Not to get all political here…again…but picking a winner for the NFC Championship Game based on the tax burden of each team’s home state is a little goofy. But NBC Chicago’s Edward McClelland

Quarterback Jay Cutler will earn $7.6 million in 2011 (still not enough to put him in a good mood). He’ll keep a lot more of that money as a Bear than he would as a Packer. After deducting $2,000 for the personal exemption as a single man, Cutler has a taxable income of $7,598,000. At a 5 percent tax rate, he’ll owe $379,900.

Now, imagine Cutler were traded to Green Bay. He’d have $7,599,300 in taxable income (because Wisconsin has a lower exemption), and, at Wisconsin’s top rate of 7.75 percent, he’d owe $588,945.75 — a difference of over 200 grand. I don’t know what Cutler does for fun — or whether Cutler ever has fun — but $200,000 can pay for a lot of it.[..]

High taxes may provide a high standard of living, but they don’t bring out the best on the gridiron. Look at Texas. They don’t even have a state income tax, and the Cowboys have won five Super Bowls.

–NBC Chicago.

Athletes get hosed on taxes, especially football players. An NFL player usually has to pay taxes his home state, plus in whatever state he happens to be playing. So maybe tax burden isn’t such a bad way to measure football prowess after all. Whatever. It’s still better than anything the Keynesians would have configured.

In light of the recent events in Tucson, Arizona on Saturday, North Carolina Congressman Heath Shuler has made an interesting public statement. Shuler played quarterback at Tennessee, and then for the Washington Redskins, before being elected to represent North Carolina’s 11th district in 2006.

Shuler says he’ll now make it a practice to carry the permitted handgun when he is away from Capitol Hill, where lawmakers rely on Capitol Police for security.

Shuler says his staff members have also gone through the training and background checks needed for the legal permit to carry concealed handguns.

–WTKR.

I’m not espousing my personal beliefs here, but it’s interesting that as some people are calling for tighter gun control legislation, one Congressman is making a point to show that he actually feels safer carrying one. But when one considers Shuler’s 49 percent career completion percentage, he certainly wouldn’t be in as much danger as those standing near his targets. That’s a joke, people. Don’t email me.

I think even the pinkos and evangelicals alike can agree that cable companies are the spawn of Satan, and I bring you further evidence of that. And a panda. But let’s get to it: there’s a little spat happening between NewsCorp (which owns the FOX networks) and Cablevision (which provides service to areas of the New York City and Philadelphia markets). Basically, FOX wanted more money from Cablevision, they said no, blah blah blah, and so FOX’s coverage of the NLCS has been blacked out.

The Federal Communications Commission, instead of doing its job and mediating this dispute, decided its ridiculously broad authority would be put to better use by live-Tweeting updates of the game. How does this help anyone? This is the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing it. Nice job, federal government. At least the Tea Partiers could have drummed up some half-assed re-enactment. I’d love to see what they would have done with Tim Lincecum.

via The Consumerist.

Remember when Roger Clemens swore up and down in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that he had never taken steroids or used performance-enhancing drugs while playing professional baseball? And remember how his trainer Brian McNamee ratted him out to that same committee? Yeah, Clemens might be royally screwed now.

The former New York Yankees pitcher has been indicted by federal authorities on six charges of perjury and obstruction after allegedly lying his pock-mark-riddled ass off to the House committee in 2008. Clemens and McNamee famously bickered in front of elected government officials with nothing better to do than hold hearings on PED use in baseball, eventually leading to the decision to investigate Clemens for perjury. Tough luck, Roger. Let’s hope nobody throws their bat at you in prison.

Don’t drop the soap, New York Times:

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s that video of that Jets fan being arrested during that AFC Divisional Round game on Sunday, apparently for nothing more than being a Jets fan. We can see that the poor bastard is being cuffed as a Charger fan continually shouts to police, “He didn’t do anything!” It’s hard to tell since the video is clearly edited. But now a post from a Jets messageboard–from someone claiming to be the creator of that video on a Jets messageboard–seems to corroborate that story. Yes, we’re citing a Jets messageboard. Shoot us.

I’m the one that posted the video and this is what [went] down.

This guy was chanting Jets for about 10 minutes straight. This is the first part of the video Obnoxious yes, but definately not breaking the law. Then this lady in a wheelchair says for him to come down to her and smacks him in the face and tells him to shut the f**k up. I didn’t get this on tape.[..]

He walked back up to his wife/gf. Apparently [surveillance] called the cops to the area. When they walked up I believe she pointed her finger at him. They just knew there was some disturbance and they were checking in on it. The cops walked over to him and he was still chanting Jets. It didn’t seem like they were into fact finding. The next thing you know he gets pulled which is the second part of the video. –The Gang Green forums.

So apparently being a Jets fan is illegal in the state of California. It’s a great idea on the surface, but really shouldn’t we just be executing them? Less paperwork, plus Jets fans make for great kindling. vid from Deadspin. Also.

Look, I was leading the cheers that the federal government had better things to do than deal with college football. And it does. But the NCAA and the BCS have really dug their own graves here, and we might look back at their denying Boise State and TCU of chances to play BCS-caliber teams as what finally brought Congress into legislating college football.

A House subcommittee approved legislation Wednesday aimed at forcing college football to switch to a playoff system to determine a national champion, over the objections of some lawmakers who said Congress had more pressing matters on its plate.

The bill, which faces long odds of becoming law, would ban the promotion of a postseason NCAA Division I football game as a national championship unless that title contest is the result of a playoff. –FOXSports.com

So even if this bill passes, which it probably won’t, we could still be stuck with the bowls. But whatever–college football is as crooked as all hell right now: referees in BCS leagues are giving away calls to keep their teams undefeated, and the so-called “mid-majors” like Boise State and TCU can’t get any of the big boys to show up for a game. The “regular season as a playoff” analogy doesn’t ring as truly as it once did for those reasons. Something had to be done. And something was. Let’s hope that it’s the first step of many.