This just in….
AP – After determining the Big-12 championship game participants the BCS computers were put to work on other major contests and today the BCS declared Germany to be the winner of World War II.
“Germany put together an incredible number of victories beginning with the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and continuing on into conference play with defeats of Poland, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. Their only losses came against the US and Russia; however considering their entire body of work–including an incredibly tough Strength of Schedule–our computers deemed them worthy of the #1 ranking.”
Questioned about the #4 ranking of the United States the BCS commissioner stated “The US only had two major victories–Japan and Germany. The computer models, unlike humans, aren’t influenced by head-to-head contests–they consider each contest to be only a single, equally-weighted event.”
German Chancellor Adolph Hiter said “Yes, we lost to the US; but we defeated #2 ranked France in only 6 weeks.” Herr Hitler has been criticized for seeking dramatic victories to earn ’style points’ to enhance Germany’s rankings. Hitler protested “Our contest with Poland was in doubt until the final day and the conditions in Norway were incredibly challenging and demanded the application of additional forces.”
The French ranking has also come under scrutiny. The BCS commented “France had a single loss against Germany and following a preseason #1 ranking they only fell to #2.”
Japan was ranked #3 with victories including Manchuria, Borneo and the Philippines.
United States head coach Harry S Truman was criticized by many as having poor taste for scheduling a “politicking” interview during halftime of the German bombing raids over Great Britain.
In that interview, Truman stated, “Any way you look at it, there is going to be a really good military force that gets left out. But when you come right down to it, our head-to-head victory over the Germans has to be the deciding factor.”
A US fan also made the point that “Germany is getting all the style points right now because of their sexy offense, which continues to obliterate weaker opponents and show off their might after the battle is already won. But what about defense?”
In addition to being hilarious, this also reminds me of my latest book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Pollan talks about Fritz Haber as the person with the single greatest effect on our lives today. Which I found interesting, as I had never heard of Fritz Haber. In fact, although he was a German chemist and Nobel Prize winner, no one amongst my brief survey of German engineers had any knowledge of him.
His great contribution to mankind was the creation of a process to extract nitrogen, and later synthesize it, leading to the creation of cheap fertilizer and making our current population size what it is. Pollan estimates the world would only be 60% of it’s current size if Haber had not made his discovery. That’s like the world population minus China and India. However, his other great accomplishment was the development of chemical warfare, notably the gases used in concentration camps, and after the war he died in poverty and obscurity.
For you Cal fans, maybe the BCS will one day look into the sad stories of Fritz Haber and Nate Longshore and give them proper credit for their accomplishments.
