The RoughRiders won but missed out on the playoffs.  Week 8 & 9 losses cost em.  Win either one and they're in.  Tough conference next season.  See ya in 10 months

Buckeyes over the Baby Rapers.   They aren't a great team, but the school up north is the only remaining stumbling block.

Among teams still playing for real:

1.  Alabama.

2.  Notre Dame.  Now for real.  USC not a threat.  How much will the remaining weak schedule hurt them?

3.  Kansas State.  But they aren't a traditional power so they'll get no love.

4.  Oregon.  USC & Stanford loom.  Will the Pac 10 play by SEC rules?

5.   Oklahoma is probably #5 but with 2 losses ya can't put em this high.  Florida with one loss?  Sure.

Buckeyes?  #22

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s current column denigrates the biological acumen of actual pro lifers because of Todd Akin’s appalling comment about “legitimate rape.”  But Friedman is in no position look down his nose about ignorance: From his column:

“Pro-life” can mean only one thing: “respect for the sanctity of life.” And there is no way that respect for the sanctity life can mean we are obligated to protect every fertilized egg in a woman’s ovary, no matter how that egg got fertilized, but we are not obligated to protect every living person from being shot with a concealed automatic weapon.

Starring Jimmy Piersall, Jamie Lee Curtis' mom, Juror #1 and the WagonTrain trailmaster.

I'm talking of the Hitchcock classic Psycho.  Taut scripting.  Famous score.  Solid acting top to bottom.  Skip the Van Zandt shot for shot version.  This isn't just about the story.  This is a black and white masterpiece.  #18 on my alltime list.

Two tidbits.  This is the first movie ever to include a flushing toilet.  And it marks an early appearence by Ted (Baxter) Knight.

See it.  But shower first.

but first, the Top 5

1.  Bama.  I don't see anybody withing a TD of them.

2.  Oklahoma.  Yes, they have a loss, but they also play a tough schedule.  Oklahoma.

3.  Florida.  Three wins over top 25 teams.  

4.  Oregon.  Weakest schedule in the bunch.  Will probably be in the BCS game.  Duck O vs Tide D should be some great football.

5.  Notre <gulp> Dame.  ALSO three wins over top 25 teams.  

Honorable mention: Stanford (top 10 schedule screwed vs ND), K State, FSU, Texas Tech, and two OSU's (Ohio and Oregon).

Now, conferences top to bottom as of now. We'll put the Big 12 on top.  SEC, Big ?? and Pac ?? next.  MAC?  Twelfth.

Let's look first at the Big ??.  Top 3 teams are the school up north, tOSU and Wisconsin (17, 2328).  Bottom three:  Minnie ha ha, Indiana and Illinois (76, 72, 113).  Easiest schedule is PSU's (71).

MAC?  N Ill, Toledo, Kent (42, 69, 82).  Kent's loss predicted here, btw.  Bottom?  Buffalo, E Mich, Mass (161, 168, 208).  Schedule?  Toughest is C Mich (67).  Easiest is the aforemetioned OU (173).  

So there are ony 2 MAC teams that wouldn't be in the basement of the Big ??.  And the toughest schedule in the MAC is about equal to the  easiest in the Big??.

And THAT's why they aren't taken "seriously".

Threw a wrench in the works for the 25th.  Watched the 1975 move "The Night that Panicked America" - about O. Welles' telling of the War of the Worlds. 

1938.  Radio was a new medium.  War was brewing in Europe.  And Orsen Welles said Boo.  Solid cast.  Tom Bosley,as remembered from Happy Days playing Howard Cunningham, Meredith Baxter, as remembered from Family Ties playing Elyse Keaton, John Ritter, who we lost way too soon, Michael Constantine, Eileen Brennan and Paul Shenar plays Orson Welles.

Not a GREAT movie and not scary at all, but a nice time capsule.  Watch it early in the month, then listen to the radio play on 10/30 or so.

That's how many "Constitutions" Akhil Amar posits in his new book America's Unwritten Constitution: The Precedents and Principles We Live By

There is not just one unwritten constitution, in Amar’s reckoning; there are eleven of them. There is an “implicit” constitution, a “lived” constitution, a “Warrented” constitution (the reference is to Earl Warren), a “doctrinal” constitution, a “symbolic” constitution, a “feminist” constitution, a “Georgian” constitution (the reference is to George Washington), an “institutional” constitution, a “partisan” constitution (the reference is to political parties, which are not mentioned in the written Constitution), a “conscientious” constitution (which, for example, permits judges and jurors to ignore valid law), and an “unfinished” constitution that Amar is busy finishing. All these unwritten constitutions, in Amar’s view, are authoritative. And miraculously, when correctly interpreted, they all cohere, both with each other and with the written Constitution. The sum of the twelve constitutions is the Constitution.

SE Okie State and Ouachita State got new helmets this season so it seems fitting to recognize the Great American Conference. 

Yes it has a few "boring" names, including Bulldogs, Bison and two Tigers ... and the moderately interesting Rangers and Red Storm. 

But who can beat the Ark Tech Wonder Boys, Henderson Reddies, SEOS Stormriders, S Ark Mule Riders, and the vaunterd Arkasas-Montecello Boll Weevils!

From Rolling Stone’s interview/profile of Barack Obama, via Politico:

“We arrived at the Oval Office for our 45-minute interview … on the morning of October 11^th. … As we left the Oval Office, executive editor Eric Bates told Obama that he had asked his six-year-old if there was anything she wanted him to say to the president. … [S]he said, ‘Tell him: You can do it.’ Obama grinned. … ‘You know, kids have good instincts,’ Obama offered. ‘They look at the other guy and say, “Well, that’s a bullshitter, I can tell.”’”

And the kids, they can’t tell Obama’s a bullshitter, because they’re too young to remember broken promises like closing Guantanamo Bay. There’s five pages of them on PolitiFact alone.

A SIX year old???

Passed over from the 2nd debate:

Well, think about what the governor -- think about what the governor just said. He said when I took office, the price of gasoline was $1.80, $1.86. Why is that? Because the economy was on the verge of collapse, because we were about to go through the worst recession since the Great Depression, as a consequence of some of the same policies that Governor Romney's now promoting. So, it's conceivable that Governor Romney could bring down gas prices because with his policies, we might be back in that same mess.

In other words, bringing down gas prices by drilling creates economic recession. That was Obama’s argument.

Does anyone think this president understands basic economics?