Election return information showed the similarities between some people in the political world and some people in the sports world.

Dan Rather is Joe Paterno, Larry King is Lee Corso, John Edwards is Rick Neuheisel, Karl Rove is Bill Belichick, Jeff Greenfield is Hubie Brown (in his days of TV brilliance), John Kerry is Drew Bledsoe, Dick Cheney is Don Zimmer.

George W. Bush is John Stockton. He doesn’t look like he can do it. But then you look at the scoreboard and…

When Al “Basketball” Michaels had Kelly Ripa (Kelly Ripa?!?!?!) in the booth during Monday Night football and talked about his appearance on her show with Regis how badly did you want something dramatic and historic to happen so ABC’s shameless hucksterism would be noted? Same thing when Fox was interviewing that “Leon” character from Budweiser commercials. The ads are great, but don’t interrupt the play-by-play, please. It’s the World Series for God’s sake, let’s make different decisions than Terry Bradshaw would. Speaking of Fox, if Curt Menifee and Kenny Albert wrote a book on restaurants to visit on the road, it would unquestionably be worth buying.

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In Ely, Nevada Robert Swetich and Raymond Urrizaga agreed to draw cards to resolve the deadlocked White Pine County Commission race. After being tied with 1,847 votes each, Nevada law called for the drawing of lots using cards or a coin flip to settle the race. Urrizaga drew a queen of clubs. Swetich then drew a seven of diamonds and offered his congratulations to the winner.

What a civilized place is Nevada.

Here’s a college football look for you. Bobby Ross should certainly be right up there with Mike Price for national coach of the year honors. Despite an awful defense that allows 35.5 points and well over 500 yards per game, Ross has Army playing hard and believing, which is more than half the battle. The Cadets started the season miserably, with a 0-3 mark (brining them to 1-27 since the start of 2002). After getting blitzkreiged by Connecticut, Ross apologized to the entire Army community for the play of his team and their lack of effort. That tongue-lashing galvanized his team and the Black Knights shot out to a 17-0 lead over TCU before blowing it in a 21-17 loss. Before a loss at East Carolina on Saturday they notched wins as a big underdog over Cincinnati and South Florida. They’ve covered 3 of their last 4 games with those covers being by a combined 70 points.

The loss to East Carolina may have had a lookahead to this game as a factor. The Black Knights have lost to Air Force by 28, 19, and 10 the past three years and in this inter-service rivalry, nobody on the Hudson wants to lose to Air Force for their entire career. The Flyboys are seen as spoiled and pampered by those living the Spartan lifestyle at West Point (Army and Navy respect each other much more than Air Force cadets) and there is great motivation, with crowd support to match. And while Army is improved, Air Force is down a notch. This flock of Falcons is off a blowout loss at Wyoming and are only 2-5 against 1-A opposition. Army can match up here and the supremely motivated Cadets pull the upset over the Flyboys.

Hmmmmm. I wonder what’s cooking at www.vegas5.com this weekend?

In the NFL, let’s take a look at total. Both New Orleans and San Diego figure to be able to run the ball on Sunday, especially the Chargers. That’ll keep the clock running and lead to fewer plays, fewer mistakes, and fewer points. Look under this high total.

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