The November Vanity Fair story on John McCain-the “ruthless and self-centered survivor” and Senator from Arizona-is online. Two things that jumped out are unsurprising yet off-putting.

Last fall, during his review of his strategy for Afghanistan, Obama met with McCain and other members of Congress. It was at a moment when Dick Cheney and other Republicans were accusing Obama of dithering. McCain undertook to lecture him, saying, in the recollection of one Obama adviser who was there, “Mr. President, you’re the commander in chief, and I hope you’re not taking your responsibilities lightly.”

Oh my. And also!

The Obama team is well aware of McCain’s attitude. When the president went to Capitol Hill in May to address the Senate Republicans at their weekly lunch, McCain accused the president of misrepresenting Arizona’s Draconian new immigration law (which McCain had endorsed, and which Obama’s Justice Department was preparing to challenge). “You can tell he can barely fucking stand the fact that he was beaten by Barack Obama,” says one senior White House aide who was present. “Throughout the whole meeting, he would not look at the president, even when he was talking to him.”

The competitive Senate race in West Virginia between Governor Joe Manchin and businessman John Raese just got a little more interesting.

A Republican ad that shows a couple of regular-looking guys commiserating in a diner about West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin (D) turns out to have been shot with actors, from a script, in Philadelphia.

But not just any actors: “We are going for a ‘Hicky’ Blue Collar look,” read the casting call for the ad, being aired by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “These characters are from West Virginia so think coal miner/trucker looks.”

Sadly, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has pulled the ad from YouTube, but here are the list of clothing suggestions from the casting sheet to give you an idea of what you would have seen:

Jeans
Work boots
Flannel shirt
Denim shirt
Dickie’s type jacket with t-shirt underneath
Down filled vest
John Deer hats (not brand new, preferably beat up)
Trucker hats (not brand new, preferably beat up)
No Thin Stripes

And here’s the script. It’s not often that you see what a political party actually thinks of its voters, but when it does happen it is delightful!

Liberty and justice for almost all: “A Mississippi judge ordered an attorney to spend several hours in jail Wednesday after the attorney chose not to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in court. The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reported that Chancery Judge Talmadge Littlejohn told a court audience to rise and say the pledge. People in the courtroom said Danny Lampley of Oxford stood but did not say the words.”

Shut up. No one is tired of this song. The cast of “Mad Men” loves it. Cee-Lo played the BBC’s Later… With Jools Holland last night and they let him sing the real lyrics. He wore an incredible suit and his band was like Rizzo and the Pink Ladies from Grease. The bass was fat and fuzzy and at the end Cee-Lo says “Fuck you” to everybody, but everybody knows he means that he loves them.

The Nation contends that Lou Dobbs, scourge of illegal aliens everywhere (in America), “has relied for years on undocumented labor for the upkeep of his multimillion-dollar estates and the horses he keeps for his 22-year-old daughter, Hillary, a champion show jumper.” A 2008 investigation into this subject by another media organization proved inconclusive, so it’s good to see that the media is still paying attention.

“In fact, novels do lie — they can’t help doing so — but that’s only one part of the story. The other is that, through lying, they express a curious truth, which can only be expressed in a veiled and concealed fasion, masquerading as what it is not. This statement has the ring of gibberish. But actually it’s quite simple. Men are not content with their lot and nearly all — rich or poor, brilliant or mediocre, famous or obscure — would like to have a life different from the one they lead. To (cunningly) appease this appetite, fiction was born. It is written and read to provide human beings with lives they’re unresigned to not having. The germ of every novel contains an element of non-resignation and desire.”
-Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru has been awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature. In an essay in 1984 he addressed the subject of truth in fiction.

And in their secretive members-only email list, Senate and Hill staffers talk about… Johnny Weir. Because it is called The Pink Hill Mafia. Be afraid. Gays in D.C. are talking amongst themselves and having women-only lunches!

by Abe Sauer

Last week, Governor Schwarzenegger signed a number of bills. The one in the spotlight was SB1449, which decriminalized marijuana possession. But he also signed SB435, a far more controversial bill empowering police to cite motorcycles for noise pollution. The bill will also require a motorcycle to display its stock or aftermarket exhaust system’s EPA stamp, certifying compliance with federal laws that have been in place, if unenforced, for a quarter century. Similar legislation has recently been passed or is pending in other states including Oregon and Maine and individual communities from Denver to Green Bay.

The Motorcycle Industry Council and the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) opposed SB435. The AMA did this despite its “strong opposition to excessive motorcycle sound.”

In 1925, The Berkeley Gazette called out the “demoniacal motorcycle” on account of its noise. Three years later, the Pittsburgh Gazette declared that “the explosions of a motorcycle exhaust are bound to irritate.” By the late 1960s, a Spokane Daily headline read “Noisy Mufflers Prompt Promise of a Crackdown.” That crackdown wouldn’t come until the early 1980s, when the EPA issued new standards limiting the motorcycle exhaust noise. But it was too late. By then, “loud pipes” were more than the collateral of combustion engineering, they were the soundtrack for culture war.

A decade after the EPA’s big government, nanny state regulations limiting motorcycle noise to about 80 decibels, riders had found a rallying cry. In 1990, The St. Petersburg Times noted “’Loud Pipes Save Lives’ is the credo of those who think motorists will respect bikers more if they hear them before they see them.”

Renee “Belt Drive Betty” Charbonneau, editor of The Busted Knuckle Chronicles and a Canadian, explained “loud pipes save lives” to me: “Riders found that when a vehicle tried to violate their lane/right of way their horn was ineffective and that a quick rap on the pipes alerted the driver that they were about to drift into someone. This is a defense that works in urban traffic situations where you have two or more lanes and an inattentive person on their cell phone, talking to someone else in the vehicle and the driver is not generally paying attention to where they are going. When they, the automobile driver, are right beside you and do not turn their head before moving over, this is the prime time in urban riding when ‘loud pipes save lives.’

Another rider, Carie R. said, “I absolutely believe that loud pipes save lives for a couple of different factors. One, the obvious.. if you are heard, you are more likely to be seen. Two, most bikers or bike organizations do many, many bike runs in order to raise money for things like the American Cancer Society, March of Dimes, etc. which also, in the end, can also save lives.” Carie’s interpretation is credible. A recent ride in Tomahawk, WI, raised much-needed money for muscular dystrophy causes.

But couldn’t an aftermarket horn be a better replacement for loud pipes, sending the noise forward toward the danger, instead of backward away from it? (Ironically, stock horns are no louder than stock pipes.) “I think that there are a lot of us looking at going to the air horns and trying to find something that will fit our machines,” said Belt Drive Betty. But as she points out, the aftermarket for horns is terrible. Harley-Davidson, while offering a robust lineup of aftermarket exhausts, offers just one full horn.

A registered nurse and a health crisis worker who goes by the name Jimmy Swinghammer told me, “Safety is a tangible and credible position from which to defend loud pipes to be sure, and, yes, I stand by that fully.”

Sweet Jimmy doesn’t buy the horn bologna. “Lets say I’m considering a purchase,” he tells me. “I’m not likely to say, ‘You know I’ll take that one with the muted exhaust and the awesome horn.’ If you’ve never sat on 1,200 CCs or more, bolted to a steel frame… felt it vibrate beneath you… passively idling, growling rhythmically, latent power waiting to be unleashed with a quick twist of the throttle in an explosion of combustion and precision engineering… felt that power beneath you as the bike moves off, the freedom, that noise. It’s a visceral part of the experience. You should try it if you haven’t. It’s an incredibly liberating thing.”

And here is one overlap where the “loud pipes save lives” apostles do their cause few favors by diluting their safety argument with one about “freedom.” Echoing Jimmy, Biker News Online notes: “Laws against loud motorcycle exhaust is simply the justification for stopping bikers from enjoying too much freedom.” After sanely and reasonably defending the safety position of “loud pipes” movement, Belt Drive Betty tells me, “The political issues surrounding discrimination of any type are something every voting human being should be aware of, sir. Ask any black person, native American Indian, every refugee, females, gay persons… discrimination is very political in nature and requires a certain amount of empathy to understand the costs. When you allow one form of discrimination, you open the door for other rights and freedoms become eroded.” Taken to the fringe of reason, one op-ed equates loud pipes laws with charging all men with rape “because they have the right equipment.”

Jerry Smith, a veteran rider, motorcycle writer and editor of Cycle Guide Magazine told me, “Common sense argues against the hypothesis that a loud motorcycle is a conspicuous motorcycle. Ask anyone who drives a fire truck, an ambulance, or a police car how often traffic up ahead fails to yield, even with an ear-piercing siren shrieking at them from behind. Unlike the siren on an emergency vehicle, which directs sound forward, the exhaust system on a motorcycle directs sound to the rear, where a car ahead of you is even less likely to hear it.” Smith goes on to point out all the niggling ironies accompanying the loud pipes “safety” arguments made by riders who never wear helmets, have never taken a safety class and wear dark colors on a dark bike.

Andy Ford, a leading advocate member of a coalition against noise pollution called NoiseOff, doesn’t think the motorcycle community has any hope of policing itself and sees law enforcement as the only way. “It’s my belief that riding loud is eventually going to become as acceptable as smoking inside a hospital or restaurant which not many years ago was not only legal but was considered by most people to be normal and acceptable behavior,” Ford said. “Now in Maine, no one can smoke within 50 feet of a hospital nor in a restaurant’s outside patio where there are tables.” The group’s Facebook page and website offer a wealth of resources and news about specific community’s battles against loud pipes.

And yet Ford’s vision of the future may inspire unexpected allegiances within communities who feel persecuted by Those Who Know Best. Smokers. Pregnant women. Raw milk aficionados. “Gangsta’” pant sartorialists. Aluminum bat users. Urban rooster farmers. Tanners. And the city of Grand Forks, North Dakota-who sent me a warning threatening a $150 fine because my property’s grass was “unkept.”

Of course “Loud Pipes Save Lives” has existed within the motorcycling community for decades. The older riders I spoke with remembered hearing it too long ago to place. But through the 1990s, the made-for-bumper-stickers motto gained in popularity, as did the mindset it represented, thanks to a shift in motorcycling demographics. Where the defense of loud pipes had, to that point, been about freedom and liberty, it now became about safety and social responsibility. And the practice of riding with loud, modified exhausts, previously popular primarily only with those one might characterize as “bikers,” suddenly became an acceptable behavior for “weekend warriors,” the fastest growing demographic of “bikers.”

Between 1995 and 2005, motorcycle sales in the U.S. nearly quadrupled, peaking in value over $14 billion. (Crashing alongside everything else, sales in 2009 were about half of 2005’s 1.1 million.) A lot — a lot — of those bikes were sold to Boomers. The average age of a Harley-Davidson rider went from 42 in 2004 to 49 in 2009. The weekend warriors wanted to ride loud; but as rapidly-aging, cul-de-sac-living, Monday-through-Friday clock-punchers, they had a hard time buying the classic “if it’s too loud, you’re too old” aggressive libertarian justification for doing so. “Loud pipes save lives” fit perfectly. As Jimmy Swinghammer told me, “Freedom is a fuzzy area from which to debate loud pipes. Safety is not.”

This new demographic, flush with its ready-for-slaughter wallets fattened on third-home mortgages, also perfectly fit the industry’s aims. Because it turns out what loud pipes save even more than lives is bottom lines.

With millions more motorcycles on the road, the motorcycle aftermarket trade bulked up. Just as the middle class decided a bathroom just wasn’t a bathroom without marble and a kitchen without granite was unlivable, riders found stock bikes, and their EPA-muted exhausts, unacceptable. Harley-Davidson sold t-shirts reading “Make some noise.”

But eventually, average Americans rebelled. More bikes on the road with louder exhausts meant more infants woken at midnight and more neighborhood windows rattling. The industry figured it out: outrage is bad for long-term business. Industry organizations and manufacturers like Harley-Davidson began PR campaigns against what they classified as the irresponsible behavior of a few problem bikers. But Frankenstein was already walking.

Harley COO Jim McCaslin said in his address, “[W]e, not just the Motor Company, not just the Harley-Davidson dealers, not just a handful of riders, we all, every Hog lovin’ one of us, must do everything we can to protect our sport and keep it as strong as it is today. We must take our turn, as more than a century-worth of Harley riders has before us, in guarding our sport… No one expects everyone to change out their straight pipes overnight. But we all must consider changing out our thinking. We need to think about the consequences our actions have on others, before others take action against us.” That was 2006, the first year in 13 that U.S. motorcycle sales had declined.

McCaslin’s address coincided with a very public Harley announcement ceasing sale and distribution of the straight pipes sold by its sub-brand Screamin’ Eagle.

In June, I found those supposedly discontinued Screamin’ Eagle II pipes hanging on the wall of Mischler’s Harley-Davidson in central Wisconsin. Asked if their service center could install the pipes on my bike, the Harley rep told me, “sure.”

“To respond to your inquiry, Harley-Davidson Motor Company has not distributed Screamin’ Eagle II exhaust systems since 2006. We sell only EPA compliant parts for street use motorcycles. While our dealers are independently owned businesses, and therefore determine what products or components they will sell, we strongly encourage them to sell only compliant components for street use motorcycles. We also communicate regularly with dealers and riders to raise awareness for how excessive motorcycle noise affects others.” That is Harley’s official response to questions about how an official Harley-Davidson dealership could be selling and installing excessively loud Screamin’ Eagle pipes four years after they were supposedly discontinued.

The company declined to share any of the “regular” communications it claims to have with its dealers to “raise awareness for how excessive motorcycle noise affects others.”

New versions of Harley-Davidson’s Screamin’ Eagle pipes have been quieted down. So has its marketing campaign. Gone are the days of “Make some Noise” t-shirts. The product copy for the new Screamin’ Eagle Slip Ons replaces “loud” with “…factory tuned to deliver an aggressive exhaust note and improved performance comparable to Screamin’ Eagle II mufflers.”

“Make some Aggressive Exhaust Notes” t-shirt, coming soon.

Also claiming to be locked in battle against loud pipes is The American Motorcycle Association, the group that opposed California’s new noise law. The AMA’s position on the issue is that “few other factors contribute more to misunderstanding and prejudice against the motorcycling community than excessively loud motorcycles. All motorcycles are manufactured to meet federally mandated sound control standards. Unfortunately, a small number of riders who install unmuffled aftermarket exhaust systems perpetuate a public myth that all motorcycles are loud.”

The AMA has vigorously fought laws that intend to curb motorcycle noise, especially what’s known as the “label match” ordinances (like in California) which require bikes to have EPA stickers on their exhausts proving they conform to federally-set noise levels. The AMA fights such ordinances on the basis that the laws “miss the mark by singling out motorcyclists with ordinances and laws that are unfair, impractical and unenforceable.” The AMA instead supports the J2825 standard which is a stationary test requiring law enforcers to use a very specific sound meter that requires constant calibration and special training for users. The meter is also not free, nor is the training, and it would be on the individual departments to buy them and equip officers.

In emails with The Awl, the AMA insisted that “No single segment of the motorcycling community — riders, event organizers, retailers and distributors, original equipment and aftermarket manufacturers, law enforcement and the safety community — can single-handedly solve this problem.”

Even though the AMA’s statement says no single actor can solve this problem, the group exerts most of its energy in the fight against loud pipes on individual riders. Despite the AMA’s statement about no group being able to “single-handedly solve this problem,” aftermarket manufacturers could in fact (nearly) single-handedly solve this problem. When The Awl asked if the AMA has no efforts directly addressing aftermarket manufacturers, we were told, “With 240,000 members, the AMA can best influence the aftermarket through the purchasing decisions of its members. That’s fairly direct.”

Is it?

When I asked the AMA for hard examples of what it was doing to “influence the aftermarket through the purchasing decisions of its members,” it pointed to press releases, a few PSAs and that “AMA President and CEO Rob Dingman talks about this issue regularly in public appearances at AMA functions and motorcycle rallies.” He also talks, and talks, and talks in pieces such as this Boomer Biker three part series, “Threats to Motorcycling in America.”

The AMA might not be interested in putting any kind of pressure on aftermarket manufacturers because those same aftermarket manufacturers fund the AMA. In fact, the Association just announced a new race series partnership with sponsor Vance and Hines, a leading producer of aftermarket exhausts such as the “Straight Shots,” called by some riders comparable, or louder, than the Screamin’ Eagle IIs.

At the same time that Harley-Davidson’s COO Jim McCaslin addressed the noise issue he called riding “primeval” and a “leftover evolutionary seventh sense that’s triggered when we hit the ignition and fire brings our V-twins to life.” Like countless enthusiasts, and religious zealots, many riders romanticize motorcycling, elevating the act of simply traveling on a mechanized conveyance to something transcendent, thus allowing the enthusiasm to be defensible on terms beyond reason.

Like with gun ownership, or religious zealotry, this romanticization invites a paranoid sense of oppression and clouds the vision of adherents in the face of rationality or data. Especially data. Despite all the groups, bumper stickers, and rather convincing individual anecdotes, there are no data suggesting loud pipes serve any safety purpose whatsoever. No insurance company, including the Harley-Davidson-branded insurer, offers any discount for adding louder pipes.

And it is critical this data remains lacking, because if the “loud pipes save lives” advocates are correct, then Governor Schwartznegger and legislators signing similar bills limiting motorcycle exhaust noise are going beyond harassing law-abiding riders. If loud pipes really do save lives, then these lawmakers are actively risking the flesh-and-blood lives of their constituents in the interest of the quality-of-life lives of others.

UPDATE: The AMA writes in to update its relationship with AMA Racing.

“Apparently you have confused the American Motorcyclist Association with AMA Pro Racing, a separate for-profit business owned by the Daytona Motorsports Group (DMG) out of Florida. AMA operated several professional racing series for many years before selling them to DMG in 2008. While DMG is an AMA corporate member, the AMA has no stake in DMG, or vica versa. One could argue that your confusion is understandable given that DMG also bought the name “AMA Pro Racing” and its logo…”

The AMA adds: “More to the point, only one aftermarket manufacturer among many, SuperTrapp Industries, is an AMA corporate member (see the list at http://americanmotorcyclist.com/whatis/corpmbrs.asp).”

SuperTrapp Industries offerings include the “Mean Mothers Long Drag Pipes.” Also, the AMA fails to characterize Harley-Davidson, an AMA member, as an aftermarket producer despite its Screamin’ Eagle sub-brand being one of the largest manufactures in the aftermarket. See above for my experience with Harley-Davidson.

The AMA insists its position on loud pipes has cost it “many individual members” and aftermarket cooperate members.

Abe Sauer likes both peace and quiet and freedom.

by Jeff Johnson and David Roth

The NFL was rocked today by news that the New England Patriots’ Randy Moss is returning to his old club, the Minnesota Vikings-a club helmed by QB Brett Favre, who has openly pined for Moss since before “Guiding Light” was a hit soap opera. We asked Jeff Johnson and David Roth to make sense of it all.

Jeff: Does Randy Moss going back to the Vikings “excite” you?

David: Physically, yes. It definitely adds a new wrinkle to the way I feel about that team. Which was previously “Positive but also Favre.” Now it’s more “Very positive, but bemused but still also Favre.”

Jeff: In the sense of you being physically excited? Or that the Vikings will now be more physical and have a receiver taller than Toni Tenille?

David: The former. But the latter is also important.

Jeff: I didn’t root for Favre in the ‘90s. I’m an apologist for him now.

David: Yeah, I know as much. Odd timetable, there.”I didn’t really like him until he joined the Jets after the second non-retirement.”

Jeff: I was angry at Green Bay.

David: Everyone came out of that looking shitty.

Jeff: To me, it seemed to me they took the path of “authority” figures in Wisconsin that I’d grown up underneath: “No. Because we say so. It undermines the job we are trying to do, which is ‘Not being interesting.’”

David: That job being “being the boss.”

Jeff: Let’s move on to some new business. I have no idea what is going on in the NFC North.

David: Me either. I haven’t seen the Vikes yet this year. And judging by my predictions I have no idea what’s going on anywhere in the NFL.

Jeff: Is Detroit actually sorta good? Could have easily beaten Bears and Packers?

David: Detroit is actually sort of good. (Did actually beat the Bears.) Something’s happening there. I don’t know that you go out and get Randy Moss because you’re worried about the Lions, though.

Jeff: I miss the days of Detroit being explosive. Playing Queen songs after wins.

David: I still see a bunch of dressed-up 7–9 teams and the Packers and Vikes in that division.

Jeff: You go out and get Randy Moss because…

David: Tall, great at football, future Hall of Famer, knows lots of trivia about Robert Byrd, is as defiantly country as any multi-millionaire in the world. What the Vikings are doing seems unlike anything I can think of another NFL team ever doing, though.

Jeff: Building by getting older.

David: Just stacking the olds and giving it One Last Try. Totally not the move in the NFL.

Jeff: Maybe Jan Stenerud will come out of retirement.

David: You know he’s keeping fit.

Jeff: Skiing.

David: Doing decathlons in Bemidji or whatever.

Jeff: Having sex in the Alps.

David: High-altitude sex: that was P90X before P90X was.

Jeff: I don’t want to live in a world where he can’t.

David: I mean, there’s a chance no one plays football at all next year. So I guess I get the eggs-in-one-basket thing.

Jeff: Yeah…But this week!! Are the JETS for real? How will the Mossed-up Vikings do against them? The Jets remind me of .38 Special fans or something when they had a hit single. Getting all cocky. Not comprehending a world where synthesizers and Quarterflash could supersede their domination.

David: And also unstylishly dressed, but yeah I get that. Remember that you’re asking a dude who is getting fucking TROUNCED by a coin in the prediction department. The Jets make a ton of mistakes. Even against the Bills, there were some moments where you’re kind of wondering how they’re getting away with this. But playing the Bills is like scrimmaging against Manalapan NJ High School.

Jeff: I loved the Bills QB Fitzpatrick. He looks like a guy who is throwing a frisbee in the parking lot of a Dead show and someone asks if he wants to QB an NFL team and he says “When?” ‘Cause he has some other shit to do.

David: “We’ve got an ultimate game against BU that morning. But totally I’ll try to make it if I can. Very cool of you to ask.” He actually is pretty good, too.

Jeff: Fitzpatrick had some awesome plays.

David: I like how he played the whole game without sliding once. Just totally dedicated to sticking his helmet through Bart Scott’s sternum. Not a lot of humans want to do that. But it was like he was playing totally by himself at the end. Receivers dropped everything he threw. Fred Jackson was reading a magazine on most plays.

Jeff: What will happen when/if Randy Moss catches a TD against the Packers in Green Bay? Will he do the ass-wiping on the goal post/mooning thing again?

David: That’s your region. You’d know better than I. I mean, I hope so. And the crowd responds with things that sound like compliments but are actually really undermine-y?

Jeff: I imagine the thinking is that Randy Moss is a reanimated Chuckie doll. Kind of funny, can also kill you. “Oh, gosh, what do we have to do to get away from these unsportsmanlike creeps? First we had ‘Brent’ the waffler and now we have this guy coming back.” Moss will eat that up. He will love that.

David: Yeah, his motivations are always unclear to me.

Jeff: I think he and Favre always wanted to play together, just maybe not waiting until 2010 to do so. So, what’s your outlook on the Vikings with this?

David: I think they’re better, but I also sort of wonder how much, or how soon? In-season NFL trades don’t happen because there’s this idea that the baroque strategery of each team is FAR TOO COMPLEX for anyone to pick up in a week or two…This year, Favre has looked weird and bad-decision-y. The defense is still quite good. Peterson is still Peterson.

Jeff: It’s kind of an All-Star wrestling move.

David: Right?

Jeff: Favre needs to remember that it is Peterson’s team, and safeguard the football.

David: That seems to be what the Jets are excelling at right now. And Sanchez seems to have embraced that role, and done well with it. Favre gets praise for doing that when he’s NOT back-footing interceptions into the end zone.

Jeff: Maybe Favre will give himself permission to kind of chill now. Feel less pressure? Not be so force-y and dramatic?

David: I could see him having a terrible game against the Jets if he keeps playing all go-for-it all the time. But I could also see him playing well if he does take it easy a bit.

Jeff: He will not be welcomed into the new Giants stadium or whatever they’re calling it.

David: No. But Jets fans don’t welcome anyone that is not showing [her] tits. Jets fans are the worst. I feel like polling the parking lot at a Jets game on current events or political issues would be the most depressing experience in the world. 22% for women’s suffrage, 76% against, 4% vomit instead of answering the question.

Jeff: Your vomit numbers are low. I was happy to see Ed Anzalone at least get arrested or whatever…”questioned?”

David: The fireman dude? What did he do? Is it now illegal to scream things while wearing a Wayne Chrebet jersey?

Jeff: He had a tussle with a giants fan in the preseason. They will now be forced to live together as the basis of a CBS sitcom.

David: Good for him. I remember reading a piece about him when he got hurt fighting a fire and had to recover enough to get back in the stands. Don’t remember where, but it read like a recovery piece on an athlete. “Every day Anzalone is getting closer, training harder. Working out his lungs, practicing spelling the word ‘Jets.’”

Jeff: So in summary on a scale of 1 to 10…How do you rate the move for the Vikes? I am giving it a 7.

David: For what it is, I’d give it a 7 or an 8. Moss is still pretty great.

Jeff: I am also giving it a 7 for the Patriots.

David: The Patriots I wonder about. They now have no WRs taller than my wife.

Jeff: Wes Welker is like Don Beebe 2.0 He’s always scooting around. No one can catch him. He has like 100 catches already.

David: And Julian Edelman is like some beta-version Wes Welker. Also his name is Julian Edelman, which you know I’m down with. Although I was thinking again this week that it seems like Belichick is intentionally trying to win with the goofiest possible team. Like he’s going to insist on using Danny Woodhead as the feature back, just to prove a point about his blazing genius.

Jeff: Brady needs a haircut though. Okay, we get it, you’re married to a model.

David: Really. He looked like Pam Dawber in the preseason. Just flowy and middle-parted and Breck as fuck.

Jeff: I liked him more as a proto-Republican.

David: So last thing on the Vikes: I think they’ll be a much better team if Favre is not freaking out all the time. Like if he knows he has Moss to throw to. Whether Moss actually helps or not.

Jeff: Yes. he needs a Zen master from Anoka to come and sit with him.

David: For a great player, Favre seems super-neurotic in a way.

Jeff: He will probably be 36% more relaxed. He needs to find Shiancoe more.

David: Agreed. And they’ll be great when Sidney Rice is back. Honestly anything to get Favre to just stop throwing the ball straight up in the air. Or trying to throw it through the sternum of some safety.

Jeff: Yes, or throwing it 6 feet to a 357 lb lineman. I can’t stand to see a lineman in a full sprint with the football.

David: It offends your aesthetics?

Jeff: It’s like seeing a guy coming out of an outhouse with his pants down because he saw a squirrel in there.

David: I always think of “Supermarket Sweep.”

Jeff Johnson has long complained and cheered about sports, while making little sense. Follow him here. David Roth co-writes the Wall Street Journal’s Daily Fix, contributes to the sports blog Can’t Stop the Bleeding and has his own little website. Both agree that with hard work the Vikings could maybe be 11–5.

Photo by Keith Allison from Flickr.

“According to this theory, we can imagine each woman’s life as a long plane ride. It is cramped, it is full of obnoxious strangers, and the snacks are always disappointing. Also, there are sexists in it. Flying it! Giving safety instructions in it! Handing out disappointing snacks! Pre-feminism is the point at which the woman comes to think, ‘you know, I think maybe the arrangements on this plane are unfair? Maybe even sexist?’ Feminism is the point at which she realizes, ‘holy shit! This plane is full of sexism!’ And then there is the ‘post-feminist’ stage of life, during which the woman announces to all and sundry, ‘I AM SICK OF ALL THIS MOTHERFUCKING SEXISM ON THIS MOTHERFUCKING PLANE.’ Also, she gains the power to extend jokes several years past their natural life span.”
-Warning: this link contains no nudity and yet also gross and graphic sexual imagery.