Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Bet the West Coast team on Monday Nights for a 70% Chance of Winning: Its a Scientific Fact!

Wow now this is something that is very interesting that is backed up by some serious science.

The Stanford researchers dug through 25 years of Monday night NFL games and flagged every time a West Coast team played an East Coast team. Then, in an inspired move, they compared the final scores for each game with the point spread developed by bookmakers in Vegas. The results were stunning. The West Coast teams dominated their East Coast opponents no matter where they played. A West Coast team won 63 percent of the time, by an average of two touchdowns. The games were much closer when an East Coast team won, with an average margin of victory of only nine points. By picking the West Coast team every time, someone would have beaten the point spread 70 percent of the time. For gamblers in Las Vegas, the matchup was as good as found money.

Also these scientists adjusted for how good teams are as well. In other words they didn't just look at the awesome 49ers teams from the 80s smacking around the hapless Patriots from that era:

In a test to ensure that their findings weren't the result of West Coast teams simply being better during those years, the researchers expanded their scope and looked at every Monday Night Football game played during that twenty-five-year time span. They found that the overall winning percentages for West Coast and East Coast teams were essentially even when the teams were not playing a game against an opponent from the other coast. Nor were the results a reflection of home-field advantage. When an East Coast team traveled to another destination within its same time zone, it won 45 percent of the time. But if a team from the East Coast played somewhere in the Pacific time zone, its winning percentage shrunk to only 29 percent.

So betting against the team coming from the East Coast to the West Coast is very easy money. I wonder if you can check this information against the Sunday late game as well? If the results match up then you have a nice way to check if this information is true.

Thursday, August 09, 2012

That sound you hear is Israeli Fighter-Bombers: Iran Futher Along on a Nuke than Expected

Well I bet the White House will certainly want to sweep this information under the bed until after the election.

The White House refused to comment Thursday on a bombshell Israeli media report that President Barack Obama recently received an updated intelligence assessment that Iran has made surprising strides towards being able to build a nuclear weapon.

The Haaretz newspaper reported that Obama had received a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)—the consensus assessment of the American intelligence community—that "Iran has made surprising, notable progress in the research and development of key components of its military nuclear program." The daily cited unnamed "Western diplomats and Israeli officials."

That probably means they are pretty close to finishing the research needed to get the bomb. I'm not sure if the Israelis could set back the Iranian program by very long even if they bomb all the sites. However, if they can somehow make the Iranian government fall that might solve all their problems.

Its Official Libya Joins the Fraternity of Democracies

At long last you can say that Libya joins the US as a revolutionary country that turns into a (hopefully) peaceful Democracy.

In a late-night ceremony held under tight security in Tripoli, the National Transitional Council (NTC), political arm of the opposition forces that toppled Muammar Gaddafi a year ago, handed over to the national congress, elected in July.

NTC Chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil symbolically passed on the reins to the oldest member of the new 200-member assembly, Mohammed Ali Salim.