Tomorrow, Saturday January 12, 2008. Waves are forecast to be 30′ (10m) and the weather partly cloudy. Word of advice, don’t come out the coast to watch, you won’t see anything as the break is about 1/2 mile offshore. The best views will be available at PacBell Park on the HD big screen or via live web cast from Mavericks Surf.

Let’s hope the competition is a good one and a safe one…Good luck to the 24 surfers tomorrow!

Which is worse? Remember 10 years ago when the Clinton Administration was getting beaten bloody over Cigar-gate? Ah, the good old days. A soap opera, distracting from the work at hand, but relatively speaking, harmless.

Of course, there’s always Vice President Cheney and his inappropriate relationship with Halliburton, but even former Bush Administration lackeys are in on the action. Yesterday it was reported that former Attorney General John Ashcroft’s private consulting group was granted a no bid contract by the Department of Justice conveniently approved by an ex-Ashcroft aide for a $80M ($28M and $52M installments.)

Shouldn’t this sort of activity end up in prison sentences? I mean, how much trouble is it to actually follow the process and then award the contract? We all know business transpires through personal relationships, but this appears to be naked robbing of the treasury. Nothing will happen, obviously. But something should.

Only 374 days until this Administration is history, let’s hope it’s not replaced with something worse…

I started the Deadpool 2008 earlier this month focusing on the candidates who drop out vs. the front-runners. Today, CNN is reporting that Bill Richardson is dropping his bid for the nomination after distant 4th place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire. I definitely understand why these candidates are dropping out, but if we stop to consider that less than 0.5% of the electorate has spoken, I can’t help but wonder if it’s too early to make the call.

Clearly it’s a money and time issue. I do appreciate that we’ve got some variety in the candidate pool this time. Now if only the coverage would focus on issues and plans vs. emotional showings from front-runners…Who’s next? Leave a comment and speculate.

Who says the election process can’t be fun? My Brother forwarded this to me yesterday and it made me laugh, I thought it might make you laugh too. After watching it, just see if you can get that darned song out of your head! You’ve been warned…

Welcome to the final Conference Strength Report for the 2007 college football season. I started this report last fall and now will present the data and make a call on the order of the BCS conferences now that play is complete. As always, the data is fact, the interpretation is up for discussion. Just because things are ordered this way this year, does not guarantee that the next year will follow the same pattern. In fact, it’s virtually guaranteed to be different.

Reminder, Out-of-Conference (OOC) account for all games against all teams played out of conference, no DIAA or no patsy accounts for games against other DIA opponents out of conference, and BCS only or Big Boy win rate accounts for out of conference games against other BCS teams. So, without further ado, here is the final table:

Comments on each conference follow, in alphabetical order:

• ACC – Bowl record, 2-6.
• Big East – Bowl record, 5-3.
• Big 10 – Bowl record, 3-5.
• Big 12 – Bowl record, 5-3.
• Pac 10 – Bowl record, 4-2.
• SEC – Bowl record, 7-2.

The final conference ranking for 2007 is:

1. SEC – Can remove any doubt of superiority by doing two things: schedule fewer DIAA games and schedule a couple more Big Boy OOC games.
2. Pac 10 – Kudos for only 2 DIAA games and strong OOC games against Big Boys.
3. Big 12 – Good bowl season (Oklahoma aside,) need to win more against the Big Boys next year.
4. Big 10 – Need to schedule fewer DIAA patsies (and beat them) and win their bowl games.
5. Big East – Need better Big Boy win rate, even with the impressive WVU win.
6. ACC – Need better OOC and Big Boy win rate.
7. Notre Dame – Need to win games.

Prior Conference Strength Reports (CSRs) are available below:

• CSR: Pre-bowl Through December 1, 2007
• CSR: Through November 24, 2007
• Yes, I skipped November 17th. So shoot me.
• CSR: Through November 10, 2007
• CSR: Through November 3, 2007
• CSR: Through October 28, 2007
• CSR: Through October 21, 2007
• CSR: Through October 13, 2007
• Original Conference Strength Report: Through September 27, 2007