How YouTube will ever be properly policed is beyond us, but it’s happening: Panhandler gets a video axed by Youtube simply for having the words “Florida” and “football” in it, all courtesy of Collegiate Sports, LLC. Never mind that it was just a friend of his goofing around on Broward Beach-CS is “blast-faxing” anything and everything that might be construed as copyright violation without watching it.

Does this mean the end of all the glorious free usable footage on YouTube? And if so, can we post video of Rex Grossman throwing go routes on PornTube? That’s porn to us, at least.

Overkill: a fine album by Motorhead. Also a lame legal strategy.

We implore the good women-and the ten percent of men who apply, population average-wise-to put out for your local sailor when you can. Because life on the high seas is a drudge, and when sailors get bored and lonely, they resort to doing strange things, like listening to Nickelback, for example……or like making this remake of Rudy, for example. (HT: Wooderson.)
Putting out for them not only repays them a bit for their fine work for our nation, but also gives them something to think about the next time they’re stuck on watch.

Lawyers-the EDSBS stables are filled with them. They eat a lot of hay, but they’re definitely worth all the curry brushing and hard work associated with them. You wouldn’t believe how much it hurts when they bite you. Their teeth are almost perfectly flat…but they go crazy for sugar.

At any rate, we’d like to open the doors and let the legal and wannabe legal types run around for a bit here, since the government’s questioning of the NCAA as a tax-exempt organization won’t die. Worse still, George Will’s on the case, and he’s got (gasp!) numbers:

Tax exemption also is a federal subsidy for ever more lavish facilities: Oklahoma State University, which is receiving $165 million from T. Boone Pickens to improve its athletic facilities, was already planning a $102 million upgrade of its football stadium. OSU charges fans a $2,500 “annual donation” just to become eligible to buy tickets for the best seats. The University of Michigan, which has had 198 consecutive sellouts at its stadium — it now seats 107,501 — is spending $226 million to add 3,200 luxury seats and 83 suites. The University of Texas at Austin is spending $150 million to add 10,000 seats to its current 85,123 capacity. These may be sound commercial decisions, but why should this commerce be tax-exempt?

We must mention that George Will is a baseball-loving sissy ninny whose private-school soul wouldn’t think of leaving the house without sock garters. He has no qualifications or experience re: writing about college football, and we could totally beat him senseless in a pundit Death Match. (Our Jeet Kun Do is unstoppable. We’re guessing Will would collapse into a ball, and think of Princeton.) But that’s a very good question the NCAA is doing everything not to answer: what do they do, why isn’t it commerce, and why should the commerce the NCAA effectively regulates be exempt from taxation?

George Will: pantywaist dork…with a point.

Lawyers and “internet lawyers,” you have the floor. Discuss.

Smokey the dog is a bluetick hound who doubles as a totem/mascot for the Tennessee Volunteers. Despite being a minion of our MHT (Most Hated Team-the EDSBS congress votes on it every February. And the votes are soooo rigged. Florida-educated here, remember), we get the urge to feed that dog chicken livers and beer every time we see him. He just looks so damn happy to be there, unlike UGA, who appears to be within a few quick steps of collapsing from heat stroke at all times.

Anyway, Smokey may have bitten an Alabama player who landed on top of the dog before last Saturday’s game. (HT: TCOAN.) We can’t blame him for that, since dogs do that when you appear from nowhere and jump on top of them. There’s some joke in here about Smokey having sharper teeth than the Alabama offense, but a funnier note must be included here:

The seventh Smokey was replaced by Smokey VIII, who stepped down in 2003 after he was diagnosed with a nasal tumor. He survived the cancer but died in March from high blood pressure and kidney disease.

Just like most of his fanbase. Damn that tasty country ham! It’s the killer in your skillet, Joe Public! Rest assured, Alabama fans: we’re sure that someone will find a way to do what Alabama fans have been doing for years. Which is sue someone over this.

Give that dog some beta blockers and a milkbone.

Yesterday we displayed our fair and balanced side by listing ten reasons why Georgia owns Florida. We did this since, due to something called “warrants,” we reside in Atlanta, the only reason one might conceivably move to Georgia. (But what about Tifton, you say? It’s the reading capital OF THE WORLD!!! If Ricky the Reader is wandering the streets, we don’t care if Tifton’s handing out gold ingots to new residents: we’re not going near that thing.)

Forcing children to read through FEAR: Ricky Reader, the reading mascot of Tifton, GA.

Despite that, we’re supposed to hate the University of Georgia, which is hard to do because they’ve been fetching us, the University of Florida fanbase, cold beverages and fresh appetizers for the better part of 16 years. (Paul-more chicken fingers, please!) A 14-2 run may have dulled the edge on this rivalry, but we’re certain we can strike up enough animus to come up with more than a few reasons why Florida owns Georgia.

10. Last sixteen matchups: 14-2. No one cares about history, because history is old, and old is gross and not hot. Like men with bowl cuts in red pants, say.

9. Florida players drive on valid licenses, and rarely fall asleep drunk on the toilet. Even when we fire automatic weaponry in public, we’re careful never to hit anyone.

8. No one ever ran around their neighborhood on big wheels trying to be the guys from “Augusta Vice.”

Don’t lie. You still want to touch the conga girl.

7. Not only does our football team possess larger junk than yours: even our state capital has a huge penis. Or is a huge penis. We’re really not sure, but even then we bet that the capital building has its own dick. Look at it, and all that…majesty.

Subtle. Floridian. And unmistakably bait and tackle.

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Solon gives you the Meat Lover’s edition today-oh, and you like it, you sick pig, you. Among other things, he tackles the issue of the Big East’s surprising goodness, especially re: its gambling friendly tendencies. Enjoy.-O.

Greetings all.

A question for everyone this week-why is there some sort of question regarding whether an undefeated Big East Champion should go the title game?

If you look at what each of the conferences have done this season, there are 3 BCS conferences that seem to have established themselves as the cream of the crop-the SEC, the Pac 10, and, yes, the Big East. It’s pretty complex as to why, but suffice it to say that based on historical trends, home/road, and scheduled non-conference opponents, I predicted each conference’s W-L record in non-conference games for the season, and came up with the following expected records (actual records thus far are in parentheses):

ACC: 36-12 (26-12)
Big East: 27-13 (32-8)
Big 10: 34-11 (29-11)
Big 12: 37-11 (33-15)
Pac 10: 21-10 (18-8)
SEC: 36-12 (29-7)

Georgia fans, you have to resort to Rainierism here: Ze goggles, zey do nothing!

As you can see, the Big East has outperformed expectations substantially. They haven’t done it cheaply, either; they are 11-7 against BCS opponents, despite playing 10 of the 18 games on the road. And, you’ll note that’s almost 1/2 of their non-conference games against somewhat legitimate opposition.

The advantage of the Big East relative to the other conferences, at least this season, is its depth; UConn is a bad team (although they were still able to beat Big 10 equivalent Indiana on the road), but outside of them there are no dogs in the conference. Cincinnati and South Florida are not especially good teams, but they played Louisville and Rutgers tough (respectively); Cincinnati led Va Tech on the road in the 4th quarter of their game. Syracuse is in the bottom half of the conference, but they played Iowa even (yes, I know Tate didn’t play)-and Iowa is the 4th best team in the Big 10, at worst-and, Syracuse crushed Illinois on the road. And, as far as Louisville and West Va, no non-conference opponent has even come close to beating either of them. Obviously, the Big East has had some bad results (Pitt losing to Michigan State, for example)-but hasn’t every conference?

I’m not arguing the Big East is the best conference, just that running through the conference slate undefeated in the Big East is worthy of a Championship game bid. If Clemson had beaten BC, and went on to run the table, would anyone doubt their fitness for the Championship game? Well, if you look at their schedule and look at Louisville’s, for example, there’s little difference.

Also, in terms of conference schedules, if you look at that of Louisville and you look at that of Ohio State-who misses Wisconsin this season-I also don’t think there’s a lot of difference. OSU plays NW, Indiana, Illinois, and Minnesota-those are 4 pretty easy wins. No Big East team plays 4 conference games against teams as bad as those. Louisville has no game as tough as Michigan, but the next toughest conference game for OSU is the game against Iowa or against Penn State-both of whom look like a marginal Top 25 teams, at best, at this point. One could certainly make the argument that playing West Va/Rutgers is at least as difficult as playing Michigan/Iowa.

And, yes-I know Ohio State played at Texas, and also played Cincinnati (a tougher game for them than Mich State or Indiana was, by the way) which changes things a bit-but the argument against the Big East teams isn’t with regard to their non-conference scheduling, it’s with regard to the conference being so weak that winning it undefeated is of so little import that a 1-loss team should be placed in the championship game ahead of them. And that assumption does not appear to be backed up by anything other than that people assumed the Big East wasn’t going to be good this season.

All right, rant finished. Any thoughts?

On another note, for all of you who took my preseason advice and bet Florida State to go under 9 1/2 wins this season-go cash your tickets. Didn’t take too long, really. You’re welcome.

My selections last week went 7-4, leaving me at 47-32 for the season, a winning percentage of 59.5%. Hopefully I can keep it going this week.

Here are this week’s selections.

THURSDAY:

Clemson (-4) v. VIRGINIA TECH

I have been high on Clemson all season-believing them in the preseason to be the best team in the ACC, which now seems to be the conventional wisdom-and I see no reason to get off them now if the lines are going to be this short. (more…)