Welcome to Daily Contentions... Born in February 2003, DC is a daily-updated weblog covering a wide variety of issues, contemporary and timeless-- always with a unique perspective and open attitude.
1. The Nintendo Wii will outsell the PlayStation 3.
2. The Chicago Bears will win the Super Bowl.
3. Justice Stevens will retire from the Supreme Court.
4. The Indiana Pacers will barely make the NBA playoffs but lose in the first round.
5. At this date in 2007, more U.S. troops will be in Iraq than are there currently, and we'll be discussing a pullout in terms of a cautious victory for our objectives there.
6. A Japanese auto company will make a play to buyout Ford but will be rebuffed. This will spark a national discussion on how to make the American auto manufacturers more competitive.
7. Fatah will regain control after the next Palestinian elections.
8. Fidel Catro will die.
9. Osama Bin Laden will be captured or killed.
10. Apple Computer will release an iPhone (but perhaps under some other name) in addition to their already announced television set-top box, and will split their stock 2-for-1 after it continues to rise.
*bonus: Juan Pablo Montoya will win the Nascar Nextel Cup.
Not too well. My prediction-perfection in regards to ND football came to a screeching halt when ND lost to USC. I predicted a 1-loss regular season for ND. Didn't happen. I guess that takes the pressure off for future years :-).
The other major predictions were in regards to the 2006 Congressional election. On August 31 I said, "...the Dems are doing their best to alienate the country on foreign policy matters, so when push comes to shove: the GOP retains control of the House. I'll predict they lose no more than 10 seats." Ouch, way off.
The day before the election, I wisely revised my prediction to say the Democrats would win the House (though I still had the actual number of lost GOP seats too low). But I was wrong wrong wrong on the Senate, incorrectly calling Montana, Missouri, Tennessee, and Virginia for the GOP.
Well, I guess that gives me plenty of room to improve for '07.
Diabetes is a terrible disease. Its childhood form robs millions of youth of part of their innocence. Its adult-onset form is reaching epidemic size as obesity also lurches upward. So the news of a potential cure brings great hope.
Canadian scientists studying the auto-immune nature of diabetes, injected a cocktail of capsaicin (the active ingredient in hot peppers) and other substances into the pancreases of diabetic mice. The mice no longer were diabetic by the next day and have remained that way for months, without needing further shots or medication.
This is a straight-up cure for diabetes. But will it work in humans and will it work for people who have had diabetes their entire lives? Still unclear. The scientists say they'll have results from human studies in a year. Any medication would be years away still.
The talk these days is that President Bush will announce in January an increase in troop levels in Iraq. The questions are how large the increase will be and how long it will last. I find it peculiar that it took a national election for President Bush to make this change. Tis ironic considering that the Democrats largely ran on decreasing troop levels. Alas, decision making can work strangely in a democracy.
Retired army general Jack Keane has a column up in the Washington Post, recommending how big the surge should be in Iraq. Specifically, he says we should add at least 30,000 troops for at least 18 months. He argues that anything less will allow the insurgents to lie in hiding, waiting for our withdrawal, and that this amount is needed to root them out.
While we cannot be certain as to the exact numbers needed, I think there is great wisdom in Keane's concluding paragraph: "The United States faces a dire situation in Iraq because of a history of half-measures. We have always sent "just enough" force to succeed if everything went according to plan. So far nothing has, and there's no reason to believe that it will. Sound military planning doesn't work this way. The only 'surge' option that makes sense is both long and large."
Military commitment in Iraq requires commitment of the national will here at home. Success in the larger war against Islamist terrorism will require sacrifice by each and every one of us, whether it be higher gas prices, a national draft, or a combination of such things. America's greatness hinges upon our acceptance of that fact.
After taking a few days off, I'm back and refreshed. The great value of the Christmas season is that it provides time for reflection. After months of being bombarded with the world's problems, one may encounter a sense of being overwhelmed (at least if the person cares about more than him/herself).
Christmas allows us to focus on the things that really matter in our lives. We get to worry about our family and faith, rather than about the various political and cultural conflicts that dominate the media.
Nevertheless, Christmas-time is a reprieve not a retreat. Once focused, we return--hopefully with better priorities and a renewed attitude.
I generally don't make New Years pledges, but my goal is to focus the blog more on the positive.
I hereby begin my 6 month moratorium on discussing the 2008 presidential election. It's too early and I think the media wastes too much time obsessing on the vagaries of the prospective political field. They would be better off using that time to discuss substantive issues. I'm not going to add to the pain.
So I'll leave you all with this George Will column which describes the challenges facing the top GOP "candidates." This should serve us all for the next 6 months.
Microsoft barely even tries to mask its copying of Apple Computer's operating systems these days. Vista will be a great system; its copying of an already great system--Apple's OS X--ensures that.
I know that Apple has lost before in attempts to make Microsoft liable for its copying, but I think they should try again. Come on. Apple created Widgets a couple years ago. Now Microsoft has a feature called "Gadgets" which does exactly the same thing! Sue the bastards.
NBA Commissioner David Stern announced the penalties for those associated in the recent brawl between the Knicks and the Nuggets. The penalties, a $500,000 fine for each team and several multi-game suspensions, are tough. I applaud that. But these measures are still bandaids for a far more fundamental problem that the NBA has created for itself: immaturity.
This incident is but one in a series of incidents with such bandaids applied. Too many players dressing inappropriately? Institute a dress code. Too many players bickering at refs incessantly? Allow the refs to call a "complaining" foul. Players engage each other and fans in a brawl? Multi-game suspensions. Players engage in a large brawl on the court? Suspensions again.
But what of the U.S.'s poor performance in international play? Only the naive would think it unconnected. Too many NBA players are as immature in their skills as they are in their behavior. Rather than complaining of having to hear the broken record that pro players lack proper fundamentals, perhaps Stern and the team presidents should take steps to fix it. That'd be music to all of our ears.
Here are a few suggestions. Like the NFL, require a prospective NBA player to complete 3 years of college before entering the league. The Pacers are firsthand proof of how drafting youth can lead to immaturity and its associated consequences. Reduce the number of allowed fouls per game from 6 to 5 and instruct the refs to call the game much more closely. The game should be more about grace and less about brutality. And finally keep up the tough fines and suspensions. They might be bandaids but they are still a step in the right direction.
1. bendable concrete 2. PRAM (a better type of flash memory; look for it to be used in computers to supplement the hard drive) 3. printed solar panels 4. RFID passports 5. vehicle infrastructure integration (you'll have to read the article to get this one) 6. body area network (BAN... how cyborg!) 7. plasma arc gasification (check the article...) 8. video over the internet 9. smart pills (for less invasive oscopies) 10. data cloud (??)
In the last 2 months, I have read countless headlines saying how the accuser's credibility and claims had completely fallen apart. Now we have a story about how the District Attorney Mike Nifong ordered the DNA lab to not report all of its data (material that helped the defense).
Instead of the evidence lining up to prove a rape case, it is lining up for a strong case of prosecutorial misconduct against Nifong. IF it is eventually shown in court that the accuser was lying and Nifong conducted a malicious prosecution, then several Duke students were irrevocably harmed. But I'm not going to pass judgment, especially just based on media reports. I'll wait for the court.
Here is a photo of a Christmas light display that a few of my buddies put up at their house. This photo was published in the Indianapolis Star, but they don't have it on their website, so I had to scan it in...
Yep, I did. With this dreadful lull in college football, I turn to that other college sport featuring a spherical ball and netted hoops... Luckily, the ND basketball looks pretty good this year and is currently RANKED. They only have 1 loss and they beat up the #5 team in the nation last week (Alabama). The biggest reason for hope is that they have a strong and effective inside presence for the first time in Brey's career--they won't be purely relying on the 3-pointer. Though the defense does need work.
Slate has a great column up explaining why it's critical we find the source of the polonium-210 used to poison Litvinenko. Hint: polonium-210 can be used as a trigger in an atomic bomb or it could be combined with conventional explosive to make a dirty bomb.
The United States' energy policy is far from perfect, but if this article by German Dirk Maxeiner is any indication, Germany's policy has much bigger problems.
Maxeiner's basic argument is that Germans' concern for various forms of pollution, not-in-my-backyard issues, and miscellaneous other fears have hamstrung their energy production to a point of crisis where needs cannot be met, and certain kinds of pollution are actually increased as a result.
America should note this lesson and not follow the same path.
Germans, Maxeiner notes, fear nuclear power, so they've dismantled all of their nuclear reactors. They like wind, but because of concerns of private property owners who do not like the sight of windmills, many of the windfarms have been placed off the north coast on extremely costly sea platforms. (These platforms actually even have to be equipped with toilets; to see why, read the article.)
Furthermore, Germans do not like the sight of the powerlines needed to transfer power from the north, so no new lines have been put up in a while, causing an energy crunch further south. They're going to build new lines but are going to bury them underground, at plenty of cost. All of this means that energy costs in Germany have risen to "dizzying heights."
But it also leads to more pollution. Facing such high energy costs, many Germans are turning to wood and brown coal-fired stoves to heat their homes. "Instead of the sweet vision of windmills, it's the scent of brown coal that wafts through some neighborhoods, reminding sensitive noses of industrial East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall."
Along the same line, Germans' fear of genetically-engineered crops means that they have to use more pesticides to protect the crops from nasty bugs. "For years, Germany has found itself in a permanent state of Halloween, a nightmare world populated by genetically altered Killertomaten."
America should note this lesson and not follow the same path.
The Congressional GOP leadership should be ashamed of themselves. Their actions since the election have underscored why they lost--why they deserved to lose.
Congress only passed 2 appropriations bills out of a total of 12 necessary to cover the functions of government. For the rest Congress just passed Continuing Resolutions to maintain current funding levels. Let there be no mistake, this is pathetic. Rather than making the most of their remaining time in power after the election, the GOP sat down and did nothing, leaving nearly all of the appropriations work to the next Congress and the Democrats.
Perhaps Congress was so busy with other matters this term that the GOP leadership simply could not pursue the appropriations process. Wrong. Not only did they abdicate their spending authority, but they also abdicated much of their investigation/oversight authority. Why does our nation "need" to have a group of retired has-been politicians--namely, the Iraq Study Group--review and make recommendations regarding our policy in Iraq? Groups such as this are accountable to nobody and only increase the amount of hot air coming out Washington. The Constitution gave Congress the power of oversight, the power to declare war, and the power to appropriate money to wars, yet this Republican-led Congress did nothing.
Members of Congress worked on average only 3 days each week this term, and that's not even counting the numerous weeks of vacation they had. In fact, Congress was in session 7 days less than the infamous "do nothing" Congress of 1948 and 137 days less than the average American worker works.
But no, this was not a matter of laziness for Congress, it was a matter of priorities. Campaigning and meeting with lobbyists took priority over doing the nation's business.
Dennis Hastert and Tom Delay murdered the 1994 Gingrich revolution.
I am skeptical that the Democrats will do much better, especially the longer they are in power, but at least their early intentions seem to be in the right place. Speaker Pelosi has pledged that Congress will return to a 5-day work week in January. And the new chairman of the House Intelligence Committee (yeah, this wasn't the one Pelosi wanted) wants MORE troops in Iraq not less.
Update: Okay, this new chairman is actually an idiot (or at least unqualified for the position). Interviewed by CQ, he could not correctly identify which sect of Islam Al Qaeda proclaims, nor could he tell the interviewer anything about Hezbollah.
A month or two ago I renounced my Pacers fanship and pledge my current NBA allegiance to the Cleveland Cavaliers. I made this decision because the Pacers organization appeared to be crumbling.
Recent events have proven my judgment completely correct. A few weeks ago, Jermaine O'Neal got into a heated argument with coach Rick Carlisle in his office, and the argument could be heard down the hallway. Then on Saturday, Stephen Jackson got booted from the game by Carlisle for an argument that ensued after Jackson was benched. Jackson has been suspended from tonight's Pacers game against Chicago.
The sad fact of the matter is that the team has no discipline and no chemistry. Part of the blame has to go with the head coach, but I think he's in over his head here due to poor management. Larry Bird as the organization's president has got to go. Ever since he took over that job, the team has made terrible personnel decisions. His obsession with youth and raw talent has cost the team dearly.
The mighty state of Indiana [ it's a state of mind really ;-) ] became a state on this date in 1816. It was the 19th state admitted to the union. Check out this Wikipedia article for a refresher on the history of the Hoosier state.
And here's another good one from The Onion, its college football bowl game gift guide. Here's what they say the Sugar Bowl gives in its gift packages to the teams players:
In keeping with college-football tradition, Notre Dame and LSU will receive different gifts of equivalent value: Each Notre Dame player will receive a 2007 Saturn Sky roadster, a PlayStation 3, and a video iPod; the LSU team will receive an autographed football signed by the entire 2006 Notre Dame squad.
"It's good to know that, after the Harris and the USA Today polls carefully and painstakingly take care of the fallible, emotional, potentially biased human element of the ranking through old-fashioned voting, the BCS then takes that human element and subjects it to its own infallible rigid mathematical formulas," [BCS chairman] Coleman continued. "It's a confidence-inspiring system that has never failed us before."
"Although I'll be the first to admit that previous years have usually featured some sort of game," Coleman added.
This one was small in scale and extremely early in its planning, but it still shows the true problem of terrorism: one man (or woman) can do a lot of damage on his own.
In this case, a Muslim-convert from Rockford, IL was planning on blowing up multiple grenades in a Chicago shopping mall on the Friday before Christmas.
Iran's "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Khamenei hospitalized this week with complications relating to his cancer... Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad has continued his hardline rhetoric in regards to Israel, the Holocaust, and Iran's uranium enrichment. This leads me to believe that Iran's leadership is moving towards the extreme and not towards moderation, otherwise Ahmadinejad would be toning down his public statements.
A lesbian is involved in a 15 year committed relationship. The couple decides to have a baby... Ordinarily this is not that uncommon of an occurrence--though those against gay marriage sure would like to paint it as such...
Internal Iranian politics - Ahmadinejad in trouble?
By Luke
According to this article, the official Iranian news agency is reporting that the Iranian parliament has essentially undertaken a vote of no-confidence in Iranian president Ahmadinejad by deciding to hold the presidential election early along with the parliamentary elections.
Of course, this matters little. Ahmadinejad is just the mouthpiece for those really in power: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (the "Supreme Leader") and the Assembly of Experts (a group of ayatollahs that oversee Khamenei).
Nevertheless, this might either indicate a shift in Iranian policy or simply internal political power-plays.
Update: The fact that this smear story about Ahmadinejad attending an event with singing/dancing women (strictly prohibited under Iranian law) has gotten out in the open suggests that his opponents are making a move against him.
The need for a tournament in college football is so obvious that I need not delve deeper into that question. But how might/should a tournament work? Many say that it is impossible for various reasons ranging from scheduling to stubbornness by the bowls and the conferences.
Wrong.
I present to you the best way to satisfy all parties involved: the fans, the teams, the conferences, and the bowls. Call it the Bowl Tournament Series, or perhaps the Tournament of Bowls.
Size/structure:
- 8 teams. This requires a total of 7 games played over 3 weeks (4 quarterfinal, 2 semifinal, and the national championship game). The 4 major bowls; Fiesta, Orange, Rose, and Sugar; would host the quarterfinal games and the semifinals and championship game would rotate between those locations as well but would not have bowl names. The major bowl locations get more overall games each year and would thus have financial incentive to follow this system. Further, each named bowl matters equally in the first round of the tournament because the victor of each advances in the tournament.
Selection/bowl pairing:
- The top 8 teams in the BTS rankings would be entered into the tournament. It's that simple. No exceptions. This would afford little argument for lack of fairness or saying that certain teams do not belong (e.g. what some people are saying about ND and Wake Forest this year).
- The tournament would not be seeded! This is the critical compromise of my system. Rather, the bowls would choose teams from conferences aligned with them (e.g. the Rose Bowl picking the winners of the Big 10 and PAC-10), but only if those teams are included in the top 8 of the BTS rankings. If there is not a conference champion available for a bowl, that bowl shall pick from the available teams and multiple bowls needing replacements shall pick in an order that rotates each year.
- The key advantage of this is that the bowls could maintain much of the tradition they have held from the beginning of college football. They'd be giving up little more than they already give up in the BCS. This setup is ultimately better for the conferences as well. While they might resist because all of the 6 majors would not be guaranteed representation in the tournament, most years would see 4-6 represented and the financial incentive would actually be greater for the conferences. Yes, a conference is not guaranteed a spot, but it could also get more than 2 teams (as is the cap now) in the tourny and rake in more money that way. Also, the tournament's 7 games amounts to 2 more games than are currently played in the BCS. That's $30-40 million additional in funds to be spread around to conferences that advance each year.
Ranking:
- The BTS rankings could work very similarly, if not identically, to the current BCS rankings. Incorporating some aspects of the BCS would ease the transition to the new Bowl Tournament System. I would, however, tweak the rankings to give the computers equal weight again. Also, I would include the AP poll on the human side in order to give the human side even more diversity. Finally, I'd narrow the selection of the computer models to ones that placed additional emphasis on strength of schedule.
Schedule:
- Scheduling, actually, is not a challenge at all. The season would not have to be shortened and the conference championships could remain. Like this year, the final weekend of non-bowl football would include the conference championships and would need to be the first weekend in December. The tourny-bound teams would then get 3 weeks off to devote towards academic finals. The first round of the tournament would then be held in the weekend closest to Christmas. This year it would fall on Friday, Dec. 22 - Saturday, December 23. Play two bowls each of those days. This would put the National Championship game on the New Years Weekend, though they could add a second week before the game to keep it where it is at now.
- The downside for players is that some of them will be playing very near to Christmas. But come on, it's not like they're free all break as it is now. Also, many sports play on holidays. For the fans it would be a major plus. Imagine having the tradition of watching college football on or near Christmas! Awesome.
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Thus, the Bowl Tournament Series would be a win-win system for all. Fans would get the tournament they have been crying for. Bowls would maintain their tradition and get increased revenue. Conferences would likely see an increase in revenue. Teams and players would have a fair system.
Well, the actual bowl matchups are now out. Once again I was wrong--a habit I'm beginning to get comfortable with...
Nat. Champ: Ohio State versus Florida Rose: USC plays Michigan Sugar: ND plays LSU Orange: Wake Forest plays Louisville Fiesta: Oklahoma plays Boise St.
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I may have been wrong in predicting Michigan over Florida, but I shouldn't have been. Michigan has as many quality wins as Florida does (2), lost to a better team by fewer points, hasn't had near losses to average teams, and hasn't had to pull out every trick in the book to beat a 2-loss opponent. The poll voters put Florida ahead of Michigan because they don't want to see a rematch in the NCG, not because they think Florida is better than Michigan. Intellectually dishonest.
USC's loss equals change in the bowl projections, but not as much as might be thought:
National Championship Game - Ohio State versus Michigan
- See my rationale in the previous post for putting Michigan over Florida.
Rose Bowl - USC versus LSU
- USC, as the Pac-10 champ, goes. The Rose won't want to see an ND-USC rematch, so they'll pick LSU as an at-large. They could also pick Louisville as the Big East auto bid, but they won't see that as attractive a matchup.
Sugar Bowl - Florida versus ND
- This is actually what I projected in my previous 2 projections. Still holds.
Orange Bowl - Wake Forest versus Louisville
- ACC versus Big East just makes sense.
Fiesta Bowl - Oklahoma versus Boise State
- Another projection staying the same from last week.
1. Ohio State (0) 2. Michigan (+1) 3. Florida (+1) 4. LSU (+1) 5. Louisville (+2) 6. Wisconsin (0) 7. USC (-5) 8. Oklahoma (+3) 9. Notre Dame (-1) 10. Auburn (-1) 11. Boise State (-1) 12. Wake Forest (+3) 13. Arkansas (-1) 14. West Virginia (+2) 15. Rutgers (-2)
Leaving: Virginia Tech; Joining: WVU
Rationale:
The big question, of course, is how to rank Michigan and Florida. On the surface Florida's strength of schedule looks a bit tougher than Michigan, but that only is the case in as much as one values the SEC as a whole. The only available metric here (an SEC opponent playing a good out-of-conference team) is USC versus Arkansas from the beginning of the season. And Arkansas got killed by them. If this was the only factor, I'm not sure I would put Michigan ahead of Florida. But it isn't. Florida has also had a handful of ugly last-second wins. Their one loss by no means equals Michigan's one loss. Overall, I gotta give the edge to the Wolverines.
USC's loss drops them down to 7. That bumps LSU up one position. Louisville moves up one for that and also jumps Wisconsin, with another blow-out win. I moved Oklahoma up three spots right behind USC, and jumping Notre Dame. Their victory over Nebraska was impressive enough and ND ended on a very bad note with no new game to help them recover. Auburn and Boise State fall in line behind ND, just as before. Wake Forest moves up 3 positions to #12, with their solid win over Georgia Tech. I can't place them any higher, because the ACC is just bad this year.
Arkansas with three losses still stays above West Virginia and Rutgers, rounding out the list. Arkansas would beat either of these teams. Revised-revised bowl projections coming soon...
Sorry, a bit late with the Versus post here. Last couple days have been hectic. So here are the games today:
Louisville(7) plays UConn *Wake Forest(15) plays Georgia Tech (ACC Championship) USC(2) plays UCLA *Florida(4) plays Arkansas(12) (SEC Championship) *Rutgers(13) plays West Virginia *Oklahoma(11) plays Nebraska (Big XII Championship)
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Obviously the 3 conference championship games are huge. But the Rutgers-WVU game also is decisive for the Big East champion. If Rutgers wins, they are the BE champ. If WVU wins, then Louisville is the BE champ. UCLA has a much better passing defense than ND, but USC will prevail pretty easily anyways.
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Predictions. GTech wins. Florida wins... maybe shuts Arkansas out. WVU wins... too much speed for Rutgers. Oklahoma wins.
