Coyote Blog

In Florida, where there seems to be a substantial problem with people stealing property in the form of shopping carts from local merchants, the government has a solution: Fine the victims.

In theory, stealing a shopping cart is punishable by up to 60 days in
jail and a $500 fine. But police rarely catch anyone in the act.

So local governments across the state are tackling the battle in
other ways, typically requiring stores to keep carts in the parking lot
or pay a fine.

Hallandale Beach recently updated its laws requiring stores to
create plans for keeping carts on their property. Stores bigger than
35,000 square feet, about the size of many grocery stores, can be
required to install theft-prevention devices....Installation costs $20,000 to $30,000, Miller said....

But retailers are fighting back. The way they see it, the rules are
blaming the victim -- punishing stores for other people's stealing.

Thanks to Bob Houk for the link. 

Congratulations to Gene Wright, who won the first annual Coyote Blog NCAA bracket contest.  Gene only had one of the final four picked (UCLA) but did so well in the opening rounds he had the contest locked up even before last weekend.  Second place was Michael Gunter and third was Bob Houk.  Interestingly, no one out of 34 contestants had Florida in the finals or winning it all.  By the way, yours truly limped in at 24th, though my son helped uphold the family honor at 10th.  If you were not in the pool, you can still click here and enter email "coyote -at- coyoteblog -dot- com" and password "coyote" to see all the results.

By the way, I highly recommend the www.pickhoops.com site for your brackets.  It costs $9 to set up, but it has no ads, the registration is MUCH less intrusive for your players than free sites like Yahoo, they have great analysis options, and they are much faster at posting results.

Congratulations to Gene Wright, who has a strong lead in the pool with 151 points.  Michael Gunter is in second with 143, and Bob Houk in third at 138.  For those playing, make sure to check out this page, which takes all the various possible combinations of future wins and losses in the tournament and calculates probability of winning.  This analysis gives Gene a 60.9% chance of winning it all, followed by Bob at 23.4% and Michael at 12.5%.  Don't worry, your faithful author Warren Meyer, despite being at 21st right now, is just lurking to give everyone a false sense of confidence.  I have a 3.1% chance of victory which depends on Texas taking it all.  Hook 'em horns!