NASCAR is running out of money and won’t be receiving all the financial support it has been receiving from the bidness community.  Buick has announced that it won’t be providing all those Buicks for the pro golf tour.  What?  They think someone else will buy those things?  Mark Cuban is in trouble with the SEC, and that’s not the Southeast Conference.  Tom Hicks, the Rangers owner and also part owner of the Liverpool soccer team, was notified that the American owners will be able to refinance their loans on the club.

Meanwhile, The Jerry is trying like crazy to sell ghastly expensive seats with ghastly expensive private seat licenses to the new JerryWorld Stadium he’s building to house the 2008 Super Bowl Champion Dallas Cowboys.  They, the 2008 Super Bowl Champion Dallas Cowboys, are slated to open up their 2009 season in JerryWorld.  But as things look right now, there are two problems.  One, the 80,000 seat sportatorium will be about half full.  Two, the 2008 Super Bowl Champion Dallas Cowboys will be dressed up a lot like Tennessee Titans or New York Football Giants or something without a star on its helmet.

Nevertheless, that should not stop you from helping out The Jerry.  Give as though The Jerry’s financial empire depends upon it.  He is not currently thought to be eligible for backing his pickup truck up to the Congressional pay window and getting some upfront whipout bailoutbucks from the Congress.

Nothing like a Pokes’ victory over the Skins of Red from The Land of Wingnuts, Lugnuts and Numbnuts to get me over the deep dark, low down, real bad, everlastin’ depression bluz . . . POKES WIN!  POKES WIN!  Yippee!  Cows beat the Skins, 14 - 10 in a pageant of mystery, mastery and majesty.

It’s not too early to point out, by the way, that on February 12th upcoming, this great nation of ours will be celebrating two glorious events.  First, and the one most will probably pay attention to, will be the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.  Second, and of equal import to the undersigned, will the the 67th anniversary of the birth of the undersigned, celebrated, I’m sure, by an equal contingent.

Okay, there is a connecting point here, which is . . .

So in the spirit of such great men of history, Abe and . . . well, modesty forbids me but in the interests of truth in journalism, me . . .  let us recall some fitting words to describe the victory of America’s Team over the Minions of Those Inside the Beltway: When the mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature . . . Ahhh, Tony Dimples is back!  The Doomsday Defense is back!  The NFL version of The Better Angels of our Nature is back!

Several yesterdays ago, they were headed toward 7 - 9 and a dark pall was settling over this great land of ours.  Breathing was hard.  Wretching was easy.  Now, the sun is shining and the breezes are softly blowing across skies as bright as bright can be.  Surely this past weekend must presage a six game run to 12 - 4 followed by a sweep of pretenders to the throne as the Little Dallas Cowpokes go where no one has gone before: Six Super Bowl Titles.  Leaving five golden rings, commonly held by the Niners and the Steelers, and moving on to six geese a-laying territory.

Moving on squared ~~ No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.  And how about this one: “I base my fashion taste on what doesn’t itch.” ~ Gilda Radner.  And this one: “A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.” ~ Sir Barnett Cocks.

A bit disjointed this morning, but perhaps after they tweak my meds . . .

COWS ARE BACK!  COWS ARE BACK!  Lock up the women and children, the Pokes are back!  At least until Sunday.

1.  Well, it almost played out as I’d predicted, except for the safety the Pokes couldn’t get.  Wow, 35 - 14, and not in a good way.  Sooo, the question now becomes . . .

2.  What do the Pokes do with/about Brad Johnson?  Why carry him on the squad another day?  He was pulled because he was totally ineffective.  Dallas had something like 50+ yards total offense under Brad as QB.  Pokes pulled him and put in something not much better, but probably cheaper.  Under what circumstances would the Cows put Brad Johnson back in a game now?  Maybe now’s the time to resign (funny word, re-sign. reads like resign, the quitting kind of resign) Quincy Carter or Chad Hutchinson or Drew Henson or Ryan Leaf or any of a number of wannabe’s who followed Troy.  Tony Banks, where are you?  What about Richard Bartel?  How could he be any worse?  The Cowboys coaching staff, including the Genius, Jason Garrett, blew it 100% on their estimate of Brad Johnson’s qualifications and abilities to QB this team during a Tony Romo absence.

3.  My guess is the Phillips 3 - 4 had again morphed into the Stewart 3 - 4.

4.  What’s next?  Makes one appreciate what Tony Dimples was doing behind that offensive line.  Lordy be, how can they be both that big and that bad?  Wonder what the excuses will be this time?

5.  Who gets the game ball from The Jerry this week?  Probably The Jerry’s masseuse.

6.  In all fairness, although I did publish my roadmap as to how the Pokes could take the Giants, I also put my $50 on the Giants - 9 over in the Sports Savants Section.  I may be a fan, but I’m not a complete moron.  I do have eyes.  I’ve seen how the Cows are playing and being coached and being GM’d.

7.  So again, what happens next?  A bye week, after which Tony Dimples returns along with Jason Witten and Terrance Newman and Felix Jones and perhaps some others, and the Boys of Cow go up to the Skins of Red in ol’ D.C.  What happens if those frisky, frolicking, fun loving Foo Figthers from Irving go up to Fed Ex Field and do the poopy pile thing again?  What happens if Dallas gets all its guys back and bombs out again?  What’s the story going to be at 5 - 5?  By the way, at 5 - 4, the four loses are all in the NFC.  Not good for tie breaking.

8.  Eight NFC teams with better records than Dallas.  If the playoffs started Monday, the Giants, Cardinals, Bears and Panthers go in as division champs in the NFC.  Skins and TBucs are wild cards.  Dallas is currently in last place in the NFC East.  Impressive.  Coach Buttermilk Puffalump had a one week reprieve, but it must be nasty in the Valley Ranch Complex right about now.  The Jerry must be one unhappy guy.  One TD scored by a rookie DB running an interception into the endzone (part of my game plan, as you’ll recall) and the other scored by a Wisconsin Washout whose long term prospects equate to that of a June Bug.

9.  As my brother, Larry, asked last week or so, is The Jerry the Next Al Davis?  At what point does he  pass from being a Miserably Bad GM to being an Atrociously Bad GM?  So who does The Jerry sign this week to take the heat off?  My prediction?  He cuts Brad Johnson and Brooks Bollinger and signs Phil Simms and Steve Young, both late of the broadcast booth.

. . . Dallas beats the Giants by some miracle, limps into its bye week, cobbles together a team again with the return of Tony Dimples under center, Felix Jones, Terrance Newman, Jason Witten, Anthony Henry, Kyle Kosier, et ux and et vir, has a terrific week getting ready for the Skins of Red up in the Land of Winken and Blinken and Nod, and then goes and hawks a loogie there, losing a second time to the one NFL team whose very name is an EEOC violation?

1.  Have we discussed my Cowboys/Clinton Theory yet?  We haven’t?  Well, now’s the time.  It’s also known as The Entitlement Theory, and it goes something like this:  There are those who believe, or who are led to believe, that it’s their turn; that for some confluence of reasons, real or imagined, they are owed something; that they are entitled to a grand success without earning it; that actually going out and winning what needs to be won is just details, details that are standing in the way of a rightful coronation.  It really is a pain in the butt to be required to actually win what is rightfully one’s own by right of, oh, I don’t know, primogeniture?  It has been a sobering five weeks here in the Home of the NFL Super Bowl Champions of 2008.  Having been given the crown in August, it’s painful to see it slipping away in October.  I mean, after all, it’s not like Elizabeth II has to go out and win her crown every year.  Why should Head Coach Buttermilk Puffalump and his Hapless Horde have to actually beat other teams to get the Golden Ring?  This is, as we all learned the fabled cry of kindergarten, “no fair.”

2.  I know he’s gone and not even coaching now, but could the Pokes rent Parcells for about a month?  Just to sort of, oh, I don’t know, maybe kick some pokebutt?  And while they’re at it, slap a restraining order on Jerry Jones, a/k/a The Enabler, so he’ll stop excusing away inexcusable performances and behavior?

3.  How is it that “the Phillips 3 - 4″ became “the Stewart 3 - 4″ (Brian Stewart is the Cowboys’ Defensive Coordinator) after the losses to the Cardinals and the Rams but then re-Phillips into “the Phillips 3 - 4″ after the sterling defensive performance turned in against the TBucs?  After the victory over the TBucs, Coach Buttermilk Puffalump was smiling on the sidelines and smiling at the press conference after the game and smiling at the press conference on Monday, looking for all the world like a guy cleared of paternity charges because the DNA was lost.

4.  After the TBucs victory, The Jerry awarded Coach Buttermilk Puffalump the game ball, as though Coach B.P. had found a cure for mange or something.  Coach B.P. was hired instead of Norv Turner ~~ ewe, that’s looking more and more like a bad choice from a stumpy litter ~~ because Coach B.P. is the defensive genius.  “Mr. Fix It” is how Coach B.P. described himself.  Eweie!  I believe The Jerry has annointed this group honcho’d by Coach B.P. as the best coaching staff the Cowboys have had under The Jerry’s reign.  Wow.  Silly me.  I thought The Jimster won a couple of Super Bowls and left enough in the cupboard that Barry Switzer could roll, comatose, off his couch in Oklahoma City and bring his six-gun through DFW security and faux-coach the remains of what The Jimster built to a 1994 NFC Championship Game and to a 1995 Super Bowl Championship.  Coach B.P. should be the team’s designated uncle, the good one, the one who comes to all the holiday festivities and slips all his nieces and nephews a five spot and leave the big piece of pie for you and doesn’t cob all the whipped cream.   You know, the one who doesn’t get too drunk and grab Aunt Mildred by the hindquarters.  And, most important, offers no opinions, takes no stands, demands nothing but a little tummy rub every now and then.

5.  Tom Landry to Jimmy Johnson to Barry Switzer to Chan Gailey to Dave Campo to Bill Parcells to Buttermilk Puffalump.  Under Landry, there were 20 consecutive winning seasons.  Try that one on for size.  I’m not doing research here, but who else has done that?  Two Super Bowl victories.  Three other Super Bowl appearances.  The Jimster, taking the Cows from 1 - 15 to 7 - 9 to 11 - 5  to 13 - 3 to 12 - 4 and two Super Bowl victories.  Pretty strong company, those two guys.  Since then?  Not so much.  There was the fifth Super Bowl triumph over the Steelers in 1995, with the last harrah thrown by The Team The Jimster Built.  Since then, one playoff victory, that in 1996, against the Vikings, who were quarterbacked by Brad Johnson, he of local zip code ownership these daze.  And this leads us directly to The Next Great Question, which is…

6.  Is Jerry Jones the Next Al Davis?  This was posed by my brother, perhaps as a prescient query and perhaps as a vain attempt to get me to stop blathering about the Cowboys.  That is a terrific question, but it deserves a looksee all by itself, so we’ll save it for another time.  But the fact that I’m interested in returning to it gives you a hint on how I’d come down on that question.

7.  Okay, okay, okay.  Who is gonna win and what’s the score gonna be?  Easy, Sleazy.  Pokes by two at the buzzer.  How, asketh you?  As follows, sayeth me.  (a)  Dallas wins the turnover game by three, either 3 for Dallas and none for the Giants or 4 for Dallas and 1 for the Giants.  Any more than two Dallas turnovers and the Pokes are Porked.  (b)  Two Cow field goals result from the field position gained with those turnovers. (c) A rogue TD from a punt return or a kick off return or an interception return or a fumble return or a blocked field goal return, the latter most likely as those happen all the time.  If you’ve been following closely, you know that Dallas now has 13 points.  Can’t count on holding the Giants to 11 points, so we continue. (d) Did I mention the safety?  Okay, Cows have 15 points.  Giants have 13, one TD on a one yard run by Brandon Jacobs or whatever, and two field goals after being stopped inside the red zone by Larry Cole . . . oops . . . DeMarcus Ware.  But then it happens, like in the wildcard game in Tejas Stadium last January, and in the fourth quarter, the Giants put together a 14 play, eight minute drive for 85 yards and a TD, making it Giants 20 Dallas 15.  Dallas gets the ball back on its 25 yard line and with a dazzling series of 3.5 yard pass completions by Brad Johnson, moves the ball to three first downs and the Giants’ 44 yard line.  Following a short route completion on first down for only 3 yards rather than 3.5 yards, a Marion Barber 3 yard run on second down, and another 3 yard completion on third down, the Pokes face 4th and 1 on the Giants’ 35 yard line.  Everyone bunches up close to defense a two tight end set, but a lighting play action fake to Barber draws everyone to the middle, and T.O. breaks into the clear six yards downfield, five yards beyond the deepest secondary player, and Brad uncorks a herculean effort and throws it 11 yards down field to a long gone T.O., and the Pokes pull it out, 22 - 20.  Easy as pie.

I received notice in October, 1974, that I passed the bar exam and was licensed to practice law in the Lone Star State.  No, really, I’m not kidding you.  Yes, I did pass the bar exam ~ all that stuff about a law degree from an ad on a matchbook cover was just a baseless rumor.

Well, today I received and read the Texas Bar Journal, and I’m happy to report that for the 408th consecutive month since October of 1974, I’ve not been listed in the section that names disbarred lawyers and describes the snarky conduct that led to their disbarment.

Thus, we have further proof that if one sets his/her sights low enough, s/he can reach his/her goals!