The lower divisions of college football decided their champions on the field this weekend, and it was a good weekend of games.

Congratulations to Appalachian State, Football Championship Division (or I-AA to those of us who despise that designation) Champions. App State started the season with a bang beating then #5 Michigan at home and finished strong with a three-peat, taking home their third consecutive I-AA championship. Final score: Appalachian State 49, Delaware 21.

Congratulations to Valdosta State, Division II Champions. Valdosta scored with 22 seconds left to pull out a thriller over NW Missouri State, who lost in the DII Championship game for the third consecutive year. Final score: Valdosta State 25, NW Missouri State 20.

Congratulations to University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, Division III Champions. UW sprinted out to a 17-0 lead over defending champs Mount Union and held on to win with a tough defense effort. This was UW’s first win in three consecutive tries against the Purple Raiders and snapped a 37 game win streak. Final score: UW-Whitewater 31, Mount Union 21.

Division I bowl season gets rolling along this week and will carry on until the championship is decided between LSU and Ohio State on January 7th, 2008. Should be fun.

Does your keyboard look like this?



If so, you might want to unplug it and throw it in…



If all goes well, you’ll end up with…

I’m not nuts, a colleague forwarded this story to me recently – and unlike a number of these situations, I actually have first-hand experience with it. In 1989 a Coca-Cola was inadvertently spilled into my AT-style keyboard. Since it was ruined anyway, I thought, “what the heck, I’ll toss it in the dishwasher to see what happens.” In my experience, if you split the keyboard open, insert into dishwasher (away from heating elements – if your model has them) with no soap, a quick 10 minute cycle was sufficient to get the gunk out and a couple of days of drying allowed the keyboard to be reassembled and then used. Good as new.

During my PC days, I would do this frequently. Now in my Mac days, I haven’t yet tried it. My desktop keyboard is NASTY so perhaps it’s time for an experiment…I’ll take pictures (and will get a replacement just in case…)

US Congress – What Evil?

The Senate eviscerated the energy bill, taking out the long-term production tax credits, the renewable portfolio standard, and reducing the role of renewables dramatically. A disappointing outcome from a disappointing body. Here’s a professional story on the subject via Renewable Energy Access:

After a hard-fought battle on the political playing field, the renewable energy industries have suffered a difficult defeat. The Senate voted yesterday evening on an Energy Bill that left out the investment and production tax credits and a renewable portfolio standard (RPS), avoiding a Presidential veto but dramatically reducing the role of renewables in Congress’ energy plan.

The Bill passed by a vote of 85-12. It now goes back to the House for approval and then to the President to be signed into law. The White House issued a statement yesterday saying that it would accept the Bill.

Read more…

Could these people really be this clueless? Or, could it be, that they’ve all lined their pockets so thoroughly that they’re incapable of taking action that benefits the American people? Just look at the income and net worth of our presidential candidates, many being Representatives in the House or Senators, to see that they are becoming wealthy and doing so at the expense of the people.

It’s disgusting, it’s immoral, and it’s not what the founders had in mind. But hey, at least the report on steroids came back confirming what everyone knows, that professional athletes use steroids. I’m glad that important business was handled – we all know there isn’t any other important business or challenging issues to address in this country.

We ought to fire the whole lot of these folks, on both sides of the aisle. They are useless.

In prior entries I looked at the individual net worth and incomes of the Republican and Democratic contenders for the Presidency. Now, let’s take a look at that data combined by estimated net worth and by estimated income to understand how representative our candidates are of the US at large. Caveats about the data and data sources are discussed in the individual entries about Democratic and Republican candidates.

Candidates ranked by estimated Net Worth

As you can see, the candidates vying for the White House in 2008 are all at or above the median US Household Net Worth. It’s interesting to note as we think about these candidates as being representative of the population overall. Let’s see what it looks like when the candidates are ranked by 2006 income.

Candidates ranked by estimated 2006 Income

In Net Worth, at least one of the candidates was close to the people at large. In income, the lowest candidate still has 3.7x the earning power of the average US household according to data from the US Census Bureau. America is the land of opportunity and those with the most are perhaps the most likely to be able to sacrifice temporary income for public service, but I have to wonder, which candidate(s), if any, really understand what the average US household is facing? Are they aware of the struggles? It’s hard to tell, but with the wealth and income levels on this list, it’s not likely they understand from recent, first-hand experience.

If nothing else, it does make you think. Speaking of which, what do you think? Let your voice be heard, leave a comment below.

This TED Talk by Amory Lovins filmed in 2005 is well worth the investment of 20 minutes. He has posted his book, The Oil Endgame, on a website with a free download. Check it out.