BagOfNothing.com

I do my best to try to stay informed, but I have to admit I knew nothing about the Iowa Caucus.  Here’s what I found out: 

What’s a caucus?
Caucus comes from a North American Indian word meaning a gathering of the ruling tribal chiefs.  Today it describes a process of political party members gathering to make policy decisions and to select candidates.

How does the Iowa Caucus work and how do the two parties differ in their process?
The Republican caucus voting system in Iowa is relatively straightforward: You come in, you vote, typically through secret ballot, and the percentages of the group supporting each candidate decides what delegates will go on to the county convention.

The Democrats have a more complex system.  In a typical caucus, registered democrats gather at the precinct meeting places (there are 1,993 precincts statewide), supporters for each candidate have a chance to make their case, and then the participants gather into groups supporting particular candidates (undecided voters also cluster into a group). In order for a particular group to be viable, they must have a certain percentage of the all the caucus participants. If they don’t have enough people, the group disbands, and its members go to another group.

So why do the Iowa caucuses get so much attention from the candidates and the media?
Iowa is the first real test of a candidate and if he or she can perform better than expected that just helps build momentum.  But maybe a little history will better answer the question.

In the early 1970s, the Iowa Democratic Party made several reforms to their delegate selection process. These reforms included requiring a minimum of 30 days between the precinct caucuses and the county, district and state conventions, and publicizing the events to allow more people to take part in the process. When the 1972 Democratic State Convention was set for May 20, the new rules dictated that the precinct caucus would be January 24, thereby making it the first statewide test for presidential candidates in the nation. In 1976, recognizing the increased exposure, the Republican Party of Iowa moved their caucus to the same date as the Democrats. The candidates and national media have observed the Iowa caucuses as the “First in the Nation” ever since.

Source and Source

Not that you missed me or anything, I’m sure all your spare time was spent more productively.

While trying to search for an old friend on The Google, I ran across this 2005 nugget from the Austin American Statesman.  It’s just a tiny bit outdated, but it compares the 2005 and 1995 annual salaries of all the 4A and 5A Texas high school football head coaches at their respective schools.  I tried to find more current data that compares salaries from a decade ago, but came up short.

A few observations:

• The three highest increases adjusted for inflation are:
  • Houston Clear Lake at $69%, $53,028 to $89,642.
  • Ennis at 65%, $64,075 to $106,004.
  • Grandbury at 62%, $46,422 to $75,000.
• Five schools pay over $100k back in 2005, with Ennis topping the list.
• At the bottom of the list was Houston Furr High School.  $54,983 in 1995 to $42,300 in 2005 – a 23% drop.
• In 2006, the average salary for a teacher in Texas was $42,400.  Teachers have seen their salaries go up from 36.8%, compared to 36.7 for coaches.  Also, in 2006 27 coaches earned more than their principal.  Source
• Other thoughts for your consideration:
  • Texas high school football coaches’ contracts are based upaon a 226 day work year compared to the teachers’ 187.
  • Texas high school teachers work 40-70 hours per week.  Coaches claim to work 70-100 hours per week during the season and many of the head coaches serve as the athletic director.
  • A winning football program can bring in over $200,000 to the district and community.
  • The coaches’ product is on display to the entire community and printed in newspapers which adds to the pressure.  Source

This week I was 12/16, which puts me 169/256 or 66% for the entire regular season, four points short of my goal of 70%.  I don’t plan on any prognostication for the playoffs, truth be told, I kinda got a little burned out over the season doing this.  However, in the process I learned that a total of 256 NFL games are played in the regular season.  For some reason I would have thought that number would have been less than that, but it makes sense when you multiple the number of games played (16) by the number of weeks (16).  I also learned that I can’t predict NFL games as well as I thought.  However, one reader mentioned that I predicted the Cowboys finishing 14-2, but I can’t find any post mentioning that.  But if I did, I would have come darn close.  The hardest team for me to pick every week were the Broncos, sometimes they sucked and sometimes they looked pretty darn good; either way, they were hard to prognosticate. 

Patriots at Giants – Correct
Lions at Packers – Correct
Bengals at Dolphins - Incorrect
Panthers at Buccaneers – Incorrect
Saints at Bears – Correct
49ers at Browns – Correct
Jaguars at Texans – Correct
Seahawks at Falcons – Incorrect
Bills at Eagles – Correct
Steelers at Ravens – Correct
Vikings at Broncos – Incorrect
Chargers at Raiders – Correct
Cowboys at Redskins – Correct
Rams at Cardinals – Correct
Chiefs at Jets – Correct
Titans at Colts – Correct

As for the BagOfNothing Fantasy Football League, I came in a respectable third place.

It was fun competing against the readers of my blog, even though I have no idea who the heck six of you are (loserville, RagaMuffin, Underdogs, Andy’s TOS, TurfToe (great name by the way), Gunners).  Either way, thanks for playing, guys, and I’ll probably create this league again next year.

The most interesting race was between RagaMuffin and the Fort Worth Sleestaks who happen to be coworkers and were just 1.52 points apart coming into the last week of the season, with the Fort Worth Sleestaks in the lead last week.  But as you can see, RagaMuffin pulled way for the victory and a year worth of braggin rights over a coworker.