teke184

*wonders if Boston will be the first team in history to not only come back from a 0-3 deficit but also to BLOW a 3-0 advantage*

"if" -> "when" Given the way that the electoral votes are falling at the moment (not even going into rumors that Kerry is pulling out of Florida), Bush winning is becoming a greater possibility by the day.

In that case, do you want to get really obscure and do games like Texas Southern vs. Prarie View A&M from the SWAC? Or are you limiting it to I-A teams only? All bitching aside, I think I'll do well with these picks because I have a decent feel for bad teams. Hell, I've seen Mississippi State, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Arkansas State, New Mexico State, Louisiana-Monroe, and Louisiana-Lafayette play.

Depends... If Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and/or Colorado are in question AND the votes involved will make a difference in the election, there will be accusations of disenfranchisement from the left and voter fraud from the right. Other states such as Tennessee are reporting registration fraud as well but are NOT battleground states.

Let's also not forget the widespread newstories about voter registration fraud in Colorado... I believe one guy said that he registered 30 times because his buddies, who were registration workers, wanted the per-head credit for signing him up.

From most polls I've seen, Colorado is solid Bush territory. Kerry pulling all ads and appearances from there has pretty much sealed it. I figure Arkansas is safe unless Clinton campaigns heavily there (and actually gets a positive response), but the chances of him doing so are low because Kerry needs Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania much more than Arkansas. (Arkansas has been close lately but, frankly, there have been few polls there by reliable companies. I tend to ignore Zogby et all.) Hawaii won't matter too much in the electoral college, barring an evenly split race down the line, as their voting closes so much later than every mainland state and, as a result, knows who the likely winner is. The only thing it can do is convince each side to waste resources there that may be more effective elsewhere.

To repeat what a Kerry campaigner has said, CBS "better hope we don't win". Bring back Ken Starr! I want him to investigate Dan Quixote and Sancho Mapes!

I'll be sampling much out my liquor cabinet that night, but I mainly plan on working on a bottle of Captain Morgan and a bottle of Southern Comfort.

No, but it happens more often than not.

Rob, I'd like to hear you explain how someone could remove 380 tons of explosives within the 6 day gap you're talking about between the US arriving and NBC's crew seeing the building. That would take an awful lot of looters to remove THAT much stuff in the middle of a war zone. There may have been some of it left by the time they got there, but it appears it was almost all gone by then.

Spurrier, IMHO, would be nuts to go back to Florida. It's hard to follow a legend, even if it's yourself. On top of that, he has almost nothing left to achieve there, as he's already won a national title and coached one of his pet QBs to a Heisman Trophy. The only thing left would be to challenge the old Oklahoma winning streak (48 games?) and that would be damn near impossible to pull off in the SEC, let along any other league. He's better off taking over a big program in transition that needs a new coach. Clemson comes to mind, as Tommy Bowden will be looking for work at the end of the season.

Vandy's traditionally the worst team in the SEC but they're always well coached and, with experience, can prove to be decent. The reason they're decent this year is that they returned about 23 starters, making them the most experienced team in the league so far. As far as UK goes, I'd agree that they're bad but they haven't lost to a Division I-AA team. That's the main reason that Mississippi State comes in below them, even taking the Florida win into consideration.

Just like last time! This time, I'm assuming at the start that Florida is going to be Jeb'ed no matter what the polls say. I've been more interested in Ohio much more than FL. Florida being in either column won't have a damn thing to do with Jeb. You're right, though, in that Ohio will be one of the flash points come Election Day. Between Ohio and Pennsylvania, there are about 50 electoral votes tied up that will probably end up deciding the election and things have been looking fucking dirty so far.

Well, that clears up everything! Nov. 2nd is going to be a LONG night... That's why I'm taking leave on Wednesday the 3rd... I'm going to stay up drinking Hurricanes, Cuba Libres, martinis, and whatever else I can find in my Big Book Of Bartending guide and watching election returns come in until I either hear "George W. Bush has been re-elected" or "GODDAMMIT, this is Florida 2000 all over again!"

I doubt it'll get much play. -=Mike Still... looks promising that NBCstill has some sembalance of journalistic integrity. ABC, CBS, and the NYTimes have taken huge hits in the past two months.

Rob, Rehnquist will have to step down soon. He's not young, he has cancer, and I have doubts about his ability to continue doing his job. And, curse my pessimism, him not living a great deal longer isn't exactly outside the realm of the possible. NEITHER candidate, however, has discussed this issue in any depth and THIS, in my opinion, is the biggest issue facing us. The War on Terror isn't permanent. It will eventually end. Supreme Court decisions tend to be brutally difficult to change. -=Mike They talked about this briefly at one of the debates. Bush's answer was "strict constructionalists", which means "Interpret the Constitution, not make shit up like Earl Warren did." Kerry's answer was "There will be an Abortion litmus test." Personally, I side with Bush, which comes as a suprise to about 1% of y'all. While I think abortion should be legal, the legality for it right now is VERY sketchy, as Warren Berger pulled the case for it together using bits and pieces of old Earl Warren decisions that talked about the right to privacy. (Incidentally, privacy is NOT in the Constitution. It's just interpreted as such by the Warren-era court mainly by expanding the 14th Amendment.) The legality of abortion should be covered state-to-state and, IMHO, should be subject to public voting. If the people want it allowed in their state, they'll get it. However, I'd say that the map of states where it would be legal will vaguely resemble the Electoral College map come next Tuesday.

"Will die soon" is overstating it. "Is more likely to vacate his spot" (by death or by choice) IS likely, though, depending on how much this takes out of him. He may decide it's not worth the stress.

I tend to ignore most of the Mountain West, MAC, WAC, and Sun Belt intentionally for these purposes. Mainly, that's because half of the teams are close to being forced back to I-AA status and most of the other half doesn't have the resources to compete year-in year-out with even the mid-level teams from the Big 5 conferences (SEC, Pac 10, Big 10, Big 12, ACC). NOTE- Conference USA is not listed above because it's on par with the Big East right now, as teams like Southern Miss, Louisville, Memphis, UAB, and TCU are some of the better mid-major teams each year.

If Rehnquist has to leave the Court soon, I'd go with Clarence Thomas as the new Chief Justice if he can get re-confirmed. Thomas is the youngest of the judges by 9 years (56, 9 years younger than the 65 year old David Souter), in the best health, and is solidly conservative. Antonin Scalia, while I'd like him as Chief Justice, is about 70. That's the age at which a lot of health problems could crop up quickly. Sandra Day O'Connor would be another good choice and one that would be a lot easier to confirm than Thomas or Scalia, but she already expressed an interest in stepping down as far back as 2000. Anthony Kennedy could get confirmed as Chief Justice but many conservatives would be pissed, as he's the one who lead the SC's charge to de-criminalize homosexual sodomy, which lead into the current Gay Marriage political issue. Souter, Ginsburg, Stevens, and Breyer don't have a hope in Hell of becoming CJ if Bush wins. If Kerry wins, I'd say that Breyer probably has the best shot because Stevens is 80 years old, Ginsberg's had cancer, and Souter, while tending to vote liberal, also tends to side with Rehnquist a lot. That doesn't discount the possibility of the new Justice being named to the court immediately becoming the Chief Justice. That's actually a remarkably common act, as Rehnquist is one of only three Chief Justices who were elevated within the Supreme Court to the role of Chief Justice.

Here's three more contenders for Worst I-A Program Ever: Rutgers, Duke, and Temple. As for Mississippi State, they'd be the worst team in the SEC right now if they hadn't beaten Florida... Their only other win was over Tulane which, UAB win non-withstanding, is one of the worst I-A mid-major programs right now. They'd also lost to MAINE, a friggin' I-AA team. Kentucky's pretty bad too, losing to the University of Ohio amongst others, but Miss State is still worse IMHO. Vanderbilt's a traditional patsy but they've actually won 3-4 games this year.

Article Considering that the only times Hawaii has gone Republican in its history have been in landslide elections for Nixon (1972) and Reagan (1984), this could be showing that Kerry is in bigger trouble than anyone seems to realize.

Most elections are settled by about midnight EST on election day, about 4 hours after the polls close in the Eastern states. This past election was an abberation because it was so close. This election has the potential to be another nightmare, although it could break strongly for either candidate early and influence voting in the Mountain and Pacific states.

Oahu still provides 70% of the state's votes, so Bush being in the running there STILL means that Kerry's got some trouble in paradise. Kerry shouldn't be having to waste any of his campaign resources wrapping up a state that is supposed to be a Democrat stronghold.

Jesus... picks some more obscure games, whydontcha? Central Michigan vs. Western Michigan and Utah State vs. Middle Tennessee State? Not even fans of the MAC or Sun Belt give a rat's ass about those games.

Arafat was part of the peace process in the mid-90s but has been a serious impediment to further peace. His inept leadership of the Palestinian Authority, rampant cronyism within its ranks, and his inability to stop Palestinian violence against the Israelis, including suicide bombings, has lead people to believe that the peace process can't go forward until Arafat is out of power, either by choice or by his death.