colin's intertube

As many of you may already know, we're trying very hard to buy a house. Microsoft's Live Maps has added a Bird's Eye view, which lets you view a location from four different angles. Presumably, this competes with Google Street View. They have decent quality images, even in Cambridge, WI:

Here is the page this came from.

Another attempt at minor league indoor football is on its way to failure. Every year, a new professional indoor football league is founded. Every year, another professional indoor football league fails. Obviously, somebody thinks the format has potential. Right now, there are 7 notable leagues operating in the US, from the Arena Football League, complete with network TV coverage and a team owned by Bon Jovi, down to the Continental Indoor Football League, founded in 2006 and already boasting 5 defunct teams.

If these minor leagues want to survive, they need to join together and emulate some of the successful minor league structures of other sports. Many teams in these leagues have left one league to join another. Some have even joined up with af2, the Arena Football League's second division. To me, this seems like the perfect place to unleash a European-style system of promotion/relegation and cup competitions on American sports fans.

In indoor football, you have the AFL, af2, and then everybody else. AFL has substantial TV coverage, many NFL-quality players and teams who play in larger NBA/NHL arenas. The af2 is a developmental league, with teams in slightly smaller cities and slightly smaller arenas. There is some TV coverage, but not nearly as much. The other leagues are largely interchangeable. Most fans attending these games couldn't tell you the difference between the Continental Indoor Football League and the American Indoor Football Association.

Through a series of mergers and affiliate agreements, these leagues could one day operate similarly to England's Football League. My first step would be to organize a large, multi-league knockout tournament, incorporating all teams in all leagues.

The seven leagues operating in the US have a total of 104 members. Teams would be seeded according to league finish and (at least at this point) their league's age. AFL teams are rated highest, while CIFL (the newest league) teams are rated lowest. I do it this way because we don't really have a good way to compare the level of quality of each league, though after a few years it should become clearer.

In my cup competition, I would start with a qualification round of 8 games. Here, the 16 worst teams are randomly drawn into 8 games. Winners move on to the first round. The first round consists of 64 teams. The top 32 receive byes - in this case, the entire AFL and half of af2. Again, the 64 playing teams are randomly drawn into 32 games. The winners move on to round two. Here, the first-round byes enter the competition, giving us 64 once again. Each round from here on will be begin with another random draw, so any combination of teams can play anywhere. Bon Jovi's Philadelphia Soul could draw Lehigh Valley Outlawz away, or they could host AFL an rival like the New York Dragons.

Eventually, we would get a feel for the comparative quality of each league, and thus be able to realign the teams into 5 divisions. Promotion and relegation could be introduced for the top and bottom finishers. Will this ever happen? Doubtful, but anything is better than this current jumble of leagues.

I'm going to ignore anybody who claims that Tuesday's Supreme Court election was a liberal-conservative issue. It wasn't, despite what the Michael Gableman supporters would lead you to believe. According to them, "conservative" judges follow the letter of the law, while "liberal" judges will bring their personal opinions and biases in to play. Alright, makes sense, I guess. What doesn't make sense, though, is how can Gableman call himself a conservative judge while he's kissing the asses of every police department in the state, essentially promising that he'll uphold any and every decision they make. Louis Butler, on the other hand, was labeled a liberal for finding "loopholes" in the cases he has heard. Loopholes or not, they are still the law. If you're really interested in following the letter of the law, you ought to be interested in all of it.

I was curious to see just what loopholes they were talking about. Lucky for me, Gableman supporters Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce actually explain it right on their website. From their advertisement:

A husband poisoned his wife. Butler cites a loophole, almost jeopardizing the prosecution.

Scroll down the page linked above. WMC themselves state that this "loophole" is actually the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Oh wait, I forgot...in order to be "conservative", the police and the prosecution must always be right.

Thank you, voters, for listening to the loud talking and electing a justice who is content to piss on the Constitution.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice candidate Michael Gableman is whining again about the fact that Louis Butler used to be a public defender. Obviously, this means that Butler loves criminals and wants rapists roaming the streets.

Sorry Michael, but there is this amazing concept called DOING YOUR JOB. What was he supposed to do, go to court and say "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client is a criminal and you should convict him!"

I didn't care about this election before, but I will now be going to the polls on April 1st to cast my vote for "Loophole" Louis Butler. Michael Gableman, you can kindly fuck off back to Burnett County.