The Sunday Bottom Ten #8 – March 18, 2018
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

Pass the hemlock. This week’s winners:

1. NCAA
Mitigating Factors: NCAA tournament starts with almost 20 percent of field involved in current bribery scandal make picking bracket almost as repulsive as picking bracket of particularly virulent strains of the clap…Per protocol, players responsible for upsets, heart-stopping finishes receiving $0.00 of billion dollars NCAA will bring in this year.
Stop Us If You’ve Heard This Before: We say this every week: the NCAA, whose daily clinics in being pimp and whore at the same time inspire Congress, IOC, should just go away…Major division college athletics is such a cesspool the only to clean it up is to start over with someone else.

2. Oklahoma Executions
Mitigating Factors: Forward-thinking state, unable to acquire lethal injection drugs, bringing back the gas chamber for executions…Hardly father’s gas chamber, new protocol would use nitrogen gas administered through a mask instead of dropping cyanide into sulfuric acid, despite fact this method is not approved for use on dogs…Oklahoma not only state to consider kicking it old school as Tennessee, Utah looking into bringing back electric chair, firing squad as fave execution method.
Any Last Requests? Given choice of execution method, Sunday B-10 pollsters “pretty sure” they would choose to be shot…We’ve been gassed and that blew, getting electrocuted would really hurt and we’re not entirely sure lethal injection is completely pain free, either.

 3. Trump Cabinet Chaos
Mitigating Factors: With near-constant firings, resignations, Trump White House making final days of Nixon Administration look steadying and unifying by comparison…From ambassadorships to directorships to spots on White House staff sheer number of vacancies would make governing difficult if Trump had long-term vision for country, which he doesn’t.
Brush Up Your Resumes: Sunday B-10 pollsters, interested in public service, new ways to enjoy beef, thinking of putting in for ambassadorship to Mongolia.  

4. Student Gun Control Walkouts
Mitigating Factors: Thousands of students nationwide walk out of class, demanding they be able to attend schools that aren’t shooting galleries…Even Second Amendment supporters should have walked out, too, as  America has mass shootings because America has violent citizens and America has violent citizens because America has a violent government.
Peace Now, Goddammit: America has been at war continuously since 1989…Had America been at peace continuously since 1989 mass shootings would be rare, not the regular occurrences they are now.  

5. Minor League Baseball Extra Innings Rule
Mitigating Factors: Beer league softball rule to speed up extra-inning games approved for use in professional baseball this season…Putting runner on second to start each extra half-inning a great way cheapen game, record books…Sunday B-10 pollsters “pretty sure” this will never – never – be adopted in the big leagues so why bother???…Are long games really that much of a pestilence???
Really Dry, Technical Matter: For those of you keeping score at home, runner on second got there by an error, though error not actually credited to team, merely a way to calculate earned run average.

6. Pennsylvania School Stabbing
Mitigating Factors: More school violence…Sigh…Sadly proves point we’ve made about those hell-bent on causing mayhem doing it regardless of the medium used.
FunFact: The violence will not end until we have an America at peace with itself and that won’t happen until we have an America at peace with the rest of the world…Regular mass violence is price America paying for nearly thirty (30) years of non-stop warfare.

7. Tax Season 2018
Mitigating Factors: Annual journey to hell has Sunday B-10 pollsters thinking it might be better to take sharp stick(s) to eye(s) than suffer through this annual imbroglio…Pollsters pleased to note income well above median household income for US, though gross and net tax rates of 13 and nine percent still more of our money than government is entitled to…Cost of complying with nine million word tax code costs Americans $409 billion every year.
Gaylon For Congress…Vote Early, Vote Often: You know, a flat tax of 5% on individual incomes and not only is more money put back into the American economy, but means our tax form is a single sheet of paper.  

8. St Peter’s Peacocks (0-8)
Mitigating Factors: Peacocks continue to strut stuff, extending losing streak to 47 games to retain Sunday Continental Cup – issued to college baseball team with longest all-division losing streak in NATO…179 point difference between team batting average (.191) and opponents batting average (.369) means something, though Sunday B-10 pollsters “pretty sure” they have no idea what it is.
Take Me Out To The Losing Ballgame: Conference, home and road losing streaks of 24, 23, 26 games also best in major division college baseball…Only team topping any of these streaks are D-III powerhouse Yeshiva University, which has lost best-in-universe 62 straight road games.
Editor’s Note: the Sunday Continental Cup is based on the Continental Cup awarded in the college football Bottom Ten during the fall.

9. US Drone Strikes
Mitigating Factors: March Madness Pentagon-style in full swing, as 2018 totals up to 39 strikes in Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan and Yemen sphere-of-influence…193 deaths, too, with Pentagon officials “pretty sure” almost all of them non-civilian…Zany quartet of nations being attacked despite fact they pose no real threat to American way of life, Congress has not declared war on them…In fact, Congress has not declared war on anyone since War II.
FunFact: Thanks to exciting new BabyAvoid2K technology – sponsored by Pampers – US drone strikes only responsible for one (1) confirmed child kill in 2018.
Drone strike figures source: Bureau of Investigative Journalism

10. American Electorate
Mitigating Factors: We say every week: our country is dying!!!…We’re perpetually at war, we elect leaders that solve nothing and we can’t even build a decent bridge anymore…If voters do not do something right now America will be tossed aside History’s scrap heap before this half-century is out.
FunFact: 2018 midterms excellent opportunity to show rest of world we are fed up with status quo and are demanding better of ourselves and our government.

Thought for the Week: The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them. – George Bernard Shaw

The Sunday Bottom Ten is based on the football Bottom Tens Gaylon writes during football season. It runs on Sundays.

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The Sunday Bottom Ten #7 – March 11, 2018
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

Another rathole week in the books. Let’s dive right in, shall we?

1. NCAA
Mitigating Factors: NCAA President Dave Emmert said this: “…these are college kids playing a game…this is their moment…let’s give them their due”…Yeah, let’s do that so you can continue to whore them out while you pimp yourself to tee vee networks so NCAA revenues continue to top $1 billion…Congress, IOC – noted pimps and whores themselves – have notebooks out because when NCAA is testifying class is in session, baby.
Stop Us If You’ve Heard This Before: The NCAA should just go away…They close up shop on Friday and Saturday the for-profit, publicly traded College Sports America takes over governing major division college sports.

2. US/North Korea Talks
Mitigating Factors: Man-child leaders of once-proud military dictatorship and once-proud beacon of the free world agree to unprecedented talks…Though avoiding of nuclear annihilation expected to top agenda, latest from Twitter feed, fave sneakers of top NBA players also expected to come up for discussion.
Oh, Wait, Look!: Easy to see two men of no particular substance grappling only issue that really matters – avoiding nuclear war – getting distracted by passing clouds, evening’s dessert menu.

3. Mississippi Abortion Law
Mitigating Factors: Legislature of noted state passes law prohibiting abortion after 15 weeks despite fact some girls in rural part of state merely think they’re gaining weight until week 16…Governor expected to sign bill next week as nation eagerly awaits years of lawsuits and appeals.
Gaylon For Congress…Vote Early, Vote Often: Your views on abortion are your lookout, but what free people want their government mandating choices in this matter???…The government must stay out of the abortion debate.

4. Michigan State University Protests
Mitigating Factors: A couple of dozen arrests and some injuries at protest outside of speech given by alt-right wizard who believes whites are superior to others…Speaker was same guy who fueled last summer’s KKK pep rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
FunFact: You know, however you want to ID them – alt-right, white supremacists, the GOP – they make up such a small part of the population it is statistically insignificant…We ignore these people and they probably go away…The more we pay attention to them – like writing about them in half-wit columns like this one – the more you empower them.

5. The Story of Civilization: The Reformation by Will Durant
Mitigating Factors: Latest read for Sunday B-10 pollsters finally finished…We’ve been reading Durant for years and this was meticulous, substantive even by his lofty standards…While not a rollicking historical thrill ride, it does offer rewards if you are patient and willing to put some work in as Durant does usual dutiful job of issuing insights into human experience we expect of our writers.
“The Individual Succumbs, But He Does Not Die If He Leaves Something To Mankind.”: Don’t tell anybody, but we didn’t read the entire book…After Luther and Henry VIII died, we skipped over some parts that didn’t interest us, like effect of Reformation in sub-Saharan Africa and the Antarctic.

6. Florida Gun Control Law
Mitigating Factors: Legislature passes and governor signs half-assed law that is nothing more than political dickhandling…Law provides for a variety of things those truly hell-bent on causing mayhem will ignore, plus dangerous, useless provisions for English Lit teachers, study hall monitors to pack heat…Ink from governor’s signature not even dry before NRA sashays into federal court suing.
More Gaylon For Congress…Vote Early, Vote Often: We have violent citizens because America has been at war daily since 1989…Does anybody really believe mass shootings would be as prevalent if America had been at peace every day since 1989???…Violence is our government’s go-to reaction…It should be no surprise it’s our reaction, too.

7. International Women’s Day
Mitigating Factors: First IWD of #MeToo era sees women basking in glow that 110 years after first IWD #MeToo exposes still necessary…Hollywood producers, still reeling from Weinstein scandal, vow to do more for women, agreeing to exchange casting couch for hotel suite, more nude scenes for babes…President Trump celebrates occasion with light second base action for female staffers.
#PressForProgress: Don’t worry guys, March 9 to March 7 are still International Days of Guys

 8. St Peter’s Peacocks (0-5)
Mitigating Factors: Division I Peacocks retain Sunday Continental Cup – issued to college baseball team with longest all-division losing streak in NAFTA sphere-of-influence – with splendid 0-3 week to extend losing skid to 45 games…Peacocks rank Dead Last of 297 D-I baseball teams in Hits, Runs and Walks Allowed and 290th or worse in a lot of other categories.
FunFact: With .181 team batting average, 12.07 team ERA, Sunday B-10 pollsters “pretty sure” batting average-to-ERA ratio would lead league if Sunday B-10 pollsters were actually smart enough to figure it out, which they’re not.
Editor’s Note: The Sunday Continental Cup is stolen from college football Bottom Ten survey’s Continental Cup – issued to the college football team with the longest all-division losing streak in NATO…Losing streaks are accurate as of bedtime Saturday night.  

9. US Drone Strikes
Mitigating Factors: Totals since 2004 show over 4,700 strikes in Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia killing between 7,000 and 10,000…Special Olympics personnel standing by to present Pentagon with A For Effort Award as almost 85 percent of drone deaths non-civilian.
FunFact: Despite these numbers being deserving of their own war – and despite being Constitutionally mandated to do so – Congress has not declared war on anybody since World War II.
Drone strike, death source: Bureau of Investigative Journalism

10. American Electorate
Mitigating Factors: Once more with feeling: our country is dying!!!…If status quo – i.e. Republicans and Democrats – was going to change anything, like produce a nation at peace or an economy anchored in low taxes and free markets they would have done so by now…They’re not, so if we want these things we must go and get them at the ballot box this November.
FunFact: The only thing standing between us and the government we want looks us in the mirror every morning…We must have the courage to set aside the status quo if we expect good things to happen for our country.

Thought for the Week: If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad of instances and applications? – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

The Sunday Bottom Ten is based on the football Bottom Tens Gaylon writes during football season. It runs on Sundays.

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The Sunday Bottom Ten VI – March 4, 2018
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

Let’s start right in, shall we:

This week’s mess:

1. Steel/Aluminum Tariffs
Mitigating Factors: With recent tariff proposal, current regime forgetting History’s lessons that free trade drives growth, fuels efficiency and promotes innovation…Tariffs on steel and aluminum imports will only stifle all those things, not to mention obliging America to deal with even more ill will than the planet has for us now.
Gaylon For Congress…Vote Early, Vote Often: All any trade restriction does is limit consumer choices and drive up prices…They only benefit those who otherwise cannot/will not compete in a free market.

2. Donald “Rambo” Trump
Mitigating Factors: Sure, Mr President, it’s easy to believe you’d run into a school to confront an active shooter when your only demonstrable talent is drawing attention to yourself…Maybe you could attack them with your Twitter account…You are as delusional as Sunday B-10 pollsters when we tend to think we’re John “Johnny Wad” Holmes.
Stick ‘Em Up: While experience shows you never know how someone will react until the deal actually goes down, and we applaud Mr President’s can-do attitude, we think he would have retreated to an observational position at the nearest mini-mart for emergency hot dog, Pringles requisition.

3. Gun Control Conversation
Mitigating Factors: Though GOP/NRA still farting around on issue, time coming when Americans will demand their government do something…The time has passed to hide behind Second Amendment or merely wanting laws passed merely to say we did something.
We The People: We Americans must decide how much security we want and how much we are willing to give up for it…We must be careful abridging a constitutional right because once one starts to go, others will follow…We must remember that neither criminals nor law-abiding citizens will follow laws that do not reflect the way we actually live…Good luck, America!!!

4. NCAA
Mitigating Factors: The NCAA should just go away…We have only tipped the NCAA bribery scandal iceberg and Sunday B-10 pollsters eagerly looking forward to day when other shoe drops in football, indoor track…The amateur model is no longer workable for major college athletics and NCAA is incapable of governing major division sports, only enabling bribery specialists, crooks, child molesters.
USA! USA: With conference tournaments in progress, annual March Madness institution around the corner, American sports fan(s) heroically ignoring mounting evidence that NCAA is pimp, whore, john at same time as attendance, TeeVee ratings remain strong.

5. Olympics
Mitigating Factors: With fewer and fewer cities interested in hosting Games, perhaps time has come to hold events in same cities every four years…This would obviate single city from building velodromes, natatoriums they’ll never use again and events can be held where there are strong interest, deep historical ties…A similar model can be used for Winter Games.
FunFact: The Opening Ceremonies, as well as some ancient events, can be in Athens, track in London, basketball in America, soccer in South America, et al…When it’s all over the world can gather in Los Angeles for baseball gold medal game, marathon, Closing Ceremonies.

6. US Drone Strikes
Mitigating Factors: Sunday B-10 staple shows another strong week for killing civilians, military alike in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen as total for 2018 up four big attacks to 28 for 2018…139 dead, too, though civilian total remains relatively low…We are drone striking these countries and killing innocent men, women, children despite fact Congress has not declared war against them.
Hot US Constitution Article One, Section 8 Action: The last time Congress declared war was in June 1942 when it declared war on noted zanies Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania.  

7. Nap Time For Stephen Miller
Mitigating Factors: Presidential aide caught napping during school safety conference makes him easy social media fodder…While Sunday B-10 pollsters mindful of seriousness of topic, any meeting featuring President Rambo, nation’s governors bound to bore living hell out of almost anyone, advise the cutting of some slack in the matter.
FunFact: Sunday B-10 pollsters also wondering if conference discussed fact America has mass shootings because we have violent citizens…We have violent citizens because we have a violent American government…If America had been at peace every day since 1989 instead of at war, these things would not be happening on mass scale.

8. St Peter’s Peacocks (0-2)
Mitigating Factors: After running table last season with perfect 0-38 campaign, Peacocks take first spring Sunday Continental Cup – issued to college baseball team with longest all-division losing streak in NATO – with 41-game skid…Peacocks off to 0-2 start this season, already hitting only .235 with 1.375-to-1.000 strikeouts-to-hits ratio…Sunday B-10 pollsters sending shoutout to D-II Lincoln University, which actually has longest current skid, 43 straight games despite not playing since end of 2015-16 season.
Lemon Lime, Tutti-Fruitti, We Are Going To Kick Your Booty: #metoo’ers, other feminists already up in arms over men’s only status of Sunday Continental Cup, pointing out D-III North Central University has lost 45 straight softball games, and 126 of 147 since April 2012.

Editor’s Note: losing streaks accurate as of Saturday night.

9. Jury Duty Anniversary
Mitigating Factors: Nine years back for Sunday B-10 pollsters only known jury service…Still a fond memory…Can recall Dad talking about jury service at kitchen table as kid and always wanting to be on one…Sunday B-10 pollsters “pretty sure” triumphant guilty verdict for DUI, not guilty verdict for causing significant bodily harm still being dissected at leading law school(s), though jury did lose some face with death penalty recommendation.
FunFact: Perhaps because he always sat at head of table, yours truly also elected foreman, backed by a broad-based coalition that included chicks, labor (the stereo installer) and minorities (the black guy).

10. American Electorate
Mitigating Factors: Might as well just cut and paste this every week: our country is dying!!!…Anybody who tells you America can maintain eternal warfare, mindless debt and social divides that are making the 60’s look like something out of Mother Goose is either deluding themselves, trying to delude you or – as likely as not – both.
FunFact: Sunday B-10 pollsters “pretty sure” America will be tossed aside the scrap heap of history before this half-century is out if we don’t start doing something soon.

Thought for the Week: Everyman achieved his own greatness by reaching out beyond himself, and so it is with nations…Only when a nation means something to itself can it mean something to others. – Werner Von Braun

The Sunday Bottom Ten is based on the football Bottom Tens Gaylon writes during football season. It tends to run on Sundays.

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The Sunday Bottom Ten #5 – February 25, 2018
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

Another kidney stone of a week has passed.  This week’s imbroglio:

1. Russian Election Meddling
Mitigating Factors: We got worked up over this???…13 (thirteen) indictments over some mindless, halfwit Facebook, Instagram posts???…Method gaining respect from tactical analysts, who praise Russian ability to lose Trump the popular vote by 2.8 million while managing to win quaint, American quirk known as Electoral College.
FunFact: Pox on America for having type of fractured, bickering society that would allow zany Ruskies to think they could make a difference in the first place…Nobody meddles in our elections without our consent and if we Americans are dumb enough let crap like this influence us, we deserve what we get at the polls.

2. National Gun Control Conversation
Mitigating Factors: With surviving, pissed off teens mobilizing in Florida, GOP comes through in clutch, suggesting arming teachers, leading Sunday B-10 pollsters to chuckle at thought of Mrs Kilby or Miss Fellwock packing heat at Emmaus First Lutheran…Other GOP proposals include return to corporal punishment, increased detention for shooters, not to mention deputized cops that actually enter fray when shooting starts.
FunFact: Time coming when peeved Americans will demand their government do something…While mindful criminals don’t obey laws, Sunday B-10 pollsters virtually “pretty sure” you could pass something meaningful without violating spirit of Second Amendment.

3. Olympics
Mitigating Factors: With Americans beating upstart Canadians in chick hockey, both curling tournaments, America has something to feel good as society continues to crumble…Lousy athletes, like Hungarian/American skier who sashayed way down halfpipe instead of doing flips and stuff, not mention entire North Korean team, really not doing anybody any good…Also, it would be nice if some country other than America and Canada played for chick hockey gold medal.
FunFact: Pyeongchang another Olympic city left to enjoy large debt, unused facilities…With interest in hosting Games dwindling, Sunday B-10 pollsters wondering if Olympics, like America, might not be gone before this half-century is out.

4. US Drone Strikes
Mitigating Factors: Two more drone strikes in Afghan/Pakastani/Somalian/Yemeni sphere of influence bring 2018 total to 24, with over 120 deaths…US attacking sovereign nations despite fact they pose no direct threat to America, Congress having not declared war on them as specified in Constitution…US military analysts, Sunday B-10 pollsters “mostly sure” majority of deaths military/terrorist personnel.
USA! USA!: Congress had not declared war on anyone since June, 1942.

5. Online Pharmaceutical Adverts
Mitigating Factors: Sunday B-10 pollsters too cheap to pay for ad-free youtube experience obliged to watch stereotypical, rather serious actors try to sell them potions for Type II diabetes, Crohn’s Disease, neither of which they have, plan on getting…Pollsters would also like to point out they don’t habla Espanol, either.
“If Death Persists, See Your Doctor.”: With side effect warnings like lowered immune system effectiveness, cancer risks and open sores now taking up two-thirds of some ads, Sunday B-10 pollsters “pretty sure” day is coming when actual death is side effect.

6. Goucher College
Mitigating Factors: Division III Gophers take inaugural end-of-season Bottom Ten Pollster’s Cup – issued to all-division college basketball program with worst men’s/women’s combined record…Men finished 0-24, while chicks open, end season with 25-game skid…Teams have tag-teamed to lose 65 straight games.
FunFact: Men’s team ranked Dead Last of 414 D-III teams scoring only 60.1 ppg, while women lost games by average score of 78.2-to-33.5.

7. Executions In America
Mitigating Factors: Exciting Three For Thursday Throwdown ends up batting mere .333 as only Florida can be bothered to kill anybody…Alabama officials call off lethal injection of condemned killer when they determined they would be unable to find a vein before midnight expiration of death warrant, while Texas, in Upset of the Year, actually commutes death sentence to life without parole, accepting daddy’s plea for mercy for son who killed rest of family, shot him.
Gaylon For Congress…Vote Early, Vote Often: The death penalty should be abolished…Not only has US executed innocent people, but cost of keeping prisoners locked up for 40 years roughly $15-$20 million less than executing them.

8. Deportations
Mitigating Factors: Deportation of otherwise useful immigrants continues for no other reason than spite and to appear tough on immigrants, despite fact nation has been built on backs of immigrants since whites first arrived in 1600’s.
FunFact: Syed Ahmed Jamal, an evil chemist who was arrested in January and was on plane to native Bangladesh before courts intervened, now being held in Missouri…Hilarious jail snafu turned planned visitation into poignant viewing through jail windows.

9. Dial up Internet
Mitigating Factors: Sunday B-10 pollsters forget the high-level research they were doing at time, but were officially ‘interested’ to note Earthlink, others, still offer ancient 20th-century porn accessing technology…Some research shows dial-up market share has dropped from 100 percent in 1980’s to roughly two (2) percent today.
FunFact: Exciting new Web Accelerator technology allows you to “surf web up 7x faster” unless chosen website has things like text or pics…Also, pop-up ad functionality limited.

10. American Electorate
Mitigating Factors: Personal and confidential from me to you: our country is dying!!!…Between our perpetual wars, mindless debt, violent fellow citizens, deep social divides America will be tossed aside History’s scrap heap before this half-century is out if we don’t do something at the ballot box this year.
FunFact: No matter what happens in November America will send a message to the world that either they are embracing the opportunity to become the country its citizens and the world need or are taking a flier on it…Our call.

Thought for the Week: Everyone has it within his power to say, this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow. – Louis L’Amour, The Walking Drum

The Sunday Bottom Ten runs on Sundays, and is based on the football Bottom Tens Gaylon writes during football season.

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The Sunday Bottom Ten #4 – February 18, 2018
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy

Like a kidney stone, the week that was has passed.

This week’s mess:

1. Florida School Shooting
Mitigating Factors: United States currently leading NATO, UN with roughly 2.5 school shootings per week thanks to latest Florida heartbreak…It could have been avoided, but FBI too busy to investigate January 5 tip from whackjob concerned citizen that shooter was crackers and had guns and could possibly shoot up a school.
FunFact: Near-constant shootings really draining country’s emotional resources, with Americans thinking of requisitioning extra rations of thoughts, prayers from NRA.

2. President Trump’s Fiscal Year 2019 Budget
Mitigating Factors: Country so fractured most people looking at Trump 2019 fiscal year budget solely from partisan viewpoint and objective analysis somewhat hard to find, though Sunday B-10 pollsters did note their request for $5.2 billion for research and development not included…Trump puts “Efficient, Effective, Accountable” on cover of FY 2019 budget because nothing in this country can be done without watchwords anymore. FunFact: Though deficit not known for sure, most conservative estimates place it at about 4.6 percent of America’s Gross Domestic Product, a bit higher than the $2.5 percent that is generally thought to be not to bad a debt ratio…Nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office places FY 2019 deficit at about 3 percent less than what it thought it would be.

3. Florida Prostitution Sting
Mitigating Factors: A few days before 17 people are slaughtered down I -75, Naples, Florida police snag evil judge, pastor, actor, other community pillars in prostitution sting…Judge has since retired, though status of pastor, actor, others not known…Chick cop posing as whore pricing sex acts to move, issuing quotes ranging from $150 to $300.
FunFact: Psychos are posting videos about how armed and dangerous they are but Florida law enforcement focused on men trying to get some…While mindful that most prostitutes have had lousy, usually violent lives, can we ask 1) who the victim here is and, 2) don’t Florida police have better things to do?

4. Florida School Shooting II
Mitigating Factors: Lots of countries have guns but only America subjected to regular, random school shootings because America has planet’s most violent citizens…Sunday B-10 pollsters “pretty sure” violent citizens caused by violent government at war every day since 1989, but violent movies, video games, families could be to blame, too.
FunFact: Though only fourth Sunday Bottom Ten, Florida School Shooting already first Sunday B-10 entry to appear twice in same survey.

5. Russia
Mitigating Factors: Former lead Soviet republic humming on all cylinders with nine (9) Olympic medals despite fact entire nation was banned from 2018 games…Also has hot, new indictment in United States for meddling in recent US presidential election.
Still To Come: Indictment names 13 Russians and no Americans – yet – in attempt ‘to sow discord” in US, which they appear to have done a pretty good job of, considering 2016 election made Civil War elections look like Disneyland attraction…No word yet on whether evil Russians have turned themselves in to be housed in cells next to Mexican drug vendor El Chapo.

6. US Drone Strikes
Mitigating Factors: Lack of war declaration not stopping triumphant America from continuing drone strikes against Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2018…Year off to strong start, with 22 US drone strikes already producing over 100 deaths, including collateral military deaths, too.
USA! USA!: Attack in Syria this week not official drone strike, but thrilled onlookers by taking out five (5) innocent goddamned Ruskies anyway…Sunday B-10 pollsters “pretty sure” none of the five were named in recent US election meddling indictment.

7. Goucher College
Mitigating Factors: Sunday Continental Cup usually issued to men’s college basketball team with longest all-division losing streak in NATO, but Goucher has pollsters scrambling for new award as both Gophers, Gopherettes run table, finishing season combined 0-49 with combined 65 game losing skid…Sunday B-10 pollsters “pretty sure” Goucher first school to have two winless hoop teams since Tijuana Tech Vaqueros y Vaqueras both ran table in 1953.
FunFact: Sunday B-10 pollsters still under fire from feminist groups for refusing to give Sunday Continental Cup to Mount Holyoke chick team, who finished 2017-18 death march with longest all-gender, all-division losing skid at 44 games.

8. Gas Tax
Mitigating Factors: President Trump said “everything is on table” in attempting to fund exciting new infrastructure plan, including 25-cent increase in gas, diesel taxes…Local governments preparing to take it shorts as plan calls for municipalities to pay upwards of 80 percent of costs.
FunFact: Federal gas tax currently 18.4 cents a gallon and hasn’t been raised since 1993, meaning with inflation the tax is now worth about 11 cents but no matter, Sunday B-10 pollsters “pretty sure” us Americans are taxed enough already and are “strongly encouraging” Administration to find another goddamned way to fund plan.

9. 2026 Winter Olympics
Mitigating Factors: With selection meeting for 2026 Games a year-and-a-half away only once city – Sion, Switzerland – has formally announced a bid…IOC determined to become more user-friendly, coming down from high horse and inviting potential cities to “dialogue” with them in attempt to drum up interest in hosting fun, two-week sporting event that generally provides zero long-term dividend.
FunFact: IOC so desperate for more bids it has reportedly contacted Bottom Ten HQ town Hayden, Colorado which has upgraded grandstands at high school for opening, closing ceremonies, has new owner at local diner plus hotel “almost probably” in works

10. American Electorate
Mitigating Factors: Once concerned segment of American democracy, Americans still content with fractured, partisan and bickering government…Many Americans still deciding between taking charge at ballot box this November, upgrading cable package for summer.
Gaylon For Congress…Vote Early, Vote Often: Utter fiasco of perpetual wars, mindless debt and deepest social divides since Civil War will destroy this country before this half-century is out if American Electorate doesn’t do something PDQ.

Thought for the Week: Oh, what low joke was Fortuna playing on her now? Arrest, accident, job! Where would this dreadful cycle ever end? – John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

The Sunday Bottom Ten runs on Sundays and is based on the football Bottom Tens Gaylon writes during football season.

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