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bowl ticket scam
Unverified Voracity Likes The Great Eye
Volleyball final four tonight. 7 PM, ESPN 2.
Probably not important but for God's sake we have to at least try. Go here and vote for anything but "Existing Divisions plus one." I like what I'll be calling the Eye Of Sauron Configuration:
Ace with the quick photoshop for the win:
You have the two triangles of hate plus Nebraska's desire to make one of them a parallelogram of hate plus everyone else in the other division. The balance is as fair as possible: M-OSU versus everybody. The straight East-West split is a lot less drivable and places the three teams with the most recruiting muscle in the same division.
They will release results for this on Monday at 6:30, FWIW, and then ignore everything so they can create the JUSTICE and BEATIFIC TOLERANCE divisions while introducing the league's new logo, which is a stained glass window of Jim Delany with a halo.
BONUS: "*Actual Division Names TBD"
Line of the week. From the MZone:
Thankfully, our pal Surrounded in Columbus is always good for a nugget or four from deep behind enemy lines. Today he sent the picture below with the following email:
Most people would be disappointed to be 12-0 & staying home. They're not most people.
No word yet on when Tressel Boned Us But We Still Hoisted Him on Our Shoulders Like Morons Lane is going up.
Ohio State hosts a "celebration of perfection against reason" Tuesday during which Galileo will be burned at the stake and the sun declared to revolve around the earth.
Tell me something I don't know. Maurice Clarett:
He was a hard worker in practice and in games. But off the field, he was living a completely different life. "I took golf, fishing, and softball as classes," Clarett says. "Away from class, anything you can think of I did in my 13 months at Ohio State." Drugs and women were two of the things. Cars were another—he owned three of them at a time, including a brand-new Cadillac and Lexus. "I was living the NFL life in college," he says. "I got paid more in college than I do now in the UFL.
Hey, guys who were interested in Marawatch: now is a high-leverage time for some private investigations of OSU.
Scorched-earth bombing of the week. From Patrick Hruby on the insane levels of subsidy thrown out to nonprofit entities like… the NFL.
In the eyes of the IRS, the National Football League is considered a nonprofit outfit. Just like the United Way. Read that again. The NFL -- a league that makes roughly $9 billion in revenue per season and will collected a guaranteed $27 billion in television money over the next decade -- enjoys the same tax breaks as, say, your local chamber of commerce, because both are classified as 501(c)6 organizations. Under federal law, 501(c)6 organizations -- essentially, business leagues -- are defined as associations of persons having some common business interest, the purpose of which is to promote such common interest and not to engage in a regular business of a kind ordinarily carried on for profit. Does that sound like the NFL to you?
It's been said before but the contrast between socialist NFL and the largely capitalist, competition-driven way European leagues are set up is kind of amazing. I envy soccer fans their league structure in which teams at the bottom are punished, not rewarded, and poor performers drop out of existence. Imagine a world in which the Lions are a fourth-division team and some other Michigan outfit is competing in the NFL. Mmmm. Justice.
Instead, William Clay Ford has been allowed to ruin pro football in Detroit for 50 years. Down with antitrust exemptions for sports.
Speaking of, OH MY GOD. This is from Bylaw Blog proprietor John Infante is… bizarre. Probably unworkable. It has a zero point zero percent chance of actually happening. And it was posted in February, at which point I missed it. But it's kind of amazing to think about:
The College Basketball Champions League (CBBCL) would be the premier college basketball competition. It would consist of the following stages:
- A qualifying stage of up to three rounds;
- A group stage over six weeks;
- A knockout stage of four rounds.
The CBBCL as currently configured would consist of 56–58 teams. All bids to the CBBCL would be automatic bids based on winning or finishing high in your conference. A rating or coefficient system would be used on the conference level, and would be based solely on a conference's performance in the CBBCL.
Basically, throw over the current model in favor of a Euro soccer model, cups and all. Again, never never happen but thinking about it is pretty cool. No more Binghamton games for top teams as they compete in their conference and the Champions League, just wall-to-wall killer games.
Again, never happen in a million years but it's always fun to think of ways to make revenue by increasing the excitement level of the sport instead of just making fans more and more resentful. One way to do that is to add more silverware. Right now most American sports are structured so that there is one thing to strive for and that thing is determined by fairly random playoff at the end of a regular season.
The February NBA game is the quintessential example of the disease this leads to, and while I find complaints that no one cares about college basketball until the tournament to be unconvincing, people are thinking about goosing the rest of the year:
"Once the reforms to the college football postseason are complete, we have a responsibility to think long and hard about how we can improve the basketball regular season," said Larry Scott, the commissioner of the Pacific-12 Conference. "The game deserves it."
Here's an idea: play every nonconference game at the same time on the same court. Yeah! /markhollis'd.
Here's a better idea: expand the preseason tourney exemption to move away from one-weekend events played on neutral courts to a mini-me version of a cup competition in which regular season champions from the previous year square off on randomly-drawn home courts until you get to a final four, which is at MSG or bid out. There are 33, so one play-in game, three weeks of Friday night games, and then a Final Four. Silverware that means something and packs out home floors. HOME FLOORS, people.
Consider your travel plans today. Not those travel plans. Joe Lunardi threw out an updated bracket because ten games into the season's as good a time as any. The bracket has Michigan a one seend(!), bringing forth a question and a statement.
The question: what does Joe Lunardi do nine months out of the year?
The statement: for the first time it looks like the NCAA tournament's decision to break everything into pods and try to get as many top seeds close to home will benefit Michigan, as they're slotted into Auburn Hills in this and any other bracket that bothers to list where people will be.
It will be hard for them to exit that territory since top four seeds usually get priority close to home and there aren't many teams projected to make the top four who would prefer to go to the Palace: MSU, obviously, and then Cincinnati, Notre Dame, and maybe Illinois. With Dayton as another outlet for any of those teams, three or four of them would have to pass Michigan to get that Palace spot. So, yeah.
If Michigan makes the Sweet 16, they'd probably get bumped out of Indianapolis unless they finish above the Hoosiers on the S-Curve. That might not be so bad since they're not playing the regional finals at the basketball arena, but rather the Colts' Stadium. While it will be funny to see Indiana basketball outdraw the Big Ten Championship game significantly, most of those seats are going to be terrible.
Aw man, the other travel plans make you feel baaaad. After hemming and hawing about going to the bowl game I finally did get a flight, and now I feel like a jerk for doing so:
8:54PM EST December 11. 2012 - No bowl game in college football pays more money to one person than the Outback Bowl in Tampa Bay.
His name is Jim McVay, the game's president and chief executive officer.
According to tax forms, the bowl paid McVay $753,946 in fiscal year 2010, $693,212 in 2009 and $808,032 in 2008. His pay has nearly doubled since 2002, when he earned $404,253. This year, his game matches Michigan (8-4) and South Carolina (10-2) on Jan. 1.
"He's done a fabulous job," says Mike Schulze, a spokesman for the game. "It's about being fairly compensated based on what the market dictates."
Dammit. This is why I don't go to bowl games. McVay made more than the CEO of the American Red Cross, which has revenues of $3.5 billion. The Outback Bowl brought in 10 million, of which they are paying this joker 7.5%. Also:
The median salary for the 15 bosses at the non-profit bowls reviewed by USA TODAY Sports is about three times higher than the $132,739 median for a nonprofit chief executive, according to a study of 3,786 mid-to-large charities in 2010 by Charity Navigator, a charity watchdog.
I mean seriously I feel bad for supporting this in any way.
Q for a non-Rose Bowl rookie: should I just scalp in Tampa? I assume that face value is for suckers, right?
Rutgers lollercoaster. The Big Ten is going to threaten cable companies in the newly expanded Big Ten footprint unless they cut the league the same deal the Midwest does, except this time this is their leverage:
The fact that Maryland and Rutgers are joining the Big Ten Conference doesn't guarantee that their games will be on the Big Ten Network. In fact, several of their games may not be available locally at all — TV or broadband — when they kick off their Big Ten seasons in 2014.
Maryland and Rutgers face the possibility of having at least two football games and at least 15 basketball games go untelevised locally when they join the conference in a year and a half.
That's because the Big Ten Conference is looking into a strategy that could keep all Maryland and Rutgers games — encompassing all sports — off of the Big Ten Network unless local distributors place the channel on an expanded basic tier. The Big Ten used that strategy successfully in Nebraska last year when the Cornhuskers joined the conference, and the conference is expected to use it again in 2014 when Maryland and Rutgers join.
I think that'll probably work in DC thanks to Maryland's lacrosse and basketball outfits but if it doesn't it is going to be delightful to see Comcast get into a fight because of the team that plays in the Comcast Center. I cannot wait for that standoff to go down.
I find it difficult to believe many—if any—New York area cable companies are going to look at the threat of not getting two Rutgers football games a year and cave; not having Rutgers basketball is probably a selling point. Here's to a decades-long ban on Rutgers content on the BTN.
Etc.: Get out while you can, Catholic schools! form a sensible 10-12 conference from Milwaukee to DC and watch people like it! Maryland gets money up front to leave the ACC. Chesson and Darboh called out as impressive players early in bowl practice, which yes please. Burke declares M elite. Hardaway's recent shooting is the closest thing Michigan has to a concern right now. Surprise Michigan still doesn't run zone.
Unverified Voracity Boggles At The Cameron Lazies
I still can't believe it's called "The Journey," which should by rights be a Hallmark Channel series about entering puberty. But it's talking Michigan-Michigan State. Cazzie Russell gets his eyebrow on and Novak rains threes in Breslin:
The Aneurysm of Leadership is discussed.
It's the… uh… economy? This is unbelievable:
Once regularly an asylum for 1,200 Crazies, Section 17 at Cameron Indoor Stadium now rarely plays host to a student-only crowd.
Student attendance at men's basketball games has fallen consistently over the last five years, even dropping after Duke won its fourth national championship in 2010. This season, approximately 650 undergraduates have attended each game, 150 fewer than during the 2008-09 season. As a result, Duke Athletics has begun to sell an increasing number of general admission tickets in the student section on a regular basis.
"It has nothing to do with the revenue. We just want it to be full," Director of Marketing and Relations Mike Forman said. "If there were 1,200 students every game we would love it."
I've given Michigan students crap for late/spotty attendance at football and hockey (basketball seems immune for some reason) but, like… Jebus. If Duke can't sell out their student tickets it is a nationwide epidemic.
The article goes on to describe a couple of reasons for the decline: the prevalence of online streaming (which seems ludicrous since I'm sure all Duke games are televised in Durham) and "the students' misconception of the time commitment involved." Apparently it's first-come, first-serve and you show up for a game sans ticket and hope to get in. That's a little nuts.
Even if Duke is too far at one end of the scale, Michigan could slide closer to them without incurring the same effect. Offer incentives for having your tickets scanned on time or early and revoke student ticket privileges for people who don't bother to show up.
Attacking the symptom. Bowls are out of control but this does not attack the matter at its heart:
There is "growing support" among conference commissioners, athletic directors and bowl officials to increase the difficulty of becoming bowl eligible by requiring teams to have seven victories, or a winning record, when the new BCS cycle begins in 2014, multiple sources have told CBSSports.com. The seven-win requirement would also mean a handful of bowls likely would be discontinued because there would not be enough eligible teams to fill all of the current 70 berths. In the past two years alone, 27 teams with 6-6 records were needed to fill all the bowl slots, meaning nearly 20 percent of the bowl field didn't have a winning record.
That would hack out about seven of the existing bowls, none of which would be missed in the slightest. It would still allow a dozen or more bowls that are net negatives to exist. The way to fix the current system is to get rid of ticket and hotel guarantees and let the bowls, not the schools, assume the risk of a crappy matchup.
Slicing out the bottom of the barrel is better than nothing, I guess. And at least athletic directors and presidents are getting wise to the scam:
"The 7-5 proposal is getting serious support," a non-BCS bowl official said. "They're telling a coach [that] 6-6 doesn't cut it, but then the coach gets a $50,000 or $100,000 bonus for a bowl game that none of the fan base wants to see. Athletic directors feel like they're pouring money down a hole and they're getting frustrated with it. The only people making out on 6-6 bowl games are the coaches."
…and the dudes in blazers, of course.
Burn. The Daily profiles Brian Wiseman by featuring his ridiculous peewee campaign:
You've probably heard about Michigan hockey coach Red Berenson's phenomenal six-goal game with the St. Louis Blues in 1968. But what about the record-breaking season of one of his assistants, who averaged over five goals per game en route to a 413-goal campaign?
"They didn't even keep those stats when I was a kid," Berenson said.
Alex Guptill says no sale.
@_BrianWiseman I've seen this guys wrist shot, there is no way he scored 413 goals... #allstar
Wiseman can only say "keep scoring" at the moment, but don't find yourself in a drought, Alex.
I'll take f-bombs for 1000. David Molk is interviewed by Kyle Mienke:
He's certain of one thing, though: He has doubters. And he knows exactly where they can go.
"It's just, stuff like that pisses me off," Molk said, voice rising. "Any scout who denies me pisses me off. 'Oh, this is what you got. You're not good enough.'
"Well, (to hell with) you, let me show you what I got."
For the record, I have never doubted Molk and move around constantly so my location cannot be pinned down. Also, Molk's Sugar Bowl injury was a severed tendon. Competition for center of the 2010s is now closed.
Surprise unwarranted. After the Purdue game I noted that Michigan's bench was a nonfactor this year. A UMHoops mailbag points out that is no outlier:
Here are the statistics for the percentage of minutes played by the bench (Bench Minutes/Total minutes) under John Beilein since 2005:
Year Bench % Rk 2012 22.3% 327 2011 19.3% 337 2010 22.1% 327 2009 35.6% 66 2008 31.6% 147 2007 24.7% 282 2006 20.0% n/a 2005 31.2% n/a Average 25.9%
Beilein has high expectations and he's going to play who he trusts at any given time.
The last three years Michigan has been incredibly thin. I'm hoping that changes next year. Michigan's not going to shoot up into Arkansas territory but if they can get into the middle of the pack injuries get a lot less frightening and players having off nights can spend more of them on the bench.
Etc.: Martin pwns Brewster at the Senior Bowl. Penn State flips a QB commit from… Rice. Scout folks say Diamond, Grant to M, Garnett to Stanford, Kozan to Iowa, and punt on Reeves.
Unverified Voracity, Fergodsakes
Fergodsakes. Fergodsakes!
Michigan offensive coordinator Al Borges has spent much of the season with his name as candidates for other jobs. First was the head coaching position at New Mexico, which eventually went to Bob Davie. Then, it was a potential replacement for Charlie Weis as Florida's offensive coordinator. On Tuesday, Borges said he isn't interested.
"No," Borges said. "This is Michigan, [fergodsakes]. In the noble words of someone we all know and love.
SHIRT. Shirt.
En route. Six Zero has a treat for you in the new year.
Molk will headbutt you. This is a literal thing if you are Jack Miller.
After each of Michigan's coin tosses this year, senior center David Molk would march to the sideline and find freshman center Jack Miller for his pregame ritual: headbutting.
"I like Jack," Molk said earlier this season. "He doesn't like it. He always says it's OK if he knows it's coming. ... I'll just kind of run up to him and grab him, and slam my head into him."
I hope they're wearing helmets when this transpires but wouldn't bet my life on it. Also, JB Fitzgerald has spent his career at Michigan evangelizing the superiority of shoe polish over eyeblack.
All too easy. Michigan has hired another coach, so it's time for another round of Fisk The Creepy Lech, this time with an assist to some guy at Ball State whose butthurt is exceeded only by his knowledge of identity phenomenologies. Yes, it's time once again for Gregg Easterbrook to complain about literally every college coach who's taken another job:
TMQ Readers Know Too Much: I wrote that Kevin Sumlin has joined the ranks of weasel coaches who walk out on their promises the instant dollar bills are waved; then listed Nick Saban, Rich Rodriguez, Randy Edsall and Bobby Petrino as other prominent weasels.
Justin Bauserman of Indianapolis writes, "Brady Hoke belongs among the ranks of weasel coaches. First he walked out on his own alma mater, Ball State, without even coaching in the 2008 International Bowl after the team's terrific 12-1 season. His walkout essentially doomed his team to a loss in the bowl. Hoke broke his promises to Ball State in order to sign a lucrative five-year contract at San Diego State. When more money was waved by Michigan, Hoke walked out on his SDSU deal after just two seasons. How long before Michigan fans rue the day some NFL team offers him more, and he breaks his promises and bolts again?"
San Diego State must have been shocked when Hoke took the Michigan job. Hoke had gone to great lengths to conceal his ultimate goal.
When Weber interviewed Hoke for the SDSU job in late 2008, Weber said he asked Hoke, "How do you see this position at San Diego State fitting in with the arc of your career?"
"He said the end of that arc was head coach of the University of Michigan," Weber said. "I don't think I'd want a coach who didn't have that kind of aspiration."
Only his closest confidants had any idea of his ultimate destination.
I don't pretend to know Brady Hoke very well, but I know that his father was a college teammate of Bo Schembechler at Miami University, and that the Wolverines' crusty Patron Saint became a mentor during Hoke's eight-year apprenticeship in Ann Arbor. I know how much the place means to him.
And he made sure that he was going to get paid tons of money.
Hoke has left San Diego State to coach football at Michigan, and his deliberations might not have spanned a nanosecond. He accepted the job before money was mentioned, and later said he would have walked to Ann Arbor as a condition of employment.
Easterbrook's complaints about coaches taking better jobs are always dumb, but going after Hoke is a new bar. In this department, anyway. The whole head-injuries-and-jews thing probably still takes the cake.
[Via the board.]
They're onto us. Arizona's Greg Byrne has adapted to the realities of the internet era:
Fly commercial. I know, who flies commercial with a private jet at his disposal? No way. These days, though, it's just too easy to track the tail numbers of private planes online. In this case, Byrne hopped on a flight that stopped in Denver (Couldn't get a nonstop? Really?) before heading to Detroit. In fact, Byrne was spotted in Denver, and news quickly hit Twitter that he was no doubt there to grab Colorado State's Steve Fairchild after his thrilling 3-9 season in Fort Collins.
By doing this and using Wire-style burners Byrne managed to keep his hire so secret that I'm still not sure who Arizona's head coach is.
General bowl-lol update. West Virginia is struggling to sell its 100 dollar Orange Bowl tickets because Stubhub has comparable seats for 19 bucks. WVU blogs note the bowl is spending some of the money it steals from the schools on a cruise for "40 FBS athletic directors and six conference executives."
The Orange Bowl is a nonprofit.
Elsewhere, Village Voice Media burns the whole system to the ground in an extensively-researched piece that ran in weeklies nationwide:
The ticket scheme alone leaves schools awash in red ink. Virginia Tech lost $400,000 on last year's trip to the Orange Bowl — despite getting $1.2 million from the ACC. Though Auburn claimed last season's BCS crown, financial records show it still lost $600,000 — even after a $2.2 million bailout from the Southeastern Conference.
Some bowls have also found a way to scam schools on hotels. Since the bowls usually arrange lodging, athletic directors assume their "friends" are negotiating the best group deals. But that's not always the case.
Under Junker's rule, the Fiesta Bowl required schools to purchase 3,750 room-nights at about $200 a pop. According to the contract, the schools had to pay whether they used them or not.
But what Junker wasn't telling his "friends" was that he'd arranged a side deal with the Scottsdale Convention & Visitors Bureau. In exchange for funneling teams to Scottsdale resorts, the city's tourism arm agreed to kick the Fiesta Bowl $8.2 million over the 20-year pact, according to a contract discovered by the Arizona Republic.
The whole thing is recommended. It's a comprehensive rundown.
Glass monster. If I asked you to guess who the second-leading defensive rebounder in the Big Ten was, you would not get it right. Via UMHoops:
Calling Smotrycz''s rebounding numbers a year ago "underwhelming" would be kind. They were disdainful for a player that stands 6-foot-9. The same Evan Smotrycz that rebounded like a guard a season ago is suddenly the second best defensive rebounder in the Big Ten.
Rank Player Team Ht Wt Yr DR% 1 Jared Sullinger Ohio St. 6-9 280 So 33.3 2 Evan Smotrycz Michigan 6-9 235 So 23.4 3 Draymond Green Michigan St. 6-7 230 Sr 23 4 Meyers Leonard Illinois 7-1 245 So 22.9 5 Ryan Evans Wisconsin 6-6 210 Jr 21
*Removed Trevor Mbakwe (knee surgery) from the fifth slot.
You can try to discount that as an artifact of Michigan's style but I don't think the argument works. Michigan has played almost entirely man to man and has reaped benefits from Smotrycz's enormous rebound-pinchers. Opponents are only grabbing 27.6 percent of their misses. The national average is 32.6. Michigan is a good defensive rebounding team and Smotrycz is one of the primary reasons.
He's also shooting better than 50% from three. If he can just stay on the floor…
Etc.: If you're wondering why on Earth Michigan signed up for a home and home with Bradley, it was probably had something to do with Bradley hiring Beilein's son. Angry Iowa Running-Back-Hating God is never sated. OSU react roundup from Rittenberg. Coastal Carolina fired the dogs and cats guy (who was actually a fairly successful coach) to hire a billionaire. Boo, Coastal Carolina. Boo.
Block MST3K continues at the HSR. Bob McKenzie on Jon Merrill's slow path back to the ice.
Unverified Voracity Latches On
UFR will go up tomorrow. FYI.
It's raining wallpaper. As per usual. This one is from jonvalk:
This week in bowl parasitism. Bowl games are parasites on college football designed to bleed as much money from the system as they can get away with. Thanks to the interest levels provided by the teams—not the stadiums or locations—some of them do actually pump money into the system (although far less money than an NCAA controlled playoff would). The latest example of this:
The Fiesta Bowl has a deal with the Scottsdale Convention & Visitors Bureau that pays the bowl hundreds of thousands of tax dollars a year in return for requiring participating teams to stay in Scottsdale and Paradise Valley resorts.
The bowl says the agreement is strictly legal and good business for all parties involved.
But it may increase the cost for schools playing in the Fiesta Bowl and BCS Championship Game, because they are required to stay a certain number of nights at high-end hotels.
The bowl, according to records obtained by The Arizona Republic, received $491,340 from the Scottsdale CVB this past college-bowl season when the Connecticut, Oklahoma, Oregon and Auburn football programs stayed in Scottsdale-area resorts for the Fiesta Bowl and Bowl Championship Series title game, respectively.
Legal or not, that's a half-million dollars of overhead from the payment alone and however much more from the monopoly lock in the payment provides. We can ballpark how much this is from UConn's trip to the Fiesta last year:
UConn also has a hotel obligation — a total of 550 rooms at three different hotels ranging in price from $125-225 a night, not including tax, with blocks reserved for either three or seven nights.
Without the lock-in teams could put the band in six rooms at the Super Eight and save themselves a bucket of money. The Sugar does this as well. Their defense is "this is legal," which is true but beside the point.
If bowls are going to exist they should be worthwhile businesses without heaping unnecessary expenses on the participating teams. This is a relatively piddly expense relative to ticket guarantees that erase payouts and leave cash-strapped programs with a net deficit, but it just shows how much of a racket bowls are. Not that you needed to be told that when the Michigan-OSU game featured Rose Bowl reps when the combined chance of either team making it to Pasadena was zero percent.
Crose enough*! Andy Staples has an article about the Big 12's sudden, unsurprising opinion flip in re: an expanded playoff field. It promises change:
Monday, Big 12 athletic directors voted in a straw poll to get behind the idea of a plus-one format that would allow four teams to compete for the national title. Such a format would have allowed USC to play for the national title in 2003, Auburn to play for it in 2004, Texas to play for it in 2008 and Oklahoma State -- which finished behind No. 2 Alabama by the slimmest of margins in the BCS standings -- to play for the title this season. If the league's presidents choose to agree with their athletic directors, the Big 12's support would be a huge step forward. The Big 12 was one of several leagues that blocked SEC commissioner Mike Slive's 2008 proposal for a four-team, seeded tournament. The ACC was the only conference that supported the plan.
With Larry Scott now creating the future in earnest in the Pac-12, the major remaining obstacle to a playoff is one of these two men.
Left: Lando Mollari. Right: Jim Delany
Jim Delany still hates the Narn with all his heart.
"Our view is we'd like to stay where we are," Delany told the Tribune. "We do believe in the slippery slope theory."
You should have thought of that before you joined the BCS, dude. As soon as the dumbest playoff in history was instituted, outrage started piling up. As soon as the sanctity of the Rose Bowl was undermined, erosion got busy. The levees are about to break.
Staples is on board with big chunks of the MGoPlayoff, not quite arriving at six teams but still proposing something I'd love:
If conference leaders are smart, they'll design a plan that allows for the two semifinal games to be played on the home fields of the No. 1- and No. 2-seeded teams. If they wanted to appease the must-win-your-league crowd, they could require that a team must win its conference to host a semifinal. Home-site semifinals would eliminate concerns about fan bases traveling twice -- a non-starter -- and would help reinforce the importance of the regular season. Teams would go into the final week fighting for a home game in a sport where home-field advantage means a lot. Just imagine an LSU-Stanford semifinal at Tiger Stadium or an Alabama-Oklahoma State semifinal in Stillwater (using the must-win-conference rule). Also, to remove the negative consequences of a semifinal loss, the two losing teams would be placed into premium bowls, where they could take a well-deserved victory lap for a great season. This would appease bowl executives, who for some unknown reason strike fear into the hearts of the people who run the sport.
One day people will wake up and realize that doofs in yellow jackets getting paid is not in the best interests of the sport. Think Of The Children.
Not fair. UMHoops has David Merritt breaking down some of Michigan's pick and rolls from Maui.
Hard Hedge
As Witherspoon jumps out to hedge, Trey Burke puts on the brakes and changes direction with a between the legs dribble. All within a split of a second. This makes the play right here. The change of direction gives him another screen but also has his defender back up and lose attachment.
All Trey has to do now is get to the outside of Barton's left leg and he will get in the lane.
It's Picture Pages for basketball. All we've got now is a superior use of the crop tool.
So exactly right. There was a point a few years ago when I railed almost weekly against the relentless stenography that mainstream coverage had degenerated into. It was the bubble screen of 2007. I dropped six months after that hobby-horse expired, but when an ESPN vet like Tim Keown lays into the modern press conference I cannot resist a very long blockquote:
The death of the interview has spawned a generation raised on generalities and clichés. Caution is a lesson [Titans QB Matt] Hasselbeck has learned many times, most recently after the Titans beat the Colts on Oct. 30, when he was asked -- or told, he can't remember the phrasing -- to compare current teammate Chris Johnson with former Seahawks teammate Shaun Alexander. In Hasselbeck's view, it was a question with "a negative vibe" -- his pet peeve.
What followed was an instructive look into the void left in the interview's wake. Hasselbeck, attempting to answer the question honestly, said he did see similarities: two great running backs who followed MVP-caliber seasons with "normal" years. He was attempting to make the point that both players were victims of unfair expectations, because nobody can be expected to perform at an MVP level every season. "It's hard to be elite every year," he said.
Predictably, he was seen as "ripping" Johnson and "throwing him under the bus." … The question was legitimate. Johnson, a former offensive player of the year and recent signee of a huge contract, had been booed at home in much the same way former MVP Alexander was when his production dropped off after he signed a huge contract. The answer, as far as it went, was legitimate as well. What was missing was context, and before Hasselbeck could massage his message, he was hit with a new question and the group conversation -- such as it was -- moved on.
"If I were Chris Johnson, I would have wondered, 'Why is my quarterback saying this about me?'" Hasselbeck says. "Everyone knows how the Shaun Alexander story ended in Seattle, so it looked like I was ripping Chris Johnson." The subsequent coverage centered on Hasselbeck's "unflattering" comparison between the two running backs. "I was asked a negative question, and instead of being a jerk I gave an honest answer," he says.
His solution? Be boring. "It's a headline-driven world, and what I said provided a headline," he says. "That's why I'm guarded, cautious. I don't want to accidentally give bulletin-board material. If someone asks me about a player, I say, 'He's a great player.' If they ask me about a coach, I say, 'He's a great coach.' "
The problem is finding which section to blockquote since all of it is deadly accurate. It starts "BEHOLD THE DECOMPOSED REMAINS of the sports interview" and is probably 3000 words long. It's worth the read.
The local spin comes in two parts. Part one: boy is it nice to have a coach with his banalities down pat. Rich Rodriguez may have gotten unfairly pilloried for his "get a life" statement, which was ripped out of context like Hasselbeck's statement was, but he was a magnet for that kind of stuff. Hoke hasn't had a misstep yet; he's settled into a comfort zone where the media is his lapdog, and that won't change. If things start going poorly the media will be defending Hoke and scorning fans until it's over.
Part two: Michigan's suddenly better about this than most schools with their coordinator pressers and the relatively straight answers given in there, especially from Mattison.
Etc.: Gobbler Country profiles Michigan, which is us. More on this later, but Chris Brown's long-ago profile of the Hokie D is remarkably useful since it's about how they've adapted to the spread. UMHoops talks Oakland with a Summit League blogger.
Unverified Voracity Takes Everything Back
No, sir, I have no problems with tunnel screens anymore, sir. This is Al Borges's terrifying father:
That is a 79-year old in the photo. Gordon Borges is now 84 years old and is thinking about crushing your head like a grape. All criticisms about the offense are withdrawn.
The clans reunite to fight. MVictors runs down the clans' reaction to John Bacon's Three and Out. You may or may not be part of The Rebellion:
"You removed the chart Dooley, so gloves are off!"
This book is right in their wheelhouse. Bacon points out in painful detail all the obstacles that RichRod faced (and yes, a few he created) along the way. They cheered each time Bacs mentioned "The Horror" or their homebase, mgoblog. Would have liked to seen more detail on the internal politics of RR's handling of (or lack thereof) the defensive coordinators.
This is a bit of revenge on those responsible for setting the course for the Michigan offense to head back to the Stone Ages and.. [oh, wait a second..they stopped reading this --Bri'Onte Dunn just updated his Facebook page.]
Dammit, Dooley, no he didn't.
If this was a business it would be the kind of business that is not a business for very long. Dan Wetzel ties mega conference realignment into a college football playoff, or lack thereof, and hits home on the absurdity of the bowl system in one tight paragraph:
College football defies all business logic by outsourcing its most profitable product to third-party bowl games. The Bowl Championship Series not only fails to capitalize on the enormous potential of a multi-week tournament, it sucks hundreds of millions of dollars out of college pockets in an effort to preserve the tradition of $700,000 bowl director salaries and the majesty of the TaxSlayer.com Bowl.
That is a real thing now, that bowl name. It boggles the mind that an organization so relentlessly focused on every nickel signs away millions of dollars a year in the name of traditions not even I believe in anymore. College football actually does more than lose potential profit to nerds in yellow blazers, it sets money on fire by allowing bowls to impose ticket guarantees they know will never be fulfilled. The NCAA could do something about this (they okay bowl games) but chooses not to. Why is a mystery.
I disagree with Wetzel when he says extra revenue from a playoff could have forestalled or eliminated the current wackiness. Wins are a zero-sum game, so there is no such thing as enough money. It's all about how much money you have relative to the other guys. As long as Texas is Texas this still happens.
[ed: I meant to post this last week but it slipped through the cracks. Might as well publish it as further confirmation of MANBALL is +EV.]
I like it. Until Brady Hoke gives me reason to believe he is a football coach I am going to pretend he is playing XBox and does not know it and will therefore accidentally make correct decisions other football coaches will not. I will take press conference statements as rock-hard evidence of this fact. So:
You looked a little mad when the team went over to the student section after the Eastern Game. How come? "I wanted to score a touchdown at the end instead of a field goal."
I like it, too. To emphasize how often coaches get things like this wrong, here's Ramzy on Luke Fickell:
Braxton Miller then rushed for ten yards to get to the Colorado one-yard line. There were six seconds left on the clock and Ohio State had a timeout to spare. The Buckeyes were ahead 17-7, playing at home, dominant in the trenches and had time for one more play from one yard out with the ability to still stop the clock if the attempt was unsuccessful.
Fickell was presented with a classic step-on-their-throats opportunity and chose to kick a field goal, to a chorus of boos. The chorus was correct: One more shot at a touchdown was the right call. The rookie head coach was caught over-thinking yet again, while covering for the position he's trying to earn permanently.
This was not a situation where 'just taking the three points' should have been a delicious, dangling carrot. A fade or a sneak could be easily be run in under five seconds, still leaving time for a field goal with that timeout in Fickell's pocket (a disturbing trend that began in the waning moments of the Miami game). Even if the end zone shot failed, Ohio State still could have stopped the clock and attempted a field goal as time expired.
Five seconds is a little hairy when it comes to getting that second snap but he's probably right if it's from the one. Michigan's game-ending ND fade was run from the 16 and took six seconds. Given OSU's mauling interior line it was likely to be moot anyway.
BTW, Ramzy seems very much opposed to Fickell's retention at the end of the year. I'm torn: OSU elevating an unproven guy who's never really been a coordinator (Fickell was listed as "co-DC" for the past six years but with Jim Heacock around that seems more ceremonial than functional) and makes goofy gameday decisions is an excellent situation, but dumping Fickell after the season helps Michigan's recruiting momentum since presumably it will come with a poor record.
Hat collection. Brady has one.
On a shelf in his office at the University of Michigan, Brady Hoke keeps a display of various baseball caps.
There's a Pittsburgh Penguins hat, a few White Sox caps, plus a couple from the Detroit Tigers.
"That's my collection to this point," said Hoke, Michigan's head football coach.
He didn't buy these hats, though. And they weren't given to him as gifts. Instead, he took them from his players because they broke his rule.
"Those are hats from players that don't wear Michigan hats in here," he said.
"Brady Hoke gets it" tag… engaged.
Now kill some of them with fire. The NCAA was sued by the Aloha Bowl when the bowl game tried to sell itself to some people in Seattle only for the NCAA to block them. This happened way back in 2003 and is only getting resolved now. The NCAA won. Money quote:
"We will vigorously defend the NCAA's efforts to act in the best interest of student-athletes and the collegiate model of sports, as we did in this case," he added. "The jury found that saying no to the Seattle Bowl was the right thing. We look forward to moving on from this case and continuing to assist the postseason bowl system so it can operate ethically and appropriately."
Thing the NCAA can do:
The NCAA does not run postseason football bowl games in Division I but licenses them to ensure they meet a variety of requirements to ultimately provide a meaningful experience for student-athletes and institutions. These criteria relate to attendance, conference commitments, revenue and other details.
Thing the NCAA does not do: prohibit ticket guarantees that transfer money from universities to warm-weather cities with guys in colored blazers. IE: Stop setting student fees on fire.
The arbitrariness of stickers. An old Bo lineman writes MVictors about Michigan's helmet stickers and the extremely precise way in which they were handed out:
It's funny as an offensive lineman you were never quite sure why you got one. A good block, a good game, a good play. It was easy for the specialty folks, touchdowns, TFL, sacks, fumble recovery, interceptions, 100+ yard games, etc. They never told us specifically why we received one. You just seemed to get more of them when you won. I still have my helmet from my freshman year where I earned I think 6 or 7 of them. I only played on the kick-off return team then and I was never told what I did to receive them.
A real throwback uniform would have to include stickers, but they'd have to wait until Denard graduates unless we fit him with a comically oversized Turd Ferguson helmet.
Etc.: Just Cover on the state of MSU's offensive line, which is shamblicious. Rant about spin on Craig Roh crying story if RR still in charge implied but mercifully omitted. Michigan's last 2012 opponent is UMass, who will be in the MAC by then. Kiffin assistant paid for Seastrunk's airfare on an unofficial visit to Tennessee—wonder how that fallout hits repeat violators UT and USC.
If I had known they were handing out muppets that look like you at BWB for winning the USMAP awards I would have created a voting robot to win.
Unverified Voracity Leaps Stuff
The other major outrage type thing going on. That would be the bowl system's ticket guarantees that turn bowls from a guaranteed profit to a guaranteed deficit for many. The Wizard of Odds put together a lot of numbers about what's going on with that. Unfortunately he quoted perpetually silly Andrew Zimbalist saying something about a cartel, but whatever. Numbers:
Supporters of the 35-game bowl system argue that the postseason turns a profit. Technically, this is correct, but only because of the BCS, which this season distributed a reported $174.07 million from its five games. Of that amount, 83.4 percent went to the automatic qualifier conferences — the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pacific 10 and Southeastern conferences.
The 30 non-BCS bowl games are, at best, a break-even venture. Without the ticket guarantee, it is likely that half the bowls would not exist.
The Fiesta Bowl's massive chunk of unsold seats is actually economically justifiable since the BCS bowls are a net input into the system. That's not the case when you're UCF, and you're eating nearly a million dollars in unsold Liberty Bowl tickets.
This isn't a playoff argument. The bowl system can continue, but the NCAA is currently transferring money from college students (student fees make up a large portion of the revenue for programs that typically go to rinky-dink bowls) to this guy:
Not literally that guy, but versions of that guy in a different blazer. It's a neat trick to transfer the risk your bowl will be a dud from the organizers to the schools, though.
File Under The Gets It Files, Part XI. You know who Amani Toomer hates? Everybody. If he was going to have a sitcom it would be titled "Amani Toomer Hates Everybody." Amani Toomer does not like anyone. He hadn't been back to Ann Arbor in 15 years. He came back for one of the thousands of Hoke Hand-holding Socials and…
"It was good to be back, good to see some players and people, and I saw coach (Gary) Moeller, which was special," Toomer said. "I just really felt like a part of the whole Michigan family, more so than I did in the past couple of years.
"I feel more connected than I did before, so that's always a good step forward."
Amani Toomer likes Gary Moeller! And Brady Hoke!
This is the point at which I make a very silly assertion about this proving how excellent of a recruiter Brady Hoke is, which may be silly but is also 1000% true.
Requirement. I will join the horde, as required by law. This is Jalen Rose's General Lee:
Readers are advised not to attempt a reconciliation between Rose's comments about Duke and what appears to be a massive Dukes of Hazzard fandom. Smoke will come out of your ears.
Readers are advised to bid on the car, though, which is being auctioned off to help fund Rose's charter school in Detroit. Buy it now for 100 grand. Do it now.
Hockey in the boat. As you can see on the sidebar, Michigan hockey officially announced its recruiting class today. The official site's article has stats and a quote from Berenson on each of the signees; Michigan Hockey Net also points out that two guys weren't listed. That's not because they've decommited but because they're preferred walk-ons. Those two are D Mike Szuma and F Andrew Sinelli. Sinelli not counting as a scholarship guy (except when there are extras, which there usually are since someone always leaves the team) helps explain where they're going to get the room to sign these guys the next few years.
Meta but wow. I can't recall how I got to this article from The Daily (not that Daily: the Rupert Murdoch one) on Lloyd Carr being a nice dude who's in the Hall of Fame hurrah. In thirty seconds the generic newspaperese will fade from my brain, but I'll always remember the time I went to that site to read an article that was a half-meg 768x3072 image and marveled at how random the selection process for executives is. I know it's an iPad app and all but raising a giant middle finger to Google is maybe not the best policy.
How do you short this enterprise?
Etc.: Michigan is two-thirds of the way through its practice reduction. Must have been fairly significant if they could stack it like that. Insert joke about how it all came out of the defense here. Jim Tressel's lawyer, Gene Marsh, was Michigan's lawyer. This time around he's banking on Tressel's body language saving the day. That's the ticket. Ramzy at 11 Warriors appears more enthusiastic about Brady Hoke than most Michigan fans. Also he is also unforgiving of past MGoBlog statements that are now ridiculous. Optimism from Holding The Rope.


text:
Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Percy Harvin is doubtful for Sunday's matchup with NFC North rival Chicago Bears.
Harvin, who sprained his left ankle in three places during the third quarter of a Week 9 loss at Seattle, did not participate in practice this week and has missed each game since the injury.
The Vikings were hopeful to have Harvin back following the team's Week 11 bye, but the four-year pro was unable to return to the practice field this week.
Additionally, guard Charlie Johnson (toe) was listed as questionable while running back Adrian Peterson (ankle), wide receiver Michael Jenkins (foot) and cornerback Antoine Winfield (knee) were all listed as probable for Sunday.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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text:
I deleted my Twitter account and it's been 30 days. Does Twitter still keep those tweets for posterity on their servers through some manner of legal acrobatics?
I stopped selling the book I wrote and it's been 30 days. May the world still have copies of it through some manner of legal acrobatics?
Once you have published something, you cannot expect to be able to pull it back.
Twitter says they're going to delete it after thirty days. There's a marked difference between 'delete' and 'archive'. I have no issue if someone cut and pasted the last 3200 tweets from my Twitter account but the fact Twitter says they'll delete the tweets, not archive them, is deceptive.
Twitter says they're going to delete it after thirty days.
No they don't.
Why can't I see all my Tweets? My Tweet count is _,___. Are they lost?
The good news is they're not lost or gone! We have all your Tweets. The bad news is that we currently only allow you to see the 3200 most recent Tweets (this could also be construed as good news, as that number could be lower than 3200). We do not currently plan to change this limit, but we welcome your feedback - just send a mention to @feedback.
From the Twitter FAQs [twitter.com].
Anonymous Coward had a Twitter account? Huh, never knew that.
https://twitter.com/#!/AnoCow404 [twitter.com]
That, and also what about the attached or linked images?
Would love to see Hayley Williams' (Paramore) accidentally tweeted pic of her tits archived for "research" by future generations.
http://theinternettoday.net/pics/hayley-williams-nude-tweet-mistake/ [theinternettoday.net]
Legal acrobatics? You published it! That means that anyone in the whole internet who asked for it, got it. There should be no more expectation that you can take that back than you should be able to stop people from remembering what you said out loud. Less. Twitter themselves couldn't take it back if they wanted to.
This happened more than a year ago!!!!!
http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2010/04/how-tweet-it-is-library-acquires-entire-twitter-archive/ [loc.gov]
I think your tweets will disappear faster if you send them a DMCA notice and threaten to sue their pants off.
Some pastebin links to legally hot material have mysteriously gone 404.
I guess that's why the call it a FAQ:
"Private account information and deleted tweets will not be part of the archive."
Even if it's in their TOS that you lose all rights to the IP contained in a given tweet, this will more than guarantee some lawsuits from some very large groups.
IIRC corporates have sued over confidential information that was recorded on unlisted (but still public!) satellite channels.
I think the DNC may have also took action over the Clinton video that appears in Spin (long before, of course), but I can't remember exactly.
No, you don't lose "Intellectual Property". You just gave non exclusive right for Twitter, and everybody else, to distribute your "intellectual Property". But it's still yours.
Then again, given twitter's size limit, it's not protected under the general interpretation of copyright. It's only 160 characters.
Twitter can still be served with a DMCA takedown notice.
Imagine if someone tweeted the PS3 root keys?
But if all of it so far is going into public domain (perhaps I'm wrong on that point, I really don't know) then there's nothing to takedown?
It's not on public domain just because it gets posted to twitter.
Copyrighted content remains copyrighted no matter where you post it.
Slapping something on twitter that wasn't yours to begin with doesn't magically make it subject to twitter's terms. You have violated the implied warranty of authority by attempting to act without the permission of the copyright holder as their agent.
Which means you get busted for infringement and your rogue post to twitter gets taken down in compliance with the DMCA. It's n
Same with the previous generations and Usenet, heck even slashdot archive everything, just face up to it, if you don't want your comments to be online forever, don't upload them in the first place! the RIAA and MPAA is having to learn this the hard way.
...now the inane mumblings and poor grammar of the Twitter Age will be remembered throughout history. I was kinda hoping we'd eventually be able to forget all of this ever happened.
Obligatory inane comment about wasted taxpayer money.
Sure, why not. A historical rune inscription that I am rather fond of reads
"oli er oskeyndr auk strodhinn i rassinn",
which apparently means roughly "Oli has been taken in his unwiped ass."
We tend to think of the study of history as a dignified, if not outright dull pursuit, but there's a lot of vulgarity there, in both senses.
I'm sure that seen with the hindsight of twenty years, or of a hundred years, the texts on Twitter will have a very distinctive feel of the decade about them. And I think that as long
By itself probably a lot, but remember it's mostly text. They'll be able to compress the hell out of it.
Hopefully they compress it down to 1 bit.
Hopefully they compress it down to 1 bit.
And the value of that bit is "0".
unknown, however the library of congress will be increased by approximately 1.5 libraries of congress.
So how do we measure the amount of data on anything as compared to the library of congress now that the size has changed?!?!? All previous measurements now have to be remeasured using the new Library of Congress size model.
Hum... On standard measuring conventions, it'll take exactly one Library of Congress.
How much space will this take up?
I hope NONE. Otherwise they'll screw up my standard unit of measure: Libraries of Congress.
Researchers will be able to look at the Twitter archive as a complete set of data, which they could then data-mine for interesting information.
Nothing interesting was found.
Because it's a great documentation of early online society.
Plus there is a ton of social and behavioral data to be found.
I know it's hip to poo-poo twitter on
So future generations can look back on the golden age of the internet when everybody was talking and nobody was listening.
Simple: joke material for your grandchildren!
wait, you vote for not storing public information?
It's called "the anonymity of the crowd." If you think about it, following you around in a public place is called stalking for that reason. You have a right to go about your public business without undue and/or unwanted scrutiny, though less than you used to.
It's the same with the tweets - you agreed to post them for people to read in near-real time, not to be fodder for people to look at "forever and ever, world without end, amen and pass the gravy."
There's also the problem of context, both literal
IT's public information. It has exactly NOTHING to do with privacy.
Let me know when twitter gives you the option for tweets to be private,and then gives out THAT information.
That flamebait reply is also public. Image this: Some years later, you are going through an important job application process. The company you're wanting to get hired at queries your name in a "public" online records archive and they find this post where you rashly label someone an idiot and decide you are unfit to work for them because it gives the impression of a hot temper.
Or perhaps they don't even personally view the post, but it was factored into a kind of "personality score sheet" by a data mining
People's diaries and letters are published all the time, especially after they're dead and no longer have a say in the matter. And those are things that aren't initially published in a public medium.
A wild corpus appears!
well now that the Twitter archive is part of the Library of Congress it can only reflected as a portion of the Library of Congress.
well now that the Twitter archive is part of the Library of Congress it can only reflected as a portion of the Library of Congress.
So does this mean we've invented the recursive unit?
... was gained.
Great. Now the taxpayers are on the hook for Twitter's backup maintenance costs. Seriously. They don't even need their own storage anymore. I'm sure, since the Library of Congress is a publicly available entity, they'll have full access to the data-sets. They can just pipe everything straight to the LIB servers then access them at will, at any time. And who the fuck is paying for all that bandwidth?
Next we'll see the entire Facebook data-sets, Google cache data...
No, it would be a joke if they were getting the abridged version of the tweets...
... of each unit of writing in said library by about half, I'd say.
You can have my 'tweets' when you pry my journal (it's not a diary Damnit!) from my cold dead hands.
I think I will wait until Google Books scan it before I bother reading it
Matter cannot be created or destroyed, nor can it be returned without a receipt.


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It's been said that the purest form of brilliance rises only from the darkest depths of adversity. With that in mind, please allow me to share the best idea I've ever had.
The next time the lights go out from yet another storm of the century, we cut the power — literally, with a pair of oversized scissors — to the homes of the governor and NStar head Tom May. And those severed lines, by legislative mandate, cannot be repaired until every other household in Massachusetts has its lights restored.
See how they like it, the governor and our very own $9.2 Million a Year Utility Man. See how they like the ornery spouses, the unspeakable odors emanating from unlikely places, the sense of powerlessness that goes far beyond the heat and lights. See if they claim the power companies have "stepped up their game," as Deval Patrick recently did, or brag on their website that "95 percent [of customers] have already been restored."
Here's the problem with that. There's still another 5 percent, and yes, I'm in it. Believe me, I have a hunch our little minority wouldn't exist if Mrs. Patrick and Mrs. May were waiting to get their Keurigs up and running again.
Oh, it started fine. These things always do. When a tree crashed into a utility pole up the street late Monday afternoon, we lit a fire, watched movies on fully charged laptops, and dined on peanut butter crackers. It was a grand adventure, and surely a short one given the new laws and all the promises that were made.
Day 2. It's perhaps surprising how quickly the rustic charms of a simplified life can evaporate into a dark cloud of discontent, and then a steady downpour of complaint. School was canceled for the second day in a row — with no TV to occupy the little packages of joy. Oh, hot water, how I miss you so.
I'm not sure firing flares from my rooftop accomplished anything meaningful, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
NStar rolled into the neighborhood that night, turned on the lights at the nearby high school, and left. From my kitchen sink, I could see the school all lit up. I'm fairly certain that I could stand on the moon and still see that school all lit up.
Day 3. I delivered what I believed to be an inspiring — and much needed — pep-talk to the other members of my house, letting them know we had it easy compared with the suffering people of New Jersey and New York. It didn't go over as well as one might have hoped. The kids, home again, announced they'd rather be in class. I secretly read the websites of distant boarding schools on a laptop that I charged in my idling car.
For seemingly everyone, everywhere else, everything was normal. The sun came out. Life went on. Patrick gave those of us still without power a modest nod, as NStar trumpeted its perceived success. To the public at large, my neighbors and I were the invisible people, barely washed, blinking warily by day, receding silently into our dark houses at dusk. Well, not so silently if you include the complaints.
Day 4. I carried a flashlight everywhere, even in daylight. Don't ask me why. I spent an abnormal amount of time thinking about Thomas Edison, calculated how many more linemen NStar could afford if they cut May's pay package by $5 million a year, and, admittedly fragile, openly wept over a melted quart of Brigham's Chocolate Chip as we tossed the contents of the refrigerator into the trash. There was now peanut butter coming through my pores.
"Still no power?" people would ask, amused, like I was a contestant on a reality show.
Isn't that funny. But still no power — not until 7:40 Thursday night.
I want to see Tom May and Deval Patrick face that prospect during the next storm. But if their fate is linked to ours, I feel that nobody will have any problems at all.Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at email@example.com.


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MACHESNEY PARK (WIFR) -- Hearts were pumping at Harlem High School Sunday morning as hoopsters showed off their best shots.
It was all part of a scholarship fundraiser in honor of the REACT team killed in a helicopter crash. First responders from various fields made up teams for the three on three basketball tournament about 20 teams took part. The Rockford Police Union hosted the tourney to raise money for a nursing scholarship in honor of the fallen react crew.
"You feel it's such a tragic event and you know, we treat that as, just like losing someone in the line of duty. It's the same thing," says Andrew Hartman from the Rockford Police Department.
Organizers hope to raise about $2,500.


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Extension > Agriculture > Dairy Extension > Milk quality and mastitis >How good is your pre-milking teat prep?
How good is your pre-milking teat prep? How can you know? Why does it matter?
The bulk tank milk culture has long been the standard method for screening dairy herds for the presence of contagious mastitis pathogens (Streptococcus agalactiae, Staphylococcus aureus or Mycoplasma). Whenever these bacteria are present in a bulk tank milk sample, it is concluded that there are infected mammary glands in the herd. Because these mastitis pathogens are intermittently shed into the milk, single day bulk tank samples are not reliable indicators of the absence of contagious mastitis infections. However, research has shown when 3 or more consecutive daily bulk tank samples are taken and pooled for culturing, test results are dependable.
The bulk tank milk culture is also recognized as an excellent monitor of the effectiveness of pre-milking teat prep. Since most environmental mastitis pathogens found in bulk milk generally do not come from infected mammary glands but rather from the teat surface, it is reasoned that whatever environmental bacteria (coliforms and non-ag streps) not removed from teat surfaces during pre-milking teat prep will then end up in the bulk tank milk. Thus, the level of environmental bacteria in bulk tank milk samples is a direct reflection of the effectiveness of pre-milking teat prep. As in the case for contagious infections, pooling multiple days of bulk tank milk samples will give a more representative assessment of pre-milking teat prep across days and milking shifts (see Quality Count$ Fact Sheet FC-MC-1).
Many research studies indicate that production of high quality milk with minimum mastitis and optimum milking speed requires consistent cleaning of teat surfaces (including teat ends) and correct machine attachment timing (see Quality Count$ Fact Sheet F-MR-4 - Principles of Ideal Pre- and Post-milking Cow Prep). A survey of milking protocols will yield numerous pre-milking teat prep methods all hoping to achieve clean dry teats. A lot of the pre-milking teat prep protocol variation is due to housing and milking equipment differences as well as personal preference and inconsistent application of pre-milking prep procedures by milking personnel.
Recent introduction of robotic milking and such things as mechanical teat scrubbers has challenged the more conventional DIP - STRIP - DRY and APPLY teat prep protocols. But regardless of your teat prepping procedure method, the expected outcome must be the same – CLEAN, DRY TEATS. The bottom line is pretty simple: If the numbers of coliforms and non-ag strep bacteria on your bulk tank culture results are high, you are NOT getting teat surfaces clean enough!
Why does it matter? At the farm, mastitis, both clinical and subclinical (high SCC), is the main concern because current market access depends on having low SCC. But that is only half the story. In addition to bacteria that cause mastitis, there are many other organisms in the cow's environment that also contaminate cow's teats. These environmental organisms are usually neither a cow nor human health concern but can have a detrimental effect on milk shelf life and product quality. Some of these bacteria can be heat-resistant spore formers that, if they survive pasteurization, can end up in dried milk powder and milk protein products. Today approximately 15 to 17% of U.S. milk production is exported. The greatest portion is exported as dried milk powders and proteins. The fact that our importing partners are very concerned about spore producing contaminants should put this concern high on our list. Just ask Fonterra in New Zealand about the importance of having products free of spore contamination. Their recent product recall was a brand-marring scare that was too close for comfort. Fortunate for them the suspected Clostridium spores in their milk powder turned out to be garden variety food spoilage spores with no human health concerns.
TAKE HOME MESSAGE: There are normally many undesirable organisms in the cow's every day environment, which can easily contaminate cow's teats. Keeping cows clean and dry by attentive bedding, stall and alley management is needed. Research has repeatedly shown that the number of bacteria in bedding materials is positively correlated to the number of these bacteria on teats surfaces. Likewise, the greater numbers of bacteria on teat surfaces, the greater the risk of mastitis infections. In addition, whatever food spoilage bacteria are on teat surfaces at milking machine application will also end up in bulk tank milk. Therefore, the last opportunity to assure that bulk tank milk is not contaminated with undesirable organisms is to thoroughly clean teats before every milking. That is why monitoring coliform and non-ag strep bacteria levels on bulk tank cultures is the best means to know if your pre-milking procedures are effective regardless of the method you are using. If these bacteria levels are low, we are doing an adequate job! If they are too high, we are not being effective enough and we must improve.
To access the Quality Count$ materials, go to our U of MN Dairy Team website: http://www.extension.umn.edu/dairy, click on "Milk quality and mastitis", then click on "New! Quality Count$ 2012".


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|By Business Wire
Article Rating:
|December 28, 2012 12:38 AM EST
Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO:6502) will showcase a reference display of an SDHC memory card with TransferJet™ close proximity wireless transfer technology at the 2013 International CES, to be held from January 8 to 11, 2013, in Las Vegas, U.S.A.
The SDHC memory card on reference display will be a product under development, integrating a TransferJet™ transceiver IC, a coupler, an RF filter, peripheral passive parts, an SD bridge connection circuit, and Toshiba's NAND flash memory.
Data transfer by TransferJet™ communications will be implemented in devices supporting SDHC memory cards, such as digital cameras and PCs, by inserting this card in the card slots.
About TransferJet™
TransferJet™ is a close proximity wireless transfer technology standard promoted by the TransferJet™ Consortium whose membership consists of 45 companies (as of December 28, 2012), including Toshiba. TransferJet™ technology provides simple connection and high-speed data transfer with low power consumption just by selecting on the screen of a device the data file to be transferred and by touching the receiving device with that device. Applications of TransferJet™ technology is expected to expand when combined with various devices and technologies, such as digital signage and Near Field Communications (NFC).
* TransferJet™ is a trademark licensed by the TransferJet™ Consortium.
* Product specifications are under development and are current as of December 28, 2012.
About Toshiba
Toshiba is a world-leading diversified manufacturer, solutions provider and marketer of advanced electronic and electrical products and systems. Toshiba Group brings innovation and imagination to a wide range of businesses: digital products, including LCD TVs, notebook PCs, retail solutions and MFPs; electronic devices, including semiconductors, storage products and materials; industrial and social infrastructure systems, including power generation systems, smart community solutions, medical systems and escalators & elevators; and home appliances.
Toshiba was founded in 1875, and today operates a global network of more than 550 consolidated companies, with 202,000 employees worldwide and annual sales surpassing 6.1 trillion yen (US$74 billion). Visit Toshiba's web site at www.toshiba.co.jp/index.htm
Information in the document, including product prices and specifications, content of services and contact information, is current on the date of the press announcement, but is subject to change without prior notice.
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"[Glacier Bay National Park] was founded in the spirit of John Muir, with a strong tradition of scientific inquiry [and] an historic focus looking only as far back as the arrival of European explorers. Perhaps it was this short-sightedness that led to many of the conflicts to come."
Wayne Howell
Federal consultation must be conducted in good faith; that is, in a manner that implies honesty, fair dealing, and full revelation of facts. A recent case involving the National Historic Preservation Act illustrates the good faith standard (Pueblo of Sandia v. United States, No. 93-2188).
In July 1988, the Forest Service released a draft environmental impact statement (called for by NEPA) on eight alternate strategies for managing Las Huertas Canyon in New Mexico's Cibola National Forest, including plans for picnic grounds, parking lots, and the like. Since NHPA requires land managers to consider the effect of such plans "on any district, site, building, structure, or object that is included in or eligible for the National Register," the Forest Service had mailed letters asking tribes to describe traditional sites in the project area, and how often they were used. Forest Service officials also addressed the All Indian Pueblo Council (a body of elected representatives not recognized by the federal government) and the Pueblo of San Felipe. No one came forward with the information. In the ensuing months, however, the tribes submitted two affidavits outlining general traditional uses of the canyon.
Concerned about the planned paving of a gravel road, the Pueblo of Sandia filed an administrative appeal to block it. When the deputy regional forester affirmed the decision, the pueblo filed suit in federal court. The court granted summary judgement to the Forest Service, so the pueblo appealed to the Tenth Circuit. On March 14, 1995, the Tenth Circuit ruled that the Forest Service requests, in form letters and at tribal meetings, were not reasonable efforts. "Writing a letter is not sufficient in itself," explains Forest archeologist Tom Cartledge. Because the affidavits were not discussed in consultation, the court further ruled that the Forest Service did not make a good faith effort and remanded the case back to the local jurisdiction.
The Forest Service agreed to hire an ethnographer to document historic properties in the project area. "We weren't sending the appropriate people to talk to the Indians," continues Cartledge. "There are proven techniques and methodologies for eliciting information. Your Forest archeologist may not be the right person."
Cartledge sees lack of confidentiality as an obstacle to effective consultation, even when it is done in good faith. "Confidentiality is the crux of the issue," he explains. "We have a legal process that says we'll make a reasonable, good faith effort to obtain information and then manage the resource in an appropriate fashion. Native peoples don't want us to have that information. In part it's a lack of trust, but at least in pueblo religion they also cannot disclose the information without destroying whatever powers are attached to a given location.


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Miguel Gonzalez Jr., 20, of Cape Coral died Friday, July 26, 2013, in the Lee Memorial Hospital, Fort Myers, from injuries of an accident the evening before. He was born Sept. 3, 1992, in Miami Beach, a son of Idarmys I. Hernandez and Miguel Gonzalez.
A resident of Cape Coral since 2005, he attended the Mariner Middle School and graduated from Cape Coral High School with a scholarship. After high school he attended Edison State College and was presently employed as a sushi chef at Zushi Zushi Bar and Restaurant, Fort Myers Beach.
He is survived by his mother and stepfather, Idarmys I Hernandez and Jorge L. Gonzalez of Cape Coral; his father, Miguel Gonzalez of Miami; his brother, Angel Gonzalez; his maternal grandparents, Jose E. and Maria Hernandez; his paternal grandparents, Vicente and Migdalia Gonzalez; his aunts and uncles, Jose A. (Olga L.) Hernandez, Jorge E. and Olga Hernandez, Richard and Idania Martinez; and his beloved uncle, Vicente Gonzalez, Jr. He is also survived by many cousins and other family members.
Article Photos
Miguel Gonzalez Jr.
His funeral will be held Wednesday, July 31, at 11 a.m., in the Cape Christian Fellowship, 2110 Chiquita Blvd., S., Cape Coral. The family will receive friends at the church after 9:30 a.m.. Burial will follow the service in the Coral Ridge Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, donations to the family would be appreciated.


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Storified by Royal Opera House· Tue, Feb 05 2013 04:11:41
What did you think of Eugene Onegin?
Eugene Onegin will be screened live into cinemas on 20 February. Find your nearest cinema.
The production is generously supported by the Monument Trust with additional philanthropic support from Sir Simon and Lady Robertson, David Hancock and The Artists' Circle. The Production Director is generously supported by Hamish and Sophie Forsyth.


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RUPERT Murdoch topped the turnovers table this week when he disposed of $39 million of News Corp stock.
That was the bulk of the $57 million selling tally, which compared with about $2 million spent by directors doing a bit of buying.
Elsewhere, Andrew Abercrombie took some petty change off the table when he sold FlexiGroup shares at near-record levels.
FlexiGroup - a retail point-of-sale finance provider - went public in 2006 at $2 a share and saw its scrip hit $3.21 shortly thereafter.
It was panic stations in 2008 when punters sold the stock down to around 22¢. Those who gritted their teeth and bought are now looking at a share price of $4.10 - a near 20-bagger. Chairman Margaret Jackson collected $810,000 when she also sold.
Elsewhere on the money-lending front, Michael Smith, the ANZ chief, raised $2.9 million, selling shares at $28.41 apiece. The jolly Englishman said he had sold to pay tax.
John Dawkins, a former Labor federal treasurer, more than doubled his stake in Australian Bauxite, where he is chairman.
The company this week completed a $1.6 million placement and says it has the potential to create significant bauxite developments in three states.
John Bevan, chief of Alumina, made a rare appearance on the table, increasing his stake by 70 per cent. Last week, China's state-owned Citic bought 13 per cent of Alumina and late this week Bevan bought some shares, as did Peter Wasow.
Alumina this week reported a $51 million loss compared with earnings of $124 million previously.
Elsewhere on the results front, Oakton, an IT services group, reported a 30 per cent earnings decline and the shares promptly fell from $1.45 to $1.26. Non-executive director Martin Adams promptly bought about 60,000 shares at $1.27 and is already ahead of the game as the scrip closed the week at $1.34.
The reporter owns AWC shares.
Murdoch leads turnover tally
RUPERT Murdoch topped the turnovers table this week when he disposed of $39 million of News Corp stock.
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It is a big weekend for the Bengals' two special teams captains.
Between Friday night's rehearsal dinner and Saturday's wedding of running back
The Bengals appear to still be mulling an offer sheet that has been made to one of them, the reported four-year, $13 million dollar contract to slot receiver
In the 26-year-old Rey they have a variety of answers. Coming off the best of his four seasons from scrimmage, Rey is contending for a starting job at most likely SAM linebacker with
"The best thing about this contract is I get to keep making plays on defense and special teams in this city and try to help this team win," Rey said Saturday morning before the vows.
The 6-2, 250-pound Rey, undrafted out of Duke in 2010 mainly because of his size, blossomed under Guenther after playing just two snaps at linebacker in his first two seasons while becoming a special teams staple.
After getting on the field for 111 plays in 2012, he shot to 368 last year, according to profootballfocus.com, when injuries to Lamur and
The Ravens game was quintessential Rey. He played 96 percent of the snaps from scrimmage while playing 45 percent of the kicking plays on the way to working more than 700 snaps this season combined.
"He's an integral part of what we do," Guenther said. "He knows every spot, he can play nickel, he knows the defense. You look at what he does on special teams and he's smart and tough, the kind of guy you want."
Rey may play with an anonymous reliability, but he's well known to the kids of Cincinnati. A New York City native who wants to become a professional educator after his playing days, Rey is part of a program pushing for a 50 percent cut in the dropout rate by 2018 and he's a familiar figure on the United Way billboards dotting Greater Cincinnati.
He arrived four years ago with the goal of becoming a high school principal in New York City. Now, he's not sure what job he wants in education, but he says it could also happen in Cincinnati. You can see him at Friday night high school games and then on those Tuesday days off tutoring teenagers.
"When you go into the high schools and elementary schools, then you really feel like you've become part of the community," Rey said. "I could see myself doing something in education here."
Rey had been tendered $1.4 million for this season, so figure he's making about $2 million or a little more for each season. And they'll get some bang for the buck.
"I think I can do both. I think I can start and still play on special teams," Rey said. "I've played on teams for four years and it's somewhere I think I can help the team."


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If you're shopping for last-minute gifts, you may want to stop at Chico's in Geneva Commons if you love ugly sweaters -- or you're a teacher.
This week, the store is offering discounts for different people on different days as Christmas approaches.
For example, on Wednesday, Dec. 18, the store is offering a special shopping day with discounts for all spa and nail salon employees. You'll just need to show your salon ID to get a special extra discount.
On Thursday, Dec. 19, the Geneva Commons store is offering a discount to educators and teachers; just bring your school ID.
Finally, on Sunday, Dec. 22, you won't need to show an ID. Instead, you'll just need to wear a Christmas sweater.
On Sunday, the store is hosting a "Lovers of Crazy Holiday Sweaters Appreciation Shopping Day." To get your discount, just wear the sweater with pride.
Toys galore: Learning Express in Geneva has many unique gifts still left in stock for the kids on your list.
"We ordered heavier this year, and we're much better in stock this year than last year. We have a lot," owner John Flanagan said.
Some of the more popular items include the Rainbow Loom, and the loom bands, charms and cases that go along with it. They also have some exclusive creative toys for the crafty kids on your list, including a decorate-your-own-headphones kit, he said.
Another fun one that has been popular, Flanagan said, is a root beer making kit.
"We've gone through two orders of those already," he said. "It actually tastes pretty good, too. It's not just a science kit."
Learning Express is in Geneva Commons at 610 Commons Drive. The store can be reached at (630) 262-8697.
Adult beverages: For wine and beer lovers on your list, the Village Vintner Winery and Brewery in Algonquin has a wine membership club that you can purchase.
Just select which club you wish to join -- one with red or whites, or one with fruits and sweets.
Village Vintner also offers a craft beer club membership. You can tailor the membership to how many bottles you want per month and how many months you want to purchase. Some of the memberships also include tastings.
For details, stop into the Village Vintner, 2380 Esplanade Drive, or call (847) 658-4900.
Just can't decide? For those of you who just can't come up with any ideas, there are always gift cards.
Buy yours at individual businesses up and down Randall Road, or at Geneva Commons or Algonquin Commons. Even on Christmas Eve, Geneva Commons will be open until 5 p.m. selling gift cards.
Just a note: to buy a gift card at Algonquin Commons or Geneva Commons, you'll be charged a $1 service fee.
• Amy Williams' column covers all the news of business along the Randall Road corridor from Batavia to Crystal Lake. Contact her at email@example.com or (847) 894-5036.


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Junkmobile Review
- Publisher: Sergey Komar
- Genre: Entertainment
- Released: 7 Oct, 2009
- Size: 11.1 MB
- Price: $0.99
- Easy to use control scheme, even if the instructions are a bit vague.
- The game has some refreshing humour.
- Very original concept and idea, something new to the marketplace.
- The gameplay can become a bit stale as it's quite repetitive.
- No online leaderboard options to submit highscores to.
- Players must watch the opening game sequence every time they play the game.
Just like the car in the Junkmobile; it's certainly not a brilliant deal but if you're lucky, it'll give you an enjoyable ride for a short while.
- Full Review
- App Store Info
Junkmobile is a quick reaction game where players travel to Arizona to buy a second hand car. Unfortunately, the car you are bought is an absolute bomb and as you start the engine and begin your trip, the car begins to fall apart. You must try to hold your car together for as long as you can in order to make it your destination, San Francisco.
As the car begins losing pieces, players must quickly tap on the item and drag it back onto the car. The car will keep shedding pieces the further you drive and once your car has been completely stripped, it's game over. Your speed is determined by what you lose, for example a car with two wheels will drive faster than you running out the bottom of the car, Flintstones style.
The visuals are alright but certainly not the prettiest around; which could be a justification of the main gameplay. The sound is decent and certainly drives home the point of a rusted old bomb, no pun intended. Players have one single game mode to play but besides a lack of leaderboards, players must watch the starting cut-scene every time they play; which certainly gets annoying.
Junkmobile is a quirky game but it's not something you could play for hours. The gameplay is fun but only in short doses as it gets repetitive and a bit too hard after a certain distance as car parts fly off too fast for you to catch them. But the game will give you some satisfaction in that you'll have something to do, if only for a short period of time.
A young guy chooses the "best" used car dealership in Arizona for purchasing his first automobile. The car dealer appears nice and helpful when it comes to selecting the needed vehicle, claiming that the chosen car will get him all the way to San Francisco without problems! Oh, well... good luck boy.
Help the guy get as far as possible on his newly purchased 'junkmobile'. This will not be easy as parts will be falling off the vehicle during driving. The less parts remain, the slower the car will be moving, while the time is limited! In order to re-attach a falling part, use your finger to catch it and put it back where it belongs. Over time, the rate of parts falling off increases making them harder to catch.
Game features:
- Humor!
- Exellent graphics
- Amusing game moments
- Fun musical support
- Unique characters
- Multiple difficulty levels for everyone's satisfaction
- Simple controls
Note: this game was created exclusively for fun and cheerful audience! Laughs and fun prolong life!
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Anthony "Tony" Lucas, 76, of Keene and Hilton Head Island, SC passed away at Medical University of South Carolina on Monday, January 14, 2013. He had been valiantly fighting congestive heart failure and atrial fibrillation for a number of months.
Tony graduated from Bucknell University where he met his wife, Ellena. He did graduate work at Temple University. He retired from ICI Americas, Inc. as Director of Human Resources. Upon retirement he and his wife built their home In Keene so they could enjoy hiking, cross country skiing and other outdoor and cultural activities in the Adirondack Mountains.
In addition to his love of hiking, he was an avid tennis player. Two years ago they built their home in Hilton Head Island, SC where they intended to live part time.
After moving to Keene, Tony became president of the Hurricane Mountain Chapter, ADK, and revitalized the club membership by introducing new outings and activities. He was awarded ADK's Volunteer of the Year several years ago for his contribution the Chapter
Tony was a past president of the Keene Planning Board, and past president of the Elizabethtown Hospital Board. He was a member of the Keene Library Board. As a member of the Adirondack Film Society Board and Lake Placid Film Forum he introduced new programs, including the popular North Country Shorts.
He is survived by his wife of 55 years, Ellena; a son Gregory and his wife, Marie of New Castle, DE; a son Jeffrey and his wife Virginia of West River, MD; one grandson, Will, a sister, Linda Hayes of Rockville, MD and a cousin, Lynn Zuck of Wilmington, NC, and many, many friends.
A memorial service for Tony will be held this summer at the Keene Valley Congregation Church.
Contributions in memory of Anthony Lucas may be made to the Adirondack Film Society, P.O. Box 489, Lake Placid, NY 12946 or the American Heart Association.


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Nobody knows how it happened: an indoor house cat who got lost on a family excursion managing, after two months and about 200 miles, to return to her hometown.
Even scientists are baffled by how Holly, a 4-year-old tortoiseshell who in early November became separated from Jacob and Bonnie Richter at an RV rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., appeared on New Year's Eve — staggering, weak and emaciated — in a back yard about a mile from the Richters' house in West Palm Beach.
"Are you sure it's the same cat?" wondered John Bradshaw, director of the Anthrozoology Institute at the University of Bristol in England. In other cases, he has suspected, "the cats are just strays, and the people have got kind of a mental justification for expecting it to be the same cat."
But Holly not only had distinctive black-and-brown harlequin patterns on her fur, but also an implanted microchip to identify her.
"I really believe these stories, but they're just hard to explain," said Marc Bekoff, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Colorado. "Maybe being street-smart, maybe reading animal cues, maybe being able to read cars, maybe being a good hunter. I have no data for this."
There is, in fact, little scientific dogma on cat navigation. Migratory animals like birds, turtles and insects have been studied more closely, and use magnetic fields, olfactory cues or orientation by the sun.
Scientists say it is more common, although still rare, to hear of dogs returning home, perhaps suggesting, Bradshaw said, that they have inherited wolves' ability to navigate using magnetic clues. But it is also possible that dogs get taken on more family trips, and that lost dogs are more easily noticed or helped by people along the way.
Cats navigate well around familiar landscapes, memorizing locations by sight and smell, and easily figuring out shortcuts, Bradshaw said.
Strange, faraway locations would seem problematic, although he and Patrick Bateson, a behavioral biologist at Cambridge University, say that cats can sense smells across long distances. "Let's say they associate the smell of pine with wind coming from the north, so they move in a southerly direction," Bateson said.
Peter Borchelt, a New York animal behaviorist, wondered if Holly followed the Florida coast by sight or sound, tracking Interstate 95 and deciding to "keep that to the right and keep the ocean to the left."
But, he said, "nobody's going to do an experiment and take a bunch of cats in different directions and see which ones get home."
The closest, said Roger Tabor, a British cat biologist, may have been a 1954 study in Germany, in which cats placed in a covered circular maze with exits every 15 degrees most often exited in the direction of their homes. They did so more reliably if their homes were less than five kilometers away.
New research by the National Geographic and University of Georgia's Kitty Cams Project, using video footage from 55 pet cats wearing video cameras on their collars, suggests cat behavior is exceedingly complex.
For example, the Kitty Cams study found that four of the cats were two-timing their owners, visiting other homes for food and affection. Not every cat, it seems, shares Holly's loyalty.
Kitty Cams also showed most of the cats engaging in risky behavior, including crossing roads and "eating and drinking substances away from home," risks Holly undoubtedly experienced and seems lucky to have survived.
But there have been other cats who made unexpected comebacks.
"It's actually happened to me," said Jackson Galaxy, a cat behaviorist who hosts "My Cat From Hell" on Animal Planet. While living in Boulder, Colo., he moved across town, whereupon his indoor cat, Rabbi, fled and appeared 10 days later at the previous house, "walking five miles through an area he had never been before," Galaxy said.
Cat distance records
Tabor cited longer-distance reports he considered credible: Murka, a tortoiseshell in Russia, traveling 325 miles home to Moscow from her owner's mother's house in Voronezh in 1989; Ninja, who returned to Farmington, Utah, in 1997, a year after her family moved from there to Mill Creek, Wash.; and Howie, an indoor Persian cat in Australia who in 1978 ran away from the relatives his vacationing family left him with and eventually traveled 1,000 miles to his family's home.
Tabor also said a Siamese in the English village of Black Notley repeatedly hopped a train, disembarked at White Notley and walked several miles back to Black Notley.
Still, explaining such journeys is not black and white.
In the Florida case, one glimpse through the factual fog comes on the little cat's feet. While Bradshaw speculated Holly might have gotten a lift, perhaps sneaking under the hood of a truck heading down I-95, her paws suggest she was not driven all the way.
"Her pads on her feet were bleeding," Bonnie Richter said. "Her claws are worn weird. The front ones are really sharp, the back ones worn down to nothing."
Holly hardly seemed an adventurous wanderer, though her background might have given her a genetic advantage. Her mother was a feral cat roaming the Richters' mobile home park, and Holly was born inside somebody's air conditioner, Richter said. When, at about 6 weeks old, Holly padded into their carport on Christmas Eve and jumped into the lap of Jacob Richter's mother, there were "scars on her belly from when the air conditioner was turned on," Bonnie Richter said.
Scientists say that such early experience was too brief to explain how Holly might have been comfortable in the wild — after all, she spent most of her life as an indoor cat, except for occasionally running outside to chase lizards. But it might imply innate personality traits like nimbleness or toughness.
"You've got these real variations in temperament," Bekoff said. "Fish can be shy or bold; there seem to be shy and bold spiders. This cat, it could be she has the personality of a survivor."
He said being an indoor cat would not extinguish survivalist behaviors, like hunting mice or being aware of the sun's orientation.
Holly's journey
The Richters — Bonnie, 63, a retired nurse, and Jacob, 70, a retired airline mechanics' supervisor and accomplished bowler — began traveling with Holly only last year, and she easily tolerated a hotel, a cabin or the RV.
But during the Good Sam RV Rally in Daytona, when they were camping near the speedway with 3,000 other motor homes, Holly bolted when Bonnie Richter's mother opened the door one night. Fireworks the next day may have further spooked her, and, after searching for days, alerting animal agencies and posting fliers, the Richters returned home catless.
Two weeks later, an animal rescue worker called the Richters to say a cat resembling Holly had been spotted eating behind the Daytona franchise of Hooters, where employees put out food for feral cats.
Then, on New Year's Eve, Barb Mazzola, a university executive assistant, noticed a cat "barely standing" in her back yard in West Palm Beach, struggling even to meow. Over six days, Mazzola and her children cared for the cat, putting out food, including special milk for cats, and eventually the cat came inside.
They named her Cosette after the orphan in "Les Miserables," and took her to a veterinarian, Dr. Sara Beg at Paws-2Help. Beg said the cat was underweight and dehydrated, but was "bright and alert" and had no parasites or viruses. "She was hesitant and scared around people she didn't know, so I don't think she went up to people and got a lift," she said. "I think she made the journey on her own."
At Paws2Help, Mazzola said, "I almost didn't want to ask, because I wanted to keep her, but I said, 'Just check and make sure she doesn't have a microchip.'" When told the cat did, "I just cried."
The Richters cried too upon seeing Holly, who instantly relaxed when placed on Jacob Richter's shoulder. Re-entry is proceeding well, but the mystery persists.
"We haven't the slightest idea how they do this," Galaxy said. "Anybody who says they do is lying, and, if you find it, please God, tell me what it is."