Why Isn't This Standard - Internet Voting

What year is it?  If you guessed any time after 2000 then you may wonder why the United States doesn't already allow internet voting.  Al Gore gave us the great gift of the worldwide web and he wanted us to use it for good - like porn and voting!  We have mastered one, now onto the next - internet voting.

I think a lot of the younger generations would be much more likely to vote with this option.  Who wants to go out in the rain, or the cold, or the rainy cold to stand in line with a random cross-section of America to push some buttons.  It's basically like forcing you to be in an outdoor Walmart.  There is a reason people willingly avoid lower prices to not go to Walmart - it's because that's where the general public hangs out.  And good luck if you can actually find your polling location - even if you find the right school or church you still have to figure out the right building or room to go to which leads to a bunch of people wandering around a school - super creepy.

Another voting issue is that other than the really big guns, no one really knows what the candidates' platforms are which means most people are funneled only to vote based on the R or the D by their names.  What if, on the official US voting website, each candidate got to make a 90 second video that you could watch before voting?  At least then you would have some viable research option that is easy to access - a few minds might be changed at the voting booth.  Take it a step further - what if you HAD to watch each video?  More informed voters cannot be a bad thing.

The main worry about internet voting is hacking.  I am not an expert so I don't know how to fix that, but the cost of using all the polling centers across the nation and the collecting and the counting processes has to make up some of that cost.  Plus, who do you trust more - a security encryption internet voting model designed by the smartest computer geeks in the U.S.?  Or Beverly, the 90 year old who can barely see when checking your ID?

This year because of hurricane Sandy, New Jersey is allowing some people to vote online.  Let's hope it all goes well and we all get to enjoy the thrills of electing the leader of the free world while pants-less.

"If this was the ballot, I would vote for 'OF THE'."

Noah's Ark

Has anyone actually read the Bible?  More specifically, has anyone read the Old Testament?  During church, I used to read the Bible to stave off boredom and for the most part, the stories in that thing are pretty crazy.  There is a lot of murder, a couple of orgies, God striking people down with lightening and earthquakes, a little guy beating a giant, no actual mention of the Holy Grail, a few human sacrifices, and lots and lots of pure chaos.  But there is one story that has always confused me, the story of Noah's Ark.

Sure, I can accept that gathering two of every species on the planet somehow won't create a world of nothing but inbred animals and the end of life.  I can even accept that those same animals were able to survive on Noah's Ark for months even though they literally needed to eat one another in order to survive.  But the thing that has always confused me is where exactly did all of that water came from?  Even if all of the ice on the planet melted today, Florida would disappear but even then, the top of the Epcot's Spaceship Earth would still be above visible.  So, how was the entire Earth covered in water during Noah's adventure? I guess you could argue that God can do anything he wants, but if he drowned the entire Earth and then when the water receded, there still wouldn't be anything to eat for years and Noah and his animals would be screwed.

There wasn't much in the Old Testament that really made sense, but the story of Noah's Ark was the most odd of them all.  What exactly did God gain by wiping out mankind?  For that matter, why didn't he do it again when his son was beaten then murdered?  You would think that if He hit the reset button once, then he probably should have done it again when humans deserved it.

"That lion is already eyeing that lamb and they haven't even gotten on the boat yet, but somehow that lamb survived.  Shenanigans!"

NOKW - Pirates of the Caribbean 2

Here comes the next chapter in our "I'm Okay With, I'm Not Okay With" series (if you don't know what this is, click here for all of the past posts):

Movie:  Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Basic Plot:  Captain Jack.Sparrow is back and this time he is trying to escape the tentacle-faced Davy Jones and the Kraken.  Oh, and Jack dies at the end.  Spoiler!

I'm Okay With:  The fact that Jack is able to break into and out of some crazy island prison so easily.  The fact that Keira Knightly is able to hide on a ship dressed as a man for several days and no one figures out that she is in fact, a woman.  The fact that pirates continue to sign-up to join Jack Sparrow's crew when it seems like every time he goes on a voyage, Mr. Gibbs is the only one to survive.  The fact that while Jack is escaping from the cannibals, he falls at least 100 feet down a ravine, lands flat on his back, and is not injured in any way.  The fact that the bone prison balls that Will Turner and crew are kept in by the cannibals don't fall apart immediately with so much weight in them.  The fact that a large sea monster (the Kraken) would follow anyone's bidding especially a tentacle-faced pirate.  The fact that Keira Knightly suddenly becomes an expert swordsman (swordswoman?) and is able to fight off a horde of near-invincible pirates without any formal sword training.  The fact that the crazy voodoo lady is able to bring Captain Barbossa back from the dead when she is a sea god trapped in a human body with no real powers.

I'm Not Okay With:  The fact that the first time you meet Davy Jones and his crew, they are shown to have the ability to warp from ship-to-ship but they never use this power to their advantage again.  Do you remember this scene?  Jack tricks Will Turner into joining Davy Jones's crew and when Davy Jones figures out that Jack was behind it, he looks over at Jack on the Black Pearl and instantly appears on the Pearl's deck as does his crew.  So, these guys can apparently warp from ship-to-ship and yet the next time they get into a fight, they are shown using ropes to swing over to the other ship.  What?!?  They can literally materialize out of thin air but the next time they could use this ability to win a fight, they just casually swing over to their opponent's boat.  Why?  That makes no sense.  Sure, they show Davy Jones using his warping ability a couple of times in the third movie, but his crew never uses it again and they are the ones that are usually doing the actual fighting and would be the ones who would benefit the most from warping behind someone and stabbing them.  But no, they never do it again.  I am not okay with that.

"He's able to run shortly after falling at least 100 feet down a ravine and landing on his back.  Shenanigans!"

Stupid State Laws - Indiana 3

Here comes another post about a state law that still exists on the books and why it is ridiculous (to see them all, click here):

Indiana

"You can get out of paying for a dependent's medical care by praying for him/her."

Holy moly, that's awesome but incredible stupid.  Are you telling me that if I rake up over a hundred grand in medical care while in the state of Indiana that I can wipe that debt away by simply praying for the person that was sick?  How does Indiana's hospital system make any money with such a ridiculous loophole?  How pissed do you think the billing department gets when they receive a bill and all it shows is a picture of a couple of people praying with a note that says "Thanks for the free hospital stay"?  So stupid, but kind of awesome.

"Thank you God for my wife's free new boob job, I will think of you the next time I motor-boat those awesome new sweater pillows."

NFL Awesome Picks Spectacular Week 9

Because we here at Brainfart love us some football, we decided that we would not only be doing college football picks each week, but we would also be doing some NFL picks, too. So, here is where I make my NAPS (NFL Awesome Picks Spectacular):

Picks are in red

All lines are provided by Sportsbook.ag

Chicago Bears (-3.5) at Tennessee Titans

Sunday 1:00

- The Titans have been better as of late but they haven't gone up against one of the best defenses in the league.  The Bears have been a little off on offense (see what I did there) but their defense has been crazy good.  Tennessee may be able to keep it close but the Bears will slug it out and come out with a 10 point victory.

Philadelphia Eagles (+3) at New Orleans Saints

Monday 8:30

- Philly has its backs against the wall and is blessed with going against the terrible Saints defense.  The Saints have given up more yards per game than any team has ever through 8 weeks.  Yikes.  To top it off, Darren Sproles is out which is one less weapon for Brees.  This will be a high scoring game with the Eagles barely pulling it out.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (+1) at Oakland Raiders

Sunday 4:10

-  Having their best offensive lineman go out for the year will hurt the Bucs, but what is so special about the Raiders?  The main thing I see in this game is two average teams but one, Tampa Bay, is on fire lately rolling through their last few games.  The Raiders have not proven to have anything that can slow down a hot team - Bucs win by 7.

Last Week's Results: 1-2-0
Season Results: 15-17-1

The Word Colonel

What in the hell is up with the pronunciation of the word "Colonel"?  If anything, you would look at that word and think it should be pronounced something like "co-luhn-el", but somehow a magical "r" sound is thrown in there and we get "kur-nel".  Well, it turns out that the stupid reason we pronounce the word colonel like we do has something to do with the fact that the word that we know comes from the French word "coronel" and the Italian word "colonello".  Both of those words mean roughly the same thing and when the English adopted the word, they went with the Italian spelling and the French pronunciation which makes little to no sense to anyone.  However, that begs the question - why don't we just go ahead and spell it "coronel" so that we don't screw over a bunch of kids during their 2nd Grade Spelling Bee?  I feel like this should be brought up at the next Congressional Session and passed as soon as possible.  That and changing the U.S. over to the Metric System only because I find it annoying that I have no idea how many feet are in a mile or what in the hell a quart is.

"Is it just me or has Coronel Sanders always looked like a massive racist to you?  Then again, he did make chicken and if you connect your stereotype dots together, you would think otherwise."

Weekly Picks of the Week - Week 10

Picks in Bold

Rankings based on BCS Standings
All lines provided by Sportsbook.ag

#16 Texas A&M Aggies (-6) @ #15 Mississippi State Bulldogs

12:00
ESPN

#23 Texas Longhorns @ #18 Texas Tech Red Raiders (-7)

3:30
ABC or ESPN2

#4 Oregon Ducks (-8) @ #17 USC Trojans

7:00
FOX

#13 Clemson Tigers (-13.5) @ Duke Blue Devils

7:00
ESPN2

#24 Oklahoma State Cowboys @ #2 Kansas State Wildcats (-9.5)

8:00
ABC

#1 Alabama Crimson Tide (-9.5) @ #5 LSU Tigers

8:00
CBS

-With only a month left in the season, the debate for which team is the second best team in the nation is in full swing.  Is it Kansas State, Notre Dame, or Oregon?  Personally, I think it is Oregon.  Not only is their offense insanely productive, but their defense is stout.  Really, a stout defense, Sambo?  They shut out Arizona on the road and if you take the Oregon game out, Arizona is averaging 44 points a game.  Also, if you look at their final results this season, you would be impressed at the Ducks' final scores, but that only tells half of the story.  Oregon is usually so far ahead at halftime in every game that they put in the back-ups in the second half and those scores are not nearly as close as they would seem.  For example, they were up 43-7 at the half against Arizona State last week and the final score was 43-21.  You can't tell me that that final score isn't indicative of the actual results.  I looked it up and Oregon is up by an average of 29 points at halftime and are only winning games by an average of 34 points.  Basically, if they were playing a full game, they would be winning at a clip of 58 points per game which is more points than any school in the nation is averaging a game.  In any case, I think what Kansas State and Notre Dame are doing is impressive, but Oregon is the better team and that should be evident after this weekend when they destroy USC.

-I was going to blast the Gamecocks and their ridiculous ranking at 8 in the BCS Standings, but out of respect for the wonderful player, Marcus Lattimore, and his horrendous injury, I am going to lay off them this week.  Instead, I'll be talking about Maryland's QB situation.  If you didn't read that link, Maryland started the year with four scholarship quarterbacks and nine weeks into the season, all four are out for year.  Seriously, what are the odds that a team would lose just one quarterback for the season?  If I had to guess, I would say it's under 5 percent.  So, the odds of losing four quarterbacks has to be astronomically small.  And because Maryland is out of QB's to play, they are starting a linebacker who played quarterback in high school against Georgia Tech this weekend.  Oh, I forgot to mention, that linebacker-turned-QB is a true freshman who chose Maryland over Howard (wherever that is) and the new back-up quarterback is a true freshman walk-on tight end.  The good news for me is that Clemson plays Maryland next weekend and Clemson's mediocre defense should actually look good for once.

-I had my first losing week in a month last week and finished 2-4.  The funny thing about it was that my favorite pick going into the week was Oklahoma giving 10 points to Notre Dame, and I couldn't have been more wrong about both of those teams.  This is where I should say "That tells you what I know", but I look at it differently, instead I'm going to tell you that this was just a bump in the road and I will recover this week or your money back.  (Also, I just noticed that I picked all of the favorites this week and four of them are on the road, there's no way that that is going to backfire, right?)

The Funniest College GameDay Sign From Last Weekend Said:

(There was another sign that said "Pound The Golden Domers" and right beside that one, another sign said "That's What She Said".  That made me giggle.)

Last Week's Results: 2-4
Season Results: 29-27