Between 9 and 10 o'clock tonight I was a couch potato. I watched 'The Office' and that incredibly stupid show right after it. The incredibly stupid show left time for my mind to wander, and I started wondering about term limits for politicians.

Lots of people think term limits are a good idea, but the good idea never goes anywhere. So I started wondering if going the opposite route might achieve results which are almost as good. How about lifetime appointments for senators?

First of all, even though they are up for re-election every six years, it usually works out to pretty much a lifetime appointment anyway, what with the huge campaign war chests and political machines they build up. Thus it wouldn't change much of the Senate's makeup, but it would save a heck of a lot of time and money usually spent campaigning.

I hate the idea of being stuck with Mitch for life, but it seems like I am anyway.

Second, once freed from campaigning, they might actually be willing to make painful but necessary decisions. It might help alleviate the current 'give everybody everything but let's not ask them to pay for it' system. And senators would be somewhat freed from having to satisfy their big donors. Not entirely, but somewhat.

House reps would still have to campaign, and still have to pander to the lowest common denominator, but the Senate would probably become a better check on stupid, irresponsible legislation. And maybe there could be system tinkering by which a super majority of house votes could override the Senate, sort of like with a presidential veto.

Just spitballing. Might be dumb, but I was intrigued. See where my mind goes when I'm watching a very dumb show about a call center in India and my remote is out of reach?

The Pew Forum survey regarding religious knowledge was very interesting. I didn't hear this on NPR, but apparently 'liking' groups eventually has advantages after all, because I got a helpful link via Facebook.

Two very interesting results:
1)Atheists and agnostics knew more about religion than any other groups. Jewish and Mormon respondents were close behind.
2)The survey asked a few general knowledge questions along with the questions about religion. People who defined themselves as not very religious scored higher on the general knowledge questions.

As always with these surveys, I was amazed by the overall ignorance. Most glaring to me was the high percentage of people who did not know Joe Biden was Vice President, but some of the other results were scary, too.

Most of the answers were multiple choice. I knew all of the answers even without the choice, except one. I was unfamiliar with Maimonides, but I would have correctly guessed 'Jewish' on the multiple choice.
And now I've done the requisite Wikipedia study and I'm familiar with him, too.

Here is the article about the results.
http://pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-and-Practices/U-S-Religious-Knowledge-Survey.aspx

This is the list of questions, with complete wording.
http://pewforum.org/uploadedFiles/Topics/Belief_and_Practices/religious-knowledge-topline.pdf

As my loyal readers (all 5 of you) know, my golf game fell apart a while back. I lost my swing and tried just about everything to find it again, I even put my swing's picture on a milk carton...

but with no luck.
It was miserable. I was never a long hitter, but from consistent 230-yard drives and comfortable 150-yard six irons , I fell all the way to the point where I could hardly hit anything 150.

I basically quit playing for almost 2 years. But knowing I was going on a golf trip last week, I worked pretty hard for about 3 weeks. I improved enough to get by. My 100-yard club improved from a 7-iron to a 9, and my 150-yard club improved from a 3-wood to a 4-iron. Not good, but at least I could get around a course.

Then yesterday evening- my first Tuesday with no scheduled softball since pre-Derby- I wandered over to the shag field at Seneca and hit a few balls. I don't precisely know what I changed, but I made some incredible improvements on my distance.
My first dozen or so balls were not hit particularly well at all, then I suddenly started hitting them longer and reasonably straight. I hit my 6, 7, and 8 irons, and found I had suddenly added about 30 yards to the distance of each.

Now I guess I'm ready for winter and the loss of my swing again.

The Return of the Big Blue Handicapper

My fellow fans of the 3-0 Kentucky Wildcats seem mildly optimistic about the weekend. Okay, maybe not optimistic, but at least less pessimistic than in years past. So is this the year the Cats finally knock off the Gators?

No. Not a chance.

And with a 16-point spread I would gladly put money on Florida; or at least I would do so if betting (against Kentucky) was not a sin.

Kentucky's three opponents so far have zero wins against BCS schools.
Florida is still Florida. They scored 38 against South Florida and 31 in Knoxville, which is still impressive, down year for the puke-inside-a-pumpkin orange lowdown dirty snitches or not.

Kentucky's offense is much-improved and has greatly increased confidence, which helps. But the defense hasn't shown it can stop anyone decent.
It won't be embarrasing- at least not 31-0 1st quarter, 63-5 final score embarrasing like the last visit to the Swamp- but it will still be a decisive loss.

I'll say 42-23 Gators, which is reasonably close to the spread. But it's likely to be worse.

We ended our fall league with two very good wins to finish 5 and 5. My softball season was over- for about 5 minutes, after which I agreed to play in a Friday league that will probably last until Thanksgiving. I'm not too bright.

But if I play until November I might get to play in less than 85 degree weather. Maybe.

It's been a great, very tiring week. Fun golf trip, followed by a very long work week and good softball. And apparently I have more softball to come. At least I had enough sense to say no to a football ticket this weekend. I'm staying home.

Tantalus was invited to dine with the gods of Olympus, stole secrets, nectar, and ambrosia for his people, and thus angered the gods. He did other things too, and pretty horrid stuff when compared to what I mentioned.
His punishment in the underworld "was to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches. Whenever he reached for the fruit, the branches raised his intended meal from his grasp. Whenever he bent down to get a drink, the water receded before he could get any. Over his head towers a threatening stone, like that of Sisyphus."- per Wikipedia, which we all know is never wrong.
Thus we now have the word "tantalize."
Just thought you might like to know. I was curious about the word, and that's what I found out.

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Another Yogi loss dropped ust to 3 and 4 in the fall. Five starters out- numbers 1,2,3,6 and 10 in the batting order, by my count. That's a tough handicap to overcome each night, and it's pretty standard for the league so far.

Brian came out and played with us. We only scored 8 runs, but you can't blame our family for that. We each hit two for three.

UK/UofL Pick

I have a lot to live up to this year. My picks last season were right on the money except for the Tennessee game, and if I remember correctly I gave a large number of caveats for that one and basically said it was a toss-up, and only picked UK because I hate the Vols with a blinding passion that clouded my judgement.
Then I went on to win my office bowl pick 'em, so I now consider myself a professional pigskin prognosticator.
(Aside: I just ran a quick spellcheck for the post to this point, and Google says nothing is spelled incorrectly. Why did it not flag "'em"?)

Here comes my first stab at the 2010 Wildcats:

Louisville is not good. Charlie Strong may or may not be a good head coach. There is simply no way of knowing. His recruiting has started out well, but he's playing this game with Kragthorpe's players.
Kentucky is okay. Joker Phillips may or may not be.... and so on (see above and exchange Kragthorpe with Brooks).

So I have no choice but to ignore all the unknowns- which is a lot- and go with what I know. Kentucky at this point has better players, and Kentucky's players are familiar with their system. Louisville has less talent and less familiarity with their system.
Kentucky should thus make fewer mistakes, and they should also make more big positive plays. I don't see much great offense coming from either side, but Kentucky will scratch out an ugly season-opening win.

Kentucky 33, Louisville 17. Comfortable, but not pretty.