President Obama invoked the words “playoff system” Thursday when the Florida Gators, college football’s national champions the past three seasons, visited the White House.

The president spent eight minutes congratulating the Gators, mentioning several players by name. Near the end of his remarks, as he has done before, Obama again called for a playoff system:

“I don’t want to stir up controversy.  You guys are the national champions — I’m not backing off the fact we need a playoff system.  But I have every confidence that you guys could have beat anybody else.  And so we’ll see how that plays itself out.”

After what surely must have been an awkward pause, Obama added: “I noticed they got all quiet after that.”

According to the White House transcript, that was followed by laughter.

Apparently there was a bit of controversy stirred up by Obamas ‘playoff’ comment as sports announcers on ESPN and other places seemed to feel that Mr. Obama has more pressing matters and that he should keep out of the business of college football.  There has been talk of Congress getting involved, at the encouragement of President Obama, in forcing the hand of college football to develop some sort of playoff system.

While I personally would love to see a playoff, I absolutely agree with the guys at ESPN that Mr. Obama has bigger fish to fry and he needs to stick to things that matter a lot more than college football… like people’s livelihoods, their homes, and the safety of American troops deployed around the world.

Obama recognized Tebow by specifically mentioning him during the brief visit.  (I really wish Tebow could hang with Obama for a day or two, maybe Obama could benefit from having a little bit of Tebow in his life…)

Obama called Tim Tebow, the Gators’ quarterback, an inspiration for many people. Tebow is a Heisman Trophy winner who speaks openly about his Christian faith.

“He puts faith, family and academics above football. And that’s incredible when you think about what he’s done on the field,” Obama said.

Tebow said in an interview after the ceremony that he appreciated the president’s remarks.

At Saddleback Barack Obama learned this: If you want to be president in the U.S., nothing on God’s green earth is ever above your pay grade.

Source: Wall Street Journal Editorial

Well, it appears the effort to improve the image of junk mailers is in full swing, and guess who’s helping out… the U.S. Postal Service.

The United States Postal Service is on the case, too. It has taken out a trademark on the term “environMAIList” to refer to marketers that adopt greener mail practices and try to make direct marketing more eco-friendly.

On its Web site — right after it notes that every dollar spent on direct mail returns almost $12 in sales — the Postal Service now lists green tips for marketers, like letting people easily opt out of mailings, using water-based inks and recycled materials, and encouraging customers to recycle the mailing after reading it.

In May, the Postal Service mailed — on recycled paper, of course — general tips on greening up direct mail to about 100,000 companies. Those who send back a card asking for more information will get an organic cotton T-shirt and a handbook giving more detail on how to adopt greener practices.

The Postal Service has also been sending press kits to reporters to spur coverage of its green push. Part of the pitch says: “Although direct-mail accounts for only 2.4 percent of landfill waste, many opportunities are available to lessen its environmental impact even more.”

Both the post office and the Green Marketing Coalition have stopped short of setting concrete goals. The coalition’s guidelines, listed at greenmarketingcoalition.com, do not specify any measurable milestones or target dates for action.

Shouldn’t the USPS be serving the citizens of America, who by-and-large hate junk mail as much as I do, instead of working to keep the junk mailers in business?

If they really were concerned about the environment, they’d stop the FLOOD of junk mail that fills mailboxes across America every day!

Now that I’m back in Asia, I’m no longer getting the junk mail that I was getting while living in Arlington, Texas (Dad is getting it, and sifting through it looking for anything REAL, for me!  Thanks Dad!) However, I still am concerned about this but I have no idea what can be done to fight this.

Any ideas?

Tell me again how horrible the US economy is?

U.S. sales of video game hardware and software rose 53 percent in June from a year ago

PlayStation 3 console sales jumped 94 percent from the prior month. U.S. consumers bought 405,500 PlayStation 3 consoles in June, up from 208,700 consoles in May.

Nintendo Co Ltd sold 660,000 Wii consoles during June, a slight decrease from the 675,100 Wiis sold the month before. But the Wii’s solid sales have secured its spot as the best-selling video game console in the U.S. of the current generation of machines. The console has sold 10.9 million units since its November 2006 release.

Microsoft Corp sold 219,800 Xbox 360 consoles, a 17.8 percent increase from May.

For the first half of 2008, the U.S. video game industry has generated $8.3 billion in sales. This is a 36 percent increase in sales from the same period a year before.

Do you realize that one of these consoles costs more money than most people in the world will see all year? (PlayStation 3 = $500; Nintendo Wii = $577; Xbox 360 = $449)  It makes me sick every time someone in the US complains about hard economic times… Perspective people, let’s get some!

Many left leaning environmentalist don’t like to admit the fact that our earth is pretty resilient!  Way to go God!

Half a century after the atomic blasts that devastated Bikini Atoll, vast expanses of corals in the area seem to be flourishing once again, much to the surprise of scientists.

American government scientists detonated a hydrogen bomb on the tiny island (a part of the Marshall Islands in the western Pacific) on March 1, 1954, and about 20 other nuclear tests were carried out on the atoll between 1946 and 1958.

The massive explosion vaporized everything on three islands in the atoll, raised water temperatures to 55,000 degrees and left a crater that was 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) wide and 240 feet (73 meters) deep.

A team of scientists recently led a diving expedition into Bravo Crater and found an unexpectedly thriving coral community.

“I didn’t know what to expect — some kind of moonscape perhaps. But it was incredible, huge matrices of branching Porites coral (up to 8 meters [25 feet] high) had established, creating a thriving coral reef habitat,” said study team member Zoe Richards of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University.

Source:  Fox News

Okay, there’s a bit of a ‘buzz’ going around about Vice President Dick Cheney and a photo on the White House’s website.  The photo, taken by David Bohrer, is posted with a caption that says “Cheney is fly-fishing on the Snake River in Idaho.”

Seems innocent enough… but it’s what some people see in the reflection of his sunglasses that has everyone talking.

Some on the Internet and cable news shows (Fox News, CNN) believe the vice president is looking at a naked woman.  Do you see it?

Some here at SteveWebel.com think people are looking a little too hard at reflections in sunglasses…  

So what is the image?  ”A hand casting a fishing rod,” according the the Vice President’s spokeswoman Meagan Mitchell.

The words “Dick Cheney, Sunglasses” were the No. 1 searched terms on Google today.

It is amazing though just HOW MUCH junk mail ends up in our mailbox!  It’s hard to believe that in our day-in-age of ‘Environmental Awareness’ and over all disdain for rude marketing (SPAM, Phone Calls at Dinner Time, Mountains of Junk Mail) that the US POST OFFICE and our Federal Government Representatives are promoting MORE junk mail, not less!

A recent article in the Washington Post highlights the problem.  Here are some excerpts from the story;

Chris Pearson, a state legislator in Vermont, had a sense that the people were with him when he proposed a bill last November to allow residents to block junk mail.

Then came the pushback from the postmasters, who told Pearson and other lawmakers that “standard” mail, the post office’s name for junk mail, has become the lifeblood of the U.S. Postal Service and that jobs depend on it.

Barred by law from lobbying, the Postal Service is nonetheless trying to make its case before a growing number of state legislatures that are weighing bills to create Do Not Mail registries, which are similar to the popular National Do Not Call Registry.

The Postal Service is working closely with the Direct Marketing Association, the trade group that represents retailers and the printing industry, in its new campaign — Mail Moves America — which is designed to quash the Do Not Mail initiatives.

So far in the 2008 campaign cycle, the Direct Marketing Association has made $141,877 in contributions to federal candidates, including $6,610 to Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), who chairs the subcommittee that oversees the Postal Service and does not face reelection until 2012.

Perhaps surprisingly, environmental groups — whose members say they are concerned about junk mail — are cool to the idea of a registry that prohibits marketers from sending mail to those enrolled and that fines violators.

One reason may be that most environmental groups are themselves junk mailers. They use standard mail for their solicitation letters.

Postal officials say they are aware of the environmental concerns related to junk mail. In testimony on Capitol Hill last week, Postmaster General John E. Potter told lawmakers that the Postal Service has one answer: Recycling bins positioned beneath personal mailboxes at post offices, to catch junk mail as it tumbles out.

So, which are you, a junk-mail lover or hater?

In addition to a phone call from Chuck Norris, he received a letter from President George W. Bush  on December 9th;

Dear Tim,

Congratulations on winning the Heisman Trophy. More importantly, I appreciate your priorities as stated in your speech! Faith, family, academics and sport. If your mission was to allow the Almighty to shine brightly, it worked. I appreciate the love and pride that your parents obviously felt last night. Please give them my best.

Sincerely, George Bush

BTW, it was a handwritten note, not something done by some aide.