- Of all the college football thoughts floating around in my mind right now, the dominant one has to be: Back to the shallow end of the pool, Iowa. Nothing was funnier than watching the stunned expressions on the faces of Iowa fans in Columbus after their team tried and failed to pull off yet another miracle rally to win yet another game they didn’t deserve to win. This time, the Hawkeyes lost 27-24 to Ohio State in overtime, their second straight loss. With the win, Ohio State officially claimed the Big Ten title and the league’s BCS bid. With the loss, Iowa……well, they basically bought themselves a ticket to a bowl more on their level, the Capital One Bowl or something similar. For the Iowa fans who were trying to argue as recently as kickoff of last week’s loss to Northwestern that their unbeaten Hawkeyes were national champion material…..like I said, back to the shallow end of the pool You’ll be joined there by USC, which not only lost its third game of the season, not only suffered its third conference loss of the season, not only saw its BCS hopes die, but was curb-stomped at home by Stanford, 55-21. The Cardinal racked up the most post ever against USC and embarrassed Pete Carroll’s troops in the process, running at will on the same damn power running play over and over again. At 7-3, USC won't be winning the Pac-10 for the first time in seven years and they won't be in a BCS bowl game. On the flip side, the six remaining unbeatens all held up their end of the bargain over the weekend. Cincinnati saw injured quarterback Tony Pike return in a limited role in a 24-21 win Friday night against No. 25 West Virginia. That kept the No. 5 Bearcats unbeaten, but their win definitely wasn’t as impressive as fourth-ranked TCU, which b*tch-slapped No. 16 Utah by a 55-28 count to stake its claim as one of college football’s best. Debuting ugly new uniforms by Nike, the Horned Frogs blocked punts, forced fumbles and got big plays on offense for a big win. Florida and Alabama both ground out ugly wins against overmatched SEC foes, with Florida needing all 60 minutes to dispose of unranked South Carolina, 24-14. Tim Tebow was good but not great once again and in my mind, proved that he belongs nowhere near the Heisman Trophy race this season. Alabama wasn’t exactly inspiring in dispatching Mississippi State 31-3, but that’s no stunner. Florida will crush Alabama in the SEC title game in two weeks, not a doubt in my mind. Second-ranked Texas raced out to a 40-0 halftime lead against Baylor and played its scrubs in the second half of a 47-14 win that was even easier than the score would indicate. Oh, and Colt McCoy doesn’t deserve to be in the Heisman race either; his 17 touchdowns against nine interceptions aren’t nearly enough. The final unbeaten was No. 6 Boise State, which proved that while in-state rival Idaho is much better this season, the Vandals still don’t belong on the same field as the Broncos. Boise State scored early and often, left its starters in late and routed Idaho 63-25 on the strength of five touchdowns from quarterback Kellen Moore, who has 32 touchdown passes, only three interceptions, more yards than Tebow or McCoy and should be one of the leaders in the Heisman race. Other interesting games on the day involved unranked Notre Dame further helping push the eject button on Charlie Weis’ tenure in South Bend by failing to show up for a scheduled game in Pittsburgh and losing 27-22, Michigan continuing an incredibly slide into the crapper by losing 45-24 to Wisconsin for a fifth straight Big Ten loss and a distinct chance of missing out on a bowl game for the second time in two years under coach Rich-er Fraud-riguez and fellow Big Ten-er Minnesota needing a late field goal to scrape by Div. 1-AA South Dakota State, 16-13. The Big 12 North continues to be the worst division in all of college football, as division leader Kansas State was throttled by a mediocre Missouri team 38-12, giving way to Nebraska, which seized the division lead by defeating Kansas 31-17, setting up a clash of the terrible titans next week against Kansas State to see which one of them Texas will massacre in the Big 12 title game in a couple of weeks. There were some exciting games overall, but a whole lot of blowouts, especially in the top 25. What I love is that six unbeatens remain and while only five can stay that way, five unbeaten teams would totally f*ck up the BCS and provide even more proof how big a piece of sh*t the system is and how much college football needs a playoff………
- Boy, oh boy! We have another investment scheme on our hands and you know how I love to hear about slimy, greasy scam artists bilking stupid, naïve and clueless people out of their hard-earned money! Step right up, Fort Lauderdale attorney Scott Rothstein, don’t be shy. The FBI and IRS believe Rothstein swindled $1 billion from his victims and are currently seeking a) his co-conspirators and b) possible additional victims. As with most con men, Rothstein allegedly sold bogus settlements and promised huge returns to people who invested millions. How people who were smart enough to earn that much money in the first place were also dumb enough to fall for such outrageous promises is a bit perplexing, but let’s plow ahead. This is a big case for the FBI, with agent John Gillies, the special agent in charge at the FBI's Miami District Office, claiming it could be one of the largest investigations the office has ever seen. It’s worth nothing that at this point, Rothstein has not been arrested and no charges have been filed against him. “There are voluminous records that the agents are going through. Each record is another investigative lead, and we are conducting this investigation in a timely manner, but we will not be rushed. We will be thorough, and we are far from over,” Gillies said. "As we continue to look through this alleged scheme and the various tentacles that we continue to uncover, I'm letting the public know that this case is going to take time.” At this point, at least a dozen FBI agents are working on the case, along with an equal number of IRS agents. One advantage Rothstein has at this point is that he was in Morocco when the allegations broke, so he doesn’t have to worry about getting out of the United States to go into hiding, er, avoid facing justice, er, get away to clear his mind. But that doesn’t seem to worry Gillies, who vowed to bring Rothstein to justice if he is indeed guilty. "He can run, but he can't hide," Gillies said. Now, if you believe that you or someone you know may have been a victim of Rothstein’s scam, you are encouraged to contact the FBI’s Miami office. Of course, my argument is these cases is always that people dumb enough to be bilked by such blatantly obvious scams don’t deserve to have anyone fight for them, but leave it to the FBI to disagree…………
- I’ve never run the government of a major world power, but I have to assume that when one finds oneself in that position, having to leave a major international summit because a member of your country’s military has been accused of spying for a foreign government is a tad awkward. Such is the plight of Peruvian President Alan Garcia, who left Singapore on the eve of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit after learning of reports that an air force officer was accused of spying for the Chilean government. "We do consider, from the information that have received, that we need an explanation and sanctions to those involved," Foreign Minister Garcia Belaunde explained. Speaking from Singapore, he admitted that he “did not have all the elements of the story," but confirmed that the suspect is "under arrest and in the hands of the judicial power in Peru." Because Garcia left to return to Peru, he had to cancel a summit with his Chilean counterpart, Michelle Bachelet. Yeah, even if he had stayed, that probably would have been more than a little awkard. The two sides have reportedly spoken about the situation, but neither was willing to comment further at this point. "Chile does not spy," Carolina Toha, spokeswoman for Chile's Ministry of Foreign Relations. "Chile takes international relations as a serious matter." L-I-A-R. Everyone country spies to some extent, it’s simply that some are better at it than others and are able to spy undetected. So the other 20 member nations of APEC will have to go about their business without Garcia while he speeds back home to execute this alleged traitor, er, um, delve into a complicated situation and discern the truth. Lots of success in that endeavor, President Garcia, I’m sure you’ll do just fine………
- Big news for you, space dorks. NASA announced Friday it had discovered water on the moon, meaning we are one step closer to finding a way to get rid of our world’s undesirables by sending them to live in space. Oh, and the discovery of water could also allow for the development of a lunar space station, if you’re interested in that sort of thing. The discovery was announced by project scientist Anthony Colaprete at a midday news conference. "I'm here today to tell you that indeed, yes, we found water. And we didn't find just a little bit; we found a significant amount" -- about a dozen, two-gallon bucketfuls, he said. This discovery comes from that overrated event on October 9 when NASA intentionally crashed the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, into the permanently shadowed region of Cabeus crater near the moon's south pole. The event was a major disappointment for all of the space dorks who took NASA’s advice to host lunar watch parties to see the explosion and ended up seeing next to nothing, but clearly the agency learned a lot from the event. Based on the preliminary data collected when October 9, when a rocket flew through the debris cloud after the satellite impact, NASA found a significant amount of water. The data was collected from the satellite's spectrometers, which provide the best information about the presence of water. For my non-tech dork readers, a spectrometer helps identify the composition of materials by examining light they emit or absorb. As for the water, it could come from several possible sources, including: solar winds, comets, giant molecular clouds or even the moon itself through internal activity. But regardless of where it comes from, the news that there is a decent amount of water present on the moon is sure to excite space dorks around the world and have them even more eager to line up a spot on one of Richard Branson’s soon-to-begin flights to outer space…………
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