Bitch, Bitch, Bitch

These days, the sports pundits (kind of an oxymoron, if ya tink about it for a second) have been bitching about how high the scoring has been this year, and a few recent. Well, they're ignorant morons. If you're old enough to remember, or smart enough to look it up, you can see that during the middle of the Celtics Dynasty (to pick a time-point at random), 1960, the average was 118. It stayed at or above 110 until the 1971 season. And, lo and behold, fell like a rock when the 3-pointer was imported from the ABA. Thankfully, not that hideous ball. It hasn't come close since.

Welfare for the Rich: The American Way

There is an old saying, presented a few ways, in the econ bidnezz - "The tragedy of the commons"; that doc, by the bye, isn't from some aggro-Woke cabal, but Harvard Business School. So there! Point 5 in the doc is, surprise, all about groundwater. Didn't take long to find it. Being Taxachusetts born and raised, 'commons' always has resonated as 'Boston Common', and does have some history. In the bad olde days, the Common was used as a common pasture for livestock. You can guess what happened.

During the 1630s, the Common was used by many families as a cow pasture. This traditional use for a commons quickly ended when the large herds kept by affluent families led to overgrazing and the collapse of the Common as pastureland.

So, today we find out that another New England state's administration, decided to cave to Big Bidnezz, aka Poland Spring and siblings:

Mainers don't want Poland Spring to lock our communities into bad deals, and certainly not bad deals that last for decades.
--Margaret M. O'Neil (D, Saco)

This situation isn't new, by the way. It got a mention in these here parts way back in 2015. Once Nestle got a hold of Poland Spring, the aggression really ramped up. One suit.

The rich get richer and the poor have kids. And, who cares about the kids and grandkids and so on? Yeah, we're gonna leave them a burnt out cinder of a planet? Party like it's 1829!!

Pot Meet Kettle

You've heard it, right? "That's the pot calling the kettle black?" Some, the yunguns especially, may interpret that as some kind of racial slur. I suppose some might even try to use it that way, but that's not where the meme comes from. In days of olde, when knights were bold, cooking was down on a hearth, aka, a rig in the front of the household fireplace. Any vessel that was used turned black on the exterior, of course. So, both pots and kettles acquired that same patina of grime. It's now used as a meme for hypocrisy.

Well, good ole Rick Pitino says that college Hoop Players should live with a 'salary' cap. At least in the Big Conference schools. Is Coach Rick worried about having to field a team from year to year, certain that if he lands a diamond in the rough as a frosh, he'll skedaddle after March Madness has run its course? You betcha.

Pitino took to social media and suggested there should be a salary cap between $1.5 million and $2 million for the Big East and Power Five conferences when it comes to basketball.

Well, why not just slide all the way down the slippery slope:
- no limit on years of 'eligibility', thus sub-NBA stars can keep getting their dough from StateU after StateU until they're 35 or so
- no requirement to actually attend classes
- no limit on sources and amounts of NIL funds

NCAA has been the minor leagues for foobah and hoops, and more recently bazebah, for decades. Will college sports be any 'better' with the fig leaf torn off? Well, the bettors might like it.

Watery Grave

Recently I saw an oldish shoot 'em up, set in and around present day (1967) Los Angeles, with Lee Marvin as the anti-hero, "Point Blank". Rather good movie. One of the shootings happens in Los Angeles in what looks like a 300 foot (or so, at the top) wide empty concrete ditch. I found out that this concrete ditch is actually the Los Angeles River. I assumed that in times (way) past, this was a natural river and that the concrete ditch was merely poured into the existing course. Who knew?

Well, natives have always known, of course. However, what with the Noah-esque rain the past few days, photos of the half-full, or thereabouts, waterway have been popping up all over the place. Here's one example.

My sister, et al, are farther south near San Diego, where the onslaught has been kinder.

By The Numbers - part the forty fifth

If you're enamored of real car racing, aka Formula 1, not that 'drive straight, turn left' stupidity that is NASCAR, then you've also heard that The Hammer is going Italian. How will this likely turn out? My take: not well.

First, there is the problem of who's First driver? Leclerc ain't likely to say, 'have at it matey', now is he? Will Ferrrari always give The Hammer the bestest car? May be; after all, Leclerc ain't done all that well, either.

Second, is it reasonable for a 40 year (geezer time in F1, BTW) to win the Championship? Not so much. Here's the list of the oldest ones. Only 3 have been 40+, and that last was 1966. How many races in that season? Just 9, and the other 40+ driver seasons were either 7 or 8 races. Fangio won it 5 times (the table is odd, in that it lists 1954 twice, because Fangio changed teams in mid season), but only once in a 9 race season. Next year: 24, the longest season yet. Make no mistake, driving a F1 racer isn't something Ralph Kramden could do.

Third, Ferrari has been trailing Red Bull and Mercedes forever, so why assume that they'll leap frog both in this, the final 2 years of the formula? Seems unlikely. Then, 2026 brings a new formula (said to be very different from the current), and again, Ferrari is pitching from behind second base. Again. The Hammer will be 41 when the next formula is in force. It's always taken some seasons for teams to figure out the loopholes in the formula, so how old will The Hammer be by then? 43? 44? And for those in the know, a few years back (2019) FIA finally caught Ferrari driving a truck through the regs (they did well for a few seasons, but didn't get a championship).

It appears that The Hammer has been too clever by half.

By The Numbers - part the forty fourth

Rut Roh!! It's reported that the Arab-American, (read? Muslim community?) isn't happy with Sleepy Joe's tepid support for their cause in Gaza.

Number of Arab-Americans - 1,698,570

Number of Jewish-Americans - 7,150,000

Number of Muslim-Americans - 4,500,000

Number of Christian Arab-Americans - not a tidy figure, might be 1,000,000 or might be 2,300,000

Not that any group can reliably be defined as monolithic, but it don't look good for the Palestinian supporters. And that's just a few minutes of letting my Fingers do the Walking Through the Yellow Googles. Pretty much means the full reality is much murkier. Orange Jesus, as usual, will find a way to leverage his hypocrisy to capture the brain limited sub-groups.

By The Numbers - part the forty third

A report to make Gov. DeMented pleased as punch.

In Europe, reported measles cases rose more than 40-fold last year compared with 2022, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.

We don't need no jabs!!! If God said we did, we would do it. But he doesn't and we won't! Party like it's 1829!!!

As if this sort of scourge wasn't predicted by the folks who know about disease and vaccines. Idiots are running ever more of the planet.

"We actually knew this was going to happen, so it's not news for us," Dr. Crowcroft said of Europe's rise in measles cases.

"There are times when there's absolutely no pleasure in being right, and this is one of those."