Ramblings from a mind that is often irrationally upset about things

 Iowa football is back. At least, for one game. The hometown Hawks came into Kinnick all gas, no brakes, and never looked back. You absolutely love to see it after a very disappointing first two games in the season. The defense was their normal dominant selves, special teams was great, the run game was utilized, and Petras didn't screw it up.  Recap Tyler Goodson opened the scoring with a 3 yd rushing TD. Petras followed that with 14 yd pass to Brandon Smith. Second quarter, Iowa opened the scoring with another Goodson rushing TD. Next, Charlie Jones ran a punt 54 yds back for a TD, followed almost immediately by Riley Moss returning an interception 54 yds for a pick six. Iowa led 35-0 at half. Mekhi Sargent added 2 rushing TD's in the second half and the Iowa defense did give up 1 TD in the third quarter for a final of 49-7. Iowa came away with their first win of the season in commanding fashion. Takeaways This game was all Iowa, all day. The offense put up 405 yards and the ...

 I am not sure how many people were aware of this, but there was a legitimate 3rd party candidate on the ballot in all 50 states this election. Jo Jorgensen was nominated by the Libertarian Party along with VP Spike Cohen. I realize this may come as a shock to some due to a severe lack of coverage of her campaign. The Libertarian Party has nominated a candidate every presidential election for the last 52 years. The party averaged 1% or less of the vote in every election until the nomination of Gary Johnson in 2016. Johnson finished with 3.28% of the popular vote. This is an important number. Remember it. You probably remember Johnson from his viral  weed heart attack . If you haven't seen the video, it's worth the time. Johnson was involved in several debates, but none against either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. He was shut out of the last debate after the threshold was set at 15% polling. He was at 7% and probably would of climbed higher in polling had he been allowed to ...

 Okay folks, buckle up, because this could be time to panic. Iowa came out and played like shit for all but 1 quarter of football and somehow only lost by 1 in another game that was there for them to win. It was a rough game to watch. I will do a brief recap and then drop some takes. Recap Iowa came out strong and put up a quick 14 points off turnovers. They punted on their opening drive and then recovered a muff to set up 1st and goal. Petras dropped a dime to Brandon Smith for the TD. Northwestern proceeded to fumble on their next possession setting Iowa up with another short field. Petras was accurate with his passing and almost impossible to sack. Iowa took advantage of the short field and capped off the drive with a Tyler Goodson rushing TD. Duncan added a field goal in the first quarter to give Iowa a 17-0 lead. The following drive Northwestern marched down the field and scored to make it 17-7. Iowa then proceeded to forget how to play football and never threatened the rest o...

 Alright, we know what happened last week and we are moving on. New game this week. Iowa returns to Kinnick to play Northwestern. The Wildcats are coming off a monster 43-3 win over Maryland and will be riding that high all the way to Iowa City. A dominant opening game for Northwestern, but it was against Maryland. It is pretty hard to lose when your defenses forces 4 turnovers and your offense doesn't turn the ball over. This is a hard game to judge Northwestern by because they should win this game 22 out of 20 times. That being said, Let's break it down. Wildcat Offense The offense put up 512 yards (212 passing/325 rushing) for an impressive 6.5 yard per play average. These stats were definitely helped by winning the time of possession battle, 37 minutes to 22 minutes, and only 5 penalties all game. QB Peyton Ramsey was efficient completing 23/30 for 212 yards, 1 TD, and no interceptions. The rushing attack was led by Drake Anderson with 103 yards on only 10 carries and a TD....

 Saturday was a day full of joyous anticipation at 7 AM and disappointed reflection at 8 PM. Purdue 24, Iowa 20 final score. This was a game that many, myself included, expected Iowa to win and now we are faced with contemplating the future of Iowa's season. Can the team improve in an 8 week, 8 game, no bye season? I think they can, but let's break it down first. Iowa started slow with back to back 3 and outs and then started to play like Iowa. The offense moved the ball and the defense did enough to give Iowa a 17-14 lead at half. This was despite a costly fumble by Tyler Goodson. Petras showed flashes of brilliance and incompetence throughout, but came up big when it mattered. He led the Hawkeyes to a field goal to take the lead as time expired in the first half.  The second half started slow for both teams and the score remained 17-14 at the end of 3 quarters. Iowa and Purdue both scored field goals in the first half of the fourth quarter and Iowa got the ball with a little...

 This was a much better debate from both candidates. The interrupting from the candidates was minimal and we actually heard some policy instead of name calling and talking over each other. Biden opened up strong with several good points regarding Trump's tax returns and good one liners. "Blue state and Red states are all the United States." was a great line and should be in a campaign commercial by tonight. Aftet that, Trump stole the show and dragged Biden all over the stage. Biden can't get out of his own way. He reference the Russia Bounty report from the New York Times that has been retracted due to being false. He blamed Hunter's laptop on the Russians, despite the FBI and DNI stating that there is no evidence it is a Russian plant. He flat out denied that Hunter received money from China or Russia, both are documented as fact. Now, I'm not saying that there was anything improper occurred because it's possible that it was all legal and had nothing to ...

 There seems to be a feeling of victory in the air for the Biden camp and it seems to center around this idea that no one can be dumb enough to vote for Trump. I see the internet full of people who I know are intelligent, smart people, fully capable of logical thought abandon all pretense of intelligence and logic when it comes to Trump. It truly confuses me. This also goes the other way at times, people blindly supporting everything Trump does and refusing to consider that anything he does maybe questionable or wrong. I'm not going to pretend the die hard Trumpsters aren't out there, but this blog isn't about them. This blog is for the people that can't understand why people would vote the bad orange man. (Disclaimer: I am not voting for Trump and do not necessarily believe all the following takes to be correct, but simply trying to explain the other side for all the confused people out there.) Reasons people vote for Trump 1. They are sick and tired of biased reportin...

  Ok, so now that we are less than 7 days out, let's address the 2020 Hawkeyes season. I am fairly optimistic and definitely see the opportunity for a great year. I will break down who we have by position groups and then go over the schedule. QB Spencer Petras, a redshirt sophmore, is out starter. He has seen limited play at Iowa with only 25 passing yards in clean up duty behind Nate Stanley last year. He won the spring training battle for the starting spot and showed promise in high school. His senior year in high school he threw for over 4,000 yards and 50 TDs. Iowa has been a revolving door of good QBs recently and I don't see that changing. RB Tyler Goodson gets the 1 spot, but expect to see more RB by committee this year. Goodson leads the way coming off a 638 yard 2019 season with a healthy 4.8 YPC. He is joined by Mekhi Sargent and Ivory Kelly-Martin. Sargent is coming off a 563 yard year and also a healthy YPC at 4.7. Kelly-Martin only had 6 carries last ye...

 So, I watched Biden live and then Trump on YouTube. I was going to get into their respective performances but it wasn't anything surprising. I have six quick takes. 1. Biden did well handling the majority of questions and outlined his plans well. 2. Shoot them in the leg is a dumb idea and not a de-escalation method. 3. Trump was not prepared for the opening questions and appeared evasive. 4. Trump recovered from a slow start well and had several very good answers throughout the debate. 5. The moderator for Trump was noticeably more hostile than the one for Biden. 6. Neither won. They didn't do anything other than repeat what the base wants to hear and did nothing to change anyone's mind. Then, Jo Jorgensen happened. She went live on Twitter with a virtual town hall and stole the show. She started with taking shots at Biden, proceeded to hammer Trump, and did it all on policy. She did not take a single shot at either candidate for being a racist, pedophile, or ...

 Full disclosure: I missed the first hour of the debate because work is dumb. Watching the last 40 minutes or so, it seemed like a slightly more civilized version of the Presidential debate last week. There were several attacks on records, dodging of questions, and very little policy discussed. This is going to be a short blog because I'm running over on work hours and short on sleep hours this week. A couple of quick observations.  Racial Justice The question of systemic racism was an interesting one for me. Harris was very adamant about fixing the rampant systemic racism in our system. Pence flat out denied that systemic racism exists. I don't think either of them were right. This question is a microcosm of every issue currently in front of the American people today. The flat denial that it exists from Pence was laughable. Anyone that can look at our system and claim that there is no systemic racism is an idiot. I also disagree with Harris' blanket assumption that it is r...

 The big news today is that Trump has stopped negotiations on a stimulus package with Pelosi. If your not familiar with story, here are links to the  CNN story  and the  Fox News story , pick your flavor of kool aid. Now I could go into the whole he said, she said drama and whose fault is it and all that bullshit, but we are missing the bigger picture and no one is talking about it. The United States of America is bankrupt. We (the collective we) have no money. Picture this, a husband and wife are in the driveway of their house arguing. Behind them, the sheriff is changing the locks on the door and posting a foreclosure notice, the tow truck is in the driveway repossessing the cars, and the baby is crying because they have no formula. You ask the couple what they are arguing about and the husband replies "I want to donate $5,000 dollars to St. Jude, but she wants to donate $5,100." It's absolutely ridiculous. This is what our government is doing. The national debt is...

The current odds on  Predictit.org  have Biden ahead 65 to 38 to win the election. In this blog, I will discuss pros/cons of each position as far as gambling on the Election. At the end I will also make some predictions. First, a brief explanation of how the site works. Joe Biden is currently at 65 cents a share to win the electoral college. That means for $65.00 you can buy 100 shares. Then, if he wins, each share is worth $1 netting you $100 and a profit of $35. You can also sell at any point. So, if you buy 100 shares of Trump at 38 cents it costs you $38. If his price goes up to 58 cents you can sell your hundred shares for $58 for a profit of $20. Anyone want in on this and has questions dm me before you sign up and I get you a promo code.  Joe Biden The pros for this one are fairly obvious. Predicit prices are user driven so most bettors believe he will win. He has the benefit of running against one the most hated candidates in history. I believe this wi...

 Welcome back folks, today I am probably going to make every single person that reads this angry and I'm okay with that. I'm gonna do a brief breakdown of how people are responding to the Presidential Debate and why they are all idiots. Some guidance to help my readers with their blood pressure, if you think Trump is the worst president ever, stop reading after the section labeled "the right". If you think Trump is the greatest president ever, skip the section labeled "the right" and read the one labeled "the left". The basic premise of this blog is that everyone is being dumb. People on both sides have seemed to adopt the belief that if their candidate did it, it must be right.  I'm going to break down specifics from each side and also offer some advice on how to win the election, so let's go. The Right Trump Derangement Syndrome has spread to the right. Slightly different symptoms than when the disease presents on the left, pe...

 Wow folks, what a ride. That was the biggest shit show I have seen since..... I don't know when. Quick take from my brother-in-law who called me immediately after. "It was like watching two babies that needed pacifiers." Alright, now my attempt to recap and determine a winner. Quick disclaimer, I'm not doing any deep diving fact checking and I am also trying to guess how the debate affects the general public, not me personally or my beliefs. The first topic was supposedly the Supreme Court. I say supposedly because neither participant could stay on topic. First question was why should the Supreme Court nomination be done before/after the election. Trump went first and did a good job touting his nominee and stating that he was President and this was his job because the people elected him and the Senate. Biden started weakly here by countering with the argument that the people elect the President and the President then selects the nominee. I understand the point he was...

One of my favorite podcasts, Hard Factor News, had Representative Ken Buck on for a great interview Thursday. One of the topics addressed was the fact that Congress hasn't passed a police reform bill, a COVID relief bill, or any meaningful legislation lately. Representative Buck informed the listeners that nothing would be passed this year because it's an election year.  (You can listen here)  This is a problem. Every single person in Congress make $174,000 a year. That's salary. That does not include insurance, pension,  security, staffers, or any of the other fringe benefits. To keep this blog simple, I'm going to ignore all the extra benefits and focus on salary. There are 535 members of Congress. That is $93,090,000 a year that taxpayers are funding just to make payroll for Congress. Again, keeping things simple, I'm going to use a 40 hour work week and assume 50 weeks a year of work. That's 2000 work hours a year. So, taxpayers are paying each member of Con...

People are all being idiots and I'm pretty much over it. A 17 year old who shot 3 rioters in self defense is a demon to the left and a hero to the right. A man with an active felony arrest warrant is called an innocent victim by the left. The right refuses to acknowledge that the system may be broken because the guy had a warrant. Everyone is coming unglued and drawing lines and refusing to back off their positions. There is no room for discussion and a complete disregard for facts that don't fit whatever narrative they want to push. Congress is a joke, getting paid $255,000 a day to do nothing that is relevant. Athletes are using their platform and getting mocked for doing not enough or doing too much. People are screaming "protest peacefully" and then mocking those that do. The blue checkmark brigade is out in full force and they are all stupid. The problem is cops getting put in shitty situations with no good choices and then getting arm chair quarterbacked by idio...

(Disclaimer: This is a rewrite of the blog I wrote yesterday where I became irrationally triggered hearing the words "KB" and "trade" in the same sentence and unintentionally included undeserving individuals in the panic twitter crowd. I fired from the hip and missed.)  A podcast I listen to featuring a bunch of guys that are Cubs fans were discussing Kris Bryant today. The discussion eventually moved to the possibility of trading KB before the end of next season. There are two schools of thought regarding a KB trade. The first is mainly centered around front office/money concerns. I don't like this conversation because in my heart I want KB to get a bag and stay in Chicago for the next decade. However, in my head, I realize it is a conversation that needs to happen because the luxury tax and budgets are real. The second school of thought is Cubs panic twitter screaming "Trade KB now because he is batting .180"!!! These people are wrong.  Look at these...

 I am aware I have been beating this drum pretty hard lately, but I am not gonna stop til this man is fired. This guy is such a joke. This man stated that it was unsafe to play college football, cancelled the season for thousands of kids, doubled down on saying it was unsafe, and then sent his kid to play college football. That alone should have him fired for being an idiot. You cannot say the risk is too great and then send your own kid to play. The kind way to look at it is that he's a hypocrite. The not so kind take is that he knows the coronavirus is not a real threat, but won't admit the season was cancelled to take away the leverage for a player's association. The one small hope I have for this situation is that the discontent seems to be spreading among the coaches, players, and staff at the B1G programs.  ESPN posted an article  about the general attitude around the B1G and it is not good.  "Been in this league for 20-plus years," a league sour...

(Disclaimer: I understand that I am biased and want football played. That being said, there has been nothing released data wise that explains why football is unsafe.) (Someone needs to give this guy the Jim Boylen clown face) B1G commissioner Kevin Warren took the cowards way out and released a statement today, refusing all questions and interview requests. This decision was made in the face of growing outcry from fans, players, player parents, and coaches for more transparency regarding the decision to cancel fall sports. Warren could of came out, made his statement, and took questions, instead he released a statement, flipped everyone the bird, and left. It a ridiculous move from a guy that knows he made a bad a call. You can read his  full statement  if you would like, I'm going to include some excerpts below. "The vote by the Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors (COP/C) was overwhelmingly in support of postponing fall sports and will not be revisited....

 Big brother is here folks. Google has now installed contact tracing technology on all Android devices. It's located under Settings in Google settings on all Android phones.  You can read Google's explanation  here . Basically, your phone will talk, through bluetooth connection, to all other phones within bluetooth range and record who you have been around. The phone will then check to see if any phones you have been in contact with have self reported a positive test to the app and notify you and your local public health office if you have been exposed. Sounds great, right? Nope.  First, the problems in regards to coronavirus exposure. Here is a basic summary of bluetooth range.   BLUETOOTH V2.1 BLUETOOTH 4.0 (LE)  BLUETOOTH 5 (LE) Range Up to 100 m Up to 100 m Up to 400 m Max range (free field) Around 100 m (class 2 outdoors) Around 100 m (outdoors) Around 1,000m (outdoors) Frequency 2.402 – 2.481 GHz 2.402 – 2.481 GHz 2.402 - 2.481 GHz Max dat...