Keep SMU in the playoffs

Leaving Alabama out is easy. If you need an additional SEC body in the playoffs (don't touch Tennessee, they beat Bama), take a B1G team out. Ohio State lost to Michigan and got ugly at the end. Punish them. Or take out Indiana.

The Olympics, Empires and the NCAA. Title IX won the games.

The Paris Olympic games are over, although the Para-Olympics are right around the corner. I spent much of the last few weeks watching Olympic Prime Time. Congratulations to Mike Tirico, Snoop and the NBC crew for bring us a wonderful experience. Jim McKay would have been touched by the moments you highlighted. Good Job!

Two consistent themes were mentioned during both the swimming and track events: the medal count and the the university affiliations of many of the athletes on both Team USA and international athletes. I took the bait and looked deeper into these counts, having spent my life working with numbers for the government as a civil servant and a contractor. For your edification and enjoyment, I have prepared a few tables on each topic.

The first two tables show the medal counts based on political groupings - to highlight what the medal count would be if the African and European Unions fielded teams rather than having their member states do so. There is no surprise that the statistics are skewed toward the EU. 

African Union members were counted there, rather than in BRICS or the Commonwealth. Between being part of the unified military, and economic block or giving consent to changes in the British monarchy, I chose the military alliance.

Non-aligned nations are in South Asia and Middle East and in South America - places where some form of federal government would benefit the people by putting elites against each other.

This breakout is similar to national comparisons regarding educational statistics that put the United States in a low position, to the alarm of those who dislike public education, rather than either disaggregating the U.S. into its 50 separate state educational systems or considering Europe as a single system the way the world looks at the U.S. Perhaps the U.S. needs a more regional form of government with each region having its own Olympic Team. A great many worthy athletes are not allowed to compete - but I will circle back to that point in a bit.

This is a look at the medal count in terms of regional games in the "off years." It provides a bit more visibility as to where the non-aligned teams are from.

The next slice of the data considers all of the NCAA in terms of nations, schools and  - what I am surprised no one has yet published - Athletic Conferences!  These data are based on a listing of medal winners published on the NCAA web page.

Note that I counted individual athletes rather than medals held by teams - so team participants are each counted as getting a medal.

Note that four of France's medals are from UT. Hook horns, baby!

So, a lot of the European Union and Commonwealth medals from that first table are really NCAA medals. 

Note that from this chart, most of the Texas gold medals by NCAA athletes were earned for France. Vive le France, Cheri! 

Schools with less than 5 medals were not listed here, but there were plenty of them. To catch those in a total, it is best to look by conference. Again, I am shocked that this chart has not come out yet (although my not seeing it does not mean it has not been done). This table is, of course, ranked by conference and total medals. 

The ACC and SEC are tied at 77 total, with the B1G a close third at 77. The SEC wins the gold medal count. The Power 4 conferences have 262 of the 328 medals awarded to students and alumni (although the Big 12 was way behind with 27 total - closer to the Ivy League than the top 3).

After finishing these tables, I realized that I did nothing to identify which sports each conference was strong in. I am a social scientist, not a sports reporter. You can look at the NCAA web page and do your own research on which conference is strong in which type of sport (team, swimming, track and other).

A few days ago, I was browsing YouTube and came across a story about how climate change will affect the Olympic movement. The comment was made that most of the world will be priced out of competing due to the lack of climate protected facilities. The comment I made is based on these tables. It was that having advanced training facilities in the US is already the case for success, with the exception of the Chinese teams. 

As warming increases, even more of the training of Olympic athletes will be in the United States. The Olympic movement has become entertainment of the American sports viewing public, with elite athletes sponsored by American capitalism.

A huge chunk of the medals from Paris were the product of training in the member schools of the NCAA, especially in Europe and the Commonwealth. If anyone doubts the impact of Title IX, they should not after looking at these tables. 

The NCAA is now the bulwark against all sport being a wholly owned venture of the capitalist system (at least to the extent that the University system is not dominated by capitalism - although the argument can be made that it always has been). Again, 262 of the 328 NCAA medals are from Power 4 conferences.

About Astrology

The gravitic effects of planets on the solar wind, their effect on the magnetosphere, its resonance in the ionosphere and how that effects human affect exist regardless of personal belief. 

Pagan legends did not create astrology. There are no pagan gods. It is the other way around. The gods were created based on how planets influence personality. The fun part is that the Canaanite gods, which were the template for the Jewish God and Greek gods (El/Kronos and Zeus/YHWH), as well as the related myths and scriptures, evolved from these observations. Greek and Medieval philosophy (Aristotelian, Stoic, Thomist) adjusted the myths, but did not reject astrology. 

While it would be easy to ignore the data as outside of science, that would be based on values, not reason.

Even Santa bares examination. The Santa myth is the fusion of the legend of St. Nicholas, who provided doweries so poor couples could marry and the Old God - or Holly King - whose passing at the Winter Solstice is based on both astronomy and a festival used to cope with seasonal affective (mood) disorders. Are you some kind of Scientologist who believes psychiatry is a scam?

The reason alcoholism has such prevalence is as a cure for these reactions, which is why AA has extra meetings in December.

2023 GOAT list

The new top ten trophy list of Big Game, NFC, AFL, AFC, & NFL wins.

Congrats to KC for winning the Big Game and moving up from 9th to 7th!

Setting up for the Big Game and looking at the also rans

In the world of participation trophies, where showing up is as important as winning, there has been movement in the GOAT list.

SAN FRANCISCO WILL BE TIED WITH NEW ENGLAND FOR THE MOST TOTAL CHAMPIONSHIP APPEARANCES THE MOMENT THEY STEP ON THE FIELD IN TWO WEEKS.  

This is a very interesting stat and it is all due to their quarterback, who made side arm passing a thing. He is worthy of his endorsement deal. He is already on the GOAT list with Starr, Favre, Rogers, Montana, Bradshaw, Roethlisberger, Staubach, Romo, Aikman, Young, Manning (both) and Elway for the impact they have had on their team's rise on this listing. Full disclosure, I have also been a long time State Farm policy holder - when I have something to insure.

Green Bay is edged down to third and the tie for fourth place (24 appearances) now has one less member because of San Francisco's victory.

San Francisco has also moved up from 6th to 5th in the championship trophy race, adding a 13th trophy, swapping places with New York on the Trophy GOAT list. If they win next week, they will replace Dallas at #4 GOAT. If they lose, they will stay in 5th place.

Kansas City, by stepping on the field next week, will have 16 Championship appearances. This ties them for 11th place all-time with Chicago and Philadelphia. They had been tied with Minnesota and Cleveland who have 14 and they pushed Indianapolis down to 14th place.

On the all time GOAT list, KC has switched places with Washington, going from #9 to #8 (although, overall, Washington is still in the top 10 GOAT list. They just need to remember that they were once good.

If your idea of GOAT is percentage of championship games won (both conference and league), Kansas City and Tampa Bay are at the top, with KC doing so with many more trophies. So if percentages are more important than trophies, KC is already the GOAT (unless they lose next week).

If KC wins, they will switch places with Denver. Both will have eleven trophies, but KC will have the fewest losses between the two. A two position jump is nothing to sneeze at.

It has been a long march for KC to get to where they are in GOAT list, just as it took a long time for New England, Pittsburgh and Dallas to get there. Green Bay was born there (although there were no title games in the first seasons, which is why I only credit them with NFL, NFC and Big Game trophies). Before the trophies, they were essentially division champions. We have 8 such winners each year in the modern day. Not so big a deal any more.

Baltimore and Detroit have moved up on the participation trophy list by playing today, but each lost a position by losing the game. Of course, for Baltimore, this does not count the trophies they were forced to leave in Cleveland as well as the ones that Indianapolis took with them when they left in the middle of the night in 1984. With either set of trophies, they would be higher in the GOAT list. They got screwed twice - and they are still ahead of most teams who have been around longer - but what's in a name?

Because they went from 4 wins and 2 losses to 4 and 3, they leave Tampa Bay alone at 17th place while dragging Seattle up to 18th - because math. Having a 4-3 record is not as bad as it used to be. Congrats Seattle on the undeserved win on the GOAT list. To paraphrase the computer in War Games, sometimes the only way to win is not to play.

There is less to talk about after Game Day. There always is because fewer balls are in the air. I will simply congratulate the winner and post the new final list for the year.

 

Congratulations to Michigan for winning it all this year

Who came in number two? No one ever remembers, but its Washington. And with that the PAC12 exits the stage.

The Bowl Winner Rankings

In the make believe world of Sagittaria, which is down the way from Lake Wobegon and where all makes sense, Bowl Winners would rank ahead of Bowl Losers at the end of the day. In that world, here are my rankings from #3 on down:

3. Georgia, Orange 13-1

4. Oregon, Fiesta 12-2

5. Mississippi, Peach, 11-2

6. Missouri, Cotton, 11-2

7. Memphis, Liberty, 10-3

8. Arizona, Alamo, 10-3

9. LSU, ReliaQuest, 10-3

10. Notre Dame, Sun, 10-3

11. Tennessee, Citrus, 9-4

12. Clemson, Gator, 9-4

13. Maryland, Music City, 8-5

14. USC, Holiday, 8-5

15. FSU, 13-1

16. Texas, 12-2

17. Alabama 12-2

18. Liberty, 13-1

19. Ohio State, 11-2

20.  Iowa, 10-4

Arctic heat is coming our way. And fast!

The Arctic Ocean heat map seems to show that it is the Barents Sea that has warmed the Arctic, which has melted too much in summer, which has given us the new dominant weather patterns in the northern countries. The El Nino is most likely the disturbance of the long term La Nina drought pattern, with the likely mechanism for this disturbance being the Honga Tonga volcano - which changed the Trade Winds that drive Pacific heating. 

The question is, how did the Barents Sea get so warm? Answer that question, and you have cracked global warming (rather than global flooding and drought). Two separate systems.

I don't see Barents as cooling anytime soon - meaning we have reached the tipping point Climate has changed. It is not theoretical - and unless we ban gasoline in urban areas and for highway use - as well as concrete - we are stuck here. The operative question is how many people in the 110 degree weather zone have to die or flea before we do something like this?  

The first thing that will happen is the end to agriculture wherever the 110 degree heat has become the new normal. The only solution to staying there is indoor food plant growth and cloned meat and dairy (although goats and sheep may do good indoors. Growing pigs and cows that way has been a disaster.