What will the depth chart for the bowl game look like? Who else will go to portal or opt out for draft?

How stupid was 2024?

Let's start with the art world, which over the centuries has given humanity so many beautiful, timeless masterpieces. This year, the biggest story involving art, by far, was that a cryptocurrency businessman paid $6.2 million at a Sotheby's auction for ...

A banana.

Which he ate.

"It's much better than other bananas," he told the press.

And that was not the stupidest thing that happened in 2024. It might not even crack the top 10. Because this was also a year when:

• The Olympics awarded medals for breakdancing.
• Fully grown adults got into fights in Target stores over "Stanley" brand drinking cups, which are part of the national obsession with hydration that causes many Americans to carry large-capacity beverage containers at all times as if they're setting off on a trek across the Sahara instead of going to Trader Joe's.
• Despite multiple instances of property damage, injury and even death, expectant couples continued to insist on revealing the genders of their unborn children by blowing things up, instead of simply telling people.
• The number of people who identify as "influencers" continued to grow exponentially, which means that unless we find a cure, within 10 years everybody on the planet will be trying to make a living by influencing everybody else.
• Hundreds of millions of Americans set their clocks ahead in March, then set them all back in November — without having the faintest idea why. (Granted, Americans do this every year; we're just pointing out that it's stupid).

But what made 2024 truly special, in terms of sustained idiocy, was that it was an election year. This meant that day after day, month after month, the average American voter was subjected to a relentless gushing spew of campaign messaging created by political professionals who — no matter what side they're on — all share one unshakeable core belief, which is that the average American voter has the intellectual capacity of a potted fern. It was a brutal, depressing slog, and it felt as though it would never end. It may still be going on in California, a state that apparently tabulates its ballots on a defective Etch-a-Sketch.

For most of us, though, the elections and this insane year, are finally over. But before we move on to whatever (heaven help us) lies ahead, let's ingest our anti-nausea medication and take one last cringing look back at the events of 2024, starting with ...

Those of you who own your home, how much is your monthly water bill?

I ask because I’ve been on a shared well owned by a church, and they want to start charging the properties on it. I don’t mind, I’ve been getting free water for years. But I was curious what the going rate was these days.

I have had btn plus and when it changed this Fall with new prices, I tried to subscribe and after no luck with getting on, I unsubscribed. Now I have tried to resubscribe but since cleengbv kept my previous info, when I try now, it says my email address is already in use. Well no crap, it's mine. Anyway, I can go no further with the process. Any ideas or some way to actually talk to a person? The chats are a computer and of no use. Thanks to anyone who has suggestions.

Good players are landing everywhere except Iowa. We need beef on the OL and DL; receivers, TE, CB and a good RB. If we have all this NIL, we should be standing on more than just a back qb at this point.

Dammit!

It is great to be an Iowa Wrestling fan.

Go Hawks!

Great guy, great player.

However, if I never hear the words "covid year" again, I won't be sad.

This season was his 6th year in college.

Check this out & watch:

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit struck down the FCC’s “net neutrality” rules governing internet service providers Thursday in an early policy win for Republicans seeking to reverse Biden-era industry regulation.

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Democrats at the Federal Communications Commission had considered the reinstatement of net neutrality a major accomplishment under the Biden administration. The reversal is a glimpse of the years ahead, during which President-elect Donald Trump’s team has vowed to broadly undo his predecessor’s regulation of private-sector companies.

The net neutrality issue revolves around how heavily federal regulators should control the companies that build and operate the internet. Democrats favor heavier oversight along the lines of how traditional telephone networks are regulated, while Republicans have argued for a lighter touch. Net neutrality was adopted by the FCC under the Obama administration, reversed under Trump, then reinstated under President Joe Biden.

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“I think that net neutrality is going to have a long respite,” said Marc Martin, partner at Perkins Coie and a former FCC official, adding that he sees the prospect of the Supreme Court overruling the 6th Circuit as slim. “It would have to take future bad acts that get a lot of attention to maybe bring a different Congress to act and give the FCC authority. Short of that, I think it’s over.”
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The 6th Circuit said in its decision Thursday that internet service providers were not just dumb pipes, as the FCC has contended, and for that reason, internet service cannot be regulated as a mere utility service like power, water and traditional telephone lines.
“The FCC’s reading is inconsistent with the plain language of the Communications Act [of 1934],” the court in Cincinnati said, referring to the law outlining the FCC’s authority.


A conservative-led FCC under the second Trump administration was widely expected to move to overturn net neutrality if court challenges failed. On Thursday, the FCC declined to say whether it would appeal the court decision, with Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel calling instead for Congress to take action.
“Consumers across the country have told us again and again that they want an internet that is fast, open and fair,” she said in a statement. “With this decision it is clear that Congress now needs to heed their call, take up the charge for net neutrality, and put open internet principles in federal law.”
Brendan Carr, Trump’s pick for FCC chairman, praised the court Thursday for striking down what he called “President Biden’s Internet power grab” and promised more deregulatory moves for his tenure as head of the agency.

Isnt this the plan now due to some court cases? Are we talking single or double digits of thousands of dollars?

Are all the football players getting the same amount?

Gotta be something to do with Caitlin, right?

The Ohio State game Adam and I covered is probably my favorite sporting event I’ve covered. Said it before, but that was like a religious experience. Phenomenal game, phenomenal atmosphere.

In a message posted on Truth, Donald Trump seems to be begging Elon Musk to come see him, while bragging about Bill Gates dropping by. The Trump camp is refusing to admit that Grandpa meant to send Elon a private message, and not send it out to the thousands of followers that he has.

Can get ****ed and have their nutsack drug over this.

President-elect Donald Trump’s picks for many of the top cabinet positions in his upcoming administration are unorthodox, to say the least. In some cases, it would be hard to think of of people less qualified for their proposed jobs.
Pete Hegseth as secretary of Defense, Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, Kash Patel as F.B.I. director and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as overseer of the nation’s health care policies — each lacks the relevant experience and has an array of troubling biases that should be disqualifying.
Mr. Trump’s choices for ambassadors and senior advisers — sycophants, cronies and even his children’s in-laws and romantic partners — seem to break with a century of precedent in American politics.
What we are seeing in the United States today, though, is not so new. It echoes what is happening all over the world: an assault on the modern state as we know it. In countries including Hungary, Israel and Britain, the civil service, judiciary and law enforcement have been attacked by the very leaders elected to manage them.
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We have seen the sort of damage these types of attacks cause — they enrich loyalists, weaken independent sources of expertise and information and erode vital public services. They will do much the same here.
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Eviscerating modern state institutions almost always clears a path for a different type of political order, one built on personal loyalties and connections to the ruler. The German sociologist Max Weber had a word for this type of regime: patrimonialism, based on the arbitrary rule of leaders who view themselves as traditional “fathers” of their nations and who run the state as a family business of sorts, staffed by relatives, friends and other members of the ruler’s “extended household.”
Social scientists thought that patrimonialism had been relegated to the dustbin of history. And for good reason: Such regimes couldn’t compete militarily or economically with states led by the expert civil services that helped make modern societies rich, powerful and relatively secure.
But a slew of self-aggrandizing leaders has taken advantage of rising inequality, cultural conflicts and changing demography to grab power. The result has been a steep decline in the government’s ability to provide essential services such as health care, education and safety.
Compared with the weak feudal states that preceded them, patrimonial regimes such as the Dutch Empire in the 17th century and czarist Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries were good at extracting revenue and making war, but otherwise inept. They were capable of coercion, but they could not provide the predictable enforcement of laws essential to modern capitalism.

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The arbitrary decision-making that is typical of patrimonialism sometimes even resulted in the disintegration of the state itself. Czar Nicholas II of Russia could decide in the middle of World War I to take over direct command of Russian troops, leaving his capital city in the hands of his wife and her confidant, the faith healer Grigori Rasputin. Within a year and a half, the Russian Empire collapsed in defeat and revolution, leaving a power vacuum that was ultimately filled by Vladimir Lenin’s Bolshevik Party.
Americans love to hate the state. About half of our citizenry now believes that there is really a “deep state” of shadowy power brokers who pull the strings of our government behind the scenes. But as annoying and inefficient as bureaucracies sometimes are, all of us depend on them to live what we now consider normal lives.
Government agencies with staff who are recruited by merit play a vital role ensuring the safety of our food, air and water; maintaining the value of our currency; resolving legal disputes peacefully; and defending our national security. We rarely pay attention to the everyday work of government bureaucrats, but without them, we would be in grave danger.
When Mr. Trump and his cronies declare that they will destroy the deep state, it’s really the modern state — the state that supports the foundations of both public and private life — that they have in mind.
Once we view the matter from this perspective, it’s much easier to understand why Mr. Trump invited Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to drastically downsize the American state. In reality, though, government will not be downsized; it will be repurposed. Like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Trump aims not to streamline modern state bureaucracies, but rather to replace them with a much older form of rule based on personal loyalty to the ruler.
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Hungary and Israel provide a glimpse into our future. Mr. Orban built his family a palace rivaling Versailles while he attacked Hungary’s educational and health care systems, and his friends became fabulously wealthy as they took advantage of their connections to the leader. Mr. Netanyahu worked to weaken the Israeli civil service and judiciary to stave off corruption charges and reward loyalists, and after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, some government ministries were left paralyzed for days. Israel’s civil society filled in the void.
The occasional defeat of patrimonial leaders in democratic elections has not halted these dangerous global trends. Mr. Trump’s return to the White House isn’t the only example. In Poland, where the patrimonial administration of Jarosław Kaczynski was unexpectedly defeated in a parliamentary vote by Donald Tusk’s pro-European Union party Civic Platform in 2023, it has proved to be extraordinarily difficult to repair the damage already done to state agencies and the judiciary. And if Mr. Putin manages to replace Ukraine’s independent constitutional regime with a Russian client state — the ultimate goal of his brutal invasion — the fragile balance of power in Europe may tip decisively toward patrimonialism.
To reverse the global assault on modern government, then, will require more than a simple defense of “democracy.” After all, Mr. Trump won the presidential election fairly. The threat we face is different, and perhaps even more critical: a world in which the rule of law has given way entirely to the rule of men.

hell yeah
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Are we supposed to like take time getting back into a normal routine where you're not drinking by 2pm every day? Or just roll on through Sunday in a sustained debaucherous way on into the new week where you kicked in the penis.