BCS BULL: AN ANGRY CALL TO BOYCOTT
I won’t list a bunch of reasons to justify the need for a playoff system in college football because I’d be preaching to the choir, but I will illustrate how absurd the BCS system is. Imagine the NFL skipping the wild card, divisional, and conference playoff weekends. Imagine them going straight from the regular season directly to the Super Bowl with the best team in the AFC and the best team in the NFC. To hell with all those “lesser” teams who deserve a chance to get to the Super Bowl. How stupid would that be? So if we see the utter stupidity of going directly to a two-team playoff (Super Bowl) after the regular season in a league with only 32 teams, then why would we go directly to 2 teams to play in the BCS Championship in a league with over 100 teams? To further illustrate how dumb this is, imagine that the NFL does have wild card, divisional, and conference post-season games, but they are only consolation games. They can’t play in the Super Bowl—even though many are outstanding teams and capable of beating the two best teams. Would you watch those games? That’s exactly what currently happens with the college football bowl season, excluding the BCS championship game. The magnitude of this stupidity is off the charts. The great majority of teams know they cannot win the national championship at mid-season. For the past several years, I’ve watched the BCS Championship game, and very few of the other bowl games. I don’t like to watch consolation games. But what can we do about it? Boycott.
I’m uncertain if the true source of the problem lies in the BCS committee, the college presidents, the television networks (or some combination), but I do know a solution. I don’t accept the idea that the fans are powerless. In fact, the fans can be almost entirely responsible for the BCS structure changing to a playoff system of 4 or more teams. How? Hit ‘em where it hurts—it the wallet. I’m not calling for a total boycott of all future games. Few of us would do that. Rather, I’m calling for a TV boycott of the first week of the 2012 season. I’m asking all fans in the USA to avoid watching televised games in week one. The sponsors will likely apply enough pressure to get us results. The lost revenue of this one week would send the message that the fans are taking control if they don’t cough up a playoff system. This BCS bull must end and the fans are the suckers if they don’t act.
THE MISSING PIECE
SIZE MATTERS
Dr. Richard Wiseman
CRISS ANGEL REVEALS SECRET TO LEVITATION TRICK
[I give Criss Angel credit for showing us how this is done]
CLICK HERE FOR HIS SECRET
SEE ANY BLACK DOTS?
Seeing flickering black dots is an illusion. Only white dots appear in this photo. The sensation of black dots is an expectation created by the adjacent–and more voluminous–black squares. Your brain fills in the color black into the small white dots.
PAPER DRAGON ILLUSION
CLICK HERE TO SEE THIS AMAZING ILLUSION Designed for a special gathering honoring Martin Gardner, mathematical game and puzzle genious. The paper dragon is completely stationary and the head never moves–even though you’ll think it does.
AWARENESS TEST (must see)
Watch this Video to Find Out
TOTAL MUST SEE ILLUSION
WATCH
“KING OF POP” ON CLOUD 9?
WATCH YOUTUBE VIDEO
.………………MAN IN THE MIRROR; HEAD IN THE CLOUDS
Michael Jackson’s death has been all over the news and understandably so. Even if you have disagreements about his life, his contributions to pop culture are undeniable. So not surprisingly, Michael Jackson has instantly made his post-life appearance in the clouds. I’m of course referring to a story that has been picked up by many news outlets including CNN. The story states that in an odd cloud formation seen in New York City on Friday, people claim to have seen the face of Michael Jackson.
I must say that the clouds are very beautiful but nothing new for those of us in Oklahoma. As is the case with most of these stories, and pointed out by the video (at bottom), these are Mammatus clouds and are very common with thunderstorms. These clouds can appear very ominous and it’s not surprising that people were concerned, since they can seem very unnatural.
As for the face, well, that’s just good old Pareidolia at work. It is the process by which our brains try to make sense out of chaos. This has caused people to see everything from the Virgin Mary in grilled cheese to Kermit the Frog on Mars.
I personally don’t see the face, but there may be an explanation for this. According to a recent study, our pattern recognition can be increased by feelings of “lacking control”. While this might be a bit of a reach, it still brings up some interesting questions regarding one’s likelihood to see these patterns. If you are seeing many of these patterns, it might be saying more about your frame-of-mind than communicating a message-from-beyond.
Invited Blog by J.D. Church
WATCH YOUTUBE VIDEO–Can you see Michael’s face in the clouds?
SONAR, CONFESSION, TO END LONG-STANDING LOCH NESS LEGEND?
Modified from skepdic.com:
The BBC claims it has proved that Nessie the plesiosaur (a marine reptile) does not exist. What they did was use satellite navigation technology to aim 600 separate sonar beams through Loch Ness to ensure that none of the loch was missed and found no trace of the monster. The research team hoped their instruments would pick up the air in Nessie’s lungs as it reflected a distorted signal back to the sonar sensors. The only signal they got was from their test buoy moored several meters below the surface.
“We went from shoreline to shoreline, top to bottom on this one, we have covered everything in this loch and we saw no signs of any large living animal in the loch,” said Ian Florence, one of the specialists who carried out the survey for the BBC.* The show, called Searching For The Loch Ness Monster, was made for BBC One.
A confession further damages monster hopefuls.
For that story, watch this National Geographic video.
Will this end the belief in Nessie? Don’t bet on it.
