50ft. AFAIK, 150ft cables remain available but you have to pay for them and there are no connectors that simple allow you to connect one cable to another.  Instead, you have to splice cables together using Rj45 connectors and jacks which, as simple as it allegedly is, I have yet to be capable of doing.

That said, in the past 6 months, I've needed nothing. It has worked very well. We have had essentially zero buffering.  Starlink itself has gone down VERY infrequently as a result of Sunspots. But not nearly often enough or long enough to make it a bad deal.

Additionally, we've saved far more than enough money than we've even more than broke even on the issue of equipment costs (Starlink needs $600 up front) We are, in fact, paying ourselves back.

The 3rd Gen route is going to come out soon, and Starlink heard the complaints that were so loud, this router actually has at least one and possibly two ports on it so ethernet adapters won't be needed for the newest routers.

Customer service is still the worst in the internet world. There still is no number to call for tech support.

But in my experience, the cost savings makes it worth it:

Not long after this post of a year ago, Starlink announced a 1 terabyte data cap per month. They also incurred, ultimately, 2 price increases, from $99 per month (the charge for unlimited data at the time I signed up) to $110 (with the data cap) and then to $120 with no data cap, which is the current rate.

At the time, we were paying DirecTv roughly $200 per month.

Our total costs for internet and satellite TV then, was $240+ for two DSL lines (one business) and then the $200 for TV, or $440.

We now pay $120 for starlink and about $100 for TV (YouTube TV at $75 per month and a couple of subscription channels that enable m to follow most UDub football games... PAC12 network on Sling) Had they kept the data cap in place, this wouldn't have been possible, but they didn't.

We got rid of DirecTV altogether. YouTube TV has local channels and unlimited DVR. It's much cheaper.

If you are thinking about getting one of these systems. Read my initial struggles below the line.  Go on youtube and search for Starlink. Many of those videos are out of date, so make sure you're looking at videos from the last two months or so. All-in-all, it has been worthwhile. And I expect to stay with it.

_______________________________________

Realistically, their customer service sucks. It is, if not THE worst in the internet world, close to it.

If you have an issue, you have to email them. Then, since there's only roughly 1.5 million subscribers, you have to wait for someone to respond.

Then, you go back and forth until the problem is resolved or the component is replaced. Replacement components have averaged 2 to 3 weeks for me.

All the parts and the cables are proprietary (one of the many reasons this system is difficult to repair), and they have, as yet not even bothered to include a connector that would allow cable expansion unless you cut the cables yourself and connect them, typically using RJ45 connectors.

I have not been able as yet to accomplish that feat that I've been assured is as simple as making a P,B and J.

Further, the router has no ethernet port: (though the next version apparently will have such a port… or ports) so you get to buy an adapter that provides such a port (which SHOULD be enclosed) separately after you discover the port available on every other router on the planet is missing, for a quick $25... and a wait to get one.

We are what's called "end user quality control."

That said, when it works?

It's a fantastic system for rural areas. If you have access to other forms of actual high-speed internet, then don't bother with this.

Fiber/cable is typically much cheaper/faster and won't require a big cash outlay up front. And if something goes wrong, you typically won't face weeks of delay getting the problem resolved AND there's actual troubleshooting numbers to call to help you deal with the issues in question immediately.

Starlink COULD resolve these obvious failures but have chosen not to do so. Which is understandable if you don't care about modern customer service but have people begging to get their hands on your system.

That may change over the next couple of years as Amazon's proposed sat system gets online. Or they may make the same mistakes. Who knows?

The PARTICULAR area you live it may not have any availability for you to set up a system due to congestion by users that already have the system in place. But Starlink is expanding, albeit at a snail’s pace, so they'll get to you eventually if it's not available now. At this point, however, it's claimed the entire continental US is covered. The map below, from the Starlink website, does indicate there are places still where service is NOT available.

Just get your $700 or whatever ready up front and have at it. It's also available at Home Depot, Best Buy, oddly enough, Amazon among other places. BUY FROM A REPUTABLE DEALER. (Make sure it’s actually available where you intend to set it up, however. The location you intend may be saturated with users already and that will require additional satellites to come online for you to get service. If you buy it regardless, you’ll have a $700 door stop until more satellites are added.)

But first, spend some time on the various FB groups and check out the YouTube videos on Starlink of which there seem to be hundreds. Educate yourself and don't be surprised.

Amazon, or Home Depot. Check the web site to make sure you're in a service area.

https://www.starlink.com/map

Lessons in how the Constitution actually works:

Thoughts on the ordinance effort. I've read a great many reactions. I've sought a great many responses to the "why" question.

One of the many things I've learned, occasionally to my detriment is that to be effective and successful in politics, you have to be focused on the viable.

If you support a candidate for anything, and they have no chance at success, then while that support might make you feel better, what does it accomplish?

I get a lot of reaction that what's happened in this state is "unconstitutional." What I've never seen is a reference to where, exactly, any of this has BEEN "unconstitutional."

My position in all of this has been, from the beginning, not to give in to an emotional response about the complaints of those impacted by these mandates. My position has been, and remains, to leave "feelings" out of it.

I know the Constitution. Studied it for years, worked with it for 6 years in Olympia. Listening to those who support this ordinance, frequent claims are made regarding "constitutionality."

And with equal frequency, they have been wrong.

To determine the constitutionality of an issue, one has to find the issue and then the corresponding article or amendment.

Precedent by the Supreme Court has made it clear that restrictive requirements during pandemics or other declared emergencies are not only Constitutional, they're expected. And that's been their position for over a century.

We cannot afford the luxury of believing in dislike equaling "unconstitutional."

I get why many ordinance supporters make that claim. That claim provides justification for their opposition to mandates.

But they’re NOT “unconstitutional.” Ordinance supporters really don’t care.

As conservatives, we’re supposed to believe and uphold the Constitution. But it’s also not a malleable document, something that can be twisted into whatever you want it to be.

That’s how we got Roe v. Wade.

We all know there’s no such thing as a ghost “constitutional right to privacy.” But the Court who ruled this way, not unlike ordinance supporters, had to make one up. So they did. And the vast majority of ordinance supporters are not happy about it.

Yet, they turn around and do the exact, same, thing.

These reactions are a symptom of the failure of our education plant.

We spend no appreciable time in our schools studying this document, the underlying foundation of our country. And as a country, we all suffer from that shortcoming.

Imagine how different things would be if people had the first faintest clue as to what was actually IN that document… as opposed to what they BELIEVE is in that document.

Listening to testimony last night, I repeatedly overheard the word "discrimination."

That gets tossed around like a football, not only on this issue, but on any issue by any interest group that wants someone else, particularly in government, to feel bad about something so the interest group can get their own way.

But in THIS country, we discriminate every day of our lives. It's a matter of degree more than anything else. We eat a certain brand of bread. We drink coffee over orange juice. The military discriminates wholesale: reasons to be disqualified from enlistment include almost any medical condition, pregnancy, too tall, too short, too fat, and too skinny. Amputated limbs. Blindness. Hearing loss. Mental health issues... the list fills books of regulations and we don't give it a thought, second or otherwise.

And that’s because for purposes of ACTUAL, ILLEGAL discrimination, one has to have experienced actual discrimination based on a suspect classification.

As the attorney said last night, discrimination is only legally recognized in these areas:

• Age

• Disability

• Equal Pay/Compensation

• Genetic Information

• Harassment

• National Origin

• Pregnancy

• Race/Color

• Religion

• Retaliation

• Sex

• Sexual Harassment

• Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

There’s nothing in there about masks OR vaccination status.

As a result, claiming “discrimination” was a nonstarter. You can’t claim that which doesn’t legally exist to be a cause to promulgate an ordinance that violates state law.

The claims made in Rob’s presentation, that these mandates lacked the force of law and thus, the state has no right of preemption was lunacy. Because the people passed SJR8200, in fact, all mandates DO have the force of law.

As court after court after court has determined in this state there has been NO Constitutional violation. Repeatedly claiming that there has without making a case that extends beyond your actual dislike or other feelings is a nonstarter.

The reality the council faced last night was stark. These people were demanding that the Council actually take a step that would have violated the laws and the state constitution of Washington, a COMPLETE violation of their oaths of office and something that those on our side of the aisle have complained about frequently when applied to the political left.

Thus, we’re showing that same kind of “flexibility” that we despise in leftists and RINOs. It was much like the demands that Inslee implement the $30 car tab initiative because it passed, while many turned around and demanded that he ignore the results of the ballot box vote of the people in the SJR8200 election… which also passed, no matter how stupidly, by a 2:1 margin.

That was a vote of the people. If Inslee had built that authority out of whole cloth, then yes, that would be an issue. But he didn’t. And the ease within which the people supporting this ordinance dismiss or ignore that fact in this matter is astonishing to me.

People who support the ordinance want what they want, period. Laws be damned, Constitution be damned, and anything else in life be damned. They want to be rebels when they have no idea what “rebellion” means.

This was the biggest case of confusing motion with action that I have personally ever witnessed.

This is a perfect example of spinning your wheels. You THINK you’re getting something done mainly because you base your actions on essentially nonexistent factors that when examined provide no justification beyond your emotional “I want that” mode.

Put the shoe on the other foot. What would the reaction be if the signatures were gathered as per the Charter and the initiative in question demanded that starting immediately, every business in Clark County be at least 50% minority owned with 50% minority employees.

Such a demand actually COULD be based on the issue of “discrimination.” Of course, I get that far too often when something “bad” happens to as minority, the answer is always going to be discrimination.

But where does anyone get the idea that this county can force businesses to hire 50% minorities, or sell/give 50% of their business to minorities?

They can’t. And we all know they can’t. No more than they could implement this ordinance. And we all, including the ordinance supporters, knew they could not do it.

In spite of the many who acted like somehow, the laws and the state constitution restricting that variety of extra-legislative hijinks was absolutely within the realm of this council’s ability.

Last night’s outcome was inevitable.

And if anyone learned anything from that debacle, it SHOULD be to deal with the way things ARE, and not waste time fantasizing about the way you WANT them to be.

(October 8, 2020) I've come to the conclusion.... that President Trump is going to lose.

I've been doing politics for a long, long time.  Thirty+ years or so to be precise.

I've held many... most... political organizational positions up to the state level, where I actually served as executive director of the Washington State Republican party.

In 2016, I knew almost from the start that Trump was going to win. He was unlike anything the political world had ever seen, and the Establishment hated him.

And they hate him still, democrat and republican. They have been doing all they can to undermine him, attack him, destroy him and his family.

They've weaponized government against him, committed treason, insurrection and attempted at least one coup.  And none of them have been indicted, reinforcing the idea that justice is an abstract construct to those in government; who have no difficulty abusing the Constitution, or in the case of Obama, using it as their own personal roll of toilet paper.

If you or I commit treason, we are arrested/indicted and face a judge and jury.

If you're a member of Congress (Ilhan Omar, for example, is likely guilty of immigration fraud and campaign fund fraud... who should lose her citizenship and go to prison, then be deported) you break the law with impunity.  If you're Maxine Waters, you call for, effectively, the overthrow of the US Government because you don't happen to like who's running it.

And you suffer no consequence for that.

Most reading this, if politically aware to any extent, already know these things.

But these attacks are no different than what he survived to get elected... and I was convinced that he was likely to win.  The crimes these thugs and others have committed had become common place, and ultimately had no impact on the electorate.

So, what's different now?

Riots have gone on for months.  Those arrested, even for felonies, are quickly released.  Murders, arson, looting, assaults, rapes.  No one seems to be held accountable and the White House refuses to act to restore order.  Democrats are silent as their terrorist allies do the dirty work the left feels is needed to get rid of Trump.

That is an extension of what leftist higher-ups have done.  Biden, Obama, Clinton, Comey, the entire upper echelon of the FBI... all should face criminal sanctions.

And when you don't prosecute the top, what message does that send to the bottom?

Terrorist groups like antifa and BLM are given free rein. They Kill.  They assault.  They attack police.  They burn.  They loot, because well, you know, nothing screams "social justice" like gutting a Louis Vuitton store for those multi-thousand dollar social justice purses.

And it goes on and on and on.  While the Fed does next to nothing about it.  Much like they've done next to nothing about the upper end leftists who have and continue to commit criminal acts with seeming impunity.

Trump was supposed to be the law and order guy.  But when it came time to applying those laws and that order, he did nothing more than threaten. As time went on, he became complicit.

Even in football, there's a saying that you're either coaching, or allowing.

After months of unrest, strategically it was becoming clear that he was allowing.

Here locally, we've undergone this same campaign, only in a micro-sense.  And defeat was the outcome.

We had a county commissioner who ran on a platform of opposition to the hated Columbia River Crossing, the unneeded, unaffordable and wasteful rip off designed to get the equally hated light rail disaster of Portland into Clark County.

He defeated a fake Republican who was rabidly in favor of loot rail and who had even lied to me about a local vote on the issue personally.

A local accountant reviewed the project and discovered that the people were being ignored, tens of millions were being misspent and that the entire process was corrupted.

Meanwhile, because this commissioner was being successful in exposing this rip off, local media and the left started vilifying him... a process that was started long before the election and continued for years after.

Leftists hated him so much that they literally changed the county's government in an effort to eliminate him, and Clark County has been suffering ever since.

The local excuse for a newspaper never let up on him.  He was criticized for everything he did, blamed for everything that went wrong and ignored for anything that went right.

He stuck to his campaign promises and became totally hated by the left as a result.

The pounding was relentless.  The lies, exaggerations, attacks... all of it went on and on and on.

So, when he ran for election as the county chair, others ran to split the vote to keep him out and they were successful.

The ultimate winner was that same fake Republican he had defeated in the first place, supported by the many other fake Republicans who endorsed him instead of the only ACTUAL Republican who was running as a write-in.

As Chair, he was the disaster I knew he would be.  RINOs typically are.

Which brings us back to this election and President Trump. Using the election I reference above, the issue becomes one of water torture.  The drip, drip, drip of lies, deceit, gullibility, voter laziness where they don't do the work; and, let's face it, voter stupidity, will have the same variety of cumulative effect nationally as it did here locally.

Joe Biden is a corrupt, dementia-addled, racist, pedophile, liar.

His VP pick is a political prostitute who had affairs with at least one married man to further her own political career.

Because of Biden's physical/mental condition, in a short time, there is little doubt that this prostitute will become president, one of the least supported democrats who ran for the president, a woman gutted on national TV by fellow democrat Tulsi Gabbard from Hawaii.

Everyone is well aware of these things.  Biden's racism isn't hidden.  His withdrawal from the presidential race in '88 over plagiarism is well known.  Many of his racist tirades are captured on video and have been played ad-infinitum. His dementia is on full-display for all the world to see.

Harris's background as Willie Brown's slut is also well known, as is her incompetence and political racism as AG for California.

And Biden's supporters don't care.

They operate out of hatred.  They'd elect Heinrich Himmler if he ran as a democrat to get Trump out of office.

And that's exactly what has happened.

This is being written on October 8, 2020.  And I seriously hope I am dead wrong.

But this time, as last time, I don't believe I am.  And I will publish this as soon as the election is decided, regardless of the outcome.

Lord help us if I'm right.  Because as a nation, we will have the government we deserve.

NOTE: (Written November 4) It is becoming clearer to me that Trump's defeat is inevitable.  He needed Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan or Wisconsin.  As I write this, it appears he's behind in both Wisconsin and Michigan.  He could have lost one of the other but not both.

This observation has not been published before today and many might wonder why that is.  Many will claim this is revisionist history written after the fact.

Well, I saw no point in putting this out there because conservatives generally had used common sense and logic to determine there is no way... NO WAY.... Americans would ever support lowlife scum like Biden.

They are operating on emotion just as much as the left is.  And they had facts and figures available to support their positions.  Persuasive facts.  Persuasive figures.

But they failed to reckon with the one singular truth of politics: It doesn't matter who votes.  What matters is who counts.

I predicted back in 2016 that every election after that one would become increasingly violent.

This one is the most violent in American history as the left tore cities to pieces without fear of prosecution.

And Trump let them.

His failure was political.  His failure was to put an end to the violence and the leftist disdain for our laws. There is no question that he did a great deal of good.  But his failures... his failures to stop the violence in the cities, his failure to attack CHOP in Seattle, his failure to prosecute the leftists like Clinton, Obama, Comey, etc... his failures are what did him in.

Let this be a lesson to us all:

It is better to lose for doing the right thing than it is to slink away defeated because you ignored the right thing for political considerations.

Thank you Mr. Trump for all of the good you did.  For your efforts to return the Supreme Court to sanity, for your work on the economy.

But the fake Republicans the American people kept returning to office over and over; the failure to enforce the law; the treasonous, lying media... they all spelled doom.

And now?

We're screwed.

Positions on the COVID restrictions... how everything becomes political.

It's become readily apparent there are about three positions available on the COVID restrictions; Total disbelief of everything we're told on one hand, total acceptance of everything we're told on the other and those in the middle... unsure of what we're told, knowing there's a disease out there we don't know enough about, knowing you have about a 1 in 20 chance of getting very dead if you catch it, knowing there's no vaccines as yet and knowing that no sure, absolute cures have been found; but also heartened by the progress that's been made... or that we hope has been made.

But that's not really the point of this post.  The point is to ponder how these things seem to break down along political lines.

For the most part, in my experience, the labels go as follows:

Leftists are true believers.  They want things to continue to be shut down.  They want to destroy the economy because that guarantees Trump's defeat this November. They see what's going on, they understand some intuitive truth (The less you're out, the less you're likely to contract this virus.) and they want as much shut down as possible to reduce contact. And they hate Trump with a passion that, for its breadth and depth, even has a doggedly admirable trait to it.  To the right, they hate Trump so much and want him defeated so badly, they would destroy this country to achieve that goal.

They understand the nature of this Stay Home order is not a civil rights grab; it's only temporary; and yes, closing businesses can be tough on those who own them and have worked so hard to succeed and who will, in some cases, lose everything.  But that's collateral damage and businesses can be rebuilt while lives can't be.

Rightists are true deniers.  They want life to instantly return to the way it was this time last year.  They want everything opened up because our economy is permanently destroyed otherwise.  They see what's going on, but act like antivaxer types, disbelieving what they see and everything government tells them, no matter what it is.  And they simply don't care how many die in the process... though rest assured, they CLAIM otherwise.

They rely on absolute lies to push their positions; i.e., you have a better chance of being struck by lightning than you do of dying from COVID 19, and they attempt to verbally crush anyone who disagrees with them.  They (falsely) claim all of this is unconstitutional.  The Wisconsin Supreme Court, for example, recently overturned their Governor's lock-down order, reopening Wisconsin like there was no epidemic of this stuff at all; therefore, they (wrongly) believe that ALL efforts to control this outbreak are unconstitutional, everywhere.

Wisconsin, of course, has its own set of laws and its own state constitution.  I'm no expert on their laws and don't claim to be... and neither is anyone else I've read... but the deniers don't care.  They take Wisconsin as a small blanket and turn what happened there into a football-field sized quilt.  But the problem we here in Washington have is that our laws are not Wisconsin's.  And, of course, the deniers conveniently forget all about where the people of this state who just voted many of these powers to the Governor via SJR 2800 just last November.

Now, I marked "no" on that ballot, but it passed overwhelmingly, by a 2:1 tally.  I opposed it.  I lost.  I got over it.

Then, there is the middle.  The middle has formulated few actual conclusions.  Some inescapable facts are clear: SOMETHING is going on.  There is an unknown disease going on out there, and it can kill you.  They have concerns about the impacts on the economy, to be sure.  They miss certain aspects of life in the immediate past, but they don't see this as a permanent power grab where our rights are shredded like so much confetti.

They pay attention to the extent they can.  They watch business news and see/hear frequently conflicting stories.  Many, rightfully, have a built-in distrust of the media, which has long since forgotten their actual mission of reporting news and letting the people decide to one they acknowledge is merely an effort to formulate the news in such a way that the people will do what the media wants.

They remember a government of lies under Obama, and frequently wonder how much they're being lied to now... while they wonder what the point of all of this is, if it's some sort of set up for something else.... something less readily apparent.

These are, as I see, the broad strokes of the three main categories.  Both the left and the right are following the dictates of former Representative, former White House Chief of Staff and former mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel, who famously is quoted as saying to "never allow a crisis to go to waste."

And oddly, I find myself in a situation where the card seems to have flipped.

I question the deniers. I point out the US Supreme Court had approved many of these same measures 115 years ago in Jacobson V. Massachusetts 197 U.S. 11 (1905):

“The Constitution,” Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote for a 7-2 majority, “does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint.” Instead, “a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic.” Its members “may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand.”

The Court then went on to say:

We come, then, to inquire whether any right given, or secured by the Constitution, is invaded by the statute as interpreted 26*26 by the state court. The defendant insists that his liberty is invaded when the State subjects him to fine or imprisonment for neglecting or refusing to submit to vaccination; that a compulsory vaccination law is unreasonable, arbitrary and oppressive, and, therefore, hostile to the inherent right of every freeman to care for his own body and health in such way as to him seems best; and that the execution of such a law against one who objects to vaccination, no matter for what reason, is nothing short of an assault upon his person. But the liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint. There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good. On any other basis organized society could not exist with safety to its members. Society based on the rule that each one is a law unto himself would soon be confronted with disorder and anarchy. Real liberty for all could not exist under the operation of a principle which recognizes the right of each individual person to use his own, whether in respect of his person or his property, regardless of the injury that may be done to others. This court has more than once recognized it as a fundamental principle that "persons and property are subjected to all kinds of restraints and burdens, in order to secure the general comfort, health, and prosperity of the State; of the perfect right of the legislature to do which no question ever was, or upon acknowledged general principles ever can be made, so far as natural persons are concerned." Railroad Co. v. Husen, 95 U.S. 465, 471; Missouri, Kansas & Texas Ry. Co. v. Haber, 169 U.S. 613, 628, 629; Thorpe v. Rutland & Burlington R.R., 27 Vermont, 140, 148. In Crowley v. Christensen, 137 U.S. 86, 89, we said: "The possession and enjoyment of all rights are subject to such reasonable conditions as may be deemed by the governing authority of the country essential to the safety, health, peace, good order and morals of the community. Even liberty 27*27 itself, the greatest of all rights, is not unrestricted license to act according to one's own will. It is only freedom from restraint under conditions essential to the equal enjoyment of the same right by others. It is then liberty regulated by law." In the constitution of Massachusetts adopted in 1780 it was laid down as a fundamental principle of the social compact that the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for "the common good," and that government is instituted "for the common good, for the protection, safety, prosperity and happiness of the people, and not for the profit, honor or private interests of any one man, family or class of men." The good and welfare of the Commonwealth, of which the legislature is primarily the judge, is the basis on which the police power rests in Massachusetts. Commonwealth v. Alger, 7 Cush. 53, 84.

As a brief aside, there are three branches of government:

The Executive, which enforces the law;

The Legislative, which makes the law, and

The Judicial, which interprets the law.

The deniers would immediately suggest that the laws in this matter are anything BUT "reasonable."

The Court responds:

The liberty secured by the Fourteenth Amendment, this court has said, consists, in part, in the right of a person "to live and work where he will," Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U.S. 578; and yet he may be compelled, by force if need be, against his will and without regard to his personal wishes or his pecuniary interests, or even his religious or political convictions, to take his place in the ranks of the army of his country and risk the chance of being shot down in its defense. It is not, therefore, true that the power of the public to guard itself against imminent danger depends in every case involving the control of one's body upon his willingness to submit to reasonable regulations established by the constituted authorities, under the 30*30 sanction of the State, for the purpose of protecting the public collectively against such danger.

I point these things out.  I refer to the recent vote that overwhelmingly gave the Governor of this state, who I have frequently stated is a blithering idiot consumed by partisan politics, the power to make these decisions with the acquiescence of the 4 legislative caucus leaders.

And found myself at the receiving end of vitriol unlike any I've ever seen... from former political allies.

And I've seen some.  See, when I express my concerns, I don't find it necessary to engage in playground bullshit like name calling.  I've "gone to the dark side," or I've morphed into some sort of "troll." In some instances, some coalflakes even claim that my disagreement equates to harassment.

In other words, they want to engage in the previously leftist practice of silencing, hurling invective, labeling, ridiculing.... you name it... those who don't agree with them.

Because if you do disagree with them, the deniers become a version of antifa.

Those who disagree with them know nothing.  Those who hold the denier's position know everything.

Well, guess what?

They don't.

With a BA in Government and 6 years on legislative staff, I'm willing to match my knowledge to pretty much anyone.

And in my experience, those resorting to name calling and casting aspersions are those possessed of the weaker argument.

Instead of defending their positions, such as they are, they attack the messenger on a personal level.

I'm reminded of the old lawyer saw:

"When the law is on your side, argue the law.  When the evidence is on your side, argue the evidence.  When you have neither, attack the other guy's lawyer."

I read a great deal from many people who WANT the Constitution to mean certain things in a certain way, but their positions are out of fear and ignorance of both that document and the Law.  And when you point out the law, their response is almost inevitably to trot out the 1857 Supreme Court decision that declared human beings actually CAN be property (Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857), and therefore, when the Supreme Court disagrees with them, what do THEY know?

My response is encompassing:

I find it kinda odd that we demand that Inslee respect the will of the people and implement I-976 ($30 car tabs) and then we demand that he IGNORE the will of the people by ignoring the vote on SJR 8200 (Emergency Powers) that the PEOPLE of this state passed by a 2 to 1 margin just last November.

If you don't like the law, change the law.  If you don't like The Constitution because it doesn't say what you think it says, then change the Constitution.  And if you don't like Supreme Court decisions, then get the Supreme Court to overturn their past decisions.  They have, on occasion, done just that.

Simple really.

But in the mean time?

Live with it.

The Jake Browning report, BYU style.

I consider myself fortunate to have personally witnessed the football rebirth of a quarterback who played last Saturday like he invented the position.

With a record performance on top of it (Not just 23 of 25... amazing accuracy) but becoming the all-time passing leader in yardage for a University which has played this game for over a hundred years in a systemic dismantling of a 20th ranked foe, in this case, Brigham Young.

 

The vaunted defense of the Cougars was ginzued by a surgeon as the Browning of old found the rhythm and the range time and time again. The finest performance by his offensive line this season gave him the time; his confidence in the pocket was a sight to behold.

He set his feet.  He executed the run-pass-option brilliantly.  He became the Browning of 2016, the swashbuckling scourge of a confused secondary and an ineffective pass rush.

The defense also rose mightily, showing the same dare-devil cat-like reactions to everything the Cougar offense could muster.

Aided by a game-ending injury to BYU's leading receiver on their third offensive play, the Husky defense clamped down tight, and the defensive line played a textbook game that held BYU to a mere 34 yards rushing and a very substandard 161 yards passing.

The coordinators for both sides of the ball were masterful in their concepts and the team was brilliant in the execution of their plans and adjustments.

By far, the most complete game of the season as the lines between planning and execution crossed directly over the top of this team of unfortunates who had just defeated the 6th ranked Wisconsin Badgers, raising false hope among the Cougar faithful... who, I might add from the experience of sitting in the stands with them in the east end zone, were among the least classy I've ever experienced (one even yelled out he wanted Gaskin's legs broken) as they saw, close up and personal, the obliteration of their team.

Last Saturday, Jake Browning returned to the form of his legendary sophomore year, tempered by the wisdom of his experience, and ably aided by the Wall in front of him that kept him upright and gave him the ability and time to see down field.

The mechanics were textbook, his indecision; gone, his delivery was accurate.

THIS Jake Browning likely would have led to a different outcome at Auburn.

Next week, a post game report from the UCLA game.

I've always wanted to go to the Coliseum.