God bless you sir.

You were the last of a Great Generation, not only in football but in history.

For those too young to know, George Blanda #16 was the Oakland Raider backup quarterback to Kenny “The Snake” Stabler and Daryle Lamonica in the 70s.

With this addendum point: Blanda served in not only the #2 QB position, but he was also the team’s kicker. And well into his 40s. He played up to age 48. In fact, he served 26 years in the NFL — completely unheard-of today! When at the QB position, he was sacked like everyone else. Yet he came back year after year after year — when the rules were much less stringent for sacking and hitting, in a dual position!

From the Associated Press:

ALAMEDA, Calif. — George Blanda, the seemingly ageless Hall of Fame quarterback and kicker whose 26-year career was best remembered for a remarkable run of late-game theatrics with the Oakland Raiders, has died. He was 83.

The Raiders confirmed the death Monday and issued a statement saying “we are deeply saddened by the passing of the great George Blanda. George was a brave Raider and a close personal friend of Raiders owner Al Davis.”

Blanda retired a month shy of his 49th birthday before the 1976 season, playing longer than anyone else in pro football history. He spent 10 seasons with the Chicago Bears, part of one with the Baltimore Colts, seven with the Houston Oilers and his final nine with the Raiders.

He scored 2,002 points in his career, a pro football record at the time of his retirement, kicking 335 field goals and 943 extra points, running for nine touchdowns and throwing for 236 more.

But it was a five-game stretch for Oakland in 1970 that is the lasting imprint from his career. As a 43-year-old, Blanda led the Raiders to four wins and one tie with late touchdown passes or field goals.

Later that season, he became the oldest quarterback to play in a championship game, throwing two touchdown passes and kicking a field goal in Oakland’s 27-17 loss to Baltimore in the AFC title game. His performance that season earned him The Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year.

The dude, clearly, had balls made of steel.

Blanda was one of the new league’s many prolific passers, throwing for 19,149 yards and 165 touchdowns in seven seasons for the Oilers. He was the AFL Player of the Year in 1961, holds AFL single-game passing record of 464 yards on Oct. 29, 1961, against Buffalo, and was chosen the league’s all-time kicker.

Blanda called all the plays as was common back then, and further stepped out when kicks were required.

Blanda threw for 26,920 yards in his career and held the pro football record with 277 interceptions until Brett Favre passed him in 2007. He retired with the most points in history before the total was topped by several players in recent years.

“It certainly doesn’t bother me,” Blanda said about losing the scoring record. “The one record I was happy to get rid of was the one for the most interceptions, when Brett Favre got that one.”

George Blanda was a gentleman’s gentleman.

And embodied class upon class.

Some submit that 1976 contained the Greatest Raider Nation ever, as Blanda played with:

– John Madden as Coach;
– Ken Stabler as quarterback;
– Daryle Lamonica as quarterback;
– Fred Biletnikoff;
– Ben Davidson; too awesome and too bad;
– Jack Tatum at Safety (now passed);
– Center Jim Otto, 00;
– Linebacker Ted Hendricks – “The Stork”
– Art Shell on OT; (future coach twice)
– Gene Upshaw on guard; (and NFLPA president)
– John Matuszak on DL;
– Otis Sistrunk on DL;
– Phil Villapiano at LB;
– Willie Brown at CB;

God bless you, George Blanda.

You were the best that the Greatest Generation had to offer.

He played in his last game at Pittsburgh‘s Three Rivers Stadium on January 4, 1976, at age 48, in the 1975 AFC Championship Game, where he kicked a 41-yard field goal and made one extra point as the Raiders lost to the Steelers 16-10. Absolutely amazing.

My dad loved to watch you play because you were about his age and you refused to go down to injuries or age or events. He rooted for you because you were he and he was you. You took the fight back to the enemy and didn’t make excuses or hold out for wages.

You have earned your rest.

You played longer than any other person in pro football history.

If no one else does, I honor you. Because I watched you play live. You gave Life your All.

BZ

John Kitzhaber, a Demorat candidate for governor of Oregon, attended a candidates’ event on Thursday night, September 23rd in Portland — at the Emmanuel Temple Church.

Apparently his devotee muscle, two black males in suit coats, don’t much care for the First Amendment.

The article that I have linked in the prior sentence is penned by an individual, Jeff Mapes of The Oregonian, who writes:

The event at Emmanuel Temple Church in North Portland was sponsored by the Urban League and the African American Alliance and streamed live on KOIN TV’s web site. Event organizers said they made it clear at the start of the event that only KOIN would be allowed to film the event.

A series of questions: was this a public event or a private event? Was attendance strictly limited and closed to the public, or was it open to the public? Were attendees to sign an contract, a LOA, a non-disclosure statement, a paper acknowledging a no-video policy? Was this policy posted publicly prior to any and all entrance points, and made clear in advance? Was money demanded for attendance? The creators of the video indicate the venue was public. I suspect that is true. To continue:

However, the edited video shows that the activist continued to tape the event after he had been told to stop. “I’m sorry, sir, this is my First Amendment right to film this event,” the activist told one volunteer who asked him to stop. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to keep filming.”

Words have meanings. Isn’t it interesting how Mr Mapes terms someone with a video camera at a political event an “activist.” So there you have it. Where Leftists and Demorats are concerned, you are an “activist” if you dare to video events in a public venue.

To Mr Mapes: what law or codicil was broken by filming the event? Give me a specific section, a body of law, sir, that the person who created the video is in violation thereof.

What might you think would have happened had the roles been reversed and a, say, “liberal” videographer attended a Republican event and the events unfolded as above?

I posit: fodder for Leftists for, at least, a few weeks — splayed over the predominant DEM/MSM media over and over and over, wouldn’t you suspect?

First Amendment? What First Amendment?

BZ

It appears the group, TEA Party Patriots, may have been betrayed.

Snakes and Patriots?

As with all good and effective betrayals, it appears to have come from within and not without.

Mark Williams, most excellent Sacramento radio talk show host for many years (see my sidebar blogroll under California Links) believes that the TEA Party Patriots have been sold out by Fornicalia attorney Mark Meckler.

Mr Williams is no stranger to controversy himself. He was instrumental in the April 15th, 2009 Sacramento TEA Party; he took on MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan (making Mr Ratigan appear quite the slow, thuddish dolt he is), and called Islam on its placement of a mosque adjacent the Ground Zero site. He was called racist. Overlooked was the fact that he was correct in his umbrage over the mosque. I supported him then and I support him now.

The problem with Mark Williams is that, like myself, he tends to be truthful and refuses to couch his words in euphemisms or PC buzzwords/ -phrases. He is as blunt as he is cutting-edge and insightful.

Now, new information seems to indicate that the TEA Party Patriots are being “sold” to an unidentified individual. For a million dollars. With the understanding that the Patriots’ membership individual informational lists will be included.

From ResistNet.com:

As previously reported, national Tea Party Patriots (TPP) leader Mark Meckler has secured an anonymous “donor” to finance Meckler’s buyout of the organization in what amounts to a hostile take over. Meckler has said that the money will go to the TPP local chapters but in a MarkTalk.com exclusive I can now reveal that the money will only be given to local chapters that turn the names and personal information of their entire membership over to Mr. Meckler.

On its face — given, not knowing all the miniscule details — this transaction tends to stink in a remarkable fashion.

There are HUGE questions to be asked here.

And, of course, there is more to the story. I intend to find out what is happening here.

I am sending an e-mail to Mr Williams so that he may be able to explain the necessary chronology and the inferences and outcomes. On any level imaginable, this does not look, sound or feel proper, moral or ethical.

Again, at first blush, it appears the TEA Party Patriots’ organization has been hijacked by an individual with ties to the Left and with possession of a massive amount of personal information which could be provided, at leisure, to concerns directly opposite those of persons who signed up for the organization at its outset.

In two words: potential betrayal. Or as convoluted as Charles Lutwidge Dodgson?

More to come.

BZ

I try to acquire larfs wherever I can find them, and this cat video would have made me pass an horrific carbonated beverage through my nose had I been drinking one.

Relax; it’s Sunday.

BZ

This may not seem much to you and me, but being denied a “professor emeritus” status at a university, when you taught there for many years, is a huge, a massive slap in the face for the person so denied.

And as it is with William “Weather Underground” Ayers. So denied.

Oddly enough, it is from the son of Robert Kennedy — the Kennedy clan being of historically liberal bent — where said denial sourced.

From the Chicago Tribune:

In a very unusual move, University of Illinois trustees Thursday denied giving emeritus status to controversial retired professor William Ayers.

The vote, at a U. of I. board meeting in Urbana, was unanimous and came after a passionate speech by board chair Christopher Kennedy, who invoked the 1968 assassination of his father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, in saying that he was voting his conscience.

The other trustees, without comment, also voted against the appointment.

What was it, perhaps, that seemed to convince the trustees to vote against William Ayers?

The information I shall now reveal is not revealed or directly sourced in our DEM. Christopher Kennedy, the son of Robert Kennedy, and U.I.C. board chair, wrote:

I am guided by my conscience and one which has been formed by a series of experiences,many of which have been shared with the people of our country and mark each of us in a profound way.

My own history is not a secret.

My life experiences inform my decision making as a trustee of the University.

In this case of emeritus status, I hope that I will act in a predictable fashion and that the people of Illinois and the faculty and staff of this great institution will understand my motives and my reasoning.

I intend to vote against conferring the honorific title of our University to a man whose body of work includes a book dedicated in part to the man who murdered my father, Robert F.Kennedy.

There is nothing more antithetical to the hopes for a university that is lively and yet civil, or to the hopes of our founding fathers for their great experiment of a self-governing people, than to permanently seal off debate with one’s opponents by killing them.

There can be no place in a democracy to celebrate political assassinations or to honor those who do so.

We are citizen trustees whose judgments should be predictable to the community that we serve, and I would ask anyone who challenges my judgment, “How could I do anything else?”

Seldom do I make such coarse judgments or statements, but I care to make one now because it is so astoundingly warranted:

Fuck you, William Ayers, you besotted Leftist bastard. This is your past, finally, just a tad bit, catching up to you.

Fuck you with a white-hot piece of rebar up your professorial non-emeritus ass.

BZ

P.S.
But, of course, this is only my opinion.