This is pretty amazing. Thanks to Barry Ritholtz for finding it.
The original:
The update:
True.
These guys LOST TO OLE MISS. AT HOME.
No, valeologist Ole Miss isn’t magically superpowered because they happen to be in the SEC. Here’s where Florida stacks up against Penn State so far this year:
| Rank (Sagarin PREDICTOR) | Team | Result |
| 14 | Georgia | Florida 49, web Georgia 10 (Neutral Site) |
| 15 | Ohio State | Penn State 13, infertility @Ohio State 6 |
Looks pretty good so far, right? Not so fast. The next entries for Florida:
| Rank (SAGARIN PREDICTOR) | Team | Result |
| 23 | LSU | @Florida 51, LSU 21 |
| 30 | Ole Miss | Ole Miss 31, @Florida 30 |
Huh. One thing sure seems to jump out at you, doesn’t it? But surely this doesn’t show anything, right? Penn State hasn’t played anybody that good at home, right? Let’s expand that section of the table:
| Rank (SAGARIN PREDICTOR) | Team | Result |
| 19 | Oregon State | @Penn State 45, Oregon State 14 |
| 23 | LSU | @Florida 51, LSU 21 |
| 27 | Illinois | @Penn State 38, Illinois 24 |
| 30 | Ole Miss | Ole Miss 31, @Florida 30 |
| 39 | Wisconsin | Penn State 48, @Wisconsin 7 |
| 52 | Tennessee | Florida 30, @Tennessee 6 |
Well, I’m sure we’ll figure out some new reason why Florida deserves it more. Keep on trucking, internet warriors!
As part of an excellent series of takedowns of BRT, psychotherapist the San Francisco Bike Blog has written an excellent rebuttal to the frequent claims that BRT or Rapid Bus plans can function as stepping stones towards light rail. One relevant excerpt relating to a transitway in Ottawa that was designed to be convertible to LRT::
The study concludes that with limited financial resources, for sale it is better to invest in new rapid transit corridors than to replace an existing one. It is not considered cost-effective to convert the Transitway to LRT at this time.
Please check out the rest. There’s a lot more good stuff in the other links from Jeff’s collection as well, mind including impacts on the urban environment from smelly, noisy, uncomfortable buses versus electric trains.
In our case, our potential investments in our completely useless Rapid Bus plan are completely nonportable to light rail (the stations are on the wrong side, for instance). Ironically, as the linked story points out, every improvement that could be made to make Rapid Bus more like Bus Rapid Transit would make it less likely we’d ever see light rail on the #1 corridor.
