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Saturday College Football Open Thread

It's WLOCP Day! The picks:

Notre Dame @ Temple +11 (3 units), Tennessee @ Kentucky +9 (3 units), Miami Florida +14 (3 units) @ Duke, Texas -4 (3 units) @ Iowa State, Michigan @ Minnesota +14(3 units), Oklahoma State @ Texas Tech +3 (3 units), Georgia +3 (3 units) vs Florida (In Jacksonville), USC -4 (4 units) @ California, South Florida @ Navy -7, Illinois +7 @ Penn State, Nebraska @ Purdue +8.

Go Gators!

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  • Display: Sort:
    Let's go Lobos... (5.00 / 1) (#2)
    by desertswine on Sat Oct 31, 2015 at 12:41:17 PM EST
    Currently underrated at 108th.  Can't lose today because they're idle.

    Jeralyn, if you're up, ... (5.00 / 1) (#19)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Tue Nov 03, 2015 at 03:47:43 AM EST
    ... Oscar Pistorious's prosecutor Gerrie Nel is arguing his appeal before the South African Supreme Court of Appeal, regarding Judge Thokozile Masipa's ruling that the defendant was not guilty of murder. The Guardian is broadcasting it live from South Africa's judicial capital of Bloemfontein in Free State Province.

    The Republic of South Africa actually has three capital cities. Pretoria in Gauteng Province is the administrative capital, where the president and his cabinet reside. Cape Town in Western Cape Province is the legislative capital and the seat of Parliament. Bloemfontein is where the Supreme Court presides.

    As far as I can tell, Nel is arguing for a finding of dolus eventualis. Defense counsel Barry Roux's counters that Nel's appeal is not a question of law, because the prosecution is instead disputing Judge Masipa's findings of fact. Therefore, because the Supreme Court can only consider questions of law, Roux argues that the appeal should be denied.

    Roux says that Judge Masipa did not ignore the circumstantial evidence, as Nel has alleged. Roux is presently quoting Judge Masipa's findings of fact, which he says addresses the circumstantial evidence that Nel claims she ignored.

    (Reeva Steenkamp's parents are sitting in the front row of the gallery.)

    Justice L.E. Leach challenges Roux, stating that Judge Masipa defined dolus eventualis correctly, but she then failed to apply it to any possible situation other than Reeva Steenkamp being behind the bathroom door. Doesn't dolus eventualis also apply to anyone else Pistorious thought to be behind that door? Leach seems to be insisting that Pistorious could still be guilty of murder, even if he didn't realize that Steenkamp was not in the bedroom.

    Fascinating stuff.

    The Florida State Seminoles (none / 0) (#1)
    by fishcamp on Sat Oct 31, 2015 at 12:26:34 PM EST
    Are looking good right now, ahead of Syracuse 21 to 7 near the half.  Roger Federer is winning over on the Tennis channel.  He will play Raphael Nadal in the Swiss Indoors final mañana.

    Nighthawks at the Cinema: (none / 0) (#3)
    by Mr Natural on Sat Oct 31, 2015 at 01:08:05 PM EST
    ... How misfits lost the midnight movie

    It's a movie that takes a buttoned-up couple from Denton, Ohio and drops them into a fantastic, dangerous, arousing world they didn't even know was within their reach. And if two kids from Denton can find it, then maybe anyone can.



    ... for one game by Buckeyes head coach Urban Meyer following his arrest for OVI, operating a vehicle while intoxicated. The Buckeyes have a bye this week, so Barrett will stand down for the Nov. 7 game against Minnesota.

    So it wasn't the night b/4 a game. Still,... (none / 0) (#5)
    by oculus on Sat Oct 31, 2015 at 05:49:50 PM EST
    The Mets are fighting (none / 0) (#6)
    by Peter G on Sat Oct 31, 2015 at 08:24:33 PM EST
    their way back from losing the first two games. Looking good in the 3d inning of the 4th game.

    Bummer (5.00 / 1) (#11)
    by McBain on Sat Oct 31, 2015 at 11:03:33 PM EST
    I'm not a Mets fan but I'm still pulling for them to win this series.  Murphy's error will be remembered for a long time but Clippard opened the door for that mess with two walks.  

    Parent
    8:40 4th Q: Notre Dame 17, Temple 17. (none / 0) (#7)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Sat Oct 31, 2015 at 10:11:04 PM EST
    Tonight's effort by the underdog Owls has been inspiring.

    Final: Notre Dame 24, Temple 20. (5.00 / 1) (#10)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Sat Oct 31, 2015 at 10:40:40 PM EST
    The Irish really dodged a bullet in Philadelphia, as the Owls lose a heartbreaker.

    Parent
    4:40 4Q: Temple 20, Notre Dame 17. (none / 0) (#8)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Sat Oct 31, 2015 at 10:24:06 PM EST
    Can Temple hang on to spring the upset? Notre Dame has shown a lot of resilience in comebacks this season, so the Owls have their work cut out for them.

    Parent
    2:09 4th Q: Notre Dame 24, Temple 20. (none / 0) (#9)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Sat Oct 31, 2015 at 10:30:07 PM EST
    The Irish respond to the challenge.

    Parent
    Halloween is always the best week of the year (none / 0) (#12)
    by CaptHowdy on Sun Nov 01, 2015 at 09:32:05 AM EST
    For TV.   This was a particularly good one judging from what I snagged on the DVR.  

    I think with all the new delivery systems making all the overused standards accessible with a click TV channels are feeling a bit more free to go more esoteric with the programming.

    Good year.


    Face palm of the day (so far) (none / 0) (#13)
    by CaptHowdy on Sun Nov 01, 2015 at 09:39:39 AM EST

    When Gay told the judge "I did the things I did all because I was impulsive... I was just being young and dumb," she responded by saying that he was weak and that he would be quickly made into someone's "bitch."

    The judge told him, "Do you know what would happen... to a young dumb person in prison? Do you have any idea what would happen to you? You would probably be raped every day, for one. And I hate to sound like that, you know -- rude, but that's exactly what would happen to you."

    "Again, he's going to be somebody's --I hate to use the word `b!tch', but that's exactly what he's going to be... so I am willing to put him onprobation." she added.



    If so, then the federal government has got a deal for you, through the involuntary courtesy of Rita Crundwell, the former longtime city comptroller and treasurer of President Ronald Reagan's boyhood hometown of Dixon, IL.

    Ms. Crundwell, who served -- mostly herself, apparently -- in that capacity for over 30 years, pled guilty to wire fraud in federal court back in November 2012, having misused her position as comptroller to loot the small city's treasury of $53.7 million over a 22-year period, part of which she used to amass a veritable empire of quarter horses.

    So, while Rita's cooling her heels in prison for the next 20 years or so, the U.S. Marshals Service is auctioning off her ill-gotten assets as they find and seize them. To be sure, it's a rather laborious and involved process, given the recent revelation that she's still earning thousands of dollars a year in breeder royalties from show horses she no longer owns.

    Meanwhile, Crundwell has also been responsible, albeit inadvertently, for the serious effort underway in Dixon to overhaul and reform its government operations in the wake of her massive fiscal transgressions, which ultimately cost the city over $100 million due to the neglect of its infrastructure and mismanagement of its resources. City residents recently voted to abolish its former commissioner-led government and replace it with a city manager-led system, in an effort to ensure greater accountability in the future.

    But to offer a bad if entirely appropriate pun, Dixon residents are only now closing the barn door after all of Rita's quarter horses escaped. While Crundwell's position was an appointed one, the town's commissioners were elected by its citizens, and those commissioner resolutely failed in their oversight duties for over two decades.

    It was the city clerk, serving as acting comptroller while Rita Crundwell was on vacation in the fall of 2011, who discovered the ongoing malfeasance. She went directly to the FBI with her concerns, effectively bypassing her own bosses, who were those same commissioners who had stood by Crundwell all these years and vouched for her integrity.

    Democracy is meant to be a fully participatory process. This massive and very expensive failure in civic governance is what can happen when citizens don't perform their own due diligence regarding the people they're electing to lead and run the show.

    Aloha.

    Our local treasurer was corrupt on a smaller scale (none / 0) (#15)
    by Mr Natural on Sun Nov 01, 2015 at 04:01:50 PM EST
    Two of her best pals, we found out only three weeks ago, had never paid a single sewer bill in the 14 years since they'd been connected.  One of them was exceptionally able to duck property taxes as well.

    Parent
    Now playing: "A Debit to His Race," ... (none / 0) (#16)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Mon Nov 02, 2015 at 07:49:38 PM EST
    ... in which Jonah Goldberg channels Captain Ahab's pelagic nemesis in "Moby Dick," by trying to explain to us who's really an authentic African-American and who is not:

    "One could argue that [Ben Carson's] even more authentically African-American than Barack Obama, given that Obama's mother was white and he was raised in part by his white grandparents. In his autobiography, Obama writes at length about how he grew up outside the traditional African-American experience -- in Hawaii and Indonesia -- and how he consciously chose to adopt a black identity when he was in college."

    Thar she blows!

    And Charlie Pierce (none / 0) (#17)
    by Zorba on Mon Nov 02, 2015 at 08:41:14 PM EST
    has a few pointed words about a white guy presuming to pontificate about who is "authentically black."

    Link.

    Parent

    "Here's some stupid for lunch." LOL! (5.00 / 1) (#18)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Mon Nov 02, 2015 at 11:21:17 PM EST
    Charles Pierce: "Yes, that's Jonah Goldberg, giving America lessons in what it means to be Authentically Black. Next, I'll be giving a seminar on what it's like to be Tsar of all the Russias."

    Honestly, Goldberg's got to be one of the dumbest and most tone-deaf of Republican pundits out there. About a decade ago in his weekly column in the Los Angeles Times, he essayed his reasons why the then-mounting casualties in Iraq were a reasonable price to pay for what the Bush administration was trying to accomplish.

    The blowback he received both online and in the Letters to the Editor was intense, with most writers asking: (a) why the Los Angeles Times continued to publish his senseless drivel; and (b) if he thought the Iraq War was such a marvelous idea, why didn't he sign enlist in the army and volunteer to go over there, given that he was young enough at the time to do so.

    Why the L.A. Times still has Goldberg on its op-ed pages, I'll never know. His stuff is nothing but specious political hackitude.

    Aloha.

    Parent

    FARGO (none / 0) (#20)
    by CaptHowdy on Tue Nov 03, 2015 at 11:07:28 AM EST
    This might be the best season yet.

    So good.