BCS college football rankings, Colley Matrix and Presidential polls

BCS college football rankings, Colley Matrix and Presidential polls



The BCS college football ranking system has come under a lot of criticism over the years, but in fact, it may be the best thing out there.



Wesley L. Colley Matrix (CM) Rankings is one of the BCS computer rankers and recently applied a simple mathematical system to prediction of the US Presidential election. As one can read at Colley Rankings, the method that Colley Rankings used resulted in a correct prediction for every state exept Hawaii.



In other words, Colley did substantially better in their Presidential election prediction than the specially designed systems normally used by others.



Take a look at the current Colley Matrix rankings.

Veterans Day 2004 - In Flanders Fields

Veterans Day 2004 - In Flanders Fields



Anthony Cerminaro at Bizz Bang Buzz has a memorable posting on "We Honor the Fallen on Veterans Day" containing the superb poem "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae, including an explanation of the use of "poppies" in the poem. Why poppies? Take a look at the posting to find out.

The Modulator's Menagerie

The Modulator's Menagerie



The Modulator has a "Friday Ark" posting (a play on Noah's Ark) in which he states:



"I'll post links to sites that have Friday (or shortly thereafter) photos of their chosen animals as I see them (no photoshops and no humans).



Leave a comment or trackback to this post and I'll add yours to the list. If there is interest I'll keep this as a weekly feature."



We add here an everyday photo of our Siamese cat Lucas, who is named after Luca Signorreli (also known as Luca da Cortona, or Cortene), a Renaissance painter who we rank among the first truly naturalist painters and who has been called "the first to illustrate our own house of life". Bernard Berenson (see also here and here and here) called him the "grandest illustrator of modern times". We have a copy in oil of Signorelli's Portrait of a Man, which we regard to be art's best male comparable portrait to Leonardo da Vinci's painting of the Mona Lisa. (Portrait of a Man is found in original in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, Germany and the Mona Lisa of course is in the Louvre in Paris, France).



We think that there is no doubt that man evolved from primate apes, but the interesting question is what preceded them? We think it is cats - and this may account for the special relationship between the felines and humanity, a close tie recognized as far back as the Ancient Pharaonic culture in Egypt and beyond. The cats are reflections of ourselves and to our knowledge are the only other animal to turn their backs on humans and pout when offended.

Luca Signorelli II

.



Crossposted to ArtsPundit.

European Union Constitution - Lithuania 1st EU Member State to Ratify the Constitution of Europe

European Union Constitution - Lithuania 1st EU Member State to Ratify the Constitution of Europe



[Text of European Constitution, Protocols and Annexes I and II, Declarations on the Treaty, Protocols and Annexes]



[Wikipedia entry for a Treaty establishing a constitution for Europe]



A Fistful of Euros via a BBC article reports:



"The US state of Delaware uses the name 'The First State' because it was the first of the original 13 states to ratify the US Constitution and today, Lithuania earned itself the possible title of 'First Country' in years to come as it became the first country to ratify the European Constitution. Unlike the battles in other countries, this was a comparatively easy, and perhaps even popular, decision...."



Scotsman.com praised Lithuania for its swift move in ratifying the Treaty establishing a Constitution of Europe which was signed by European leaders on October 29, 2004.



The BBC has a very "quick guide" to the EU Constitution as well as a short detail of "what the EU Constitution" says.



A history of the treaties which led to the EU Constitution is found at the University of Zaragoza site.



The Text of the European Constitution is found at the EU site.

[Text of European Constitution, Protocols and Annexes I and II, Declarations on the Treaty, Protocols and Annexes]



The Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe

(18.07.2003) was prepared by the The European Convention



Statewatch has a legally-oriented annotated text of the EU Constitution draft, writing:



"A unique series of annotated texts of the proposed EU Constitution have been prepared for Statewatch by Professor Steve Peers, University of Essex. Each of the text is annotated to compare the current Treaties, practice and case law to the proposed Constitution - and in the case of decision-making the present division of powers to those proposed (including new powers)."



Update, November 15, 2004:



The EU Law Web Blog - which we have now added to our blog roll - had a timely posting on the EU Constitution.