Democratic Debate

Today is the Democratic Debate from South Carolina. I thought about doing a live blog detailing Dick Cheney's stint as president yesterday while Bush got a colonscopy, but I figured it probably wouldn't be very interesting because all he was probably doing was masturbating to a picture of Lyndie England torturing detainees. Anyway its off to the debate!

4:00 PM Anderson Cooper is the moderator of tonights debate. Sadly he is more presidential than most candidates in the actual debate.

4:04 PM The first question is a rambling monologue where the guy asking it uses the phrase "uniffectual". If this is the first question than this is going to be a long debate.

4:08 PM Clinton gets a question asking her to define the word liberal. The questions are so broad that the debate is the opposite of what it was promised to be. The broad questions are allowing the candidates to talk about whatever they want. The point of the youtube debate was to get narrow questions that the candidates couldn't dodge.

4:12PM Gravel comes out swinging at Obama and gets destroyed. He attacked Obama on his campaign contributions but came out looking like one of those WW2 veterans who still believe the war is going on.

4:15 PM Chris Dodd shows a video saying how he is qualified for the White House because he has white hair. Of course George Bush has white hair and it doesn't seem to help him to much.

4:19 PM Richardson finally gets on the board.

4:23 PM Edwards says he doesn't want people to vote for him who wont for Obama because he is black. With that statement Edwards can pretty much stop campaigning south of Pennsylvania

4:26 PM The debate has entered the stage where the candidates praise the other candidates...This is more like a potluck than a debate.

4:30 Richardson gets applauded for saying he wont discriminate. Are the expectations of the president so low that promising to not discriminate get applause??

4:32 Edwards answers a question and then the guy who asked it emerges from the audience and dramatically says Edwards didn't answer the question. The stage is set for a showdown. Anderson then asks the guy why Edwards didn't answer the question and the guy's response is "to many people were moving around and I couldn't hear".

4:36 Commercial. How can there be a commercial during a debate????

4:39 Richardson lets us know that he was at the same refugee camp as refugees who submitted a question about Darfur. I think someone could ask a question about Mars and Richardson would answer by "well the last time I was in Mars I was able to...."

4:42 Clinton says we need to "start acting and stop talking" with regards to Darfur. She then rambles on for a minute before saying she wouldn't commit troops to Darfur.

4:45 Iraq somehow doesn't get mentioned until 45 minutes into the debate.

4:46 The name of the person asking a question is "mother of solider in Iraq". She tries to blame Democrats for not ending the war fast enough. She instead might want to blame the person who started the war in the first place. You yell at the person who breaks the dishes, you don't yell at the person cleaning up the mess.

4:51 My roommate asks me "who are the popular candidates??". And people wonder why the future of America is shaky.

4:55 I love how the candidate are all bashing the Iraqi parliament for going on vacation, yet don't seem to mind the American Congress going on a 3 month summer vacation.

4:57 Gravel says that "we don't have enough boots on the ground to invade Iran". Ummmmm

5:00 Someone submitting a questions adds at the end "I feel this is a legitimate question". If that has to be added to a question posed during a national debate than it probably IS a bogus question.

5:04 Some guy who had his grandfather, father, and son die in wars wonders what the politicians will do to prevent his other sons from dying in the military. I hate to break the news to this guy but that is a risk you take when you sign up for the military.

5:08 Biden destroys Richardson and the rest of the field with his Iraq argument. How can any of these candidates justify not voting for a bill that would send equipment to Iraq that would save lives. Biden is right in saying that it is responsible to vote to bring the troops home as well as to vote to make sure the troops still there get the best equipment they can.

5:10 Kucinich is telling people to text the word Peace to him.

5:15 The question is "who is your favorite teacher and why" Gravel answers by saying "a brother who is now deceased".

5:20 All the candidates are having to defend sending their kids to Private schools. This is maybe the dumbest topic in debate history. Rich people send their kids to private schools because public schools stink. No need to be ashamed about it.

5:26 In a show of hand question, Richardson cant remember if he took a private Jet to South Carolina for the debate.

5:32 The first surprising question is about standardizing the voting process in all states. The debate should have included more surprising questions like this instead of the same questions we always see in the debate.

5:38 The third commercial of the debate. Kucinich uses this time to see how many people texted him.

5:40 I wonder what the candidates do with the writing pads they use during the debate. I have to think that Gravel or Kucinich could auction theirs off in an effort to keep their campaign funded

5:43 Biden makes a great point by saying that for every dollars the government invests in prevention programs (like crime prevention, and health wellness programs) the government saves $6 in dealing with the problem on the other end.

5:50 The debate shifts to health care and everyone starts yapping about their health care proposals.

5:56 Gravel makes a decent point about how all of Clinton's campaign contributions are from the people who are responsible for the shape of America today (bankers, oil companies, pharmaceutical companies,etc...). Hard to see how an establishment candidate like Clinton can win in a change election.

5:59 1st question about gun control. The guy asking the question brandishes some huge gun that looks like it belongs in Iraq. Biden questions the man's mental capacity and presumably is now being stalked by the guy who asked the question.

6:00 A question comes out requiring the candidates to say something good and bad about the person to their left. Edwards says he doesn't like Clinton's coat. Clinton refuses to answer the question at all. Biden says he likes Kucinich's wife.

6:08 The debate ends and I must say it was a disappointment from start to finish. Nobody really did anything memorable and none of the questions were that refreshing. I guess if I had to pick a winner I would pick Biden, but picking a winner out of this crowd is like picking a starting QB between Brady Leaf and Dennis Dixon.

Playoffs?? Playoffs???

Over the past several days there has been a lot of "chatter" about College Football going to some variation of a 4 team playoff. This is both good and bad news for college football fans.

The good news is that college football is finally recognizing that the current bowl system sucks and sees the need for a playoff. The BCS was great in one aspect because it ensured a "national title game" but at the same time it relegated all other college football teams into a virtual NIT setting for them to finish out their seasons. Honestly what is the point of having the Las Vegas Bowl? To see what team can finish the season ranked 25th??

The bad news is that while college football is moving towards a playoff, the only playoff scenarios being talked about right now involved 4 teams. While any playoff is better than no playoff, a 4 team playoff is still lame. It is stupid to have only 4 teams in a playoff system because it ensures that no mid-major will ever get into the mix. If college football adopts a 4 team playoff system, it is saying to the 54 non-BCS schools "your seasons don't matter at all"

As a solutions oriented person, I figured it was my duty to come up with a college football playoff system that would best serve the interests of the game. There were four things that I felt such a system had to do in order to be acceptable: 1) Preserve the importance of the regular season 2) Give everyone team a chance 3) Crown a true champion 4) Reward teams who had excellent seasons

In my view the best way to achieve all three of these objectives is with a 24 team single elimination playoff, where all 11 conference champions earn automatic bids, and the top 8 teams get byes. There would be 13 at large bids.

This would be a 5 round tournament, with the first two rounds taking place at the higher seeded teams stadium and the last 3 rounds taking place at neutral sites.

Because teams could play up to 5 games in this tournament, I would only allow teams to play 11 regular season games (down from 12).

I would also scrap the BCS ranking system and instead create a committee similar to the one the NCAA Basketball tournament uses in order to seed the teams and to choose what at large teams make the field.

24 teams may seem like a lot, but with 5 of the bids going to mid-major conferences, a lot of top 25 teams will be left out. If this system was in place last year: Georgia, Oregon State, Nebraska, Penn State, and Hawaii all would have been left on the sideline.

Not only does this solution meet all 4 of my criteria, but how much fun would it be to watch meaningful games during December instead of seeing two 6-6 teams play in the Freedom Bowl.

Moving Day

On Monday Justin and I moved into a new apartment with the help of his Albino girlfriend. I have never been a huge fan of this girl, and hoped that she would be able to redeem herself by helping us out. Unfortunately I was so overcome by fear when I was around her, that the move took 5 times as long as it should have. Here are the things that frightened me:

1) Her mouth is always open. It is like she is a whale feeding on plankton. I think she might feed on dust particles. Also, I felt as if she might bite me at any moment. I honestly thought about going to PetSmart and buying her a chew toy.

2) She sounds like a cross between Mr. Ed and a hyena sucking on helium. Believe me, that is not the voice you want to here yelling at you to pick up the pace. Its 4 days later and my eardrums are still scarred.

3) She glows in the dark. I knew she looked ghoulish, but I never thought she would actually be more visible at nightime than she was during the day. I am still waiting for Scoobey and Scrappy-Doo to come out and show me how she did this because I still don't believe it. On the plus side Justin now has the option of calling Ghostbusters to get rid of her instead of breaking up with her.

Hopefully now everyone understands why I needed a few days to rest before resuming my blogging activities.

BaldingReport Out.

The Register Tard

If any of my readers read the Register Guard's sports section last Saturday they probably ran into several stories that were already familiar to them. The paper wrote a "breaking news" story on Ben Voogd transferring from LSU to Oregon, another story described how Chamberlian Oguichi was sticking around, and the third story offered exciting new details on how Oregon was bringing back baseball as a scholarship sport.

These stories were probably familiar to my readers BECAUSE I BROKE ALL OF THEM AT LEAST TWO WEEKS AGO HERE ON THE BALDINGREPORT!!!! (Check June 24th for Voogd, June 20th for baseball, and June 2nd for Chamberlain Oguichi)

The Register Guard has always been a lame paper, but their tardiness on these epic stories is below even them. Then again what do you expect from a paper where the most popular column actually answers questions about why some rocks in Pendleton are painted yellow (You are better than that Bob Welch).

Since the Register Guard's sport section is now comprised of information I break here on the BaldingReport, look for the following stories to appear in the Register Guard around July 20th

1) Dexter Manley III quitting the football team (Hopefully he learned more in school then his dad did)
2) Oregon Football recruits Simi Fili and Rishard Matthews not qualifying academically
3) Oregon announcing a basketball schedule that is eerily similiar to last year with the only marquee game being @Kansas State. Oregon will also play Oakland College in Detroit.

If the Register Guard really wanted to break a story they would write a story about the tormented relationship between my roomate and his girlfriend.

At our last update Justin was trying to think of things he could do that would force his girlfriend to break up with him. First he decided to tell her that he was dumping her in September no matter what. That failed. Then he told her he was not giving her his new address or new phone number. Again failure. Finally Justin decided to play his Trump card by peeing all over the bed while she was in it. One might think this would be push her over the edge but again she refused to break up with him.

I was content to allow her to continue to date Justin as long as she never looked at me (She looks like a female Mitch Platt) or talked to me (she sounds like Mr. Ed sucking on helium).

However last week I found myself stuck in the living room with her and Justin, watching the TV show "Are you smarter than a 5th grader". I figured this was her chance to prove she was a good intellectual match for Justin. (IE smarter than a 5th grader). Sadly she proved herself to be dumber than every 5th grader on the show.

Seeing as this girl's only redeeming quality is her natural abiltiy to camaflouge herself in the snow, I have decided that I have had enough of her. Since Justin can not force her out, I must personally undertake the task. If anyone has any ways of forcing her out, please leave a comment. By the end of the week I want her and the Register Guard out of this apartment for good.

BaldingReport Out.

Contradiction day

As the Iraq war continues to drag on, I am continually dumbfunded at how few Americans really understand how much of a sham this war continues to be.

The President has said that "the war in Iraq is the calling of this generation" (scroll to bottom) and that "we are fighting for our way of life" (scroll to bottom). These are serious statements that rival anything Roosevelt said during WWII.

His response to this great threat was to have a "surge" and send 28,000 additional troops to Iraq to supplement the 157,000 troops already there. So the President's strategy to win the proclaimed fight of our lives is to increase troop strength by 18% (28/157). If the President really believes the comments he made, how can he justify only increasing troop strength by 18%. The disconnect between what he is saying and what he is doing is absolutely mind boggling.

I am sure the President would actually like to send 400,000 troops to Iraq, but in order to send that many troops he would have to institute a draft and then the American people would wake up to what is really going on make President justify what he would be doing. And when the American people actually wake up and pay attention to what is going on in Iraq, the whole thing falls apart.

BaldingReport out.