Grab-Bag

-- A philosophy professor (!) defends the now-defunct Bowl Championship Series method for selecting which teams compete for a national championship in college football. She gets into some great detail, pointing out that the number of collegiate football teams makes a true wide-field playoff impossible -- the professional National Football League can have a playoff because it has only 32 teams, and collegiate basketball can have a wide-field playoff because it doesn't involve an hour of being pounded on by 300-pound men. The only question about the new four-team playoff system, in which the four will be chosen by a panel of 13 football experts, is whether the fifth-ranked team complains this year or we wait until next.

My money is on this year.

-- I feel like I should write First Lady Michelle Obama a letter explaining my purchase of her birthday gift, an extended vacation stay in Hawaii following the presidential Christmas vacation. I am somewhat embarrassed, because I generally do not buy birthday gifts for women who are married to other men, as it seems a little inappropriate. How do I mean that I am paying for it? Well, although President Obama will pick up the personal expenses out of his own pocket, the extra government aircraft, extra security detail necessary since the First Lady is not at the White House, and other expenses similar to that will come from federal money. Meaning, of course, yours and mine, providing that you are a United States taxpayer.

I would write a letter to the president explaining myself, but it's not necessarily wise to admit to a man you bought a birthday gift for his wife. He might beat you up, and by "beat you up" in this case I mean "call in a Predator drone strike on you."

-- Come, Mr. Tally-Man, tally me banana...at least in Berlin, that might have been an even more interesting activity than encountering the deadly black tarantula, as banana shipments intended for several Berlin supermarkets instead were found filled with cocaine. I think we all know what kind of meaning this would bring to the announcement over the PA: "Aufräumarbeiten Sie in Gang 9."