First of all here's wishing Dick-Rod a long and happy career at the school up north.

Buckeye's Rose Bowl opponent will likely be Oregon after last night's doube OT win over 'Zona but it  ain't guaranteed.  Buckeye fans should be cheering for the Beavers next week as IMHO the Ducks are about a figgie better than us.

I still have Texas over Alabama in the title game.  

Sugar Bowl will see Florida top a competant but overmatched Pitt squad.

Iowa vs Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl.  Boise will again prove they belong with the big boys.

Alamo Bowl: Sparty vs Texas Tech's video game offense.  Mike Leach by two touchdowns.

Capitol One Bowl will put Joe Pa vs Ole Miss.  Two overrated teams.  Joe Pa gets a win for the Conference.

Wisconsin vs Kentucky in the Outback.  Badgers keep the faith.

Minnie ha ha vs Texas A&M in the Insight Bowl.   Aggies by 6

Conference goes 2-4

from JAMES TARANTO: Failure Is Not An Option: Obama and Holder’s Assault On Due Process. “Obama’s and Holder’s assurances that KSM will be convicted (and, according to the president, “put to death”) make a mockery of due process. Nothing is more fundamental to America’s criminal justice system than the presumption of innocence, and if terrorist detainees are to be treated as criminal defendants, they are entitled to that presumption. For the sake of political expediency, Obama and Holder are refusing even to make a pretense of respect for due process. If KSM & Co. are convicted and put to death, America’s critics and enemies will point to Obama and Holder’s assurances in arguing that the defendants were subjected to sham justice. Nice work restoring America’s moral standing, Mr. President.”

and SOME folks have pointed out that the very people working on KSM's prosecution WERE working on his defense one short election cycle ago.  It's  a freakin' mistrial waiting to happen.  From TOM MAGUIRE: “Work with me here – suppose we get a conviction on some terrorist who then discovers that his former defense attorney has been active on his case at the DoJ. Why wouldn’t that be grounds for a mistrial? If attorney-client privilege is an issue at all, it is an issue for the defendants, who have the right to assurance that their former defenders are not now aiding in the prosecution.”

On the other hand Bush-era Justice Department alumni Jim Comey and Jack Goldsmith defend Holder’s decision. “Mohammed is many things: an enemy combatant in a war against the United States whom the government can detain without trial until the conflict ends; a war criminal subject to trial by military commission under the laws of war; and someone answerable in federal court for violations of the U.S. criminal code. Which system he is placed in for purposes of incapacitation and justice involves complex legal and political trade-offs.”

I agree with the premise but not necissarily the conclusion

I haven't discussed this with my wife yet.  She was raised by wolves.  Father just retired as a textbook publisher (VP: Science Division, BS in Biology  from Capitol, MS in same from OSU.) Her sis and b-i-l are HUGE tree huggers who got their Master;s from UEA.  They all worship at the Church of Al Gore, the hockey stick is a HUGE element of faith.  These revelations will rival a child finding out there's no Santa Clause.  They will be shaken.  We'll have to go throughthe Kubler-Ross stages of greif.

I'm talking of course of the revelations revealed in the emails from the UAE's hacked CRU.  Turns out the entire multi-billion dollar industry was based on lies.  The phrase “hide the decline” will be the death knell.  Mike's Nature Trick will become fodder for late night comedy routines.  Cap n Tax is DEAD!

I got my first taste here: Possible Conspiracy To Falsify Temperature Data Uncovered

links to fully released data here: The Greatest Fraud in Human History

and finally from a leader in debunking the bad science: Watts Up With That? ...   Mike’s Nature Trick

IMHO this is earth shattering 

CBC reports:

A Quebec woman on long-term sick leave is fighting to have her benefits reinstated after her employer's insurance company cut them, she says, because of photos posted on Facebook...She said her insurance agent described several pictures Blanchard posted on the popular social networking site, including ones showing her having a good time at a Chippendales bar show, at her birthday party and on a sun holiday - evidence that she is no longer depressed, Manulife said.

While Canada has a magical health care system where a unicorn wearing a blue pocketed shirt shows up at your door and your benefits stream out its mouth in a Care Bear rainbow, the fairy dust apparently does not extend to their private insurance market.

In any event, depression is an illness diagnosed by doctors, not by desk jerks conducting amateur "photographic analysis."

At least it wasn't the Death Squads.

from The Anchoress

“If I’ve learned anything yet about transparency is that it’s harder to practice transparency than it is to talk about transparency. It’s definitely not something for the faint of heart.”

Yes, “showing your work” is difficult in a “just words” presidency.

And only the Obama Administration would be allowed to get away with saying that.

A Bush, or even a Clinton Administration would be raked over the coals and roundly mocked.

They guys in my FFL and most of my poker playing friends need to review this.

In last week’s New York Times, economist Richard Thaler discussed Swoopo.com, a so-called “entertainment shopping” site.  The premise is relatively simple and somewhat diabolical.  Unlike normal auctions sites such as eBay—which operates as a modified second price auction—Swoopo.com bidders pay to place each bid in addition to the final selling price.  Though the items sell for far less than retail price, the aggregate of money spent on bids is huge.  Some auctions go in 1 cent increments, so the site rakes in 61 times the final sale price (60 cents for each cent the bid goes up and the actual price). So what does this have to do with sports?  Yes, Richard Thaler wrote my favorite sports economics paper, but there is an even greater connection to the world of sports… In the article, Thaler talks about the psychological principle of commitment, one of Robert Cialdini’s weapons of influence.  Basically, once we start playing, we hate to lose. Sports teams fall prey to the commitment principle.  Frequently, they fail to understand the idea of sunk costs.  Once they have committed, they are reluctant to drop a player.  Take the Houston Texans, who were faced with a decision about quarterback David Carr after his fourth season. The team had already sunk a first overall pick and $21.75 million into the former Fresno State star and it was clear he was not a very good player.  To retain Carr’s services for three more seasons, his contract called for an $8 million option bonus (in addition to his salary during those seasons).  If they did not pay the option bonus, they would have to release Carr or try to get him to renegotiate his deal.  Already deeply invested in Carr, the Texans exercised the option and ended up spending $13.25 million to keep David Carr around for a fifth season.  They dropped him the next year.

 

The Obama admistration strikes again.  Remember the giant Ramadan dinner he hosted a couple of months ago?  And the giant Iftar dinner at the State department on 9/11?

The White House's forthcoming state dinner with the Prime Minister of India is expected to be larger than those of President Barack Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush. But another upcoming  White House event will be smaller than in years past: The White House's annual Hanukkah party. 

New security rules have proven too complex for Alaska's post offices to bear, so the Obama administration is ending their participation in Operation Santa, the 50-year-old program where letters addressed to "Santa Claus, North Pole" are answered by volunteers.

This morning, in testimony before the Joint Economic Committee, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that, by any measurement of the strength and stability of the US economy, the economy today is better than it was when Obama took office. Sheesh, tell that to the millions of people who have lost their job since January.

Apparently, “any measurement” doesn’t include the unemployment rate, job growth, number of jobs, wage growth, hours worked, home foreclosures, rate of mortgage delinquencies, etc.

and then there's this

County-by-county job loss since 2007.

they'll get health care right!

Surprise: Recovery.gov Has a Credibility Problem 

Phantom Congressional Districts.

Picking up on a story from ABC News about stimulus jobs created in phantom congressional districts, I found jobs/awards reported for the following Illinois “districts”: 0, 20th, 21st, 22nd, 28th, 33rd, 34th, 42nd, 44th, 53rd, and 59th. Or as Stephen Colbert would say, “the fightin’ 59th.” Too bad Colbert couldn’t “better know these districts,” because they don’t exist. Notes the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “the federal government is attributing about $6.5 million in stimulus spending to non-existent congressional districts in Illinois.”

Counting Irregularities.

Recovery.gov touts state-by-state totals for jobs “created or saved.” Some of the counts are little more than guesses. For example, the Illinois Institute of Technology was awarded $97,900 to “purchase a high performance computer cluster” and related software. One job was counted created/saved; the related entry surmised: “I think the vendor of the computer equipment can retain about one job for this amount of purchase.” That’s totally unsubstantiated. Still, it was added to Illinois’s statewide jobs tally.

Misallocation of Job Counts.

Recovery.gov breaks down the jobs created/saved by the stimulus by congressional district. For Illinois, the vast majority of jobs were supposedly created/saved in the 18th congressional district. With 16,996 jobs created/saved in the 18th district (the next largest jobs total is 3,444 in the 7th district). A closer look at the details shows that 14,233 of those central Illinois jobs came from the Illinois State Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, which is located in state capital of Springfield. The State Office counted education jobs saved across the state, yet all were allocated to the 18th district. If the designers of Recovery.gov hope to sway future congressional votes with the district-by-district job numbers, they’re need to present credible information.

Where are the Private Sector Jobs?

You’ll remember that back in January 2009 President Barack Obama promised that 90 percent of the jobs saved or created by the stimulus would be in the private sector. So far, that’s not the case. If the 90 percent promise held up, 22,003 of the 24,448 Illinois jobs would be in the private sector. But looking at the data, the big job saver is a government entity, otherwise known as “Illinois, State of.” Some 14,233 jobs were saved in public education. The “Chicago Transit Authority” is another big job saver and/or creator, accounting for 2,071 jobs. Seen in this light, the stimulus was more of a state and local government bailout than a private-sector engine starter.

But are these state government numbers even trustworthy? The Chicago Tribune’s Watchdog took a closer look at the education job claims, and they found that “those statistics, compiled initially by the Illinois State Board of Education, appear riddled with anomalies that raise questions about their validity.” Some schools were credited with saving more jobs than are on payroll. Authorities are now revising the numbers.

As nonexistent Congressional districts are removed, stimulus money to New Hampshire shrinks. So, uh, what did happen to that money? . . . . Apparently it was spent somewhere else.