polls and computers

With the holidays approaching, it means it's time for some final pre-BCS bowl rankings.

I suppose the place to start the discussion is at the top. In my rankings, my number 1 team didn't play. My number two team lost. My number 3 team won. Voila, a straightforward 1 vs 2 matchup for the national championship. Conveniently, the BCS computers agree with me here. Texas and Oklahoma are the two best teams in the country. The BCS system is set up to play the top two teams against each other.

Except, oh wait, we have to make room for the SEC. The Harris and USA Today polls decided Florida has had a better season than Texas. Makes you wonder what criteria they use (other than, an SEC team has to make it). Let's take a gander:

Texas has a win against a top team. Florida has a win against a top team. The team Texas beat is better than the team Florida beat.
Texas' loss was on the road. Florida lost at home. The team Texas lost to is better than the team Florida lost to.
Texas played four games against teams that won at least nine games. Florida played two.
Texas won its bowl game last season. Florida lost.

This is the problem with not having criteria for how to determine success in college football. The answer doesn't have to be a playoff; a playoff is merely one option in the larger approach of having predictable and clearly defined criteria. But I'm not going to spend too much time on this, because unlike last year, when things were debatable, this year, the Big 12 is clearly superior to the SEC. The FL/AL matchup in the SEC championship was notable largely because the teams didn't play each other in the regular season. In fact, Texas played more 10 win teams than Alabama and Florida combined. For that matter, USC, Penn State, and Texas Tech also played more 10 win teams during the regular season, but of course none of them received any serious discussion about displacing Florida.

Farther down, I run into the problem of what to do with the teams that finished 12-0. I'm putting them between the one loss and two loss teams. The problem is they're really not top teams; neither of them played anything approaching a challenging schedule. There are lots of teams from the major conferences that could have gone undefeated with the schedules of Utah and Boise State. But at the same time, they did win all their games. It's also worth noting that there were four 12-0 teams before conference championships. Both teams that played a 13th game lost (Alabama and Ball State). Makes you wonder what Utah and Boise State will do in their 13th game.

So here's how I'd match up the BCS if it were up to me.

Oklahoma/Texas - national championship
Virginia Tech/Florida
USC/Penn State
Alabama/Cincinnati
Utah/Boise State (or Texas Tech, if three Big 12 teams were allowed)

However, if OU/FL is going to be the title, it would be nice for TX and AL to play each other, and it would be good to give the two undefeated teams a chance to play each other. Instead, TX and AL are faced with games they're expected to win, only making news if they lose. Really, if Alabama beats Utah, what does that signify? And if Ohio State gets in as a second Big Ten team over an undefeated team, why not a second ACC team like Georgia Tech or Boston College instead of Utah? Texas, after all, beat several Big 12 teams that themselves beat a Mountain West opponent, yet that's not quality enough to get Texas into the title game.

1 B-12 Texas 11 - 1
2 B-12 Oklahoma 12 - 1
3 SEC Florida 12 - 1
4 B-12 Texas Tech 11 - 1
5 B-Ten Penn State 11 - 1
6 P-10 USC 11 - 1
7 SEC Alabama 12 - 1
8 MW Utah 12 - 0
9 WAC Boise State 12 - 0
10 B-Ten Ohio State 10 - 2
11 B-E Cincinnati 10 - 2
12 B-12 Oklahoma State 9 - 3
13 B-12 Missouri 9 - 4
14 SEC Georgia 9 - 3
15 B-Ten Michigan State 9 - 3
16 B-E Pittsburgh 9 - 3
17 B-Ten Northwestern 9 - 3
18 ACC Virginia Tech 9 - 4
19 ACC Boston College 9 - 4
20 ACC Georgia Tech 9 - 3
21 P-10 Oregon 9 - 3
22 ACC Florida State 8 - 4
23 B-Ten Iowa 8 - 4
24 MW TCU 10 - 2
25 MAC Ball State 12 - 1

As for bowl predictions, here's what I think.

Big 12: 5-2
Big East: 4-2
SEC: 5-3
MWC: 3-1
Pac 10: 3-2
ACC: 5-5
Big Ten: 3-4

first snow of 2008

We didn't exactly get a whole lot of snow this week. But we did get enough to be annoying.

And with I-64 closed now in our neck of the woods, it makes for some great pictures!

getting close

mmm, Happy post Turkey day.

Seeing as how it's almost Saturday again, I better get these posted quick.

The trouble I'm having at the top is the Boise State, Utah, Ball State conundrum. Either they should be ranked 2, 3 and 4, or I really don't think they deserve to be in the top ten at all.

What I just can't bring myself to do is put them in between, what I think is really a cop out by a lot of voters. If the 1-loss teams are having a better season than the undefeated mid-majors, then the two-loss teams are, also. Note that several of these teams can still lose, with the potential to elevate the undefeateds. For my rankings, that third loss is the only way they're moving down.

At the other end, there's a logjam as the ACC and Pac-10 figures out who are its top teams, so as that gets sorted out, I've got Mississippi, TCU, BYU, South Carolina, Nebraska, and a few others waiting to replace the losers. And note my satisfaction that long-since dropped teams from my listing are finally getting nationally dropped, like LSU and Auburn. I think Iowa is most deservedly moving into my rankings, the least-discussed 8 win team in the land.

1 B-12 Texas 10 - 1
2 SEC Alabama 11 - 0
3 B-12 Oklahoma 10 - 1
4 SEC Florida 10 - 1
5 B-12 Texas Tech 10 - 1
6 B-Ten Penn State 11 - 1
7 P-10 USC 9 - 1
8 B-12 Oklahoma State 9 - 2
9 B-12 Missouri 9 - 2
10 SEC Georgia 9 - 2
11 B-Ten Ohio State 10 - 2
12 B-E Cincinnati 9 - 2
13 WAC Boise State 11 - 0
14 MW Utah 12 - 0
15 MAC Ball State 12 - 0
16 B-Ten Michigan State 9 - 3
17 B-E Pittsburgh 7 - 3
18 B-Ten Northwestern 9 - 3
19 ACC Boston College 8 - 3
20 ACC Florida State 8 - 3
21 ACC Georgia Tech 8 - 3
22 ACC Virginia Tech 7 - 4
23 P-10 Oregon State 8 - 3
24 P-10 Oregon 8 - 3
25 B-Ten Iowa 8 - 4

week 11 rankings

We are nearing the end of the 2008 season. All in all, the last couple weeks have shaped up nicely. As I said after the first part of the season, the Big East was underrated and the SEC overrated. The Big East now has five bowl eligible teams, as many as the ten team Pac-10, and with a sixth team with a winning record, actually has more teams with a winning record at the moment. The SEC, meanwhile, is already settled. That's right. With two more weeks of football, we already know Alabama and Florida will meet in the SEC championship. While I'd still rank the SEC #2 overall, the race for a champion is becoming downright boring. The ACC and Big Ten have much more exciting things going on these last two weeks.

And of course, the freak that is the Big 12 this year has five teams with legitimate shots at winning 11+ games and becoming the conference champ. Last year, the Big 12 had three 11+ win teams (more than the SEC and Big Ten combined!), and none of them were sent to the national championship game, not even the #1 ranked team in the BCS, Missouri. Is it possible the Big 12 could have four 11+ win teams this year, and none of them will be sent to the national championship?

This week I've decided to start including Boise State and Ball State. Neither have even played a ranked team, but since the Big 12 can't fill four at large spots, somebody has to get into the BCS. While I think teams like Michigan State, Ohio State, Georgia, and Florida State/Virginia Tech are better than them, I'm willing to go along if the B-States go undefeated.

1 B-12 Texas Tech 10 - 0
2 SEC Alabama 10 - 0
3 B-12 Texas 9 - 1
4 B-12 Oklahoma 9 - 1
5 SEC Florida 8 - 1
6 P-10 USC 8 - 1
7 B-Ten Penn State 9 - 1
8 B-12 Oklahoma State 8 - 2
9 B-12 Missouri 8 - 2
10 B-Ten Ohio State 8 - 2
11 SEC Georgia 8 - 2
12 B-Ten Michigan State 9 - 2
13 MW Utah 10 - 0
14 ACC Florida State 7 - 2
15 ACC North Carolina 7 - 2
16 B-E Cincinnati 7 - 2
17 MAC Ball State 9 - 0
18 WAC Boise State 9 - 0
19 B-E Pittsburgh 7 - 2
20 ACC Georgia Tech 7 - 3
21 B-Ten Northwestern 7 - 3
22 B-Ten Minnesota 7 - 3
23 MW TCU 9 - 2
24 MW BYU 9 - 1
25 ACC Virginia Tech 6 - 3

week 10 rankings

1 B-12 Texas Tech
2 SEC Alabama
3 B-12 Texas
4 B-Ten Penn State
5 B-12 Oklahoma
6 B-12 Oklahoma State
7 SEC Florida
8 P-10 USC
9 B-12 Missouri
10 B-Ten Ohio State
11 SEC Georgia
12 ACC Georgia Tech
13 MW Utah
14 B-Ten Michigan State
15 ACC Florida State
16 B-Ten Northwestern
17 SEC LSU
18 ACC North Carolina
19 ACC Maryland
20 P-10 California
21 B-E Cincinnati
22 B-E West Virginia
23 B-E South Florida
24 B-Ten Minnesota
25 B-12 Kansas

one more day

That's all I'm going to say. After like two years of this, tomorrow is it.

One more day!

about time

I would highly encourage reading of the letter the Obama campaign sent to Attorney General Mukasey regarding the Republicans' fussing about 'voter fraud', as if the Democrats are the ones trying to disenfranchise people.

It's pretty fundamental stuff. If people are kept from voting, and if the legal system is politicized, then we lose confidence in the outcome of elections, destroying the very democracy that supposedly governs our society.

It's very exciting to see Obama wading into the discussion.

week 7 rankings

Well, Missouri won't have a perfect season.

Of course, the good news is that's apparent after game 6 instead of game 1. They had a game to lose; it just would have been wiser to save that for Texas next week. The real irony is that by losing, Missouri actually makes the Big 12 conference by far the best conference in the country. In essence, the Tigers created another top team. It's just unfortunate that MU had to lose in order for Oklahoma State to get some recognition.

I've got some teams this week that are kind of just waiting for them to play each other. I think Oklahoma and USC, for example, are better than Oklahoma State and Texas Tech. But I'm not ranking them higher until Oklahoma State and Texas Tech actually lose a game (which I think will happen in two weeks for both of them). I think Georgia is notably better than Vanderbilt, but they both come in 5-1. If Georgia wins, I'll move them up a fair amount. But I think for a week at least, they don't belong in the top ten. Kansas and Vanderbilt are probably more wishful thinking than great teams, and will likely each pick up their second losses next week. But it's not next week yet. Another place where I seem to differ from the national pundits is with the Big East. It's not great this year, but there are four one-loss teams, and West Virginia's got to be one of the best two loss teams out there. That Auburn-West Virginia game should be pretty interesting.

I continue to think BYU and Utah are overrated. They'd be .500 ball clubs in the Big 12, SEC, ACC, or Big Ten, and more empirically, they just don't have any quality wins. Michigan and UCLA are both losing programs. But the schedules are better than Ball State, so I'm willing to keep ranking them as long as they stay undefeated. In a sense, I look at LSU the same way; without a strong schedule so far, getting that first loss drops them significantly in my book.

1 B-12 Texas
2 B-Ten Penn State
3 SEC Alabama
4 B-12 Oklahoma State
5 B-12 Texas Tech
6 B-12 Oklahoma
7 B-12 Missouri
8 ACC Virginia Tech
9 SEC Florida
10 P-10 USC
11 B-Ten Ohio State
12 B-E South Florida
13 B-12 Kansas
14 ACC Wake Forest
15 SEC Vanderbilt
16 SEC Georgia
17 ACC Florida State
18 MW Utah
19 MW BYU
20 SEC LSU
21 ACC North Carolina
22 P-10 California
23 B-Ten Michigan State
24 B-E Connecticut
25 B-E Pittsburgh

neighborhood party

So my neighborhood threw a little party on Saturday to celebrate our centennial. Jodi took some pictures of the firetrucks, and there were political folks all about.

It was really interesting, I've only seen politicians in rather formal events. This was remarkably casual. Mayor Slay just pulls up, gets out of the car, and I say hi. Representative Clay wanders by a couple minutes later. There's no security, no lines, no particular program; they're just there.

It was a fun little surprise.

week 6 rankings

In my mind, this was a much more stable week. The biggest problem I'm having is with the Big East. USF lost to Pitt, but I'm not ready to rank Pitt yet after that first game loss. The biggest risk I'm taking is probably putting Virginia Tech back in the top ten.

Just like I had Alabama ranked higher than some others earlier on, I'm now apparently on the low end. I don't think you can jump LSU and Missouri until they lose. I also bumped BYU and Utah farther down the list after a more careful scrutiny of the Mountain West. It just looks to me like middle of the pack teams from the other conferences would run through the MWC pretty easily, too.

So I've got my 7 undefeated teams that I think are among the best in the country and the 7 one-loss teams among the best. Then I've got 5 more undefeated teams which I think will lose soon or who have pretty weak schedules. Then I've got 6 one-loss teams that are about equally likely to move up or drop out.

1 B-12 Oklahoma
2 SEC LSU
3 B-12 Missouri
4 SEC Alabama
5 B-12 Texas
6 B-Ten Penn State
7 B-12 Texas Tech
8 ACC Virginia Tech
9 P-10 USC
10 SEC Florida
11 SEC Georgia
12 B-Ten Ohio State
13 B-E South Florida
14 B-12 Kansas
15 SEC Vanderbilt
16 B-12 Oklahoma State
17 B-Ten Northwestern
18 MW Utah
19 MW BYU
20 ACC Wake Forest
21 ACC Florida State
22 ACC North Carolina
23 B-E Connecticut
24 P-10 California
25 B-Ten Michigan State

week 5 rankings

Well, a ranker this week of college football gets to do pretty much whatever they want after this past week.

So here's what I did. I've got 11 undefeated teams that I think have legitimate shots at their conference championships. Then I put 9 teams that are all good, but have already lost a game. Then I've got 5 teams I'm not sure what to do with. They're a combined 20-1, but when you look into the conference schedules, it's hard to see them maintaining that pace.

However, if they do, I'm certainly willing to jump them up the rankings. And for the ones that lose, I'm thinking teams like Boise State, Fresno State, and Florida State are primed to take their place.

1 B-12 Oklahoma
2 SEC LSU
3 B-12 Missouri
4 SEC Alabama
5 B-12 Texas
6 B-Ten Penn State
7 B-E South Florida
8 B-12 Texas Tech
9 MW BYU
10 MW Utah
11 B-E Connecticut
12 SEC Florida
13 SEC Georgia
14 ACC Virginia Tech
15 B-Ten Wisconsin
16 B-12 Kansas
17 P-10 USC
18 B-Ten Ohio State
19 ACC Wake Forest
20 P-10 Oregon
21 B-12 Oklahoma State
22 B-Ten Northwestern
23 SEC Kentucky
24 SEC Vanderbilt
25 SEC Auburn

And on a different note, is it possible that the Royals aren't even the worst pro team in Kansas City, let alone the AL Central? The Royals finally seemed to have decided they don't like being in the bottom third of the league, and they've now won more games than the season before for three consecutive years. Hmm, they tease us...

update: it worked

(P) Senator Bond's office didn't even answer the phone this morning! But guess what, his voice mailbox is now full.

Now hopefully our fearless leaders know how to listen to those messages.

call senator bond

(P) So I tried to do my part and give my members of Congress my opinion on the bailout package.

It turns out quite a few other people have also been doing so. The voice mail boxes for Senator McCaskill and Representative Clay are full!

Interestingly, I was able to leave a message for Senator Bond. So either our senior Senator gets a fancier vm system, or apparently more Democrats are upset than Republicans.

In either case, call Senator Bond. Let's see if we can fill up his mailbox, too!

(202) 224-5721

And if you have his more, uh, personal numbers, make sure he gets messages about how we feel on those, too. This is a classic case where people of all stripes understand the basic concept; outrage is a nonpartisan reaction. A guy who made $700 million at Goldman Sachs is trying to steal hundreds of billions of dollars from us to give to his buddies.

competition is good

The more you look at college football this year, the more you realize things are very competitive. I like that, although the SEC prognosticators are of course a little slow to catch on. There are certainly some individual players and teams that have separated themselves. If you took the top ten or so teams and did home and away matchups against anybody else, they'd probably win about 17 of the 20 games.

But increasingly so, the next grouping of teams keeps getting larger. So to backup my angst when I hear some ex-Georgia or Florida commentator talking about how obviously the SEC is the best conference in the country, I thought I'd break down exactly what that means. And the result is that you just can't reach any such conclusions. The conferences aren't meant to play each other; the vast majority of games played are within the conference, so there are few data points to consider. There's also the debate about how much you look at what has actually happened during the season, and how much you predict what will happen in the future. And finally, how much weight do you give to playing good opponents, and how much goes to not losing? What's better, going 4-2, or going 6-4? Is it better for a conference to be relatively even, or for there to be a large difference between its top teams and the bottom ones?

So I looked at matchups that have happened so far among the six major conferences plus the Mountain West, Notre Dame, ECU, Boise State, and Fresno State. Does anything stand out?

For one thing, there just aren't that many marquee matchups. I count only four 'big' games through four weeks: Missouri-Illinois, USC-Ohio State, Alabama-Clemson, and Kansas-South Florida. That's simply not enough information to make conclusions about conferences as a whole, although it is interesting that each of the six BCS conferences is represented in these pairings at least once. Georgia-ASU could have been big, but the non-USC Pac 10 is just terrible, and I'm willing to go back and make Wisconsin-Fresno State a big game at the end of the season if Fresno State wins out, but I'm not sold on that happening.

Another way to look at it is the total number of games played against each other. That's a little misleading since there are different numbers of teams in the conferences. But you know what's really interesting here? The SEC, with 12 teams, has played by far the fewest games against fellow BCS+ folks, even less than the much-maligned Big East which only has eight teams. Now, it should be pointed out that the SEC begins conference play earlier than others, so there has been less opportunity to play non-conference foes. But it really jumps out at you when you analyze it. The SEC just doesn't play much non-conference competition; they're the only one of these seven conferences to have played fewer than 10 teams from the other six conferences.

So having said that, here are my conference power rankings followed by my individual team rankings.

1) Big 12
Marquee wins: Illinois, West Virginia
2) SEC
Marquee wins: Clemson
3) Big 10
Marquee wins: none
4) ACC
Marquee wins: none
5) Big East
Marquee wins: Kansas
6) Mountain West
Marquee wins: none
7) Pac 10
Marquee wins: Ohio State

1) USC
2) Oklahoma
3) Georgia
4) Missouri
5) Florida
6) Texas
7) Alabama
8) Wisconsin
9) LSU
10) South Florida
11) Texas Tech
12) Penn State
13) BYU
14 Utah
15) Wake Forest
16) Illinois
17) Ohio State
18) Kansas
19) Auburn
20) Oregon
21) East Carolina
22) Virginia Tech
23) Clemson
24) Connecticut
25) Oklahoma State

what's the point of two parties?

(PR) This is definitely both a political post and a rant. I've been good about separating those two, but lately, things are just insane.

I wish I could say that what is transpiring this week is absolutely unbelievable. But really, it's not.

The GOP will use the power of government to help rich friends when they need it ('begrudgingly', of course--they really, truly, deeply believe in the power of markets and the evil of government all the time except for this one horrific case). The Democrats will be split between the rank and file being screwed and the leadership selling them out, whether actively or passively.

And voila. We have terrible public policy backed by a narrative spewed by both Republican and Democratic leaders that has no basis in reality, a narrative that actually damages understanding of the problem and makes it more difficult to deal with the real issues. The problem is not credit. It's not liquidity. We don't need to rescue the gamblers. We need to value work in our economy. You want to make assets worth something? Give money to people who don't have any. We've already spent about $900 billion on various corporate giveaways. With this new fangled idea of having the government buy assets that companies can't sell, the tab appears to go much higher. You know what we could do instead? Spend that money on investments that will earn a return, like infrastructure, light rail, schools, and healthcare. Or give it to people who didn't get filthy rich the past 30 years. A trillion dollars split among 100 million American families is $10,000. TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS! That would make a real impact in the real economy, not a paper difference for companies that purposefully took on risk they shouldn't have, expecting to dump the problem on the taxpayer when things turned sour.

When corporations and CEOs need bailouts, 'time is of the essence' and the President and Congress can get stuff done in a matter of days. But when our soldiers are dying in Iraq, or people are losing their homes, or workers' wages are falling, or somebody can't get healthcare or our schools are literally falling apart, well, sorry folks, you see, it takes a long time to get anything done.

Take a number. Be quiet. Have a seat. No, don't stand up; we might have to arrest you for disturbing the peace.

too much excitement

No, it's not because this is my 400th post. Or because the Big 12 has three teams playing national games this week that get pretty small exposure. Or because it's Constitution Day, although, if we had some more Constitutional defenders like Russ Feingold and Ralph Nader in our political parties, that would be worthy of excitement.

It's not even because the major US stock exchanges are in the process of destroying a decade of wealth while the GOP vacillates wildly between their corporate masters and the need to employ enough populist rhetoric to get elected, as exciting as watching that train wreck is.

Nope, all of that pails in comparison to some quality time with the landlord chasing a squirrel out of the apartment. A baby squirrel at that! No rabies to report as of yet.

crash or business as usual

Today was certainly exciting. I go to lunch and see AG Edwards, er, Wachovia's handy dandy Dow sign down around 11160. Then at lunch Julie's talking about the Merrill buyout. Then I check Yahoo Finance before dinner and the Dow's down 500 points. And oil's under $100.

At times like this it's good to take a second and remember, short term volatility does not affect your investment goals. Odds are, the vast majority of your wealth is tied up in your wages. If you're lucky enough that equities represent a large sum for you, congratulations, you're one of the winners in our economy!

And for those of us that are younger-ish, this is a huge opportunity. With most of our earnings ahead of us, the cheaper assets like stocks and real estate are in the present, the better long-term value they represent.

And PS older folks, we'd be happy to buy your assets from you at prices you find amenable. All you gotta do is pay us wages so we can afford them. At the end of the day, that's what this is all about. It's not a housing crash or a credit crunch that's the root problem. The root problem is your average worker doesn't make as much money as she should.

But just remember, no matter your age, don't bet your lunch money in the stock market. Even iconic companies fail.

Au revoir Lehman and Merrill.

conference scheduling 2008

College football season is underway, so it's time for the punditry to talk about how the SEC is the only conference that knows how to play football. It's a time honored tradition; regardless of the facts of the weekend, talk like the SEC plays a different kind of ball.

So to build off of some of my analysis from the end of last season, I put together some ways of thinking about matchups as we start this season. I think it points to a more competitive field than the SEC partisans would have us believe.

First, I just looked at how many of last year's 10 BCS teams were in a conference's non-conference schedule.

Conference 2008 BCS opponents

Big 12- Illinois, West Virginia, Virginia Tech

SEC- West Virginia, Hawaii

Big 10- USC

Pac 10- Ohio State, Georgia, Oklahoma

ACC- Georgia, USC

Big East- Kansas, Oklahoma

It's the Big 12 and the Pac 10 that have the most of last year's BCS teams on their 2008 schedule. Scheduling is done in advance; it's not like the SEC chose to only schedule two, or the Big 10 only one. The point is that there's no marquee matchup that overshadows what the other conferences are doing. The Missouri-Illinois and Ohio State-USC games are at least as good (and quite arguably better) than the Florida-Hawaii and Auburn-West Virginia games. In fact, after West Virginia's loss to Eastern Carolina, the show-case SEC game is probably Georgia against Arizona State, a team that didn't make the top ten last season (and was soundly trounced by Big 12 #4, Texas). It's quite likely the SEC (as in, the entire conference) will end the season without a single win against a top-ten team.

Then, I poked around the non-conference schedules of the top four Big 12, SEC, Big 10, and Pac 10 schools.

Best non-conference matchup

Oklahoma- Cincinnati
Missouri- Illinois
Kansas- South Florida
Texas- Arkansas

Georgia- Arizona State
LSU- Troy?
Florida- Florida State
Auburn- West Virginia

Ohio State- USC
Illinois- Missouri
Wisconsin- Fresno State
Penn State- Oregon State

USC- Ohio State
ASU- Georgia
Oregon- Boise State
California- Maryland

Again, it's not that the SEC doesn't play any good teams; the Georgia-Arizona State game, for example, should be a good one, assuming both teams deserve to be as highly rated as they are. Rather, it's that looking at things this way doesn't make it look like there's anything that stands out about the way the SEC schedules. It's not Florida's fault that Florida State and Miami aren't very good this year. But that doesn't change the fact that they aren't. LSU is being talked about for the national championship, but their schedule is weaker than what the Kansas Jayhawks will play, who are traveling on the road against a ranked opponent.

The beauty of the SEC noise machine is its ability to shift the goal posts. Emphasize scheduling when it helps, emphasize records when they're the best, emphasize history when it's useful, point to conference standings when they boost your cause, say a loss within your conference shows how strong your conference is, and then dismiss these things when it helps somebody else.

College football is wide open this year. The fact that two 'ranked' SEC teams have already lost a game doesn't make the SEC a bad conference. But it certainly does make it interesting to suggest those losses are irrelevant and the SEC is better than other conferences that are taking care of business, winning the games they're 'supposed' to win. All of the top teams, after all, from all the conferences, are doing this at the beginning of the season. That's what makes Eastern Carolina's wins over Virginia Tech and West Virginia notable. They're exceptions. The only other team aside from ECU with a victory over an AP Top 25 team is Missouri. The other 23 teams on the AP list are undefeated after week 2.

I anticipate spending the season finding fun ways to refute the SEC sales pitch that they're somehow a league apart from everybody else. They certainly could be; but so could others, and we can't give the final word until they actually play the games. This is important because the polls themselves in no small way decide the winners. After all, there are a lot of teams that will pick up a loss or two. It will be interesting to see whether the discussion about the SEC losses sounds the same as the discussions about losses from other conferences.

this is america

(P) America is very good at dealing with crises. They demand action, and we're good at doing something. If it works, we do more. If not, we try something else. In the face of Something Serious, do something is a refrain we all rally around.

That's why the most troubling trends in our society are the ones that creep forward, seeping into us without us ever really acknowledging or confronting them. Or even approving of them. As more and more tax dollars go to more and more people, the system gains a momentum all its own of stakeholders looking for ever more seats at the taxpayer table.

One particularly destructive trend has been the militarization of our society. Our language, our discourse, our politics; the very options we believe to be possible are framed more and more by the perspective of force. Last week's Democratic National Convention and this week's Republican National Convention illustrate the nonpartisan nature of this development. We are acculturated from a very early age to internalize that the people on the receiving end of force must obviously have done something to deserve their fate, to the point that most of the creeping militarization goes on without even being news.

But the conventions give us a time when the envelope is pushed a little farther, and it's at those points when some attention gets paid to this issue. The resources that go into these things are enormous. More 'security' money was set aside for a four day convention in Denver than is needed to cover the whole projected budget shortfall for the entire year for Bi-State/Metro, the St. Louis' area transit agency. Is the threat of a couple hippies really more bad than this? When did we make that choice?

The answer is, we didn't. Until somebody you care about gets on the wrong end of the law, we just don't pay that much collective attention to the expanding prisons and police forces and rush to control what people do. SWAT, special weapons and tactics, is literally military training and equipment for use against civilians. The vast majority of those targeted civilians are American citizens.

So it's worth thinking about. Do we really need to spend $100 million to secure two week's worth of political conventions? Do we need to send heavily armed officers after groups of Americans who haven't broken any laws? Do we want a society where police can arrest solely on probable cause, give no reason for a search, remove items, and lock you up, all without charges? Do we see value in limiting the speech and assembly rights of citizens to make sure Important Politicians and Business People aren't bothered in their plotting to run the country? Is the technical know-how, energy, and expertise of the government servants who designed the system monitoring my blog well-allocated?

There's no one answer to any of this. Virtually no one suggests having no police forces, while virtually everyone celebrates individual rights and the Constitution. Most of the actors in the system, on all sides, are legitimately serving their country and advocating the principles in which they believe. The answer is to discuss this, to have an open exchange of ideas driven more by citizens in public and less by special interests in private. That would be real change in our society. That's the only way to combat mission creep.

Here are some links to what's been going on. Exploring is particularly important if you're not familiar with the reality of government power today.

Star Tribune
Salon
a free speech zone
Colorado Independent

sadness

I wanted to link to John's statement on his betrayal of Elizabeth back in 2006. It's not particularly lengthy or Earth shattering. It's John being John. You can pretty much read it however you want. What happened is pretty straightforward. He fucked somebody without the approval of his wife (er, uh, had a 'liaison with another woman').

I personally don't think the details are very important. That's between he and Elizabeth. Cheating is both rampant and unacceptable. Dealing with that contradiction is for a different post.

As someone who doesn't know the Edwards family personally, what I have found most interesting is how intense the scrutiny has been by others who also don't know the family. In times like this, I very much urge inner reflection on the fact that we are all flawed, we all sin. We'll never know the sincerity of famous people's requests for forgiveness.

But we can know the sincerity of our own requests. Who do we need to apologize to? Who do we need forgiveness from?

look, victory

I ran across a rather funny AP article in the Oklahoman. It's called Analysis: US now winning Iraq war that seemed lost.

It essentially argues that we're winning because insurgents "no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government." Heck, if that's the criteria, why'd we invade again? The central government in place at the time proved pretty resilient to internal dissent.

But the real kicker is farther down. Check this out:

Systematic sectarian killings have all but ended in the capital, in large part because of tight security and a strategy of walling off neighborhoods purged of minorities in 2006.

In other words, Iraq is so stable now only martial law keeps it stable. And walling off neighborhoods. After the insurgent groups are done with their ethnic cleansing.

Bravo Bush Administration team! You've successfully gotten rid of minority groups in Baghdad! Whoever said ethnic cleansing is a bad thing?

front row view

I look out my window, and the Fox 2 news van was sitting there all afternoon. I always knew that view over to Wachovia would reveal something exciting at some point.

I actually feel a little silly. I consider myself pretty well versed on financial events, but I completely missed the investigation that's been under way against Wachovia for the auction rate securities issues. Apparently Carnahan's office spearheaded a multi-state raid today.

The joke around the office is to pick the law that InBev is going to get in trouble over.

happy fourth of july

I find myself caught today between thoughts of what we have become and what we can become.

How we deal with the people in our government giving terrible, illegal orders will say a lot about whether we're still the revolutionaries, or whether it is we ourselves who are tending toward Despotism and Tyranny, we ourselves who have become the System of Government that must be altered.

What does Independence mean to those who are not free? What does it mean to us as citizens who have a responsibility to ensure their freedom? What does it say about our citizenship if we fail to do so?

Hope is stronger than fear. Tolerance is stronger than hatred. We can make this country better.

Will we?

caught up

Mostly. Email replied to. Laundry done, more or less. Laptop back in the living room. All pictures on the computer. Friends seen, in person, no less.

Woohoo, now this coming week hopefully I will get to actually organizing everything from traveling. Naming pictures, sending things out, cleaning up the room, and figuring out what the rest of the summer has in store. Ooh, and figuring out what Julie wants for her birthday. Not a lot of time until then.

well scratch that

I guess hope will have to wait another day. What a pathetic sellout. Naturally, Clinton and Obama couldn't go on record for the cloture vote.

I've thought of a fun challenge. Try to draft a bill that is so blatantly authoritarian and so blatantly a sell-out to corporate demands that the Democratic leadership would enforce party unity in opposition to it.

people are pissed

(P) And it's a good thing! Nevermind what the candidate of change says. It looks like there has been such massive contempt for the outright corruption and unconstitutionality of the FISA changes from Americans of all political stripes that we might have succeeded again in delaying two very simple, very bad ideas: broad warrantless searches by a government that wouldn't even have to make its reports public, and broad legal immunity for corporations that knowingly broke the law, repeatedly, over a number of years.

There's not much more to add about Senator Obama's stance. He's wrong on the issue, he knows he's wrong on the issue, he knows we know he's wrong on the issue, and he knows we know he has purposefully altered his stance from back when Senator Dodd, former Senator Edwards, Senator Clinton, and others were competing with him for the nomination. Either his campaign staff didn't show up for work this week, they think voters are stupid, or they actually favor the unitary executive/corporate authoritarian worldview permeating this bill. None are particularly appealing options to explore from the campaign of the de facto, barring-more-election-theft next president.

So let's talk about the good that is happening. For example, Senator Dodd continues to impress on this issue, proving that a good strategy and being right can produce results. And Senator Feingold continues to prove that one's stature is strengthened, not weakened, by taking strong positions among constituents in a state that's not solidly Democratic like New York, California-or Illinois (apparently 'centrists' and 'moderates' and 'independents', not to mention leftists and libertarians, like leaders who don't sell out to corporate criminals on basic matters of rights and accountability). And Senator Reid came out (was forced?) to publicly announce he wouldn't support the bill. Even Speaker Pelosi, after ramming the bill through the House, was forced to publicly acknowledge that perhaps spending some time debating the bill (in the Senate) would be a good thing after all.

Who knows, maybe we'll get more speeches like this one from Senator Dodd from other Democrats in the future, on this issue or something else. Click on the link, it's worth listening to. Perhaps the most exciting and refreshing speech since Edwards' talk at the winter DNC meeting last year (warning: it's a tad longer than that speech).

Of course, Senator Obama, it is never too late to change your stance to the right one. Abandon the language of fear and deception, the very rejection of which you are basing your campaign on. Americans know national security is important. We also know this bill has nothing to do with national security. Give us the benefit of the doubt; trust us to handle the Constitution the way you trusted us regarding your pastor. You just might be pleasantly surprised.

who supports criminals?

Pop quiz time. Who said this about legislation designed to prevent powerful companies from being held accountable for criminal activities and to allow even further spying on Americans by unaccountable government leaders?

"It is not all that I would want," [____] said. "But given the legitimate threats that we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay."

A) President Bush
B) Vice President Cheney
C) Senate Minority Leader McConnell
D) Presumptive Republican nominee McCain
E) Presumptive Democratic nominee Obama

If you guessed Obama, you're right.

Wow, this is just unbelievable. Or at least, unbelievable if you think Obama is as progressive as he lets people believe he is. When push comes to shove, he seems quite willing to support corporations, even when they commit felonies. Some guy who smokes a joint will serve more jail time than these criminals! He seems quite willing to do what the Republican leadership demands, no matter how much the very people whose votes he's pursuing despise the policies of the GOP. He seems quite willing to use the same baseless scare tactics and the same hollow deceptions about 'safeguards' as the GOP leaders themselves.

This legislation doesn't even prevent outright spying on Americans. The Executive merely will have to tell the court that they are trying to 'minimize' the information collection on US citizens.

nfl policy debate judge 04j142

Hi! Sorry, I've been overseas traveling, and my judging philosophy didn't get in the Judge Paradigm Book.

Judge 04J142 National Forensic League NFL Nationals 2008 Desert Lights Henderson Las Vegas Nevada Foothill High School FHS judging book paradigm book policy debate cross-examination debate team debate judge code judging code judging philosophy judging paradigm list of judges.

Here's the data in the form it's listed in the Judge Paradigm Book:

04J142 Nathaniel Dempsey Clayton High School MO Yes, No, No, Yes, No, Yes, 7 years, 21-30 rounds, TR, 4, NP, 7, 2, 3, 2, 2, 3, 3.

For Question 1B, I actually did do a tiny bit of policy debate in college (and I did a fair amount of parliamentary debate) but not enough that someone who was on the circuit regularly would consider me to have been an NDT or CEDA debater, so for the purposes of telling you about my experience, the technical answer is I didn't do much CEDA/NDT debate in college.

For Question 3, after TR, I would rank PM, SI, SS, GP, and finally HT.

For Questions 7 through 12, I made notes off to the side:
7) That doesn't necessarily mean I like T debate.
8) If they're actually competitive (CPs)
9) Make sure they link (generic positions)
10) Unless you're talking about things like CPs (conditional positions)
11) Just not too much--I want to see things get done (theory)
12) I don't really like Ks, but if you run it well and give me a clear way to evaluate it, do what you think is best for your strategy (critiques)

[Edit] removed cross-links to other web sites.

do not spend your rebate

Exciting news! My IRS rebate posted to my bank account this week. I've got $600 to spend in Europe I didn't have a week ago.

Except, I don't. Don't spend your $300 or $600. It's not money. It's a loan. When the government spends money on war, but it doesn't tax people who have money to pay for war, it instead borrows money from those people. The trouble with that is that those people want their money back.

And they want it back with interest. In other words, this is not a rebate. It's a tax.

If you want to decrease your tax burden, convince your members of Congress to reduce defense spending, reduce agricultural subsidies, reduce deductions in the tax code, and increase enforcement against large tax cheaters.

Now that would lead to a nice rebate.

full power to the shields

Since we haven't developed these kinds of shields yet, and since these shields have been great for war profiteers but can't actually do anything useful, we're left with this. It's low-tech, and it doesn't involve massive taxpayer support.

It's the Iran peace shield. Cool, huh? Don't get me wrong, I love having Boeing and B-2s in my state.

You're just a total nut job if you think using them against Iran is a good thing to do.

illicit markets are the coolest

Jodi and I are watching a show on PBS about illicit markets. Aside from the exaggeration of the uniqueness of now (as if black markets haven't always existed) it's pretty cool. I find illegal markets a lot more intellectually stimulating than legal ones. There's just so much going on, so much innovation, you always have to be a step ahead of the people chasing you. The power of people's individual choices to overwhelm the best laid plans of governments and corporations. The reminder that criminal is a label of one's relation to arbitrary laws (and the arbitrary enforcement of those laws), not a statement on one's abilities in sales, marketing, operations, strategy, entrepreneurship, interpersonal relations, or other valuable, marketable, productive skills.

And of course, the overwhelming economic, human, and national security case for ending crime as we know it by decriminalizing much of what we call crime. Consumers get inferior products when pushed into gray and black markets, taxpayers get screwed by the massive bills which don't do anything, and organized crime and terrorist organizations have access to massive revenue and transportation networks.

But hey, it's hard to compromise on good public policy when it comes to issues like this. After all, the GOP is all about big government, and they hate free markets.

to laugh or to cry

Oh, this is just too much. One of my main hesitations about Senator Obama has been his position that we need to pay more attention to Afghanistan, not less.

But regardless of how you feel about US troops there, this is pretty funny, in a very disturbing way.

Nato forces mistakenly supplied food, water and arms to Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan, officials today admitted.

That NATO has been so unsuccessful in militarily occupying Afghanistan is a very sobering reality. The last thing we need to be doing is helping the Taliban.

call the season

It's official. Let's just end it now. The Royals are in first place. In fact, they're the only undefeated team in baseball.

That can't last long. Can it?

the next quarter century

Here's to the future!

traitors or liars

Or both?

(P) Attorney General Mukasey's comments in San Francisco are really interesting:

...we knew that there had been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went. You've got 3,000 people who went to work that day, and didn't come home, to show for that...

Did we know about a safe house in Afghanistan that was making phone calls in 2001? If so, why did the Bush Administration choose not to perform surveillance of those terrorists, as explicitly allowed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act? What part of foreign, intelligence, and surveillance does the Bush Administration not understand?

And if we didn't know that, will we now be treated like kindergarteners as Mukasey tells us he didn't say that we knew that? It's definitely a new low when the Administration doesn't even try to tell believable lies anymore.

happy easter

Among other things, Easter is a good time to put things in perspective. A time to think about cleansing and newness. A time to distinguish small things from the big picture.

It was with this mindset that I started doing a little reading this afternoon, and the first article I ran across was from the Boston Globe about credit problems. It's a good, straightforward article highlighting various issues people are running into. In fact, it's noticeable for being so straightforward it's almost cliched. The same story could have been written months ago, or months from now, in any paper in the country.

We all know the language by now. We're in a 'credit crunch', a 'subprime crisis'. Lending standards are being 'tightened'. During the 'housing boom', lenders 'relaxed their standards'. Some of the more sarcastic reference a 'subcrime' crisis. Even the title of the article is interesting in how we are supposed to have a conditioned response to it, 'Qualified borrowers face credit squeeze'. The problem, we are told ad nauseum, is that qualified people can't get credit. There's just no money out there.

Now, it's good that the financial press and corporate media generally are talking about this issue. That's much better than ignoring the problem.

But after so many months of stories like these, the complete picture still isn't being told. The problem at its core isn't that there's a shortage of money; there's lots of liquidity for things that have value. Visa just had one of the largest IPOs in history. Corporations are sitting on something like $1.6 trillion in cash and $2 or $3 trillion more in short-term cash equivalents. As savings rates for average households were declining, corporate savings rates were hitting all time highs.

No, the key in that Boston Globe headline is not 'credit crunch'. It's 'qualified'. The obstacle we face, that we have been facing for many years, is a dearth of qualified borrowers. The 'housing bubble' was created precisely by lenders who gave money to people who can't afford what they're buying. Some specific policies related to interest rates and deregulation and so forth heightened the problem and explain the timing, and likely there was some criminal malfeasance involved as well as the usual predatory lending, too, but there's more to it than just that.

All the fancy technical analysis and long-winded answers and financial jargon can certainly serve as a useful distraction for particular actors that may have engaged in outright fraud or otherwise broken the law and may find themselves testifying before Congress, or other actors writing a book to explain why it's not their fault, but we are a very rich country. To become a crisis where people are literally being kicked out of their homes, it takes something more fundamental.

The fundamental question is this. Should someone willing to work full-time be able to comfortably afford decent housing? [And related to that, particularly in our tax code, do we place value on owning that residence?] Savings are low, people live paycheck to paycheck, and ultimately, people default on their mortgages, because the job they're in doesn't pay enough to afford their home. Wages, not credit, explain our current difficulties. The rest just makes the scale of the crisis more profound.

Now that's a question I would love to see headlining CNN this evening. I would love to see people talk about why we have people without homes, construction workers without jobs, and corporations with nothing to spend money on. There's no one right answer. But the first step is talking about the whole picture.

At least, after basketball. Gotta keep my facebook standing.

vegas, er, henderson

This weekend has been very exciting! NFL districts are the culmination of the year's worth of competition for speech and debate. That's the National Forensic League, by the way, not the National Football League, nor CSI type work. [No offense MSHSAA, but frankly, at least in the Northwest district, you absolutely blow.] It's the kind of weekend where I sleep little (never a preference of mine!) and make notes of lots of comments worth blogging about but then forget or lose motivation by the time I have time to do so.

This year was extra exciting because one of the debate teams at Clayton had a good chance to go to the national tournament, being held this year in Henderson, NV. Don't worry, it's nowhere near Las Vegas...

Well not only did Michal and Ka end up qualifying to nats, they were District champs! Woohoo. There is lots of value in debating. But at the end of the day, the point is to win! Now we've got three months to get them ready to compete at a national level. And I've got to convince my work to let me take another week off in June. This is where it starts getting to the limit of my personal experience. I know what it takes to compete at a national level, but I'm not so familiar with actually winning deep into the tournament. What I do know is that you have to take advantage of the opportunities you get, which is pretty much one of those cheesy life lessons you really do learn doing debate.

And while I'm at it, I just have to say my bluejays kicked some mighty fine Heart of America butt.

trifecta

My little sister is a national merit finalist. Yay Emily.

go john

(P) I'm not really the cheerleader type. I'd never be one of those people asked to warm up the crowd at a pep rally or before a speech. But hey, that doesn't mean I don't get excited. So since we're next (finally), I thought I'd give a try at being concise in my thoughts leading up to Feb 5.

In the spirit of brevity, I am going to keep this to three reasons. Here goes.

1) Edwards has been out ahead on the issues. I like his detail and his timeliness. The issues seem to matter with his campaign, he's talking about the right issues, and it seems like the advisers around him are the most open to the full range of policy options. Poverty, healthcare, the environment, trade policy, minimum wage, Iraq, torture, and so forth. The only candidate who seems able to use the word accountability to modify the word corporate. In a national landscape so thoroughly dominated by corporate interests, a willingness to call the problem by its name is greatly appreciated. And deserving of a vote.

2) Edwards has been driving the debate. Perhaps this has special appeal to me as a debater and debate coach. The way Edwards has influenced the language and proposals of the other candidates suggests to me a president who will take advantage of the opportunity to guide the national discourse in important new directions. Even if he doesn't win the nomination, his very presence and the clarity of his more populist message has had an impact on whatever platform the ultimate nominee assembles.

3) The Edwards candidacy represents a different approach within the Democratic party. I think it's time to have a Democrat who hasn't been in Washington the past few years, who hasn't been within the party establishment. In fact, Edwards had a chance to be the establishment candidate. He was, after all, the more energetic half of Kerry/Edwards 04. Yet, he left DC and has been out doing things on poverty and education and healthcare and such. Instead of being Kerry in 2008, he's actually Dean in 2008, but, I think, with a message that's even more openly populist.

There are also a few tactical things I thought I'd point out.

1) None of the candidates are 'anti-war'. It's unfortunate, but all three seem to have bought into the basic premise that we need to spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on military activities. While Clinton is most directly hawkish, Obama is clearly under a lot of influence in the Senate. In the past three years, he hasn't been a leader on stopping the war, he hasn't supported censure or impeachment efforts, he hasn't been able to stop torture or the suspension of habeus corpus or anything else the Bush Administration has been up to. He supported primary candidates in 2006 that were more pro-war than the challengers they were running against. He continues to talk about increasing the size of the military. And Obama won't promise that US troops will leave Iraq before the end of his first term. What could be a powerful antiwar campaign of Obama in 2002 is reduced to a hope that Obama in 2008 wouldn't be quite as bad as Clinton. Or Lieberman (whom Obama endorsed in 2006 over anti-war challenger Lamont).

2) If you are not wanting Clinton to win, or you don't like the idea of backing someone who's a longshot to win, the primary process is different than the general election. The Democratic party has a proportional representation system, not a winner take all system. If you lean Edwards, you don't need to feel like you have to vote for Clinton or Obama in order to make your vote count. Edwards can pick up delegates even if he finishes third in a state. Delegates are how the party platform and the nominee will get decided in Denver.

3) It is not bad to have a lengthy nomination process. In fact, quite the opposite. It gives the candidates longer to talk to the public, and it allow them more time to develop their specific policy positions. A rush to crown a nominee, followed by months of relative media silence, is much less effective. Competition is good.

4) Vote :) Vote for Clinton. Vote for Obama. Vote for Edwards. Write in Kucinich. Do whatever. But whatever you do, go to the polls on February 5th. The best way to influence all politicians is to show them that the citizenry is energized, paying attention, and willing to take action.

aging gracefully

As we take some time to observe the birthday of one of the truly inspiring Americans of the 20th century, I'm sparked by the thought that some things age so well, and others, well, just feel old.

My car, for example, is definitely not new anymore, passing several milestones this past year. But, it's hanging in there pretty well. The only major expense in 2007 was replacing the tires, which were the original tires on the car.



On the other hand, with several of us turning 26 this year, that just feels old. 25 was a major psychological marker for me. But happy birthday Kelli, Andrew, Scott, Jodi, etc, etc! And no Jodi, we will not tell you what we are doing for your birthday this Saturday.

The birthday we observe today (which, of course, is not his actual birthday) has some of both. Everybody embraces the safer parts of King's message. The media and political candidates all have a dream. And it really is pretty amazing how successful they were at radically changing our society.

Yet for all the talk about MLK, it also feels pretty sanitized. It's been cleaned up. The parts that don't age well in our materialistic, militaristic society get relegated to that dustbin of history politicians like to assign to uncomfortable truths.

By the mid 1960s, King was speaking very strongly about the relationships of racism and poverty and war. He made poverty an important issue, he supported labor rights, he opposed the Vietnam War in increasingly impassioned ways. Certainly not everyone agrees with his views by 1967 or 1968, then or now. What's so interesting, or concerning, is that we have a media and political process that can so loudly embrace the less controversial parts of the King identity while virtually ignoring the rest.

So here are a few of my favorite lesser well known quotes not from I Have a Dream, along with links to three speeches. The greatest disservice we can do his memory is ignoring the tight linkage he made between racial equality, economic justice, and opposition to war. As King described it in his Nobel speech, "each of these problems, while appearing to be separate and isolated, is inextricably bound to the other. I refer to racial injustice, poverty, and war."

Nobel speech
Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence
I've Been to the Mountaintop

Optimism:

"Let me close by saying that I have the personal faith that mankind will somehow rise up to the occasion and give new directions to an age drifting rapidly to its doom. In spite of the tensions and uncertainties of this period something profoundly meaningful is taking place. Old systems of exploitation and oppression are passing away, and out of the womb of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born."

"If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

"But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars."

"Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! And so I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!"

Politics and Labor:

"The voters of our nation rendered a telling blow to the radical right. They defeated those elements in our society which seek to pit white against Negro and lead the nation down a dangerous Fascist path."

“Those who in the second half of the 19th century could not tolerate organized labor have had a rebirth of power and seek to regain the despotism of that era while retaining the wealth and privileges of the 20th century. Their target is labor, liberals and the Negro people.”

"The issue is injustice. The issue is the refusal of Memphis to be fair and honest in its dealings with its public servants, who happen to be sanitation workers."

"That's the question before you tonight. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to my job. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?" The question is not, "If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?" The question is, "If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?" That's the question."

Poverty:

"So it is obvious that if man is to redeem his spiritual and moral "lag", he must go all out to bridge the social and economic gulf between the "haves" and the "have nots" of the world. Poverty is one of the most urgent items on the agenda of modern life."

"There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we have the resources to get rid of it."

"In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied in a single garment of destiny. All life is interrelated, and all men are interdependent."

Urgency:

"We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late."

"Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today."

War and Peace:

"Recent events have vividly reminded us that nations are not reducing but rather increasing their arsenals of weapons of mass destruction."

"In a day when vehicles hurtle through outer space and guided ballistic missiles carve highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation can claim victory in war. A so-called limited war will leave little more than a calamitous legacy of human suffering, political turmoil, and spiritual disillusionment."

"Equality with whites will hardly solve the problems of either whites or Negroes if it means equality in a society under the spell of terror and a world doomed to extinction."

"It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace."

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom."

"Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours."

highs and lows

Sometimes politics and economics are related, but these two things really have nothing to do with each other except that they've both happened recently and are worth commenting on.

Last year, I took a second to mention the Dow's breaking the 14,000 barrier in July. So I suppose at this time it is worthwhile to emphasize the other half of that message. It's ok for long term investors if stocks perform poorly in the short term. Don't panic! In fact, when in a period of decline, that's the best time to dump additional money for the long haul into equities. Just make sure it's really for next decade, not next week. Your emergency fund should never leave your savings account.

How much has the market (or more accurately, several markets) crashed? From breaking 14,000 last July, we're back under 13,000 now, almost below 12,000. In fact, what's happened the last few weeks is the largest decline in the history of the DJIA. By comparison, the crash of 1987 was less than a thousand points. Since then, the Dow has risen by almost exactly 10,000. In other words, a hypothetical investment in the 30 companies would have sextupled in the 20 years from Black Monday to LameduckW. Okay, LameduckW may not be the word historians ultimately use for the markets under Bush, but until they come up with a better name for this crash, that's what I'm calling it. But what if you bought the day before Black Monday? Well, then you'll have to console yourself with only a quadrupling of your money from 1987 to now (unless you got emotional and sold your investment, in which case you had quite the loss).

All of this, if you're like me, screams buy! If a Democratic president enters the White House come January 2009, we are primed for some impressive gains the next few years. Youngun's especially, take advantage.


And one side note. The National Association of Realtors, the lovely lobbying organization designed to market buying and selling houses (as opposed to making sure everyone has housing) and ensuring one of our most regressive tax breaks stays in place, the mortgage interest expense deduction, is running ads advertising a rather misleading website. They make some ridiculous claims about the historical appreciation of houses, and of course, the data they cite is their own historical series survey that you have to buy from them. Obviously, the reason they don't cite the data is because it's based upon the height of the housing bubble, not the long-term historical record that shows houses appreciating about half a percent a year above the inflation rate, much less than the doubling every 10 years they claim (which requires over a 7% annual gain). Plus, of course, these are all gross figures; they are not net of the costs of homeownership. Homeownership is valuable mostly because people like owning their home. Few people treat their homes in the emotionless, rational state necessary to count as an investment.

But what really is offensive about the website is the use of statistics about the distribution of wealth. They accurately point out that homeowners as a group have a much higher net worth than renters. Having a net worth of "46 times that of a renter" is most definitely not a benefit of home ownership, though. It's a benefit of higher wages and a longer working career. In fact, their observation is precisely why we should eliminate the tax breaks for homeowners. People who earn money to buy and sell property obviously want you to think that owning a house is more valuable than renting one. But that doesn't mean it actually is, and it certainly should rouse suspicion and scrutiny when a lobbying organization is making such blatantly misleading statements at a time when the market it represents is in the bust phase of its bubble.

(P) I hadn't originally intended that little disgust with the NAR as a segue from the market's ups and downs to Senator Edwards' ups and downs, but it seems pretty appropriate. I was very excited yesterday to go see John speak at the Carpenter's District Council building. For one thing, I'd driven past it a hundred times, but I'd never been there. It's interesting living in a town that actually still has a union presence. It was also a reminder, that I say only half-jokingly, that lots of white people live in the city, too. It was almost unbelievable, I'd say 3/4 of the people who packed into that meeting hall were older than 40 and white. They still exist!

I really liked his stump speech, and that was really the first time I've been around a large gathering of Edwards supporters. Mostly it's been smaller groups, like what we did at Earth day or greeting him at the National Urban League conference. In my mind, Edwards is saying the right things and has the right approach.

Clearly, though, Nevada did not go very well yesterday for Edwards. It makes me wonder a bit if they started campaigning elsewhere because they knew that was going to happen. With two third place finishes in a row, it's worth asking what is left to get accomplished. While finishing third in the Republican race any given day isn't a big deal, the Democratic side is a little more consolidated at this point. That itself is quite interesting, since the corporate media likes to talk a lot about fractures in the Democratic party when the GOP is really what is splintered at the moment, but that's a slightly different topic.

What stands out to me is that there's no reason not to keep going. For one thing, Clinton has not been able to stake out a majority position, even as she borrows some of the ideas and language from the Edwards and Obama campaigns. She hasn't won a majority of delegates in any state so far (unless you count Michigan, which is actually embarrassing for how few votes she received), and in fact, Edwards beat her, at least in terms of votes, in the Iowa caucus (you don't really know for months the actual delegates each candidate will get). If Nevada is a sign of things to come, then obviously Edwards isn't stealing votes from Obama. If it was an aberration, then it can't be a reason to ask Edwards to leave the race. The longer he's in, the more he has a chance to shape the dialogue and influence the convention. And of course, he just might win a few states.

That leaves me with the most interesting question I have after this weekend. Why do some people want him to drop out? Do they not like his message? Do they think he's preventing Clinton from getting more votes? Do they think he's preventing Obama from getting more votes? Do they not like having a broader field to choose from? Does Edwards' continued presence allow him to raise uncomfortable questions that people in the media or the party don't want asked? If a majority of voters want Clinton or Obama to be their nominee, then I'll respect that. But what I don't understand is telling a guy he needs to drop out after only three states have voted, in one of which he beat Clinton.

I hope Edwards picks up some states in the next few weeks. But I'm quite sure it would beneficial for him to stay in the race through the convention, even if he doesn't win a single state.

funny to serious

Julie and I went to see the Courthouse Steps with her parents in Florissant this weekend. They're kind of like the Capitol Steps, but a group with a lot of St. Louis-specific stuff. They're lawyers who happen to like to sing about various parody-worthy headlines.

We did dinner beforehand at Hendel's Market. Mmm, pork chops.

(P) So now that it's 2008 and a few of the delegates have actually been chosen by voters (as opposed to the 'superdelegates'), I thought this would be a good time to explore where I'm at. Or maybe I'm just procrastinating on starting the work week.

Basically, I started leaning toward former Senator John Edwards about a year ago, and by now, the leaning's far enough gravity's pretty much taken over. There are a couple of things I really like about what he is doing. First, while he's definitely running to be the Democratic party nominee, he seems to be running purposefully outside the parts of the party tied more to the DLC and corporate interests and DC consultants and so forth. I think this is particularly noteworthy given that the Kerry/Edwards campaign in 2004 very much earned the DLC seal of approval. Edwards used to be a New Democrat; I'm not sure if that makes him an "old" Democrat now. Perhaps, it just makes him a Democrat. He also used to be a Senator. He used to work for Fortress Investment Group, one of those Wall Street hedge funds incorporated in Delaware that incorporated its particular funds in the Cayman Islands for 'tax purposes', ie, tax evasion for the wealthy. He used to support the Iraq war; or, probably more accurately, thought it wasn't important enough to say anything that would upset the party leadership. That stands in stark contrast to positions staked out by a few notable Democrats, such as Al Gore and Barack Obama from outside Washington, or Dennis Kucinich, John Conyers, and the 150-odd politicians inside Washington (from all parties) who voted against the war in 2002. The fact that Senator Edwards chose a strategy of breaking with all this history to try for the nomination in 2008 I appreciate and am very excited about. He's not been in government for years, which in and of itself is a plus for me right now. He's off talking about poverty and economic class and healthcare. Even if everything he would do is wrong, he's talking like a populist. In so doing, he's forcing the whole conversation of the Democratic candidates to change, to deal with what he's talking about.

Which leads to me to the second thing I like. Edwards' stump speeches tend to be a little repetitive; the mill and cleft pallette (palette, pallatt?) stories are older than the lumpy milk in my fridge. But the specific policy positions he has taken are incredibly detailed, especially considering how early he started talking in detail about things like healthcare and the environment. I like the fact that Edwards is substantive enough in the campaign to give you enough that you can disagree with him. The impression Senator Obama leaves sometimes is that of a vagueness where you can see what you want to see; there's nothing to disagree with. Partly that's unfair because he's outlined things in a lot more detail more recently in the campaign process, and earlier in his books. But in a lot of ways, that sounds like how Al Gore's campaign got handled. Dumb everything down, don't talk about the specifics, even (especially?) if you've written books about them. I really think right now what we need is not a progressive to sound like a centrist long enough to get into office and then take the gloves off, as Dick Cheney might say, but rather somebody who's going to talk the talk right now, to lead the national dialogue at a moment when Democrats are getting lots of attention in the corporate media (all efforts to ban Kucinich from the debates aside).

But before I talk too much about Senator Obama, let me address the rest of the field first. I really like Representative Kucinich. He's one of the few national Democrats that seem ready and willing to act independently of the Democratic leadership when he feels it's necessary. He seems to get it on a lot of the issues that are important to me. In some ways he's more liberal/leftist than I, but his independent streak I value highly. He just seems to lack an ability to get people energized on a national level. Perhaps that says more about the Democratic party's nomination process than it does about Kucinich, but nonetheless, I think it's there and it's real. He has the largely thankless task of trying to shape the debate, to raise different issues and paint issues that are raised in different ways, all the while being lambasted by a variety of people who want him to just sit down and shut up. Groupthink is just as dangerous in a political party as any other group.

Governor Richardson and Senator Biden never did much for me. Senator Gravel had his moments, but his positions are just too out of the mainstream on a few issues for me. Senator Dodd is another person that doesn't seem to have much national appeal, but the more I learned about him, the more I liked him. He's practically single-handedly responsible for delaying the incredibly absurd idea of granting immunity to mass criminals. Senator Clinton has too many issues I disagree with her on. She just seems too cozy these days with the kinds of companies that wrote the Medicare bill and the Peru trade pact and control the media. It's also worth noting that as a white male whose relatives have been in the country for centuries, I obviously don't have a personal connection to the possibility that a woman or a hispanic or a black man or the son of an immigrant might win the White House. I understand that that is an important symbol, and that is a very interesting factor in the Democratic race this year.

None of this is to say that I'm deeply opposed to any of the Democratic candidates. In fact, this year is exciting in large part because there's a good chance they should win in November and, whoever the nominee is, it'll be a pretty good one. That gets me back to the former North Carolina Senator. I think we have a chance (again) to not just have a decent president, another Bill Clinton of the 1990s, but to have a president who's going to rewrite the rules in Washington. The chance that I care about isn't to put a Democrat in the White House. I'm pretty disgusted with the Democratic Party, especially senior figures in Washington. 2008 will be even harder than 2004 and 2000 for the Democratic Party to not gain the White House. Short of an actual fascist takeover, a burning of the Capitol, so to speak, Bush will be out of office in 2009 no matter what the Democrats do. What is exciting is the ability to put a really intriguing candidate in the White House, a candidate who spent the campaign telling everybody that when it comes to making policy, the needs of average citizens will count as much as the demands of a few of the country's wealthiest citizens. Edwards is the one driving the populist rhetoric, even to the point of getting Clinton and Obama to adopt some of the same language.

Senator Obama might be the most energizing candidate. He might be something truly special, something different, something that's a notch above most other national Democrats. But I'm just not sold on it. In Obama-speak, I don't believe. And if he's not a new breed of politics, then the stuff I like about Edwards is more than enough to sway my vote. There are three fundamental questions I have. These are serious questions, I'm not just looking to bash the Illinois Senator (quite the contrary, I would be happy to vote for him in November). I would be happier about him, though, if I could get some answers on these.

The first thing that nags at me is his choice on endorsing certain candidates. In races that mattered, at times that mattered, he seems to have thrown in his lot with the DCCC and DSCC and established Washington thinking to the direct detriment of local grass roots efforts for change, perhaps even in conflict with Dean's efforts at the DNC. In fact, if there's one issue Senator Obama stands out the most on nationally, it's his opposition to the Iraq war in 2002 as an Illinois legislator. Yet by 2006, as a US Senator, Obama was doing things like endorsing Bush apologist Joe Lieberman a couple weeks after Ned Lamont announced his candidacy in Connecticut and endorsing the nationally picked Tammy Duckworth over the local, grass-roots supported Illinois candidate, Christine Cegelis, who practically did the unthinkable in running a competitive race with Henry Hyde two years earlier.

Now, it's not like Lieberman and Duckworth are terrible candidates. But the point is, if Iraq really is so important, at the least Senator Obama should have let local Democrats decide their own primaries, and gotten involved in the general election. And if he was going to get involved in the primaries, he should have endorsed the "anti-war" candidates, the candidates which made Iraq a signature issue, which was clear in these two particular races. In response to a Harper's magazine story, the Obama office answered part of this by saying, "Harper's takes exception to Obama's decision to donate money to Senator Lieberman, but fails to note that Obama endorsed Ned Lamont and gave him $5,000 the day after Lamont won the nomination". That's exactly my concern, though. His defense is that he endorsed Lamont after he won the primary. I'm interested in what he did when the outcome was unknown. Imagine what could have happened if Obama had come out for Lamont in March instead. Maybe Lamont, not Lieberman, would be the junior Senator from Connecticut. Imagine what that would do for the anti-war vote in DC. Unlike Lieberman, Duckworth wasn't pro-war. But the really disturbing thing is that she won the primary basically due to the influence of national Democrats and fundraisers. Cegelis and her local volunteers did the work in 2004, and then the national figures decided to pick a candidate they preferred over her (interestingly, it appears Duckworth was not the first choice of a more centrist opponent to Cegelis; Emanual wanted a wealthy, self-financing candidate but was turned down twice). Obama didn't tell people like Rahm Emanuel, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton to back off. Instead of asking fellow Illinois Senator Dick Durbin why he was looking to recruit a primary opponent to Cegelis in December of 2005, Obama joined the DCCC and DSCC in supporting Duckworth in the primary. Even if Duckworth had been a "better" candidate, I would like to know if Obama thinks it's good policy for the DSCC and DCCC to be regularly involved in selecting and financing primary challengers to run against established local candidates. If Duckworth was so great, why not have her run in another Illinois district with a weaker Democratic candidate? It's not like she's from the 6th District. And knowing now that, furthermore, Duckworth lost the general election, does Obama have doubts about this process, or does he think it was the best shot and Roskam would have won regardless?

The second question I have is in regard to what Senator Obama has done since speaking at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Kucinich has been active within government. Gore has been active outside of government. But Obama, he didn't even support Feingold's efforts to censure President Bush in 2006, let alone giving voice to more serious efforts of oversight, a special counsel, or impeachment proceedings. Even Senator Kerry joined Feingold and Boxer as a cosponsor a couple months later. How has Senator Obama changed the national discussion on issues like Iraq? What legislation has he pushed through on critical issues? What legislation has he filibustered? If his claim to fame is a new kind of politics, an ability to bring people together, to work together, where have his successes come in getting Republicans to join him? What has he done simply to stop the bleeding? A Senator is certainly not as powerful as a president. But look what Senator Dodd was able to do on telecom immunity, for example. What would be different about our government if Obama hadn't been in Washington for over three years now?

The third area of concern I have is about finances and strategy. The Obama campaign, I think, is clearly superior to the Clinton campaign. But, the majority of his money still comes from large donations. He has restrictions in place on lobbyists and corporate money and so forth. And yet, he's still a huge beneficiary of large Wall Street firms. He has several former corporate lobbyists involved in the campaign. None of this disqualifies him, of course. Rather, it suggests that he's not special; he's not a magical candidate that's somehow doing all of this from $25 contributions from college students and middle school teachers and firefighters. He hasn't kept corporate lobbyists and Clinton-era advisers out of his campaign. And I'm confused, and concerned, about what exactly Obama is saying about 527s, independent groups. Is Obama saying all groups are bad? Here's an article defending Obama's position. It makes some good points. But the question I have, then, is why hasn't Obama come out and flat out said I don't want any 527 support in the primaries, if I'm the nominee, I do not want any 527 groups running ads on my behalf in the general election, and I will challenge the Republican candidate to do so as well? The reason 527s run ads is because they work. If Obama is going to forego 527 support in the general election, he needs to be heavily educating voters about how to identify 527 groups and why they should punish the GOP candidate for using them. And if he's not, well, that will give the GOP candidate some nice lines. Why doesn't Obama just come out and say the whole process is absurd? We need clean, publicly financed campaigns. We need a media that serves the public interest. We need a primary process that makes sense. That would be powerful stuff.

Another strategy area I'm concerned about is how exactly the Obama Administration is going to govern. Democrats have been compromising with GOP leaders for years and years and years. From my perspective, the fruits of that have been increasingly bad policies. I don't see what it means to give insurance companies a seat at the table. Bill and Hillary gave them one, and they destroyed the whole shebang. I don't see how you build bipartisan support for troop withdrawal when you won't even guarantee troops will leave Iraq 10 years after the invasion, more than 20 years after the Gulf War. What does it mean to build consensus on telecom immunity or domestic spying or torture? Some people want to do it, most people think it's patently absurd. What I don't hear, as a pretty intelligent, well-informed voter, is Senator Obama answering the how. Will Senator McConnell all of a sudden be cooperative with President Obama? I'm not saying there aren't answers to these questions. In fact, I would love it if someone figured out an answer to people like Newt Gingrich and Henry Hyde and Dennis Hastert and Bill Frist and Mitch McConnell that involved working with them rather than opposing pretty much everything they try to do. I just don't see the vision; I don't see how this is going to happen. I'm not looking for Obama to save me, to make me believe change is possible. I know change is possible. I'm asking him to tell me how you get change done his way. How do you even win an election, let alone govern, if you do not confront undemocratic practices, policies based on monied access instead of the will of the people? Al Gore tried this strategy after the 2000 election, and we ended up with George W Bush being annointed a war czar with the effective power to spy on and torture Americans.

Senator Edwards offers an answer, namely, that we have to stand up for America against corporate greed and special interests in Washington. I find that pretty powerful, in both narrative and substance. Senator Obama gets people excited, but I'm not clear on how he's going to deliver. As I finish this up, I can't help but think about Brian's support of McCain in 2000. He didn't support Bush at first; he had to come around for the general election. I wonder if I'm the same on Obama.

Or maybe Edwards will end up getting the nomination, and then we'll get to see what a candidate who ran as a fighting populist can do in DC. That still gets me the most excited.

time for another election

This pains me deeply to say. I almost can't bear it. But here goes.

The political coverage about New Hampshire is actually better than the sports coverage found in the AP and USA Today Polls.

I find myself wanting to strangle somebody. And not because of some new scandal in the Bush Administration.

There are some legitimate points of debate. How to rank BYU, for example, is tough, since they beat a lot of teams with winning records, but they were all midmajor conferences. There's no signature win. Ditto for Hawaii, with the problem that Hawaii has quite the signature loss.

But some are just stupid. It's like, which is worse; that voters were ignorant and they just didn't care, or that they are so enamored with certain teams they willfully overlook pesky things like wins and losses? How in the world do you rank Florida ahead of Michigan (and Auburn in one of the polls)? It makes a good little Baptist boy want to swear hard enough to make Mel Gibson and Michael Richards blush. And speaking of Auburn, really? Ahead of two 10-3 teams!?!

I have an APB out for South Florida. Let's see, all they did was beat West Virginia. Oh, and somehow they beat a team from the superhuman ego conference, too. One that goes by the name of Auburn, who somehow got a 14 and a 15. Hmm, nothing to see here folks, move along. The SEC is all-powerful. They don't lose to anybody, even if the score board has some kind of malfunction and shows them having fewer points.

Now we get on to the really fun stuff, both because these are the best teams and because I personally care more. It's one thing for a team like Florida to be ranked above the team they lost to in the bowl game, or for a team like 9-4 Auburn to be ranked ahead of 10-3 teams Cincinnati and Arizona State. I don't follow any of those teams closely. But when teams I do follow more closely get disrespected, or more accurately this year, simply ignored, it makes me quite animated. Looking at how the voters decided the top ten, I really think the most rational response is to just ignore the polls. They must have used some alien formula more secret than FICO scoring. And it must have about as much precedent as the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v Gore.

So let's break this down. I think the most helpful way to analyze this is to remove the school names. You then see quite plainly that many voters made decisions based not on the performance of the teams on the field this year but rather on performances in prior years or biases about certain programs or conferences. First, here's what the two polls have after the season ended.


Without the schools, here's what the AP did:
1. 12-2
2. 11-2
3. 11-2
4. 12-2
5. 11-2
6. 11-2
7. 12-1
8. 11-3
9. 11-3
10.10-3

That makes no sense. Absolutely none. So, let's try this method. Here are the number of wins the team had against another top ten opponent (bigger is better).

1. 2
2. 0
3. 0
4. 1
5. 0
6. 1
7. 1
8. 3
9. 0
10.0

I repeat myself, that makes no sense. So, let's try the reverse. These are the number of losses to teams not in the top ten (smaller is better).

1. 2
2. 2
3. 2
4. 0
5. 1
6. 2
7. 0
8. 2
9. 1
10.2

Well, you know the drill. So, let's try the number of teams they beat which beat a top ten team (bigger is better).

1. 0
2. 1
3. 1
4. 7
5. 0
6. 1
7. 3
8. 2
9. 1
10.1

Now let's look at another number where smaller is better, the number of losses to teams with fewer than 10 wins.

1. 2
2. 1
3. 2
4. 0
5. 1
6. 2
7. 0
8. 2
9. 0
10.2

Again, very interesting. Is there any number that makes sense? I haven't found it yet if there is. Maybe the answer is that the teams rated highly won their conference (or division of conference).

1. conf champ
2. none
3. conf champ
4. div champ
5. conf champ
6. conf champ
7. none
8. conf champ
9. conf champ
10.none

Hmmm, guess not. So let's put this together in the form of [wins-losses], [top ten wins-losses to teams not in top ten], [wins against teams with a top ten win-losses to teams with fewer than 10 wins], [conference position]. The AP voters say:

1. 12-2, 2-2, 0-2, conf champ
2. 11-2, 0-2, 1-1, none
3. 11-2, 0-2, 1-2, conf champ
4. 12-2, 1-0, 7-0, div champ
5. 11-2, 0-1, 0-1, conf champ
6. 11-2, 1-2, 1-2, conf champ
7. 12-1, 1-0, 3-0, none
8. 11-3, 3-2, 2-2, conf champ
9. 11-3, 0-1, 1-0, conf champ
10.10-3, 0-2, 1-2, none

Here's how I rank them (note, this sets aside the rule that the winner of the national championship is the automatic number one).

1. 12-2, 1-0, 7-0, div champ
2. 12-1, 1-0, 3-0, none
3. 12-2, 2-2, 0-2, conf champ
4. 11-2, 1-2, 1-2, conf champ
5. 11-2, 0-2, 1-1, none
6. 11-2, 0-2, 1-2, conf champ
7. 11-2, 0-1, 0-1, conf champ
8. 11-3, 3-2, 2-2, conf champ
9. 11-3, 0-1, 1-0, conf champ
10.10-3, 0-2, 1-2, none

This completes the more objective analysis of the day. I am quite eager to turn into a fan and really argue this case. Let's put some names on those numbers.

1. Missouri
2. Kansas
3. LSU
4. West Virginia
5. Georgia
6. USC
7. Ohio State
8. Oklahoma
9. Virginia Tech
10. Texas (although, this is really Boston College for me; I vote Texas 11 and BC 10)

When you look at the 2007-2008 college football season, I am quite convinced that the national championship game was not played in New Orleans between LSU and Ohio State, but rather in Kansas City between Missouri and Kansas. They have quality wins and they avoided bad losses. In a season where the top teams are all very close, that combo is very important. The worst team that the Big 12 combo of MU/KU lost to was...Oklahoma; they had not a single loss to a team outside the top ten. That is almost unbelievable. Only three of the top ten teams won 12 games, yet only one of them was ranked in the top three. Kansas only lost one game all season, while Missouri beat seven teams who were good enough to themselves beat a top ten team, more than LSU (0), Georgia (1), and USC (1) combined! The teams Missouri beat were themselves responsible for beating the SEC Champion, the ACC Champion, the Big 12 Champion, and the Big Ten Champion. That is a monstrous season.

Let's move on to Georgia. What would be required of teams like Missouri, Kansas, and West Virginia to get voted ahead of Georgia? All three had more wins against top ten teams than Georgia even played! Missouri, unlike Georgia, won its division, not to mention winning more games. Georgia's schedule was as soft as Kansas' was; Kansas came out with a better record. West Virginia won the Big East, having the same record as Georgia. Basically, the AP voters are saying a team would have to go undefeated to be better than a two loss Georgia team whose best win of the entire season was against a four loss team and whose worst loss was to a team that didn't even play in a bowl game. The two teams Georgia lost to had a combined 10 losses. The three teams that Missouri and Kansas lost to (together) had total combined losses of eight games. Just think about that. Georgia's rank is so ridiculous you can't even argue with it. You just laugh at the voters and give them zero credibility.

Then there's USC. At least they won their conference. Their main problem, however, is that they have a bad loss. A very bad one. USC lost at home to a team that finished the season 4-8. Stanford's victory over USC ranks not just among the season's all-time upsets, but among the greatest upsets in the history of college football. Now, if the Pac 10 had been a strong conference this year, that might be forgivable, if USC had some great wins. They don't have any, though. Their only win against a team with 10 or more wins was against Arizona State, which was manhandled by the Big 12's fourth team, Texas. Their second best win was against Illinois, which, oh, Missouri also beat, in a location a lot closer to Champaign than the Rose Bowl. Like Georgia, USC didn't even play a top ten team!

It's also important to understand that, aside from ranking either team highly, ranking both USC and Georgia highly is only consistent if the criteria is the national recognition of the program. In other words, it has nothing to do with this football season. You can't claim the SEC is a great conference to vote for Georgia #2, then vote a team from a weak conference #3. You can't vote USC #3 because winning conference championships are important, then vote for a #2 team that didn't even win their division, let alone their conference. You can't talk about how good the conference is when the teams you are talking about (like Florida and Arizona State) lose bowl games against teams ranked lower than them, while other teams get blown out by a higher ranked team (think Arkansas).

So my #1 choice is finally ranked at #4. But that still leaves me upset about Kansas and West Virginia.

How Ohio State is ranked #5 is a mystery beyond mysteries. It's so bizarre. Either they should be ranked higher for winning a conference, or they should be ranked lower for not being a very good team. Unlike Georgia and USC, Ohio State did play a top ten team. They lost, though. Overall, I think their season was a little better than USC, but since USC won its bowl and the team it beat was responsible for Ohio State's other loss, then I think USC should probably be a notch higher than Ohio State. How the AP voters rank them higher than Kansas and West Virginia, though, is probably classified above top secret.

Interestingly, once we make it down to the 8, 9, and 10 slots, I have no quarrel with the AP.

So join me in recognizing the Missouri Tigers as your national champions. Or at least join me in mocking the voters.

And I don't mean the New Hampshire ones.

One final update, here's the bowl predictions I made by conference vs the actual result.

Prediction/Actual: difference
Big 12: 5-3/5-3: exact
Pac 10: 4-2/4-2: exact
SEC: 5-4/7-2: two off
ACC: 4-4/2-6: two off
Big East: 2-3/3-2: one off
Big Ten: 4-4/3-5: one off