COLLEGE FOOTBALL:
Let's not even talk about how I did last week. This week will be better:
Boise State 23 over UTAH STATE. PICK: BOISE. That offense is rolling, and they still have a lot to play for.
CLEMSON 21 over Virginia. PICK: TIGERS. Clemson is rolling. Go with 'em.
IOWA 10 over Minnesota. PICK: GOLDEN GOPHERS. It's a rivalry game, and I sense Iowa having a letdown after a tough loss last week. Don't forget Iowa QB Stanzi again won't play.
MISSOURI 14 over Iowa State. PICK: TIGERS. Mizzou is getting hot at the right time. They had an impressive road win last week at K-State.
NEBRASKA 16.5 over Kansas State. PICK: K-STATE. Look, that Nebraska offense constantly struggles to score. This is too many points.
NOTRE DAME 6 over UConn. PICK: FIGHTING IRISH. ND can still score, and they'll be motivated to win their last home game.
Ohio State 12 over MICHIGAN. PICK: BUCKEYES. It's just hard to see that porous Michigan defense stopping anybody, much less Terrelle Pryor.
Oklahoma 6.5 over TEXAS TECH. PICK: RED RAIDERS. I sense Tech will play better at home. That offense remains more potent than Oklahoma's without Bradford.
Oregon 6 over ARIZONA. PICK: DUCKS. That Oregon offense is tough to stop. No one's done it for weeks.
Penn State 3 over MICHIGAN STATE. PICK: NITTANY LIONS. It's a big game for Michigan State. Which, more often than not, means they'll find a way to lose.
Purdue 3 over INDIANA. PICK: HOOSIERS. It's a rivalry game. IU has played well a number of times this season, but come up short. This time I suspect they'll find a way to win, against a Purdue team coming off a tough loss.
STANFORD 7 over California. PICK: CARDINAL. That Stanford offense is rolling. Ride 'em.
TCU 31 over WYOMING. PICK: HORNED FROGS. TCU is playing as well as anyone in the country right now.
TEXAS 27.5 over Kansas. PICK: LONGHORNS. Texas is rolling too. And Kansas is in turmoil, and on the road.
Wisconsin 7 over NORTHWESTERN. PICK: BADGERS. Wisconsin is hot; go with 'em.
NFL PICKS:
I was 7-7-1 last week; I'm now 72-69-3 on the year.
Arizona 9 over ST. LOUIS. PICK: CARDINALS. They're unbeaten, and have played extremely well, on the road this year.
Cincinnati 9.5 over OAKLAND. PICK: BENGALS. That Raider offense is just horrible. I smell a shutout here.
DALLAS 11 over Washington. PICK: REDSKINS. I sense the Cowboys lost some mojo last week. And Jason Campbell and LaDell Betts picked up some steam. The Cowboys will win, but this is too many points.
San Diego pick'em at DENVER. PICK: CHARGERS. Two teams going in different directions. Philip Rivers and LT are picking up momentum. Kyle Orton is dinged up.
DETROIT 3.5 over Cleveland. PICK: LIONS. Is it possible to pick against both teams??? No? Well, the Lions have Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson still in there, and the Browns offense continues to look worse week by week.
GREEN BAY 6.5 over San Francisco. PICK: PACKERS. Look for that Packer defense to shut down San Fran's week offense in the frozen tundra of Lambeau.
Indianapolis 1 over BALTIMORE. PICK: COLTS. Because the Ravens, even with their win last week, are not playing well.
JACKSONVILLE 9 over Buffalo. PICK: JAGS. Buffalo's in turmoil. And the Jaguars--surprise!--are back in the playoff hunt and usually play effectively at home. David Garrard is now making plays.
MINNESOTA 10.5 over Seattle. PICK: VIKINGS. That defense will shut Seattle down. I'm surprised the point spread isn't higher.
NEW ENGLAND 10.5 over NY Jets. PICK: PATRIOTS. They certainly should have won last week; now they're mad.
New Orleans 10.5 over TAMPA BAY. PICK: BUCS. Not to win. But the Saints' level of play has dropped a bit in recent weeks; Reggie Bush is dinged up; and their secondary has injuries. Look for the Bucs to keep it close.
NY GIANTS 6.5 over Atlanta. PICK: GIANTS. They're rested up and healing up after their bye; and the Falcons have Michael Turner dinged up. Not good.
Philadelphia 3 over CHICAGO. PICK: EAGLES. Both teams have issues, and have injuries. I just think the Bears' offense is struggling so much that the Eagles will find a way to win this one behind McNabb's arm.
Pittsburgh 10 over KANSAS CITY. PICK: STEELERS. Kansas City still struggles to score so much that you can't see how they'll cover.
HOUSTON 4.5 over Tennessee. PICK: TEXANS. Vince Young and the Titans have had a nice run. But it's largely been against so-so or inferior teams. It'll end here against a Texans' team that needs a win and is rested after a bye.
In other news...
I KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN DEPT:
In polling news, not such good news for the Obama administration:
"Nearly two years into the recession, opinion about which political party is responsible for the severe economic downturn is shifting, according to a new national poll. A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Friday morning indicates that 38 percent of the public blames Republicans for the country's current economic problems. In May, 53 percent blamed the GOP. According to the poll, 27 percent now blame the Democrats for the recession, up 6 points from May, and 27 percent now say both parties are responsible."
After a while, the party in power starts to own things.
Blaming Bush can't be the Obama administration's default position much longer.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Thursday's throwdowns
THE EFFICIENT, SMART, INTELLIGENT OBAMA ADMINISTRATION DEPT:
At least, that's what all of the Obama bunch's advocates and defenders have claimed for it the last couple of years--how smart Obama and all the people around him were. But you wouldn't know it these days. Consider:
How many jobs have you guys saved again?:
"The White House trumpeted job figures released last month, saying they proved the administration is on track to save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year. But Earl Devaney, whose agency collected and released the data, said Thursday there are too many errors to know how many jobs have been created. Under questioning on Capitol Hill, he agreed the White House should have acknowledged the doubt surrounding the numbers."
Whoops. But then there are also all the problems to be found on the administration's recovery.gov website:
"Arizona's page, for example, showed the state's 52nd, 15th and 86th congressional districts received hundreds of thousands of dollars in stimulus money, according to CNN affiliate KNXV. However, no such districts exist in Arizona, which has only eight congressional districts. A report released Wednesday by the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity said it found such errors on pages for all 50 states, four territories and the District of Columbia. More than $6.4 billion in stimulus funds were shown as being spent -- and more than 28,420 jobs saved or created -- in 440 false districts, it said."
Read the whole thing. Note that the great champion of responsibility and accountability, Vice-President Biden, blamed everybody but the administration for what went wrong.
Meanwhile, the latest Rasmussen Poll on the generic congressional ballot for the 2010 election STILL shows Republicans leading.
And Public Policy Polling, in results out today, finds that only 40% of Americans support Obama's positions on health care reform; 52% are in opposition.
No good news for the president can be found in the latest Fox News Poll, either--there, his approval rating is down to 46%, a new low.
NBA DIARY:
The Detroit Pistons are struggling. They've lost 3 in a row, 2 of them on a tough West Coast swing which still continues. The latest loss was to Portland, 87-81. Portland has a good team. But the Pistons' main problem is that they dig too deep of a hole for themselves early in games, and can't complete a comeback. Last night they trailed by 20. Late in the game the Pistons cut the lead to 1. Part of this lies in the fact that this remains a young team trying to learn to play together...
The other part of it is that the Pistons have now played something like 4 games in 6 nights. Why does the NBA have such killer schedules at times?
But the Dallas Mavericks are now 9-3, as they beat San Antonio last night in OT 99-94. Dirk Nowitzki scores 41 points, including 11 in OT. He's a leader. And the Mavs won despite having 3 starters out.
At least, that's what all of the Obama bunch's advocates and defenders have claimed for it the last couple of years--how smart Obama and all the people around him were. But you wouldn't know it these days. Consider:
How many jobs have you guys saved again?:
"The White House trumpeted job figures released last month, saying they proved the administration is on track to save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year. But Earl Devaney, whose agency collected and released the data, said Thursday there are too many errors to know how many jobs have been created. Under questioning on Capitol Hill, he agreed the White House should have acknowledged the doubt surrounding the numbers."
Whoops. But then there are also all the problems to be found on the administration's recovery.gov website:
"Arizona's page, for example, showed the state's 52nd, 15th and 86th congressional districts received hundreds of thousands of dollars in stimulus money, according to CNN affiliate KNXV. However, no such districts exist in Arizona, which has only eight congressional districts. A report released Wednesday by the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity said it found such errors on pages for all 50 states, four territories and the District of Columbia. More than $6.4 billion in stimulus funds were shown as being spent -- and more than 28,420 jobs saved or created -- in 440 false districts, it said."
Read the whole thing. Note that the great champion of responsibility and accountability, Vice-President Biden, blamed everybody but the administration for what went wrong.
Meanwhile, the latest Rasmussen Poll on the generic congressional ballot for the 2010 election STILL shows Republicans leading.
And Public Policy Polling, in results out today, finds that only 40% of Americans support Obama's positions on health care reform; 52% are in opposition.
No good news for the president can be found in the latest Fox News Poll, either--there, his approval rating is down to 46%, a new low.
NBA DIARY:
The Detroit Pistons are struggling. They've lost 3 in a row, 2 of them on a tough West Coast swing which still continues. The latest loss was to Portland, 87-81. Portland has a good team. But the Pistons' main problem is that they dig too deep of a hole for themselves early in games, and can't complete a comeback. Last night they trailed by 20. Late in the game the Pistons cut the lead to 1. Part of this lies in the fact that this remains a young team trying to learn to play together...
The other part of it is that the Pistons have now played something like 4 games in 6 nights. Why does the NBA have such killer schedules at times?
But the Dallas Mavericks are now 9-3, as they beat San Antonio last night in OT 99-94. Dirk Nowitzki scores 41 points, including 11 in OT. He's a leader. And the Mavs won despite having 3 starters out.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Wednesday's wash
HEALTH CARE REFORM UPDATE:
Surprise, surprise--we're reminded again that when it comes to polling on this, how you ask the question matters, big time.
Most important is that, again, when the obvious negatives of single-payer, government-run health care insurance are pointed out to people, support for it drops significantly. This is yet another important reminder for Republicans and conservatives: stay on the attack!
OBAMA'S PLEDGES: AN UPDATE:
Guantanamo won't be closing anytime soon:
"President Obama acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday that his administration would miss a self-imposed deadline to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by mid-January, admitting the difficulties of following through on one of his first pledges as president."
Oh, well--what else is new? He told us the stimulus bill would create hundreds of thousands of jobs by now, that if we passed that bill unemployment wouldn't rise, that we'd have a decision by now on Afghanistan, that we'd be out of Iraq, etc etc etc. None of those things have happened either.
THE SKY IS FALLING DEPT:
This time it's Tom Friedman playing Henny Penny:
"...the world is getting crowded. According to the 2006 U.N. population report, “The world population will likely increase by 2.5 billion ... passing from the current 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion in 2050. This increase is equivalent to the total size of the world population in 1950, and it will be absorbed mostly by the less developed regions, whose population is projected to rise from 5.4 billion in 2007 to 7.9 billion in 2050.” The energy, climate, water and pollution implications of adding another 2.5 billion mouths to feed, clothe, house and transport will be staggering."
Really? Funny thing: we've heard this before, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Remember all the talk, the books, the articles, about a coming population "explosion", a population "bomb", that was going to mean a hugely crowded world, to starvation, to war? I do. None of it happened. I don't take UN reports as gospel or holy writ. Tom Friedman shouldn't, either.
ON PUTTING THE TERRORISTS ON TRIAL IN NEW YORK CITY:
Andy McCarthy of NRO has the best point on it--since when do these guys, who are not American citizens, who are foreign combatants--get "rights":
"What made the United States most vulnerable in the Nineties was our enemies' perception that they were at war and we were not. They gave us bombs, we gave them rights. That encouraged them to attack us more often and more audaciously — which is exactly what they did. If we are at war, and the Attorney General said this morning that we are, we have to treat it like a war. Pressed by Sen. Graham this morning, the AG could not name a single time when, during war, we captured an enemy combatant outside the U.S. and brought him into the United States for a civilian trial — vesting him with all the rights of an American citizen. That's because hasn't happened. That's not how you treat wartime enemies. Further, if we are going to have military commissions at all (and Holder says we will continue to have them), it makes no sense to transfer the worst war criminals to the civilian system. Doing so tells the enemy that they will get more rights if they mass-murder civilians."
ND WOMEN'S HOOPS DIARY:
We'll be following the Notre Dame women's basketball team here this year. This is a team with some prized freshman recruits on the team this year, everyone--literally everyone--back from last year, and they're ranked #4 in the nation to start off. ND won its first game, 102-57 over Arkansas-Pine Bluff. No surprise there. What I liked though, was how Coach Muffet McGraw got after this team for allowing its opponent 57 points, and for ND making too many turnovers. She's holding this bunch to really high standards, in other words--which is what she did with the 2001 team that won the national championship.
Surprise, surprise--we're reminded again that when it comes to polling on this, how you ask the question matters, big time.
Most important is that, again, when the obvious negatives of single-payer, government-run health care insurance are pointed out to people, support for it drops significantly. This is yet another important reminder for Republicans and conservatives: stay on the attack!
OBAMA'S PLEDGES: AN UPDATE:
Guantanamo won't be closing anytime soon:
"President Obama acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday that his administration would miss a self-imposed deadline to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by mid-January, admitting the difficulties of following through on one of his first pledges as president."
Oh, well--what else is new? He told us the stimulus bill would create hundreds of thousands of jobs by now, that if we passed that bill unemployment wouldn't rise, that we'd have a decision by now on Afghanistan, that we'd be out of Iraq, etc etc etc. None of those things have happened either.
THE SKY IS FALLING DEPT:
This time it's Tom Friedman playing Henny Penny:
"...the world is getting crowded. According to the 2006 U.N. population report, “The world population will likely increase by 2.5 billion ... passing from the current 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion in 2050. This increase is equivalent to the total size of the world population in 1950, and it will be absorbed mostly by the less developed regions, whose population is projected to rise from 5.4 billion in 2007 to 7.9 billion in 2050.” The energy, climate, water and pollution implications of adding another 2.5 billion mouths to feed, clothe, house and transport will be staggering."
Really? Funny thing: we've heard this before, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Remember all the talk, the books, the articles, about a coming population "explosion", a population "bomb", that was going to mean a hugely crowded world, to starvation, to war? I do. None of it happened. I don't take UN reports as gospel or holy writ. Tom Friedman shouldn't, either.
ON PUTTING THE TERRORISTS ON TRIAL IN NEW YORK CITY:
Andy McCarthy of NRO has the best point on it--since when do these guys, who are not American citizens, who are foreign combatants--get "rights":
"What made the United States most vulnerable in the Nineties was our enemies' perception that they were at war and we were not. They gave us bombs, we gave them rights. That encouraged them to attack us more often and more audaciously — which is exactly what they did. If we are at war, and the Attorney General said this morning that we are, we have to treat it like a war. Pressed by Sen. Graham this morning, the AG could not name a single time when, during war, we captured an enemy combatant outside the U.S. and brought him into the United States for a civilian trial — vesting him with all the rights of an American citizen. That's because hasn't happened. That's not how you treat wartime enemies. Further, if we are going to have military commissions at all (and Holder says we will continue to have them), it makes no sense to transfer the worst war criminals to the civilian system. Doing so tells the enemy that they will get more rights if they mass-murder civilians."
ND WOMEN'S HOOPS DIARY:
We'll be following the Notre Dame women's basketball team here this year. This is a team with some prized freshman recruits on the team this year, everyone--literally everyone--back from last year, and they're ranked #4 in the nation to start off. ND won its first game, 102-57 over Arkansas-Pine Bluff. No surprise there. What I liked though, was how Coach Muffet McGraw got after this team for allowing its opponent 57 points, and for ND making too many turnovers. She's holding this bunch to really high standards, in other words--which is what she did with the 2001 team that won the national championship.
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