NCAA HOOPS DIARY:
I meant to pick last night's games here in this space yesterday, but forgot. Anyway, my picks were nothing special--I picked West Virginia, Kentucky, and Kansas State correctly, but didn't have Butler (but then, who did?). In any case, the big story was the drama from Butler/Syracuse and K-State/Xavier. This year the madness has been terrific.
Butler deserves all the recognition it's getting; it's been an outstanding program over a long period of time, and has been to 3 sweet 16s this decade.
All right, so let me pick tonight's games:
Tennessee vs Ohio State. PICK: BUCKEYES. OSU has one of the best players in the nation in Evan Turner; and the Buckeyes have won 9 straight. One lesson from this tournament is: go with the hot team (Butler hasn't lost a game since December).
St. Mary's vs Baylor. PICK: BAYLOR BEARS. I have Baylor going to the final four in my bracket. I won't desert them now. Baylor has size and length inside, and good guards who can penetrate and shoot from deep. I greatly respect St. Mary's, and this will be a tough, tough battle. But I think Baylor will squeak it out.
Northern Iowa vs Michigan State. PICK: SPARTANS. The trendy thing is to pick Northern Iowa, given their record, their defeat of Kansas (which didn't look like a huge fluke) and the Kalin Lucas injury for MSU. But: Tom Izzo loves challenges like this; I think he'd rather have his team be kind of an underdog; and I suspect the Lucas injury will make the Spartans rally around each other and play that much harder. And they still have plenty of talent, scoring, and rebounding ability to win.
Purdue vs Duke. PICK: BLUE DEVILS. Again, one has to give huge props to Purdue for what they've done, for their toughness and tenacity in advancing this far despite the Hummel injury. But you've gotta think that Duke's defensive toughness, talent, and ability to shoot from deep will be too much for the Boilers this time to overcome.
POLITICS AND LEGISLATION DEPT:
Another roundup of the business casualties from ObamaCare:
"What do Caterpillar and John Deere have in common? Besides being America's two biggest makers of heavy equipment, they have both announced huge increases in expenses due to ObamaCare. Wednesday, Caterpillar made official its estimate of $100 million in increased costs for 2011, though they will take the charge this year. Yesterday, John Deere said it will face an additional $150 million in increased costs for 2010 in order to comply with the Democrats' assault on America's health care and health insurance systems, eliminating about 11% of the company's profits for the year."
Do Democrats even care about this?
Maybe not. If you look at what some of our liberal/Democratic friends in the news media are saying today, they're convinced that Democrats are winning on this issue. Take for example Chuck Todd and his NBC pals over at msnbc.com:
"Did Democrats get their groove back after this week’s passage of the most expansive social legislation in decades? It sure looks like it. President Obama had a pep in his step in Iowa yesterday; Democratic members of Congress have looked downright giddy; the Internet Left, despite its disappointment over the past year, appears more energized; and Democratic candidates are playing offense on health care."
Typical--convinced Dems are doing great...but because they want to believe it, not based on any solid evidence (one notes not one poll was cited).
