Bowls, Polls, Field Goals (&c.) Addendum

Had I known about the ending of the NFC Championship, I would have had something to add to Bowls, Polls, Field Goals (&c).  The NFL's provision for overtime is for "sudden death," viz., whoever scores first wins the game, and if no one scores, the game ends in a tie anyway (which makes the system rather pointless), save in the playoffs.  Sin City scored on the opening possession of overtime, thus effectively winning the game (and going on to win the Hyperbowle) because of a coin toss.  Sudden death is a fit fate for whoever came up with this rule.

Uncommon Commentary #99: Bowls, Polls, Field Goals (&c.), Part II

Do you recall how, at the beginning of Bowls, Polls, Field Goals, (&c.), I wrote that the reasons why I no longer watch the game that we in the Usa call "football" were "not necessarily limited to" what followed?  Here are more of them.

1. Showboating is pervasive in "football," to the irritation of nearly everyone.  This unsportsmanlike conduct ought to be penalized accordingly, yet neither the NCAA nor the NFL makes any discernible effort at such enforcement.
2. In the second half of NFL matchups, the clock stops with two minutes remaining to play and upon the attainment of a first down thereafter.  The reason is to facilitate come-from-behind efforts, and thus make the endings of games more dramatic than they would be minus this artificiality.  It reminds me of Democrats' approach to economic matters.
3. Teams ought not to be allowed to play in domed stadiums, which magnify sound, thus giving the home team an unfair advantage.  This is true even when crowd noise is not being used intentionally as a weapon versus the visitor, as it often is, in violation of the spirit of the game.
4. Only quarterbacks, running backs, and receivers ever win the Heisman Trophy anymore, and even these recipients are so often undeserving that they could be mistaken for Nobel Peace Prize laureates.  The hyperbole associated with it is well-known.  Why aren't people similarly obsessed with the Maxwell Award, which is also given to the player who's deemed best?
5. The gridiron these days seems to have no more imagination than the Government does.  The uniforms of NFL teams all seem to have some combination of blue and silver; thanks in no small part to the influence of totalitarianism lite (see the list of Domanisms) or political correctness, people think that just about the only nicknames now available for a team are ones that invoke either animals or natural phenomena such as storms.
6. The Baltimore Ravens are really the Cleveland Browns under an assumed name.  They ought to move back to Cleveland to replace the impostors, who ought to move to Indianapolis to replace the Colts, who ought to move back to Baltimore.  Since New York also has the Giants, who long antedate the Jets, the latter ought to go to Los Angeles or to some other city that doesn't have a franchise.
7. The NFL tries to enforce what it calls parity, by giving the best teams the strongest schedules and the worst teams the weakest ones.  This has the desired but undesirable effect of punishing success and rewarding lack of the same—think of it as Affirmative Action for losing teams—and thus making many season win-loss records misleading, and it often does so cumulatively, since schedule strength is based on the previous year's results.  In 1999 the Titans went 13-3 before the postseason, but won only three games against opponents that had a winning record: two versus the 14-2 Jaguars and one versus the 13-3 Rams, neither of whom had beaten any winning teams.
8. It's not just how many games that you lose in "college football," but when you lose them that's important.  1965 saw Michigan State, Arkansas, and Nebraska all go 10-1; which team finished #1 in the final AP poll?  9-1-1 Alabama.  Why?  Michigan State, Arkansas, and Nebraska each lost their bowl, whereas Alabama, the highest-ranked non-undefeated team at the conclusion of the regular season, won theirs, and there's an unwritten rule that you can't be voted champion if you end the season with a loss, even if you've had a better year overall than has anyone else.  The 1993 season saw a new wrinkle: Florida State and Notre Dame each finished with one loss, but, because Notre Dame's defeat came in the final contest before bowls, Florida State was chosen as "national champion," despite losing to Notre Dame.
9. The NFL has twice as many teams as it did 40 years ago.  It ought to undo its 1970 merger with the AFL, and allocate to that league the 10 old-AFL teams as well as the five expansion franchises that we’ve seen since then; the NFL would thus have the Giants, Browns, Packers, Bears, '49ers, Steelers, Saints, Vikings, Colts, Falcons, Rams, Lions, Cowboys, Redskins, Eagles, and Cardinals, and the AFL would have everyone else.  The league champions would still play another in the Hyperbowle (see the list of Domanisms), just as they did after the 1966-1969 seasons, and as the winners of the American and National League pennants meet in the World Series.
10. The "prevent defense" is generally used in a situation where your team leads by more than a touchdown late in the game.  It has its basis in the assumption that you can afford to allow your opponent to score so long as it's not a quick score, which would give them time to score again; since the game clock stops when a pass falls incomplete, but not when a completion is made, you should therefore allow them to complete all except deep passes, so that, if they score, they'll have used too much precious time in order to do so.  This might be logical if not for the possibility that the team that has just narrowed your lead will execute a successful onside kick, which will give them immediate possession of the ball and good field position.  I've seen no statistics on the subject, but the chance of this happening is probably equal to or greater than that of the team's scoring a touchdown in just a few plays.  It's bad enough to see your team give up a score for no reason when they have a substantial lead, but some coaches use this defense even when the opponent is within a touchdown or less of victory.  In a game that I watched in 1993 or '4, Green Bay, ahead 13-12 with under two minutes to play, began playing the prevent defense; Minnesota went right down the field, and kicked a winning field goal. (I wonder whether the New England Idiots won in the same way versus the St. Louis Lambs in the Hyperbowle, which game I didn't see.)  At least the name "prevent defense" seems apt, since prevent (successful) defense is what it often does.

Uncommon Commentary #98

Obama said recently that he would rather be "a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president."  This quote is incomplete, since he gave no opinion on being the worst president to serve any number of terms.

Uncommon Commentary #97: It Ought to be Spelled "Wreckonciliation"

The Republican upset in Massachusetts is welcome news, but I don't see how it means what many have said it means, namely, that Health Scare (see the list of Domanisms) can be pronounced "dead."  The Senate and House bills, after all, have both already passed their respective chambers, and so all that remains to be done is to reconcile these evil non-identical twins into a single piece of legislation for Emperor Nerobama to sign into law.  Since I used the word "reconcile" in the previous sentence, this is a suitable opportunity to point out that Senate Democrats could make use of Budget Reconciliation to modify the Senate’s Health Scare with a mere 51 votes—really only 50, since Biden would cast the deciding vote in the event of a deadlock.  Moreover, Budget Wreckonciliation won’t even be necessary if the House of Reprehensives accepts the senatorial bill in its present form.  Anyway, even before the election, Democrats were whispering that, should the unthinkable happen, they would delay Mr. Brown's swearing-in long enough so that Kennedy's temporary replacement could vote for the final version of Health Scare. (Well, what do you expect in the Obama Nation: optimism?)

Uncommon Commentary #96

Just as after "9/11," celebrities of popular "culture"—now there's an oxymoron—have taken to telethons to urge everyone (else) to send money, this time to Haiti.  It seems to me that their message is being sent to the wrong audience; they ought to exhort not working people but each other, since they're probably richer than all the members of their audience combined.

Uncommon Commentary #95

One of the worst characteristics of the US form of government is that when a presidential administration turns out to be inept and malfeasant, we have to wait four years for a chance to get rid of it.  The parliamentary system has flaws of its own, but at least it allows for the vote of "no confidence" that sorely needs to be expressed regarding Obama-Reid-Pelosi.

Uncommon Commentary #94: The Audacity of a Dope

You can imagine how I regret not having read Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope, especially now that I've learned that in this tome our future President likens the British Empire to the USSR—I would have expected that to be a compliment from him—as well as to South Africa during the era of apartheid, even though that policy of racial separation was generally opposed by South Africans of British ancestry. (Indeed, Afrikaaner racism had been a source of friction between Briton and Boer ever since the former arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, in the late Eighteenth Century.)  Furthermore, in the Comparatively Good Old Days before he became the (mis)leader of what used to be known as the Free World, it was said that Obama holds a strong grudge against our closest ally for her history of empire-building.
Has it not occurred to Obama that his own country is a product of colonialism, that of the British and also our own (as practiced, post-Independence, in lands previously occupied by American Indians or Hispanics)?  That the extension of British rule meant the extension of civilization, from which his father's side of the family benefitted?  That British paramountcy not only extended but also improved civilization, since it was primarily British might that put an end to both piracy and the slave trade, and which provided protection that great numbers of missionaries needed in order to bring the Gospel to peoples who knew only superstition?  That, early on in World War II, the Colonies, Protectorates, and Dominions aided the motherland in defending the rest of the world from the Axis?  That the dissolution of said empire opened a door for such tyrants as Idi Amin and Kwame Nkrumah (and Obama)?  That the problem of India's and Pakistan's both having nuclear arms arose because Great Britain no longer rules the Indian subcontinent?  With all due respect to our President—that, is, none—I would say that the British Empire had less in common with the Soviet Union than does the USA now that it's an Obama nation.

Being an author, I'm interested in psychology, and so I'm curious as to the motives for Emperor Nerobama's Anglophobia.  I discern several possibilities, not necessarily in this order of probability:  1) Obama minimizes the value of our longstanding alliances, and so the United Kingdom, as our oldest real friend (as opposed to France, which might once have claimed this title), in his perverse logic, deserves the most belittling.  2) Expressing indignation at (others') imperialism, and at the supposedly tyrannical governance of the Thirteen Colonies, is a Usan (see the list of Domanisms) tradition.  3) Since Great Britain, more than any other state, epitomized capitalism, imperialism, and Western Civilization in the Nineteenth Century, she is a special target for hate by leftists like Obama.  4) Obama has an Œdipus complex, and his mother had an Anglo-Saxon name: Dunham! (This would also explain why he speaks of himself as if he were entirely of Kenyan descent, although he's just as much White as he is Black; why he was willing, in that "major speech on race," to tell the country that his still-living White grandmother was racially prejudiced; and maybe why he brusquely instructed the UK to take back the bust of Sir Winston Churchill, who also had a White Yank for a mother, which was made a gift to President Bush in 2001.)  On the other hand, it may be that 5) He just feels that he needs another way to be wrong; if so, he needn't have concerned himself.