So…nothing really going on outside of some odds and ends…but Ima little bored so here goes.

Us-wise…not much going on. Connie’s birthday was Saturday but Neil’s still under the weather with whatever the Intestinal thing he’s got going on so we didn’t do anything. She had chorus practice in the afternoon anyway and we ended up cancelling our Sarasota Orchestra concert that evening and swapping the tickets for a different chamber music performance later in the month. She had her concert with the Gulf Coast Symphony last night and it went well…

I’m sure glad (and so is Neil) that I wasn’t on the college football playoff selection committee after the weekend…because they got the worst possible results from conference championship weekend games. This is the last year of the 4 team playoff…it shifts to 12 teams next year just like the remainder of the divisions in the NCAA that play football (although actually the rest of them either have 8 or 16 team playoffs, the top division has 12 but the top 4 get a bye to the quarter finals and the others play a home game on the campus of the higher ranked team to eliminate 4 of them.

Anyways…the top 4 teams get in and that’s it. So…Washington and Michigan both won their conference championships and are undefeated and in…but after that it gets harder to choose. Texas won there championship game as well but have a single loss to Oklahoma during the regular season; they finished at 10-2…and Texas beat Alabama by 10 in Tuscaloosa the second game of the season. Florida State won the ACC and is unbeaten as well…but they lost their really good quarterback and although they won their last game and the conference championship game both were ugly and unproductive offensively. Alabama ran the table after losing to Texas and knocked off Georgia in the championship game…ending their 29 game 2 national championship winning streak, and their last 2 (and 3 of the last 4) losses have been to Alabama.

So…Texas, FSU, and Alabama, and potentially Georgia as well since they were top ranked most of the season and also only have a single loss…and only two of them could get into the playoff…so now you understand why I’m glad I didn’t make the decision. Two of those are going to be happy and the other 2 unhappy…and there are good and bad reasons for choosing any as in or out.

Georgia…it’s hard to see them getting in since the lost to Alabama unless Alabama also got in and that wasn’t going to happen…so they get eliminated from top 4 consideration almost immediately.

FSU…they’re an undefeated Power 5 conference champ…and one of those has never been left out of the playoff. However…they only bet 4 teams with winning records and have that definite QB problem. They beat Louisville by 10 in an unimpressive championship game…Louisville lost to Kentucky the week before and Kentucky got blown out by 28 at home against Alabama.

Alabama…they have the single loss to Texas but are obviously a much better team now…and beat the season long top dog pretty convincingly on the field if only by 3 on the scoreboard…they led by 10 in the 4th quarter and put together the TD drive they needed to ice the game late. On the other hand…they struggled a bit against Auburn in the Iron Bowl and won on an almost last second 4th and goal from the 31 TD pass…but then that game is *always* a dogfight no matter the records and relative talent of the two teams.

In the end…FSU got left out and the committee said that it was because there were 5 good teams competing for 4 spots and they came in #5 out of the group…and it all came down to the strength of schedule and the loss of their QB. I can see how they’re pissed about it…but realistically I think they had the misfortune of being #5 out of the good teams trying to make the top 4. And it turn out that we almost had the 12 team playoff this year…except the ACC which is their conference vetoed the idea…if they had not then FSU would be in the field as well as Georgia. 

Ok, enough of that.

I see that George Santos got kicked out of Congress last Friday…and while the man is an idiot, allegedly a criminal and all that…I really think this sets a bad precedent to kick a congress critter out because of so far unproven allegations. Yes…the evidence seems pretty solid based on the limited amount I’ve read about it…but he’s still innocent until proven guilty and that should count for something. Before him…6 Reps had been kicked out…2 for actually fighting for the Confederacy (i.e., participating in an actual insurrection) and the other 4 for being convicted of something. Santos…to this point…has not. Don’t take that as any support for the man…he’s already announced he’s not running for reelection and we don’t have any more use for him than we do for the MAGA crowd, the President and Veep, or the Squad. It’s just that fair is fair. And if they’re going to kick him out for being indicted…why hasn’t Senator Menendez been kicked out as he’s been indicted for what appear to be more serious crimes. Sounds like a double standard to me…or that the Senate actually has a clue about that whole innocent until proven guilty idea. Dunno.

I keep reading about the horrible atrocities the Israeli’s are doing in Gaza…and the fact that Hamas started it by butchering civilians seems to be lost in the media condemnation of Israel. In the long run…the ongoing elimination of Hamas in Gaza isn’t going to work because killing a bunch of civilians is just going to turn more of them into hard line terrorists…but the government there has to do something as their neighbors have sworn to kill every Israeli and take the land, and that’s been going on since 1948. When the land was partitioned…the UK setup both a Palestinian government and an Israeli one so we actually started with a 2 state solution. The Israelis were willing to live with the but the Palestinian government and all the rest of the surrounding countries immediately declared war and set out to wipe the Jews off of the face of the earth…and they’ve tried over and over unsuccessfully every since. Gaza…yeah, it’s a crappy place to live I know…but it was setup as a quasi independent Palestinian state and then they let Hamas take it over and launch terrorist attacks from civilian areas. It’s ugly…but I don’t see anything the Israelis can do about it.

Their friends down in Yemen (as well as Hezbollah in south Lebanon) however…seem to be pulling on Superman’s cape by launching attacks on US forces and ships. So far…we’ve shown restraint but how long that will last I truly wonder.

Over in the Pacific…the Chinese are still trying to claim and take over the entire South China Sea…despite the international courts deeming their claims worthless. And they’re still threatening Taiwan at this point. As you know…we have a treaty relationship with and have stated we will protect Taiwan…which is probably the only thing preventing the Chinese from trying to invade at this point. They’ve also been making numerous unsafe intercepts of US and allied aircraft operating in international air space and keep trying to bully ships from our fleet as well as allied ones from conducting Freedom of Navigation transits through declared international waters. They claim the entire South China Sea based on their 9 Dash Line used to declare their longstanding ownership of the waterway…but the only place that line appears is on Chinese maps from the 1940s or so. Frankly…if you look at the line it intrudes well into both the territorial waters and exclusive economic zones of every country that borders the sea…so the claim is clearly just a land (make that water) grab. Their buildup of artificial islands on reefs in the sea is clearly illegal under international law…but they keep doing it anyway.

On the political front domestically…both sides are still claiming all sorts of inflammatory BS about the other side, framing their press releases with the most incendiary language possible, and ignoring the fact that their side is doing many of the same things they’re condemning the other side for. I’m so sick of all this BS and think they should actually…oh, I don’t know…do their job and govern maybe? Instead…they seem to be interested in just a few things…getting reelected…demonizing the other side…and being against whatever the other side wants. Crimminee…they need to get together and come to some compromise that both sides can accept as getting part of what they want but not all. Abortion…taxes…spending…voting rights…the positions of the 2 sides are so far apart and the likelihood of getting both the White House and a super majority in both houses of congress is so low that neither of those positions are ever going to happen…but the idea of compromise instead of ‘my way or the highway’ attitudes truly prevents anything from getting done.

And here’s one that shows that even supposedly smart people can still say dumb, stupid things. Warren Buffet…he of Berkshire Hathaway investment juggernaut fame…actually said back in 2011…at least according to this
article…that he could solve the deficit problem in 5 minutes. According to the article…all that needs to happen is to pass a law saying that if there is ever a deficit greater than 3% of GDP…that all sitting members of congress (and by the lower case c he’s talking about both houses) are ineligible for reelection. He goes on to some explanation about how that would ensure fiscal responsibility in our governmental spending. Unfortunately…there’s just one single problem with that…such a law would be unconstitutional. The constitution lays out the requirements for being a member of the legislative branch…for the House one must be 25 years old, been a citizen for 7 years, and be an inhabitant of the state which elected him. The requirements for the Senate are similar…except the minimum age is 30 and citizenship requirement is 9 years. Therefore…such a law would be tossed out by the first court that heard the lawsuit over it. Now I’ll agree that Mr. Buffet is a really smart money manager…but for the love of anything holy…how can people that are supposedly educated make such inane statements. And how did such an article…which clearly states “Whether this plan could be implemented or would be effective is uncertain” didn’t get flagged by anybody at the finance bureau at yahoo.com is simply unbelievable. I could suggest a thousand laws which would (at least according to me) solve some sort of problem…but even a bear has the common sense to read the constitution (although to be honest most bears can’t read…but I’m an exceptionally talented bear) and say “Nah…you can’t do that.”

There were some fisticuffs on the sideline of an NFL game yesterday apparently…between a player and one of the staff members of the opposing team. They’re both going to get hammered by the league. We didn’t see it and really don’t care because we don’t watch or care about any of the professional sports leagues we have.

Interesting things found on the net.

Speaking of EVs…Consumer Reports has an article out that EVs have worse reliability than gas powered vehicles but that hybrid models are the same as gas powered. Given that hybrids also get around the charging issues and range problems of pure EVs, they seem like the way to go to us…but the tree huggers insist that we go all electric anyway. Never mind that the power to charge them comes largely from fossil fuels anyway and the grid simply cannot support complete conversion at this time…not to mention they’re pretty impractical if you need to drive long distances.

And finally.

Cyas.