Eat My Sports: Lack of appeal

Robert Kraft made one of the most logical decisions in recent NFL history today. His dropping of the appeal of the NFL’s $1 million fine as well as the loss of draft picks simply saved the Patriots as well as the NFL a public dragging out of what has been one of the most embarrassing and drawn out controversies in recent years.

Do I know the particulars of the conversation Kraft had with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, but I imagine it went something like this:
Kraft: You have no basis or scientific proof that we did anything.
Goodell: You’re really going to try and convince me and the public that the term “deflate” is used around your team as weight loss?
Kraft: Uh …
Goodell: You look bad enough as is. Drop it because you and I both know that your team was willingly breaking a little known rule.
Kraft: But science …
Goodell: Let it go. Continue reading Eat My Sports: Lack of appeal

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in Alabama

While the rest of the country is replaying the '90s, Alabama's still wrapping up the '80s.
Holy crap! We really are reliving the ’90s, one set of read lips at a time.

Longtime readers will remember that I used to live in Alabama, and I was there for the Tea Party revolution that had right-leaning voters so angry that they literally destroyed ballots by voting Republican so hard with their pencils. As part of those sweeps, they elected Robert Bentley governor, who promised “no new taxes” — as if the over 90% Republican state legislature would let him anyway.

Well, four years later, and that Republican legislature is looking at cuts to fill a $250 million hole in the budget. Gov. Bentley says this will mean “closing State Trooper posts, National Guard armories, and decreasing Department of Mental Health and Department of Corrections services,” and that the only solution is to raise taxes.

And just to really troll his fellow Republicans, he’s saying he’s doing it because Reagan did it:

‘Ronald Reagan, the icon of conservatism, raised taxes because he was a conservative,’ Bentley said. ‘There is nothing more conservative than paying your debts and getting your budgets in order. That’s conservative.’

Oh, to be a fly on the wall of that statehouse.

Explorers hope 1700s shipwreck has rum

In 1763, the Lord Clive, British (of course it was) warship, was sunk by Spanish cannons in a river in Uruguay. We wouldn’t bring you this old news if it didn’t affect you in some way. They’re going to salvage the wreck, and there might be some rum on board.

No one knows what may have been on the ship when it sank, but many seem to think that in addition to gold, there’s 250-year-old rum on board, because apparently sailing ships relied on booze as much as wind to get where they were going. That’s important, because there’s a market for liquor that’s been mellowing that long.

In 2013, some rum from the 1780s sold at auction for about $122,000, several times more than the asking price. Then again, maybe the salvage crew won’t be lucky, and only find treasure instead.