Moving On

I was at a get-together tonight where, for a time, conservatives outnumbered liberals. A conversation broke out about illegal immigration (my thought: illegal immigration is only a problem when it's your people who are trying to illegally move to another country to get out of yours) and then the Obama bashing began. I tried to hold my tongue and did a pretty good job of it until one of the people mentioned that they thought, if nothing else, that Bush was our most moral president ever. The next thirty seconds went like this. Me: "Torture." Them: "At least he kept us safe." Me: silence. I got up and walked away. The moral: if you ever want me to decide that it's not even worth talking to you, defend torture.

NFL Picks (11-5 last week and for the season, I had the number wrong on Sunday because I thought the Giants covered; they didn't):

• Tennessee (-7) vs. Houston: The Titans beat Houston in Tennessee 31-12 last year.
• New Orleans (-1) at Philadelphia: Kevin Kolb vs. Drew Brees. Right.
• New York Jets (+3) vs. New England: This line moved from +5.5 to +3 in two days. The Pats' relatively weak defense is without their middle linebacker and their O-Line struggled against a Buffalo blitz that will pale in comparison to New York's.
• Green Bay (-9) vs. Cincinnati: Next.
• Kansas City (-3) vs. Oakland: Who knows? Who cares?
• Jacksonville (-3) vs. Arizona: A west coast team coming east for a 1P.M. game is as easy as easy money gets.
• Detroit (+10) vs. Minnesota: Detroit played Minnesota really close both times last year (12-10 and 20-16).
• Atlanta (-6) vs. Carolina: I understand Jake Delhomme isn't as bad as he's looked in his last two games. I just need him to prove it to me.
• Washington (-9.5) vs. St. Louis: St. Louis is really bad. Like worst team in football really bad. At least Detroit has the makings of a Big Three with Stafford, Smith, and Megatron (I'll use that as often as I can).
• Buffalo (-4.5) vs. Tampa Bay: Let's see if the Bills are as relatively good as they looked on Monday.
• Seattle (+1.5) vs. San Francisco: Shrug.
• Baltimore (+3) at San Diego: Remember how bad that defense looked against a horrendous Raiders offense? Jamal Williams, the Chargers' most important defensive player, was placed on Injured Reserve today.
• Denver (-3) vs. Cleveland: Orton vs. Quinn, feel the excitement.
• Pittsburgh (-3) vs. Chicago: Nothing would surprise me in this game. Therefore, can't bet against the champs.
• Dallas (-3) vs. New York Giants: Scoreboard (-5) vs. fair catches.
• Indianapolis (-3) vs. Miami: I feel like we're in some sort of arbitrage period where Vegas hasn't quite caught up to how bad Miami is this year versus how mediocre they were last year.