I’m kidding! Although after the way Washington anointed Robert Griffin last year with a rookie season that doubled as a Hall of Fame induction ceremony, it’s kind of awesome to watch the balloon burst.

Here’s a question, though: If the Skins were hell-bent on trading up to get Griffin at #2, based essentially on one great year, a very, very good set of workouts, and a host of physical talent, what would it have taken for them to move up to #1 to have gotten Andrew Luck?

I assume that Luck must have been gettable for some price. (Though maybe that assumption is faulty.) But remember that Luck came out of Stanford with the highest grade of any quarterback prospect since John Elway. Nothing in life is a sure thing, but Luck was as close to it as any quarterback really gets.

So the three questions are:

(1) What would the extra price have been to move from Griffin to Luck?

(2) Would that price have been worth it on draft day?

(3) With the benefit of hindsight, would it have been worth it today?

In this week’s edition of the Standard’s newsletter, I open by joking that now that Obamacare is imploding, Democrats have Republicans right where they want them. 

This morning, Salon’s Brian Buetler writes: “The Right’s in a Box: Here’s how the GOP loses the Obamacare fight.”

It’s a moon-phase calendar. From the great Tyler Stout. And the moons glow in the dark!

You’d be crazy not to buy it.

Galley Friend Mike Russell just reposted the old Firefly-Serenity comics short we did together a few year’s ago. His art and Bill Mudron’s awesome colors look better than ever.

I’ve been pretty AWOL while traveling and writing a bunch. One partial excuse: This long-ish piece on FEMA and Ocean Grove, NJ.

Sheriff’s deputies in New Mexico pull over a man for rolling through a stop sign on the way out of a Wal-Mart. They ask him to get out of the car and decide that he is “clenching his buttocks” and must be muling drug. Then it gets medieval:

While officers detained Eckert, they secured a search warrant from a judge that allowed for an anal cavity search.

The lawsuit claims that Deming Police tried taking Eckert to an emergency room in Deming, but a doctor there refused to perform the anal cavity search citing it was “unethical.”

But physicians at the Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City agreed to perform the procedure and a few hours later, Eckert was admitted.

While there, Eckert was subjected to repeated and humiliating forced medical procedures.  A review of Eckert’s medical records, which he released to KOB, and details in the lawsuit show the following happened:

1. Eckert’s abdominal area was x-rayed; no narcotics were found.

2. Doctors then performed an exam of Eckert’s anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.

3. Doctors performed a second exam of Eckert’s anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.

4. Doctors penetrated Eckert’s anus to insert an enema.  Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers.  Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool.  No narcotics were found.

5. Doctors penetrated Eckert’s anus to insert an enema a second time.  Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers.  Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool.  No narcotics were found.

6. Doctors penetrated Eckert’s anus to insert an enema a third time.  Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers.  Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool.  No narcotics were found.

7. Doctors then x-rayed Eckert again; no narcotics were found.

8. Doctors prepared Eckert for surgery, sedated him, and then performed a colonoscopy where a scope with a camera was inserted into Eckert’s anus, rectum, colon, and large intestines.  No narcotics were found.

Throughout this ordeal, Eckert protested and never gave doctors at the Gila Regional Medical Center consent to perform any of these medical procedures.

With Kirsten Powers. Now, more than ever.

Run, don’t walk, to read it.

When she eventually goes the rest of the way to Rome–as she clearly will–it’s going to be awesome.

Go here.

In the first clip, you’ll see the wipe-out which, by any reasonable standard, should have killed surfer Maya Gabeira in Portugal. Then go to the second video, of Carlos Burle rescuing her. Stay in there until the 1:15 mark, where, after failing to get her to grab onto the Sea-doo a couple times, he jumps off the sled, grabs onto her, and lets the ghost-sled pull them in to shore.

If this was in a movie, we wouldn’t believe it.