owbc

I predict that Hart will win, and we can blame Omar Minaya for giving Jeff Francoeur a ridiculous one-year contract.

The Pac 10 has also begun the expansion process, and the Big 12 will almost certainly follow if the B10 and P10 expand. The expansion is certainly becoming a problem. The main problem for football is that all the good teams will be in the top conferences. This will make it harder for mid-majors to get BCS births, since they will play even weaker conference schedules with their top competition gone. For the Big 10 in particular, a 2-division conference will damage rivalries and possibly be unbalanced. The main problem for basketball is that too many bad teams will be in the top conferences. This year, Wisconsin had to play OSU, Purdue, and MSU twice and will probably play one or two of them a third time. A giant basketball league like the Big East no longer brings competition like that. Instead, the top teams get additional games against DePaul and South Florida (yes, I know South Florida beat Georgetown, but when will that ever happen again?). Conference USA was a great basketball league that got wiped off the map--leaving poor Memphis in the dust. I do not see any benefit for the bottom Big East teams either--unless they like to consistently lose 10 conference games per year. It would be better to move DePaul and South Florida back to CUSA and let them battle with teams that have similar recruiting abilities.

I do not think it is fair to compare the Mets ($135 million payroll) to the Brewers ($80 million). Where would the Brewers be if they had an extra $55 million to spend? The Mets have been hurt by injuries, but it is the continued poor management that put the #2 payroll team in baseball into last place, with no sign of things turning around. Their strong core of players is only going to hurt their financial flexibility. They've played with the big boys in free agency, but have done nothing well in player development or trades. The result is a team of a few superstars with junk filling in elsewhere. Furthermore, it is only going to get worse. For 2011, they have 7 players that are owed $107 million (Wright, Reyes, Beltran, Bay, Santana, Perez, Rodriguez). If the financial issues are true, that will leave them with about $20 million to spend on 18 players. Coupled with declining attendance due to the poor play, it is best for them to cut their losses now and try to open up some payroll.

The problem with the UW student section is due to bad policy by the Athletic Department, not bad fans. There are more than enough people willing to fill those seats, but they give out the tickets to a select number of students who were lucky enough to get into the server when the tickets went on sale. There needs to be a policy to reward people who actually show up and prevent those who do not from buying tickets the following year. As for football--there are enough loyal student football fans to fill about 2 sections, the rest are there for the drinking and Jump Around. That will probably never change.

I think the Yankees' Wang will perform much better in DC. He took quite a pounding in New York.

Agreed. And this last week also told you what the Big East was. A big mess of average teams fighting it out as well, right? As for the Badger game, this one hurt, but Bucky was starting to become overrated. What we really have learned is that Wisconsin can win big games without Jon Leuer, but Ohio State and Michigan State can not win without their star player. The conference is still up for grabs, and Illinois just went from being a bubble team to a serious contender.

That quote is exactly why I hate the Yankees. The current revenue sharing system is not the answer. The small market teams are not always spending their money, which will make an increase less likely in the next CBA. Furthermore, as a Brewers fan, I do not want the Pirates to get extra money, it will only help bring them up to our level and take wins away from us. Without the Pirates, our playoff drought is still alive. If they had gotten additional money from the Yankees in 2008 and actually spent it, it could have cost the Brewers the playoffs. The top teams are not really affected by the revenue sharing and will continue to spend to make the playoffs. The Brewers are already at their spending max and are only hindered by the teams below them getting help. The system is flawed and it will be good for the game to completely eliminate it. Teams should not be rewarded for losing, bad attendance, or bad management. The Brewers are being punished for their success.

If it takes away playing time from the players that are actually going to make the roster, then it becomes a problem.

Not sure how anybody who calls themselves a Brewers fan can be upset about this. Without Selig, the Brewers and Miller Park would not exist. I think this would have been done much sooner if the Selig family had not still owned the team.

The dollar will not collapse any time in the next decade, at least. If the US goes down, the rest of the developed world goes down with it. The Euro is even worse than the dollar due to Europe's aging population and stagnant economy. Japan has more debt than we do. China is hostage to the dollar due to the amount of our debt that they have bought up. The oil countries have to deal with commodities being quoted in the dollar, so if the dollar goes down, so does the price of oil. Changing the global currency takes decades. If you are investing for the long run, your best bet is a stock mutual fund. If you think the market is headed down, switch to a money market. Bonds are a really bad idea right now due to the risk of inflation.

I'm getting married on August 20. We are trying to keep the total price under $10,000, but it isn't easy. Unfortunately, our wedding is in Milwaukee so I can't recommend specific places. Here's some tips (basically involves doing stuff yourself, as Craig says): -The wedding and reception are in the same place, on a Friday night. We saved over $500 by not scheduling on a Saturday. -Invite less guests, we have a max of 125 even though there are more people who could potentially be invited. -You can save by having a buffet instead of plated dinners, although we decided to pay extra for the plated dinners. -My fiance designed the invitations and we are assembling them. The invitation person is charging us about 1/3 of the usual price. -Shop around--we tried a few different places for flowers and got quotes that were $150 different for exactly the same thing -We are not having a DJ and instead are making our own music mix and renting speakers -We have our own theme and are designing/making all custom decorations. As an example, the table centerpieces are being designed by us, the florist is just providing us with the flowers for us to arrange.

Still looks like 4-8" away from the lake with an extra 4 or 5 inches along the lake due to enhancement. Snow will fall over about 48 hours. Windy conditions expected as well, with lots of blowing and drifting. Edit: here is the forecast snowfall map. My personal opinion is that the NWS is forecasting 1-2" too high, but they seem really confident that this thing is going to pack a punch.

Just got back from the game (it's only a 2 block walk for me). We had seats in row 57 and could see all the action just fine. The crowd was quiet early but really got into the game in the 3rd period. They also played "Jump Around" which helped fire up the crowd. Overall, it was a great time. I highly recommend outdoor hockey games, it was lots of fun and I'm sure that most people who went would go again if they played again in a few years. Maybe try Miller Park next time?

I really do not want to see any more playoff expansion. They play 162 games for a reason--and it is unfair for teams that played that many games to have to play a short series to advance. If they were going to do it, I would only be happy with a reduction to 154 games, expansion to 32 teams, and most importantly, moving up the trade deadline by at least a month.

Looks like we have a long duration snow event coming Monday night into Tuesday. The snow is not expected to get especially heavy, but we could see 4-8" across southern WI, with the lower amounts north and west of Madison and the higher amounts in Milwaukee down to Kenosha. Stay tuned.

I was at the Badger tournament game at the BC against Richmond. The crowd was 95% for the Badgers, but they came out flat and trailed at halftime. Part of the problem was that they were dropped to a #6 seed in exchange for getting the home state advantage. The place was as loud as I have ever heard a basketball game in the second half (Bucky scored on something like 17 straight possessions), but it just isn't worth it. I will be at the first round games again this year, but I would rather see different teams in exchange for the Badgers getting a higher seed and playing elsewhere.

All I remember is "Bench Mench, Start Hart!"

While the Big East is clearly #1, much of the hate on the Big Ten seems exaggerated--perhaps by Marquette fans? The Big East is really the BIG East. The Big 10 is likely to get 5 teams in and the Big East will get 8, after one of the bubble teams is added to the mix. Doing some quick math, 5 NCAA bids for the Big Ten is the same as 7.2 for the Big East. So the difference is about 1 team when you account for a larger conference. The Big East has more of everything, but that does not make them that much better than the Big Ten. What is the difference between Wisconsin almost losing to Penn State and South Florida beating Georgetown? Is one an example of a deep conference and the other an example of a weak conference? I can not find the statistic, but the Big Ten was near the top in ranked team non-conference victories. The Big East had a higher overall non-conference winning percentage, but the conference has several basketball-only schools that schedule easier games for the funding. I understand that the Big Ten has earned this reputation through years of mediocre basketball, but the conference is much improved again this year over last. That game says nothing about Michigan State's ability to advance to the final four--except that it may have cost them a #1 seed. They were clearly a step slow from playing so many road games lately while the Badgers were fresh. Give both teams equal time off and you would have gotten the close battle that we are used to. What really matters in the end is the top teams, not the mediocre or bad ones. The B10 has Bucky, MSU, and Purdue. The Big East has Syracuse, Villanova, Georgetown, and West Virginia. You could go on all day pointing out the various flaws in each team without getting anywhere. Wisconsin nearly lost to Penn State. Georgetown lost to South Florida. Louisville should have beat West Virginia if it wasn't for the refs. Marquette should have beat West Virginia and had 2 good chances to take down Villanova. Purdue lost 3 games in a row. Etc, Etc. In the end, at least 4 of those teams are going to be in the Elite 8, and we will see who is better then.

This is stimulus money, so yes, job creation is the main idea--or at least that's how Congress and the President sold the package to the American public.

MSU was rushing their shots, which is common in road games in hostile environments. They seemed to get a good look every time they actually slowed down and set up their offense. Nobody beats the Badgers with the fast break, you have to slow down and beat them at their own game.

He also added 14 walks to that in 45 games, which is a modest improvement over his minor league numbers.

It's about time some of those open shots started falling! MSU is going to make a run, the Badgers just need to keep playing their game and use the whole shot clock.

I concede that there is a 95% chance that it will get built, so I will comment on the best way to get it done. It would make the most sense to build the line in the median of I-94 or right alongside the highway. The land is already owned by the state and the grades/curves would not have to be significantly adjusted. In addition, the location would promote the railroad line. Cars chugging along in traffic or bad weather could watch the train comfortably blow by them at 80-100 mph. Stations could be built next to existing park and rides as well, which would easily connect the train to the bus lines and parking lots.

The UW-MSU game is on ESPN360.com. Not sure if Time Warner covers that, but Charter definitely does.

I think the plan is to give a number of first round byes to make things work out...so there still would be nothing lower than a 1/16 game.