Questions? We've got answers...

... sort of.

Starting Thursday, the long national nightmare will be over and where the rest of the nation will be hunkering down to take in USC vs. Hawai'i, we accepted KT's challenge to share some thought regarding the epic Buffalo v. Rhode Island tilt going down that same evening.

Count Harvey Weinstein, founder and HMFIC of MiraMax films as well as outspoken child rapist apologist as UofB's most famous alum. And no Wiki check necessary for URI's most famous alum: Lamar Odom of the Los Angeles Lakers.*

The city of Buffalo sets on the southern shore of Lake Erie and is subject to a meteorological phenomena known as Lake Effect.

Lake-effect snow is produced in the winter when cold winds move across long expanses of warmer lake water, providing energy and picking up water vapor which freezes and is deposited on the leeward shores. The same effect over bodies of salt water is called ocean effect snow, sea effect snow, or even bay effect snow. The effect is enhanced when the moving air mass is uplifted by the orographic effect of higher elevations on the downwind shores. This uplifting can produce narrow but very intense bands of precipitation, which deposit at a rate of many inches of snow each hour, often resulting in copious snowfall totals. The areas affected by lake-effect snow are called snowbelts. This effect occurs in many locations throughout the world but is best known in the populated areas of the Great Lakes of North America, and especially Western New York, northwestern and western Michigan and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which can average over 200 inches (5 meters) of snow per year and averages the most snow of any non-mountainous location within the continental US.

And as for Rhode Island, what really can be said about a state so starved for attention and lacking any distinguishing notoriety that they insist on calling themselves an island while they clearly are not?

In fact, Rhode Island is, along with Delaware, home to our Vice President, part of a two-state confederation of Largely Inconsequential Northeastern/Mid-Atlantic States.

This seeming fraternal bound borne of insignificance has not stopped Rhode Island, however, from attempting to push a Chamber of Commerce/Tourism Board-inspired guerrilla campaign for a new state motto: Rhode Island: Not to be confused with Delaware.

And what blue state would not have their share of ridiculous and counter-productive laws?:

Rhode Island recently applied to the US Government to make all the coastal waters of Rhode Island a "No Discharge Zone". The ostensible purpose was to prohibit the discharge of sewage by boats into the state's waters. However, discharge of raw sewage into the state waters was already illegal. What the "No Discharge Zone" actually did was make it illegal to discharge TREATED sewage from a boat into state waters. What now happens is that boats (whose treatment systems far outperform municipal sewage treatment plants) are now required to disable their sewage treatment systems, and carry their sewage to a shore-based facility, which then dumps the partially treated sewage back into Rhode Island's coastal waters.

The ruling class is strong in this one.


But hey, what about that game? Unfortunately, as Buffalo is an FCS (the subdivision formerly known as Division I) member and Rhode Island is a proud member of the Coloniial Athletic Association and the FBS (the subdivision formerly known as Div. I-AA) there is no betting line so we will play bookie ourselves and install Buffalo as a 20 point favorite.

We wish to thank KT for this opportunity and we sincerely hope we've answered the mail in that regard.



* We are aware Lamar didn't actually graduate from Rhode Island but the beauty of these self-indulgent posts is exercising the blogger's form of artistic license.