Category Archives: Living Room Times

UCLA 13, USC 9: Game of the Decade?

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As a Trojan, I generally have no particular interest in revisiting December 2, 2006 more often than necessary. It is truly a date which will live in infamy. ESPN ranks it #42 on the all-time list of most painful college football losses, but for me personally, it’s #1, trailing only a certain basketball game on my all-sports list of most… Read more »

Whither the American Dream?

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Via Kevin Drum, a perfectly depressing Financial Times article about the “crisis in middle-class America,” culminating in this key passage: What, then, is the future of the American Dream? Michael Spence, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, whom the World Bank commissioned to lead a four-year study into the future of global growth, admits to a sense of foreboding. Like a growing… Read more »

Three’s a crowd (but two ain’t enough)

As you’ll undoubtedly notice, I’ve made some major blog layout changes. I’m not in love with the return of the three-column layout, but I’ve concluded it’s a necessary evil, so that I can keep tweets on the homepage — thus keeping the site fresh when I’m not blogging much — while preventing them from overrunning the main body of the… Read more »

Are these the Pac-10 divisions?

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Clearly, based on the picture below, taken at Pac-10 media day, we can see how the new divisons are going to shake out (with Colorado and Utah split between the two): Division A: Arizona, ASU, Cal, Oregon, Oregon State Division B: Stanford, UCLA, USC, Washington, Washington State What do you mean, it’s insane to base my conclusions on this completely… Read more »

Pac-12 to start in 2011?

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An article in the Denver Post today mentions comments from Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe indicating that Colorado will depart after this year and join the Pac-10 in 2011 rather than 2012. I’ve gotta admit, the Pac-12 starting in 2012 had a nice symmetry to it, but it’s probably better for all involved that it happen sooner rather than later.

The highest paved road in North America

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Here is a collection of several video clips (taken with an iPhone 4 wedged against the windshield) of our drive Saturday up and down the white-knuckle Mount Evans Road, which climbs to 14,130 feet. The “soundtrack” is the music that we were playing on our car stereo, mostly an assortment of patriotic songs (with a dash of Billy Joel thrown… Read more »

Did the stimulus fail? And if so, why?

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Gregory Mankiw makes an analogy: To understand the challenge government economists have faced over the past year and a half, it is useful to imagine the case of a physician trying to treat an ill patient. The patient presents herself in terrible shape; the physician has never treated a condition with symptoms quite like hers before; and the causes of… Read more »