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Tuesday, October 9. 2007
Gambling
This blog originally started with curses for the Packers and the Badgers. Both teams unbeaten until they played this weekend. Badgers lost to the Illini of Illanoyus and the Packers — the Packers! — Lost to them damn Bears in LAMBEAU FIELD! My gawd, what is wrong with this world!Then the Cowboys pull out a last second win on Monday Night Football in Buffalo — the Bills get no respect! — And the New York Yankees get ejected from the playoffs in the first round once again! Sports, is it any wonder there are billions bet on these games every week?
Gambling, nothing wrong with it, I like to wager now and then; a few years back I tried my hand at handicapping the NFL. Never do that again. I’d study the sheets, look at the rosters and size up the games … and then trip down to Caliente in Tijuana, Mexico and place my bets. I’d always do those idiotic 10-game parlays. Has anyone actually won a 10-game parlay?Every year I manage to lose the Super Bowl bets … and yet I continue to bet on the game. Back in the day, when my Dear Brother Carl was still alive, we’d often be in Las Vegas — like every other month — and I’d lay some crazy bet that the Packers, Brewers and Bucks would win their respective championships in the same calendar year. One year a third of my bet paid off! January 25, 1997, when the Pack won Super Bowl XXXI.
But that’s gambling on sports and there’s a long, respectable history of gambling on sports of all types. The reason people engage in dog and cockfighting is for the wagering. It’s always about the money. Gruesome “sports” that always end up with dead animals.
Same with boxing. The “sport” was created to provide a vehicle to people who needed something to bet on. Yeah, the boxers are athletes, tremendous athletes, but they exist to fuel the gambling industry, regardless of how many people watch the fights without laying down a wager. Same with professional team sports, that’s why you always read who is the favorite and the point spread for every game. Except that with team sports, baseball, football, basketball and hockey, the gambling is hidden by the spectacle of the games themselves. You may be heavy into the fantasy football or baseball, but your game supports the game of the professional handicappers who make their living setting the odds in Las Vegas — and everywhere else gambling on sporting events is legal.
Five years ago this month the president rolled the dice on starting his war in Iraq, betting he would get the authorization he needed from Congress to roll in the tanks and run Saddam Hussein out of Baghdad. It was, as we see, a good bet. The country was looking for blood after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the case was being made that Saddam Hussein and his regime had something to do with 9/11. Hell, the vice president still likes to float that little lie.There was that lie and the trumped up — and false — argument that Saddam Hussein was busy making biological and chemical weapons and that he was but ten years away from making a nuclear weapon and Hussein’s military already had the means to deliver such weapons with airborne, unmanned drones, much like our Predators. Well, that one turned out to be a complete fabrication.
But, the checks and balances — Congress — didn’t bother to check the facts, they just went along with the charade, including a Democrat-controlled Senate and five months later our troops were engaged in the Middle East. Usama bin Laden was no longer a priority, despite his hand in the 9/11 attacks. It would be funny, listening to the presidential contenders who voted to give the president his mandate to start the war, explain away their vote to do so, but sadly, we have troops dying every day in Iraq with no end in sight, leaving little to laugh about in this.
Former senator John Edwards at least is honest enough to call it a mistake, but the others haven’t made that step. Of course, Congressman Dennis Kucinich can stand at the podium and state his opposition to the war and his “no” vote in 2002. Barrack Obama of course wasn’t a senator at the time so he can claim he would have voted “no” had he been a Senator. His record on the war since 2005 though tells the tale of the junior Illinois senator voting exclusively to support the war every time an emergency military spending bill comes up for a vote.
In a testament to their spinelessness, the Democrats will approve the wiretapping measures given to the National Security Agency that allows that agency to read our e-mails and listen to our phone conversations without so much as a warrant. How will the democratic presidential contenders explain that breach of our civil liberties? God forbid they will be viewed as “soft on terrorism.” Better to be soft on abridging our civil liberties.
The latest gamble now is waging war against Iran. Senator Clinton, running for president (if you didn’t know) is for adopting an even harder line against Iraq, a move many consider a help to our current president’s desire to invade Iran. Clinton is gambling that her positions on wiretapping and Iran will give her some appeal with the general election voters once she wins the Democratic nomination. She’s the frontrunner, the one to beat. Obama, he closest rival, is many points behind and Senator Clinton has overtaken Edwards in the Iowa polls, which until recently, were owned by Edwards. If you remember the 2004 Democratic primaries, it was Iowa that put the young-looking Senator Edwards on the presidential map. Well, not in 2008.
That’s the gamble: what will the voters respond to in 2008. A tough, Bush-like posture, or a softer, less violence-prone candidate? From the way it’s shaping up, we’re going to have a Democrat version of Bush running against the Republican version. Some choice. At least when I bet on the Packers, there is the x-factor known as Brett Favre. He is entertaining, especially if his improvisations pay off with points. The current political frontrunners are just disappointments. Calendar
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