2016 Quarterbrackets - Final Four

Here's what this is Quarterbrackets!

Who will the 2016 NCAA Tournament crown as the Greatest Quarterback of All Time!

Final Four

Steve Young (Villanova) v. Dan Marino (Oklahoma)
Brett Favre (North Carolina) v. Mark Brunell (Syracuse)

Finals
Steve Young (Nova) v. Brett Favre (Carolina)

There you go - Steve Young has won the 2016 Quarterbrackets Tournament.

March 2016 Athlete of the Month

February is here.

Buddy Hield.  Runners-up: Kyle Snyder, Breanna Stewart, Brice Johnson

      2016 is a quarter gone; here's the list of the Athletes of the Month.  

January-Von Miller
February-Lionel Messi
March - Buddy Hield

Tendown, March 27 2016

218 is here.  This is Tendown 219.


1. Trump Can Go to Clinton's Left

2.

3.

4.

5. 

The Larry Sanders Show "Flip" from Press Play Video Blog on Vimeo.

6. Jacobin.

7. What do you suppose "secure Muslim neighborhoods" means?

8. Context.

9. McGovern.

10. Bernie.

And one more...

That's all for this time.  I'll be back next time...if there is a next time...

Your pal,

Jim

Tendown, March 20 2016

217 is here. This is Tendown 218.


via GIPHY

1. Voting Rights in Florida

2. One of the Ten Best Quarterbacks of All Time Has a Pyramid Scheme.

3. 

4. Quarterbrackets!

5. You want it...You get it...

6. Stryper.

7. Ah, labor.

8.In major American sports history, one team has won 50 straight home games...

9. Here's the money, right here.

In Bizarro America, the tea party never happened. Instead, the Great Recession sparked a left-wing populist movement that swept democratic socialists into statehouses all across the country. In Vermont, these Denmark-worshippers took full control of state government and implemented their radical agenda. They raised income taxes to unprecedented heights, upped the minimum wage to $15 an hour, made all state universities tuition-free, and established a single-payer health-care system. As he signed the last of these programs into law, Governor Bernie Sanders declared that Vermont would serve as a blue-state model, one that the Democratic Party’s 2016 ticket could use to say,  “See, we’ve got a different way, and it works.”

But by 2016, that model had collapsed. Every warning that conservatives had made about Sanders’s program proved prescient. The tax hikes chased all the job creators out of state. The new minimum wage didn’t raise low-income workers’ living standards; it raised their unemployment rate. The costs of free college and universal health care proved so onerous, the state was forced to raid its rainy-day funds and borrow at high interest rates just to keep the government running. Vermont now faced a billion-dollar deficit. Schools were shuttered. Pensions were cut. The state’s department of social services could no longer afford to investigate child abuse. The legal system could no longer provide indigent defendants with representation. Nonetheless, in the race for the White House, every Democratic candidate ran on some version of Sanders’s economic model.

Wouldn’t it be important for those candidates to explain why their program wouldn’t fail the country in the same way it had failed the Green Mountain State? If you think yes, then you should demand that Donald Trump, John Kasich, and Ted Cruz explain why their tax policies won’t fail America in the same way they’ve failed the people of Kansas.

10. Cruz and Perry on the border.  Feel the testosterone.

And one more...

That's all for this time.  I'll be back next time....if there is a next time...

Your pal,

Jim

Top 10 Television Shows January-March 2016

Here was the final score for 2015.

1. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (CW)
2. Baskets (FXX)
3. Girls (HBO)
4. Portlandia (IFC)
5. Better Call Saul (AMC)
6. Last Week Tonight (HBO)
7. New Girl (Fox)
8. Broad City (Comedy Central)
9. Love (Netflix)
10. Man Seeking Woman (FXX)

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's burned through lots of story (someone Josh'ing Rebecca could have been a long arc) in that "we don't know if we'll get another chance" space.  The result, though, is the best show on television so far this year.  Baskets operates on its own frequency; it's the best ever use of both Galifianakis and Louie Anderson. This might be Portlandia's best season, certainly its most even; it hits the target each week. I'm at the high end of the Saul appreciation curve; my expectation is that the rest of the season will raise its end of the year ranking above this spot

(Note on the rules, I'm only considering what's actually on - so The Americans will have a couple of episodes before end of March, but it will be more properly evaluated in the second quarter.  Also, once a show has made a quarterly list I won't put it on another, but at year's end I'll consider it's entire body of work; Saul wont be on the list again this year but the full season will count at year's end).

Here's the ranking of the Daily Show leftovers.

1. John Oliver's show
2. Sam Bee's show
3. Larry Wilmore's show.
4. Not watching anything.
5. Trevor Noah's show.

That's mildly unfair, Noah's not bad, just pointless.

New Girls' had a really funny season, it's laugh/episode ratio is the highest on the list.  Broad City's Comedy Central's best show; Love's done a good job making neither of the two characters particularly appealing - a show like You're the Worst, which I like, clearly wants us to want the main characters to be together - there's no real indication we should prefer that outcome on Love and I enjoy that.  Girls is Girls.  Man Seeking Woman wasn't as weird as season one, which is a downgrade, but counterbalanced that by offering episodes focusing on the secondary characters in ways that really scored.  

Back at mid-year.