NBA Power Rankings

This is the first of several irregular NBA Power Rankings done, in most part, to rankle my daughter who doesn’t believe I know anything about professional basketball. If it irritates others, so much the better.

Week One:

San Antonio Spurs: Well, this isn’t a difficult choice since everyone else in the world picked the Spurs at the top spot. And why not? They have one of the best and most consistent players in Tim Duncan who enters this season rested and healthy. Give him the NBA’s best coach with Gregg Popovich, the quickest player in the League in Tony Parker, Mr. Perpetual Motion in Manu Ginobili and a number of seasoned veterans who know their roles, and you have a team that should be at the top spot.

Dallas Mavericks: I hate putting them this high up because I don’t care for the players. Dirk is whining big man who lacks toughness to go inside and mix it up, Erick Dampier will mix it up but has become a cheap player, Josh Howard is one of those players that does all the annoying, but effective, things and Jason Terry is a bit too temperamental for my tastes. Oh, and they have a whack job for an owner. They do have a great coach in the Little General, Avery Johnson and he somehow makes it all work and, besides, he’s the only likeable guy in the organization.

Detroit Pistons: It wasn’t the Tigers’ year this fall nor the Pistons’ year last year, but the Detroit Shock won the WNBA Championship over the summer and that’s cause to put the men’s varsity up this high. Well, that’s not the only reason: they have really, really good players who know how to win. Yes they lost Ben Wallace and a few players like Rasheed Wallace, Dale Davis, Antonio McDyess and even Chaunchey Billups are getting a bit older, but they still have Richard Hamilton, Tayshun Prince and a couple good free agent acquisitions in Nazr Mohammed and Flip Murray. They may not beat you with flash and athleticism, but they will beat up – as long as they don’t listen to the other Flip, coach Flip Saunders.

Phoenix Suns: This team is the Ferrari in the League with speed and handling and no reason for brakes. Steve Nash still leads this team but gets plenty of help from a group that can shoot from anywhere on the floor and jump higher than Baryshnikov. They also get Amare Stoudemire back this year who can be one of the most dominant players in the League when he wants. Of course he is working his way back from micro-fracture surgery on his knee and there is a virtual boneyard of previous NBA players who never made it back from such an injury.

Denver Nuggets: Nobody has this team this high up but I want to be a bit controversial. Besides, there are a bunch of teams that fall into this second tier category and I’d rather put this young and promising team this high rather than the Clippers who never seem to live up to the hype. This last summer, the Nuggets’ Carmelo Anthony was the best and most consistent player for Team USA and he may yet prove to be the best player to come out of the LeBron, Dwayne Wade, Darko draft year. He also has a better cast around him this year with Kenyon Martin slightly happier, Marcus Camby healthier and Nene just plain healthy. He also has J.R. Smith who has a huge upside, the steady, if slow, Andre Miller at the point and a couple of hacks in Reggie “The Ballgrabber” Evans and Eduardo Najera who may keep a number of players from thinking twice before heading for the basket.

Los Angeles Clippers: If the whole team had the attitude and talent that Elton Brand squeezes out of his undersize body, they’d be on the top of the list. Sam Cassell is a proven winner but he from Mars and is as old as dirt. Shaun Livingston and Chris Kamen are supposed to have breakout years, but what Clipper isn’t? Cuttino Mobley and Rebraca (what’s the point in his first name) will provide the outside shooting with Corey Maggette the athleticism (although he really doesn’t fit this team and wouldn’t surprise me if he’s traded before the season is out). Anyway, the Clips could end up higher or lower depending on undependable factors.

Miami Heat: OK, so I cheated a bit and watched them lose to the Bulls tonight by 40. They looked old and awful and seem to depend more than ever on Dwayne Wade who scored 25 with no other player in double figures. Of course the team barely made double figures either. Shaq looks slow and disinterested, Jason Williams is hurt, James Posey only plays defense and Antoine Walker just jacks up threes to see if he can draw iron. One game does not a season make, but the most recent NBA Champions should have given back the championship rings they were handed in the pre-game ceremony out of shame.

Chicago Bulls: One game does not a season make, but I repeat myself. The Bulls look like the real deal with a solid starting lineup and pretty decent depth. Hinrich, Gordon, Deng, Nocioni and newly acquired Ben Wallace make up a formidable core of a good, young team. But that’s the problem; they are young and have never been in the spotlight like this before. Will take a wait and see approach to see how they respond to the new pressure.

Cleveland Cavaliers: The Cavs won 50 games last year because LeBron James is the best player since Michael Jordan. He still could use a little help for the team to improve on last year, but he probably didn’t get his wish as the team is made up of mostly the same has-beens and never-weres as last year.

New Jersey Nets: I was not one of those who predicted the Nets would do well last year, but they still won their weak division by January, I think. Jason Kidd looks like an old wife beater rather than a young one these days but the Nets have Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson and a much improved Nenad Krstic (get that man a vowel). They don’t have a great deal more than that, but won’t need it in the East and especially in their conference.

Houston Rockets: Go figure this team out. They have the best center in the League with Yao Ming, one of the best swingmen to play the game in Tracy McGrady and a pretty good supporting cast with Bonzi Wells and Rafer Alston. They also stole Shane Battier from Memphis who is one of those guys you need on a team if you want to get better. Battier can be counted on to play defense, get 6-7 rebounds each game, 3-4 assists, a few steals and dozens of hustle plays.

Sacramento Kings: They could be good this year or a bust. Already the injuries have diminished the roster as Mike Bibby will sit the first few weeks out sucking his thumb and Brad Miller got a little banged up at the end of pre-season. But they still have the League’s craziest player in Ron Artest who will either score or brawl with the opposing team – or his team, it’s all the same to him. Could be a breakout year for Kevin Martin and the team has more depth than last year’s team that finished strong. The Kings are still in search of a leader and probably won’t find it in their coach who you can find cleaning up the freeway in an orange vest for his drunk driving conviction. Great influence on these impressionable players, don’t you think?

Los Angeles Lakers: I just want to make sure I keep the Lakers below the Kings. It won’t last long. As soon as Kobe comes back from his injury without a corresponding rape charge he will have a team used to playing without him and one that Coach Phil Jackson will have convinced they don’t need to take his staredowns when they don’t get him the ball. Lamar Odom, the second nuttiest player in the League has improved immensely, Luke Walton is one of those Battier-type players and Kwame Brown and Andrew Bynum both look like solid big men. In the end, Kobe is the difference maker and it will be up to him to carry this team on his shoulders again. I am sure he hates that kind of attention, don’t you?

Indiana Pacers, Utah Jazz, Washington Wizards, Minnesota Timberwolves, New Orleans Hornets, Milwaukee Bucks, Orlando Magic, Golden State Warriors: All these teams are interchangeable and have the ability to move up higher in the rankings or drop down, depending on my mood and how they play. The Pacers have the third craziest player in the NBA in Stephen Jackson (third with a bullet, pardon the pun); Utah has all of its players back from injury and still has Jerry Sloan to guide them or kill them, his choice. Also Deron Williams appears to be turning into a star at the point; the Wizards can’t play defense but Gilbert Arenas and team can put up a lot of points; the Timberwolves got rid of Wally-ball, which helps, but KG’s got some mileage on him and not much help other than stat-conscious Rickey Davis; I’m not one of those big Hornet fans yet since Chris Paul seems like the only legit star on a team that made a number of off-season moves but seemed to just improve their starting lineup by 5-6 wins for this year; the Milwaukee Bucks got better in the draft and through free agency but still need more than Michael Redd to score consistently, but this team could jump up in the rankings if they can mesh well; the Magic are an intriguing team this year as Dwight Howard looks like a stud, Darko seems to be emerging from the shadows, Jameer Nelson looks like he can play and maybe Grant Hill might play a whole season; Golden State got Nellie but still has a collection of misfits. My daughter gives me the inside scoop that they may trade for AI which may help attendance if not wins.

Then there is a next group of teams not ready to do much. They include the Toronto Raptors who have a good, young and very foreign team, the Seattle Supersonics who still have Ray Allen if not an arena. The Charlotte Bobcats who at least have a Fantasy League superstar in Gerald Wallace who will probably lead the league in steals, and get his share of blocked shots, rebounds and points and play well with a good young nucleus led by Okafor and Morrison. The Memphis Grizzlies who lost their star player in Pau Gasol and did very little to help themselves while he’s out. The Allen Iverson-led Philadelphia 76ers did nothing to improve during the offseason but perhaps a less-injured, less-shooting Chris Webber will help along with hopeful improvements from Kyle Korver and Iggy.

I'm a fan of the Atlanta Hawks who are led by Joe Johnson and Josh Smith and should improve a few games this year. The Boston Celtics traded for Wally Szczerbiak and Michael Olowokandi and, except for making their team the most difficult to spell, they will do little other than add to Paul Pierce’s growing impatience. The New York Knicks are a disaster that has four point guards and five forwards and all locked into large contracts for a team that finished 41 games back last year. In other words, good luck to them. Bringing up the rear are the Portland Trailblazers who have nothing but misplaced aggression in Zach Randolf and an embarrassed owner. Zach is certain to vie with former teammate Rasheed Wallace for most technicals in League history with the new whistle-happy rules.

Did I forget anyone? Check back in a bit to see if I’m scurrying about to explain my rankings.

The DC Way Of Thinking

Washington, DC – There is a now famous map of the United States in which three-quarters is taken up by Washington, DC and the balance is labeled “everywhere else.” The map is aptly titled, “Washington’s View Of The World.”

Sitting here in a hotel room outside Washington and earning guilt points off of Italiphil (long story), I can attest to the map’s accuracy. People who live in the area feel they are at the epicenter of all that is important, and the rest of us – those who live in the quaint area they call “Flyover Country” – just can’t comprehend the complexities of real world events.

All the chit chat here is about the upcoming midterm elections. Well, perhaps chit chat is not the correct description. The elections are the only thing discussed here and the anticipation is worse than a house full of kids on Christmas Eve.

And here’s the view around here: The democrats will retake control of the House by a wide margin and the Senate will be 50/50 or, in their greatest hopes, a democrat majority. There is glee in the streets from democrat supporters who have drooled over such happenings for 12 years. The only problem with the projections is, one still has to step over the glee left from John Kerry’s certain win in 2004. The democrats are still whining over exit polls showing Kerry would be President Kerry by a comfortable margin and, rather than attempt to figure out the holes in their polling, are focused on the evils of computerized voting machines and the even more evil Ken Blackwell, the republican Secretary of State in Ohio where all was lost. In fact, there are many democrats who have not stopped their mumbling over Katherine Harris and Florida from six years ago.

All of us have been hearing for at least a year now about polls showing the popular surge of democrats. Republicans are toast, so the storyline goes. In this town, the polls are the only bible that is read and the results have become gospel. In fact, a democrat friend of mine wondered why an election is even needed; just give the win to the democrats and save the republicans from certain embarrassment.

In an environment where polls are conducted by news organizations to create news, it’s difficult to blame the democrats; the overall results look good. But the raw polling numbers are the real problem for the democrats who may again find themselves left at the altar by the voters. The key to all polls are what are known as the “cross tabs” and the “sample,” and in nearly every case, these important points are being ignored by democrats and the media once again.

Cross tabs are the assumed variables in a poll such as partisan beliefs, ethnicity, sex, income, age, etc., and the sample is the weighting of the respondents’ political affiliation and other known factors. When dealing with the most accurate polls of likely voters, the sample and cross tabs can be highly scientific and pollsters take into account dozens of previous elections to build their models. Since 1992, pollsters have oversampled democrats based on party preference stated in exit polls. Over the last 14 years, the oversample for democrats has been as low as 2 percent, but never higher than 4 percent and until recently, these polls have been statistically accurate.

This year has been far different. Major polling companies, including those used most prominently by the affiliate networks, have been oversampling democrats from 5 percent to as much as 11 percent. I have yet to read the reason for this, but it goes against all common sense to suddenly change a successful voting model. Naturally the results favor democrats, which makes news, which fuels more speculation about a huge leftward swing among voters. But it also means the polls are very likely inaccurate.

What is surprising is that this is inside political stuff that this town thrives on and most of the rest of us aren’t aware of. And it’s being ignored by the supposed democrat experts who are too busy figuring out which office to take from their republican counterparts to understand the dangers of believing their own conceits.

The other thing this town doesn’t understand is the issues that are important to most voters who don’t share the DC value system. This has best been demonstrated lately by the George Allen/Jim Webb Senate race in Virginia and the Mark Foley “scandal.”

Allen has been accused of using the “N” word dozens of years ago and using the term “Macaca” as a racial slur. When an old college football teammate of Allen’s revealed he heard him use the “N” word, there were five front page stories about it in the Washington Post and several others inside the paper. Webb jumped in the polls based on the news and there was a lot to tsk tsking by the smart people in DC who viewed this as earthshaking evidence of Allen’s lack of fitness to remain in office..

The same was true about Mark Foley. His goofball instant messages with House pages – which amounted to nothing more than pathetic longing and suggestive comments – was deemed to be a certain stain (pardon the pun) on the entire Republican Party, leading them to an ignominious defeat this November. Again, this is how things were viewed here.

The same bunch of smart people who feel republicans should be so ashamed by the actions of their own candidates that they shouldn’t bother voting, viewed the American people as prudes when President Clinton had his dalliances in the White House (sex is a private thing, in this instance), Gary Studds had a sexual relationship with his 17-year-old male page (the age of consent is 16 here in enlightened Washington) and Barney Frank had several staffers arrested for running a gay prostitution ring out of his Capitol office with his knowledge and enjoyment. To the Washingtonian, the difference between the actions of democrats and that of republicans is that republicans preach family values and the democrats have always valued the cad in the genes of their leaders. And they think you believe the same thing and ought to punish the republicans for poorly imitating the democrats.

This double standard was drilled home yesterday during a conversation with my partner, a lifelong democrat, and one of my employees, a republican who intends to vote straight party ticket for the democrats in one week. A republican consultant (and the brother of perhaps the most prominent democrat pundit) and I were talking about the publishing of bizarre passages of Jim Webb novels as widely reported in the Drudge Report. http://www.drudgereport.com/flashaw.htm. I am not even sure if Webb’s writings qualify as bizarre as they may fall more into clinical illness categories. Two things come to mind with what he wrote: as something of a writer myself, I know you would have to think these things to write about them and, who saw fit to publish this guy?

At any rate, the two of us were shaking our heads in disgust while the democrat and the faux republican were alternating between defending free speech rights and characterizing what Webb wrote as fiction and in no way defined his character. On the other hand, Foley’s internet messages were nothing to do with free speech, did define his character (of course he resigned over it, rather than seek higher office as is the case with Webb), and that George Allen’s words two decades ago – denied vehemently – were worthy of major consideration in this election.

That’s the way they really think in this town where nearly all the major news organizations and pundits are based. I don’t know what will really happen November 7 as some of this icky stuff from Washington may have rubbed off on me, but I do know that whatever happens, the people here in Washington won’t understand the belief system of we minor thinkers. But if I had to venture a guess, I believe the democrats will be scratching their heads on November 8 and wondering what happened to their insurmountable lead. And that’s what happens when you live in a city that is nothing more than an echo chamber of myopic political viewpoints. They just don’t understand the rest of us and I think it will cost them again.

The Post After The Last One

(Part deux in a series. There will be no part three. Stop the applause.)

There were a number of factors leading to the breakup of the Soviet Union. Many people believe the Red Knight was dying before its ill-fated decision to fulfill its own version of manifest destiny by taking control of its neighbors, in this case Afghanistan. Even by Charlie Wilson’s own calculation, the CIA-led Mujahideen victory over the Soviets hastened its collapse by 5-10 years. By his reckoning, the accelerated fall freeing 100 million people of Eastern Europe and millions of persecuted religious and social subgroups was worth the billions of dollars and political capitol spent.

But what was the full cost of the victory? If one can’t learn the lessons of history, then apply this rule of physics: every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction. All of us are feeling that reaction in our everyday lives.

Following the victory over the Soviets in 1988, the Muj didn’t have a victory parade down the main streets of Kabul. Instead the country descended into chaos while old sectarian scores were settled among warring tribes. No longer were they fighting with old British Enfield rifles captures during the British attempt to tame the tameless. Now the factions had the best weapons the CIA could send them and the result was the destruction of nearly all the country’s infrastructure, the killing of hundreds of thousands and eventually the rise of a theocratic leadership known as the Taliban.

The presumption at the CIA was once it cut off funding to the Mujahideen, the jihad would burn itself out. If the Afghani people decided to kill each other rather than rebuild a broken nation, that was a shame but not our problem. That policy may have worked if all we left behind were weapons. Instead we left them with the spirit of the Jihad and the belief that they had won a miracle victory over the Soviets through the power of prayer and not the CIA’s 10-year assistance that turned primitive tribesmen into techno-holy warriors

Just as today in Iraq, Afghanistan of the 1980s became a draw for Jihadists from all over the Middle East. The CIA suggested as many as 30,000 foreign fighters had entered Afghanistan to chase the Soviets back across the border. As the Mujahideen and foreign holy warriors came to see it, the victory over the Soviets had little to do with the billions in cash and weapons from the CIA and Saudi Arabia, but divine intervention from Allah.

It was this invincible feeling that led the Afghani freedom fighters to turn their aim on the U.S. The coupling of Muj and the West was something of a dysfunctional arranged marriage as it was, but there were a few events that put the U.S. in the Muslim crosshairs. In 1993, the world came to know the poorest kept strategic secret of the decade: Pakistan had a nuclear weapon. Pakistan had long sought a nuke to counterbalance the weapons pointed at them by India. In fact it was India’s cozy relationship with the Soviets that prompted the Pakistanis to play middleman to the CIA and be the supply route for weapons, money and supplies for the Muj. But after the secret was out in the open, the Clinton administration cut off all foreign aid and sought sanctions. The rebuff was seen as a betrayal by the freedom fighters and more evidence to them that they were only pawns in a larger battle for control of the Middle East and its precious oil reserves. This thought was further pounded home when the U.S. decided to leave a large military contingent, including women, in Saudi Arabia following the 1991 Gulf War.

The leaders of the Afghanistan resistance to the Soviets, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Jalaluddin Haqani and Ahmad Massoud, were happy to take weapons from the CIA but they really didn’t like the U.S. government or the American people. Following the 9/11 attacks, Haqani – a man once described by Charlie Wilson as “goodness personified” – would emerge as the number three target of American forces in Afghanistan and Hekmatyar became a high-ranking leader of the Taliban. The mystic of both men was raised in their eyes and the eyes of the Jihad when they survived several missile attacks as Osama bin Laden later did. Massoud didn’t have much use for the Taliban and continued to fight them from the north. For this, he was seen by rivals as a tool of America and was killed when two men posing as cameramen had more bomb than film in their cameras. The assassination took place on September 10, 2001.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of militant Islam don’t fit as nicely into a neat little package as the two posts imply. However, it does paint a different picture than most people have of the factors involved in each world-altering event. It makes sense that the key architects of the Afghan battle would like to keep the details from coming to light. For Wilson and his fellow democrats, it demonstrates a 10-year history of a hypocritical foreign policy of acting like doves but sanctioning mass killings like hawks. The Islamic Jihadists would prefer to be viewed as holy warriors protected by Allah and the specter of Mohamed rather than opportunists who took our weapons, training and money and turned it all against us.

From where we stand, it’s difficult to know if we would have been better off dealing with the Soviets and the enemy we knew rather than the ghosts we are dealing with now. Future historians will tell the full story, but for now it appears that our country decided to sleep with the lions and we therefore shouldn’t be surprised that it was a dangerous and regrettable act.

Getting History Wrong (Part One)

(Part One)

I have stumbled on the most interesting – and bewildering – bit of information that has changed the way I now look at recent history.

It has always been assumed that President Reagan and tough-minded republicans brought the Soviets to their knees and ended the Evil Empire. It has also become a truism that republicans in general and Bushes in particular took a good thing happening in the Middle East and messed it up for all eternity.

It turns out the punditry, along with people like me who have too much time on their hands, were all wrong. The democrats, as it turns out, should get the credit and blame for each respective geopolitical earthquake.

The nexus for both of these historic events taking place is Afghanistan. In case people other than our Olympic athletes don’t remember, the Soviets sought to protect their puppet government in Afghanistan by invading the country in 1979 to keep the government from being run out of town. Jimmy Carter, who was sort of the president at the time, met this challenge by dashing Olympian dreams and sending very serious and menacing notes to a P.O. Box inside the Soviet Union. It is uncertain if the notes were delivered as the Soviets didn’t respond, but we do know they took advantage of the lack of U.S. presence in the Moscow Olympics, winning nearly all the Gold Medals.

The invasion of Afghanistan unnerved a number of conservative republicans and moved them to flail their arms about wildly and make equally menacing statements, again to no avail. However, a little known democrat Congressman from East Texas named Charlie Wilson did things a bit differently. Long a fighter for the underdog, Wilson took it upon himself to save the Afghan people who were being brutally wiped out by the far superior Soviet 40th Army.

Wilson did not have the power of the presidency or the ability to conduct foreign policy, but he did have the power of money as chairman of the Congressional Defense Appropriations Committee which provides, among other things, the CIA with their black money budget. Acting pretty much on his own, he decided to fund a CIA program to arm the Afghan freedom fighters, known as the Mujahideen. The CIA, still smarting from a good spanking by the Church Commission, refused the money at first because it was expected to be used in the same way that got them in trouble with Congressional oversight committees in the first place.

Undeterred, Wilson found an ally at the CIA who had a reputation for living by his own rules and before long, the Mujahideen were getting $30 million a year for food and bullets. Wilson wanted more and especially wanted the Muj to have a weapon that would bring down the Russian Hind helicopter that was killing most of the anti-government resistance. He worked out a deal with Saudi Arabia to provide matching funds to the CIA program and worked through the Pakistani Government to fund and arm the Muj. Within a few years, funding on this program exceeded $1 billion annually and the weapons provided were becoming more and more sophisticated.

All of this was being accomplished completely under the radar and at a time when the CIA was once again in trouble, along with the Reagan presidency, for funding the Nicaraguan Contras. While Oliver North was making up excuses for his bumbling around in Central America and Iran and there were few decent defense attorneys without a Reagan administration client, Wilson was accelerating his funding and weapons supplies with the tacit approval of the same democrats who were beating on republicans for doing the same thing in a different part of the world. Putting aside the hypocrisy for a moment, it was a very impressive bit of political soft-shoe by a usually drunk or drugged Wilson.

The CIA eventually became very interested in the Afghan program, in part because of all the money they were being handed and in part because it was beginning to work. The weaponry became more advanced to the point that we were arming the Muj with our most sophisticated heat-seeking Stinger missiles. The Stingers did the trick to the Hinds and suddenly the Soviets looked vulnerable and began to take heavy causalities.

Back home in the Soviet Union, the Afghan War was an unspoken thing. Because of the way the Soviets built their platoons back then, most of the soldiers in a given regiment were from the same city. With the new weapons and inventive tactics the CIA demonstrated to the Muj -- such as how to build an IED -- whole platoons of Soviet soldiers were being wiped out in a single attack. It didn’t take long to notice there were a lot of black tulips around certain towns and villages, signifying that a local soldier had been killed. The secret soon leaked out and the Soviet Union had its own Vietnam Syndrome.

By 1988, the Soviets were taking such heavy losses and the aggregate cost of fighting a war in Afghanistan and attempting to keep up with U.S. defense spending, led them to the decision to pull out of Afghanistan in disgrace and defeat. The Sovs were whipped and the world noticed, particularly in very restless Eastern Europe. The damage to Soviet prestige, battles for freedom in the Eastern Bloc, and a Carter-like malaise settling over the Russian persona proved to be too much for the repressive regime. Within two years, the Berlin Wall fell, Eastern Europe was free and the Soviet Union collapsed.

While Reagan kept the pressure on by outspending the Soviets in new defense technology, the catalyst for the fall of the Soviet Empire began with its defeat in the Hindu Kush and the Peshawar Valley of Afghanistan. And none of this would have happened without a very stubborn and creative democrat Congressman named Charlie Wilson.

(I’m tired of writing this and you are probably tired of reading it, so I will write a separte post about how our adventures in Afghanistan led to the rise in radical Islam and how it was this same Congressman who didn’t focus enough on the downside of arming the Muj.)

Revenge Of The Nerds

Last month Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill into law that will require people who talk on their cell phones in their car to use a hands free device. For those of us who have driven behind some nimrod chatting away on his phone at 15 mph, this will come as welcome news.

In fact, I know I pay much less attention to my driving while I am on the phone. And it’s gotten worse since I now have all my contact information in my phone, leaving me to scroll through my phone to look for a number to call. I also get e-mail and text messages while driving and it’s very tempting to sneak a peak at the latest nonsense sent to me every time my little phone beeps telling me there is a new message. Not sure how the new law will deal with those bad habits, but I know they haven’t invented a hands free device to satisfy my message-based curiosity.

I only have one problem with the new law. I don’t mind hands free devices as a practical matter, but I am bothered about how goofy they make you look. How many times have you seen someone walking and wearing those ear-piece microphones, seemingly talking to themselves?

There is nothing fashionable about the headsets, either. As near as I can tell, they were designed by computer geeks who had watched one too many episodes of Star Trek or Star Wars movies. I think it is a very clever ruse by these techno-nerds as they get us all to look nerdy just so they can live out their Star Trek fantasies. And now it’s becoming law, forever requiring us all to look like a big dufus.

I can’t wait for voice activated cell phones so we can just speak commands and the phone will dial who we ask it to. Then we’ll be rid of the Star Trek and Star Wars microphone gear as we say, “Computer, please call Sladed ….” Wait a minute! That’s another Star Trek gadget! Life will never be the same.

Overrated

Ohio State won in convincing fashion and should be the unanimous Number 1 team in the country when sportswriters go to the polls this week and vote. But which team should be Number 2? Florida, ranked second or third depending on which unfair voting system you believe, lost to Auburn tonight. Certainly they will drop in the polls like a Ricky Davis fumble at the goal line during the Rose Bowl.

University of Southern California, arguably the weakest Number 2 team ever in the history of college football rankings, barely beat a weak team from Arizona. It doesn't matter which Arizona team -- Arizona State, University of Arizona, Northern Arizona, Scottsdale Community College -- they're all terrible and it's a huge embarrassment that USC escaped with a late touchdown AT HOME NO LESS. They looked about as sharp as white socks with a black suit tonight.

Besides the close shave USC had against a junior varsity team, they are coming off lackluster wins at unranked Washington State (28-22) and a time-conveniently-running-out-win at home against Washington, 26-20. I guess the Trojans should enjoy life at near the top for a short time, because I don't think they will be able to finish the season undefeated with home games against highly-ranked Oregon, Cal and Notre Dame coming up. Home games? Geez, how many home games do the Trojans get against good teams?

On a much brighter note, fourth-ranked Michigan won another game on the road in stronger fashion than the score would indicate. They defeated the tough Penn State Nittany Lions 17-10, but it took a late touchdown to make the score look close. Until the final Penn State drive, they had been held to 52 yards of total offense by the stingy Wolverine defense, which also racked up seven sacks. In the end, Penn State was held to a mere 119 yards of total offense after the Wolverines put in their second and third defensive teams leading 17-3 late in the game.

With this impressive win, along with what can only be described as an ass-pounding (can I say that in a sports story? You bet your Red Smith I can) at Notre Dame, followed by solid wins against good Big 10 teams Wisconsin, Michigan and Michigan State, Michigan should be moved up to the second spot in the rankings. I don't think there is a convincing argument otherwise.

Now I am sure there are some ignorant football fans out there from the LA area that will disagree, but USC may as well start its gradual decline in the rankings now while the big boys, Michigan and Ohio State, fight it out for the top spot.

There, I've said it. I'm pretty sure I'm right about this.