If you read this blog with any regularity, you can tell I’m a pretty big college football fan and ardent supporter of the Ohio State Buckeyes.

In this dead time before the bowls many online discussions shift toward recruiting, or should I say, rabid speculation about what decision 17-18 year old kids are going to make about their college choice (and more importantly, who they’ll play ball for.) Maybe I’m dense, but I don’t get the attraction of all this speculation.

They’re great athletes, sure, I get that. You want your team to get the best athletes possible. But these are kids in high school for pete’s sake. Cast yourself back to being 18 years old and tell me how sure you were about college and life choices. I know it was a muddle for me, why wouldn’t the same be true for these people? Just because they’re large and fast and can play football doesn’t mean they’re not afflicted with the normal teenage doubts, fears, and uncertainty about what comes next. They simply don’t have the first-hand experience yet.

I frequent a couple of communities where Buckeye football is discussed ad nauseam and there are daily meltdowns by the community because recruit A is going to school 3 and the team will collapse if recruit A doesn’t recant. There are mean and nasty things said about the kids themselves and their families. It’s really pretty repugnant. So, what’s the attraction? Does anyone have a theory? I guess it drives traffic which drives money, is it that simple?

Things continue to look grim for Calpine, the independent power producer struggling to emerge from bankruptcy protection. Squeezed between declining margins (real terms, not necessarily GAAP terms with special charges coming off the books etc.) demanding creditors, one has to wonder if Calpine will emerge from the proceedings now.

Earlier this week the company announced a reduction of their credit facility by $400M (the entire facility was $8B) and a revaluation of the company when it emerges from bankruptcy of $18.95B. Creditors believe the valuation should be north of $24B leaving a significant gap. The bankruptcy court has approved the revised plan and the company should emerge in January. But, this was true in June too and didn’t happen.

Why do we care? Calpine’s portfolio is dominated by natural gas-fired power plants. But, a small and profitable segment of the company is comprised of the 19 plants located in The Geysers region of California producing about 750MW of clean power. We’re very interested in seeing those valuable assets protected and not have them sink with the Calpine ship.

Note: The issue is gaining today, but the market cap is still sub-$200M down from ~$2B in June.

Disclosure: The author holds no position in Calpine (though he did consider it as a speculative investment at one time.)

Confused about link etiquette? Check this handy primer.

Feel free to read his response here, he still doesn’t get it.

Hotlinking is annoying, not illegal. We agree.

Where we differ, and you can feel free to chime in on this as comments are open (but moderated for spam,) is over the use of an image that I created in parody for an earlier entry. When I exercised my rights and advised dvorak.org they were infringing, did they take down the image? No, they deleted my objection, downloaded the image (appropriated it) and altered it to remove source reference I inserted. I objected again, the objection was deleted and finally the image was removed. If that’s not theft, what do you call it? Willful borrowing?

You can argue the first instance was simply lazy work. The second action, however, was taken after dvorak.org was alerted to the fact they were infringing. What do you think? Chime in. Am I being unreasonable about this? Read my entry about it and read John’s response, I’m seriously interested to understand what the community thinks about this? Should a widely read, professional journalist platform be able to appropriate someone else’s work without permission and/or attribution?

I’m not a lawyer, but the issue seems clear to me. In the blogosphere, cite your references and provide attribution if you’re using someone else’s stuff. And if they’ve said don’t use it, don’t use it. Comments are open (though moderated for spam.)

Update: 22:00 I’ve exchanged mail and comments with the folks for dvorak.org, this matter is closed from my perspective. It was a mistake which has been acknowledged and we’ll move on. However, the meta-discussion is interesting and thought provoking. I appreciate the effort put forth to uplevel the discussion and turn it into something positive and a learning experience. As a commenter already pointed out, I have made mistakes too (and work to correct them.) Commenting still enabled, but now stepping away from the keyboard for an extended time so if you submit, it’s just in moderation and I’ll approve when I’m back in the saddle again.

Photo Credit: Unknown
Remember this picture? If you follow Ohio State Football, you do. It’s the blown call (one of many that afternoon) that ended with an OSU defeat at the hands of Illinois in the Horseshoe last month. Now, I’ll be the first one to say that great teams overcome adversity and the Buckeyes had their chances. But, when the offense is having a bad day, the defense is having a bad day, AND the refs are conspiring against you, it’s probably too much to overcome. And that proved to be the case that afternoon.

That being said, a new story broken by Yahoo! Sports indicates that the problems associated with this particular officiating crew (referee Steven Pamon in particular) didn’t take much of a rocket scientist to uncover. The allegations include:

• Pamon and his wife filed for bankruptcy in 2002 after the couple amassed $429,407 in liabilities, and two of the creditors were casinos.
• He allegedly has gambled at casinos as far back as the 1980s, and a sister-in-law said gambling losses incurred by Pamon and Pamon’s wife led to the couple filing for bankruptcy.
• In 1997, he was charged with repeatedly beating three of his girlfriend’s four sons with an electrical cord. He told authorities he beat the boys three times.
• He allegedly was fired by the Chicago Police Department in 1996 after two female officers accused him of sexual harassment, according to published reports that cited law-enforcement officials as sources.
• One of Pamon’s former wives accused him during a court hearing in 1994 of striking her and sexually assaulting her 19-year-old niece, according to court records.

Do all these allegations mean Pamon was on the take and threw the game? No. But they do raise questions about the Big 10’s diligence and judgment. The week before Pamon and the crew were allegedly reprimanded for the way the called a game in the prior weeks for calling too many penalties. In this game, it’s clear they were sending a message by calling only 3 penalties for the game, ignoring blatant offenses from both teams and of course, blowing the fumble call. I don’t buy into the conspiracy theory personally, but I do think the crew had something on their minds – that was to “show the League office” something by making a point of not calling penalties.

One thing is sure, the Big 10 had better sort this out for next season…and, they’re lucky West Virginia and Missouri spit the bit in the last weekend of the season or these blunders would have cost the league a chance at the championship.

Graphic Credit: irReligion.org
When I saw this I nearly splut drink out my nose laughing. Occam’s Razor is one of my favorite tools, wish I was clever enough to have thought of this!