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To be more precise, Barton’s bill would authorize the Federal Trade Commission to create a playoff through copious use of its regulatory powers. Thus, five unelected antitrust lawyers would effectively design and oversee whatever “playoff” it deems appropriate.
“Rep. Joe Barton (R-etarded) has introduced a bill that would mandate a college football playoff.”
Fixed.
Radley, you spelled it wrong…it should be:
Rep. Joe Barton (R-etard)
I’ve never seen you as neither conservative nor liberal…you have a strong sense of justice, which might come off as liberal to those on the right, and you are firmly on the side of limited government which might seem conservative to those on the left.
Being that you’re a Colts fan, I just see you as plain nutz…:P
There’s a very noticeable phenomenon these days: Because of the disaster known as George W. , a LOT of conservatives are now too ashamed to call themselves such and are trying to retool their image by casting themselves as ‘Libertarians’.
These ‘Lino’s’ are easy to spot: You’ll notice them focusing most of their attention on keeping Mexicans out of the US and complaing about the federal government wasting their tax dollars, which means spending on welfare and education. Of course spending on the millitary apparatus is just dandy with them.
“I’m flattered, though I’m not sure I’d call myself ‘conservative.’”
Well, it depends on the meaning of “conservative,” which of course means who is defining it, as all words are subject to interpretation.
Here’s the dictionary entry:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conservative
I must submit that “Tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions” is particularly apt for you, Radley. Your defense of the U.S. Constitution is legion.
But really, what’s in a name? Well, collective terms like “conservative” are prima facie harmful and misleading. Calling anyone anything other than his or her given name negates the individual, the foundation of all crime.
Wrt. the cost of the bailout link, I submit the misused verb of the day:
“As we move forward, our government will need to attract trillions of dollars from taxpayers to fund its programs and commitments.”
Attract ?!?!?!
“Research firm says financial bailout now costs more than “all U.S. Wars, the Louisiana Purchase, the New Deal, the Marshall Plan and the NASA Space Program combined.””
Adjusted for inflation?
“Research firm says financial bailout now costs more than “all U.S. Wars, the Louisiana Purchase, the New Deal, the Marshall Plan and the NASA Space Program combined.””
I *hate* this analysis. $8.5 trillions represents the potential exposure if the entire system goes down. If that happens, we’ll be too busy keeping the roving gangs cannibals off of our lawns to worry about taxes. The amount spent so far is far smaller. Read Surowiecki’s dismemberment of this claim here:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/jamessurowiecki/2008/11/how-much-have-w.html
“I’ve been given an award. I’m flattered, though I’m not sure I’d call myself “conservative.” ”
These days, anyone even slightly to the right of Lenin is considered a conservative.
Well I never thought I’d defend (even a little bit) a bill that has clear aim of legislating a college football playoff, but here goes.
The bill does not “mandate a college football playoff” or “authorize the Federal Trade Commission to create a playoff through copious use of its regulatory powers.” Instead, it says that no game may be promoted or marketed as a “Championship” or “National Championship” and no resulting merchandise can be sold unless the game is the final game of a playoff. The BCS can still decide to change nothing, forever; it will just have to market the premier BCS bowl game differently.
Of course, Barton (and 2 of his Texas co-sponsors) are pissed that Texas beat Oklahoma but because of the goofy Big 12 conference organization Oklahoma gets to play in the national championship instead of Texas. And it is yet another BCS failure that two 1-loss teams are playing in the “National Championship” game, while four other 1-loss teams (including the team that gave the national championship contender its only loss) and two undefeated teams can win a bowl game but never be the national champion.
It’s ridiculous that Barton has introduced any kind of college football-related bill (and that it has 3 cosponsors), but it’s worth noting that he is at least nominally trying only to regulate the marketing of the game as a “championship” when there is controversy around that point and not trying to force the NCAA to adopt a playoff.
At least that cop isn’t making $140K a year…….oh wait.
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/29480/
Here’s the address of the football bill if you want to read it:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.7330:
about the lying state trooper… read the comments in that piece. seems the same trooper or one of her supporters is pretty vicious in her defense. radley, have you ever checked out the most excellent duiblog.com? you have a friend in the business, and i’m not talking about diamonds.
Radley,
I posted your comment (about the SWAT raid) to VC’s blog. I don’t have VC’s email address.
RF
Regarding the officer of the year, I especially like the comment under that story that the better a cop is at his/her job, the more complaints they will get. On that basis it’s only a matter of time before they institute a quota system wherein a cop’s salary will be positively influenced by a history of complaints.
Regarding the bailout costs, that may be true if you use standard inflation measures. But if you scale the spending as a % of GDP, the USG was spending the equivalent of $7 trillion a year during the WWII years, about half of the nation’s GDP.
Those “costs” are illusory. Get back to me with the net costs once it’s all off the Fed’s books in 2010.
As for the high cost of the bailout, I think it stands as irrefutable evidence of the power of capitalism, not that it requires such a huge bailout (it doesn’t), but that it can actually finance such an immense squandering of wealth.
The problem, of course, is that capitalism has established such a history of surviving governmental abuse, that our parasitic self-serving politicians now believe it’s indestructible. They no longer see any need for constraint in the burdens they impose on it or the hurdles they throw in front of it and, ultimately, they might just find a way to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
But, first, they’re going to chew out the auto company executives for being financially irresponsible.
Barton said the bill
“will prohibit the marketing, promotion, and advertising of a postseason game as a ‘national championship’ football game, unless it is the result of a playoff system. Violations of the prohibition will be treated as violations of the Federal Trade Commission Act as an unfair or deceptive act or practice.”
Yeah, go after how they advertise and market the name of the game. Next, the baseball championship can’t be called the World Series and the Super Bowl can’t be called Super until after the game was over and only if it was, in fact, SUPER!
Eric –
Your point would be well taken if the FTC did not have a long, long record of abusing whatever power Congress grants it. After all, how will the BCS know what minimum standards are necessary to promote something as a “playoff”? Well, the FTC will have to decide. Which means any proposed “playoff” will be subject to the Commission’s regulatory (and possibly adjudicatory) process.
Furthermore, Section 5 of the FTC Act itself is incomprehensively vague, so once the door is open to regulating the ‘advertising’ of a college football playoff, it’s a very short leap to regulating the content. As has been the case in many industries, the FTC’s unelected antitrust lawyers are never shy about superimposing their “expertise” over any particular product or service.
Radley, you make the guy laugh. He’s apparently thinking of another blog, since I typically just want to cry when I look around here…
I love how the most pressing issue in the nation is the way Division 1 bowl series decides there champ when there is never a mention of the exploitation of the athletes that make up D1 BS and the rest of NCAA sports. They risk there health for at most a 35k a year scholarship that most will never truly take full advantage of. Yet you have schools like Ohio State and UF that rake in 100 million plus a year.
THE ECONOMY
Who Is To Blame?
Some point to Alan Greenspan. But his hands-off approach to the economy originated with Ayn Rand.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/173514
I can’t believe more people don’t have a huge problem with Barton’s idiotic, reactionary proposal to have the federal government take over college football. This bill is the sports equivalent of the marijuana tax act. Not an overt takeover, but getting people used to the government essentially deciding what is best for the NCAA. In 20 years they’ll just drop the subtlety and congress will have a College Football committee to distract people from real issues full time. Then the lobbyists will get hold of it, and they’ll eventually grant enough favors to completely destroy the greatest sport on earth. Or maybe THIS government intervention will be different from every other government intervention in history.
Like it or not, the NCAA and its member schools are the best parties to decide on their championship system. You not liking the system they have does not give you the right to change it by force, and I’m actually surprised this proposal wasn’t the second “HackWatch” feature. A Republican from Texas endorses government intervention into college football immediately after Texas gets screwed out of the National Championship game? Come on, Radley. This asshole deserves nothing but every bit of scorn and bad karma the universe can dish out. And I’m a Texas fan.
Nationalized autos, football, loan companies, airlines…wow. And all this with an *ahem* “conservative” in the White House. Stand by, for we’re about to make Marx jealous….
Barton just voted in favor of the auto bailout. Seems relevant, somehow…
“Some point to Alan Greenspan. But his hands-off approach to the economy originated with Ayn Rand.”
Alan Greenspan hands-off?
If the economy were a woman, she would have maced Greenspan for all the groping he did.
Radley: I’m flattered, though I’m not sure I’d call myself “conservative.”
Yeah, I don’t think that label fits either. Going back just a few years, I think you would side with Tom Paine rather than Burke. And who would call Paine a conservative? As some of the commenters suggested, that shows how confused ideology is in America. People with your views would be called liberals in Europe. Milton Friedman is often discussed as a “conservative economist,” which also doesn’t sound right to me. Since few of those who call themselves conservatives in America object to the drug war (or the wars on other consensual crimes), advocate non-interventionist foreign policy, or balk at corporate welfare, I would conclude that you are not a conservative.
#15 Dave Krueger: “Regarding the officer of the year, I especially like the comment under that story that the better a cop is at his/her job, the more complaints they will get.”
Excellent point, Dave. I’ve always thought this idea was bunk.
Realistically speaking, any officer will get the occasional complaint. Many occur because the complainant is unfamiliar with the law or department protocols. Other complaints are simple misunderstandings.
For example, not long ago my department (I work as a hospital security officer) got a complaint about our response time to a combative patient. A dept. manager, on behalf of one of her employees, said we took about 15 minutes to respond. We knew this was grossly inaccurate (it took 2-3 mins. tops). During the investigation, our radio transmissions (which are recorded) were studied and we were vindicated. It turns out the employee, who was in radio contact with us, just didn’t know how to use a two-way radio properly.
This situation was resolved because we documented our actions thoroughly and handled things in a transparent manner. If police departments are open, and don’t get overly defensive, many of these complaints can be resolved in a manner that satisfies all parties.
Hey, if the University of Texas were in my district, I’d introduce a bill too. lol
Guess that BCS isn’t looking so good now is it UT?
Joe Barton is an IDIOT.
http://rightklik.blogspot.com/
Matt,
Re: “attract”
Perhaps you forget the law of universal gravitation. The attractive force is proportional to the product of the masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. The government is so massive these days, I’m surprised it doesn’t have orbiting objects circling ’round.
“The government is so massive these days, I’m surprised it doesn’t have orbiting objects circling ’round.”
Umm.
Wouldn’t lobbyists and the corporations they represent qualify?
To all of you Agitator readers who popped by my blog to view my comments on Radley’s blog Welcome.
I should have given you an award years ago. Your readers have blown up my sitemeter. Thank you for the link and thank them for visiting. I hope they will stop by once in a while. For one thing, they taught me a bit about Conservative and Libertarian and I thought I knew most of that.
Second I could always use such an astute bunch to keep my blog on track.
Once again thanks for the link. I hope you and your readers have a very Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, and a healthy New Year.
Yours,
TonyC. AKA That Lawyer Dude