Curley Cats

... if I didn't understand how deeply dysfunctional the United States Senate is. Then I could just get angry about the watered down health care reform bill that is likely to pass out of that chamber next week sometime.

I hear and see an awful lot of "Why can't they just ignore the Republicans and pass a real reform bill?"

Well, there are three reasons, really:

1. If the minority party wants to obstruct, which in this case they obviously do, they can require a 60 vote super-majority in order to do anything. They have to agree, by vote, to hold a vote.
2. While the Democratic Caucus currently holds sixty of the one hundred seats in the Senate, there aren't actually sixty progressive Democrats. There are only about 50. Eight of the other 10 are, to varying degrees, actually fairly conservative and represent states where the Republican Party skews to the extreme right (these are the places that consider Barack Obama a socialist). One is Bernie Sanders, a real socialist. And then there's Joe Lieberman, a Republican deep cover agent who, until recently, had managed to infiltrate the Democratic Party. So in order to do anything in the Senate, if the minority Republicans want to obstruct, it requires the votes of all actual Democrats plus one Republican masquerading as a Democrat.
3. Liberals tend to be more concerned with actual policy than with political dogma. Modern Republicans are exactly the opposite. Last weekend it took nearly an hour for eight people to decide what we wanted on three large pizzas we were ordering. The fact that they can get even close to getting 55 or more politicians to agree on something as complicated as health care reform is nothing short of miraculous. Unfortunately, a miracle isn't good enough.

My sincerest hope is that this latest episode has finally revealed how broken the US Senate is in terms of it's rules. The Constitution says nothing about filibusters or needing sixty votes to cut off debate. That is merely a rule that the Senate adopted. And it was adopted in a time when traveling coast-to-coast took weeks and cross-country communications were effectively non-existent. The filibuster was designed to prevent the majority from establishing a quorum and pushing through legislation before there was adequate time for opponents to be heard. The filibuster rule never envisioned teleconferencing and LA-Washington DC flights that take less than 6 hours.

The filibuster was never intended to allow as few as 41 Senators to paralyze the legislative branch of the government. Just like the House Bank and Congressional Franking privileges it's misuse needs to be examined and revised.

Peace. Out.

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http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Product.aspx?x=dnd/products/dndacc/253850000

Too bad it's 4th edition.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1235084/Pictured-Conservationist-gently-strokes-tiger-sharks-nose-tear-flesh-dead-whale-standing-on.html

If he REALLY wanted to prove those sharks were harmless, he'd jump in the water with them.

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http://www.magiquest.com/press_releases/MagiQuestLite%20and%20online%20game11-13-09.pdf

I was at Yorktown for lunch today. It's one of our local malls. Took a look around to see what was new and saw this. I may have to try this out once it opens. 8-)

Full disclosure: I am not actually a big fan of the Boise State Broncos. My opinion on this is merely about the inherent bias and unfairness in the current BCS process.

Boise State, Cincinnati, Texas Christan University, Texas, and Alabama all finished the college football regular season with undefeated records. But way back in August, before a single down had been played, the higher minds of the BCS had already determined that only two of those five, Texas and Alabama, would be eligible to be declared the "national champion."

Now there's a clever little dodge programmed into the logic here. You see it's the "BCS National Championship," meaning it's the BCS's sole discretion on who gets to play in the game. Seriously, if they wanted to... and if they thought they could survive the ensuing firestorm... there is absolutely nothing to stop the BCS folks from selecting the North Texas Mean Green (2-10) and the Western Kentucky (0-12) from competimng in it's "National Championship" game. Nothing at all.

So it's not really a college football national championship. I could declare that the winner of the Fiesta Bowl (Boise Stave vs. TCU) to be the "Brian Curley National Champion" and it would be every bit as valid a claim to have determined the best team in college football as the BCS.

The BCS has some magic formula that they think allows them to determine, off the field, which are the best two teams in the country. Nevermind that of the 11 BCS National Championship games, 5 have been ridiculously lopsided, boring, affairs. I think it safe to say that no more than twice in it's 11 year history has the BCS managed to put the two best teams in college football on the same field. The BCS is a joke.

Do you know how they determine the "championships" in every other college sport? A playoff. Now it's possible, even with a playoff system that a team could fall through the cracks and not get into the tourney bracket. But it would have to do better than 20 percent. Heck, I'd bet a playoff system would get it right 80 percent of the time or better.

Do you know how every level of college football other than the FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) determines it's champion? A playoff.

Yep. In 2008, tiny Richmond College (student population about 4000) defeated Appalachian State, Nothern Iowa, and Montana on three consecutive weekends in December to win the NCAA Division I FCS (Football Championship Subdivision) National Championship. But ask the BCS apologists and they'll swear up and down that such a thing just isn't possible for the bigger schools of the FBS. Why?

Pro-BCS factions rest their arguments on the college football tradition the bowl games represent, along with the increased emphasis the lack of a playoff system puts on the regular season. They also claim that a playoff would extend an already long season and take more time away from academics.

In reverse order:

Academics: Please. Does anyone really believe that academics enter into this calculus at all? Most of the schools at the top of the BCS are traditional football factories that produce quality athletes, not brilliant minds. So do non-FBS schools have shorter academic years or easier grading curves? Why is is the students from Richmond College are able to compete in a playoff system with suffering academically but Ohio State students are not?

Length of Schedule: Again, is 15 weeks for Ohio State really longer than 15 weeks for Richmond?

Decreased emphasis on the regular season: this one makes my head hurt. So let me see if writing it out makes it make any more sense. A system where-by the vast majority of FBS programs are eliminated from "championship" contention before a single regular season game is ever played places more emphasis on the regular season than does one in which every game counts for every team regardless of preconceived, completely subjective, opinions about which teams are "good" and which aren't. The current system actually de-emphasizes the regular season for all but a handful of teams at the expense of the chosen few. Cincinnati's 13-0 record was meaningless the moment the 2008 schedule was announced, while it appears Florida was practically penciled into the 2009 BCS Championship game before kickoff of the 2008 BCS Championship Game.

Tradition: Now we get to the heart of the argument defending the BCS. Unfortunately, when they say "tradition" they mean "money."

The current system promotes the creation and maintenance of football factories. These schools get the money from appearing in these bowl games, which they use to give them a competitive advantage in recruiting future players. These schools can more effectively wine and dine these recruits in ways other schools can due to lack of funds (or maybe a surplus of ethics). This recruiting advantage is further exacerbated by the fact that recruits know these schools are going to get more national exposure and increase the possibility that playing for that school will increase their chances of playing in the NFL. And by making sure these football factories don't have to earn their reputation on the field, the BCS merely reinforces the current system of haves and have-nots.

More bowls = more money = more desirable recruits = more perception of greatness = more bowls

So it's about tradition, all right. It's about a tradition of corruption, bias, and favoritism.

The one thing it's not about is the spirit of competition and true athletic achievement.

Peace. Out.