Move over Red Sox. The New York Football Giants are America’s sweethearts after upsetting the Evil Empire of Bill Belicheat’s New England Patriots.

And I couldn’t be happier.

Things weren’t looking good for the Patriots coming into the week. New England’s prima Donna quarterback had a bum leg. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Ebel) wrote a letter to Commissioner Roger Goodell regarding his burning of the SpyGate tapes and the lax punishment he imposed on New England. Finally, the rumor mill became cluttered with talk of alleged evidence proving Belichick had spied on St. Louis’ practices before the Patriots’ first Super Bowl win.

After the dazzling comeback by Eli Manning, football fans are chastising New England for poor sportsmanship in the late stages of the game. With two seconds left in the game, Belichick and most of the Patriots team began exiting the field before Manning could make the game official. Referees had to hold play until the defense could find 11 men willing to come out on the field.

I understand that fielding a team and being present for the kneeling of the football is moot — its season was all but over — but mostly it’s a matter of respect. It’s part of athletics to acknowledge your opponent for playing a great game, let alone winning the N.F.L. championship. There’s nothing we hate more than a sore loser, which explains why the Patriots got Moss so easily since his value dropped after subpar seasons with Oakland and attitude problems that arose when he walked out of a Vikings game with two seconds left.

The other defense of Belichick I heard was that he didn’t want to deal with the crowds or the media. Oh, cry me a river! Maybe all that winning made him forget that the losing team doesn’t get to leave early.

How fitting it is for the Patriots to lose in the final minute of its “perfect season.” After spying on the lowly Jets, New England mercilessly ran the score up on pitiful defenses, as if to prove some sort of redundant point. Belichick again refused to acknowledge coaches after games. E.S.P.N. flooded its air-time with New England coverage to no one’s surprise. (After all, nearly 50 percent of its anchors are from New England.) The “Greatest Team Ever” and “19-0″ subtitles were first written after a Week 3 win over Buffalo. (As a sidenote, even if New England did go 19-0, it couldn’t light a torch for the ‘85 Bears or ‘89 49ers, the latter of which has better players at every position on the field other than o-line.) Along came the undeserving accolades, close wins over Baltimore and New York and an A.F.C. matchup against an injury-depleted San Diego team.

To top it all off, the Boston Globe began selling a paperback entitled 19-0: The Historic Championship Season of New England’s Unbeatable Team and the Boston Herald printed this conceited column:

Pats fans a cut above
Giants outclassed on the field and in the stands

New England Patriots [team stats] fans are smarter, classier and
healthier and own pricier homes than the riff-raff who root for the
New York Giants – and now we’ve got the research to back it up.

Some 62 percent of Pats fans living in the Boston area earned a
bachelor’s or postgraduate degree or have some higher-education
experience, compared to 59 percent of Giants fans, according to the
latest marketing data provided by the Nielsen Co., the TV ratings firm.

Likewise, 72 percent of Pats fans live in homes worth north of
$200,000, compared to 63 percent of Giants yahoos, the Nielsen data show.

That’s just for starters.

Pats fans consistently show better taste than their Gotham
counterparts, according to Nielsen.

We drink Amstel Light, not Bud Light. Giants fans slug back lots of
whiskey.

We are likely to read connoisseur magazines like Wine Spectator.
Gotham fans like to pig out on junk food like pretzels, chips and
nuts. They’re also less likely to favor organic food than other New Yorkers.

Giants tailgaters are conspicuous consumers who party off the backs of Land Rovers and showy BMW SUVs. Pats fans are more likely to tailgate off the back of an understated Lexus or a sturdy Volvo SUV.

When Pats revelers aren’t watching football, they’re hitting the slopes skiing or going for a sail. They’re also more likely to belong to country clubs.

When Giants fans aren’t booing Giants coach Tom Coughlin or punk quarterback Eli Manning in that New Jersey stadium they call home, they’re out practicing their tennis backhands in the backyard.

None of these marketing revelations came as a surprise to Mike Schuster, 45, who lives in the shadow of Gillette Stadium in Foxboro.

“Boston fans are much classier,” said Schuster, a real estate agent and software consultant who is heading out to Arizona for the Super Bowl. “Have you ever been to Yankee stadium? I mean, they boo their own players.”

“Bostonians, in general, are better educated,” Schuster added. “New Yorkers have to send their kids to Boston to educate them.”

It’s also worth noting that the Patriots are an equal opportunity
franchise, drawing more female fans than the competition. Nearly half of all Pats backers – about 43 percent – are women. In Giants country, just 31 percent of the fans are female.

Pats fans are also more Web savvy, some 63 percent have broadband Internet connection.

Of course, though we may hate to admit it, fans on both sides of the turf do have some similarities. The Nielsen data indicate that Pats and Giants fans are both likely to live in “affluent” suburbs or rural neighborhoods. They both buy “above average” amounts of beer, too, and they like to garden.

It responded the rest of America to say: Who reads wine magazines and why are they bragging about drinking Amstel Light? If anything, that’d be something I wouldn’t tell the world about.

I’m just glad I don’t have to give up professional football for a calendar year like I had said earlier in the season if the Patriots ran the tables.

If television has taught me anything, it’s that Karma is a bitch. Now, let’s hope that tomorrow, instead of a column, E.S.P.N. publishes a PDF of Bill Simmons’ letter of resignation.

Why does it seem that every comedy television show I like is always tortured by low ratings? First, Arrested Development. Now, 30 Rock. I’ve been on a real 30 Rock kick lately — especially now that they referenced the Pennsylvania Coal Region several times on Thursday’s episode. Jack Donaghey (Alec Baldwin) and his girlfriend Senator C.C. (Tony Soprano’s wife) meet halfway in some town I’d never heard of. (Although, I found out the exterior scenes were shot in Middlebury, Vt.

Jack: Say what do you think they do for fun around here?
Miner: Smack around noisy out-of-towners. Also, we have a lovely doll museum.

Also from 30 Rock:

Speaking of werewolves and other fictional creatures, I found this story in The Stanford Daily that shows why Rep. Ron Paul is actually a zombie. My favorite part about it is the comments from Paultards:

This idiot is too stupid to understand real policies. Buying into Obama and Hiliary’s Hollywood politics regarding change. We’ve had 8 years of Clinton and look where it got us.
You should quit school (it isn’t helping) and go to Iraq. Tell a soldier to come home while your there.

All that money and still an idiot.

It is the American people that are the zombies. We have allowed our government to run amuck and now it is time to pay the mortgage. Open your eyes and wake up.

I guess only a true politician who tickles ears and does the opposite of what he claims to stand for will appease the hordes that love living in lies. I SUPPORT RON PAUL 100%. BY THE WAY IT’S BEEN PROVEN THAT DIEBOLD VOTING MACHINES SUPPOSEDLY MALFUNCTIONED AND RIPPED RON PAUL OFF…BY AT LEAST 7% AND POSSIBLY MUCH MORE. SEEMS WHENEVER THERE IS A SUPPOSED MALFUNCTION IT WORKS OUT IN FAVOR OF THE NEOCON WARMONGERS. THIS IS PROVEN , SO DON’T GO SAYING CRAP UNLESS YOU CAN BACK IT UP. DANIEL

Ron Paul is the second incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Can’t you see that you stupid stupid Staff Chiffer?

Who are the real zombies? Paultards. Think about it. They’re everywhere. They’re blood thirsty. They both are against taxes. They are both against government. (I’m assuming zombies are against taxation nor can I see a Zombie Nation ever being anything but anarchist.) You can also escape Milwaukee, run over zombies with an armored truck, kill thousands with chainsaws and flee to a deserted island in the middle of the Great Lakes and still not get away from Paultards.

Only good thing about Paultards? They hate left-wing nutcase Wonkette as much as I do.

In sports news, my adopted Jacksonville Jaguars fell short of beating the irritant New England Patriots. (Boo!) New adopted team for the playoffs? Green Bay. But I don’t really like professional football — or even college, for that matter — so I could care less.

I’m not going to even go into my rant about the Mitchell Report, other than it should have been slugged as “Worst Investigation Ever, Or How Baseball Wasted 19 Months and Millions of Dollars On A Wild Goose Chase/Witch Hunt, Or Why You Never Put Anyone Affiliated With the Boston Red Sox In Charge of Anything.”McSweeney’s offers a hilarious parody of the Mitchell Report in its Lost Findings from the Mitchell Report. (It’s more credible than the real one.)

NEPA radio station Rock 107 released its listener-voted Best 1007 Songs of All-Time. It’s pathetic for the following reasons:

• No Beatles songs are listed in the Top 400 songs.
• AC/DC is not worthy of having the No. 1 slot. They are so horribly over-rated. Yet they tallied four of the top ten songs. WTF?
• Creed and Nickleback, two talentless groups, both place higher than any Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen song.
• Rolling Stone Magazine’s No. 1 song of all-time, Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” listed at the last spot at No. 1007.
• My songs posted fairly poor: Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” (1007), Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” (752), Bruce Springsteen’s “Jungleland” (991), The Band’s “The Weight” (unranked) and Tom Waits’ “Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis” (unranked).
• No Tom Waits.

I understand that it’s a user-nominated list, but maybe if Rock 107 didn’t play the same freakin’ Pink Floyd, AC/DC, Van Halen, Led Zeppelin songs over and over again, this list would have some legitimacy. After reading this, I’m taking a moral stand and leaving my radio dial set to 102.3 The Mountain.

I like reading really bad student newspaper columns. Usually, they are written but know-it-all students who either polarized to the far right or far left. Like this columnist from the Daily Northwestern, home of one of the best journalism programs in the country, who feels the need to inform us of all as to why we’re all stupid for playing Sudoku. I could understand why he hates Sudoku. Spelling and pronouncing his name, Prajwal Ciryam, is difficult enough.

The Ohio State University once again tops Northwestern. And everyone else when it comes to journalist integrity. Check out its student newspaper’s cover after the Buckeyes lost another national championship. Yikes.

I’m listening to: Bob Dylan’s “She Belongs to Me”