Facebook Pwnage

This is what happens when a tea party/libertarian/"crash my plane into the IRS"/nOOb tries to engage in a discussion without quoting from Glenn Beck:

Sometimes I Feel Like an Idiot

On Dec. 2, if I would have had $100 and deposited it in an online casino and done only two things:

1) Every time Wisconsin plays, bet the under ($20 straight wager)

2) Everytime Villanova plays, bet the over ($20 straight wager)

My account would be account would be at... $472.68

Villanova:
Wisconsin:

Sandstorm'd 'em

The first place I check to get an instant read on what just happened in the world of college basketball is the Bracketology 101 blog. Their Tuesday tweet was spot on:

It's rare that John Wall is the second-most exciting player on a basketball court, but on Tuesday night it was Devan Downey who was sending sportswriters scrambling for a thesaurus. Downey hit acrobatic shot after acrobatic shot and was basically a one-man offense for South Carolina in the Gamecocks' stunning 68-62 upset of the top-ranked Wildcats in Columbia. As far as the bracket goes, this game had very minimal impact (South Carolina picked up a ginorous win for its otherwise weak resume and Kentucky lost its two-day hold on the top overall seed), but for entertainment purposes only, games don't get much better than this. Wall and DeMarcus Cousins deserve a lot of credit for keeping Kentucky close in what was a raucous Colonial Center, but in the end this was the Gamecocks' night. Or should we say Downey's night. What a performance.

You certainly have a very defensible argument if you want to give the game ball to Devan Downey. In fact, up until the :43 mark in the 2nd half, he would have been my choice also. Then something amazing happened. Let me properly set the stage.

With two minutes to go, South Carolina clung to a 4-point lead and phenom, and likely #1 overall pick, John Wall went into "there is no 'effing' way I am going to lose this game" mode. First he went straight at the basket, daring anyone to foul him, and got the deuce. Then the next time down he drew a foul and made 2 free throws. Then he comes down the court, misses a trey, but gets ready to get the dish off of an offensive rebound when Coach Calipari calls time-out at the :43 second mark. The momentum in the game is very quickly shifting back to Kentucky and the student section at Colonial Life desperately needed to to remain amped for the final minute.

So what does the PA-guy do? He goes Sandstorm on it. But he doesn't just play the song, he plays it so loud that the volume on my TV went down because the ESPN crew had to reduce the feed from their microphones. As the TV camera panned to the Kentucky time-out you could see Calipari literally screaming at his players, trying to be heard over the audio sandstorm. After the 60-second time-out the referees realize that the shot clock was improperly reset, so they confer at the monitors to determine how much time remains. The entire time this delay is taking place, for several minutes, Sandstorm continues to blast at FULL VOLUME. The crowd does not let up. And Calipari does not get a bit of extra time without music to address his players.

With the crowd in Downey/Darude-induced fandemonium John Wall misses a free throw, and the Gamecocks grab the game-sealing rebound. There is hardly anyone born in the 80s who has never heard Sandstorm or hasn't felt that initial excitement (or dread) over the overly recognizable first few notes. While some take their sandstroming to the extreme, it is such a cultural phenomenon that there are Facebook groups devoted to its legitimacy. But never have I been witness to the affect it could have on a basketball game.

So for me, the game ball goes to the PA-guy. And the Gamecock student section. Because,

[a]fter a month filled with mediocre and questionable court stormings, the rowdy South Carolina student section reminded us how it's supposed to be done on Tuesday night. They pulled off a near-perfect rush: we loved Downey waving the fans down to the court in the closing seconds, we loved South Carolina ignoring the SEC's ridiculous $25,000 court rush fine, and we especially loved the ridiculously fast court coverage which came from both ends of the floor. That's how it's done, Gamecock Nation. Excellent work.

Excellent work indeed.

Toss Up! Tiger v. Jack

Let the debate begin. . . Who had the better decade of championship golf?


Incredibly, Jack had five years that he never finished out of the top 10 in a single major. In the decade, he never finished worse than T5 in the British Open. And he never finished out of the top 10 in the Masters. WHAT!?! He finished out of the top 15 only 3 times in the decade.

Tiger, of course, won 12 majors, and completed the Tiger Slam by holding all four trophies (or, 3 trophies and one jacket) at the same time. He set the scoring record for three of the majors (he already held the record for the fourth). He was also an equal opportunity showman, winning each tournament 3 times. Moreover, he finished in the top-2 in the world's hardest tournament, the U.S. Open, 5 times. He also finished in the top 6 at the Masters 8 times

Racing in Circles: Minnesota’s Can’t-Win Ploy

In a November 8 article in the Star Tribune, author Emily Johns writes,

Minnesota educators think the state has a good chance to receive a chunk of some $4.35 billion in grants that the Obama administration plans to give to states to promote school innovation.

Wait. What? Our educators think we have a good chance? They must be reading a different version of the administrations “Race to the Top” language than I am.

Through this new competitive program called Race to the Top, the US Department of Education has set aside more than $4 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for education. But Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has made it clear that not everyone is going to get a share of that $4 billion. In fact, that’s the whole idea. Only states that take a bold stand and make true educational reforms are going to get any money at all.

The only reforms that Minnesota has made since the government dangled this money in front of us (which we now know is somewhere between $60-175 million), is we’ve reformed the way we love ourselves: we now think we’re better than ever, despite making almost no changes at all!

Minnesota is convinced that we do a pretty good job at educating our kids. That’s true – if you’re white, middle-class, and attend a suburban school district. Where we fall short is in so many other categories: minority students, students from low-income communities, students receiving special education supports… the list goes on. In fact, Minnesota has the second biggest academic achievement gap in the country (more on this in future posts).

And we think the government is going to reward us for that??

Secretary Duncan is asking states to be bold. To “think big and push hard on the kinds of reforms that we know will create fundamental change…” Minnesota, however, is planning on submitting an application that simply highlights what we’ve always done (things like the governors “Q Comp” program, in which more than 95% of teachers in this state were considered worthy of a performance-based incentive, or our standards that have been in place for years, or our strong charter school laws). Sure, all those things are great (perhaps with the exception of the “Q Comp” program – are you telling me that we have this many great teachers, and still our black kids do worse in Minnesota than black kids do in Alabama?), but they aren’t the types of changes the administration is talking about.

In fact, they aren’t changes at all. As Dan Weisberg, VP of policy and general counsel for The New Teacher Project, says, “The big picture is that Minnesota has a good story to tell in many areas about the efforts it’s made thus far on education reform.” Really? I must have missed something.

Mr. Wesiberg’s organization actually released a report in August that showed several glaring deficiencies in Minnesota’s reform movement, most notably in the way that we produce, retain, and evaluate great teachers and leaders. The US Chamber backed those findings up with a Report Card that gave Minnesota an “F” on the scale of alternative hiring, giving the state a “C” overall for staff hiring and evaluation. In fact, the report card, which was designed to measure state’s strengths on education innovation and reform, gave Minnesota mostly “B’s” and “C’s,” not the “all A’s” report that so many in the state think is our due.

It’s time for our state leaders to actually get some political courage and “make the tough choices that are right for kids” as Duncan said in a speech at the 2009 Governors Education Symposium. If Minnesota wants any piece of this $4 billion pie, we need to agree that our state needs a TRUE alternative route to teacher certification, and new ways to evaluate the teachers who are already in the classroom.

The state teacher's union, Education Minnesota would love for us to continue patting ourselves on the back and saying how great we already are (they benefit from sticking with the status quo). That, however, won’t get us any money through the “Race to the Top” fund, and it certainly won’t help our students who are on the wrong side of the achievement gap, falling further behind every day.

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Breeder's Cup analysis coming soon ...

Objects in your mirror ... (Part II)

So, a new poll from Rutgers has Daggett at 20%! This is a very crucial number. Why?

In 1998 in the Minnesota Gubernatorial race, a poll on October 20 showed Humphrey leading 35% to Coleman 34% and up-start former wrestler and independant candidate Jesse Ventura at 21%. In only two weeks, Ventura expanded that 21% to 37% which was enough to win the three-way race.

But can Daggett close the gap? Its possible. Here's how:

1) The fat guy needs to continue to implode under the weight of the worst run campaign in New Jersey history.

2) Corzine's saturation of the airwaves actually turns off voters and drives them to either (a) stay home or (b) vote for someone else (presumably Daggett)

3) As more people learn about Daggett's tax positions more people like him, and there are still those who intend to vote who are not entirely familiar with him. When people know about his plans, they generally like them.

The key will be the first poll around Halloween. If Daggett can get his numbers close to 26 or 27% I think he wins. It should be a fun two weeks!