By Kederick Wilson
Except for two people out of 5.9 million on ESPN’s bracket challenge, who would have thought this Final Four scenario. In this tournament, for the first time no number-one seeds or two-seeds are playing in the Final Four. Currently, this tournament has been the most-watched tournament since 2005.
This year’s Final Four features two traditional college basketball powers, University Of Connecticut (UConn)and University of Kentucky, who at the beginning of the season were not expected by experts to be in this position to play for a National Championship and two young-blooded programs, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and Butler University, one of the schools could be the first non-AQ (AQ means Automatic Qualifiers, those are conferences that are guaranteed a certain number of spots for their teams in the tournament) school to become National Champions since University of Las Vegas-Nevada (UNLV) in 1990.
Connecticut (UConn) has 29 NCAA Tournament appearances, 4 Final Four appearances and 2 NCAA National Championships in their men’s basketball history. Before the 2010-2011 season, Connecticut was unranked in the ESPN/USA Today preseason college basketball poll and was picked by experts to finish 8th in the Big East Conference. Connecticut lost its last two regular season games, but won the Big East tournament and is currently on a 9 game winning streak.
Kentucky has 52 NCAA Tournament appearances, 14 Final Four appearances and 7 NCAA National Championships in their men’s basketball history. Kentucky is the youngest team in the tournament, only one senior. Last year, Kentucky lost five of their best players to the NBA. During the season, five out of their nine losses were by 4 points or less, but now the young team is coming together thanks to upperclassmen leadership in the tournament.
Butler has 11 NCAA Tournament appearances and 2 Final Four appearances. Last year, Butler lost in the National Championship game on a missed three-point shot. With the loss of only one star off of last year’s team, Gordon Hayward, Butler returns back to the Final Four with a veteran team who has more experience than any other teams left in the tournament. In early February, Butler was 14-9 and since they were in a Non-AQ conference they were endangered of not making the tournament. Since then, Butler has been on a 13 game winning streak.
VCU has 10 NCAA Tournament appearances and 1 Final Four appearance. Out of all the schools left in the tournament, VCU has the most enrolled students with almost 30,000 (29,168 to be exact). VCU is the most controversial school left in the tournament. During Selection Sunday, experts on ESPN and CBS questioned the validity of VCU inclusion in the tournament over UAB (University of Alabama-Birmingham) and University of Colorado. Until the tournament officially started, the experts for days would relentlessly whine about VCU getting into the tournament. VCU won the NCAA Tournament play-in-game and won 4 straight games in the tournament that shut-up the naysayers and even converted a few to their side.
In Vegas, Butler is a 2.5 point favorite over VCU and Kentucky is a 2.0 point favorite over Connecticut. I see Kentucky’s youth beating UConn and Butler’s veterans beating this year’s Cinderella team VCU. Kentucky beats Butler for the Championship because I just want to see Kentucky’s coach John Calipari finally get a championship.
Sources:
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/tournament/history/_/team1/5468
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/tournament/history/_/team1/7778
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/tournament/history/_/team1/6313
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/tournament/history/_/team1/7721
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/team/schedule/_/id/41/connecticut-huskies
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/team/schedule/_/id/2670/virginia-commonwealth-rams
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/team/schedule/_/id/96/kentucky-wildcats
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/team/schedule/_/id/2086/butler-bulldogs
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
A Crash Course in Perspective
You know in America we worry about unemployment rates, Medicare, education budget cuts, Charlie Sheen, and even if there is going to be football this fall. Just about a week ago, these seem like legitimate issues until March 11, 2011 when a 9.0 earthquake just off the coast of Japan.
The earthquake caused tsunami waves of up to 33 ft. that hit Japan. The Japanese Nation Police Agency, officially confirmed 4,314 deaths, 2,285 injured, and 8,606 people missing. A tsunami is a series of waves generated when water in a lake or sea is rapidly displaced on a massive scale. The term tsunami comes from Japanese language meaning harbour (“tsu”) and wave (“nami”).
The earthquake moved Honshu almost eight (8) feet east and shifted the Earth on its axis by almost four inches. Financial specialists are speculating Japan losses $125 billion to $200 Billion. Three nuclear reactors suffered explosions due to hydrogen buildup within their outer containment buildings. Other countries such as China and Russia was so scared after what happened –or happening—to Japan that they either halted or got their experts to check their power plant.
Jun Yang, president of the Hong Kong branch of the American Society of Civil Engineers, said “In my view it would take five to 10 years to rebuild or repair.” The United Nation countries such as France and The United States offered their help to the country.
Now new questions arise from this tragedy, what do people think about nuclear power being an alternative energy source now? If America can’t rebuild New Orleans how is it going to help rebuild an entire country? All the issues that are going on in America fail in comparison to Japan. This isn’t a Japan issue it’s a World issue.
More suggested sites on the issue: Copy and paste.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/03/15/crisis-in-japan-affects-oil-prices-stock-markets/
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Tsunami
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Japan+earthquake+estimated+price+billion/4448379/story.html#ixzz1GnqyXsJj
http://eandt.theiet.org/news/2011/mar/japan-rebuild.cfm
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/UPDATE-1-ANALYSIS-Japan-faces-five-year-road-to-re-EZDHA?OpenDocument&src=hp4
The earthquake caused tsunami waves of up to 33 ft. that hit Japan. The Japanese Nation Police Agency, officially confirmed 4,314 deaths, 2,285 injured, and 8,606 people missing. A tsunami is a series of waves generated when water in a lake or sea is rapidly displaced on a massive scale. The term tsunami comes from Japanese language meaning harbour (“tsu”) and wave (“nami”).
The earthquake moved Honshu almost eight (8) feet east and shifted the Earth on its axis by almost four inches. Financial specialists are speculating Japan losses $125 billion to $200 Billion. Three nuclear reactors suffered explosions due to hydrogen buildup within their outer containment buildings. Other countries such as China and Russia was so scared after what happened –or happening—to Japan that they either halted or got their experts to check their power plant.
Jun Yang, president of the Hong Kong branch of the American Society of Civil Engineers, said “In my view it would take five to 10 years to rebuild or repair.” The United Nation countries such as France and The United States offered their help to the country.
Now new questions arise from this tragedy, what do people think about nuclear power being an alternative energy source now? If America can’t rebuild New Orleans how is it going to help rebuild an entire country? All the issues that are going on in America fail in comparison to Japan. This isn’t a Japan issue it’s a World issue.
More suggested sites on the issue: Copy and paste.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/03/15/crisis-in-japan-affects-oil-prices-stock-markets/
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Tsunami
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Japan+earthquake+estimated+price+billion/4448379/story.html#ixzz1GnqyXsJj
http://eandt.theiet.org/news/2011/mar/japan-rebuild.cfm
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/UPDATE-1-ANALYSIS-Japan-faces-five-year-road-to-re-EZDHA?OpenDocument&src=hp4
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
18th century protest with a new twist
Who would have thunk it? A protest in the 18th century over taxed tea would lead to culture shift in politics in the United States in 2011. With conservatives’ beliefs that the country is going to hell in a hand basket, fear and anger has lead to new ideas to solve issues troubling America. The Tea Party Movement is America’s new fad in politics.
The movement started in early 2009 when conservative voters angry with the government over bank bail outs, tax money being spent on government programs, public debt being passed on to their children, and President Obama inauguration took to websites such as Market Ticker to air out their grievances about the state of the country. On one of the chat sites in Market Ticker someone suggested posting tea bags to their elected representatives in Congress. Many people followed suit after seeing the suggestion. The movement went viral on February 19, 2009 after Rick Santelli, CNBC reporter, made a televised rant on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in front of Chicago traders with tea bags stuck to their computer screens and phone banks. In his rant Santelli gave harsh criticism of the Obama administration and talked of organizing a tea party rally in Chicago. Angry conservative voters that agreed with Santelli started setting up their own tea party groups connecting through the internet. Then on Feburary 27, 2009, Tea Party rallies were being held in major cities across the country.
According to TeaParty.org, some of the Tea Party movement core beliefs are for stronger military, pro-gun ownership, no deficit spending, and less government. The Tea Party Movement is slowly but surely is gaining clout in Washington D.C. In the Senate races of 2010 Tea Party candidates upset Democratic and Republican parties in Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Alaska, Kentucky, Delaware, and Florida. “It’s more a cause than a campaign,” Christine O’Donnell, at the time Delaware Republican nominee for Senate, told her supporters about making a change in Washington as a Tea Party candidate. “And the cause is restoring America.”
The United States have more than 54 political parties and 37 have had candidates that ran for presidency. Sean Wilentz, director of the American Studies program at Princeton University said, “Third Parties, are the ones that raise the issues that no one wants to raise and in the process they change the political debate and even policy, but themselves as a political force, they disappear.” Only time will tell if The Tea party can buck this trend.
Sources:
Nwazota, K. (2004). Third Parties in the U.S. Political Process. Retrieved March 14, 2011, from pbs.org.
Pilkington, E. (2010, October 5). How the Tea Party movement began. Retrieved March 14, 2011, from www.guardian.co.uk.
Scherer, M. (2010, September 27). It's Tea Time. Time , pp. 27-30.
The movement started in early 2009 when conservative voters angry with the government over bank bail outs, tax money being spent on government programs, public debt being passed on to their children, and President Obama inauguration took to websites such as Market Ticker to air out their grievances about the state of the country. On one of the chat sites in Market Ticker someone suggested posting tea bags to their elected representatives in Congress. Many people followed suit after seeing the suggestion. The movement went viral on February 19, 2009 after Rick Santelli, CNBC reporter, made a televised rant on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in front of Chicago traders with tea bags stuck to their computer screens and phone banks. In his rant Santelli gave harsh criticism of the Obama administration and talked of organizing a tea party rally in Chicago. Angry conservative voters that agreed with Santelli started setting up their own tea party groups connecting through the internet. Then on Feburary 27, 2009, Tea Party rallies were being held in major cities across the country.
According to TeaParty.org, some of the Tea Party movement core beliefs are for stronger military, pro-gun ownership, no deficit spending, and less government. The Tea Party Movement is slowly but surely is gaining clout in Washington D.C. In the Senate races of 2010 Tea Party candidates upset Democratic and Republican parties in Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Alaska, Kentucky, Delaware, and Florida. “It’s more a cause than a campaign,” Christine O’Donnell, at the time Delaware Republican nominee for Senate, told her supporters about making a change in Washington as a Tea Party candidate. “And the cause is restoring America.”
The United States have more than 54 political parties and 37 have had candidates that ran for presidency. Sean Wilentz, director of the American Studies program at Princeton University said, “Third Parties, are the ones that raise the issues that no one wants to raise and in the process they change the political debate and even policy, but themselves as a political force, they disappear.” Only time will tell if The Tea party can buck this trend.
Sources:
Nwazota, K. (2004). Third Parties in the U.S. Political Process. Retrieved March 14, 2011, from pbs.org.
Pilkington, E. (2010, October 5). How the Tea Party movement began. Retrieved March 14, 2011, from www.guardian.co.uk.
Scherer, M. (2010, September 27). It's Tea Time. Time , pp. 27-30.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Equal but Separate: Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning
Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are considered the best quarterbacks playing in the National Football League (NFL) today. In accolades the two are equal, but Tom Brady surpasses Peyton Manning as the best quarterback between the two in post-season and head-to-head matchups. Quarterbacks’ legacies are made by career statistics (post-season and regular season), team’s success, and championships.
These criteria will prove why Tom Brady is a better quarterback than Peyton Manning. In the post-season Brady is 14-5 in the postseason with the New England Patriots, while Manning is 9-10 with the Indianapolis Colts. In head-to-head matchups, Tom Brady has won eight out of 12 games played against Peyton Manning. Also, Tom Brady has won three Super Bowl rings to Peyton Manning’s one ring.
Both had different path to their success. Tom Brady was a fifth-string quarterback at the University of Michigan and was frequently switched with other quarterbacks when his time came to be quarterback. Peyton Manning, son of former New Orleans Saints quarterback Archie Manning, was a heralded freshman that was a four-year starter at the University of Tennessee.
In 1998, Peyton Manning was drafted number one overall by the Indianapolis Colts and started every game in the NFL in his rookie season, while Tom Brady, in 2000 NFL draft, was taken in the sixth round by the New England Patriots. Brady had to sit behind veteran Drew Bledsoe for a year and until Bledsoe got injured in a Jets-Patriots game.
Brady always did more with less when it came to his team. His offensive skill players during his Super Bowl run consist of journeymen wide receivers (David Givens, David Patton, and Terry Glenn), over-the-hill running backs (Corey Dillon and Antwan Smith) and no-name tight ends. Peyton Manning on the other hand had the luxury of future hall famers and all-NFL offensive skill players like Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne, Dallas Clark, and Reggie Wayne.
Even with all that talent around him, Peyton Manning still lost seven (7) times in his first playoff game, while Tom Brady has lost only three (3) times in his first playoff game throughout his career. In Tom Brady’s career he has over .700 winning percentage to Manning’s .600. Also, Brady was the fastest quarterback in NFL history to reach a hundred wins, while Manning was fifth fastest.
Both quarterbacks took different paths to present time in their careers. Passion, dedication, and discipline towards their craft are the common thread amongst the quarterbacks, but if you look closer into their careers you will see Tom Brady is the superior quarterback between the two.
Other suggested websites: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmonsnfl2010/week18picks&sportCat=nfl
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/520054-tom-brady-and-peyton-manning-2010-a-head-to-head-comparison
These criteria will prove why Tom Brady is a better quarterback than Peyton Manning. In the post-season Brady is 14-5 in the postseason with the New England Patriots, while Manning is 9-10 with the Indianapolis Colts. In head-to-head matchups, Tom Brady has won eight out of 12 games played against Peyton Manning. Also, Tom Brady has won three Super Bowl rings to Peyton Manning’s one ring.
Both had different path to their success. Tom Brady was a fifth-string quarterback at the University of Michigan and was frequently switched with other quarterbacks when his time came to be quarterback. Peyton Manning, son of former New Orleans Saints quarterback Archie Manning, was a heralded freshman that was a four-year starter at the University of Tennessee.
In 1998, Peyton Manning was drafted number one overall by the Indianapolis Colts and started every game in the NFL in his rookie season, while Tom Brady, in 2000 NFL draft, was taken in the sixth round by the New England Patriots. Brady had to sit behind veteran Drew Bledsoe for a year and until Bledsoe got injured in a Jets-Patriots game.
Brady always did more with less when it came to his team. His offensive skill players during his Super Bowl run consist of journeymen wide receivers (David Givens, David Patton, and Terry Glenn), over-the-hill running backs (Corey Dillon and Antwan Smith) and no-name tight ends. Peyton Manning on the other hand had the luxury of future hall famers and all-NFL offensive skill players like Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne, Dallas Clark, and Reggie Wayne.
Even with all that talent around him, Peyton Manning still lost seven (7) times in his first playoff game, while Tom Brady has lost only three (3) times in his first playoff game throughout his career. In Tom Brady’s career he has over .700 winning percentage to Manning’s .600. Also, Brady was the fastest quarterback in NFL history to reach a hundred wins, while Manning was fifth fastest.
Both quarterbacks took different paths to present time in their careers. Passion, dedication, and discipline towards their craft are the common thread amongst the quarterbacks, but if you look closer into their careers you will see Tom Brady is the superior quarterback between the two.
Other suggested websites: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmonsnfl2010/week18picks&sportCat=nfl
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/520054-tom-brady-and-peyton-manning-2010-a-head-to-head-comparison
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
The Utilitarian approach to science.
The Associated Press article of past medical testing done on humans exposes the dark side of science. In the Associated Press article, it detailed past controversial medical tests done 40 to 80 years ago to prisoners, mental patients, public service employees, and children by researchers giving them diseases and viruses in the name of science. The Associated Press found more than 40 studies done in creation of the article.
The presidential bioethics commission gave a government apology in late-February for federal doctors infecting prison inmates and mental patients in Guatemala with syphilis 65 years ago. In a study done in 1957, federal researchers sprayed the Asian flu virus in the noses of 23 inmates at Patuxent prison in Jessup, Maryland in comparison to other inmates who were given an a vaccine for the virus.
Another controversial experiment was a study done in 1942, where a federally funded study injected experimental flu vaccine in male patients in a state insane asylum in Ypsilanti, Michigan then re-injected the flu several months later into the patients.
Also, public service employees at the University of Minnesota, in late 1940s, were injected with malaria and starved for five days. Children were not even safe from these types of research; children were given hepatitis orally and by injections to see if they could be cured with gamma globulin at Willowbrook State School for children with mental retardation.
The ethics involved into the decision to test on humans best describes our value towards human life in our society. I do value human life with respect, but there is a part of me that would sacrifice human life for the greater good of many, including myself.
Source:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h4PXG4jtSRdvLCrA6kCHd6qiZNVQ?docId=152304f23a2e42c0a628408f318d5b47
The presidential bioethics commission gave a government apology in late-February for federal doctors infecting prison inmates and mental patients in Guatemala with syphilis 65 years ago. In a study done in 1957, federal researchers sprayed the Asian flu virus in the noses of 23 inmates at Patuxent prison in Jessup, Maryland in comparison to other inmates who were given an a vaccine for the virus.
Another controversial experiment was a study done in 1942, where a federally funded study injected experimental flu vaccine in male patients in a state insane asylum in Ypsilanti, Michigan then re-injected the flu several months later into the patients.
Also, public service employees at the University of Minnesota, in late 1940s, were injected with malaria and starved for five days. Children were not even safe from these types of research; children were given hepatitis orally and by injections to see if they could be cured with gamma globulin at Willowbrook State School for children with mental retardation.
The ethics involved into the decision to test on humans best describes our value towards human life in our society. I do value human life with respect, but there is a part of me that would sacrifice human life for the greater good of many, including myself.
Source:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h4PXG4jtSRdvLCrA6kCHd6qiZNVQ?docId=152304f23a2e42c0a628408f318d5b47
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