For the fourth consecutive year, the University of South Carolina’s football season is unraveling right in front of head coach Steve Spurrier’s eyes … only this time the dreaded season-ending “Orange Crush” had nothing to do with it.

This time, it was another “red storm rising.”

To the strains of “Woo Pig Sooie,” Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett threw for 329 yards – including 12 of 13 completions in the second half – as the Razorbacks reeled off 23 unanswered points to smoke South Carolina 33-16 Saturday in Fayetteville.

It was a game Arkansas head coach Bobby Perino termed “must-win” for Arkansas (5-4, 2-4 SEC), which can now become bowl-eligible with a win next week against Troy.

For the Gamecocks (6-4, 3-4 SEC), it’s their third loss in the last four games and the second atrocious showing they’ve turned in against an unranked SEC foe that had just one conference win prior to USC coming to town.

After playing perhaps their worst game of the year in a Halloween night loss to Tennessee a week ago, South Carolina briefly appeared to have righted the ship against the Razorbacks.  Tied 10-10 at the halftime, South Carolina’s first play from scrimmage in the second half was an 80-yard touchdown bomb from sophomore quarterback Stephen Garcia to freshman phenom Alshon Jeffery that put USC up 16-10.

Jeffery finished the game with five catches for 116 yards, but his touchdown grab was the last thing that went right for Carolina.

After botching the extra point following Jeffery’s touchdown, USC’s vaunted defensive unit let Arkansas storm down the field on an 11-play, 73-yard drive that was capped by a 1-yard Ryan Mallett touchdown run.  Carolina responded by driving all the way to the Razorbacks’ 25-yard-line, but Garcia’s fade pass to Jeffery was picked off in the end zone by defensive back Jerell Norton.

That miscue led to a seven-play, 80-yard drive and another Arkansas touchdown.

With the window for error closing, USC couldn’t stop shooting itself in the foot.

On the third play of its next drive, South Carolina center Garrett Anderson and Garcia botched a shotgun snap, the ball sailing over Garcia’s head and winding up in the end zone where USC running back Brian Maddox recovered for a safety.

Just like that, a 16-10 lead had turned into a 26-16 deficit, and the Razorbacks added a rushing touchdown in the fourth quarter to finish USC off.

The loss dropped Spurrier to 34-26 all-time at USC, including an 18-21 mark against the SEC.

It also sets the stage for what could be another epic collapse to a once-promising season.

Over the last four seasons, USC has played well in its first seven games – posting a 21-7 mark and climbing as high as No. 6 in the nation back in 2007.

But the wheels always seem to fall off.

Since 2006, Spurrier’s Gamecocks are an atrocious 6-14 in their final five games of the season – including a horrific 0-5 finish two years ago and an 0-3 collapse last season that saw them outscored 118-30 in their final three games.

South Carolina faces top-ranked Florida at home next week, followed by a regular season-ending showdown against arch-rival Clemson two weeks later.  Spurrier is 1-3 against both the Gators and Tigers.

In what we can only assume will serve as a nice promotional vehicle for her forthcoming autobiography, S.C. First Lady Jenny Sanford has launched a new website.

What’s it called?

JennySanford.com, people.

Creative, right?

The website is noteworthy for its de-emphasis on S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford, the First Lady’s philandering husband, and the direct way in which it address their current relationship status.

“Mrs. Sanford is enjoying spending more time in her most important role as mother of her four sons Marshall, Landon, Bolton and Blake and is separated from her husband,” the biography on the website’s homepage reads.

The site also includes a page with Mrs. Sanford’s public statements on her husband’s infidelity.

The domain name for the website is registered to a Denise Medved of Annandale, Virginia – who is apparently the First Lady’s sister.  The site was registered on July 1, 2009 – one week after the governor admitted having an extramarital affair with his Latin lover, Maria Belen Chapur.

Mrs. Sanford has been widely praised for her handling of her husband’s affair – including her refusal to stand by Sanford at his tearful confessional and moving her family out of the Governor’s Mansion after attempts at reconciling their marriage did not take.

As FITS noted last week, Mrs. Sanford has shed her wedding ring and is telling people privately that her marriage is over.

The U.S. House of Representatives opened controlled debate Saturday on a $1.2 trillion health care bill that includes a controversial public option, funding for abortion and no guarantee that illegal immigrants won’t be among those receiving benefits.

In other words, America stands on the precipice of taking one giant leap toward socialized medicine.

Democrats need 218 votes to pass the legislation, meaning that they can only lose 40 of their 258 members if all 177 Republicans vote against the bill, as they are expected to do.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – who has procedurally blocked the vast majority of amendments to the legislation – will permit pro-life Democrats to introduce one amendment that would restrict abortion funding.

Stay tuned to FITS for the latest as we keep our eyes on these critical votes …

Starting with its semantically-nonsensical premise, America’s “War on Terror” (-ism) has only been slightly more effective than its “War on Drugs.”

Which is to say it hasn’t been very effective at all.

One big problem?  We’ve basically tried to have it both ways – on the one hand clumsily attempting to exact vengeance for a bloody attack on our nation eight years ago, but on the other hand pandering to the politically correct sensibilities of the “global community” in waging our unfocused aggression.

As we’ve noted, that’s no way to fight a war … against terror(ism) or any other -ism, for that matter.

Of course, while we’ve been fighting an enemy we can’t see with one hand tied behind our backs, America has also been dealing with a P.C. uproar over the “plight” of some 270 enemy combatants currently detained at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

President Barack Obama wants to move these detainees to America – specifically to the Naval Consolidated Brig at the Charleston Naval Weapons Station in Berkeley County, S.C.  He also wants to give these terrorist suspects a civilian trial, affording them the same constitutional rights granted to American citizens.

All of this – every bit of it – is pure insanity, obviously, and not just the notion that a foreign terrorist suspect should get the same rights as an American accused of a crime.  Equally guilty of moronisitude in this instance are our knuckle-dragging South Carolina Republican politicians – who are currently beating their chests in an effort to “prevent” these detainees being moved to South Carolina soil.

Eager to score some cheap political points (and believe us, these would be among the cheapest ever scored), dozens of SCGOP politicians are tripping over themselves to oppose the transfer of these detainees.  In doing so, they are playing to the irrational fears of uneducated South Carolinians who are dumb enough to believe there’s a chance that these rag heads will end up running through the streets of our cities.

Please.

We’re going to put these “people” in cells, right?

Cells behind fences, right?

With those cells and fences locked, right?

Oh, and guarded by people with guns, right?

Check, check, check and check (last time we “checked,” anyway).

Furthermore (and this is a point we find highly compelling), where was the outrage from all these GOP politicians when former President George W. Bush moved three enemy combatants – Yasser Hamdi, Jose Padilla and Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri – to South Carolina during his administration?

Yeah … answer that one Gresham Barrett, and Henry Brown, and Jim DeMint, and Joe Wilson and any of the other Republican panderers looking to get their names in the paper playing on people’s fears.  Answer that one, if you can.

Of course, that brings us to our main point.

What the f*ck are we doing giving these bastards “three hots and a cot” to begin with – whether in Guantanamo Bay, the Charleston brig or anyplace else?

Why have we not simply strapped them to cruise missiles and launched their smelly, bearded asses into the 270 highest-value terrorist targets that our intelligence agencies can come up with?

Frankly that’s our solution to this “crisis” – send ‘em back from whence they came and let their people clean up the mess.

Of course in the “Happy Norwuz” world in which we live, that sort of justice will never happen.  After all, what would the U.N. say?  Or our “coalition of the willing?”

And so nothing happens – and the status of these combatants becomes nothing more than another wedge issue for a bunch of intellectually incurious blowhards to profit from politically.

Sad, huh?

Just as we’ve gone soft as a nation in responding to the countries that sponsor terrorism, we’ve gone soft on its actual practitioners as well – apparently forgetting that the airplanes which ripped through the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania didn’t discriminate when it came to their victims.

That’s the efficacy of asymmetrical warfare, people.  And if you think for one second that al Queda hasn’t already won the “war on terror(ism)” – and won it convincingly – you’re nuts.

While they plan fresh violence against U.S. troops and civilians all over the world, we’re debating where to house their dregs – and how we can afford them American rights that they most assuredly do not deserve.

Timber!

South Carolina’s dead tree media (a.k.a. newspaper industry) suffered another blow Friday when its reigning heavyweight  – the Charleston Post and Courier – announced that it had shed twenty-three jobs.

The news was broken via perhaps the shortest article ever posted on the paper’s website …

The Post and Courier today eliminated 23 positions throughout the building, including seven that were unfilled, in an effort to cut expenses during continued economic weakness that is impacting advertising.

Yeah, that’s not an excerpt, people … that’s the whole article.

The Post and Courier, which overtook La Socialista (a.k.a. The State newspaper) earlier this year as the Palmetto State’s largest paper, is obviously nonetheless suffering from the same dramatic declines in circulation being felt by other South Carolina newspapers – and frankly newspapers all over the nation.

According to Audit Bureau of Circulations data released a week ago,

La Socialista – which has lost nearly 13,000 subscriptions in the last month alone – has already endured three rounds of layoffs within the last year, reducing its total workforce by 11%.

UPDATE:  We’ve been asked a few times why we put news of journalism job losses under our “Good Stuff” section.  That’s easy … we’re competing with them, and “if they gonna drown,” we’re gonna “stick a hose in (their) mouth.”

Plus, we hear there are some good construction jobs coming to the S.C. Lowcountry soon …

If you happen to be like S.C. Wildlife Federation president “Clinch” Heyward and base your entire environmental policy on the current temperature, you might be interested in knowing that the National Weather Service issued freeze warnings for ten South Carolina counties Friday night … and frost advisories for the remaining thirty-six counties.

Temperatures dipped below freezing across much of the state, and we’re still a month-and-a-half away from the onset of winter.

Obviously, we’re not framing our opposition to the “Cap & Tax” plan being pushed by President Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham around the current temperatures, because that would be utterly moronic.

Sort of like Mr. Heyward presuming to speak for all the hunters and fishermen of South Carolina.

No, we’re opposing the legislation because it’s insanely expensive ($4,000 annually per family, based on the Treasury Department’s own stats) and wouldn’t do a damn thing to reduce global emissions.

We’ve never watched the CW television program Gossip Girl …

Reason one?  What the hell is a CW?  We’ve never even heard of that network.  Reason two?  We neither are nor do we have (not yet, at least) twelve-year-old girls.

Anyway, social conservatives across the country are up in arms over the show – which boldly advertised the fact that a threesome will be going down during its next episode, set to air Monday evening at 9:00 p.m.

How “up in arms?”

They’re calling on local affiliates to pull the plug on the show.

“Because this is not a cable-only show, the content travels on public airwaves,” said Oran P. Smith, President of the S.C. Palmetto Family Council.  “We are calling on the seven (7) CW affiliates broadcasting into South Carolina to respect decency and South Carolina values by finding something else to run on Monday night at 9:00 p.m.”

Here’s the promo that’s got everybody’s panties in a wad …

“Gossip Girl” follows the lives of young, privileged socialites in New York City. In its third season, the show’s ratings have been sagging lately, thus the controversial script.

Here at FITS, we’re not overly concerned by the notion of a threesome.  Frankly, “been there, done that (editor’s note: liked that).”

Of course, we wholeheartedly concur with the Palmetto Family crowd’s call for a boycott.

How come?

“Two dudes,” people … this “threesome” is supposed to include two dudes, which is a direct violation of our strictly-enforced “one penis per sex scene” rule.

WEB EXTRA

PFC Release

America is still struggling to come to grips with yet another deadly shooting rampage – this one conducted on one of our nation’s largest military bases.

Thursday’s massacre at Fort Hood – which has left 13 dead and another 31 wounded – is beginning to be viewed as a terrorist attack by a radical Muslim.

The primary shooting suspect, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, is alleged to have walked into the Soldier Readiness Center at Ford Hood, shouted “Allah Akbar” and then opened fire.  Eleven people were killed instantly in the attack, another two died afterward in the hospital.

Hasan, 39, was shot four times by a local civilian police officer, Kimberly Munley.  He is currently hospitalized under heavy guard.

Munley was shot in the leg.

Hasan previously served at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where he was once investigated for internet postings that glorified suicide bombers.

It has not yet been revealed whether or not the postings were definitely traced to Hasan, nor have authorities disclosed contents from a search of his apartment.

He had been stationed at Fort Hood since July, and his relatives say he feared being deployed.

Established in 1942, Fort Hood is located just outside of Killen, Texas.  It is home to the U.S. Army’s III Corps, and is one of the largest military installations in the world.

On November 9, 1989, after weeks of pro-democracy demonstrations, the Soviet-controlled German Democratic Republic announced that its citizens would be free to visit West Berlin.

After nearly three decades of forcing millions of East Germans to live behind a concrete wall (which was originally conceived by Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev), Germans were finally free to come and go as they pleased.

Weeks later, the wall itself was torn down, as had been requested two years earlier of Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev by U.S President Ronald Reagan.

“We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace,” Reagan famously said in a 1987 speech in front of the wall. “There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

The wall was created to stop freedom – specifically the free flow of human traffic from communist East Germany to capitalist West Germany, which was undergoing a post-war Wirtschaftswunder (or “economic miracle”).  Indeed, from the end of World War II through 1961, more than 3.5 million East Germans fled to the West – a migration the wall reduced to a trickle.

The wall stood for twenty-eight years, with both its erection and its crumbling serving as enduring reminders of the fundamental value of freedom and the fundamental wisdom of free markets.

Which begs the question … when in the hell did we decide to forget these lessons here in America?  And when did we decide that the ideology of the “other side” of that wall was something we wanted to implement here in the heart of America, which more than any other nation was responsibly for tearing that wall down?

And how did it happen so fast, too?

Seriously, people.  Our nation was conceived in the basic principles of freedom and free markets, and in the intervening 240 years we’ve sent millions of our boys (and more recently, girls) all over the world to protect those principles – both for us and for others.

Why are we giving them up now?

Incidentally, Irish rock band U2 played a free concert at the wall to mark the anniversary – selecting the power ballad “One” as their opener.

Here’s our favorite live version of that song, recorded at Ireland’s Slane Castle back in 2001 …

Note the line “have you come here to play Jesus to the lepers in your head …”

Kinda fitting for the current crop of leaders, isn’t it?

Anyway, for those of you who are convinced that America’s current path is the correct one, here are a few photographic reminders that might dissuade you …

In the battle for new media supremacy in the State of South Carolina, an unexpected adversary has emerged to challenge the dominance of “ours truly.”

Her name?  The Shop Tart.

Her M.O.?  Shoes.  And clothing.  And food.  And culture.  And last but not least, bargains pertaining to all of the above – in other words everything we’d be spending our days doing if we didn’t feel such an obligation to hold all of the Palmetto State’s government goons accountable.  Which we do heroically, and with abs you could fry an egg on.

Anyway, The Shop Tart has been voted by readers of the Columbia, S.C. alternative weekly Free Times as the “best local blog,” prompting two curious reactions from our founding editor.

On the one hand, he’s not the least bit jealous.  “Blog” is a categorization that Sic Willie insists we shed a long time ago for the more ostentatious pastures of “new mediaism.”

“We have evolved past that sort of thing,” he snorted.

On the other hand, Sic immediately locked himself in the bathroom with a pair of Christian Louboutin heels and is sobbing uncontrollably, so there may be a bit of jealousy involved after all.

Interestingly enough, at least one editor at Free Times took umbrage to The Shop Tart’s selection …

Dear readers: If you believe that the purpose of reading blogs is to understand the lives of wealthy shopaholics with more time on their hands than you can possibly imagine, then you have rightly voted The Shop Tart as Best Local Blog. If, however, you find more value in breaking local news and off-the-rails commentary, then you might have considered such choices as FITS News, The Palmetto Scoop, SC Hotline or Indigo Journal.

Sha-zam!

As grateful as we are to Monsieur Cook for the nod, is comparing The Shop Tart and FITS (or any of the lesser political “blogs” mentioned) even possible?

Forget apples and oranges, aren’t we talking about kiwis and pineapples here?

After all, The Shop Tart is like Project Runway – or one of those cooking shows that our man-visor hates – while FITS (as Sic recently observed) is “Project Mayhem.”

Irregardless (which is a real word), props to the Tart.  At the end of the day, we are perfectly content to serve as the dessert (or even the palate-cleansing sorbet) to her always delicious main course.

All we ask is few more shots of 5.5″ heels, darling …