What do we need to do to convince Hillary to run in 2012? I mean cmon. Let’s get this done already.

Posted on August 6th, 2011 Filed in: Politics/Economics Tags: hillary clinton

Find all the errors you can in this 2:30 minute clip….ready…set…Go…

Posted on July 5th, 2011 Filed in: Entertainment, Politics/Economics Tags: fact check fun bag

I think not. He’s as positive as hip hop gets and I thought his 2003 album Electric Circus was very underrated and will smile whenever I hear “Love of My Life (an Ode to Hip Hop). He’s also quietly won mulitple grammys so clearly he rocks right?

Apparently, I am alone in this….Is this really what people spend their time stressing out about?

Posted on May 12th, 2011 Filed in: Politics/Economics Tags: common, politics, we like to listen

So this is what the Situation Room looks like? While this photo clearly doesn’t show the whole room, I have to confess I’m surprised at how cramped and dumpy it feels. I wasn’t really expecting a scene from 24, but somehow this room just doesn’t merit some of the big things that happen in it. The table is pretty blah, and the wall is blah, even that brown coffee cup seems way too blah. I shudder to think what the Lincoln Bedroom is actually like.

Posted on May 3rd, 2011 Filed in: Life, Politics/Economics Tags:

Dear Hosers, if you tried to visit the Hose earlier this morning, you might have noticed that it was down.

This wasn’t routine maintenance downtime to upgrade our servers or anything. The Hose was down due to the government shutdown. It isn’t widely known, but the Hose does receive 2% of its funding from the federal government (part of the national public broadcasting budget).

Luckily, though, with help from our General Counsel (ET #2) and our government insider (Turdhurdler), they were able to reach out to President Obama himself and get a special exception for the Hose. So we are back up!

Thank goodness!

Posted on April 11th, 2011 Filed in: Life, Politics/Economics Tags: service notice

We all know I have a small love affair with the town of Hoboken.We also know that Hoboken St. Patrick’s Day scares the sh*t out of me – too many drunken white people for my tastes.

In all seriousness, watching a girl unzip her pants and do #1 in between two cars was something I probably would have paid for in 1998. Now the whole thing feels a little sad.

Thankfully, I am not alone! Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer, after a St. Patricks day that included 34 arrests, a sea of drunken guidos in green shirts and a far too many under dressed drunk girls at 11am when I was cruising to the gym, has announced that Hoboken St. Patrick’s day is now being moved to a Wednesday next year – in some vain attempt to limit the carnage.

Posted on March 9th, 2011 Filed in: Life, Politics/Economics Tags: Douche, hoboken, scary white people

OH No!

Apparently, the government (well, at least lunatic d-bag at large Jim DeMint) is looking to put the breaks on support for the Corporation For Public Broadcasting.

What will we do without our favorite sesame street characters to make bizarre music videos with?

But more importantly, what will they, our favorite characters, be left with?

Posted on March 5th, 2011 Filed in: Politics/Economics Tags: politics, Sesame Street

We can all agree that this is totally boss, right?

The pinstripes on Hosni Mubarak’s custom suit are actually very tiny letters that spell out his name, over and over again.  Do you think Derek Jeter has the same thing done to his Yankees uniform?

Posted on March 3rd, 2011 Filed in: Life, Politics/Economics Tags: politics, Sparks=Wrong

The Hose has to apologize for its recent lack of posting. There are lots of things happening.

• The Hose Editorial Board lost out on its bid to acquire the Huffington Post. We were offering $178 and a weekly foot rub for Arianna by Manolo. No go…who turns that down to join a third tier internet outfit? Who? I demand answers!
• The Hose Editorial Board is in the middle of a huge roe over what to do with American Idol this year. Killer B wants to kill it. The rest of us want it to stay. Boo KillerB! amiright? Weigh in in the comment section here.
• Now that Aaron Rodgers has proven that he is the greatest QB in the history of the NFL, how should he celebrate? My suggestion is that he bed Jenn Sterger, take several cameraphone pics of the event and SMS them to Brett Favre. Feel free to top that.
• My favorite facebook status, post Super Bowl, came from the Perkelator who posted “Moral of the stories; rapists only win twice”
• You can follow former NY JetsRay Lucas on Facebook as he documents his road to recovery from pain killer addiction. Follow this here…

Posted on February 8th, 2011 Filed in: Entertainment, Life, Politics/Economics, Sports Tags: quickies

On March 1st, 2011 the current collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and the NFL’s Player’s Association (NFLPA) comes to an end. If at that point, a new contract is not in place the owners have committed to locking the players out.

We should all stop and absorb this for a moment. The most successful professional sports league in America will be shut down by its owners. Why are these 32 otherwise reasonable business men in such a rush to set $8B+ on fire? Basically because they don’t think the current CBA is a very good deal in the face of a rapidly changing economic climate:

MORE after the jump…

Posted on January 28th, 2011 Filed in: Politics/Economics, Sports Tags: sports business

Like you, I was troubled on Saturday when I heard about the tragic shooting in Tuscon.I won’t lie, I got choked up.

What’s vexed me since then has been the rush to politicize and generalize the act of one lunatic. I found my reaction strange, so I thought about it a bit more. Here is where I came down on this. MORE after the jump…

Posted on January 10th, 2011 Filed in: Politics/Economics Tags: embarrasing Democrats, politics

As I sat there gleefully reflecting on the Big Ten’s 0-5 Bowl record this year I started thinking about something that has always bugged me about college football.

In Division 1 College Football there are 120 odd teams – How are there 35 bowl games?

It’s pretty galling, I mean less than a month ago, there was some concern that a team with a losing record would get a bid just so there could be two teams to play in every bowl – which is admittedly crazy.

The payouts for these things vary from 18M to 300K ( a pretty wild swing) and though I know that college football is profitable for the Texases and the Michigans I know that the Rutgers and the Central Floridas of the world struggle.

So let’s get some analyses going Sparks. How much money does college football generate? How is it distributed? Is it a good deal for every school? Are all these bowls profitable(stands are empty, smallish tv audiences, etc)? How awesome is it that TCU beat Wisconsin? Answer these questions or any others!

Posted on January 3rd, 2011 Filed in: Politics/Economics, Sports Tags: Ask Sparks, Sparks = educational (plagiarist), Sparks=Wrong, sports economics

In November, everyone was talking about how our old pal Barry had overshot and was in trouble. The Tea Party…blah blah…you all know the strawman.

Yet, here he is, taking the lame duck session and finishing strong. He got DADT repealed, pushed thru a tax bill that satisfies a lot of Americans (for reasons that are unclear to Hose readers and other) and got his signature treaty through Congress – all in 1 week.

Along the way, he was able to highlight the soft underbelly of Tea Party crazies, 10 or so moderate Republicans in the senate who once they stopped running for office started acting like reasonable legislators…

Nice work, Enjoy the golf and the sun, homey

Posted on December 24th, 2010 Filed in: Life, Politics/Economics Tags: Hero Of The Week, politics

Bill Clinton held a press conference by himself, more or less, at the White House the other day and the White House Press Corps ran into their laptop bags and pulled out all those knee pads they carry around just in case Bill Clinton ever decided to come back to the White House. All of America rejoiced because…well I am not sure.

He’s not in charge or anything so it was nice of him to take a few days off from banging jetsetting to help current President Obama get some governing in.

Basically all he did is called out Democratic Congressional leaders (wait? what?) for not supporting the deal that Obama cut with the crazy people that extends the bush era tax cuts for the wealthy (What?) in exchange for some stuff (additional long term unemployment benefits, payroll tax breaks for lower and middle class – reasonable helpful stuff) aimed at keeping the economy moving.

I am not going to pretend I like this deal very much on any level, but Clinton’s point was that I was not supposed to – no partisan likes a bi-partisan deal. I can see that being a valid argument. Having said that, I don’t see what the fuss is about. Bi-partisanship should not be a goal in and of itself, should it?

Posted on December 12th, 2010 Filed in: Politics/Economics Tags: blaming cable news, Hero Of The Week, keith olbermann is a dbag, politics

So it sounds like that big monster, Google, is trying to snap up Groupon for a cool $6 Billion. It’s shouldn’t be Google trying to buy Groupon.

You know who should be buying Groupon instead?

All the local business owners should chip in and collectively buy Groupon! Once they do that, they should shutter the doors of that damned company. Then these local businesses can go back to selling their goods and services at full price, instead of at 50% discounts. That’s an instant doubling of revenue!

This is the business strategy of the decade. Why didnt KillerB think of that?

Posted on December 1st, 2010 Filed in: Politics/Economics Tags: Why Didn't Killer B1 Think of That?