Phil Ball Signs Off

This yellow card is being shown to Phil Ball (and is shown with all the consideration and professionalism one must of course muster when cautioning a giant of the game) for interrupting his seasonal column on La Liga and bidding 'Hasta la vista' to Spain's first division football in favor of the desert sands of the Middle East. Just for the rest of this season, or so Phil says.

However, the whole piece feels like the end of an era. Phil has signed off before with no small flourish of finality, but always with the conviction that a new season will start like clockwork. There's far more reminiscing here. There's talk of his first column (back in 2001), the hardest to write (after the Madrid train bombings), and last season's tribute to Athletic Bilbao (one of Spain's oldest clubs). He mentions seeing Becks come and go, and there's the image of Spain's long-awaited European title. It's all the faces flashing before you, before the finish. And just think--Barca may well now win back the league with not a word from Phil! Conspiracy theorists will surely sink their teeth into that one.

Hopefully, Phil will be back. His Monday morning reports are the stuff more sportswriting should be made of. It's a snapshot of Sunday in Spain, all of consequence and inconsequence up for discussion, but firmly rooted in the ritual of Spanish style. The only question now: is this column too nostalgic to be only an intermission?

Answers on the back of a postcard, please.

Phil Ball cautioned per Section B-1 for a professional take down.

Yellow Card For To NFL.com

It's football, no one's expecting Shakespeare (and I know you didn't get into web editing for the awesome opportunities to excel at grammar), but why isn't a copy of Strunk & White's Elements of Style essential reading for to life?

NFL.com cautioned per Section B-7 for to the obvious.

Jolly Follies, Pt. 2 - Santa Double-Parks in Brooklyn

You may have heard about this by now, but it's true: Santa got a $115 ticket for double-parking along Third Avenue in Brooklyn. He was double-parked because his car was protecting his horse and carriage from traffic while passing out toys at the invitation of Borough President Marty Markovitz.

Oh, and kids tried to intervene by crying to the traffic cop, "That's Santa's car! That's Santa's car!" But they were unsuccessful in stopping Office Scrooge from writing up the violation.

Seriously, only in New York.

Afternoon Yellow | 12.20

Finally got around to trimming the tree. Lights, tinsel, and lots of little yellow and red cards. It's quite festive.

- In the early hours of Wednesday morning, a fire at an animal shelter in Toronto claimed the lives of nearly 100 cats. Fire inspectors now suspect they know how it started: mice.

To quote BBC News: "An initial report from the fire marshal says mice or rats chewing through electrical wires in the ceiling are likely to have sparked the blaze." Be careful, mice. Teasing cats is ones thing, but stuff like this could land you in front of the Animal U.N. Security Council. Mice cautioned per Section B-7 for nibbling on wires--is electricity really all that delicious?

Too hot for Facebook?

- Facebook is reportedly removing from its site images of mothers breastfeeding their own children. Because nursing babies are way more offensive than pictures of that girl from the office who posted all those shots of herself at the beach this summer. Not that you looked at them...

One Facebook group has organized a response: Hey, Facebook, Breastfeeding Is Not Obscene. Another, M.I.L.C. (Mothers International Lactation Campaign), has scheduled a 'virtual nurse-in' for December 27 open to all Facebook users: "M.I.L.C. is asking all of you to change your profile picture for one day, to one which includes an image of a nursing mom... and we ask that you include the status line of 'Hey Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!'" Facebook cautioned per Section B-6 for being total prudes.

Walk Softly and Carry a Big Bag of Money?

This morning I'd planned on bringing you Jolly Follies, Pt. 2, which is now two days overdue, but I just couldn't resist this historical gem:

"America, I would like to show you this awesome picture of a big horsey."

What's that, you'd like some context? The above picture is of Still-President Bush announcing this morning's $17.4 billion bailout of Detroit, and he's doing so standing beneath a painting of Teddy Roosevelt, who, if you can't tell, is about to reach into his back pocket and pull out a yellow card.

We've discussed TR before, but suffice it to say here that the man's feelings towards big business could be likened to, say, your feelings towards a three-day-old egg salad sandwich. Which makes the juxtaposition of these two men in this instance particularly ridiculous.

What were the Bush PR bumpkins thinking!? Anyone capable of drawing a historical 'parallel' between these two men would instantly get that one struck honest-to-goodness fear into the hearts of monopolistic and mismanaging men, and the other strikes fear into the heart of maybe a veggie quesadilla. One man brought the term "trust-busting" into the world, the other offered, "I'm a commander guy." One man would have walked into Detroit and left carrying an electric car under each arm, the other just gave them $17.4 billion and politely asked them to keep the change.

On the other hand, maybe Bush's folks didn't expect anyone to notice the history behind him, just the pretty horsey and how far we've come since we had to ride around on horses, and so maybe we shouldn't feel so bad about helping out the car people.

Bush Administration cautioned per Section B-7 for breaking history with a big stick.

Jolly Follies, Pt. 1 - Hunky Santa

The Beverly Center mall in Los Angeles has come up with "a wild plot twist" on the jolly ol' religious/secular/consumer champion of Christmas. They call him Hunky Claus. And he has Candy Cane Girls.

Hunky Santa holds court on Saturday and Sunday evenings, usually from 5-9 p.m., while Santa Claus proper--fat, facial hair and all--holds down daytime, which is ironic because it's Hunky Santa dreaming of the soaps career: "He told the Times that he recently read a script for 'Days of Our Lives.'"

Jokes about his candy cane and riding his sleigh aside, Hunky Santa earns the Beverly Center a yellow card because some things are, well, sacred.

Santa Claus is the secular keeper of a religious season that revolves around commercialism. Thus, Santa Claus walks an amazingly fine line (he has a very low center of gravity, so this is easier than you might think for such a big man) as ambassador to all Americans. To disrobe him, to display his rippling muscles and near-perfect physique is to open but another avenue by which Santa can be criticised. Or touched, lightly, on the chest by fawning 30-something mothers. Either way, I think you can see why this is a bad idea.

Beverly Center cautioned per Section B-1 for encouraging Mommy to more than just kiss Santa Claus.

Toys for Tots... Forever!

Plastic doesn't degrade for hundreds of thousands of years. So, while wrapping lots of stuff in it is already questionable, wrapping the toy inside my cereal twice in plastic is almost certainly slapping Mother Nature in the face.

General Mills cautioned per Section B-6.

Parents Just Don't Understand- A guest whiner.

Hey there fellow curmudgeons and complainers. I'm handing out my very first card today. It would be a red card, but it'd be like carding the ref. Or is it an ump? I, honestly, don't watch as much soccer as Mike does. Plus I get confused easily.

I'd like to call attention to negligent parents. There's a lot of dangers out there and kids are so easy to trick, I mean, take advantage of. So I'm grabbing a card out of my breast pocket and thrusting up in your face mom and dad, for this; Mr Bucket-



Citing section B-7: gross negligence. Were parents sitting there, snickering to themselves about this commercial? Or did they just not realize there was a creepy, bucket man baiting their children to put their balls in his head and let them come out his mouth? I know this has been talked about, but I'd like to shine a light on parents' negligence in the area of Terrible, Early Childhood Toys. It probably has and is continuing to make us dumber and more susceptible to, oh, I don't know, sexual advances by creepy buckets.

My next essay will be titled: Hey, Mom; just because I cried and threw tantrums you shouldn't have let me watch He-Man. That show had such awful production value and was just abysmal. I mean, they used the same running cycle every time he went anywhere! And the plot? Ug. Sure, the toys were fun, especially the slime pit. OMG! Best Christmas ever! Except the time you got me Castle Grey Skull and I was so excited I threw up breakfast and then ripped off Man at Arms's arm. Man, those were the days. I love you, mom.

Dear Colorado: Mind Your Own F'ing Business

Caroline Kennedy announced last week that she would seek Hillary Clinton's soon-to-be-vacated seat in the U.S. Senate. But it's been suggested, in the midst of Barack Obama's change-fest no less, that a new generation of tabloid-readers may not show a Kennedy the same deference they once did solely on account of her family name.

That may prove true, it may not; certainly it's a more relevant conversation than whether or not Ms. Kennedy would make a good Senator. But what's entirely unnecessary is Denver's Rocky Mountain News weighing in on New York politics.

Caroline in the capitol city?

Let's look at a few states from which maybe I'd like to hear on this issue:

New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania (or just Philly), Delaware (yeah, that's right, Delaware!), and the rest of New England have regional interest. Maybe some heavyweights: California, Texas, and Florida (hoping Jeb Bush says something dumb). I could listen to Ohio or Oregon, maybe even Louisiana, just for perspective. North Dakota, sure (apparently recession-proof); Illinois and Minnesota, nope (need to do some house cleaning).

Guess who else is on the list: Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Cuba, and half of the Caribbean. All big parts of the state. For that matter, so is Ukraine, Poland, Italy, Spain, and the rest of Euro 2008. And you can bet good chunks of Asia and Africa are on the list, too.

Colorado, I assure you, is not.

Is it because America as a whole feels so connected to the fates of the Kennedys that Denver thinks it appropriate to comment on Caroline's political career some 1,700 miles away, or is there a compound of Kennedys hiding in Colorado, waiting for just such a moment to rise up and ruin politics out west? I suspect it's the former.

However, I also suspect in this era of American politics that voters neither love nor loathe Camelot for itself anymore, and The Rocky Mountain News is childish to chide Caroline for her "magic name." She will earn the right to represent New York in the Senate, or she won't, but it will ultimately be up to New York voters to decide.

So, to the editors of The Rocky Mountain News, on behalf of New Yorkers from Buffalo to the Bronx: mind your own damn business.

Rocky Mountain News cautioned per Section B-5 & 6 for sticking its nose in New York's beeswax.

Afternoon Yellow | 12.15

If you ask me, I think they're only letting Hugh Jackman host the Oscars because Australia went down under at the box office.

- Geekologie has posted a recipe for meat cake, a disturbing rendition of hamburger, ketchup, and mashed potatoes. But unlike the turbaconducken, I would never come within a fork-length of a meat cake.

- From The New Atlantic, courtesy of Yglesias, it seems almost half of the male population would lie about reading habits to impress a woman, while a third of women fictionalize their own book list bios. And somehow Nelson Mandela got dragged into this.

- Lastly, a follow-up (the first of many?) on why Friday's news of 'triple threat' Hugh Jackman hosting the Oscars won immediate Yellow:

Morning Yellow | 12.15

It's true: Santa has YC|RC on his RSS feed. So, it's safe to assume these folks just landed on the Naughty List:

- Iraqi journalist Muntathar al Zaidi (who understandably may not be concerned with reindeer and the North Pole and such) on Sunday attempted to introduce President Bush to his loafers:

The incident occurred at a press conference in Baghdad after Mr. Bush arrived aboard the Secret Ship Lollypop, which is to say no one knew His Deciderness was showing up until it happened. That might explain how a hastily-assembled press conference descended into chaos, though perhaps it's better viewed as emblematic of how American officials have underestimated Iraqis at every turn.

I'm not, however, going to pass judgment on a entire war with a yellow card, and I'm not inclined to card one man for tossing his shoes at another responsible for reducing his city to rubble. So, who gets the card?

The card goes to the security guards who, as Adam Ashton reports, as the press conference was drawing to a close, "took away two more Iraqi journalists because one of them called Zaidi's protest 'courageous.'" They were released shortly thereafter at (shock!) the urging on American officials. Security guards cautioned per Section B-6 for failure to spread democracy (the good kind).

- Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford won the Heisman Trophy on Saturday evening, college footaball's highest honor short of having Keith Jackson call your title game. Oddsmakers had predicted for days that Bradford would win, but sportswriters aren't the type to get muddled down in practical reality.

Take Rick Telander at the Chicago Sun-Times, who wrote that he chose Florida's Tim Tebow not just for his on-the-field performance, but because he "never swears and wears Biblically-referenced under-eye patches, [and] has an A-minus scholastic average."

Not surprisingly, God and GPA don't win you the Heisman Trophy. Telander cautioned per Section B-1 for basic math: 48 touchdowns - 28 touchdowns =20 fewer touchdowns scored by Tim Tebow than Sam Bradford.

Oscars Make Hugh Mistake

BBC News is reporting actor Hugh Jackman will host the 2009 Academy Awards.

This also just in: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be hosting this yellow card.

Turn Down the Advertising

Advertising is a part of life. We accept this to some degree, but most of us also agree that a line must be drawn. We have a Do Not Call Registry. We indict people for sending us spam. Even Google, for which ad revenue is a lifeblood, offers a pop up ad-blocker in its Google Toolbar. Advertising is fine so long as it respects our personal space.

Hmmm... I was trying to watch some cool MonsterQuest videos.
Does a World MasterCard seem to you even remotely as cool as Bigfoot?

Ensuring personal space is codified in Section B, Article 5 of the Laws for a Better World, and if we consider pop-up ads to be uncouth for such reason, then so, I would argue, should we consider video and audio advertisements which play unprompted. Thus, I give you: The Don't-Buy List.

Please make note of this list from time to time, and consider it a public service to refuse patronage of those listed there. These individuals and institutions have assaulted our eyes and ears with their rouge mind-washing; refuse their goods and we might perhaps sway them from utilizing such un-asked-for methods of marketing; or the list will grow so long and our dedication so firm that we won't allow ourselves to buy anything from anywhere ever again.

Success and defeat have been defined. Let us strive for success.

The Don't-Buy List

Note: The links below have all been cautioned per Section B, Article 5 for failure to respect personal space in condoning advertisements which play unprompted. Submissions of sites for addition to this list may be sent to dontgetcarded att gmail dott com. Click at your discretion.

- ESPN SoccernetStore.com | Despite the fact that I visit Soccernet.com daily, I've never been able to stomach the constant ads for its store.

- GetSnuggie.com | True: If I visit Snuggie.com, then I might be interested a Snuggie. False: I want everyone in the office to know that I want a Snuggie.

- MasterCard and Prilosec OTC | I was trying to watch some cool MonsterQuest videos at History.com, because something strange is lurking in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. But I'm pretty sure it's neither a 8.99% interest rate, nor frequent heartburn.

NBC to Keep Leno; No Word on Removing Knife from O'Brian's Back

The New York Times reports that NBC is prepared to offer Jay Leno its nightly 10 p.m. time slot. As reported, "no broadcast network has ever before offered the same show in prime time five nights a week." More commentary soon* on why this is a yellow card.


*12.11.2008: Did I say "soon"? My bad, I forgot the "-er or later" suffix.

It's been a busy, busy week for me, which led to a bit of negligence on my part (thankfully negligence falling just short of "gross" and sparing myself another self-inflicted yellow). But I do want to say: I'm retracting my card on this one. My ground for showing it to NBC was for disrespect to Conan O'Brian, but the tale, pale funnyman had nothing but praise for the move and even admitted knowing something about it. I won't accuse him of lying.

What's still confusing, though, is NBC's dedication to the idea of a variety show in primetime. America's Got Talent never mustered a comparable audience to Dancing With the Stars or American Idol in the talent competition wars, and Rosie tanked big time with her recent variety show special. Admittedly, Leno brings his own built-in audience (in theory), but CBS is already chalking up their victory in a Leno vs. CSI showdown.

Which reminds me--one of these days I've got to get around to yellow-carding CSI for ripping off every Law & Order plot ever. Mental note made.

UPDATE: Supreme Court Rejects Obama Challenger

As carded a few days ago, Leo Donofrio's lawsuit challenging the natural born status of President Elect Barack Obama was dismissed today by the Supreme Court. A similar suit filed by Philip Berg remains before the Court on appeal.

It's a Girl! It's a Ticket! It's a Red Card!

Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Galluccio delivered a citation yesterday to a Boston couple driving in the breakdown lane of Route 2. The couple, John and Jennifer Davis, were avoiding bumper-to-bumper traffic attempting to make a delivery of their own: Jennifer was in labor.

I double-checked the rules, Mr. Galluccio, and it's official: you just got yourself Section C'd!

According to Sec. C1-5, obstructing the 'imminent resolution' of childbirth qualifies you for, yes, only the second red card ever handed out here at YC|RC. I'm sure you're so proud.

Oh, and the Davis are doing well, in case you were wondering. Charlotte Jane was born about 5 hours after the citation was issued. No word on whether John will appeal the ticket.

Morning Yellow | 12.04 - Where Are They Now?

Sorry I'm late. My alarm went off, but I kept hitting yellow.

Thought we'd try something a little different this morning and catch up on a few news items that pertain to penalties of the weeks past:

- A few weeks ago, yellow was shown to Minnesota voters for their virtuoso effort in voter incompetence. This was highlighted by the image of a single ballot cast for both Al Franken and 'Lizard People'. The NY Times today referenced the 'Lizard People' write-in vote while chiding Minnesota officials for having lost more ballots during the recount than votes that now separate Al Franken and Norm Coleman from a seat in the U.S. Senate, in their opinion effectively invalidating the entire recount.

- Chinese Democracy, the 17-year follow-up from GN'R frontman Axl Rose, has seen a lot of thing en route to the shelves of Best Buys everywhere. MTV.com elaborates:

17 years in the studio, one truly odd MTV VMA appearance, a failed world tour, a riot in Philadelphia, a lot of defensive talk from Sebastian Bach, a leak facilitated by Mike Piazza and DJ Eddie Trunk, a much-ballyhooed exclusive deal with Best Buy, a lawsuit involving the Offspring, the apparently empty promise of free Dr Pepper for all, innumerable and mysterious delays, $13 million in reported production costs, a Greatest Hits album, a change in managers, five possible producers, five guitarists, two bassists, three drummers, the invention of the iPod, a guy with a KFC bucket on his head, zero promotion from the album's mastermind, and now, rumors of a potential reunion of the original lineup.

One thing the album may never see? #1 on the charts. As MTV also reports, after losing out in sales to Kanye West, Chinese Democracy appears to have also been outsold by another more unlikely contender: 16-year-old country-pop darling Taylor Hicks. Ouch.

Morning Yellow | 12.03 - Do Blankets Bother You?

Wake up and smell the yellow:

- I'm not a hockey fan, nor are most of my friends. If you are a hockey fan, you might know who Sean Avery is, but you don't need to know hockey to know that talking about "sloppy seconds" to a TV camera is a bad idea. Nobody told Sean Avery. Cautioned per Sec. BI-6 & 7 for not thinking before opening his mouth.

- Also in sports, Portuguese wunderkind and Man United striker Cristiano Ronaldo has been awarded the relatively prestigious Ballon d'Or trophy (you know it's prestigious because it's name is French, but it involves sports, so, it's relative). This means that FIFA thinks that last season Ronaldo was the best soccer player in the world. I'm awarding FIFA the Ballon d'Yellow.

This is Iker Casillas. His pretty face is all sad because he didn't win.
It's okay, Iker. You won a way cooler trophy than that punk, Ronaldo.

Since you didn't ask, I'd have tipped Spain and Real Madrid goalkeeper Iker Casillas for the trophy. He allowed the fewest goals (16) in Spain's La Liga, made a questionable back line look downright ironclad, started every single game all season, led his club to a league title and his country to a European Championship, and stopped two penalty kicks against defending world champions Italy in doing so. FIFA cautioned per Sec. BI-6 for disrespecting San Iker.

- Last, but not least, Mint would like to call questionable on the folks at Snuggie:

(Note: As a public service, I removed the embedded video, which started
playing when the page loaded. Now the pic is a link to the website.)

The user comments on this one are hilarious. "Are you the kind of person who asks for ice cubes with your milk?" Or, my favorite, "Oh, yeah, I remember this from a couple years back... it's called a ROBE." Snuggie cautioned per Art. BI-1 for sullying the good name of blankets. Also, Snuggie has been added to The Don't-Buy List.

Now Accepting Submissions!

Good news, folks!

Not only is YC|RC the proud owner of www.dontgetcarded.com, but now you can recommend a card by writing to dontgetcarded att gmail dott com. Here's how to do it:

Step 1: Observe an individual or entity in violation of the Yellow Card, Red Card Laws for a Better World.

Step 2: Gather evidence of the infraction. Evidence can be submitted as a photo, video, audio recording, screen shot, or link.

Step 3: Email a witty quip along with your evidence to the address above.

Step 4: Check www.dontgetcarded.com to see if I've read my email.

If you submit often enough and I like the cut of your jib, I might even make you an official YC|RC referee! Or, I'll ask you why you have so much free time.

Morning Yellow | 12.02

It's December now. What's it take to get some snow around here? I dunno, but here's what it takes to get some yellow:

- Want to tear down a to-be-landmarked building? The NY Times offered these helpful hints over the weekend, reporting on legacy-challenged developers exploiting a Buildings Department loophole to "irreparably change" structures before they can be saved. Because where there's a will, there's a way to remove decorative cornices.

- Still think the GOP could do a better job of running this broke-ass popsicle stand we call America? So does Jeb Bush, who went so far in an interview with Newsmax.com as to suggest Republicans should set up a "shadow government". Riiiight...

- Seen McDonald's new ad campaign? It's the one featuring Dollar Menu darlings Chicken McNuggets and the diners who love them: NUGGNUTS! Yes, that's right, if you like Chicken McNuggets, you are now NUGGNUTS. Which at first I found really, really disturbing, but now I'm wondering if it's really any creepier than these guys:

- Does anyone actually read Wired anymore? If so, perhaps you've already perused this most excellent article by Joshua Davis. If not, you should do so forthwith. As it turns out, a young fellow named Dan Kaminsky figured out a way to literally break the internet. Yes, as in, The Internet, E-mail, www, and .com, et. al. I'm not sure who gets the card on this one, but I'm pretty sure somebody should.

Red Friday

I wasn't sure exactly when the first red card would get pulled out, but here it is.

Shoppers stampeded to death 31-year-old Wal-Mart employee Jdimytai Damour in the early hours of a post-Thanksgiving Day sale in Long Island, NY. The 2,000-person mob tore the store's front doors from their hinges and pushed one another to get inside, encouraged by a sign that had stated "Blitz line starts here".

Four other people, including a pregnant woman, were taken to the hospital.

But, as NewsDay reports, the story gets even more revolting:

"Though rumors circulated among the shoppers that someone had been badly injured, people ignored the Wal-Mart workers' requests that they stop shopping, move to the front of the store and exit."

Yesterday, speaking on the economy, Barack Obama asked Americans to "make good choices" shopping this holiday season. Yet there was little restraint, fiscal or physical, in Nassau County this morning.

Showing these shoppers and the advertisers that incite them a red card for their actions is a pathetic gesture, I admit. As information comes forward, as I'm sure it will, regarding a memorial fund for Mr. Damour, I'll post it here.

Morning Yellow | 11.26

Welcome to a special Thanksgiving edition of Morning Yellow. Your esteemed guests are:

- The White House, which recently sent out invitations to its annual Hanukkah party... featuring the image of a Christmas tree. Skeptical? Look closer.

As the NY Post reports, "No, it is not a Hanukkah bush. A close look at the wagon reveals the message "White House Christmas Tree 2008."

I know. It's shocking to see such obvious oversight coming from our halls of power. Fortunately, it's only for another three months. Cautioned per Art. BI-7 for letting the interns make the cards.

- HassleMe.co.uk offers its users an invaluable service: automated personalized hassling. Because nothing motivates like a note you wrote a few days ago and had emailed to yourself at pre-set intervals by a website that displays your personal reminder to the world. That's right, your personalized self-hassling message can be set to display to anyone who cares to read it. Like this one, noticed by Mint:

Mint observes: "I don't care if you've been married for thirty years, if you need an e-mail service to remind you to kiss your wife roughly every five days I think you need help beyond what the HassleMe service is set up to provide." Cautioned per Art. B1-1 for a questionable lack of smooches.

Sore Losers

A Pennsylvania lawyer and a New Jersey lawyer are taking their "persistent concerns" about Barack Obama's citizenship to the Supreme Court. I'm showing them a yellow card for their efforts.

Ignoring 65 million votes in favor of the President Elect, these two apparently believe they have evidence that a whole alphabet soup of news networks and an army of journalists couldn't dig up over the last few years. I mean, really, if there had been even the faintest glimmer of light at the end of this unconstitutional tunnel, don't you think Fox News would have shown it to us, oh, about 22 days ago?

Philip Berg and Leo Donofrio cautioned per Art. BI-1 to 4, and 6.

How Big is Big? Well...

A startling picture of the bailout package from The Big Picture:

Jim Bianco of Bianco Research crunched the inflation adjusted numbers. The bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined.

• Marshall Plan: $12.7 billion; adjusted for inflation: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: $15m; adjusted for inflation: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: $36.4 billion; adjusted for inflation: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: $153 billion; adjusted for inflation: $256 billion
• Korean War: $54 billion; adjusted for inflation: $454 billion
• The New Deal: $32 billion; adjusted for inflation: $500 billion
• Invasion of Iraq: $551 billion; adjusted for inflation: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: $111 billion; adjusted for inflation: $698 billion
• NASA: $416.7 billion; adjusted for inflation: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

What's strikes me most about that list (aside from NASA and the Race to the Moon listed separately... hmm...) is that there's no distinction between success or failure among the items listed. Size matters, but we've got to be more than money. None of the great successes on that list were accomplished by money alone. So, no card yet for the bailout, but we'll see how this goes...

Afternoon Yellow | 11.25 - Shrimp on a Treadmill

Okay, people. Get over here. Everyone involved with the "Shrimp on a Treadmill" thing is getting a card for time wasting.

David Scholnick, a biologist from Pacific University, invented the shrimp treadmill to test activity levels of shrimp. Treadmills and shrimp, of course, are both found at the bottom of our oceans.

But his research was a little... how do you say... dull. Thankfully, the legions of YouTube are always ready to help. Now, among many outstanding choices, you've got the always-a-classic Benny Hill theme song:

No shortage of Ok Go shrimp jokes:



And let's not forget the William Tell Overture:



Alright, remix, bring us home:

Morning Yellow | 11.25 - Tuna, Pilates, and the BCS

Called forth from the far reaches of the internet to behold yellow:

- The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) gave in to pressure from the European Union and took its own scientists' recommendation for a cap on tuna fishing and just for good measure raised it by 46%. Cautioned per Sec. BI-1 for a curious decision.

- The Santa Monica Police Department has started handing out tickets to people gathering to exercise along a grassy stretch of its Fourth Street median. While I understand asking a pack of gym-less kickboxers to move along, let the people do their sit-ups. Cautioned per Sec. BI-1 for hindering the successful ripping of abs.

Are you ready for some football?

And, finally, Jason Whitlock of The Kansas City Star had to go and be that guy.

Last week on 60 Minutes, Barack Obama doubled down on his insistence that college football's much-maligned Bowl Championship Series should be scrapped in favor of a playoff. This, of course, won him favor among fans of college football everywhere. But not with Whitlock, who writes: "Division I-A college football has the greatest regular season in all team sports, and a playoff system would ruin that distinction." Wrong.

Does the Final Four ruin college basketball? Does the Super Bowl ruin the NFL? Does the World Series or the World Cup leave fans of baseball and soccer scratching their heads during their regular seasons? Of course not. Give my congrats to the NCAA for putting on a gangbusters 12-week show, but let's talk about the encore.

Whitlock, however, notes that his real problem with all this is, "I expect Obama to take positions more substantive than 'Joe the Sports Talk Host.'"

Well, there's precedent for Presidential influence over college football.

Back at the turn of the 20th Century, President Teddy Roosevelt, a big fan of the college game, took Harvard, Yale, and Princeton aside for a little conversation about a problem he had noticed on the field, namely that due to a lack of protective gear some of the players were, well, you know, dying. His message: fix the game, or forsake it.

That was then, this is now: we have a single institution running a $100 million winter raffle with ESPN paying $495 million for the rights to the whole mess. You could have bailed out Lehmen Brothers for that kind of cash. And the pocketbook belongs to the same people who make the rules, set up the system, schedule the games, and tell the players when and where they can be professionals--the NCAA. That's called a monopoly. TR would have been concerned about it, too.

The most galling part is that the coaches and the universities who play get paid; the players, of course, don't get a paycheck. The networks and the sponsors love this arrangement; the fans loathe it. But, finally, we now have someone with a voice strong enough to rise above the fray. If he speaks for the players and the fans, let him speak.

Jason Whitlock cautioned per Sec. BI-1 and 2 for unsporting behavior and excessive dissent; cartoon courtesy of Nick Andrson at Chron.com.

23/6: Guess the Stache

I'm carding 23/6 for failure to respect personal space. Though, while the following video does include some very, very (very) extreme closeups, I'll be honest: pulling the yellow card is really just an excuse for me to share it with you. Because I don't (yet) have a card for "hilarious".

Get ready for Guess the Stache: Democrat or Pornstar!

Wanted: Dead or Alive

In a recent talk at the New York Public Library, acclaimed writer Joan Didion spoke critically of what America had become in the Obama era:

"An irony-free zone" ... where "naïveté, translated into 'hope,' was now in" and where "innocence, even when it looked like ignorance, was now prized."

So reports Adam Newman in his excellent and appropriately titled article, "Irony Is Dead. Again. Yeah, Right."

Didion, of course, is not the first to declare irony a relic of the past. Rumors of its death were greatly exaggerated in the wake of September 11, belied in spectacular five hundred-point font by a President who failed to see the larger sweep of history. Now, Didion would have us believe that Obama's accomplishment of inspiration is the mortal wound to ironic sensibility that Al Qaeda's accomplishment of a single day of terror was not.

President George W. Bush speaking aboard the U.S.S. Irony

There's some truth to say that in the fall of the Trade Center towers there was little solace found in the distance and perspective from which irony revels. How could there have been? That day was worse, after all, than even Pearl Harbor, our only available comparison. America was in uncharted territory. It's naturally hard to find perspective from the extreme highs or lows of history.

So, is Didion simply astute in her observation that Obama has brought America to new heights and thus, naturally, we will struggle to find perspective? Could she, perhaps, be making an attempt at irony?

Didion did, after all, write in "The White Album" that "a place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his image." Surely she would grant Obama at least the opportunity to pursue his politics of hope, to shape and render America in his image. It would be up to history to prove him successful.

Or, is Didion, like our still-President, ignoring the larger sweep of history that will ultimately hollow out her words?

Just to be safe, I'm going to show Didion a yellow card for her questionable rush to judgment. If irony survives this onslaught of "Yes, we can!", she'll have earned it. If irony is truly gone for good, well, then I guess that makes this card more than a little bit ironic.

Afternoon Yellow | 11.21

Why do I card thee, Sarah Palin? Let me count the ways:

One - You are standing what appears to be no more than 15 feet away from a turkey, which is upside down in a stainless steel cone, about to be slaughtered.

Two - I hope the guy in the background is getting paid by the turkey and not by the hour, because he's taking an awful lot of time to gawk at the camera...

Three - OH MY GOD HE JUST GOT BORED!!! AND KILLED THE TURKEY!!!

Four - Is she still answering the first question? My God, does this woman know how to use punctuation?

Five - OH MY GOD HE'S GOING TO KILL ANOTHER TURKEY!!!

I can't watch this anymore...