Your #1 seeds are strong. I think it'll come down to "Profiling Tea Party" and "Not Sending Rescue Mission" as the odds-on faves to reach the finals.

But don't sleep on the #3 seed in the Obamacare region, "HHS Asking Companies for Money." It would reach the finals for sure if not for all the great competition. It first has to get past "Doctors Leaving System," which is my super dark horse. But I think the Docs  are going to be stronger in the 2014 bracket. Lots of five- and four-star recruits reconsidering their commitments.

A 12 seed always does damage in the Tourney, as Obama knows well from filling out his brackets every year. I think he should look out for "National Treasury Employees Union." They are this year's Florida Gulf Coast!

Every interview by or with Ben Domenech is worth a listen. Hell, even Ezra Klein (and some of his fans) were impressed with his one-on-one at WonkTalk about Obamacare. That's no small feat.

@Western Chauvinist: Heartland's blog has two posts today on that 400 ppm "milestone" nonsense. If you can believe it, the "Today Show" asked Heartland Science Director ay Lehr to give the "contrarian" view of the alarmism this  morning. In a three-minute segment, they gave him 9 seconds. Better than nothing, I suppose.

Here's the second piece on our blog today with charts and text that debunk the nonsense.

@RushBabe49: My name is supposed to be Likely. My Irish grandfather's brogue was so strong the bureaucrat at Ellis Island (in the early 1920s) wrote L-A-K-E-L-Y on the ledger. So that was his name, and that of his progeny, for all time. I do not regret the error.

My grandfather's brother also came over through Ellis Island. That bureaucrat got the name right. I have a bunch of cousins names "Likely." Needless to say, I'm glad my surname is a noun rather than an adjective. :-)

Thanks, Albert. It's amazing, but not really that shocking. Liberals. Burning books.

It's always the same thing with the left: They actually do/say/act the way they accuse the right of doing/saying/acting. Classic cases of projection, every time.

1. Yes. Let's bring honesty to the arrangement that exploits athletes and let the NCAA do what it was designed to do. Everyone wins.

2. I think scholarship athletes should all receive the same stipend, and "stars" — such as "Johnny Football" Maizel — should make more if they can successfully market themselves. Boosters should embrace this. For instance, they could add to the stipend, as a group. Again, market competition. Maybe limits to booster contributions, but I'm not wed to that.

My mistake. Sorry.

Managing and regulating Division 2 and 3 football programs is what the NCAA should be doing. That, and minor sports in Division 1, fits the NCAA's charter and competence. Division I football and basketball does not — as its absurd rulings, witch hunts, and corruption has proven.

That's certainly creative. But I think you can find a happy medium between a full professional minor league and college tradition. It is important that these athletes are incentivized to take advantage of their scholarships. The athletes should be more than (literally) glorified part-time and short-term employees — especially since a very tiny percentage of these players will ever make the pros. 

In the last 10 years, my Pitt Panthers have produced some of the best, most highly-ranked college basketball teams in the country. The resurgence of the program led to the construction of one of the best arenas in the nation. Yet of the scores of players who wore PITT on their shirts in that time, there are exactly three guys in the NBA — all of them part-time bench players. The rest are glad they have their degrees.

That's a great idea by Reilly, too. More market incentives for kids to stay in school. Hell, if you gave all varsity players a small cut of US sales on gear — half now, half when you get your degree — that would pretty much cure a lot of graduation-rate issues. 

Interesting take, Devereaux. I'm not that familiar with the business of auto racing, or much of a fan. I respect the sport, but only really watch Daytona and the Indy 500 every year.

You say that the CART-Indy car "split" has worked. I guess, from a close-watching fan's perspective. But it sure looks like a bad idea from most other perspectives.

When I was a kid, I was a bit higher than a casual open-wheel racing fan. And even casual observers knew that there were legends like Mears and Foyt and Rutherford and Johncock and Sneva and Rahal and Fittipaldi and the Unsers ... man, the sport was filled with stars who were household names. I'm sorry to say, but I really stopped caring after the split. Buddy Lazier and Buddy Rice and Scott Dixon and Sam Hornish ... it's just not the same. Maybe I'm just an old fuddy duddy who thinks the Good Ol' Days are always better.

Wait a minute! I'm not a fuddy duddy. I want to dismantle the college football system. Onward and upward. :)

EJ, RE: Conference travel.

I was going to mention that in my first comment, but it was already getting pretty long. Think about how absurd the Big East was going to become. Until the Big East started to completely fall apart, Boise State and San Diego State were going to be in the Big East for football.

Distance between San Diego and Connecticut: 2,500 miles.

Distance between Boise and Orlando (USF): 2,190 miles. 

They since wised up — since the Big East is now essentially the old Conference USA and will certainly lose its automatic BCS status — and will join the Mountain West. As it is, SMU and TCU are going to join for all sports this fall, and Tulane will join for all sports in 2014. How absurd (and expensive) is it to fly whole teams of non-revenue sports from Texas and Louisiana to Philadelphia and Storrs, Connecticut?

Separate out football. Create four regional mega-conferences. Let a school's minor sports join leagues in their geographical area. Then split the huge windfall from a football playoff.

One of the many things I love at Ricochet are the outstanding commenters, thanks all ... and keep 'em coming.

Rachel: College athletics -- at least big-time football and basketball -- is already divorced from student life. Basketball players are "in season" from October through April -- nearly the entire school year. They go on long road trips, especially for conference tournaments. Players in the Big East, or instance, could be away from campus for more time than they are on campus for 45 days if they make the finals of the conference tournament and then hit the road for the NCAAs.

Basketball players see their tutors more than their professors, and do most of their work remotely. The nature of their "jobs" makes them about as separate from ordinary student life as you can get, and is similar for football players. Why not stop pretending they are real students, and make them employees who also go to school ... even if it's just part-time?

I'm a fan of Daniels — and he'd have been my candidate. But I can't understand why the base was less energized for this past election than it was in 2008.

After the Tea Party revolution against Obama, I thought this was a "broken glass" election — one last chance to at least slow the march toward statism.

Repealing Obamacare should have been enough motivation. Stopping leftist SCOTUS picks. Replacing heads of DOJ and EPA should have been plenty.

Alas.

Duane,Saying Romney wasn't a principled, energized choice for the Tea Party is not the same thing as saying "double down" on Cain or Mourdock.

Thanks, Brian.

I used to be a big fan of her style. It was self-indulgent, but she had a unique voice and I thought really offered insights that many other conservative columnists didn't. Then she got infatuated with Obama as Man of History ... and she has been unreadable ever since.