Its ON!

Just a few initial thoughts on the NCAA basketball tournament field that was just set about 2 hours ago (bracket here):

Surprisingly little bitching about who got in and who was left out which had become a Selection Sunday cottage industry of late. Even Billy Packer was very civil towards selection committee chairman Tom O’Connor on CBS’s selection show.

The two teams that were the subject of most discussion as to who got jobbed were Virginia Tech and Arizona St. Seth Greenberg, the VaTech coach was on ESPN pleading his case and gave a nod towards possibly expanding the tournament. We’ve heard more of this noise over the past few years and we sincerely hope it goes away because it solves NONE of the problems it proponents claim it will fix.

The pro-expansionists' strongest plea is that seemingly deserving teams like VaTech and ASU will be granted admittance to the Big Dance. Okay. Then what about that team that feels they are just as worthy as VaTech and ASU who gets left out…. what about them? Point is, there is ALWAYS going to be a team that feels they got screwed no matter how many teams you let into the tournament. As it is, the consensus this year was that this was the softest bubble in many years, meaning those teams on the bubble, quite frankly weren’t that good and probably would not stand a chance of even being considered in years previous.

Also, the field of 64 (plus 1… don’t ask) is nearly perfect in its symmetry. 2 rounds in the first long weekend followed by 2 more rounds in the sweet 16/Elite 8 long weekend and then the Final Four weekend after that. Why would you want to mess with the best tournament in all of sports? No. There is no tweaking you can do to it to make it any better, so just knock it off, will ya?

Back to Arizona St. for a moment: Its ironic that one of the last teams “out”, a team from the conference that many feel is the best in the land got bumped out by Georgia, a conference tourney winner from a conference that was most certainly down this year.

Apparently, there is something that Duke can do to not play their first round games in the state of North Carolina: lose to Clemson in the ACC tourney semis as they did yesterday. Duke who had the #2 seed in the Midwest Region locked up and first and second round games in Raleigh got shipped off to Washington D.C. as a #3 seed in the West Region.

The dreaded 5/12 upset: Possibilities abound! 5 Notre Dame/ 12 George Mason, 5 Clemson/ 12 Villanova, 5 Drake / 12 Western Ky., 5 Michigan St. / 12 Temple. One of those 5 seeds is going down. It’s a given… but which one? George Mason knocking off Notre Dame would please us the most but Michigan St. fits the 5/12 upset mold of power conference team that has played inconsistently all year that gets bumped off by a hot mid-major team.

That’s all for now.

The Pac-10 is overrated?

Prior to today, there would be no question mark after the post subject. As West Coast homers we’re pleased as punch that the folks that cover college hoops for ESPN and CBS have noticed the fine ball being played out here this year but as often happens when an NFL player is finally recognized by the fans and the media and is awarded a Pro Bowl spot, its probably a year too late.

We feel the Pac-10 was actually a stronger conference last year and we owe this largely to the fact that Oregon and Arizona (though hobbled by injuries) have underachieved somewhat and have not lived up to the lofty expectations people had for them at the beginning of the season.

As we said, though, that was prior to this morning when we (full disclosure: any following of hoops yesterday was done via a friend’s Blackberry as we were wine-tasting in the gloriously green Temecula Valley at another friend’s birthday) came-to this morning and cracked open the fish wrap and saw that #9 seed Pittsburgh defeated Georgetown for the Big East championship, a 16-16 Georgia Bulldog team was going to play unranked Arkansas for the SEC tourney title (this, after playing and winning 2 games yesterday because of the tornado that ripped through the Georgia Dome thus postponing their quarterfinal match-up against Ole Miss) and a 16-18 Illini squad was taking on #8 ranked Wisconsin for the Big 10 championship.

Sorry, that’s not reflective of “parity” or the “top to bottom” toughness in a big-time basketball conference. That’s just straight-up mediocrity in a big-time basketball conference.

Everybody has their own idea of how to rate and rank the respective conferences and we have always felt that you can make the numbers and stats say anything you want regarding the relative merits of the conference so we’ll just say this: We’ll take the overall strength of the top 7 teams of the Pac-10 (UCLA, Stanford, USC, Washington St., Arizona, Oregon and Arizona St.) against the top 70% of any other conference in America (this percentage figure factors against mega-conferences like the Big East that have 16 teams and thus a natural advantage in the “top 7 teams” argument).

P.S. Our arguments for UCLA not being a Final Four team keeping on taking hits as they gutted-out a win against Stanford, 67-64 in the Pac-10 championship without starting forward, Luc-Richard Mbah a Moute (sprained ankle) and an ailing but still playing center, Kevin Love (back spasm). “Barometer Boy”, Josh Shipp had only 7 points on 3 of 10 shooting but that was more than compensated for by point guard, Darren Collison getting off for 28 points while playing all 40 minutes. Stud.

P.P.S. As of this posting, #8 Texas is down eight to #5 Kansas with 10 minutes left in the Big 12 championship. Were Texas to beat Kansas and also being a team that is the only one to beat 3 currently ranked top-5 teams (UCLA, Tennessee and Kansas in the regular season), not be worthy a #1 seed?)

The 1 Second Film

Substitute here.

One of the really great things about road trips is some of the 0dd-ball stuff you come across in open country.

Last October, I sat on the rim of the Grand Canyon for my first time ever, contemplating the immensity of it all. Half an hour in to my quiet meditation of it, a very strange looking bus with an even weirder trailer in tow behind it rumbled into one of the several parking lots you can pull into as you travel the length of the canyon's south wall. The occupants of the bus got out, dressed all in black as if they had somehow become lost on their way to their gig as Depeche Mode roadies. This was obviously very distracting to my stated goal of soaking in the majesty of the greatest hole on earth.

But soon enough, the occupants broke out some very basic music instruments -- think Sheryl Crowe's band on "Tuesday Night Music Club" -- and started playing a very folksy tune over and over, with the female lead vocal whirring out some incomprehesible lyrics at a semi high-pitch. The third time they played it, I was actually humming along and realized it complemented my visual of the canyon quite nicely -- almost the musical version of their handing me a wine glass filled with a red of a spicy boquet that suggested a fine merlot.

A guy from the group came up to me somewhat apologetically, as if he realized what the Canyon experience was supposed to be like (Quiet!!), and explained they were making a movie called "The 1 Second Film", and handed me a little laminated post-card flyer explaining the project. Sure enough, upon my further examination, they had been filming the band playing in front of the Grand Canyon. Being as polite as he was, I didn't refuse his request that I move over a few feet to get out of their shot. They also took a photo of me holding the post-card with the canyon in the background -- something they have done thousands of times over across the country as part of their promotion. (I searched their website for the photo, but have come up empty thus far)

Several months have gone by now, and while doing a bit of house cleaning this morning, I found the little post-card they gave me. It lead me to find out if they had posted anything on YouTube to promote the project. They have: http://youtube.com/user/the1secondfilm?ob=1

Now, I don't know if anything is ever going to come from this project. I still don't even have the slightest idea about what the "1 second film" is about, nor it's 1 hour documentary superimposed during the credits. But the thing is tangentially backed by my stunt-double, Pierce Brosnan, as well as Kevin Bacon, Stephen Colbert, and on down the line. So if it does hit it big, I just want to take credit for being behind the bus at the 2:14 mark in the YouTube video -- the shot of the Grand Canyon.

- The Substitute

Follow the Money

A vigorously participated comment thread here (thank you, all) on the home-school ruling, inspired us to seek wisdom and knowledge from Pops, BwD’s elder statesman, provider of the chili recipe and all-around sage. The issue of funding started popping up at the end of the thread – Mongo has 3 friends himself that are being laid off as a result of budget cuts in Sacramento and at least two of them were forced to pay for basic school supplies out of their own pocket, an anecdote we here far too often.

B-Daddy suggested that while the classroom may be underfunded, the education system itself (memorialized from here on out as "Big Ed") is not. While overhead is unavoidable in any organization the current funding of 25-person classrooms in California at $275,000/year would certainly suggest that the teachers should not have to be purchasing pencils and papers for their students.

Pops' thoughts on the matter as follows:

My encounter with educational bureaucracy wasn't much of a big deal. After my retirement, subbing sounded like a good way to add a few bucks without jeopardizing my social security. I passed the CBEST (which is another story) and went the district office to sign up. I was told that it would cost me $180 to process my paper work. The whole idea of paying them to get a job really irritated me and I made an about face and walked out. I figured that they must not need math subs very badly.

I would like to weigh in on the idea that our schools are underfunded. It could be that the class rooms are underfunded but that is due to the fact that too large of a percentage of our school funding is being drained off by a bloated bureaucracy which has very little to do with providing a quality classroom experience.

There is a well known economic law that states that the number of administrative positions in an organization will increase over time independent of the useful function of the organization. This was first noted by an economist in the British Admiralty after WWI. The number of ships of line had decreased but the size of the Admiralty office had increased. At one point, there was a flu epidemic and the economist found that he had nothing to do. When he analyzed the situation, he realized that the organization spent its time generating paperwork that had to be reviewed by others creating an endless flow of "work."

My argument that the educational bureaucracy is for the most part useless lies in the fact the private schools operate entirely without an overriding bureaucracy and produce an equal or superior product. I am not familiar enough with our local government schools to know how many useless positions exist inside the schools, but there is a district office, a county office and state bureaucracy dedicated to paper pushing. The state bureaucracy has generated an educational code about four feet high. Somehow the private schools are able to operate without the bureaucracy or the code and therefore educate a child at lower cost.

Our former Secretary of Education, (Bill or Bob) Bennett used the example of the Chicago School system to make his point on needless bureaucracy. In Chicago, the government school system and the Catholic system are of approximately the same size. The government system has a cast of thousands overseeing their system. The entire Catholic system is overseen by a handful of priests and a few secretaries and produces a superior product.
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The state of North Carolina is the only place that I have heard of that has taken the problem seriously. They restructured the state bureaucracy and provided more classroom dollars while cutting the total bill for education.

Thanks, Pops!

....and I most definetely do not approve this message.

Remember the beta-male we referred to in the Update section of this post? Well, we found him. He's here doing a campaign ad for Hillary. We think. Dude is so not getting any.

Click....

We’d like to know… when does it happen? Where or how does inspiration come to you? What activity is it that best produces your own “big idea”……?… a new wrinkle in an old recipe… a great vacation plan…. a totally plausible excuse for playing hooky so you can go to Opening Day.

In the shower? Maybe as you’re driving? How about doing the laundry or washing dishes? Or maybe while you are deep in thought or prayer.

We want to know what gives you all those wonderful notions that will totally get you back together with your girlfriend or out of the doghouse with your wife….. or some kind words to someone you will never see again… but will still apply to someone you will.

Click. That’s what’s wrong with the car. Click. That’s what I’ll tell the boss. Click. Hey, I know how I'm going to spend my children's inheritance. Click. Wow, what a horrible idea for a blog post….

We’d like to know. Do share.

Suckas!

If your parents were anything like ours, they reared you to be responsible people. That responsibility included picking up your toys, cleaning up any messes you may have made, admitting to and owning up to your mistakes and perhaps most importantly, being accountable to yourself and others for your actions.

Your parents are a bunch of saps.

Looks like Congress and a reluctant White House fearful of losing more seats to the Democrats if they are accused of “not doing anything” are getting closer on a housing mortgage bail-out deal.

You can read more of the gory details here, but the long and short of it and why the whole notion of bail-out frosts us is that money is coming out of the pockets of responsible home-owners to keep irresponsible people in their homes.

Now lest you think we are being too harsh, let's try a more clinically detached angle: the free-market was working just fine in flushing out those people that had no business being in the housing market in the first place. This subsidization of bad behavior both practically (by artificially lowering the “cost” of ownership) and psychologically (in way over your head? no worries – mulligan!) only promotes more bad behavior because the bad actors are being rewarded instead of being kicked to the curb as would happen naturally if the free market were allowed to do its thing.

It really does become a self-fulfilling prophecy: If we want to keep irresponsible people in the housing market AND encourage more irresponsible people to enter the market, then by damn, we certainly have the means.... your means to do so.

So…. are we off the cold, heartless bastard hook?

When did you realize Phil Knight owned your soul?

A wise man once said that if you truly enjoy what you do then you will never work a day in your life. Did we get that right or did we screw it up? Anyway, the quote, however its supposed to go was talking about this guy.

Imagine a paying gig for attending college football games and reporting out on the tailgates… food, drink and coeds, all included.

His first foray was a trip through the Pac-10 in ’06, the highlites which we link to here. Love the Arizona/Arizona St. chica smackdown to start things off and the instantly matter-of-fact responses to who really is the Ducks’ Daddy are priceless (6:50 mark for those of you on the go).

Oh (R)eally?

We took great pains to not mention Eliot Spitzer’s party affiliation here because in our mind, what’s wrong is wrong and we didn’t want to descend into partisan mudslinging over such an unsavory affair. Besides, it would prove to be just one more embarrassing episode for one of our own.

Well, looks like the gig is up. He’s been outed. Craig, Foley and now, Spitzer. Sigh.

H/T: Hot Air

You're All on the Clock

Seriously. If you can find more excellence packed into a 5 minute clip we’ll strip down nekkid and streak around the block. The sheer awesomeness contained herein nearly defies the time/space con… con… con… … time/space physics. Whew…

Is There a Pill You can take for This sort of Thing?

The Democrats race and gender-based ritualistic self-mutilation continued today as Geraldine Ferraro stepped down from her position in Hillary Clinton’s finance committee over comments she made that suggested Clinton’s opponent, Barack Obama, was successful because he was black. Story here.

This follows on the heels of Obama foreign policy advisor Samantha Power resigning her position after using the “M”-word.

We think we share the feelings of many Americans (including many Democrats) right now by saying: “What is with these people?”

If you’ve followed this site for any amount of time, you know we have spared our own default party of registration no quarter if any of its members have strayed too far from our Reagan Youth ways or just plain common sense and this extends in spades to the Republican Party’s own presidential nominee, John McCain.

But one of our most consistent criticisms of the Democrats over the years aside from any ideological differences has been what we feel is a complete and abject un-seriousness to how they conduct business.

How can we take them seriously when they do not behave in a serious manner themselves?

So while the Democrats are stumbling all over themselves vying for the honor of “most aggrieved”, we wonder when it is that these people will wrench their focus away from their gender and race-centric navels and propose how it is they are going to fight the war on terror, succeed in Iraq, secure the borders, improve our shaky economy and fix our failing public education system. We’re waiting.

How to cope with all this non-sense? Not to worry. Mr. Styles aka Dr. Street Legal has got a little sumthin’-sumthin’ here that should fit all our budgets.