Grr...

[silveradept]

It’s official. The two best teams in college football will not be playing each other for a national championship. A Rose Bowl is still a good thing, and playing USC does give the team a chance to revenge themselves after the embarrassment that happened a few years ago. Some of my housemates (most, if not all, I hope) will get the experience of the Tournament of Roses Parade, so it’s not all bad. Some columnists agree that the University of Michigan got the shaft, but apparently, this shafting was in the cards ever since the game that Michigan lost. If it wasn’t USC, it would be Florida or Arkansas. It’s too bad, really - the conventional wisdom of the armchair pundits says that if Michigan had lost this week, rather than two weeks ago, it would be a rematch. But because the Big Ten does not play a championship game, and U of M filled its bye week with a game this year, the #2 team in the country is denied their chance to rematch.

It looks like the Democrats will continue to fund the war effort. Rather than, you know, being progressives and putting a stop to it, or at least aiming for serious accountability issues and a tightening of the purse strings. Bush’s aides claim "We have not failed in Iraq". Other parts of the country see psychologists withholding APA dues because of the APA's unwillingness to condem torture.

Feministing takes a swing at a person who claims that feminists are all about free sex and sexualizing women, yet comes to the ultimate conclusion that all women really want is marriage and monogamy. Several swings, actually.

Malaysia mulls over restriction on bloggers. The question is whether the inflammatory material was trie. Once you figure out that part, then you can progress to the part as to whether it should be protected or not. If it’s true, then it’s protected. If it’s false, then see whether it would fit a defamation, slander, or libel definition. Wholesale restrictions on categories of people, however, are not the way to go about this sort of thing.

Social cell phone numbers mean giving digits isn't a really big thing.

Something rather interesting - a Windows XP theme that redoes everything in Mac OS X style.

And the important link for tonight - Zod 2008. Could use the same tagline as the C’thulhu/Hastur campaign - “Why vote for the lesser evil?”

And, as somewhat of a straw poll, Wapsi Square, Panel Three of the December 1, 2006 comic. Applicable to most people? To this person? To yourself? All of the above?

Comments

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

I don't get the football thing either. if U-M is #2, then they ought to be going to the championship. The thing is, even if the Big 10 had a championship game...how would that have changed anything because it would have been U-M vs Ohio anyway? and U-M would STILL be #2 in the nation as well as Big 10? *lost*

also, the Zod make me want to dig up the Republicans for Voldemort logos...

[silveradept]

Florida vaulted U of M to become the #2 team in the nation. They are going to the championship game. My personal opinion is that U of M is the #2 team in the nation and should be going to the championship game.

[starkruzr.livejournal.com]

FLORIDA?!?!!

FLORIDA?!?!?!?!!?!?

We could ANNIHILATE Florida.

You KNOW how I feel about Michigan but we BOTH know they should have gone to the Nat'l Championship!

The BCS needs to be dragged out into the street and shot.

[silveradept]

I was of the opinion that the BCS was founded and invested in to avoid the sort of controversial decision that just happened.

[urbankotq.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Better by a hundredth of a point, so determined by an arbitrary and utterly insufferable computer system. That's why I don't pay all that much attention to college football.

[silveradept]

In this particular case, I don't think the computers are at fault. I'd put the blame squarely on the humans in the polls, to whom the idea of playing a game again is apparently anathema.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I don't think Florida did that great of a job to deserve the #2 spot, either.

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

Except that that's never been the case... EVER.

[silveradept]

Thus, every year there are gigantic complaints that the BCS is BS. I guess the only fair thing about it is that it gives different schools license to complain every year.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

*we* could annihilate Florida.

[unoriginal-name.livejournal.com]

I hate to rain on the parade, but I will. With the way the BCS works, it's go undefeated or take your chances. The only way you can lock it up is win it all, and even then it's not guaranteed (see: Auburn, 2004). Michigan didn't end up undefeated, so it goes in the hands of the system.

A lot of other teams have gotten the short end of the stick. Michigan is not unique. I'll admit I was pulling for OSU-Florida (why? I think Florida has earned it just as much, and while neither one is an ideal match, I'll go with the new challenger), but either way the BCS is a joke. With no hope for a playoff though, the only option is the one I'm taking this year: just turning it off in favor of college basketball.

As for Wapsi Square (just for a change of pace), I find that that is applicable to quite a few people. I won't say myself, because I think that would be too high an opinion of me. But at the end of the day, the only person one needs to answer to is themselves. If they aren't happy, change it. If their ok with it, then fine.

[silveradept]

Yep. I don't doubt that the BCS screws a lot of deserving people. I just wonder whether there was the sort of electioneering that we were promised that the BCS would solve. I think that's where a lot of people are looking at the Florida-OSU game askance over.

As for the Wapsi Square, I'd probably say it applies to everyone, including me. But I'll deny as much as I can that I'm the wonderful person with the negative thinking pattern. After all, it would be arrogant of me to say I'm that good, right?