There are some very smart &/or funny people that frequent this board.

Let's get 2 obvious ones out of the way:
"Don't listen to message board advice."
"Do not play Deacon Hill under any circumstances, if possible."

What is your most impactful hypothetical advice to Tim Lester?

Ben Krikke and Patty Mac have to rebound at twice the clip they've shown so far this season.
Every time Tony Perkins leads the game in rebounding they need to take if personally
Payton Sandfort deserves plenty of praise, but he should not be your leading rebounder either.
Pat and Krikke need to step it up

....and potentially how to evaluate circulating strains for pandemic probability

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There are many lingering mysteries from the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, why does SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the disease, cause severe symptoms in some patients, while many other coronaviruses don’t? And what causes strange symptoms to persist even after the infection has been cleared from a person’s system?

The world may now have the beginning of answers. In a study published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a UCLA-led multidisciplinary research team explores one way that COVID-19 turns the immune system — which is crucial for keeping people alive — against the body itself, with potentially deadly results.

Using an artificial intelligence system they developed, the study authors scanned the entire collection of proteins produced by SARS-CoV-2 and then performed an exhaustive series of validation experiments. The scientists found that certain viral protein fragments, generated after the SARS-CoV-2 virus is broken down into pieces, can mimic a key component of the body’s machinery for amplifying immune signals. Their discoveries suggest that some of the most serious COVID-19 outcomes can result from these fragments overstimulating the immune system, thereby causing rampant inflammation in widely different contexts such as cytokine storms and lethal blood coagulation.

...

The research team found SARS-CoV-2 fragments can imitate innate immune peptides, a class of immune molecules that amplify signals to activate the body’s natural defenses. Peptides are chains of amino acids like proteins, only shorter. These immune peptides can spontaneously assemble into new structures with double-stranded RNA, a special form of a molecule essential for building proteins from DNA, typically found in viral infections or released by dying cells.

The resultant hybrid complex of the immune peptides and double-stranded RNA kicks off a chain reaction that triggers an immune response.

In addition to their AI analysis, the researchers used state-of-the-art methods for elucidating nanoscale biological structures and conducted cell- and animal-based experiments. Compared to relatively harmless coronaviruses that cause the common cold, the team found that SARS-CoV-2 harbors many more combinations of fragments that can better mimic human immune peptides. Consistent with that, additional experiments with multiple cell types all consistently show that fragments of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus prompt an amplified inflammatory response compared to those from a common cold coronavirus. Likewise, experiments with mice show that fragments from SARS-CoV-2 lead to huge immune response, especially in the lungs.

The findings could influence treatment for COVID-19 and efforts to identify and surveil future coronaviruses capable of causing pandemics.

“We may be able to look at the protein composition of this year’s coronavirus strains and figure out whether they’re potentially pandemic-capable or just going to cause the common cold,” Wong said.

Wong and his colleagues concentrated on three SARS-CoV-2 fragments. Using a technique for analyzing detailed molecular structures called synchrotron X-ray diffraction, they found that, like the innate immune peptide, the SARS-CoV-2 fragments can organize double-stranded RNA into structures that stimulate the immune system.

“We saw that the various forms of debris from the destroyed virus can reassemble into these biologically active ‘zombie’ complexes,” Wong said. “It is interesting that the human peptide being imitated by the viral fragments has been implicated in rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and lupus, and that different aspects of COVID-19 are reminiscent of these autoimmune conditions.”

By Michelle Goldberg
Opinion Columnist
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Tim Alberta’s recent book about the Christian nationalist takeover of American evangelicalism, “The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory,” is full of preachers and activists on the religious right expressing sheepish second thoughts about their prostration before Donald Trump. Robert Jeffress, the senior pastor at First Baptist Dallas — whom Texas Monthly once called “Trump’s apostle” for his slavish Trump boosterism — admitted to Alberta in 2021 that turning himself into a politician’s theological hype man may have compromised his spiritual mission. “I had that internal conversation with myself — and I guess with God, too — about, you know, when do you cross the line?” he said, allowing that the line had, “perhaps,” been crossed.
Such qualms grew more vocal after voter revulsion toward MAGA candidates cost Republicans their prophesied red wave in 2022. Mike Evans, a former member of Trump’s evangelical advisory board, described, in an essay he sent to The Washington Post, leaving a Trump rally “in tears because I saw Bible believers glorifying Donald Trump like he was an idol.” Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, enthused to Alberta about the way Trump had punched “the bully that had been pushing evangelicals around,” by which he presumably meant American liberals. But, Perkins said, “The challenge is, he went a little too far. He had too much of an edge sometimes.” Perkins was clearly rooting for Ron DeSantis, who represented the shining hope of a post-Trump religious right.
But there’s not going to be a post-Trump religious right — at least, not anytime soon. Evangelical leaders who started their alliance with Trump on a transactional basis, then grew giddy with their proximity to power, have now seen MAGA devour their movement whole.
Absent the sort of miracle that would make me reconsider my own lifelong atheism, Trump is going to win Iowa’s caucuses on Monday; the only real question is by how much. Iowa tends to give its imprimatur to the Republican candidate who most connects with religious conservatives: George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, Mike Huckabee in 2008, Rick Santorum in 2012, Ted Cruz in 2016. But this year, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average, Trump leads his nearest Republican rivals by more than 30 points.
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“People think it’s all a good-and-evil election,” and therefore “we need a strongman — that it’s so serious we can’t play around anymore with a nice guy,” Tim Lubinus, executive director of Iowa’s Baptist convention, told The New Yorker’s Benjamin Wallace-Wells.

Like many influential evangelicals in Iowa, Lubinus wants to see an alternative to Trump. So does Bob Vander Plaats, the head of a Christian activist group called the Family Leader, who until recently was seen as a kingmaker in the state. He’s endorsed DeSantis, as has the evangelical Iowa talk show host Steve Deace. (Iowa’s culture-warring governor, Kim Reynolds, has also endorsed DeSantis; she recently used a private social media account to contrast a photo of him and his wholesome family with a picture of Trump surrounded by glamorous women at a New Year’s Eve party.) Vander Plaats has been particularly critical of Trump for suggesting that Florida’s six-week abortion ban is “too harsh.”
But if the polls are right, Iowa’s evangelicals don’t care what their ostensible leaders think. Trump’s rise has been accompanied by a collapse in trust in many American institutions once valued by the right, including the F.B.I. and the military, and that loss of faith extends to many religious authorities. As Alberta, the son of a conservative evangelical pastor, documented, preachers who’ve balked at parts of the MAGA agenda have been abandoned by many of their congregants.
“The forces of political identity and nationalist idolatry — long latent, now fully unleashed in the form of Trumpism — were destroying the evangelical church,” wrote Alberta in his book. All over the country, he reported, “pastors had walked away from the ministry. Congregations had been shattered by infighting. Collective faith communities and individual relationships had been wrecked.”

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From this wreckage has emerged a version of evangelicalism that sometimes seems like a brand-new religion, with Trump at the center of it. As Ruth Graham and Charles Homans reported in The New York Times this week, in Iowa, the percentage of people tied to a congregation fell by almost 13 percent from 2010 to 2020, one of the sharpest declines in the country. “As ties to church communities have weakened, the church leaders who once rallied the faithful behind causes and candidates have lost influence,” they wrote. “A new class of thought leaders has filled the gap: social media personalities and podcasters, once-fringe prophetic preachers and politicians.” Trump captured the spirit of this movement when he shared a video on his Truth Social site titled, “God Made Trump.”
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There’s no way to know if evangelical leaders could have prevented this devolution of their faith by joining together to stand up to Trump before he became such a mythic figure. But now, more than seven years into their deal with the devil, it’s probably too late.
The power of Christian-right operatives like Vander Plaats came from their ability to move their followers, but Trump has taken that power away from them, absorbing it into himself. Vander Plaats has been reduced to arguing, as he did in a Des Moines Register essay this week, that Iowans should choose DeSantis because it would position him to protect Trump from his persecutors. “A DeSantis presidency ensures justice for Trump,” Vander Plaats wrote.
Those convinced that Trump is touched by divinity, however, are unlikely to think he needs another politician to shield him. “I think they are doing the same thing they did to Jesus on the cross,” one Christian voter told The Associated Press, speaking of Trump’s manifold legal troubles. It doesn’t matter what evangelical elites say. Trump’s acolytes want to see him rise again.

Wilburn Hollis, Iowa All-American QB, passed away in Cedar Rapids on January 31. Hollis led the Hawkeyes to a Big Ten Championship in 1960. RIP to a great Hawk!

Ryan's parents traveled to Japan for a fun visit.

Check out the stats from last night's game.

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WHO: Ohio State Buckeyes (13-8, 3-7 Big Ten)
WHEN: 6:00 PM CT (Friday, February 2, 2024)
WHERE: Carver-Hawkeye Arena (Iowa City, IA)
TV: FS1
RADIO: Hawkeye Radio Network (Gary Dolphin, Bob Hansen)
MOBILE: foxsports.com/mobile
ONLINE: foxsports.com/live
FOLLOW: @IowaAwesome | @IowaHoops | @IowaonBTN
LINE: Iowa -5.5
KENPOM SPREAD: Iowa -5 (Iowa 82, Ohio State 77; Iowa 67% chance of winning)

Iowa clawed back from a large deficit at Indiana on Tuesday, but fell short. They head home to face an Ohio State team that came up short for most of the month of January.

The Buckeyes were 11-2 overall and 1-1 in the Big Ten as the calendar swung to 2024; entering February, the Buckeyes sit at 13-8 overall and 3-7 in the Big Ten (12th) after a dismal 2-6 effort in January. Ohio State's only wins in January were over Rutgers (13th in the Big Ten) and Penn State (tied for 10th) and they even handed Michigan the Wolverines' only win in January.

Of course, Iowa is just a game better in league play than Ohio State (4-6) and the Hawkeyes have had several frustrating performances of their own lately. Iowa is just 2-3 at home in Big Ten action as well, so
even the friendly confines of Carver-Hawkeye Arena haven't been quite as friendly as normal this season.

MORE HERE:

The grainy 28-second video that appeared on President Trump’s Twitter account Monday was immediately recognizable to fans of Larry David and HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

It was a recording of a scene from the Season 10 premiere in which David’s character de-escalates a confrontation with an angry biker by putting on a “Make America Great Again” hat. Thinking he’s in the presence of a fellow Trump supporter, the biker’s attitude completely changes, and he goes from screaming obscenities at David to giving him a gentle warning.

“TOUGH GUYS FOR TRUMP!” the president tweeted alongside the uncensored video, which he pinned to the top of his Twitter profile for increased visibility.

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People, however, were quick to suggest that Trump may have picked the wrong pop culture reference to tout his base. Many noted that the road rage scene is part of a running gag within the episode intended to mock the distinctive pro-Trump accessory, which David’s character calls “a great people repellent.”

“Satire is dead,” one Twitter user wrote.

By early Tuesday, “Larry David” was trending on Twitter, and the short video had been watched more than 5 million times. Detractors roasted Trump for appearing to miss the joke, with at least one person describing it as “a spectacular self-own.” Meanwhile, others applauded the president’s sense of humor and called the clip “exquisite.”

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In “Happy New Year,” which first aired Jan. 19, the subject of MAGA hats is brought up during a conversation between David, who plays a fictionalized version of himself, and his best friend, Jeff Greene (portrayed by Jeff Garlin). David gets the idea to sabotage an unwanted lunch date by donning a MAGA hat after Greene goes on a mini-rant about a Trump supporter they both know.

“See him around town with that hat, ‘Make America Great Again,’ ” Greene says. “I don’t need that crap. He makes me want to not be anywhere near him."

At lunch, the sight of David in a MAGA hat draws dirty looks from other diners and sends his companion hustling out of the trendy Los Angeles restaurant. David later uses the red hat to deter a couple from sitting next to him at a sushi bar.

But the hat interactions take a turn when David is faced with the irate biker he almost runs into while driving. Instead of using the accessory as a repellent, David puts it on in an attempt to calm the biker, who is screaming expletives — and it works.

“Oh,” the biker says in a much quieter voice after he sees David in the hat. “Just be more careful next time, okay?”

Then, in case the joke is lost on any viewers, David spells out his reasons for wearing the hat a few minutes later when Greene storms into his office demanding to know whether he’s pro-Trump.

“No, no,” David responds, explaining that he had been using the hat to avoid interacting with people.

“It’s really coming in handy,” David continues. Greene chimes in, “Yeah, ’cause no one’s going to want to be anywhere near you.”

In a January interview with the Hollywood Reporter, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” executive producer Jeff Schaffer addressed filming the MAGA hat scenes around Los Angeles.

“Larry in the hat is such a dissonant image,” said Schaffer, who also directed the episode. “You realized when he put it on that you just never see a person in a MAGA hat in Los Angeles. It’s like spotting a double rainbow of intolerance.”

The larger context of the biker scene appeared to not matter to Trump on Monday night, who shared the clip without bleeping out any of the swear words. Trump has repeatedly highlighted the toughness of his base, telling Breitbart News in 2019, “I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump — I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.”

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As Trump’s supporters praised his “grand sense of humor,” critics didn’t hesitate to call out the president for having “zero self awareness” and “cluelessly tweeting.”

“Nobody told the president that in the show, Larry David wears the hat as a people repellent,” one person tweeted.

Several people compared the Monday tweet to Trump’s past attempts to riff on pop culture that haven’t gone over well, pointing to a campaign video released in December that depicted the president as Marvel supervillain Thanos from “Avengers: Endgame.”

“This is worse than the Thanos tweet,” a Twitter user opined.

‘These are sad and strange times’: Thanos creator rips widely mocked campaign video portraying Trump as Avengers supervillain

At least one person quickly shut down any speculation that David could be considered part of “the MAGA crowd.”

“As the MAGA crowd begins to wonder why Larry David is trending, their confusion will be met with anger as they realize that he is not, in fact, a MAGA man,” the person wrote.

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David has publicly criticized Trump and reportedly donated to the presidential campaign of former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg, who is running for the Democratic nomination.

And David has not shied away from letting his feelings about Trump supporters be known, as many learned Monday night when a short clip of the comedian discussing the episode started widely circulating. At a January event in New York, David was asked whether he was concerned that mocking MAGA hats would alienate some viewers.

“Alienate yourselves,” David shouted. “Go, go and alienate. You have my blessing.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/02/11/david-curb-maga/

Went to game this week in Evanston. A lot of buzz. Tons of young girls. Chicago local ABC & CBS covered it.

Imagine Caitlin representing the USA.

A Dream Team for Women.

Caitlin will make gazillions. Who would not want their product/service to be associated with her?

Will be bigger than anything else at Paris Olympics.

Good for her.

Go Hawks!

post vids

A former Jaguars employee has been accused of stealing $22 million from the team.

And, no, it’s not Blake Bortles.

According to TheAthletic.com, former front-office employee Amit Patel allegedly embezzled from the Jaguars by “exploiting the organization’s virtual credit card program.” Patel allegedly used the money to buy two vehicles, a condominium, and a designer watch, among other things. He also allegedly purchased cryptocurrency, placed bets with online gambling sites, and chartered personal jets.

The team was not named in the federal filing, but the Jaguars have confirmed that Patel is accused of stealing from the franchise.

“We can confirm that in February 2023, the team terminated the employment of the individual named in the filing,” the team said in a statement, per TheAthletic.com. “Over the past several months we have cooperated fully with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida during their investigation and thank them for their efforts in this case. As was made clear in the charges, this individual was a former manager of financial planning and analysis who took advantage of his trusted position to covertly and intentionally commit significant fraudulent financial activity at the team’s expense for personal benefit. This individual had no access to confidential football strategy, personnel or other football information. The team engaged experienced law and accounting firms to conduct a comprehensive independent review, which concluded that no other team employees were involved in or aware of his criminal activity.”

Patel was charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of illegal monetary transactions. He is accused of stealing at least $22,221,454.40 from the Jaguars.


You'd think someone would have noticed loooooong before he racked up $22 million.....

Anything?

Staying in a new vacation rental that has Roku which I am not familiar with and can't seem to find Big Ten Network on it anywhere for tonight's meet.

Thoughts-help?

Menace's Stooges v VU thread inspired me. Had to limit to Fullerton, OC would have had WAY too many choices.

how are you celebrating tomorrow?

Just saw the video of the Liberty basketball player who got punched. He was rolling around on the ground holding his face.

So to my question: if this happens to you, do you really sell that you got punched and are hurt to maximize the other person’s punishment?

Or do you act tough and eat the punch like a champ even though that increases the odds the refs will miss it?

Several arrests stemming from a fall protest have caused a stir in the Iowa City community.

Johnson County Supervisor Jon Green and the Iowa City Human Rights Commission have condemned charges against seven transgender and non-binary persons who participated in a protest on the University of Iowa campus against controversial activist Chloe Cole.

Green has drafted a resolution voicing his disapproval of the arrests and the Johnson County Democratic Party will consider it at a central committee meeting on Thursday. Green's proposed censure is aimed at Johnson County attorney Rachel Zimmermann Smith, who filed the charges against the protestors.

The Human Rights Commission has also asked the county attorney's office to dismiss the charges, saying in a statement on Jan. 24 that the arrests "raise important questions about the actions of law enforcement and the broader functioning of the justice system."

Most protesters arrested nearly a month after an October rally outside of Cole's speech have pleaded guilty after being charged with disorderly conduct and interference with official acts. More than 100 demonstrators circled the intersection of Madison Street and Jefferson Street on Oct. 16 during Cole's appearance at the University of Iowa Memorial Union.

The Press-Citizen reported that the protestors blocked traffic south on Madison Street.

Criminal complaints indicate protestors blocked traffic for 20 minutes during an alleged “unlawful assembly” outside the student union.

Police say they tried to open a single lane of traffic for vehicles while allowing the "unlawful assembly" to occur, but the protesters blocked police from helping nearby vehicles.

A complaint against one of the individuals said that the protestors allegedly “had to be physically pushed, pulled and restrained” from the road multiple times so they would not be in front of vehicles. That same person also allegedly “hip-checked” an officer who was attempting to remove them from the road, according to police.

Deadline

They are high on what Lester can do if he is left alone to do RPO. A funny comment was they said RPO is "cheating" basically because so many OLinemen get 3-4 yards downfield and they never get penalized.

So why shouldnt Iowa do it. They discuss a check with me audible system vs Kirk's much more difficult to learn at the LOS qb audible system.

They have Proctor at right tackle. etc etc and more. I like to listen to these guys even if I am not so sure if they know tons about what they say.

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