On the Climate Change threat, I've got a great idea for America...let's sit this one out.
After 60 years of leaking blood and treasure to first free, and then protect and feed the civilized world, we can have a rest.
Six billion humans
300 million Americans
Time for everyone else to pitch in and save humankind.
China, who we saved from being a slave state of Imperial Japan, use your stolen microprocessor technology and vast engine of production to manufacture enough photo voltaic panels to replace all of the world's coal fired power plants.
Western Europe, who we liberated from the Nazis and protected from the Soviets, use your keen engineering brilliance and money saved from not having to defend yourself to develop electric vehicles and transports with batteries that are suitable for the continental challenges of North America, Australia and Russo-China and not just for putt-putting around your little medieval storybook countries.
India, who can't control your population growth; you need to use your stable of engineers to develop alternatives to petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides so that we can continue to grow food for six billion on arable land that is only suitable to sustain two billion.
Africa, who we never had a hand in colonizing, but spent billions feeding and medicating, use your uranium reserves to fuel thousands of small coastal reactors that will extract hydrogen from seawater to power an unlimited number of fuel cells.
Russia, who we helped financially to defeat the Nazis, your job is to be the policeman in the middle east after they panic upon discovering that their oil reserves are now worthless.
American environmental activists; since we will stop producing greenhouse gases and stop mining coal, you can take a two decade vacation from filing injunctions and lawsuits and allow us to build high speed rail corridors roughly paralleling our interstate highway system.
South America...........I guess you can just continue to provide diversity in our cuisine and stoop labor for “jobs that Americans just won't do”.
As for the United States, our job will be to use the UN as a bully pulpit to castigate the rest of the world for not doing enough or not doing it fast enough.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Playoffs!
So you want to have a playoff.
The answer is a 16 team tournament that focuses on conferences, conference champions, regional influences, traditional bowl games, and holidays. It eliminates polls and opinions as factors and completely eliminates the need for embarrassing cream puff non conference games. It gives every team in Division IA an opportunity to win. It seeds conferences, not teams. It is consistent year to year and allows schools and fans to plan accordingly.
The first tournament round is held in the second week in December and has four “Eastern” games and four “Western” games.
In the East, the current conference championship games for the SEC and ACC are two of the tourney games.
The third game in the East is the Conference USA champ against the Big East champ in Memphis' Liberty Bowl. The fourth game is the Big 12 champ against the Sunbelt winner in the Alamo Bowl.
In the West, the PAC-12 championship is played at San Diego's Holiday Bowl.
The Big Ten championship is at Detroit's Motor City Bowl.
The Mountain West will play the MAC champ in Boise's Humanitarian Bowl.
There will be one consensus at-large team in the West.
It could be Notre Dame or other independent or more likely, a first place finisher who lost their conference or divisional title on tie-breaker rules.
This gives the Big 12 an opportunity to send more than one team.
It also addresses situations like the Big 10 logjam in 2010.
The at-large team will play the WAC champion at El Paso's Sun Bowl.
The quarterfinals are held Christmas week in holiday/vacation locations. The games will be played at four of the oldest most revered bowls.
In the East the Gator will match the ACC and SEC championship game winners and the Cotton will match the Alamo and Liberty Bowl winners.
In the West, the Capital One (old Tangerine) will host the Big 10 and Humanitarian Bowl winners in Orlando.
The last quarterfinal will have the Pac 12 winner play the Sun Bowl winner. This game will be hosted alternate years by either the Fiesta or Sugar bowls.
The semi finals are on New Year's Day in the most traditional of New Year's Day games.
The West semi will be in the Rose Bowl and the East semi will be in the Orange bowl.
If conference seedings hold up, the Rose will be PAC-10/Big Ten and the Orange will be Big 12/SEC. If not, so much the better.
The BIG GAME is two weeks later, either in the Fiesta or Sugar bowl, whichever didn't host a quarterfinal game. These cities have proven in the past to be great championship hosts and great wintertime vacation destinations.
There are some minor details.
The twelfth regular season scheduled game could be eliminated. For tournament participants it would be replaced by the quarterfinal, which is an “extra” game. Traditional “non-tournament” teams could keep the twelfth game if they wanted for revenue but the twelfth game never seemed to be a great concept for fans, anyhow.
Conference USA and MAC will probably each still schedule their own conference championship “play-in” game prior to the tournament because of their large conference size and the requirement that they send only one representative to the “sweet sixteen”.
There will be no need to schedule so many unbalanced non-conference games. Real non conference competition won't hurt a team's chance to be in the tournament. Some great inter-sectional games might develop, and season ticket holders won't be insulted by the likes of Florida vs the Citadel or Virginia Tech vs William and Mary.
As for extending the season; for the finalists, there will be +1 game. For the balance of the Division I-A teams there will be one fewer or the same number of games they play now.
The balance of the regular bowl games will still be played but they should be more competitive and interesting for television and fans because they will be match-ups of second and third place teams instead of fifth and six place teams.
Every BCS+ tourney game will be IMPORTANT; all 15 of them. The TV money for the networks and conferences should be higher than it is now and the ratings for all of the tournament games should be unprecedented.
One of the benefits of this system is that it can be implemented immediately without changing schedules or realigning conferences. The BCS and ESPN can still control the whole thing. ESPN controls all but three of the bowl games, already.
Some years the semi finals might outshine the finals, but that happens frequently in basketball and the NFL and doesn't seem to do any harm.
The quality of competition and fairness of the qualifying process will be outstanding. Superfans can plan their bowl trips years in advance. Everybody wins. Even Obama, Les Miles and Patterson Peterson will support this plan.
The answer is a 16 team tournament that focuses on conferences, conference champions, regional influences, traditional bowl games, and holidays. It eliminates polls and opinions as factors and completely eliminates the need for embarrassing cream puff non conference games. It gives every team in Division IA an opportunity to win. It seeds conferences, not teams. It is consistent year to year and allows schools and fans to plan accordingly.
The first tournament round is held in the second week in December and has four “Eastern” games and four “Western” games.
In the East, the current conference championship games for the SEC and ACC are two of the tourney games.
The third game in the East is the Conference USA champ against the Big East champ in Memphis' Liberty Bowl. The fourth game is the Big 12 champ against the Sunbelt winner in the Alamo Bowl.
In the West, the PAC-12 championship is played at San Diego's Holiday Bowl.
The Big Ten championship is at Detroit's Motor City Bowl.
The Mountain West will play the MAC champ in Boise's Humanitarian Bowl.
There will be one consensus at-large team in the West.
It could be Notre Dame or other independent or more likely, a first place finisher who lost their conference or divisional title on tie-breaker rules.
This gives the Big 12 an opportunity to send more than one team.
It also addresses situations like the Big 10 logjam in 2010.
The at-large team will play the WAC champion at El Paso's Sun Bowl.
The quarterfinals are held Christmas week in holiday/vacation locations. The games will be played at four of the oldest most revered bowls.
In the East the Gator will match the ACC and SEC championship game winners and the Cotton will match the Alamo and Liberty Bowl winners.
In the West, the Capital One (old Tangerine) will host the Big 10 and Humanitarian Bowl winners in Orlando.
The last quarterfinal will have the Pac 12 winner play the Sun Bowl winner. This game will be hosted alternate years by either the Fiesta or Sugar bowls.
The semi finals are on New Year's Day in the most traditional of New Year's Day games.
The West semi will be in the Rose Bowl and the East semi will be in the Orange bowl.
If conference seedings hold up, the Rose will be PAC-10/Big Ten and the Orange will be Big 12/SEC. If not, so much the better.
The BIG GAME is two weeks later, either in the Fiesta or Sugar bowl, whichever didn't host a quarterfinal game. These cities have proven in the past to be great championship hosts and great wintertime vacation destinations.
There are some minor details.
The twelfth regular season scheduled game could be eliminated. For tournament participants it would be replaced by the quarterfinal, which is an “extra” game. Traditional “non-tournament” teams could keep the twelfth game if they wanted for revenue but the twelfth game never seemed to be a great concept for fans, anyhow.
Conference USA and MAC will probably each still schedule their own conference championship “play-in” game prior to the tournament because of their large conference size and the requirement that they send only one representative to the “sweet sixteen”.
There will be no need to schedule so many unbalanced non-conference games. Real non conference competition won't hurt a team's chance to be in the tournament. Some great inter-sectional games might develop, and season ticket holders won't be insulted by the likes of Florida vs the Citadel or Virginia Tech vs William and Mary.
As for extending the season; for the finalists, there will be +1 game. For the balance of the Division I-A teams there will be one fewer or the same number of games they play now.
The balance of the regular bowl games will still be played but they should be more competitive and interesting for television and fans because they will be match-ups of second and third place teams instead of fifth and six place teams.
Every BCS+ tourney game will be IMPORTANT; all 15 of them. The TV money for the networks and conferences should be higher than it is now and the ratings for all of the tournament games should be unprecedented.
One of the benefits of this system is that it can be implemented immediately without changing schedules or realigning conferences. The BCS and ESPN can still control the whole thing. ESPN controls all but three of the bowl games, already.
Some years the semi finals might outshine the finals, but that happens frequently in basketball and the NFL and doesn't seem to do any harm.
The quality of competition and fairness of the qualifying process will be outstanding. Superfans can plan their bowl trips years in advance. Everybody wins. Even Obama, Les Miles and Patterson Peterson will support this plan.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
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