07. February 2005 · Comments Off on Robot Warriors · Categories: General

When stories about battlefield robots move from the technical and military journals to the business pages, you know real-life application is right on the horizon. I give you this from Forbes:

And although none are able to fire weapons on their own, automated or remote-controlled machines are sniffing out mines, defusing explosives and watching for signs of danger. Soon some of them will also be carrying weapons. In 2005, autonomous planes alone could represent a $2 billion market, according to the Steve Zaloga, an analyst at The Teal Group. Roboticists, who have long toiled mainly in academia, are eager to see their creations put to use. And companies such as Lockheed Martin (nyse: LMT – news – people ) and Boeing (nyse: BA – news – people ) are trying to roll out products quickly.

“This technology has been in the research lab way, way, way too long,” says Helen Greiner, chief executive of Cambridge, Mass.-based iRobot. Her company makes the Roomba, a robot vacuum cleaner, but it has also already developed two robots for the battlefield.

“This isn’t fantasy, and it’s not cartoons,” says Don Nimblett, manager of business development for unmanned systems at Lockheed. “We’ve really done this stuff.”

I believe a brigade of robotic sentries would have been quite handy in Iraq, to safeguard weapons caches and surrendered troops, left behind in the rush to Baghdad.

07. February 2005 · Comments Off on Failures Of The Armed Pilots Program · Categories: Home Front

This email to Glenn Reynolds, from a person identified only as “a reader from the Hill,” is quite disturbing:

The opposition at TSA is much stronger than indicated by TIME. TSA has set up so many roadblocks for this program and even sent an email to pilots more than a year ago threatening them to stop complaining to Congress. Some of the highlights: They setup only one training site in the entire US, forcing pilots to take leave and pay their own way to get there. Rules in place require pilots to put their guns in lockboxes (even though Air Marshalls can carry them on their person) and force them to check them as regular baggage when they are not piloting a flight, leading to hundreds of lost guns at baggage claim. Also, pilots who sign up for the program (80% of whom are former military or law enforcement) must complete an intrusive psychological exam, on top of the one they take to be a commercial pilot. If the pilots fail the exam, the results can be given to their employer, but the pilots are not allowed to see them. The original number of pilots that signed up for the program was in the tens of thousands, but most dropped out after seeing all the hurdles and hassle that TSA has thrown up…

This is typical. The idea of empowering anyone not on the government payroll is anathema to the bureaucratic mindset.

06. February 2005 · Comments Off on Conservation As A Foreign Policy Tool · Categories: Politics, World

Arnold Kling comments in this TCS article on the falicy of attempting to cut back on oil consumption to effect the politics of nations such as Saudi Arabia:

Energy conservation sounds like a painless way to lower the Saudis’ income. Who could be against conservation?

The point to keep in mind is that any oil conservation program will do two things. First, it will reduce our ratio of oil consumption to Gross Domestic Product (GDP, the total value of goods and services produced each year). Second, oil conservation will reduce GDP. The reason it will reduce GDP is that we will have to substitute other factors of production, including labor, capital, and more costly forms of energy, in order to conserve on oil.

I have received emails suggesting that the United States should aim for a 10 percent reduction in its energy consumption, because this would cause a significant drop in the price of oil. But how much would this reduce our GDP? Perhaps by as much as 10 percent. Even if it only were to reduce our GDP by 5 percent, that would be $500 billion. If your goal is to change the foreign policy of Saudi Arabia, my guess is that there are ways of doing so that would cost less than $500 billion.

The reality is that energy conservation is a feeble tool for foreign policy. Significant conservation could be very costly to our own country. It might have only a small effect on Saudi oil revenue. It is not at all clear that a drop in Saudi oil revenue would bring about favorable changes in their policies toward terrorism

Read the whole thing. The politico-economics of oil is a very complex matter. I might also add to Kling’s excellent work that it’s falicy to increase domestic oil production (perticularly if subsidies are involved) to reduce “dependence” on foreign oil. If we are going to be using up the world’s oil reserves, doesn’t it make more sense to be using up their’s than our’s?

05. February 2005 · Comments Off on Gawd, I Love Austin City Limits · Categories: That's Entertainment!

Where else on televison are you going to see a bunch of white folks in cowboy hats rockin’ out to an R&B act? Of course, where else on television are you going to see something as original and hot as Robert Randolph and the Family Band?

Even on Pay-Per-View, there’s no better musical entertainment on TV.

05. February 2005 · Comments Off on My Favorite Drinking Song · Categories: General Nonsense

It seemed like, back in the ’70s, at least a few souls in any neighborhood tavern knew a few verses for this favorite ditty. Now, it seems to be a total novelty. In fact, I rarely hear bar patrons singing at all anymore, unless it’s (gasp!) karaoke. So, I call for a revival! Ladies and gentleman, I give you…

The Song of the Temperance Union

We’re coming, we’re coming, our brave little band
On the right side of temp’rance we do take our stand.
We don’t use tobacco, because we do think
That the people who use it are likely to drink

Away, away, with rum, by gum,
Rum by gum, rum by gum
Away, away, with rum, by gum,
The song of the Temperance Union.

We never eat fruitcake because it has rum,
And one little slice puts a man on the bum.
Oh, can you imagine the pitiful plight
Of a man eating fruitcake until he gets tight?

A man who eats fruitcake lives a terrible life.
He’s mean to his children and beats on his wife.
A man who eats fruitcake dies a terrible death,
With the odor of raisins and rum on his breath!

We never eat cookies because they have yeast,
And one little bite turns a man to a beast.
Oh, can you imagine the utter disgrace
Of a man in the gutter with crumbs on his face?

We never drink water — they put it in gin,
And one little sip and a man starts to grin.
Oh, can you imagine a sorrier sight
Than a man drinking water and singing all night?

There are more verses on the site. And I’m sure there are many more. If you know any others, feel free to post them.

05. February 2005 · Comments Off on In Mosul, They Learn To Do The Perp-Walk · Categories: Iraq

Authorities in Mosul, in the battle for the hearts and minds of the people, has begun airing video of captured therrorists:


The police in Mosul say Abdel-Qadir Mahmoud slit
a man’s throat for a video used to promote the insurgency.
Now he is in captivity, and the police hope their video
of him as a cowering prisoner will help catch killers.
(picture: Warzer Jaff For The New York Times)

Of course, there are some naysayers:

The broadcast of such videos raises questions about whether they violate legal or treaty obligations about the way opposing fighters are interrogated and how their confessions are made public.

What “treaty obligations”? If this were something done by American officials, that might be an issue. But this seems like an internal Iraqi thing to me.

If anyone finds a link to the entire video, please pass it on.

05. February 2005 · Comments Off on Uncharted Territory In License Plate Land · Categories: General, Politics

Fresh on the heels of the “Choose Life” license plate to-do, we now have the State of Virginia moving towards creating a “Traditional Marriage” license plate:

The Washington Times’ Christina Bellantoni reported that “Delegate Robert H. Brink said the marriage plate bordered on ‘uncharted territory in license plate land’ and does a ‘grave disservice’ to marriage.

“’Putting marriage in the same class as license plates for Holstein cows, Parrotheads and Harley-Davidson owners … cheapens and trivializes marriage,’ the Arlington Democrat said. ‘Using marriage as a political football is just wrong and that’s what we’re doing today.’”

I have heard many say that the government shouldn’t be involved in producing political messages – I agree.

But here’s something I haven’t heard yet: Why should government have a monopoly on the production of license plates? Stickers showing that fees have been paid is one thing; but why the entire plate? States should produce specifications (the “three-Fs”; form, fit, function) for acceptable plates, which I’m sure they all have as internal documents. And they should issue the number that is to be put on the plate. Then, the vehicle owner should be free to purchase the actual plates themselves from whomever they wish.

Then, if some yahoo wants a plate that says “Proud Member of NAMBLA“, it’s none of the government’s business.

04. February 2005 · Comments Off on Taking Sides In The Larry Summers “Sexism” Affair · Categories: Science!

TNR’s Martin Peretz is on Summers’ side:

No one serious has called Summers a sexist. (Not even Nancy Hopkins, a professor of biology at MIT, who said that, if she hadn’t walked out, she would have fainted or barfed.) Which is appropriate, since sexism had nothing to do with his controversial statements. What led him to wonder whether there might be small genetic variations between men and women in quantitative capacity, I suspect, was his genuine surprise that women have not risen in the fields of physics, engineering, and mathematics as fast as he thinks they could and should. He isn’t in the least bit oblivious to the lingering prejudices against women in the academy. (After all, his mother is a retired professor of public policy at the Wharton School of Business and his “significant other,” Elisa New, is a professor of English at Harvard and a valued contributor to THE NEW REPUBLIC.)

Summers’s “problem” is that he submits every argument with a grain of evidence behind it to serious and scrupulous scrutiny. And this scares our supposedly daring academic culture, which lives in fear of what it refuses to know. As yet another of Curie’s biographers suggested, “She had survived because she had made men believe that they were not just dealing with an equal, but with an insensitive equal.” Summers knows that the age of such painful self-denial is gone, and good riddance. Still, the academy is the academy; it is not a community center. Students ought to know more than they do, and it is on Summers’s agenda that they will. No American university has yet truly grasped how the revelations of science touch on history and art, philosophy and poetry, and it is on Summers’s agenda that at least Harvard will try. In all this, he imperils the unexamined orthodoxies of the ensconced. And now, his enemies see a chance to counterattack. Let’s hope they fail and he succeeds.

I take Summers’ side as well. There exists precious little research on the matter. But, as John Stossel shows, what exists suggests strongly that, over the general population, there are indeed congenital cognative differences between the sexes:

Some scientists have already done research on gender differences. There was a study at the University of Rochester in New York, for example, where men and women were blindfolded and guided through tunnels under the campus. They were then asked to say where a particular building was. Men typically gave directions. Women typically couldn’t.

For a study at York University in Toronto, Ont., students were asked to wait in a cluttered room and then were asked elsewhere about its contents. Women typically gave detailed answers. Men typically couldn’t.

Even newborn boys and girls behave differently. June Reinisch, a psychologist and former director of the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, says differences can be seen even in the first 72 hours of life: “Males startle more than females. If you give a little puff of air on their abdomen, they startle much bigger and (are) much more likely to startle than females, and females rhythmically mouth, they suck on their tongues, they move their lips and so forth, more than males do.” Is anyone going to tell me that 3-day-old infants have already been taught to conform to society’s preconceived gender roles?

But so little research exists because, since the “women’s movement”, the very consideration of such a proposition has been taboo.

03. February 2005 · Comments Off on Here’s An Idea… · Categories: General

Why not actually give those Treasury Bonds, which are supposedly purchased by the Social Security Trust Fund, to those who pay in?

Seems like a simple compromise to me.

03. February 2005 · Comments Off on 1861 Revisited: How Lincoln Lied · Categories: History

After the minor firestorm set off by my last post, particularly the most recent commenter, who said, to paraphrase, “it happened, get over it.” Well, to that commenter, I must say “those who don’t learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.”

I bring to bear this NRO book review, of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America, by Allen C. Guelzo. ( I must confess here that I have not personally read this book, while I am previously familiar with Guelzo’s work).

In any event, as one might gather, who has read Guelzo’s, or several other works, Lincoln was (to his credit) an abolitionist, albeit a “gradual and compensated emancipation” abolitionist. As, frankly, placing myself in the 1860 timeframe, I am as well.

However, he was also a consummate politician (Is there a difference between that and “smooth-talking lawyer?”). So, faced with slave-State secession. And, not having moral standing to couch an abolitionist argument (as several slave States were still loyal, and that slavery is specifically spelled out in the Constitution as a State’s right). So, to effect his grand plan, he must couch his “preservation of the Union” argument in the very fringes of the penumbra of the “Necessary and Proper” clause.

One sees the intellectual dishonesty by simply juxtaposing Lincoln’s 7/4/61 address against the Emancipation Proclamation. Do you see how Lincoln claims emancipation is necessary for “readmission”? But, if secession was an impossibility, how can there be readmission? Infact, the Emancipation Procamation was merely a side-step of the requirement for Constitutional Amendment.

Tell me, how s it “Necessary and Proper” for the Union to be maintained, against secession by the entities which formed it, by force of arms? In fact, history has shown us that nations peacefully devolve as easily as they evolve. It is only when the trauma of warfare is introduced that the people suffer.

So, in his 7/4/61 address, Lincoln must carefully couch his argument, so Congress sees this more as something akin to the suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion, than the invasion of a foreign power. f we juxtapose this against the Emancipation, we se the contradiction in terms: If the South had no right to secede, and were always US states, than there can be no special requirement for “readmission”

As I have intimated before, while it may have been morally correct, Lincoln’s call for war against the South was a sham, and it was totally unconstitutional.

Update: Ho-Hum… I’m still waiting for someone to bring up Texas v. White.

31. January 2005 · Comments Off on I Am So Disappointed! · Categories: General

One of my most-favored blog-peers, Glenn Reynolds, seems to disfavor the Right of Secession. So, I put this to you Glenn, man of Law and Letters, tell us how it is? And please place your argument in pre-1860 terms. Well, perhaps that means you must tell it to us how it was?

The fact is, secession was progressing apace under James Buchanan. It took the Unionist administration, under The Great Traitor, Lincoln, to go intransigent over the inconsequential forts at Charleston and Pensacola.

And then, when his unpopular war was getting politically out-of-hand, he did a very Bush43-esce move, and changed the whole paradigm from preservation of the Union, to emancipation of the slaves.

Of course, I could go deeper, into Lincoln’s unconstitutional suspension of Habeas Corpus (which also ties neatly into today), or his unconstitutional leveling of an income tax. But I think we are in agreement there.

And I might romanticize The Confederacy. But I can’t. We also agree it was a disaster. But, can I deny its right to exist? No!

Update: I was just rereading Lincoln’s July 4, 1861 Address Before the Joint Special Session of Congress. I suggest that anyone not familiar with it give it a read. It very much confirms the notion that Lincoln was indeed a “smooth talking lawyer.”

In it, Lincoln constructs the sophistry that all States, including the original 13, did not exist as sovereign entities prior to the creation of the Union. And that the several States are entities of the Union, in the manner that counties are entities of the States. He even goes so far as to claim that The Republic of Texas was not a “state” – thereby totally contorting the English language. Every sovereign nation is also a state. To give a modern-day example: we use the terms “State of Israel” and “Nation of Israel” interchangeably.

Lincoln relies on the notion which we here in America often condemn our European friends for: that rights emanate from the governing body, and are granted to the governed. This is contrary to the very principle that we Americans hold most dear: that each individual is sovereign unto themselves, and surrender certain limited powers to the States, with the intention of maintaining an orderly society.

Admittedly, the Right of Secession is not specified in the Constitution; it requires a certain amount of penumbral reasoning. But I seem to recall critiquing (favorably) an article by Glenn where he favors the concept of penumbral reasoning. I agree with Antifederalist Patrick Henry; the Preamble should have started with “We the People, of the States of…” Then perhaps Lincoln would not have been able to sow his misconceptions. But the Tenth Amendment, without which the Constitution, and thus the Union, would have never have existed, clearly states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. ”

Further, Lincoln takes on faith the notion that partition of a nation will set of a domino effect leading to total chaos. We know from several latter-day examples that this simply is not the case. I ask, did Ethiopia cease to exist after the creation of Eritrea?

I must further ask, how is it that the dissolution of Yugoslavia was a good thing, and not the dissolution of the United States. Further, I must ask how anyone who supports a war which featured Grant’s Siege of Vicksburg, and Sherman’s March to the Sea, possibly have moral standing to condemn Saddam’s Repression of the Kurds?

31. January 2005 · Comments Off on Does Anyone Know About The Kumars At No 42? · Categories: General

This seems as though it will be an absolute farcical bust-up – somewhat akin to My Talk Show. Any feedback out there?

31. January 2005 · Comments Off on Unscripted · Categories: That's Entertainment!

It doesn’t take long to realize that HBO’s Unscripted is any thing but. However, I don’t know if it’s the past-her-prime, but still too-hot-to-ignore Krista Allen, or the flat-out-adorable up-and-comer Jennifer Hall, or the totally dry wit. But whatever, HBO’s hit new series Unscripted, the most frank look ever at the trials and travails of someone trying to break into “the business” of acting, is the hottest new show of 2005.

31. January 2005 · Comments Off on Where In The [Texas] is Arlen? · Categories: General Nonsense

A bit of mental masturbation here, akin to the now imponderable question, “where in the hell is Springfield?”

We can tell by the clues given on King of the Hill, that it’s in the Texas hill country – north of San Antonio, but west of Dallas. And it’s (egad!) within commuting distance of Houston.

As well, as we see little of governance or university activity, we can be reasonably sure it’s not in the vicinity of Waco or Austin.

So, I repeat: where in the Texas is Arlen?

31. January 2005 · Comments Off on Something I’d Like To See: · Categories: General

50,000 women marching in the streets of Riyadh carrying this as a poster:

Iraq Blue Finger

Hat Tip: The Conglomerate, whose Gordon Smith thinks George Bush should hold a blue finger up at his State of the Union Address on Wednesday.

31. January 2005 · Comments Off on A Flying Wing In 1926? · Categories: History

How about a design for a delta-wing supersonic fighter in 1936? Or a flying submarine? The History Channel’s Secret Russian Aircraft of WWII is a must-see!

30. January 2005 · Comments Off on Bubba For Arnold · Categories: Politics, That's Entertainment!

I’m currently watching A&E’s See Arnold Run. It’s a mediocure docudrama – hardly up to the caliber of the stuff HBO has made part of it’s stock-in-trade. But it did remind me of this, from today’s U.S. News and World Report:

Here’s the long shot of the year: Congressional Democrats will OK a constitutional amendment allowing naturalized citizens like California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president if Republicans help kill the 22nd Amendment barring third terms, thus clearing the way for another bid by Bill Clinton and, presumably, President Bush. Right now it’s the talk among political strategists, but look for it to spread on Capitol Hill when Sen. Orrin Hatch reintroduces his plan to let naturalized citizens run for president after 20 years.

Update: Glenn Reynolds reminds us of the line about a constitutional Amendment back in Demolition Man in 1993. He seems to have a higher opinion of tonight’s pic than I do. Although we agree that Roland Kickinger does a great job as Arnold at 25. Also giving strong performances are Mariel Hemingway as Maria Shriver and Nora Dunn, as Arianna Huffington. Jurgen Prochnow, the great German actor made famous here in America by 1981’s Das Boot, is only so-so as the contemporary Arnold.

29. January 2005 · Comments Off on Arrrrgh! I Missed It! · Categories: That's Entertainment!

You will get more commercial-free, quality movie watching from TCM and FMC (with a smattering of PBS) than all the premium networks put together.

On TCM’s The Essentials this weekend is Hitchcock’s masterpiece (among his many), Spellbound. I will likely watch this, though I’ve seen it dozens of times before.

But I just missed one I’ve long had on my Haven’t Seen, but Must list: The Agony and The Ecstacy – Charlton Heston as Michelanglo, Rex Harrison as Pope Julius II and Diane Cilento as Contessina de Medici. Damn.

29. January 2005 · Comments Off on Any Demolitions Experts Out There? · Categories: Iraq, Media Matters Not

You’ll want to examine these photos at Obsidian Order.

29. January 2005 · Comments Off on Laughing My Ass Off · Categories: General Nonsense

One of the things I really like about Glenn Reynolds is that, besides that he must read about 500 blogs a day, at about 5000 wpm, he has a vast recollection of delightful tidbits from various archives. So a hat tip to him for this little piece of hilarity from Larry Niven, Man of Steel – Woman of Kleenex:

Be not deceived by appearances. Superman is no relative to homo sapiens.

What arouses Kal-El’s mating urge? Did kryptonian women carry some subtle mating cue at appropriate times of the year? Whatever it is, Lois Lane probably didn’t have it. We may speculate that she smells wrong, less like a kryptonian woman than like a terrestrial monkey. A mating between Superman and Lois Lane would feel like sodomy-and would be, of course, by church and common law.

29. January 2005 · Comments Off on We Absolutely Agree · Categories: Iraq

I don’t think we could have said it better here (apart from the wisdom of this conflict remark), so I’ll just quote DarkSyd:

Despite my personal misgivings about the wisdom of this conflict, I freely profess pride, and extend my best wishes to the hundreds of thousands of US Service People and Iraqi Citizens, whose sacrifice made this day possible. A sacrifice all too frequently paid for in the currency of cherished blood and unimaginable grief. UTI is hopeful for the best, even while bracing for the worst.

I’d like to ask a favor: Regardless of one’s political inclination, irrespective of your confidence in the electoral process employed, or the decision to invade and occupy Iraq, no matter what the outcome, let us all stand united in our admiration for those courageous Iraqi’s who will brave gunfire, RPGs, bombs, and reprisal, to determine their own fate? For they choose to do so in bold defiance of promised violence and certain intimidation.

I’d like to add that I’m a bit annoyed by all the polls and pundits concerned with American opinions about the “legitimacy” of this first Iraqi election. Our opinion matters not one wit here; the legitimacy of this election will be determined strictly by whether or not the Iraqi people accept it as legitimate. On that, I have great confidence.

28. January 2005 · Comments Off on Proliferation Of Counterfeiting · Categories: General, World

It seems that product counterfeiting has become quite rampant. Might we consider this to be a matter of vital national interest?

The scale of the threat is prompting new efforts by multinationals to stop, or at least curb, the spread of counterfeits. Companies are deploying detectives around the globe in greater force than ever, pressuring governments from Beijing to Brasília to crack down, and trying everything from electronic tagging to redesigned products to aggressive pricing in order to thwart the counterfeiters. Even some Chinese companies, stung by fakes themselves, are getting into the act. “Once Chinese companies start to sue other Chinese companies, the situation will become more balanced,” says Stephen Vickers, chief executive of International Risk, a Hong Kong-based brand-protection consultant.

China is key to any solution. Since the country is an economic gorilla, its counterfeiting is turning into quite the beast as well — accounting for nearly two-thirds of all the fake and pirated goods worldwide. Daimler’s Glatz figures phony Daimler parts — from fenders to engine blocks — have grabbed 30% of the market in China, Taiwan, and Korea. And Chinese counterfeiters make millions of motorcycles a year, with knockoffs of Honda’s (HMC ) workhorse CG125 — selling for about $300, or less than half the cost of a real Honda — especially popular. It’s tales like this that prompt some trade hawks in the U.S. to call for a World Trade Organization action against China related to counterfeits and intellectual-property rights violations in general. Such pressure is beginning to have some effect. “The Chinese government is starting to take things more seriously because of the unprecedented uniform shouting coming from the U.S., Europe, and Japan,” says Joseph Simone, a lawyer specializing in IPR issues at Baker & McKenzie in Hong Kong.

28. January 2005 · Comments Off on Sorry, Ms Rimes · Categories: General, That's Entertainment!

I have just listened to (again) country music superstar Leann Rimes, on FNC’s Hannity & Colmes. Man – she is a lovely young woman. Her voice is pitch-perfect. And she has incredible range.

But, that said, her voice is also incredibly sterile (particularly for a country artist). She lacks any sort of depth or nuance. For the same reasons I find Judy Garland to be the greatest recorded female vocalist ever (followed closely by Sarah Vaughn), I find Leann to be an also-ran.

28. January 2005 · Comments Off on What A F__king Mess! · Categories: General

I have just visited, again, Fox News Channel’s website. Gawd, what an imponderable mess! I have accessed so many Fox News articles via Google, which I might never have found via their own website, that I have lost count!

So, just now, I want to send an email to Neil Cavuto. Will somebody please tell me how?

27. January 2005 · Comments Off on Help, Police – Wallet Assult! · Categories: General, That's Entertainment!

One of my favorite DVDs is Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Now I find there is a special 25th anniversery edition out. And the price: almost $25! Well, no In-N-Out Double-Doubles for the next three months for me. 🙁

27. January 2005 · Comments Off on Sushi American Style · Categories: General, That's Entertainment!

On tonight’s episode of CNBC’s Dennis Miller, I watched Tracy Griffith, author of Sushi American Style, make “BLT rolls”. They were spears of romaine lettuce, half-slices of salad tomatoes, and bacon strips, rolled in steamed rice. Yum-yum!

27. January 2005 · Comments Off on Gawd, I want HDTV · Categories: General

I’m actually looking forward to next weekend’s Superbowl. The Eagles-Pats matchup looks like a good one. But, somehow, I feel deprived:

Forbes.com asked people at Best Buy (nasdaq: BBY – news – people ), Tweeter (nasdaq: TWTR – news – people ) and Harvey Electronics (nasdaq: HRVE – news – people ) to put together complete home theater systems for football fans in a range of prices–from around $2,700 to more than $100,000–scaled to your needs.

“Oh lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz.”