NCAA First Weekend & Other News

Note - I will highlight all basketball posts in red so Lisa can skip them.

Chalk City going into the Sweet Sixteen. The East and South regions are all 1 through 4 seeds. The West had 1-3 seeds with only 5 seed Purdue out of the top 4. The Midwest also had 1-3 seeds, but at least they had one outlier with Arizona being a 12 seed.

And those DVDs that the United States gave the British PM weren't in the right format after all. Is this what Hilary Clinton refers to as "smart power" in diplomacy?

As I said, only two teams seeded outside the top 4 made it to the Sweet Sixteen. The Big East led the way with five. The Big 12 was second with three. The Big Ten and ACC had two each. The Big Ten didn't surprise me because I didn't think they were that good, but the ACC only having two was a bit surprising. Especially since Florida State, Clemson, Boston College and Wake (got thumped) all lost in the first round. I thought they were better than that. With the PAC-10 getting one team in the Sweet Sixteen and the SEC with a goose egg, that means mid-majors had three teams make the second weekend, but it's tough to call Memphis, Xavier and Gonzaga mid-majors anymore.

Woman goes to jail in her wedding dress. She calls it her "greatest nightmare". I can think of worse ones, but as a man, there's always the horrors at the thought of getting junk caught in machinery. She's complaining because a picture of her in her wedding dress was taken while in the courtroom. Not sure why since that's kind of in public. I'm just mad because I searched for the picture that was supposedly making the rounds but didn't find it. I did find one news article with her mug shot (or the worst wedding picture ever), but then I lost interest.

I said from the beginning that Arizona didn't belong in the tournament. The fact that they won their first two games doesn't change my mine about it any more than Wake losing to Cleveland State means they didn't belong. Arizona didn't deserve to be there. And they just beat Utah and Cleveland State to get there. So what? UNLV beat Utah too. They also beat UL who ended up being a one seed. No one considered UNLV to be a serious contender for an NCAA bid. Maybe they should have been. Know who else UNLV beat? Arizona.

Big controversy because insurance company AIG was bailed out by the federal government to the tune of buying 80% of the company, but is paying out $165 million in retention bonuses to people who ran the company into the ground. Politicians are outraged. Barak Obama is taking responsibility because his treasury department approved them. Of course, he's saying he's taking the blame but saying it's not his fault. I like how he says some people are blaming the Republicans which makes no sense at all. You see, Senator Christopher Dodd (NOT A REPUBLICAN-CT) changed the language of the stimulus package (passed with only three Republican Senators, no Republican Congressmen and signed by a non-Republican President) that exempted those bonuses from being withheld. Now Congress is trying to backtrack and fix things by taxing all of the bonuses which is most likely unconstitutional and will result in the bonuses being paid and the US blowing money on the suit. Outstanding. The truth is that the bonuses are part of contracts that were exempted and have already been paid. Can't get them back. Well, they could have stopped it by doing what I said - don't bail them out. No money means no bonuses. Why the Hell are they paying to retain people who did a bad job to begin with? It's not like there aren't plenty of out of work financial types if AIG tells its people they have a choice between taking their bonus or getting let go.

Living in Lexington should make the NCAA viewing experience better because the local CBS affiliate also owns the CW channel which means they can show two games at once. If they wanted to. I don't know how many times the same game was on both stations even though there was another game on.

I wonder if Dodd removing the AIG bonus language from the stimulus bill and the Obama treasury department approving the bonuses was in any way related to Dodd and Obama being the two biggest Senatorial recipients of AIG campaign donations in 2008. Just asking. Of course, if they want AIG to give back their bonuses because they accepted taxpayer money, shouldn't Obama and Dodd give back those donations?

They keep running a Buffalo Wild Wings commercial that has the restaurant chain signaling a sideline photographer to use a giant flash to cause a player to miss so the game goes into overtime. Is Buffalo Wild Wings admitting that they fix games?

I thought the feds should have kept out of bailouts because I don't think government does what it's already supposed to very well. Why would I think they could actually run a bank or insurance firm? Want confirmation? One of the biggest drivers of the economic problems we face was banks being pushed to extend credit to high risk candidates. Well, one New England bank stayed out of trouble by actually looking at the credit rating of customers. Did they get a government award for their foresightedness? Nope, they got dinged by the FDIC for not lending enough to high risk applicants. If government regulators are too stupid to figure this out after we ran into these economic problems, why would we want them to have more control?

I mentioned above that Memphis was one of the non-BCS teams that made the Sweet Sixteen. Some dumbass from the University of Maryland stuck his foot in his mouth by saying that Memphis would have had a losing record in the ACC. Well, Memphis smacking down Maryland doesn't really prove that false since Maryland had a losing record in the ACC. But the fact that Memphis made the Sweet Sixteen which five ACC tournament teams couldn't do does. Oh, and Memphis making the finals last year (something the ACC didn't manage) means Vasquez is really stupid.

Speaking of foot in the mouth, our vaunted leader took time from giving unworkable DVDs and approving/disapproving of retention bonuses to make a visit on the Tonight Show where he commented on his bowling ability by comparing it to the Special Olympics. Which somehow caused some controversy. Well, only a little. So much for that Obama eloquence I keep reading about. I like that the White House statement said it wasn't meant to disparage the Special Olympics but was instead making fun of his bowling ability. Because making fun of your abilities by comparing them to a mentally challenged event would in no way disparage them. Granted, I'm not clean on this since I use the term retarded. But usually about non-retarded people being stupid. Oh, and I'm not the President of the United States.

I usually keep up with sports pretty well, but until the tournament started, I didn't realize former Stanford coach Mike Montgomery was the head coach at California. Or that the former California coach Todd Bozeman was the head coach at Morgan State. Actually, I'm not surprised I didn't know who the head coach of Morgan State was.

And I'm not attacking Obama just to be attacking, but there is clearly a double standard. Would George W. Bush have been ridiculed a lot more for that kind of crap? I think that's pretty obvious. I don't know why conservatives like me believe there is a liberal bias in the press. Sure, Slate is still running a stupid Bush quote of the day even though he's been out of office for over two months. That's no reason to see bias in the media.

I'm still concerned about UL's focus in this tournament. They keep going into brainlock during games. The entire first half of the Morehead State game. Part of the second half against Siena. Can't keep relying on Terrence Williams to pull their ass out of the fire. Need to focus. But looking at what Williams has done for this team, he's knocking out guys from the '86 championship team in popularity. He probably can't surpass a Darrell Griffith, but I know I'll be buying his bobblehead from day one if they make one of him.

This story is quite disturbing. It involves possible child pornography. Well, they never found child pornography. A woman was in jail and decided to get back at her ex by telling the police to search her laptop because he may have been downloading child porn. Instead they found videos in the recycle bin of her getting licked in her private parts by her beagle. And by beagle, I mean beagle. Which she blamed on the booze. I've done some stupid crap while loaded, but bestiality never really came up. Obviously she needs to learn how to empty the recycle bin before giving her laptop to the cops.

In hindsight, Western Kentucky got screwed in the seeding. They made the Sweet Sixteen last year. Sure they lost some players, but they beat Louisville this year so why were they only a 12? Siena got a 9 based on making it out of the first round last year, but they didn't get out of the second round either year.

Finally some good news. The Baldwin brothers are teaming up to get Lindsay Lohan the help she needs. Well, born again Christian Stephen and former junkie Daniel. I guess Daniel will show her that she's a drug using amature compared to him. But hey, he was in John Carpenter's Vampires which I found to be a great movie. And I could make a crack about Stephen understanding shame since he played Barney Rubble in The Flintstones live action sequel except he got the better end of the deal. Betty Rubble was played by Jane Krakowski in the sequel while she was played by Rosie O'Donnell in the original. But Lohan wasn't the only former-pedophile-wishlistee that popped up on my radar. Fred Durst (he was once known for something) has opened up about his relationship with Britney Spears by saying "it was taboo for a guy like me to be associated with a gal like her." Apparently he thinks they were dating. Granted, he's right. She's half crazy and borderline white trash, but she's still way too good for him.

Speaking of Western Kentucky in the tournament, Seth Davis is a moron. There was a controversy at the end of the Western-Gonzaga game as Gonzaga scored a go ahead basket and Western wasn't awarded a timeout that was called before they inbounded the ball. Seth actually said it was the right call not to award the timeout because apparently WKU didn't ask hard enough. He said, "You only had one player for Western Kentucky, AJ Slaughter, and he didn't really emphatically call a timeout." Davis said all five players should have been calling for a timeout. To tell the whole story, Davis is full of shit because Slaughter was the only player calling a timeout, but the WKU coach was also calling for one. Greg Anthony (showing maybe a Duke degree isn't really worth more than one from UNLV) pointed out that the rules don't specify a timeout has to be called emphatically. "If you call a timeout, Seth, that's a timeout." Western only had .9 seconds left so it was unlikely that they could have scored, but the fact is that they should have been given a timeout and for Davis to insist that the refs didn't blow the call is plain stupid. Retarded even.

Apparently Alex Rodriguez wasn't just cheating on his wife with Madonna. He was also dating/banging a New York madam. Normally I would cringe at thinking about knocking it out with a hooker, but then I saw the picture. She's stacked. If he had that in the wings, what was he doing with Madonna who has never been that attractive?

I've got Louisville winning my brackets (on CBSsports.com; didn't have time to enter it on ESPN). However, UConn is looking awful tough. They're the only 1 or 2 seed not to let a team hang around deep into the second half. I was concerned about their depth with Jerome Dyson out, but maybe only playing two games a week negates that.

Isn't this nice? Russian dictator.........I mean Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has outlawed.....I mean made statements that led to the Natural Resources and Ecology Ministry to outlaw the slaughter of baby seals. Don't worry. The slaughter of reporters investigating Putin is still going strong.

Damn, the University of Tennessee women's team is getting their ass kicked by Ball State while I type this. I think this is the first time Pat Summit has lost in the first round. Louisville's women's team is up 31 in their first round game. Never thought I'd see that. Never thought I'd care.

And finally, the stripper stories. A Rhode Island (is that really a state?) strip club had a job fair. Most of the people who applied were looking for non-stripping jobs. The AP article seems surprised that most were men wanting to be bouncers. Well, duh. There is probably a finite amount of women willing to work as strippers. So, common sense says there aren't a bunch of women going to a job fair to become a stripper. But it's not like New York where some Brooklyn council member thinks $500 million by taxing a cover charge of $10 for every patron going to a strip joint. How many times do I have to explain that if you jack up the taxes on something, you aren't going to get near as much money as you think? Sure, increase the taxes on strip joints in New York City. Guys will just go to New Jersey or surrounding counties that don't have the extra tax. I can't say from personal experience, but I've heard strip clubs are expensive. Make it even more so and you can drive the business down the road. And that jurisdiction can collect the taxes.