Oh wait, it would be going up against Jay Leno’s new show. Never mind, I think Congress is more entertaining as it is.

Yeah, I was right.

Random political observation: This Blagojevich fellow needs to ditch the 14 year-old boy haircut. He looks too much like a quarterback for the Crimson Tide.

It must be pretty comforting to know that after your Presidency is complete in eight years, you will have quite a source of income based solely on your image. Think about the possibilities, dude. When you leave Washington to go back and farm corn or whatever it is those in Illinois do, you can simply live for the rest of your life by selling stuff with your face all over it to the legions of Americans who think you are Jesus.

I’m talking about an action figure line, maybe some designer clothes at Wal-Mart a la the Olsen Twins, maybe even a blockbuster action film!

Seeing the countless racks of wares with your (likely unlicensed) image throughout the last few months, I have come to the conclusion that this whole Presidency thing is more of a time killer until you can evolve from the prince of politics into the messiah of the marketplace.

Barack Obama t-shirts, Barack Obama stationary, Barack Obama DVDs, and Barack Obama salad dressing to take the place of Newman’s Own. Heck, it’s only a matter of time (read: a month) until kids start showing up to school with Barack Obama valentines for all of their good friends. The possibilities are endless!

Bitter? No. I just wish people would pay to have my face on crap.

My political leanings aside, these past few months have been a complete burn on my patience. It seems that ever since two months ago, legions of folks who had little to no knowledge of or interest in politics suddenly came out in droves to support their candidates and strive to alienate anyone and everyone that disagreed with anything they said. If you don’t believe me, check the archives of the Alligator from the last few months. Politics really does bring out the worst in people.

But that is only half of my disgust with the entire process. Beginning on the day students came back for the Fall semester, there were countless political activists all over campus. First, it was whether or not I was registered to vote in Alachua County. Then, it was whether or not I was voting early. Then, it was whether I supported Senator Obama or Senator McCain.

Jesus Tapdancing Christ. It was so annoying. I couldn’t walk from class to class without being ceaselessly pestered multiple times. I know this sounds petty, but I’m sure that anyone who was on campus for these past few months will agree with me that it got a bit out of hand. I’m looking forward to getting back to dealing with Brother Micah telling me that I’m going to Hell and the Gideons giving out free Bibles.

Now that it’s over, though, I am elated to not have to deal with the sheep of both parties suddenly caring more about the direction of our country than they ever had. Now we can all concentrate on the most important things of the season: my birthday and football. Oh, how glorious it will be.

But, here goes.

Recently, the Rays have proposed a new waterfront stadium in downtown St. Pete at the site of Al Lang Field, where innumerable baseball greats have played for almost a century. To me, this is an excellent thing. It will get rid of seriously outdated and ugly Tropicana Field and make St. Petersburg a popular destination again. However, there are quite a few dissidents to the idea. The movement against the idea of economic prosperity and all-around awesomeness that will arise from a new stadium is led by a certain group of old farts who will not be alive in a few years when the stadium becomes a reality who call themselves POWW (Preserve Our Wallets and Waterfront).

See, all of the members of POWW rely on misinformation and the art of crying loudest about the whole ordeal. Let’s look at some of the silly things they have to say:

They claim that building a new stadium would take money from the pockets of current residents of the county. It won’t. The Rays are fronting much of the money, and the remainder will be paid by existing hotel bed taxes that Pinellas residents do not pay and the sale and development of the land upon which Tropicana Field sits, which borders on slum land at present.

They claim that it is “too darn big.” To support this claim, they show us an image of how big the (awesome looking) stadium would be compared to the Bank of America building. Here it is (notice that there are absolutely no measurements nor sources on this image):

Now, look at a similar image I made, using their outline of the Bank of America building and a scale of 1 foot = 1 pixel (you will have to click to see this image full size):

Yes, it seems that in POWW’s image, the stadium is magically taller than in my measured and sourced image. Curious.

They claim that the whole new stadium would be a traffic and parking nightmare. It won’t be. The Rays have done copious studies and have discovered that there will be plenty of spaces around the stadium. And if we have to walk a few blocks to see the game, what of it? It’s Major League Baseball. Only 29 other cities in America have the privilege to watch this great sport, and I guarantee you that most of them require folks to walk a little bit to get to their stadiums. Lord. Quit your bellyaching, everyone.

As for traffic, has anyone thought that this new stadium will be only 15 blocks away from the current site of the Trop? I don’t know about everyone else’s experiences, but I have absolutely no trouble going to and from a baseball game currently, and I am sure 15 blocks will not suddenly cause me to sit in traffic for hours before and after a game. And even if traffic is worse, I would have no problem with it. Have you ever been to a major city like Chicago or New York during baseball season? Any traffic jams we might have in dinky little St. Petersburg will pale in comparison to the traffic jams baseball fans have been dealing with for a hundred years.

They claim that the new stadium would be bad for business. Yes, I understand fully how building a new stadium on the site of a completely vacant baseball field and attempting to redevelop 86 acres in an area that is in dire need of financial upbringing could be terrible for business. Wait, what?

POWW would like to have us believe that these promises of economic prosperity were made and never delivered upon when the Florida Suncoast Dome (now Tropicana Field) was built in the 1980s. Of course your economic revitalization will fail if you have an empty dome in the middle of the ghetto for half a decade. Jeez.

They claim that there would be terrible environmental damage if the stadium is built, since the plan calls for filling in .6 acres of Tampa Bay and turning it into land upon which the stadium can be built. Now, excuse me here, but Jesus Tapdancing Christ. This is the lamest excuse they have. It’s a little over half of an acre. And to save what? Manatees? Christ. What have manatees ever done for us? Oh, that’s right. Nothing. I’m not even going to go into the ridiculous hippie nature (no pun intended) of this argument. Moving on.

And of course, they claim that there are better alternatives. On their Web site, under this category, they have a photo of some little leaguers. Now, if that isn’t trying to appeal to people’s warm and fuzzy emotions, I don’t know what is. Sure, POWW can throw a bunch of alternatives up on the board that help their cause, but I have yet to see any solid redevelopment plans that go so far as to revitalize a dying cityscape.

Another thing I’m so sick of hearing about is the heat. People whining about the warm weather in Florida. I love it. Listen, Minor League Baseball has existed in Florida for decades upon decades. Those games occur at the same time of day and the same time of year as Major League Baseball games. I have never had a problem with them, and neither have all the folks who go out to see the Clearwater Threshers, Brevard County Manatees, Jacksonville Suns, or any other minor league affiliate in this state. There will be a sail to cut down on sun on particularly hot days and there will be air conditioning in the concourses. Quit your bellyaching. Heck, join me for a Gator game in the middle of September at 12:00 with body paint clogging your pores and sweat glands and then we can talk about heat. Gosh.

The final misconception about the stadium that is really bugging me is the notion that the Rays are threatening to leave the Tampa Bay area if they don’t get their stadium. They are not. Stuart Sternberg has clarified time and time again that they are not using this whole idea to hold the city hostage. They will stay in the Trop for the remainder of their lease (until 2027, I believe). For those that say they will buy out their lease and move elsewhere, where will they go? There is no market as large and potentially profitable as the one here in Tampa Bay. If you add the Orlando TV market, we would have the fourth-largest television market in the Majors. It would make no sense to leave the area. None.

Well, there you have it. All of the misconceptions and my responses thereto. Before this post ends, though, I would like to mention one thing that I found the other day.

The folks who want to “Preserve Our Wallets and Waterfront” have a page on their Web site about “Secrecy and Fairness.” I think this is ironic, because of the images located on their “About POWW!” page.

There, they have a photo of the Al Lang site as it is now, with green grass and water in the background. Below it, an image of the proposed stadium, which they credit to the Rays’ Web site. This is all well and good, but something struck me about the second image.

I opened it in Photoshop, and I opened the original Rays image. I was astonished to find two things:
1. The POWW image is 8 pixels narrower than the original image from the Rays. Is this a subtle way to highlight the height of the stadium (which, I might add, was misrepresented, as you saw earlier in this post).
2. Even worse, POWW actually darkened the original photo. Darker Skies, dimmer water, everything. Any high school journalism student could tell you that this is the pinnacle of unethical photo editing. I emailed the good folks at POWW about it (to their “Invite Us to Speak” email, since they have no other way to electronically correspond), and I have yet to get a response. As of today, the image is still up on their Web site.

Here are the two images (click the thumbnail for a larger version):

It’s interesting that a group so adamantly against the stadium that relies on “fact” would have to go so far as to subtly brainwash the public into thinking that the Rays proposal would be so terrible. They rely heavily on misinformation, conjecture, and unethical behavior.

Heck, I could yell really loud and be right, too.

Well, I prefer not to take sides in this debate, so I offer the topic of an actual conversation I had with a female petition pusher with a boy haircut I had on campus today.

While I concede that global warming could indeed be a possibility, I maintain that I don’t really care, at least for the time being, and I offer the following as my reasoning.

The state of Florida, if global warming is a real threat, won’t be underwater for some time. At least, not in my lifetime. And they keep telling me to care about the fact that the environment is going to Hell in a hand basket and that I should take preventative steps to reduce its effect for my children’s’ sake.

Well, if that’s the case, I’ll have to have children, right?

If that is the case, I will have to, at some point in my existence on this big round ball, plant my seed inside a woman. Ergo, I will have to find somewhere a female who will allow me the privilege of breaching her floppy V.

So, if and when a woman decides it necessary to make love to me, I will begin caring about global warming for the sake of my little sideburned flagellate friends.

The moral of this story: girls, if you really care about the environment, you will have lots of hardcore sex with me. Do it for me. Do it for the environment. But most of all, do it for the children.

Tom Tancredo: Mr. Roper reincarnate?

Yeah, I know I don’t usually post images with my musings. But darn it, this one is just too good. My beloved school has gained national notoriety this week, except this time it doesn’t involve large black men wearing orange and blue.

Nope, we’re notorious for using tasers on people who resist arrest – violently – at political speeches. For those of you who haven’t seen the video I’ve seen, here it is .

Oh crap. You know what this means now, right?

That’s right: I have to live with a bunch of ill-informed, blind hippie children fighting back against the system for a few weeks. The mere fact that the university police used this nondeadly force on a student, never mind the fact that he was using profanity during the speech and refused to be forcibly removed by running and elbowing officers, has the stupid half of this campus up in arms. I’m not saying it’s like a modern day Kent State or anything, but I just know that I’ll have to be refusing new flyers and rally information outside of Turlington Hall for a good while now. And that irks me.

Listen, I’m all for disliking the police (link and link). But I respect them. And if they tell me to do something, I do it. And so should everyone else. End of story.

I kind of want to get a taser in case I ever meet this stupid sack of crap. And tell all of your long-haired, Alligator-reading, Krishna-eating, uniformly biased friends to look out, too.

Edit September 20 8:00PM: Does this count as my being published? Probably not, but I’m going to pretend it does. I would like to thank the Academy…

That’s right, my friends, in my possession is a handy check signed by my regional disbursing officer in the amount of $50.34.

I’m now a man of means; now all I need is a girl on whom to spend it.