Title Game Follow-up

Posted on 2007-01-09 by David

I thought I would follow up to my Title Game post.

Basically, the talk of a Ohio State/Michigan rematch for the title game is an embarrassment for the Big Ten Conference. Both of them lost their BCS bowl games. I think that rust was an issue in both games. Michigan got outclassed by USC but they would have made that a close game if they had not been off for over 6 weeks. After 7 weeks off, Ohio State had no business on the field with a well-rested Florida team. This really does not reflect the quality of football team that Ohio State had this year. The moral of the story is, any team that has any hope of playing for the national title should make sure to have a game scheduled after Thanksgiving. This is no problem for the champions of the SEC, ACC, or Big 12 with their Championship games, but the Big Ten, Pac 10, and Big East teams have to think about this issue as they schedule games.

This should also serve as a warning against any title game that only represents one conference.

My personal favorite story line for this title game is the Urban Meyer coaching career. he turned Bowling Green around in two years then moved to Utah in a better conference. Two years at Utah saw him crashing the BCS party and moving on to Florida in a better conference. Two years at Florida and he was in the National Championship game – which the Gators won by 27. This puts him among an elite group of coaches who have won a National Championship within two years of taking over a program – a group that includes Jim Tressel at Ohio State in 2002.

My final take on the season is this – Florida will be , USC might get a vote as from someone – they are likely to be the pre-season next season, and I think someone ought to throw a vote to Boise since they are the only undefeated team left even though they did not have a schedule that would make them – they had only one non-conference game with a non-BCS opponent, and that was Utah(8-5) – even Florida played a Div 1-AA team.

UPDATE: Thanks to Greg Archuleta of the Albuquerque Journal I got my wish. Boise State got a vote as . It’s too bad the Coaches Poll had them as because they are definitely a top 5 team.

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Do Not Call Registry

Posted on 2007-01-08 by David

After receiving yet another phone call from Dish Network, I have begun thinking about the National Do Not Call Registry. I have been on the registry for a year, and the calls definitely seemed to go down after I got on there, except for the calls from Dish Network – at least eight in the last year.

I even confirmed with the registry that my number was listed there. Then I filed a complaint against Dish Network. My wife asked about all the calls we get from companies where we have accounts, like the phone company. They are allowed to call us unless we specifically ask them not to. If we even make an inquiry with a company they can call us for three months after the inquiry.

I called the phone company and they agreed to take me off their call list. I still need to call the one credit card that pesters us with phone calls (the other credit card companies don’t call us) but at least I know I can.

All of this led me to think about what it takes to make this registry work. Obviously it requires that people get themselves on the list. Their website even warns that if someone calls with an offer to get you on the registry for a fee it’s a scam. Registry is free and is the responsibility of anyone who wants their number listed. The second thing that is required to make this work is that people need to report violations. This is easy to do at the donotcall.gov site. Just make sure that you have the name of the company, or the phone number they called from. Also, you must list the date they called. If the call is not within 31 days of your registration with the registry, and it is not from:

  • a charity
  • a political organization
  • a poll (where they don’t offer to sell anything)
  • or a company where you are doing business

then it is a violation which will be investigated.

I guess it’s like every other aspect of a representative government – how well it works depends entirely upon the participation of the citizens.

UPDATE 1/11/2007: I just got another call from Dish Network. I filed another complaint.

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Divine Strake

Posted on 2007-01-02 by David

I don’t know how many people are aware of the Divine Strake event which is a test of the effectiveness of weapons against an underground tunnel complex. The event is supposed to be taking place in Nevada this year after being authorized by Congress in 2002. Back then it was a response to the unsuccessful efforts to go after Osama bin Laden in Bora Bora. Now I’m not sure why we are still pouring money into such a project.

Since 2002 we should have learned that our weapons are not our weak point in the kind of warfare we are likely to be engaging in now or in the future. If there is a military need, it is probably along the lines of increasing intelligence gathering operations and improving protective measures for our military personnel in the face of unpredictable enemies and unconventional tactics.

We should also know that we are not facing enemies who are going to be deterred no matter how effective our weapons are. Just as our soldiers would consider it to be an honor to die in the cause of preserving freedom, our enemies fight for ideologies in which death is an honor and not something to be avoided.

I think it’s time for the government leave their cold-war thinking behind, and even their 2002 (early-in-the-war-on-terror) thinking behind and stop throwing money after projects such as this which do not, in fact, make us safer, or improve our military. If you feel the same way, write to your representative. You may also want to write to your senators. To make it easy, I have gathered the contact information for the senators in Utah (downwind from the test site) and Nevada (where the test site is located) since they would have the most vested interest in this.

Orrin Hatch(UT)

Harry Reid(NV)

Bob Bennett(UT)

John Ensign(NV)

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Holidays

Posted on 2006-12-29 by David

I’m guessing that it will be normal for me to post less often during the holidays. Hopefully 10 day breaks will not be normal.

Besides the obvious Christmas festivities and work, I have been doing very good with my running until this week. Sometime on Christmas day my right ankle began to hurt. I went running on the 26th and, although running was fine, I noticed that my ankle got worse. My Achilles tendon began to swell some so I have been staying off it for the last few days. I don’t know how it happened, but I have to assume that it is related to the running. Hopefully resting it this week will allow me to get back to training sooner than if I pushed harder. I’m going to give it a try with a short run tomorrow.

I’m still trying to find the balance of what I write about here. I was doing lots of candidate endorsements before the break, but I want a better balance. I have found that there are two new candidates who have filed with the FEC since I last wrote. I guess I had better get caught up again because it looks like we are likely to have even more in the coming weeks.

Last night I got a call from my Grandpa and we got to catch up. I had not talked to him for a few months as he has been busy with his new wife trying to keep up with their combined 48 grandchildren. I don’t know about her grandchildren, but I realized that of his 24 grandchildren half of them were married so we’re all getting spread out a bit.

I can only imagine how busy it would get trying to keep up with 48 grandchildren. Anyway, it was nice to catch up with him, that’s why I decided to do a little catching up here.

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Michael Smith

Posted on 2006-12-18 by David

With positions such as the desire to institute the draft for the Iraq war, I was not sure if I could consider Michael Smith as a legitimate candidate. Further investigation showed me a man who is as realistic about his candidacy as he is serious about it – neither he nor I fail to recognize that his candidacy is limited to his home state of Oregon.

I commend him as a person for trying to do something, but I can’t endorse him as a candidate.

UPDATE 12/29/06: In case anyone sees this without seeing the comments – Michael Smith has dropped his position of supporting a draft. I think that was a wise move.

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George Phillies

Posted on 2006-12-13 by David

I have finally found another candidate whom I can endorse unequivocally. His name is George Phillies. He has a solid understanding of politics and a clear agenda which can appeal to a majority of voters.

George is highly educated (PhD in Physics from MIT) and should have a good understanding of a variety of Americans since he has lived on the east coast (Massachusetts) the west coast (California) and the mid-west (Michigan).

As I said before – I endorse George Phillies for President.

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Mike Gravel

Posted on 2006-12-12 by David

Mike Gravel is a candidate with lots of experience in politics as an ex-senator from Alaska. He even tried to get nominated as a vice-presidential candidate earlier in his career.

I heartily endorse Mike Gravel as a candidate for President, with the hope that he might help to keep the discussion from becoming stale. Realistically, he has no chance of getting on the ballot. There are two reasons for this: first, he’s from Alaska which only has 3 electoral votes; second, he is 76 years old. By the time he could get elected he would be 78. To put that in perspective – Ronald Reagan was our oldest president and he was 77 when he finished his second term. Mike Gravel would be 78 before he started his first term and would be 8082 (I got lazy – as noted in the comments) before his term ended. We will never have an octogenarian as President unless half the population of the United States is over 50.

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Steve Kubby

Posted on 2006-12-11 by David

Steve Kubby is running for president. That’s the only “positive” thing I can say here. Actually, I was wrong, he has the best looking MySpace page I have ever seen – it actually fails to look like psychedelic vision out of a drug-induced dream.

He waves the flag of his home state by giving plenty of time to his position related to medical marajuana. (We are a long way from that being a major issue in national politics.) He advocates an immediate pullout from Iraq and decries illegal immigration.

In short, Kubby is serious about his candidacy, but he is not a serious candidate. If he became the president, the United States would begin to look as quirky and unstable to the outside world as Venezuela has come to look under the presidency of Hugo Chavez. I don’t mean to imply that Kubby is like Chavez, only that he is equally far from the mainstream.

While I think that most voters would like to see a change in our political system, they don’t want this kind of change. Kubby will get up to 5% of the vote in California and not more than 1% in any other state where he can get on the ballot.

I cannot even think of endorsing such a “candidate”.

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John Cox

Posted on 2006-12-07 by David

I was not sure what to expect from John Cox when I started me research. I had never heard of him, and without any of the titles in front of his name that are so common among the well known candidates (Governor, Senator, Representative) I half expected to find that he was one of those people who has a message but will be happy if they can just get that message on the evening news sometime because of their campaign.

What I found was a very serious, dedicated candidate who really believes in his message. He has years of experience in various political areas, just none that are in the spotlight so much as where better known candidates have usually been.

Instead of finding a man who had ideas and dreams, I found a man who had experience in making things happen in his own life and in the lives of people around him. I believe that he is a candidate who will not be overwhelmed by the office if he should win the presidency.

Having been pleasantly surprised in my findings, I still had to decide if I would endorse John Cox for president. My conclusion is that – although I do believe that he could fill the office of the president – I do not believe that he is the type of man that this country needs at this time.

His tone is slightly too divisive and idealistic. We need someone who can be grounded in their morals and pragmatic in their direction. Some of John’s ideas are not pragmatic. Others are good, but not focused on the issues that are the most important to us today.

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More to Come

Posted on 2006-12-04 by David

I just discovered a good listing of candidates and potential candidates for 2008. The real surprise came as I saw that there are two Republicans, two Democrats, and two Libertarians who have all filed with the Federal Election Commission as candidates. That is the standard I use for choosing when a candidate should be researched for endorsement purposes. The list also states who has formed exploratory committees and others who have shown that they are seriously considering candidacy.

Of the six official filings, I have covered one candidate so far. While I will not list the party of any candidate that I endorse, I feel that it is only fair to cover these first six candidates without grouping them in parties. I will jump from party to party for the remaining five candidates. Thereafter, I will endorse (or not) candidates in the order that I discover that they have filed for candidacy with the FEC.

I have also concluded that I may choose, in some third-party cases to research candidates for endorsement before they file with the FEC. In any such case I will clearly state that they have not filed for candidacy.

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