NCAA: celebration penalty may negate touchdowns next year

From AP(via Matt Hinton):

If passed, players who draw flags for taunting gestures on their way to a touchdown would have the penalty assessed from the spot of the foul, taking away the score. Penalties that occur in the end zone would continue to be assessed on the extra-point attempt, 2-point conversion try or ensuing kickoff.

The change would take effect in 2011 and on the NCAA's web site, a release said the proposal received near-unanimous support.

"Taunting and prolonged individual acts have no place in our game, and our officials have generally handled these rules well," said former Oregon coach Mike Bellotti, the committee chair. "This is just another step in maintaining our game's image and reflecting the ideals of the NCAA overall."

My opinion on rules in games is that you shouldn't adopt a rule you don't intend to enforce. More specifically, you shouldn't adopt a rule if you aren't willing to change the outcome of the game over it.

In the last season or two we've seen multiple instances of celebration/taunting calls that gave the other team a chance to win after the fact, and the outcry was so intense in one case (A.J. Green's go-ahead TD against LSU) that the SEC fined one of its own refs and forced him to apologize. Imagine for a second the outcry if such of touchdown were called back outright and the other team holds on to win. Imagine that happening in the final minutes of the SEC championship or the Rose Bowl or, God forbid, the National "Championship" Game.

I get that this is a rule specifically against taunting, rather than the general endzone merriment and evil, evil ball tossing of the Jake Locker variety, but Green's infamous unsportsmanslike conduct flag was supposedly for taunting en route to the goal line. Even by the standards of college football rules, taunting is in the eye of the beholder, especially considering the trash talking and psychological warfare that likely goes on out of earshot of the microphones.

This rule is just dying to cause the NCAA more headaches.

Tim Tebow: even his ads prefer procreation

Apparently there will be a second, pre-game version of the already infamous Tebow/Focus on the Family Superbowl ad:

There's a new Super Bowl surprise from Focus on the Family: a second ad.

The evangelical group that bought ad time in the CBS game telecast will announce today that it has bought time in the pregame show to air a second ad four times.

The new ad also features star quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam. It was filmed in Orlando last month at the same time as the group's controversial — though yet unseen — in-game ad.

Apparently they will both be of the "choose life" message variety that, though intended as a witty riposte from the anti-Roe crowd, has on occasion been embraced by members of the other side as a message that still preaches choice.

I'm increasingly skeptical on that point, but the heretofore detente on that message is important to point out here.

Also important to point out, however, are the implications of the Tebow ad outside of those considerations. For those who don't know the story, I'll quote his Wikipedia page:

Tebow was born on August 14, 1987 in Makati City in the Philippines, to Bob and Pam Tebow, who were serving as Christian missionaries at the time.[1][7] While pregnant, Pam suffered a life-threatening infection with a pathogenic amoeba. Because of the drugs used to rouse her from a coma and to treat her dysentery, the fetus experienced a severe placental abruption. Doctors expected a stillbirth and recommended an abortion to protect her life.[1] She carried Timothy to term, and both survived.

So Mrs. Tebow essentially undertook a significant risk to her own life to have Tim. It's moving, and of course things worked out wonderfully for her and we're all very happy for her. She's very lucky.

Nevertheless, is it really responsible to advocate for women to hold out on life-saving procedures on the off chance that they'll both survive anyway and have super-moral, Heisman-winning sons? The Tebows rolled the dice on her life to save his, and happened to win big that time, but many others wouldn't be so lucky. I wonder if Mrs. Tebow or any of the people who are using her story to push their political agendas have considered the possibility of some woman in her position acting on her advice, and instead of delivering the next Tim Tebow, dying from complications while giving birth to a stillborn baby. God does not save every woman with a placental abruption, let alone every baby.

the Bill of Rights applies to everyone, not just citizens

I'm glad to see Greenwald drop-kicking this old right wing chestnut, but I'm a little surprised that it took so long to see such an article.

The Bill of Rights applies to everyone within the jurisdiction of the American legal system. It does not matter whether they are citizens or foreign nationals because the Bill of Rights makes no such distinctions and court precedence has held as much since at least the 19th century. Greenwald pulls up a court decision where even Antonin Scalia admits as much.

Pointing out the absurdity of such a claim, Greenwald asks:

There are millions of foreign nationals inside the U.S. at all times -- not only illegally but also legally: as tourists, students, workers, Green Card holders, etc. Is there anyone who really believes that the Bill of Rights doesn't apply to them? If a foreign national is arrested and accused by the U.S. Government of committing a crime, does anyone believe they can be sentenced to prison without a jury trial, denied the right to face their accusers, have their property seized without due process, be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, and be denied access to counsel? Anyone who claims that the Constitution only protects American citizens, but not foreigners, would necessarily have to claim that the U.S. Government could do all of that to foreign nationals. Does anyone believe that? Would it be Constitutionally permissible to own foreigners as slaves on the ground that the protections of the Constitution -- including the Thirteenth Amendment -- apply only to Americans, not foreigners?

the Barack Obama comedy hour

Idiots. I really am amazed sometimes that Republicans ever get elected to anything. I can't believe they thought it would be a good idea to let any dipshit in the caucus lob impromptu questions -- on national TV, no less -- at the President of the United States, and only a year and change after he took John McCain to school three times in a row, to boot.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

State of the Union

What will the southern Republicans do this year, I wonder? Let's take a poll and see what y'all think:

a) show up in white robes and hoods
b) wear neckties tied in nooses
c) drop trough in the middle of the speech and defecate on the Capitol floor
d) put on fake Hitler moustaches after Obama mentions HCR
e) spit in Obama's face as he walks down the aisle and shout "you stay away from our white women!"
f) give Obama a Nazi-style extended arm salute
g) refer to the president as "Comrade Barry Hussein" all night
h) intentionally find ways to use the term "niggardly" and chuckling each time
i) wear t-shirts that say "they call it the WHITE house for a reason!"

a fool's errand

That's what it would be to draft a new bill to woo Republicans. Krugman:

So, House Democrats have a choice: do they pass the Senate bill, or do they go back to the drawing board and spend several months cobbling together a plan that’s worse in almost every dimension, generating thousands of stories about hapless Democrats — and almost surely find that Senate Republicans block the new plan, too.

The GOP is not interested in working with Democrats, only with subverting them. They've already said their strategy is obstruction, they've being using that strategy for 3 years now, and they believe they're winning with it. Why would they suddenly vote to fix healthcare now?

Reid's recent comment about Olympia Snowe's duplicity should be the lesson of the decade for Democrats. They gave her everything she asked for from weakening the mandate penalties to stripping the co-ops, the Medicare buy-in, and the opt-outs, even the public option itself, only to watch her vote to filibuster anyway.

Remember, one the GOP's main arguments against the public option was that it would be better than private insurance, and that's a bad thing:

Nevertheless, Republican senators argued that the public option would bankrupt the country and lead to a single-payer system. "Government is not a competitor. Government is a predator," said Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa).

To the GOP, the worst thing that could happen is that something gets fixed while the Democrats are in charge.

giving up

Speaker Pelosi says she doesn't have the votes, and doesn't give any viable alternatives.

I think the Democrats have given up on healthcare reform.

It's being described in several places as "political suicide," which it is, sure. One wonders whom, exactly, Mary Landrieu is expecting will go to the polls for her (let alone donate and volunteer!) if she runs against a Republican and yet fought tooth and nail against having to make a decision on the defining Democratic project of the last 50 years. Who does she think is her base of support? Then again, of all the controversial parts of the various bills, the public option consistently polled better than anything else, and yet it the main thing conservative Democrats wanted out of the bill, so maybe that says something about the political instincts of the "waffling is conviction" crowd.

To call this "political suicide," though, misses the mark because it's still looking at politics as theater or sport, using the "horse race" rhetoric of election-year journalism that doesn't recognize the very real way that politics affects our lives. As Jon Stewart once put it, "This isn't a f**king game."

Giving up on healthcare reform isn't suicide; it's abandonment. It's abandonment of 50 million uninsured Americans, countless millions of others who are underinsured, overcharged, and one health problem away from bankruptcy. It's abandonment of everyone who's been or will be denied coverage because of "pre-existing conditions" or dropped when they get sick, and everyone victimized by the "death by spreadsheet" business model of American insurance companies. And it's abandonment of everyone who put their hopes in a new Congress, a new party, and a new president to finally make things right.

Yes, this means that Obama voters are going to stay home in November, and the blood of conservative and moderate Democrats will flow like a river down the steps of the Capitol, but the real "news" is that as many as 101,000 people will die needlessly in 2013 because Congress couldn't maneuver a health reform bill through a 59 seat majority. Which one of those massacres actually matters?

UPDATE: then again, this makes one wonder if the only bill Democrats ever stood a chance of passing was one that does more harm than good, anyway.

Science!

Fascinating.

lessons learned (hopefully)

2 interesting admissions from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on the HCR negotiations:

1. Joe Lieberman really did backstab him on the Medicare buy-in, promising support and then balking at the moment of greatest leverage,

2. (and this is the big one) the months spent negotiating with Olympia Snowe were a waste of time. Reid estimates that she never had any intention of signing onto healthcare reform.

Notre Dame's 2010 Commencement Speaker: Brian Williams

Great. Maybe we'll get to hear about some of his penetrating insights, like how there's something uniquely American about not giving up, or perhaps a comment about the solid moral values of people in the Heartland. I wonder if he'll mention how courageous our men and women in uniform are or how magnificent the accomplishments of the Greatest Generation were.

I really hope he talks a little bit about taking the politics out of Washington by focusing less on Wall St. and more on Main St.

don't mess with Conando

Conan O'Brien won't do a midnight Tonight Show. Good for him. Apparently there are contractual issues in trying to go somewhere else, though.

I'm getting really sick of Jay Leno and the way NBC pushes everyone else around to make room for him and his tepid comedy. This episode reminds me of the fact that, had Johnny Carson had his way, Conan would be taking over The Tonight Show with David Letterman. Dunno how long it will last, but right now on Jay Leno's Wikipedia page, if you look under "influences" you'll see the name "Judas."

Harold Ford, Jr. running for New York senate seat

What is it about this senate seat that attracts carpetbaggers?

When people of staunch liberal and conservative persuasions talk about the "squishy center," accusing them of spinelessness, double talk, and disloyalty, they're usually talking about guys like Harold Ford. Ford spent the last 5 years on television bashing Democrats for being "extremist," at least when he wasn't burnishing his pro-life credentials or supporting gay marriage bans (now that's "Big Government"!).

Now, however, with a practically open seat in a comfortably blue state, Ford has re-emerged, suddenly socially liberal.

And for the record, ontheissues.org pegs Ford's support percentage from NARAL at 30%, not 80% as he claims. I know that must have been really hard for the lofty New York Post to verify, but there it is.

the ironic ending of Joe Rollino

Guy who lived to be 104 died yesterday in New York. Very sad.

He didn't pass away in bed, though. He was hit by a van.

ex-Gitmo prison guard reconnect with 2 former inmates using Facebook

Not your typical Guantanamo story.

nonplussed

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Do they have editors at the Washington Post?

you see what God did to us?

Some of the best commentary on the championship game. I've been a fan of Colt McCoy since his freshman year when he gave the Buckeyes a fight at the Horseshoe, and what happened to him last night, after having spent pretty much his entire life preparing for that game, is a devilishly cruel twist of fate even by sports standards. I know reporters are supposed to talk to the main players about what happened after the game, but neither Colt nor we should have been subjected to this:

Perhaps the issue of Colt's personal misery could be held off for another day, or at least you could maybe have a little tact when you pick at that fresh wound next time?

Poor kid. I choked up a little watching him struggle for words. I'm truly impressed that he could hold himself together long enough to get away from the vultures.

top tens of the decade: TV shows

What can I say? It's fun to do these things. Heather Havrilesky at Salon has a good one, though mine would not be identical.

What do I take "best" to mean here? I'm thinking a mix of entertainment value, intellectual heft, clever writing, and strong production, I suppose. I understand that Havrilesky gets a lot of entertainment out of "Survivor," and felt the need to include something from the reality TV genre, but I don't feel any such compunction about leaving out a genre if I think it's cheap, brainless filler pretty much by definition. I'm sure there are some well-crafted, entertaining game shows, too, but you won't see any on my list. You also won't see shows I haven't seen yet (sorry, Sopranos). You also won't see the two shows everyone's ga-ga over: Mad Men and 30 Rock. I like and watch them both, and 30 Rock is probably number 11 on my list. I hear the most recent season of Mad Men is the best, but I can't watch it until it comes out on video.

1. The Wire

Agreed with Heather on this one, and I'll go even further. The Wire isn't just the clear standout of the decade; I think it may be the greatest show ever. I'm not sure I've ever seen a show this smart or this coldly realistic, or have characters this detailed, or organized and executed so meticulously. The show carefully cultivates a sense of brutal realism, even pessimism, but without becoming merely cynical. The characters are not just memorable or "captivating" but alive, and we see them in their natural environment, most of them always teetering on the brink of destruction.

One of the things I thought was most interesting and alluring about the show was that the entire premise proceeded from a single, pedestrian theme, a mere cliche in pretty much any other context: "Drugs are bad for people and communities." The creators of the show, a former journalist and a former policeman, create an entire series about the city of Baltimore and how drugs are choking the life out of it, and exactly how that's happening, and exactly why that's happening, and why all the city's civic institutions are powerless to stop it.

2. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

I'm with Heather here as well. It is scary remembering what life was like when the only comedy acts attempting to deal with politics were Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show. God we must have been stupid back then. Critics may point out that Colbert Report is, on the whole, funnier and a deader aim. That may be true, but The Daily Show was just bigger this decade in its aim and in its impact on politics and TV comedy and even news media. Jon Stewart filled a void so dearly longed for by so many people, and did it so completely, that he's become one of the most trusted news men in America.

Who saw that coming after watching Death to Smoochy?

3. Firefly

F you, FOX.

Joss Whedon's magnum opus was just the cleverest durn thing you ever seen. Amusing, infinitely quotable, with endearing characters and surprisingly well-conceived special effects (the silent hand cam was so good at making the effects scenes feel like actual space), Firefly was perhaps the single saddest casualty of America's taste for shitty television.

4. Deadwood

The long defunct western genre was resurrected on TV in some surprising and brilliant ways. Deadwood took the western genre and recreated it for savvier, more intellectual audiences, and even inserted Shakespearean cadences into the banter. Ian McShane's Al Swearengen may be the best executed character of the decade. Also, it had the best opening credits sequence of any show I've ever seen.

5. The Office

Anybody else notice that "that's what she said" is everywhere now?

Seriously though, this show is so much more than meets the eye. The humor is hard to crack at first because it's so uncomfortable, but underneath there's a surprising amount of heart in this show, and of depth in the characters, especially Michael Scott. A pre-emptive response to the fans of the British version: by the end of the 2nd season, Steve Carell inhabits this character more fully than Ricky Gervais, and the writing is better, to boot. The show talks about life at work in a way that is smarter than it first sounds.

6. Dexter

A show that takes everything cliche about TV in the aughts (a Miami crime procedural about a serial killer? really?) and makes something brilliant. I hate that I like this show so much.

7. Arrested Development

I've only seen the first season so far, but you can just kinda tell.

8. Battlestar Galactica

Not always the smartest dialog and not always the best acting, but the story is majestic, a real spectacle. Probably the greatest straight sci-fi TV show in history.

9. In Treatment

Minimalist television, stripped down to 3 staple characters in 2 rooms, doing nothing but having therapy sessions. Like fragments of ancient poetry, there is something about the tiny, truncated nature of the episodes and stories that sticks with you long after they're over.

The whole weight of the show rests upon the acting chops of its cast, doing entire episodes without a cut in many cases, and Gabriel Byrne and Dianne Wiest are enthralling.

10. Big Love

It's impressive how well the writers take a group that is universally despised and makes them not just sympathetic but almost like representations of the average American. They can tug on different thematic strands to make the Henricksons appeal to different social and political subgroups at different times. See there, Bill is a church-going, true believing man of God who's unafraid to invoke the name of Jesus in public. Look there, there's Barb and Nicki being discriminated against for living an alternative lifestyle! Oh, those crazy in-laws, am I right?

an ad hominem is not a legitimate defense

I keep seeing this over and over again: the answer to the charges that Mike Leach punished a concussed player is that the player, Adam James, was lazy and entitled. Can someone explain to me how the player's lack of work ethic justifies locking him in a room for the grave offense of having a concussion? Nevertheless, sneering mockeries of James appeared on signs and t-shirts all over the broadcast of the Alamo Bowl. I even heard this argument from Mike Leach himself, which I personally find despicable.

Of course, Leach's public treatment of his players has become increasingly unprofessional in recent years, and some of those surprising tweets from early this season now seem much more telling in light of recent events. As I said yesterday, it's significant that, rather than rushing to their highly successful coach's defense, the current players that have gone public are standing by James, but it's not just that they defended James. Look at the comments they made:

Starting Center Shawn Byrnes on Leach: “He didnt understand how to deal with people. … Everyone is excited about this to be honest. … Adam James took a stand. How could punish a kid for having a concussion? What could that possibly accomplish?”

Texas Tech defensive lineman Chris Perry on Leach’s firing today and the coach’s treatment of Adam James: “I have no complaints about this decision. (Leach) put Adam in a shed like an animal. Like an animal in a cage. … That was bull. … You call the players. We practiced hard this week. We have our pep back now. We had less stress this week. You know why? Because he’s (Leach) gone.”

Texas Tech defensive back Taylor Charbonnet on Leach’s treatment of teammate Adam James: “I didn’t like it at all. I didn’t agree with it. I don’t know why Leach did that.”

What I think we're starting to see is a long deteriorating relationship between Leach and his players that boiled over this season in several very embarrassing public episodes, but has been simmering out of sight of the cameras for some time. I have a feeling this is the real story of Mike Leach's firing from Texas Tech.

LA betting on drawing an NFL team by 2011

From AP:

LOS ANGELES (AP)—The company behind a plan to lure the NFL back to Los Angeles said Tuesday the Jacksonville Jaguars and Buffalo Bills are the first teams it will try to relocate.

Majestic Realty Co. managing partner John Semcken said the company is still considering at least seven franchises for a new stadium some 25 miles east of Los Angeles.

They also include the San Francisco 49ers, San Diego Chargers, Minnesota Vikings, St. Louis Rams and Oakland Raiders.

But he said the Jaguars and the Bills are at the top of the list because they play in small markets that tamp down their earning potential and because they have little hope of building larger venues in their home regions.

I'm not a fan of any of these teams, but having watched the Oilers go to Nashville in my youth, I'm still a bit sore on the whole idea of teams switching cities, especially older, more established teams. Three of these teams have already called Los Angeles home before (the Raiders, Rams, and Chargers), but the Vikings, 49ers, and Bills have eons of history with their hometowns. They're some of the NFL's most venerable institutions.

Still, it is kind of silly for a city the size of Los Angeles not to have a team, especially when the Bay Area has two. One could argue that Los Angeles lost the Rams and Raiders because, despite hailing from a metropolitan area with a population of 12 million people, they couldn't fill the 90,000 seats in the Coliseum. However, 90k is a pretty absurd seat count for an NFL stadium (only FedEx Field in DC matches it without resorting to standing areas). Plus, for all but the last year of the LA Rams, there were 2 NFL teams dividing up the Angelino fanbase.

With all this in mind, I looked up the Harris Poll of NFL team popularity for this year. The results are interesting, especially the top 10. Only one of the top 10 teams changed metro areas in the last 35 years (the Indianapolis Colts in 1984). The spring chickens of the bunch are the San Diego Chargers and the Dallas Cowboys, both 50 years young. None of the eleven newest teams in the NFL made the top 10, while 6 of the 11 oldest teams were included.

Tommy Tuberville interviewing at Texas Tech

They'd be crazy not to take him. Crazy.

the sad truth about the "values" of college sports

The vast majority of fans will gladly call out and denigrate on national TV a 19 year old kid to protect the coach, even one accused of punishing said kid for having the temerity to be concussed.

Normally the players rally around endangered and fired coaches, as happened with Charlie Weis despite his incredibly gruff personality and disappointing performance. Our best players even tried to extort the AD into bringing Weis back by making their return for the senior year contingent on Weis' (and made good on that threat when he was fired). Yet no current players have come to Leach's defense even after producing so many winning seasons and bowl games and masterminding the most impressive run in Tech football history, even taking the Red Raiders to their first ever #2 national ranking briefly last season. They have instead rallied around the injured player, Adam James, which should be a red flag to all of us outside the bubble about who was probably in the wrong here.

Apparently not, though: as of this morning, the Team Leach contingent on Facebook has 41,000 members. The "I support all Tech players including Adam James" group has 118. The group explicitly calling James a douchenozzle and advocating buying him a pretty dress has 123.

hey! something substantive said about sports!

10 actual, for real good things about sports, without all the bullshit about values and character.

HCR, quick glance

I've long been on the side that believes the restrictions on dropping coverage and pre-existing conditions probably make the current health care reform bill worth passing pretty much no matter what other crap is in it, though maybe that's partly because I've never been convinced that we'd get a public option anyway.

Howard Dean jumping off the bus makes me think twice, though.

kung fu monkeys

No, seriously. A Chinese man taught his monkeys kung fu, and they turned on him with their best moves.

And there's a picture of it.

Friday Night Lights

Thought I'd give it a shot considering all the stellar reviews it's gotten over the last several years. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it really is an outstanding show. Definitely lacking the gritty realism of a show like "The Wire," and isn't quite as intelligent, but that's an awfully high bar. It's interesting how the show painted a bland, very stereotypically "football show" portrait in the pilot, and has spent every episode since then filling in interesting details and adding color. It sketches out the small Texas town with striking clarity and honesty, letting you see right through the Broderian heartland rubbish into a place that really exists (or at least seems to).

A little personal note about it: my high school played the school the show is based on once or twice while I was there. We got smoked.

Brian Kelly is Notre Dame's new coach

Jackpot.

Kelly "on brink" of becoming next Irish coach?

Does God love us this much?

Kelly held a meeting last week about the opening with representatives of Notre Dame within days of Cincinnati's Big East championship game against Pittsburgh, the Tribune has learned.

Talks progressed well enough that the official announcement Kelly will be Charlie Weis' replacement could come as early as Friday -- anytime after Cincinnati's football banquet Thursday night.
...
ESPN.com reported "things are heating up" between Notre Dame and Kelly.

Final details over a contract remain, but the university had no plans to deviate from its traditional stance of signing new football coaches to five-year deals, a source said. Asked if Kelly would accept an official offer to coach Notre Dame, a coaching friend of Kelly's answered, "I have no doubt he'd take the job.''

Let's all hope this isn't just another coach using ND's interest to get a better contract from their home school. Brian Kelly has taken three shitty schools and made them champions. Grand Valley State is still a major Division II power, and Central Michigan has had an iron grip on the MAC since 2006, his third year. Cincinnati's the Big East champion for the second consecutive season and playing in the Sugar Bowl because of this guy, kids. Cincinnati.

And check out this nugget from his Wikipedia page:

Among the honors that UC football team has achieved in 2009 is the highest academic rating among teams in the top 10 of the current BCS standings, according to the latest Graduation Success Rates, released Wednesday by the NCAA. UC, which is fifth in the BCS standings, checked in with a 75 percent NCAA graduation rate and a 71 percent federal government rate, the only team in the BCS top 10 to surpass the 70 percent plateau in both.

If he can't right this ship, then the problem is not with coaches.

failure

Public option triggered out of existence in the Senate compromise. I really, really wish I were wrong about this.

Of course, we're all waiting to see what the CBO says about all this, even though they said the public option would save money. After all, if it isn't for wars, it's not free money!

not the punchline I was expecting

Earlier today I was in a sexual harassment workshop for work. It's exactly like the ones you see parodied on television, where you watch videos of inappropriate behavior and then are asked by the presenter to point out the obvious. We're watching this one where a hoary old professor asks his secretary to send out the "memo" he just sent her. It's already pretty humorous because of the casting choice and stilted lines. It continues:

*secretary opens email and gasps in horror*

Secretary: "Did you mean to send this to me?"

Dirty Professor: "You're supposed to laugh. It's just a joke."

*awkward pause*

Dirty Professor: "I thought you liked animals."

BOTH Clausen and Tate entering draft

Thanks, Clausen-punching irate fan! Idiot.

Seriously though, this is a serious setback, to be sure. Of the two, Tate is probably the toughest hit since no one else appears to be at his level to balance Michael Floyd, while Dayne Crist showed promise in his limited playing time, injury notwithstanding.

Still, imagine for a second what Brian Kelly could have done with Jimmy Clausen and Golden Tate.

so much for BCS gate-crashing

Every year for the past 3 or 4 years there has been a great undefeated team from the non-BCS conferences that has crashed the gates of the BCS. Even more embarrassing for the BCS, these mid-major upstarts actually have a pretty good record against the BCS' elite. This year things looked to get even worse with not one, but two such revolutionaries having the audacity to go undefeated, with one of them even knocking off the eventually PAC 10 champions along the way, each one demanding the opportunity to play with the big dogs.

The BCS' answer? Turn the Fiesta Bowl, traditionally the home turf of the Big 12, into the Separate But Equal Bowl. So I guess that makes the new guiding principle of BCS bowl selection "damage control." Matt Hinton of the brilliant Dr. Saturday blog (formerly Sunday Morning Quarterback) doesn't smell any conspiracy:

It's not really that sinister: The Fiesta Bowl made the picks itself, one undefeated upstart (Cincinnati) still has its chance to make good against a powerhouse (Florida) and the only options beyond the championship game and the Gators would have been matching the Frogs and Broncos up with almost equally surprising outfits from Georgia Tech and Iowa. It's not a conspiracy; as with so often in the BCS, the setup ensures that somebody is always getting screwed.

I find it almost inconceivable that the Fiesta Bowl would willing choose both Boise St. and TCU over its birthright, Big 12 representatives Iowa. Nor would I be surprised to find that the BCS is more than confident in Urban Meyer and Tim Tebow's ability to put down the 3rd undefeated pretender.

It's shameful.

It's time for a change, ladies and gentlemen. I present to you the Wetzel plan, 2009 edition. It's a playoff of the same sort played all the other NCAA sports, including Division II football, so I don't want to hear a word about kids playing too many games. All 11 Division I conference champs + 5 at-large bids, with higher seeds getting home field advantage. The bowls can still invite people and play if they want, but they don't take part in the tournament; otherwise, home field advantage would be pointless. There are plenty of reasons to back this system as laid out by Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports. If none of that convinces you, though, just take a gander at what this season would look like under the Wetzel plan:


Almost brings a tear to your eye, doesn't it? Right out of the gate in week 1 we get Iowa at Pac 10 champions Oregon, Georgia Tech on the road at Ohio State, Virginia Tech on the blue turf of Boise State, LSU crossing the Sabine river to TCU, and, hoo boy, 2 great powerhouses you never see together: Penn State at Florida.

It's already got more and better matchups than the BCS this year, and we're just on the first Saturday.

Imagine the likely week 2, and you've got the winner of Iowa-Oregon traveling down to Austin to play Colt McCoy and the Longhorns. Cincinnati gets the winner of Va Tech-Boise St. at home. A couple hundred miles south will be a likely match between the Ohio State Buckeyes and Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa.

Boise St, TCU, and Cincinnati all get legitimate shots at the Mythical National Championship (as well as East Carolina and several other smaller outfits), but TCU, the one with the highest seed, would have to get past LSU, Florida, and probably Alabama. Boise St. would have to beat Va Tech, Cincinnati and Texas.

This needs to happen. Sooner or later, it will happen. It's inevitable.

remember, kids, he's pro-life!

Rick Warren refuses to condemn a bill to make homosexuality (or even support for gay rights) a crime in Uganda, sending gays to jail for life, and executing HIV positive gays:

The fundamental dignity of every person, our right to be free, and the freedom to make moral choices are gifts endowed by God, our creator. However, it is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations.

Unsurprisingly, the author of the bill is considered a "core member" of The Family, the Christian conservative organization on Capitol Hill. When he started catching some flak for this remark, Warren replied that, "Globally last yr 146,000 Christians were put to death last year because of their faith. No one, except Christians, said anything."

Nevermind the highly suspect and unverified nature of Warren's number, what's the lesson here from the good pastor for the kids at home?

1. that one cannot be Christian and gay at the same time;
2. that it's ok to stand by and watch evil happen, saying nothing, if your people were wronged on some previous occasion;
3. that gays can be punished for other people's crimes.

These political pastors, they really live the Word, ya know?

Clausen punched in the face by "irate fan"

No joke. From ESPN:

Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen was punched in the face by an irate fan outside a South Bend restaurant early Sunday morning and has a swollen eye, a person briefed on the incident said on Monday.

That person said Clausen was "sucker-punched" by a fan as he left an establishment after having dinner with his parents.

The fan allegedly said something to Clausen and/or a female acquaintance.

Odd choice of target, since Jimmy Clausen is one of about three people associated with Fighting Irish football who has played as good as he was supposed to.

The bar in question was CJ's, by way.

South Bend to Chicago in 1 hour, by train

This would be huge. The ability to commute from Chicago would practically cause a sea change in faculty recruiting for Notre Dame.

classy, Les

Les Miles is head coach at LSU, a highly successful program with a recent national championship under its belt and the January scalp of the last good Fighting Irish squad. It was in a squeaker against upstart division rival Ole Miss on Saturday, and found itself down 2 points with only a couple seconds left on the clock. LSU could have tried to rush out the field goal team to win it, or alternatively they could snap the ball and take a shot at the end zone since they might not be able to switch out 11 dudes before the clock ran out (no time outs left).

Instead, the quarterback tried to spike the ball with 1 second left to stop the clock, but the clock beat him to the punch, and the game was over before LSU got to make their final play. Miles, incensed, gives a press conference calling out his QB in front of God and everybody for trying to clock the ball and criticizing what was unquestionably a poor decision.

Only problem is one TV network had a camera on the field facing Coach Miles at the critical moment, repeatedly giving his QB the signal to spike the ball:


Of course, Miles won't suffer any repercussions for this sort of thing as long as LSU keeps generally winning, which at 8-3 and facing unranked Arkansas at home next week, probably means Miles will be safe for quite some time.

The lesson here is the same as the lesson currently being taught in South Bend. Jack Swarbrick says that winning "also" matters along with graduation rates and other such tripe, but the truth is that winning is all that matters, whether at a lowly football/party school like LSU or the austere, Gothic heights of Notre Dame. Charlie can boast high grad rates and all the rest, as could Willingham, but they were (or will be) unceremoniously canned on the basis of one statistic alone, in the same way that Les Miles can display all the poor judgment and cowardice he wants and will still get paid millions by the state of Louisiana as long as the tigers keep smoking their opponents in January bowls.

And let's stop kidding ourselves: if ND's next coach lets his kids make terrible grades, has a bad attitude, recruits a bunch of drug dealers and rapists, and makes an ass of himself on television but the Irish beat USC on their way to the National Championship Game, his job will be as safe as Jenkins'. This and previous athletic directors have more than amply shown that the alumni and ticketholders make the final call, and they only care about the W's.

Lubbock featured on Dr. Saturday

We've hit the big time. And a special mention for the O-Bar, One Guy's, and Cricket's. Fittingly, too, right after mentioning a bar with Guinness, Bass, Fat Tire, Paulaner Hefe-Weizen, Amstel, and some 70 other beers on tap, it is suggested (in all caps, no less) that the beer of choice should be ... Keystone.

And why not, really? Half the people in Cricket's are usually paying $4 for a pint of Coors Light, anyway.

Stanford

Wait... what the f**k just happened?

Texas and ND deserve their rankings

Some nice mythbusting from this column. Somebody needs to provide a little perspective on the SEC, which is a great conference, to be sure, but not miles beyond everyone else.

Jon Stewart becomes Glenn Beck

Impressive.

the best worst cameo ever

Who is that loon on Friday Night Lights?

the Plus-one, or an alternative to the playoff

We've heard a bit of talk the last year or two about the possibility of moving to a "plus-one" system in college football (rather presumptuously referred to here as the "Mandel plan"). Under a plus-one system, the bowl system remains intact except for the BCS bowls themselves, two of which shift to a 4 team playoff with no. 1 and 2 hosting, an extra BCS bowl to keep 10 BCS bids (not sure why that matters), and a 6th BCS championship game a week later. Using Mandel's example for this year's teams:

• Jan. 1 Rose: No. 8 Oregon (Pac-10 champ) vs. No. 11 Penn Sate (replacement)

• Jan. 1 Sugar: No. 1 Florida (SEC champ) vs. No. 4 Cincinnati (Big East champ)

• Jan. 2 Cotton: No. 5 Alabama (first at-large) vs. No. 6 TCU (third at-large)

• Jan. 4 Fiesta: No. 2 Texas (Big 12 champ) vs. No. 3 Iowa (Big Ten champ)

• Jan. 5 Orange: No. 10 Ga. Tech (ACC champ) vs. No. 12 USC (second at-large)

• Jan. 12 title game: Sugar Bowl winner vs. Fiesta Bowl winner

This has one advantage over the current system: it at least allows the top 4 teams a shot at the championship, rather than just the top 2. That makes it better than the current system.

Of course, this setup is still worthless compared to an actual playoff with more than four teams. For one thing, non-BCS teams still have virtually no chance at getting into the playoff, despite the obvious silliness of handicapping teams like Boise St. and Utah who have made quite a name for themselves humiliating top 10 teams. There's also still a high probability that national championship contenders even from BCS conferences will be snubbed. Last year, for instance, there were 7 undefeated or one-loss teams just in the BCS games, including Southern Cal, Penn St., Utah, Alabama, Texas, Florida, and Oklahoma. How many of those do you think there will be at the end of this season?

Essentially, the plus-one still allows very little margin-of-error for an evaluative system (BCS rankings) that is highly, highly flawed and subjective.

what Obama has done in the Oval Office

An interesting take.

various elections results

Republicans win both gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey, but lose both congressional elections, including the much-publicized race for the NY-23 seat they've held since the Civil War. LGBT equality loses in Maine, but civil unions appear to have prevailed in Washington.

Or as the AP calls it, "a GOP sweep."

Let's establish that the people who tell you this is a rebuke of Barack Obama don't know what they're talking about. Thanks to Marc Ambinder for having the presence of mind to head off this nonsense. Suffice it to say, Obama's approval ratings in these states are very close to his election numbers from last year, and the voters themselves say it wasn't about him.

It's an off-year in a bad economy after 2 straight massive Dem waves, folks. These things happen. And still the Democratic party increases its congressional majority.

Bush vs. Clinton, "uncensored"

I'd bet you $100 it won't be nearly as cool as it sounds. Bill Clinton, despite his caricature in the media, has always used kid gloves on George W. Bush because that is what's expected of former presidents.

Besides, George W. Bush pretty much single-handedly resurrected Clinton's legacy!

Seriously though, you have to figure that you've held an office with so much power and responsibility, and one that fewer than 50 people have ever held (only 5 of whom are currently living), you know there's some mutual respect there, as silly as the thought is of a man like Clinton having respect for a man like Bush.

torture is now officially legal

Remember Maher Arar, the Canadian returning home from vacation who was stopped in JFK, accused of being a terrorist, and shipped off to Syria to be tortured before the government admitted that he had nothing whatsoever to do with any terrorist organization?

Remember how he sued the United States when he got back?

The Second Court of Appeals just dismissed his case on the following grounds:

It [the court] held that even if the government violated Arar's Constitutional rights as well as statutes banning participation in torture, he still has no right to sue for what was done to him. Why? Because "providing a damages remedy against senior officials who implement an extraordinary rendition policy would enmesh the courts ineluctably in an assessment of the validity of the rationale of that policy and its implementation in this particular case, matters that directly affect significant diplomatic and national security concerns " (p. 39).

In other words, the practice of shipping an individual -- any individual, visitor, immigrant, or citizen -- to another country to be tortured is de facto deemed legal because to even hold a trial on it could theoretically threaten national security.

A court in the United States has just officially sanctioned the use of torture.

ND in the BCS

No, this isn't a prediction that we'll get in.

I've talked with several people about Notre Dame's arrangement with the BCS, and about the possibility of ND being guaranteed a slot under certain circumstances (in particular, 10 wins).

This is incorrect. From The BCS's page at FOX Sports:

Notre Dame will have an automatic berth if it is in the top eight of the final BCS Standings.

It takes #8, not 10 wins. Eight is extremely unlikely even at 10-2, considering the recent turn of events for both of ND's losses (USC suffered a 4 touchdown beatdown by Oregon, likely losing their first conference championship in 8 years, while Michigan has dropped 4 of the last 5, including a 38-13 drubbing at the hands of heretofore hapless Illinois).

Not that this conversation is necessarily even worth having anyway, as 10-2 is also extremely unlikely given Notre Dame's, ahem, uneven performance so far this season. Pittsburgh is the only ranked team left on the schedule, but the three final opponents are all dangerous if incomplete teams (and, of course, Navy, who's always a bigger pain in the ass than everyone expects, and this year's Midshipmen nearly put down Ohio State). In every case, it will depend entirely on which team "shows up."

Joe Lieberman plans to run for re-election?

I find this incredibly hard to believe. Lieberman's numbers have been consistently negative in Connecticut since his last re-election; in fact, I remember polls only months after the election showing that Ned Lamont would win a rematch handily. I can easily see all of Joementum's backstabbing and sudden shifts in position being cynical plays in the service of some crazy re-election strategy, but for the life of me I can't figure out what that strategy would be. It truly escapes me how campaigning for Republicans and against Barack Obama and the public option could possibly benefit Lieberman electorally, unless he thinks he can still split the Democratic vote and win over the GOP like in '06. Even still, the path of least resistance is obviously Joe securing the Democratic nomination.

I suppose the more plausible explanation is that Lieberman's head has gotten so bloated from all the years in the Senate, the VP nod in 2000, the victory in '06, and all the media attention since, that he must think he's untouchable. The polls are meaningless, as the Democrats wouldn't dare try something in 2012 after what happened last time. Besides, by then he will have beaten down President Obama so completely that it will be a Republican wave year and he'd coast over any liberal opposition.

I sincerely hope his people are doing their best to convince him how crazy this is. Better yet, I hope they aren't.

the link between news and opinion on FOX News

As perfectly presented by Jon Stewart.

Paranormal Activity

Got to go see a horror movie at the theater for the first time since, God, Blair Witch, maybe? Go figure, the movie we saw was pretty much Blair Witch 2009.

Despite the occasionally cringeworthy dialog and the protagonist's annoying obtuseness, as well as the hilarious way that every shot in the second half of the movie centers on Katie's rack, it was a fun movie. I had forgotten how much fun it can be to watch scary movies in the middle of an audience.

modernizing the power grid

This is a great idea, and probably should have been a major component of the stimulus.

Clausen

The best column I've seen on Saturday's game yet, from Dan Wetzel.

Vaccinate.

I love that, for this article on people's worries about the H1N1 vaccine, the South Bend Tribune went to a chiropractor for expert advice.

In other news, the health section of the SBT will be classified under "astrology."

IN-02: Jackie Walorski (R-Mars) to run against Donnelly

Please, God, tell me the voter of this district are smarter than that. Every time this woman shoves her face into the TV cameras (which is A LOT) she spews her hateful bile all over the screen. I swear she sounds like a tape recorder of RNC talking points. She makes Chris Chocola look like Olympia Snowe, and he was about as lock-step a Republican as they come.

In a lot of ways, she's the quintessential 21st century Republican. She's a belligerent, small-minded, selfish, lily white suburbanite with a bloated sense of entitlement and a chip on her shoulder about not having this country all to herself anymore.

UPDATE: edited to nix an erroneous educational comment. My bad!

there's a word for this

The insurance lobby is telling us that they will raise our premiums if we dare create a public option or regulate them out of their coverage canceling loopholes. That's what they are doing. Obviously they don't have to do that; they could cut into their recession-defying, eye-popping profit margins, but they're saying they'll just pass all the extra costs to us so that they can keep the same rate of profit.

There is a term for this. It's "coercion," or if we're being less charitable "extortion."

Chinatown in light of recent happenings

An interesting look at Polanski's masterpiece, reading the director's own demons into it. Interesting, at least, aside from the tiresome "pox on both your houses" cop-out.

There is more that can be said here, though. I recently had the opportunity to watch Chinatown, and it is a masterpiece, no doubt. Nevertheless, what O'Hehir hints at but never comes out and admits is that the movie's message, like that of Polanski's "self-imposed exile" and like the maddening neither-left-nor-right ducking of reporters and editors, is rooted in moral cowardice. The central theme of the movie is the futility of good intentions, this is true, and the message telegraphed to the audience at the end is that Gittes' first mistake was even bothering to try to help someone in need. Evil always prevails and the good guys always lose, so you might as well just get yours and get out. It's an emotionally charged philosophy rooted in fear and despair, one just as delusional as the much maligned "starry-eyed optimism," but without its courage or productiveness. As a philosophy, however, it does hold one great advantage: it's wonderfully convenient for justifying all manner of selfishness and criminality, as well as the evasion of the consequences of said depravity.

That, I think, is the most interesting parallel between Polanski's life and work.

sustainable living: layin' off the sauce (BBQ sauce, that is)

Ezra Klein brings up an important point that isn't often talked about in conversations about living "green": the contributions of a high meat diet to environmental devastation.

Yeah, I know. Meat is awesome. Meat is so awesome that even vegans want the flavor. The pig alone may be the source of more little moments of joy in this world than 100 years of Disneyland. There's no denying it, though: livestock (cattle in particular) contribute to climate change in a number of different ways that other food crops do not, all while significantly contributing to rates of obesity, heart disease and high blood pressure in the process because humans just weren't designed to eat a 1/3 lb. hunk of meat with every meal.

I'm not going to advocate for vegetarianism or veganism. I can understand the allure I guess, and I concede the dietary and environmental advantages of the lifestyle, sure, but I went vegan once for a Lenten fast. It was a harrowing experience involving 40 days of fairly serious legume-induced gassiness, always feeling hungry (does rice just vaporize when it hits stomach acid or something?), and experimenting with soy milk that I think led directly to my obsession with pizza.

Nevertheless, it's a virtual certainty that if you're not a vegetarian or vegan, you're eating too much meat.

An alternative is to slow down on the frequency with which we eat it. I have thus far had mixed success in this area, but I have found that it isn't as hard as one might think to have a meatless dinner at least a couple of times in a week. Usually in our house this happens when we make some big pot o' stuff that can't contain meat (since sap is vegetarian), which I'll have for dinner that night and at least one other night.

One of my most surprising discoveries during this process of finding "big pots o' stuff" is that many of my favorite meaty dishes don't actually need the meat. The vegetarian versions of jambalaya, gumbo, many soups, and chili are very good and plenty filling.

I also discovered that there's more incentive to have occasional meatless dinners when I buy higher quality meat. It doesn't take an Ag Ph.D. to recognize that Americans eat more meat than other people because meat is cheaper here compared with our salaries. Locally and humanely raised chicken quarters are great, but they cost a lot more than the stuff on the shelf at Wal-Mart, so I find myself having the urge to save them sometimes. Similarly, I'm not gonna throw that pound of grass finished ground beef in the chili when TVP will do. My local, free range pork kielbasa? That's for a special occasion.

Trueblood

For some reason, the notion of a brooding 200 year old getting texted by Anna Paquin gives me a chuckle.

O HAI BILL COME TO MERLOTTES 2NITE PLZ LOL KTHX ;)

Also, I'm a little weirded out that the last two shows I've watched have been about a small town girl with an odd first name and magical powers who's being pursued by her bartender, while her best friend is a sassy, intuitive black girl who is secretly in love with the heroine's older brother.

drinking and riding

Atrios:

After taking the subway home from a show last night one of the first things I saw on the teevee was an anti-drunk driving ad. It occurred to me that in all the years I've been seeing these things I don't remember a single one (I could be wrong!) suggesting people take mass transit instead of driving.

This is an odd mental block to see persisting for so long. I recall seeing one or two ads that involved calling a cab (still not really "mass transit"), but most involve making one friend go to the bar and drink coke all night while everyone else drinks to their hearts' content. The only people I've ever really known who do this effectively and consistently are married couples, probably for various reasons. Back in my rowdier, more single days, DD's were rare indeed.

I know that in both my current and former places of residence the local bus system would occasionally run pub crawl-type services or run buses to the party district, and both have ongoing free rides for students, but there was never much hype about it, and I do not recall any real effort to present the service as an alternative to being DD.

On the other hand, it should be noted that national efforts to combat drunk driving are clearly having some effect, as the number of alcohol-related fatalities has been in steady decline since the 1980's, with steep declines over the last 3 years. Of course, we're still talking about potentially thousands of people every year who die because somebody found carpooling, cabs, and mass transit insufficiently convenient.

TV Tropes

DO NOT GO THERE if you have things to do. It's a magic time traveling website that causing you to instantly skip 3 hours into the future.

One of my favorite lines, from the entry on "Gannon-banning":

Confusing Star Wars with Star Trek in the presence of either fandom is one of the most brutal suicide methods known to man. This troper once saw a troll jokingly ask in a YouTube comment if TNG was "the one with the ewoks".

"this week's game will be telling"

One always has the tendency to see the next game as one that "will really tell us where the team is at," especially throughout the first half of the season. Thinking about it, though, the last 4 games (Michigan, Michigan St., Purdue, Washington) I think established pretty clearly where we're at: roughly in the middle of the Pac 10 and Big 10. On par with the Spartans and Huskies, potentially dangerous to good teams but probably not a real threat to a team like the Tide or the Longhorns.

I hate to say it, but I think we know all too well who these two teams are that are playing in two weeks; we're just slow to admit it. I would be very surprised if we played at all competitively with Southern Cal. SC loses to an unranked team every year, usually right before they leave blue and gold splatter marks all over Notre Dame Stadium. Last year's Trojan D only allowed four Notre Dame first downs, and this year's D looks very similar so far. Yes, SC occasionally drops one to middling teams, but the better team is still more likely to win any given game.

I think we're started to get a sense of how the season is going to pan out for the Irish. In all likelihood, ND will finish its next game 4-2 with Pitt, UConn, Boston College, and Stanford as the remaining teams to beat. Last season ND went 7-5, meaning we'll have to beat 2 of these teams to show continued progress.

I hate to say, but things look pretty bleak from here for us, and even bleaker for Charlie Weis.

define "riskiest"

I'm going to guess that reporter ad libbed the sloppy language describing this study as describing "riskiest" foods rather than foods most likely to carry pathogens. It would be odd to call leafy greens the "riskiest" food in America without considering the "risk" of heart disease from consumption of partially hydrogenated soybean oil, meats, and dairy, or the risk of obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay from high fructose corn syrup. I bet a lot more people every year get sick and die from cheeseburger-induced heart disease than e. coli from spinach.

It's ill-considered language like this that gives fish a bad rep. Our eating habits are bad enough without irresponsible reporters telling people that leafy greens, tuna, tomatoes, sprouts, and berries are dangerous.

the death of punk

I think these conversations are fun to have, even if this particular point is a little stunted. Yes, today's "punk" kids are just buying into a sanitized, corporate, censor-approved mimicry of the original in the same way that sk8ers 15 years ago stopped tearing up their own normal clothes bailing from their boards and started buying $80 baggy jeans from mail order catalogs that also sold skateboards, decals, and sex wax (for lubricating rails and curbs).

Let's take it a little further. Why would the original punks (arguably) not have shopped at Hot Topic and listened to Avril Lavigne? What's wrong with major labels and national chains? There's an anti-authoritarian bent to old punk that extends to "suits," that is, corporations and their soulless, vampiric boards that take things that are fresh and vibrant and raw and sterilize them, wrap them up in pretty packaging, and sell them to entitled suburbanites looking to irk their parents and earn a little hardcore cred.

Admittedly, my experience with punk is limited. Nevertheless, I think I can say defensibly that punk was anarchistic, that is both anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist, but nobody nowadays wants to admit that they ever enjoyed or sympathized with such sentiment. It was this intellectual underpinning that bestowed all the trappings of the aesthetic with "a point," and separates old punk from the shallow, sterilized affect hawked at Hot Topic. At its best, punk was about snapping people out of their consumption-induced haze, about shocking people into waking up and looking at the world around them with clear eyes. Sure, the guys from Green Day might write songs that are critical of George W. Bush, but when the music is buffed to a glossy finish and released by Reprise Records with a mountain of manufactured, overpriced swag, it's just good ol' Starbucks and Apple Computers liberalism, not the gritty, half-smirking, half-sneering, violent thing that punk was.

I would also like to point out that the political lobotomy that punk suffered hardly happened in isolation. What ever happened to the cowboy hedonism and permissiveness toward drug use of outlaw country, and politics at all in rap music? What genre out there is expressing any actual political dissent, other than the occasional country tune supporting orthodox Republicanism or "punk"/rap song supporting Democrats? The only one I remember is a Rage Against the Machine video ten years ago supporting Ralph Nader.

Polanskifest

Since everyone else has already gone so much further into the details of the case than any of us ever wanted to read, I will just make one small contribution to the discussion. I'd like to provide some perspective on relative ages of teenagers and their sexual maturity that I think is sorely missing in this hyper-sexualized and sexually schizophrenic culture of ours.

I had the pleasure, if that is the word, of teaching reading classes to kids of all ages a couple of summers ago. I feel like I taught a healthy mix of urban and rural, rich and poor, white and minority children. Among those kids were somewhere around 100 junior high students and and the same number of high schoolers. New teachers are usually stricken by how young the high school kids look, as I was. The junior high kids, the 12-14 year olds, looked like awkward, oily children. The most "matured" among them could have passed for young, late-blooming high school juniors, but would have looked like little kids on any "high school" TV show.

Think about it: for most of us, the images we have of adolescents come from television, where the "high school age" characters are overwhelmingly played by people in the early 20's. 18 year olds look younger than you probably think. A 13 year old who "looks like she's 18" still looks very much like a kid.

For example, remember Freaks and Geeks? Linda Cardellini (Lindsay Weir) was 24 at the time. Natasha Melnick, who played Cindy Sanders (Sam Weir's love interest) was 15.

And don't forget, Polanski's crime was in 1970, and girls apparently mature a lot younger nowadays.

My point is that the girl he raped was much more a little girl than most people are probably imagining. When Roman Polanski and his apologists try to make his sexual proclivities look more normal by saying "she looked 18," she probably looked less like the lead actress in High School Musical and more like Winnie Cooper, season one.

guns allowed in Arizona bars

I know there are stupider ideas out there, but none are coming immediately to mind. From AP:

Under the law, backed by the National Rifle Association, the 138,350 people with concealed-weapons permits in Arizona will be allowed to bring their guns into bars and restaurants that haven't posted signs banning them.

Those carrying the weapons aren't allowed to drink alcohol.

Curiously, people carrying guns openly will not be allowed in bars, just the people concealing. I would like to know by what logic a concealed weapon is necessary protection while a visible one is not.

Furthermore, if you bring a concealed weapon, you can't drink if the bar has posted a sign saying "no guns," though of course there's no way for the bartender to know if you're concealing. Even then, however, the sign only counts if it is more than a month old, hasn't "fallen down" (golly, I wonder what qualifies as having "fallen down?"), is a special state-approved government sign, and if the offender is a resident of Arizona.

What a Byzantine, nonsensical system the gun lobby has created.

it's the system

Dan Wetzel unloads on the BCS, and it's only week 4. Florida, Alabama, and Texas haven't even lost yet.

Gonna be a fun year for college football, my friends. And by "fun," I of course mean "infuriating."

Stabenow vs. Kyl

This pretty much perfectly expresses the difference between liberals and conservatives.

just one more weakness in the NCAA's ranking system

When efforts like this from Texas Tech against a top 5 team yield no gain in rankings whatsoever. One of the most baffling weaknesses in the system is in its inability to contextualize losses. Teams may lose ground for winning badly against supposedly inferior teams, but nobody ever gains ground for losing well against great teams.

The unranked Red Raiders outgained the #2 Longhorns in nearly every category, in Austin, but lost the game on a punt return and a nasty hit on the quarterback resulting in a fumble. For that, Texas Tech lost votes.

This is one of the big reasons, perhaps even the biggest single reason, why we have to spend the first 3 weeks of every season watching the big teams beat up on I-AA schools and the doormats of the MAC. All that matters is "the W."

it's the end of the world as we know it

and they feel fine.

Seriously, this is toads raining from the sky, dogs and cats living together.

College Football Hall of Fame going to Atlanta

It was only a matter of time, really.

Obama why?!

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Funny.

the rise of the Washington Huskies

Heh. Southern Cal drops one every year, and usually it's just due to the Trojans not taking the game seriously enough until it's too late. This year, though, you have to wonder when that same fluke winner also scared the hell out of LSU.

I gotta admit, I've been quietly rooting for Washington for several years now, and watching for Jake Locker to mature into the primetime player he has the capacity to be. The kid could have gone anywhere (and I believe was pursued by Pete Carroll), but chose to stay with the home team and help rebuild it. In this era of the mercenary athlete, I have a lot of respect for the few who can show a modicum of loyalty and hometown pride.

Plus, he's fun as hell to watch.

so what's in the damn things?

Been looking online for any news source that bothers to tell us what's in the Baucus plan or the House ones, other than which ones are more "liberal," how much it costs, and whether or not they commit the cardinal sin of providing healthcare to illegal immigrants. After spending a little time finding the name of the Baucus bill (it's "America's Healthy Future Act," in case you were wondering), I found a copy of the early, layman's terms iteration of the bill, all 223 pages of it, which is a little long for a layman to read in his spare time, especially one who doesn't know much about the ins and outs of healthcare policy.

John Dingell's plan (America's Affordable Health Choices Act), however, is over 1000 pages. Pretty much all I can find about it is how much it costs and whether it funds abortions and euthanasia. This bill has been around at least July, when it was endorsed by the American Medical Association, and that's the full extent of its coverage. Great job, journos!

I found only a couple stories and posts that actually deal with the content of the bill: one here from RJ Eskew at the Huffington Post, one here from Ezra Klein on the CBO's quite positive assessment of it, and one here from Forbes. In fact, it looks like Ezra Klein may be the only person in the country repeatedly writing about what is in this bill.

From how it sounds from these stories, as well as what I've read elsewhere, it's really irritating how Baucus seems to look for every way possible to get money from the Treasury into the pockets of insurance companies. It's almost obsessive, like he's deeply apologetic over the slight of making them stop cutting off service to people right when they most need it and looking for ways to make it up to them.

disconnected

Hilarious.

CEO of Whole Foods advocates lower taxes, more Whole Foods shopping

I was driving to Indianapolis yesterday and listening to NPR, when the topic of Talk of the Nation transitioned to John Mackey's controversial editorial and the tension between social and personal responsibility in healthcare. I spent the next 30 minutes listening to several doe-eyed, credulous personalities discuss the merits of Mackey's point, and started to worry that I'm becoming a cynic.

You do realize that John Mackey's editorial was just a concealed pitch for shopping at Whole Foods, don't you? Is the gist of this editorial not: "hey, there's no need to worry your little heads about funding public healthcare. That could lead to higher taxes on me! Just buy these quality organic bananas and you'll be fine?"

Honestly, the not so subtle Randian undertones should have been the first tip-off that he's writing from self-interest. Well, perhaps the second, after the fact that he runs a health food business and is writing about healthcare.

back on topic, people

Yes, we all know that the outburst was highly irregular and a huge no-no for elected representatives. We all have a pretty good idea why President Obama was denied a basic respect granted to every other president in the history of the republic, and grasp the significance of that denial emanating from a representative of South Carolina. It was also not lost on most of us that a Louisiana congressman delivered the rebuttal from Strom Thurmond's old office.

But let's be honest: this is all just political theater. It's bullshit, easily digestible fluff that keeps us from having to talk about an issue that requires thinking.

You know what we don't know?

We don't know what kind of coverage Obama envisions the public option providing. Will it provide coverage for dental cleanings? Eye exams? Anyone have a ballpark estimate on the deductible? The copay? Will it be able to negotiate lower drug prices?

We don't know what the role of Medicaid will be under this new system. After all, Medicaid was created to handle precisely this problem of the poor lacking access to basic healthcare. Will it be scrapped, boosted, what?

We don't know who will be responsible for the public option. Will its administration fall under the federal Dept. of Health and Human Services? Will it be run by the states? A wholly new and separate entity?

We don't know how the Administration plans to enforce the individual mandate on buying health insurance. How will they check to see if we're covered? What happens if someone refuses to purchase it? Will they go to jail?

We don't know what measures, if any, will be taken to address the problem of astronomical premiums for malpractice insurance. Sure, Democrats and liberals are (rightly) suspicious of attempts to curb the ability of regular people to seek damages when they are significantly hurt, maimed, or killed, and apparently the number of lawsuits and amount of damages has been on the decline since the early '90's, but it is clear that high malpractice premiums and the overly common practice of defensive medicine are significant factors in the high cost of healthcare.

We don't know what measure, if any, will be taken to address the exorbitant and unmitigated cost of medical school. The NHSC is a great first step, but the vast majority of doctors are still starting out in the field hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hole from school loans, which undoubtedly affects the amount they have to charge for services.

These are pretty basic questions thought up by some wanker on the intarwebs with no inside knowledge of the medical field whatsoever, and yet here we are, past the time of debate and at the "time to act," and there have been (to my knowledge) no attempts even to ask these questions of our representatives, let alone answer them.

And why is that? Because every time the president spends an hour of primetime television trying to bring us back on topic, the conversation gets derailed even before he gets off the air onto Henry Louis Gates, and civility in the House, and death panels, and socialism, and abortion, and the stupidity of Republicans yelling to keep the government out of Medicare.

Obama's health insurance reform speech

The text here. Remembering the emotion of last year's squabbles between Democratic primary candidates on health care reform, it is notable that the current plan appears to be candidate Obama's insurance exchange plus Obama's subsidies for the poor plus Clinton's insurance mandates, with Edwards' method of enforcement. This is all, of course, leaving aside candidate Kucinich's health plan, Medicare for all, which is still the best plan, but that doesn't really matter at this point.

Judging from the president's words last night, it's pretty clear that the public option he envisions is an anemic thing, capable of providing care but not of providing it well enough to compete for customers who can afford to go elsewhere. That is a shame, and the Reaganites who believe government only works when it redistributes wealth upward will make some serious political hay out of it down the road. I know that sounds like politics rather than policy discussion, but it is in policy where we will pay dearly for this compromise.

Also, we heard it officially tonight: the president's plan will mandate that people purchase private health insurance, and use subsidies to help the poor afford it -- in other words, tax revenue funneled directly into the pockets of Wall Street health insurance investors. Free money for the bad actors who caused much of this mess in the first place. I still don't get this compromise. If you want to achieve universal coverage, why not just create a public option and sign everyone up for it? Then set it up so that the fees and services for the public option begin next year, and add a form to this year's taxes whereby people find out how much they owe for the public option, or can check a box to decline the option if they provide their alternative policy. No policy, no checking the box. No need for fines or other enforcement mechanisms than the IRS' current policies and staff. Universal coverage. Easy peasy.

How is forcing people to pay private insurance premiums preferable from either a political or policy standpoint?

On the other hand, there is this:

Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick. And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies - because there's no reason we shouldn't be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse.

It doesn't deal with the issues of millions of uninsured people, obscenely high malpractice insurance premiums, or of various other problems in the health care industry, and will only be as good as the organization charged with enforcing it, but this paragraph alone probably makes the bill worth signing. If the Democrats can't get a workable universal coverage/universal access bill out of the Senate, it would be worth their time to create a separate bill with these provisions alone to put an end to the most barbaric abuses in the system. I'm tempted to say I would prefer that even to universal coverage provided in the rest of the plan.

the problem is not with the rivalry

It is with the paper.

Home Plus is us

Heh. Hehehe. Heh.

Joe Scarborough defends the president's speech to schools

I can't believe anyone even has to make this point. The degree of hateful, paranoid hysteria caused by having a president Barack Obama has definitely surprised me. I remember people being a little crazy when Clinton was elected, but I was in Lubbock back then, so it wasn't exactly surprising. This is something else entirely, something harder to understand because the charges often don't match up with anything. After all, I can understand conservatives complaining about Obama being a big spender (I can understand hypocrisy, after all), or being liberal or whatever, but I totally missed the part where he became a bad example to kids.

reporting politics, not policy

CBS released a poll showing that huge majorities of Americans don't understand the reforms Democrats are pushing on health care. Newspapers and TV networks have been giving us nonstop footage of the parade of crazy going on in town halls across the country. I've even seen some reports on Obama's/Democrats' inability to galvanize support being based on people's lack of understanding of what they're proposing.

So... eh... why don't you tell us? I've seen several online videos that explain the proposals clearly and concisely, often in cartoon form. Why can't the Nancy Snydermans of the various networks do something like that? Why are they all just waiting for an instructive voice to drown out the din on nonsense?

After all, apparently health care literacy is so low, even other journalists need a couple of basic lessons. It would be nice, for instance, for someone to tell Maria Bartiromo that Medicare isn't available to people under 65 (then again, judging from her Celebrity Jeopardy! performance, she might be a lost cause. Yes, CNBC hired this woman to tell you about financial news every day). Or tell other journalists that the public option does not establish a single payer system.

you just don't get it, do you?

I understand that this article approaches the topic from a health perspective, but if you're looking at things from that perspective, you just shouldn't talk about pizza. Certainly that would be preferable to this blasphemy:

HALL OF FAME
THE BEST PIZZAS IN AMERICA

Next time you're hankering for a pie, grab a slice from one of these premium pizzas.

BEST VEGGIE PIZZA
Pizza Hut 12" Fit and Delicious Diced Red Tomato, Mushroom and Jalapeno (2 slices)
300 calories
16 g fat (7 g saturated)
1,220 mg sodium
46 g carbs

BEST HAWAIIAN PIZZA
Domino's Thin Crust Ham and Pineapple Pizza (2 slices)
294 calories
14 g fat (5 g saturated)
790 mg sodium
30 g carbs

BEST INDIVIDUAL PIZZA
Chuck E. Cheese Individual Cheese
540 calories
19 g fat (8 g saturated)
1,255 mg sodium
69 g carbs

BEST MEAT-LOVER'S PIZZA
Pizza Hut Meat Lover's 12" Pan Pizza (1 slice)
330 calories
18 g fat (7 g saturated, 0 g trans)
820 mg sodium
27 g carbs

Pizza Hut? Domino's? CHUCK E. F**KING CHEESE?? Look, I don't care what the dietary considerations are, you just can't give the "best barbecue sandwich" award to the McRib. Don't laugh; this is serious business. I almost had an aneurysm when I saw "premium pizzas" and "Domino's" appear in the same section.

You, sir, are Hitler. A communist Hitler. A fascist, communist, socialist Hitler if Hitler were also the kiddie-porn-filming love-child of Dick Cheney and Omarosa. YOU WILL ATONE FOR THIS SACRILEGE!

Greenwald on Jenna Bush: Reporter!

Greenwald on Jenna Bush getting hired as a "reporter" on Today at a time when actual journalists are getting fired left and right:

They should convene a panel for the next Meet the Press with Jenna Bush Hager, Luke Russert, Liz Cheney, Megan McCain and Jonah Goldberg, and they should have Chris Wallace moderate it. They can all bash affirmative action and talk about how vitally important it is that the U.S. remain a Great Meritocracy because it's really unfair for anything other than merit to determine position and employment. They can interview Lisa Murkowski, Evan Bayh, Jeb Bush, Bob Casey, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller, Dan Lipinksi, and Harold Ford, Jr. about personal responsibility and the virtues of self-sufficiency. Bill Kristol, Tucker Carlson and John Podhoretz can provide moving commentary on how America is so special because all that matters is merit, not who you know or where you come from. There's a virtually endless list of politically well-placed guests equally qualified to talk on such matters.
...
Just to underscore a very important, related point: all of the above-listed people are examples of America's Great Meritocracy, having achieved what they have solely on the basis of their talent, skill and hard work -- The American Way. By contrast, Sonia Sotomayor -- who grew up in a Puerto Rican family in Bronx housing projects; whose father had a third-grade education, did not speak English and died when she was 9; whose mother worked as a telephone operator and a nurse; and who then became valedictorian of her high school, summa cum laude at Princeton, a graduate of Yale Law School, and ultimately a Supreme Court Justice -- is someone who had a whole litany of unfair advantages handed to her and is the poster child for un-American, merit-less advancement.

I just want to make sure that's clear.

I lol'ed.