The Peanut Gallery mixes sports and politics!!

Its the most wonderful time of the year! No, not christmas, even better. The NFL regular season is underway and The Greg One has lots of thoughts on the subject. Starting locally, Matt Leinart was a waste of space and the Cardinals brass were right in letting him go. Leinart had been in the system four years, had the playbook in hand four years, sat at the learning tree of Kurt Warner for three years and when he finally had the chance to take over the team he flamed like USC did in the 2006 National Championship. If you lose a quarterback competition to Derek Anderson you don't deserve to play! Now Leinart will be the third string quarterback in Houston. He won't even have to put on a uniform. You may as well stand him next to the Gatorade so he can have something to do. Don't worry Matt, the Raiders will come calling soon enough. The Raiders are where careers go to die. Ask Warren Sapp. Ask Jerry Rice. Ask Randy Moss. Ask Darren McFadden. Considering your career died after you left USC, you'll fit right in.

So the Cardinals made the right choice. The bad news is their new stating quarterback is Derek Anderson. Derek Anderson couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat. He did all he could to give the game to the Rams and almost succeeded. Anybody who can routinely overthrow Larry Fitzgerald deserves special recognition because that is hard to do. The Cardinals are doomed to finish 8-8 this season and the only reason it won't be worse is because Anderson will lose his starting spot to Max Hall sometime this season.

And now ladies and gentlemen, let's have a moment of silence for Jamarcus Russell. The Raiders weakened on their Committment to Excrement and let Russell go. We, the Charger superfans, are sad to see Jamarcus go. He gave (fumbles) with both hands. He threw more picks than a NBA guard. He replaced the Chargers own Ryan Leaf as the biggest disgrace in NFL history. We salute you Jamarcus Russell, a man dumb enough to go down for possession of a codeine cocktail called 'Purple Drank'. (You know you're on the C list when you can't even score real drugs!) You're the only man out there who could make Ricky Williams look like Jim Brown in comparison. You will be missed. Rust in peace.

Its five p.m. on September 16th and the Raiders are still our bitches...

The Greg One has already placed a hex on the Minnesota Vikings. For those of you who missed it, when Ladainian Tomlinson went on his free agent tour his first stop was Minnesota. He went on ESPN and voiced his desire to play in the same backfield with Brett Favre. Favre wouldn't give LT confirmation he would come back. HELLEN KELLER COULD SEE HE WAS COMING BACK!! As a result, LT became a Jet. He deserves a ring and his best shot outside San Diego would have been the Vikings. Hence the hex. The Vikings will not win a Super Bowl while Brett Favre is the quarterback. So let it be said, so let it be done.

Speaking of the Super Bowl, I did correctly put the New Orleans Saints into the Super Bowl in week three last season. Of course I had them losing to the Chargers in the big game and it should have happened but it didn't. Despite that, i'm going to go back-to-back with the same prediction this year. Chargers will face the Saints in Dallas in February and the Chargers will win 30-24.

More random observations: The Jets and Cowboys are overrated. No way the Cowboys are going to host the Super Bowl. The Jets don't have a quarterback good enough to get them there. The Jets were 9-7 and wouldn't have even made the playoffs had the Colts not decided to gift wrap a game for them last season. The Cowboys are proverbial head cases and they will fail in the playoffs as they always do. Aaron Rodgers is so overrated its not funny. I will take Philip Rivers every day and twice on sunday. Rodgers may be a top five quarterback but he shouldn't be rated ahead of Rivers at this point.

While we're on the subject of San Diego, lets make it a championship double shot. The Greg One says Padres will beat the Rays in the least watched World Series in history. Baseball has issues. The season needs to be cut in half, its no fun to watch on tv, they won't use replay or reverse calls they know are wrong, the players are still juicing and someone needs to take Pete Rose behind the barn and shoot him. Seriously.

Much Peanut Gallery love to Chael Sonnen for his five round beatdown of Anderson Silva. Silva needed someone to beat the wuss out of him. Mission accomplished. Next time don't let him control your wrists!! All hail the future welterweight champion, Chael will win the rematch! Brock Lesnar has replaced Mike Tyson as the true baddest man on the planet after choking out Shane 'One Round' Carwin. I guess there is something to the former WWE susperstar invasion after all...

One last non-sports related rant to grow on. The Greg One is tired of every other commercial on tv or radio beginning with 'In these economic times...' Yes, unemployment is up, the economy sucks and people are suffering. I was one of those masses practically all summer. However, I come with solutions. Three solutions that could turn the economy right side up almost overnight.

1) Legalize Marijuana. A large segment of the population has done it at some point and a large segment of that segment still does it recreationally. Why not make it legal and charge taxes on it? There would be no shortage of demand for it. Sell it out of pharmacies and use a third to further medical research for everything from Alzheimer's to Paranoid schizophrenia. Give another third to the states to cure their deficits and the remaining third to the government. There are too many recreational users crowding jail cells when serious criminals are getting leniency because of that overcrowding. The Greg One does not put anything in his mouth that has to be set on fire (words to live by....) but for those who do they still should not have to go to jail for having something that comes naturally from the earth.

2) Legalize online gambling. Whats the difference between online gambling and playing the lottery? Playing online saves you a trip to the grocery store. Again, a large majority of americans gamble online. Online poker and sports betting is a billion dollar industry and our government foolishly regards this as an evil pursuit. These are the same politicians who bet their goofy state delicacies for college bowl games. The President fills out the NCAA bracket on television! Its all gambling no matter how 'good natured' it is. All the money from this industry is holed up in offshore and international companies unaffected by our legislation. Many of us will make a sports bet sometime this year whether on the Super Bowl, World Series, NBA playoffs or NCAA tournament to name a few. We do it online, we do it with bookies, we participate in pay fantasy leagues. Its all gambling and it would serve the economy well to make it legal and move that billion dollar industry stateside.

3) Legalize prostitution. Its the world's oldest profession. Again, there are people in jail for getting it on with a skank in a back alley somewhere. One very low notch above, strippers prostitute themselves, only they get to do it indoors. If we legalized prostitution we could take the hoes off the streets, get them cleaned up, tested and placed in organized brothels. The brothels would be monitored by the state and pimps would become government employees! The hoes get money, food clothing and shelter. The states get money by the fistful. No more dead hooker crimes, no more wasted jail space and you could pay for sex with your Mastercard! How awesome would that be?!? The Bunny Ranch is the only place that has figured it out! Legal brothels would signal the end of sex scandals because it is a state run, government monitored agency.

Why have these ideas gone ignored for so long? I can't be the first to have put these pieces together. Instead, our leaders want to cure the economic crisis by funneling money into big businesses and waiting for the jobs to trickle out. In the meantime businesses are going bankrupt. There are no more Circuit Cities! Hollywood Video is gone! Payday loans are a thing of the past! Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae went over the edge like Thelma and Louise! While we wait for the trickle down from big business why not use the things we will always partake in even in the midst of the biggest economic catastrophe since The Great Depression? There will always be a need to make money without actually working (gambling). There will always be a need for a release from the pressure of a world beating down on you daily (weed) and no matter what the economic climate there can never be enough sex! These are the keys to quick, almost instantaneous economic recovery. There's no need to get righteous and pan these ideas out of some misguided sense of principal. This country's moral compass broke decades ago while the Kennedy's had their way with Marilyn Monroe. The compass disintegrated the moment we were sent searching for WMD's. Time to do the right thing and give the people what they want! Sex, drugs and a full house on the river!