After a stellar win last week at Cleveland the Broncos are poised to take on the rest of the season with gusto! Now, I know that a lot of people are saying, “They beat the Browns! Of course they beat the Browns!” But let’s face it, even the worst team in the NFL is still a professional football team. And I don’t think that the Browns are the worst team in the NFL. With that said, it is entirely possible for any team in football to beat any other team on any given Sunday.   So this win against Cleveland wasn’t a gimme. 

What I was impressed with in that game was how the Broncos didn’t just fall backwards into the win. They had to work for it, and eventually got it. We didn’t win because of bad officiating – or especially good for that matter. We simply won. And that is good at this point in the season with all of the injuries that our team has suffered. Of course, every team has injuries and still needs to find a way to get that big W. 

So now it’s on to Atalanta. The A-T-L yo!   I think that this is another one that we can win. The Falcons aren’t the best team in the NFL, nor are they the worst. (Whereas I believe that the Broncos are always the best team in the NFL J) This is another game we will have to work to win, but I think it can be done. Tony Scheffler will be back to his full speed, and with Eddie Royal, and #15 in the field of play, things look good. I’m not worried about our running back situation, because let’s face it, you or I could run for 125 yards a game behind the Broncos offensive line.

So let’s go Broncos! Let’s Go!!

I am an American, and as such, I believe in four basic tenets.  One: Life.  Two: Liberty. Three: The pursuit of happiness. And Four: Denver Broncos Football. 

Now, I know that with the election going on right now it may seem a bit trite to discuss the Denver Broncos.  But I remind you all that no matter what the outcome of the election next Tuesday the Broncos will play on Sunday and will still be at the top of the AFC West Division.

I am happy to note that this weekend we will have Tony Scheffler, Selvin Young, and Eddie Royal back in the mix. This is great news for Jay Cutler (the incomparable #6) as he will again have ALL his weapons back on offence and will no longer be relegated to throwing only to Brandon Marshall (the incomparable #15). 

Now we will be coming off of a loss to the Patriots – heck, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every once in a while – and a bye week. But with our record of wins after a bye week being unquestionable, I feel great about this weekend.

So remember, even if the outcome of the election stifles your joy, and your cup is less than full, the Broncos will still play, the Broncos will still win, and Mile High Magic will still be magical. 

It certainly isn’t used anymore to thrash your opponent’s positions, or to disqualify someone else’s arguments. This trend was typified in last night’s second presidential debate. 

The problem can be traced to a couple of key components in the structure of the so-called Debate. First, we have the moderator. Now Tom Brokaw is a seasoned professional for whom we should have much respect, but last night’s moderation was abysmal. The grand thing about a town hall style debate is that the questions that get asked are generally off the beaten path, and they tend to engender responses in the candidates that lead to more personality and poise being displayed. When Brokaw stated that he had chosen the questions to be asked personally, it became clear that it was going to be just another policy vs. policy debate without much substantive argument either for or against one candidate or the other. And that is exactly what we got. 

It seems clear that McCain won’t attack Obama on his character and his associations. And it seems clear that Obama doesn’t have a leg to stand on to finish McCain off. He couldn’t finish Hillary off in the primary season without the Super Delegates, and he can’t finish McCain off with his “eloquent’ speech skills, and his “calm” demeanor. 

McCain needs to bring out all of the questionable character flaws in Obama; beginning with his association with a known domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers, then moving on to his ties to the ACORN organization – the organization that is close to the heart of our current economic woes, and more recently at the heart of an FBI voter fraud investigation. But McCain won’t do that. He wants his campaign to be as non-partisan as possible. The problem with this is that the Democrats aren’t non-partisan. How can McCain hope to defeat an opponent who he tries so hard not to annoy or make angry? McCain’s hero Ronald Regan was always partisan. He disagreed with almost everything that the opposing party believed in, and when he told them and the American public so, he won hands down. I am mystified by McCain’s tactics here.     

In the debate last night we had a moderator who negated the possible benefits to the format, and then couldn’t keep the format together. And then we had two candidates who refused to throw actual punches and simply slapped each other with limp hands. I guess that if I had to pick a winner, I would pick McCain. He definitely had more substance in his answers than Obama did, he just didn’t take the opportunities he had to smash Obama’s arguments the way he should have. I loved the way that Obama skillfully skirted around answering many of the questions that he was asked. It really showed how once he is off the teleprompter how awful he is at speaking. He would simply divert his answer back to one of his stump speeches, and go from there, hoping all the while that we would forget that he hadn’t answered the question. McCain called him on it once, but then didn’t press the issue as he should have done.

I can’t say how much the debate changes things in the election, if at all. Only time will tell. Looking to the past, candidates who have had many points’ lead in the polls with 3 weeks to go ended up losing the election in the end – Gore, Kerry and Dukakis to name a few. I think that the margin will be much closer whatever the polls say. In any case, polls have a way of being created to make the news, rather than being taken to see what the news is or will be. 

Until next time… I’m going fishing – I just need to remember to bring De-Bate!      

That is the most important question I can think of today. I watched the Senate pass a “Rescue Bill” on Wednesday that they claimed was better than the first version when it was no different than the first version at all except that it had $150 Billion in extra pork attached to it. And if that was all that was keeping the house from passing it – which it did today – then we can only form one conclusion. The vast majority of congressmen and women have little interest in “Doing what is best for the people of this country,” and instead are more focused on getting money for their own pet projects. 

How anyone who voted ‘no’ prior to today could vote ‘yes’ now on a bill that is for all intents and purposes, the same, is mystifying. There is all sorts of audio out there where senators and congressmen are saying that they didn’t want to vote for it, but they had to because something had to be done now to fix this supposed crisis. That’s like saying, “I didn’t want to sew up this gaping wound in my chest with this rusty barbed wire, but because there isn’t any thread handy I’ll go ahead and use it.” When all it would take is time to go find some thread. 

Now, I am of the mind that government should have very little to do with this economic situation’s resolution outside of getting out of the way completely. The market will correct itself. It may not be pretty, but that is what happens in a free market. Bankruptcy happens, and gradually new business comes in to fill the gap and strength is renewed in the market. That strength is stymied by the intrusion of the government. Anyone who has a safety net will be willing to take more risk than in necessary. 

May fortune favor the foolish!