This Has Not Been a Good Week.

Not for me. Saturday I sat stunned as I watched LSU get totally dominated by Alabama, then Tuesday I learned that my friend and former business partner, Blues Legend Allen Toussaint had died.  That made the difficulties at the studio this week more overwhelming to say the least, and yesterday I stumbled going up the stairs and broke two fingers on my right hand and had to have my most prized sapphire ring cut from my finger. Then early this morning, I watched helplessly as a fox chased down and killed a feral kitten I had been feeding on my back porch all summer. And just hours ago I get a frantic call from a childhood friend in Chartres telling me she's been unable to make contact with her brother in Paris this evening. 

I think I'll lock the doors, blow off my plans, and curl up with a bottle of Chateau Simone and watch the Hogs and Tigers play tomorrow, and sleep the the weekend. I really need a couple of days away.....

The Battle For The Golden Boot

  Razorbacks vs. The Tigers

After spending the week licking their wounds, Mike and the Tigers welcome to Tiger Stadium Saturday Night the 5-4 Hogs of Arkansas and their coach Bret Bielema, the SEC's own version of Oliver Hardy. The Hogs are flying high after twice dodging a bullet with OT wins over Auburn and then Ole Missy last week, and are out to spoil LSU's season.

And also at stake is tradition; this game is for the semi-coveted 4ft, 24carret Gold, Golden Boot Trophy. 

This is also a revenge game for the Tigers, after losing to the Hogs last year in Fayetteville. 

As with the week of the Arkansas -Alabama game, I'm hesitant to call this one, but I will. 

While the hogs are on fire recently and may play the Tigers close, they didn't have the luxury of two weeks to analyze the Tiger offensive line and counter to the point of knowing every move they make before they make it like their last opponent. The Hogs defense have given up over 400yd. per game, but can also put points on the board. If the young Tigers confidence didn't suffer after last week, they skin some Hog and send them home, minus the trophy. 
I say Tigers by 10    



Elsewhere in the Football world:

Alabama @ Mississippi St.- Two Words -  Dak Prescott. The best QB in the SEC. and some say in all of college football, who runs the type of offensive that's has given Alabama their worst headaches this year. Bama will have to press hard and hope their one vulnerability, the secondary plays well. Mississippi St. almost beat the Tide at home last year and could have their hands full again this week. This may be the best game of the week in all of college football. But if the Tide defense can bring the heat, they wear the Dawgs down and pull away with a win. I say The Tide by 13


 Oklahoma @ Baylor - At the beginning of the year I wrote down six teams I believed could be in contention for a National Championship at the end of the year. One of the six was the Oklahoma Sooners. Of course in usual fashion, after their loss to the hapless Texas Longhorns, the 'expert sports monkeys' wrote them off. I didn't. I also don't believe (just as I haven't believed about my own LSU Tigers for many weeks now) that Baylor is a top 5 team just because they're undefeated. So here comes the Sooners. They have a tough schedule in front of them, but I believe they have been under-rated because of the loss to Texas. - I Call Upset! BIG RED takes down Baylor. 

After not calling the Alabama -LSU game last week, I'll take the hit on my record anyway for it being such a domination, but will balance it out with a win for my correct prediction in week 6 that no team in the SEC would go undefeated this year.

Previously, in  in week #8  I correctly hit the Tennessee-Alabama and LSU-WKU games, but missed on the A&M loss to Ole Miss for a combined record of 3-2 for the two weeks.

Jan's Picks YTD. 17- 4

Fishnet Friday

Your White Privilege Survey

Below is a White Privilege Survey that was administered to teachers in the St. Paul Public Schools district (MN) by Pacific Educational Group—a consultant for many public school districts around the country. This is what is becoming of our primary education system in America. This is the groundwork for the future war on your children's minds. 

Cavuto Dismantles Free College Mushhead

The De-evolution of Affirmative Action Higher Education

"I understand why the idiot children at Yale are so sensitive. Really, I do. I sometimes list in my mind all of the poor, suffering people who get a raw deal in this life, and Yale students are always right at the top, with the Bangladeshi orphans and women traded by sex traffickers in Vietnam. Yale isn't a safe space, Congo isn't a safe space -- it all makes sense, as long as you don't expect it to make sense....

"We're all real sorry about your safe spaces and your pacifier and your stuffed puppy, Caitlyn.  Really we are. Yet the perpetual revolution of configured stars continues in its indifference, and the lot of man is ceaseless labor, and though you may find the thought terrifying -- and thinking itself terrifying -- it may turn out to be the case that the screaming in the dark you do on campus is more or less the same screaming in the dark you did in the crib, the same howl for the same reason."  — Kevin D. Williamson, National Review

Veterans Day

The Little Troll Climbs Down From the Ivory Tower to Gain Some Real World Wisdom and Discernment

 Former Clinton Admin. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich

I've just returned from three weeks in “red” America. It was ostensibly a book tour but I wanted to talk with conservative Republicans and Tea Partiers.

I wanted to learn from red America, and hoped they’d also learn a bit from me (and perhaps also buy my book).  But something odd happened. It turned out that many of the conservative Republicans and Tea Partiers I met agreed with much of what I had to say, and I agreed with them.

For example, most condemned what they called “crony capitalism,” by which they mean big corporations getting sweetheart deals from the government because of lobbying and campaign contributions.  I met with a group of small farmers in Missouri who were livid about growth of “factory farms” owned and run by big corporations, that abused land and cattle, damaged the environment, and ultimately harmed consumers.  They claimed giant food processors were using their monopoly power to squeeze the farmers dry, and the government was doing squat about it because of Big Agriculture’s money.

I met in Cincinnati with Republican small-business owners who are still hurting from the bursting of the housing bubble and the bailout of Wall Street. “Why didn’t underwater homeowners get any help?” one of them asked rhetorically. “Because Wall Street has all the power.” Others nodded in agreement. Whenever I suggested that big Wall Street banks be busted up – “any bank that’s too big to fail is too big, period” – I got loud applause.

In Kansas City I met with Tea Partiers who were angry that hedge-fund managers had wangled their own special “carried interest” tax deal.  “No reason for it,” said one. “They’re not investing a dime of their own money. But they’ve paid off the politicians.”

In Raleigh, I heard from local bankers who thought Bill Clinton should never have repealed the Glass-Steagall Act. “Clinton was in the pockets of Wall Street just like George W. Bush was,” said one. Most are also dead-set against the Trans Pacific Partnership. In fact, they’re opposed to trade agreements, including NAFTA, that they believe have made it easier for corporations to outsource American jobs abroad.

A surprising number think the economic system is biased in favor of the rich. (That’s consistent with a recent Quinnipiac poll in which 46 percent of Republicans believe “the system favors the wealthy.”)

The more conversations I had, the more I understood the connection between their view of “crony capitalism” and their dislike of government. They don’t oppose government per se. In fact, as the Pew Research Center has found, more Republicans favor additional spending on Social Security, Medicare and education than want to cut those programs. Rather, they see Big Government as the vehicle for corporations and Wall Street to exert their power in ways that hurt the little guy. 

I also began to understand why many of them are attracted to Donald Trump. I had assumed they were attracted by Trump’s blunderbuss.  But mostly, I think, they see Trump as someone who’ll stand up for them – a countervailing power against the perceived conspiracy of big corporations, Wall Street, and big government.

Trump isn’t saying what the moneyed interests in the GOP want to hear. He’d impose tariffs on American companies that send manufacturing overseas, for example.  He’d raise taxes on hedge-fund managers. (“The hedge-fund guys didn’t build this country,” Trump says. “They’re “getting away with murder.”)

He’d protect Social Security and Medicare.  I kept hearing “Trump is so rich he can’t be bought.” Heartland Republicans and progressive Democrats remain wide apart on social and cultural issues.  But there’s a growing overlap on economics.

The populist upsurge is real.

ROBERT B. REICH is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration.

So Long Ahmed, We Hardly Knew Ya....

Missouri President Tim Wolfe Just Plain Wimped Out

Image by Dianny @ PatriotRetort

  You would have thought someone wiped out
an entire Indian village.

FSJ -  A black student government member was called a nigger: “he was walking with a friend to get cookies Friday night when a red pickup truck slowed and young people screamed the n-word at him.” There is no indication that the people in the pickup were or were not students at the University of Missouri, but the alleged incident happened near, but not on the campus, and the "Columbia Police Department do not have a report of that nature by the offended party, according to a spokesperson there". Dr Wolfe apparently didn’t express sufficient outrage, but he would have no authority at all over an incident which did not happen on campus.  But for the Social Justice Warriors, the responsibility for any offensive act must be pushed up to the nearest high ranking normal white male.

Jonathan Butler, a student, began a hunger strike, because he did not like what he saw as the culture at the University; one of his demands was that President Wolfe resign.

Was Dr Wolfe a decent President for the University? I really don’t know, but his job performance wasn’t bad enough for the Board of Curators to have met about it prior to the “strike” by the black players on the Missouri football team; that got some attention. How Dr Wolfe was supposed to be responsible for the actions of some people, who may or may not have even been Missouri students, in a red pickup is beyond me. but, for the SJWs, apparently he is. How Dr Wolfe is in any way responsible for the death of Michael Brown, 116 miles away, or would have any knowledge about the events beyond what the rest of us can read in the media, escapes me completely.

But, he’s apparently a heterosexual white male, and that makes him responsible for the acts of other people who are not under his authority, and thus he had to go! Considering that he was unwilling to fight for his position, perhaps he really should have resigned.

Nevertheless, this incident shows just how poorly American colleges are preparing students for the real world. Payton Head, the Student Government president who had been called the horrible “n” word, will eventually be graduated and have to leave Mizzou to begin a career in the business world, and there won’t be any university president to blame when the next red pickup drives past and someone yells offensive stuff to him. He’ll have to just man up and get on with his life. When he finds himself competing with other people to move up the corporate ladder, to get that next promotion, if he is unable to simply disregard insults, if he gets all flustered and upset, he won’t be able to compete to the best of his ability, and he will fall behind. 

That’s life in the real world! Whining and bitching and complaining does not get you ahead; in the end, it gets you left behind.

8 Statistics That Prove You Should Ignore Statistics

1) Fifty-one percent of Americans believe in love at first sight. The other forty-nine percent are men.

2) One out of seven dwarfs are grumpy.

3) Nine out of ten dentists agree that out of ten dentist one is an idiot.

4) Three out of four Americans agree with seventy-five percent of the population.

5) Nine out of ten Americans agree that, out of ten Americans, one will always disagree with the other nine.

6) Three and a half out of seven people over complicate things.

7) Seven out of three Americans are bad with statistics.

8) Twenty out of ten schizophrenics love Statistical Lists.