IS IT TRUE: March 12, 2012
IS IT TRUE that all four of the top ranked teams in the latest NCAA basketball poll were beaten in their conference tournaments last weekend?…that Syracuse, North Carolina, Kansas, and the mighty Kentucky Wildcats all suffered unexpected losses in their own conference tournaments?…that all of these teams except Kansas still ended up with #1 seeds in the regional so other than feeling the sting of a loss there was no real consequence for losing unless you happen to be a Jayhawk?…that before last weekend both Kansas and Missouri were ranked ahead of both Ohio State and Michigan State in every national poll?…that Missouri won the Big 12 conference tournament but was jumped by the Big 10 tournament champs the Michigan State Spartans?…that prejudice for or against a league seems to be a mighty powerful force with the NCAA selection committee?…that if the Murray State Racers had not had their Tennessee State moment they would be 31 – 0 and could feasibly have climbed up the ranking charts to #1?…that the more probably ranking for Murray would have been #3 and that people close to the program would have talked about that for the next 100 years?
IS IT TRUE that one of the keys to beating a super team must be cursing the referee?…that it was pretty clear from watching yet not audible yesterday that the coach of the Vanderbilt Commodores uttered a combination word that starts with mother at the ref in the first half of yesterday’s SEC championship?…that it must have worked because he did get a technical foul but the Commodores went on to win their game against Kentucky and take their first SEC Tournament title since 1951?
IS IT TRUE that the Evansville City Council has both the contract and a resolution to consider to take out a $5 Million bond for the purpose of providing start-up funding for Earthcare Energy?…that there are other incentives at both the state and local level that bring the total that Evansville will be paying a start-up coming for the intention to create 121 jobs just over $6 Million or $50,000 per job?…that by federal stimulus standards this is pretty cheap but by other metrics it is very expensive?…that start-up companies have about a 10% success rate for achieving their goals so we wonder if the City of Evansville is starting down a $50 Million slope in its first foray into the borrow money to be a venture capitalist roll?
IS IT TRUE that today’s EPD Activity report was larger than normal and exceeded the 2 MB upload limit of WordPress?…that being the case the CCO will not be posting today’s EPD Activity report at its regular time but that we will be seeking a compressed version that requires less storage?…that the file size for today’s report is roughly 10 times the normal size so we suspect that this file was done with the high resolution button pushed?
IS IT TRUE that the ball fields are in the news again with a glowing editorial in the CP extolling the success of sports parks in other places?…that the mega park in Westfield came in at about $800,000 per ball field including luxury amenities?…that the park referenced in Anderson did even better in their cost per field?…that only in Evansville has there been a serious plan proposed to spend more than $2 Million per ball field and then a cut rate version that is still over $1 Million per field?…that it seems like anything built in this town from Front Door Pride homes, to $240,000 apartments, to $2 Million ball fields costs more than double what it does elsewhere?…that we wonder why this is the case?…that the CCO has nothing against a competitively priced ball field complex ($500k per field) in a place that does not destroy existing assets?…that the reason Evansville is in such a quandary over ball fields has much more to do with the plans put forward being detached from reality than it does with baseball?
While a NCAA coach cursing an official is a long-standing custom, I find UK’s customary tactic of intentionally injuring an opposing team’s key player much more reprehensible.
We were not aware of the intentional injury thing outside of the NFL. Who has KY intentionally injured? The coach cussing the ref was actually funny yesterday because the ref threatened to toss the coach and the coach said “no you will not”.
The most recent incident that comes to mind is February 21, 2012, Mississippi State vs UK, when Rodney Hood sustained a “sprained knee” late in the first half and didn’t return to the game. MSU was forced to play the remainder of the game using just six players in the second half.
The way I veiwed it, UK targetted Hood throughout the 1st half, and while he was moving the ball toward the paint, his leg got out of position, and a UK player reached over and pushed down hard on his thigh. The officials didn’t even call an intentional, and I was cursing them worse than Bruce Pearl or Bobby Knight ever would have.
That is unfortunate that they did such a thing and whomever did that or encoraged it needs more than just a cussing.
If we are going to continue this madness of buying local jobs with taxpayer dollars then lets open up the process to all comers.
A $50K or more per job I am sure we can find all sorts of proposals out there, some of which might be a far better deal than the one being currently proposed.
Lets use the good old competitive bid environment to land the best company possible, start-up or otherwise.
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Hey…I have an idea for an entire business for $50k…where do I sign up?
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