Category: Ramblings

Murdered before our eyes and most of us never noticed.

New Year’s Day opened with the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl from Atlanta- and College Football and ESPN were in a bind.

Cincinnati rolled through their American Athletic Conference at 8-0 with only one challenge, a 36-33 win on the road against offensive powerhouse Central Florida. They followed their regular season up with a thrilling last second win over Tulsa in the American Athletic Conference Title Game, ending the season at 9-0 with two COVID-related cancellations.

For their efforts, Cincinnati was awarded 8th place in the final College Football Playoff rankings, safely distant from any opportunity to spoil the playoff party.

You see, the College Football Playoff exists only for the bluest of the blue bloods, those conference with the most money and political pull. EVERY playoff spot has been taken by a member of this so-called “Power Five”: the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC and independent Notre Dame a name so powerful that it has its own TV contract despite not having won a national title since 1988.

And they don’t want to share the money with smaller schools.

With a mere four playoff spots, they don’t have to. There’s always a more deserving Power Five School to put in the playoff.

The problem with winner take all games should be clear: without pro sports style competitive balance rules, all the rewards flow to those who already are successful: more money, better coaches and best recruits all flock to the schools with the best chance of winning a national title; no others need apply. In fact, only four teams have combined to take 20 or 28 playoff spots since the system was instituted in 2014.

Cincinnati and other schools from the “Group of Five” smaller conferences (American Athletic, Conference USA, Mid-America Conference, Mountain West and Sun Belt) have railed against the system for years, criticisms that gained steam when Central Florida won 25 games between 2017 and 2018- including a Peach Bowl win over Auburn. Surely, this was evidence that a well-coached Group of Five school should have a chance at least on occasion…

At the same time, college football’s powers that be had a problem of their own: the consolidation of power at the top of the pyramid. Even the writers at ESPN (the network which televises the Playoff) were pointing out the College Football Playoff had become predictable and stale, a trend made worse in a year where it felt like anything could happen:

We can quibble over résumés and who was most worthy of facing the No. 1 Crimson Tide as a double-digit underdog, but there is no surprise in what the committee did. In fact, the decisions on the top four were so predictable, it made the entire process stale and boring and so filled with an utter lack of meaningful debate that there is no reason for outrage because we all saw the way this was going to unfold.

https://www.espn.com/collegcincinnati%20football%202020e-football/story/_/id/30563882/college-football-playoff-2020-committee-remains-disappointingly-predictable

One of the four teams in the College Football Playoff was Ohio State from the Big Ten, a conference which started their season late as they wanted to pretend to care about COVID until the realization that they’d miss out on millions of dollars hit home. After approving a truncated schedule, the Big Ten doubled down on their assholery by granting Ohio State- a team which played only six games- an exemption to play in their Conference Title Game despite not having played enough games to qualify. Because dollar signs.

So Cincinnati, a team that played as complete a schedule as they could was going to play the hand it was dealt, take care of Georgia in Atlanta and make their claim as another high-grade Group of Five Team that got screwed by the big boys.

Cincinnati coach Fickell’s plan worked well with Cincinnati taking a 14-10 lead into halftime. Defensively, the Bearcats were able to limit Georgia’s offense and after some early struggle, Cincinnati’s offense was able to move the ball. Notably, Bearcat QB Demond Ridder drove the team down the field in the final two minutes of the half using his mobility to buy time for passes and more importantly, gas the Georgia defense.

Then this happened:

It wasn’t enough that all-conference left tackle James Hudson committed a late hit out of bounds… oh no, he also led with the crown of his helmet thereby earning himself an ejection. It’s difficult to imagine that such an act took place in a vacuum, at that moment in the game when the Bearcats were driving and wearing out Georgia’s offense.

The Bearcats eventually scored on the drive taking a 14-10 into halftime which they extended by scoring a rushing TD at the start of the second half to take a 21-10 lead. But the damage was done. and the offense fell apart from there And what do you know? Hudson’s backup Lorenz Metz was an abject disaster, committing three false start penalties (2 on 3rd and 2, effectively killing drives) and contributing to a porous pass protection that gave up four sacks, two of which led to fumbles.

The Bearcat defense held on as best they could, limiting Georgia to no third quarter scores but with no offensive help, they wilted and eventually surrendered the lead and the game.

So now the Power Five could pat little Cincinnati on the head and comfort them- “That’s cute, you tried so hard to play with the big boys. Maybe someday you’ll get there, Little Trooper.”

And fans across the country could safely focus on the College Football Playoff semifinals taking place later in the day, oblivious to how close Cincinnati came to upsetting the entire apple cart.

The democrats are a hapless bunch of losers who nominated a brain damaged unrepentant racist and possible child molester paired with a gal who prosecuted blacks charged with victimless crimes to pad her record AND slept her way into middle management.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/former-san-francisco-mayor-addresses-past-relationship-with-sen-kamala-harris

How are these two people going to mobilize a party that is half anti Trump but otherwise decent people and half antifa punks who want to tear down civilization? If it wasn’t for COVID, Trump would have won in a landslide that would make 84 Reagan blush.

Seriously, fuck the Democratic party.  It won’t even exist in five years and I’m not going to be shocked if their leaders got the noose for what they’ve done to subvert the government and 2016 election results.

Holy crap, the 123rd Signal Battalion would have the sharpest dressed hockey team in the military.

It’s only controversial if it bucks the trend of collectivization and group identification?

Consider the following statement:

Here’s my question to those who are wedded to diversity and inclusion: Are people better off the less they have in common with one another?

https://www.creators.com/read/walter-williams/01/20/diversity-and-inclusion-insanity

I think we can agree that many people would say this is “controversial.”

And why is that?

Why would common sense statements like “people are happier when they are around those similar to them,” or “rewards go to those who achieve more,” arouse such angst in people?

I don’t believe these attitudes are real in the sense that people alone with their thoughts believe any of it to be true from them personally.

That is, rich liberals aren’t hanging out in the inner cities, nor are they giving away amounts of wealth that impact their lifestyles to reward the poor for their lack of achievement.

Obviously many in the so-called “victim classes” applaud efforts to be treated preferentially, whether that’s a woman getting an undeserved promotion or a black kid getting a pass for disrupting a classroom.

But note what we are saying here: we are lowering standards… and that might not necessarily be a bad thing. But it also may not be a good thing if we are merely replacing one set of preferred categories (white, male, heterosexual) for another (Non white, gender fluid).

Why?

The answer is we are seeing the death of the mass production paradigm: the System never saw you or me or anyone else as an individual because the entire mass production metaphor is centered around large numbers and categories.

Factories produce large amounts of product that are “suitable for purpose”

Schools produce large numbers of graduates who are just smart enough to produce large amounts of product…

And pop culture creates HITS to generate large numbers of consumer/fans to sell to:

While politics is neatly divided into two teams (red and blue) to generate large blocs of voters who can be sold pandered listened to.

These models only exist because humanity saw how fantastically efficient the machine is at outputting large amounts of stuff and decided two things:

• more is better
• efficiency is the highest goal

As it turns out, having a small number of processes accounting for more instances of a product (where physical or human) is much easier for a small number of people to control. Handy, that.

But we screwed up because the mid 1990s introduced the world to the internet- which is the model for a new paradigm.

The network.

The network gives humanity a completely different model: one where each voice can have an equal platform against the masses in the market place of ideas.

A model where individuals can learn a curriculum designed to their talents and interests which will help to produce shining examples of brilliance as opposed to a mass of mediocrity.

A model where each of us can contribute to our own communities- communities we choose rather than the arbitrary buckets that the machine throws us in.

So now you know why the powers that be are tightening their grip on EVERYTHING: they understand they are finished hat once we see how much opportunity is out there… if we just open our minds a little.

They have to put us back in the box. Twitter and Facebook are becoming echo chambers/circles of shame where anyone with unorthodox ideas is shouted down as literal Hitler or Science Denier (which may be the dumbest, most insanely ignorant epithet ever).

Which leads me to the painful aspect of all this: Most of the freethinkers have to align with the assclown in chief, Orange Man because he represents the freedom to say something different from the crowd.

God help us all 🙂