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Politico has an interesting article, looking back at some of the worst mid term predictions made by political pros who should have known better, Here are a few: Senator Chuck Schumer: “Well, I think we will hold the Senate. You know, I know all the pundits are saying Republicans will take the Senate. Democrats are going to prove the pundits wrong on Election Day when we keep the Senate, three reasons. First and foremost, economic issues predominate. Ebola's in the news, ISIS is in the news, but the average voter, every poll shows far and away, cares most about economic...

**SNIP** Barack Obama at a DNC fundraiser: “We’re gonna make one last push in these last several weeks. We’ve got a lot of just nail-biter races…If we do what we’re supposed to do, then I’m actually confident that we can get it done.” **SNIP** DNC Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz on This Week: “I think we’re going to hold the Senate and the reason that we’re going to hold the Senate…is because we have a ground game that, I know [RNC Chairman] Reince [Priebus] would take ours over theirs any day of the week. …Rick Scott is going to go...

The College Football Czar: Week 11 Week ten in review: It was a tough week for the Mississippi schools, with top-ranked MSU slipping past Arkansas 17-10 on an interception in the end zone, and #4 Ole Miss losing a hard-fought 35-31 game to Auburn, with WR Laquon Treadwell suffering a broken leg on the decisive play. There were a handful of other key injuries during the week. Nebraska running back Ameer Abdullah left the first half against Purdue with a sprained knee, but the injury is being characterized as mild, and with a timely idle week to rest up, he...

The College Football Czar: Week 10 Week nine in review: The College Football Playoff Selection Committee released its first rankings of the season, and its members seem to have been determined to avoid controversy, by (a) ranking the two remaining undefeated major-conference teams first and second, and (b) buying into the SEC hype by awarding that conference three of the top four spots. Mississippi State deservedly received this week’s #1 ranking, but nobody who has watched Florida State this season can possibly believe they’re the second-best team in the nation. Ranking the Seminoles second because of their 7-0 record was...

...any predictions?

The College Football Czar: Week 9 Week eight in review: For the third week in a row, those confounded games failed to adhere to the College Football Czar’s brilliant predictions. This time, he actually came in under .500, with a record of 9-10. For the season, his record stands at 101-66, for a .605 winning percentage. If that average held through the rest of the season, it would be the Czar’s worst since he began posting his picks online, and about 90 points lower than last season. At least he correctly picked the week’s biggest game, in which Florida State...

ABSOLUTE ZERO Book Description Publication Date: May 4, 1999 Ebola. The very sound conjures up hideous images, images that cannot begin to convey the horrors of the disease itself. An African man carrying the virus has arrived unhindered in Dallas. Experts assure the public there is no cause for fear. But is there really nothing to fear? Absolute Zero is the tale of an attack on America, of an unlikely hero who saved millions. One man, his life as ordinary as any among us, did something he could never have anticipated, something he never intended. It is a cautionary tale...

The College Football Czar: Week 8 Week seven in review: One of these weeks, the College Football Czar will wise up and start picking the Mississippi schools to win. In truth, he remains skeptical of Ole Miss, but there’s no question at this point that Mississippi State deserves its new #1 ranking. The Czar did not doubt the quality of the MSU team, but had instead overrated Auburn, which set out to prove that its near-upset at Kansas State was no fluke. For the week, the Czar only went 11-8, although he would protest the result of the Baylor-TCU game,...

GOP strategist Karl Rove is predicting nine states will flip from Democrat to Republican in the November 4 Senate elections, but he's also predicting three will go the other way. If he's right, that would still give Republicans control of the Senate by the slimmest of margins — 51-49. Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Rove listed his predictions for Republican pickups — from most- to least-likely — as Montana, West Virginia, South Dakota, Alaska, Louisiana, Arkansas, Iowa, Colorado and North Carolina. His predictions for GOP losses were Kansas, Georgia and Kentucky. Rove predicted a "barn burner" in South Dakota, where...

The College Football Czar: Week 7 Week six in review: Eight ranked teams lost to lower-ranked or unranked opponents, including #2 Oregon, #3 Alabama and #4 Oklahoma. Top-ranked Florida State was among the few favorites that won handily, 43-3 over Wake Forest, in spite of another pedestrian performance from Heisman-winning QB Jameis Winston. Late collapses by Bama, Tennessee, Stanford and USC sent the College Football Czar crashing to a 10-10 mark, which drops his season record to 81-48, for a .628 winning percentage. The Czar did make a good pick on Mississippi State’s 48-31 toppling of Texas A&M (predicted score...

The College Football Czar: Week 6 Week five in review: By the time the early Saturday games were over, the College Football Czar was only 2-6, but he rallied during the mid-afternoon and night games to finish with a record of 14-8 for the week. He is now 71-38 overall, for a .651 winning percentage. The Czar came very close to predicting three scores in Week 5, including Clemson’s 50-35 shootout win over North Carolina (predicted score 51-35), Stanford’s 20-13 win over Washington (20-14), and Washington State’s 28-27 comeback against Utah (31-30). There were no real blockbuster games in Week...

The College Football Czar: Week 5 Week four in review: None of the presumptive national contenders played very well last week, although LSU was the only one to be upset. Top-ranked Florida State showed that its problems run a lot deeper than the QB position, while Oregon was exposed for a lack of depth on its OL. Alabama displayed lots of power but no discipline, Oklahoma couldn’t get going until halftime, and Auburn would have lost if not for a series of unforced K-State miscues. The College Football Czar is now waiting to see which overpaid studio show host will...

With six weeks to go, the fight for control of the Senate is down to five states, four of them currently held by Democrats. Republicans must win only two of those contests to guarantee the 51 seats they need to control the Senate for the last two years of Barack Obama’s presidency. And they need to win only one of the Democratic states if they hold the only GOP seat at serious risk. While things could still change — and national polls continue to show an environment that may produce a substantial GOP wave in the House and Senate —...

The College Football Czar: Week 4 Week three in review: Sixth-ranked Georgia was upset by South Carolina 38-35, but don’t count the Dogs out of national championship contention just yet. Aside from an early October trip to Missouri, there’s not that much standing in their way between now and their grudge match against Auburn on Nov. 15th. Heisman-winning Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston has already been nominated for the Lardhead of the Year Award, but if there were also a Banana-Brain of the Year and a Nougat-Noggin of the Year, he could easily challenge for the Triple Crown. Coach Jimbo...

The College Football Czar: Week 3 Week two in review: The Delta House defense has won, as the NCAA has ended the Penn State bowl ban after two seasons. So it’s official, then. A four-year postseason ban is too severe a punishment for knowingly allowing a child-rapist to operate on campus for a decade after his acts are made known to campus police. A good argument can be made that because all parties involved in the scandal have departed, it makes no sense to continue to punish those who are there today. In hindsight, the program really should have been...

The College Football Czar: Week 2 Week one in review: The College Football Czar started the season with a record of 18-8, and a winning percentage of .692 – which isn’t great, considering that the dearth of competitive games over Labor Day weekend provided him a couple gimmes. We have a new nominee for the Lardhead of the Year Award, and a pretty formidable one at that. USC cornerback Josh Shaw suffered high ankle sprains to both legs in an off-the-field incident, the details of which he’d rather not disclose. So, naturally, he made up a story that portrayed himself...

The College Football Czar: Week 1 If you're reading the College Football Czar’s week one picks, that must mean that yet another long summer of terrible TV is about to come to a merciful end. So – if you’ve been keeping a football around the house to talk to, with a face drawn on it like Wilson from Cast Away ... If you’ve gone to an empty football stadium during the offseason, sat there for hours, and told yourself that the reason there was no scoring was that Boston College was playing ... If a genie recently granted you whatever...

It seems that with recent trends in economics, demographics, and morality in this country, there's great reason for much pessimism for the future. In any case, I'm curious to hear your predictions for 20 years from now. The state of USA? The world stage? Technology? Anything else you think it will be like in that year.

The College Football Czar: 2014 Season Preview a sports publication from The Shinbone by Daniel Clark Welcome to the 2014 season preview issue of The College Football Czar, a seasonal sports publication by the author and editor of The Shinbone. In the coming months, you will find weekly analyses of upcoming college football action posted at this site. To find out more, please see the Ground Rules. This issue contains the Czar's rankings for all 128 teams in Division I-A football, as well as conference preview capsules, potential upsets to watch for, bowl projections, and a guide to help you...

Rong-Gong Lin II June 2, 2014, 7:42 PM No, it's not your imagination: The Los Angeles area is feeling more earthquakes this year.. After a relatively quiet period of seismic activity in the Los Angeles area, the last five months have been marked by five earthquakes larger than 4.0. That hasn't occurred since 1994, the year of the destructive Northridge earthquake that produced 53 such temblors. Over the next two decades, there were some years that passed without a single quake 4.0 or greater. Earthquake experts said 2014 is clearly a year of increased seismic activity, but they said it's...