Sobering Thoughts |
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Comments on politics, the culture, economics and religion by Paul Tuns -- in short, everything about the human endeavour from a non-hyphenated conservative perspective.
I am Toronto-based writer and editor, whose articles, columns and reviews have appeared in more than 35 publications. I am editor-in-chief of The Interim, Canada's life and family newspaper, author of Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal and a regular contributor to the book pages of the Halifax Herald.
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Friday, July 31, 2009
Weekend blogging I hope to have my two cents on some of the July 31 trade deadline deals sometime over the next few days, but otherwise hope not to be blogging. So comeback if you care about baseball and if you don't see y'all next week. Stuff 1. There are 35,000 iPhone applications (and over one billion sold) so this must not have been easy to come up with: Five questionable iPhone apps from HowStuffWorks.com, including Baby Shaker and iVoodoo. 2. The Potato Gatling Gun with pictures and video. 3. The Daily Telegraph reports on Casper, a 12-year-old cat in England that for the past four years taken the same bus route on his own. Casper "boards the No3 service at 10.55am from outside his home in Plymouth, Devon, and travels the entire 11-mile route before returning home about an hour later." The same paper reported the day before on Bertie, a dog with nine golf balls in its stomach; the vet also removed a bullet which the owners of which the owners had not known. 4. Japanese astronaut wore the same underwear for a month. 5. Most. Amazing. List. Ever. "The 6 Most Badass Murder Weapons in the Animal Kingdom." It begins with the "The Mantis Shrimp's Fists of Death" and includes "The Giant Amazonian Centipede's Ninja Skills" (which includes catching bats mid-flight). 13 million Chinese killed But no one cares because the 13 million in China were killed by abortion. As LifeSiteNews.com points out, "13 million deaths a year would, within one year, entirely depopulate Greece, Portugal, Belgium, Hungary or Sweden." There were 20 million live births and an unknown number of pregnancies ended by the morning-after pill and RU-486. The most important thing to know about politics Bryan Caplan: Successful politicians - totalitarian, authoritarian, or democratic - can be quite irrational about the effects of policies as long as they are rational about how to win and hold power.Or put another way, winning is the thing. Thursday, July 30, 2009
Three and out 3. The New York Times reports that Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, then both with the Boston Red Sox, were among the 100 major leaguers who tested positively for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003. The source of the Times story are several "lawyers with knowledge of the results." The "news" (assuming it is true -- according to MLB.com, Ortiz said he was surprised to find out he ever tested positive for PEDs) no doubt sullies (for some) the success of the BoSox from the last few years. As Tony Massarotti notes at the Boston Globe: "From June 1, 2003 through July 31, 2008 -- the time Ortiz effectively became a starter to the time Ramirez was traded -- the Red Sox scored more runs (4,723) than any team in baseball but the New York Yankees (4,766)." To remind readers, during that time the Red Sox won a pair of World Series (2004 and 2007). Still, the biggest issue for me about this story is that MLB's supposedly confidential PED testing regime becoming public. It needs to stop. The MLB Player's Association needs to defend its members, MLB needs to ensure that its agreement with the players is respected, and baseball fans need to understand the severity of these repeated leaks. 2. Consider this fact in the FanHouse Power Rankings: "Somehow, Fernando Tatis -- with 108 career home runs -- has hit more grand slams (eight) than 500-homer guys Mel Ott, Mike Schmidt and Frank Robinson, and as many as Eddie Mathews and Willie Mays." Quite incredible. 1. The Los Angeles Dodgers gave up a pair of prospects (3B Josh Bell and RHP Steve Johnson, both at Double-A Chattanooga) to the Baltimore Orioles for inexpensive closer George Sherrill (he is owed about a million for the rest of the season). Sherrill deepens the bullpen and will be a setup pitcher. Both Baseball Prospectus and Baseball America rated Bell the 8th best prospect in the Dodgers organization; Johnson is doing nicely (9-5 record and 3.61 ERA at two levels of ball this year and is averaging a strikeout per inning over several seasons in the minors). Both will probably need another season or two in the minors but Orioles president Andy MacPhail is doing a nice job building an impressive farm system. The Dodgers are trying to build a roster that can win in October and that's fair. But I have to agree with Rob Neyer that the Orioles did a great job in this trade: "[The single best thing any rebuilding manager can do, ever, is trade a relief pitcher in late July for a couple of solid prospects." At some point you can't tax the rich any more The IRS released data on the distribution of income taxes today. Curtis Dubay of the Heritage Foundation summarizes the IRS data at The Foundry: According to the IRS, the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid over 40 percent of all federal income taxes in 2007. That is a higher share than the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers combined! They paid just over 39 percent.Repeat: the top 1% of income earners are paying more than the bottom 95% combined. Scott A. Hodge of the Tax Foundation created the chart below that, like the IRS data released today, "clearly debunks the conventional Beltway rhetoric that the 'rich' are not paying their fair share of taxes":  Stuff 1. The Wall Street Journal examines the question, "Are Americans becoming soccer fans?" BusinessWeek.com reports that ESPN is covering more British soccer as part of its long-term growth plans. 2. "6 Things That Shouldn't Explode (But Did Anyway)," from Cracked.com. Frogs? 3. "How 9 Cuts of Meat Got Their Names," from the Mental Floss blog. Canadian bacon isn't Canadian and Boston butt isn't what you might think it is. 4. AskMen.com has the 10 worst sports logos. Adam Jacobi's comments on some of the logos at The Sports Blog are more biting (emo pony, the Tennessee "Flaming Thumbtacks" and the Care Bear Stare) although I disagree that the New England Patriots' logo deserved to be on the list, too. 5. Great golf shot. Great satire Iowahawk on the "Skip" Gates arrest in a satirical column entitled, "Cambridge Police Profiling Still A Grim Reality for Harvard Faculty Assholes," by Professor John Evans Evans-John of the Harvard School of Harvard Faculty Asshole Studies. A taste: Our table exchanged knowing glances, for we knew immediately that Skip was only the latest victim of a system that singles out the Harvard faculty asshole for stigmatization and unequal justice. It is a system that all of us knew too well, and provided an opportunity for an open conversation about our shared experiences as Harvard faculty assholes in America while waiting for Sergio to bring the dessert cart. One of the greatest days in history 150 years ago, the baseball box score was invented by Henry Chadwick. I have spent many hours with box scores over the past 30 years, usually in newspapers but more recently online. It has provided me great pleasure and sometimes disappointment. It is a work of art, beautiful in its simplicity. NPR has a report: German all-you-can-eat, all-the-sex-you-want brothels Spiegel Online reports: Police raided four flat-rate brothels in Germany on Sunday and closed two of them due to poor hygiene. The brothels, a new trend, are especially controversial because they offer unlimited sex for a flat rate of between €70 and €100. That breaches the prostitutes' right to dignity, say politicians.Two of the four brothels advertised with the slogan: "Sex with every woman, as long as you want, as often as you want and how you want." Fortunately the Justice Minister of Baden-Württemberg is there to protect the rights of prostitutes to be dealt with in dignity (except for the actual prostituting part, that is). Ulrich Goll, said: "If one takes their advert seriously, it indicates a breach of the right to human dignity of the prostitutes who work there." Spiegel reported Goll, "said the woman's right to self-determination had been hurt, which gave authorities the right to take action." Some of the brothels were found to be using soiled furniture and improperly storing food although I have a hard time considering any aspect of the brothel business hygienic. Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Government mandated euthanasia The Washington Times notes in an editorial: Presidential health care adviser Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and chairman of the Department of Bioethics at the Clinical Center at the National Institutes of Health, has argued that independent government boards should decide policy on end-of-life care. He also has defended rationing care more strictly for older people because "allocation [of medical care] by age is not invidious discrimination."Do Americans want to contain costs by deeming some patients too old to care for? Jeff Emanuel writes in today's Washington Times about what is happening on the state level where governments are lethally rationing care: If government is permitted to continue expanding its control over health care, what simply appears to be an issue of who pays for a few extra hours of in-home care today will grow quickly into an environment in which bureaucratic rationing of care is commonplace.Every system rations and some people come out on the short end of the stick, but better that those most affected by the choice of the level care -- patients and their families -- are making the decision than impersonal, uncaring bureaucrats. Three and out 3. The San Francisco Giants traded minor league pitcher Tim Alderson to the Pittsburgh Pirates for 2B Freddy Sanchez. Sanchez has a line of 296/334/442 and he will replace the combination of Juan Uribe (284/314/431), Eugenio Velez (261/306/370) and Matt Downs (170/250/264). Sanchez's 18.6 VORP would represent a two-win difference over the players he is replacing so far this season. Alderson was ranked the #2 Giants prospect by Baseball America before the season started, but only #4 by Baseball Prospectus. His 3.47 ERA in 13 starts at Class AA Altoona Curve is fine, but his 46 Ks in 72.2 IP is a sign that he might be nothing more than a decent back-of-the-rotation starter. That isn't bad and it seems like the right price for renting Sanchez for the stretch run. With the acquisition earlier this week of Ryan Garko, the Giants have a whole new right-side of the infield and while they aren't Matt Holliday calibre, it is an improvement from what they had. 2. The Pittsburgh Pirates also dealt SS Jack Wilson and pitcher Ian Snell to the Seattle Mariners for a bag full of young players: SS Ronny Cedeno, 1B Jeff Clement, and three pitching prospects Aaron Pribanic, Brett Lorin and Nathan Adcock. Snell has been dominant at Class AAA Indianapolis (ERA under one in six starts), but he was sent there because of an ERA of 5.36 in 12 starts for Pittsburgh. I don't know what Snell will do at the major league level or in the better American League where he'll have to face the DH, and I don't like Wilson (269/311/376) who barely breaks the 300 OBP and doesn't have power. Still, Wilson is an upgrade over Cedeno, who won the full-time shortstop job when the Mariners traded Yuniesky Betancourt to the Kansas City Royals a few weeks ago and is batting a terrible (167/213/290). Clement is having a nifty season in Triple A ball but the former catcher hasn't been able to catch on with the Mariners. None of the pitcher prospects were rated as one of Baseball Prospectus's top 11 Seattle Mariners prospects before the season started. It seems less like a trade to address needs than moving a bunch of bodies around. I'm also not sure what Seattle is doing; they are 53-48, 7.5 games behind the AL West leading Los Angeles Angels and 4 games behind the second place Texas Rangers. Most teams thought Seattle would be sellers, so this move is a surprise. A puzzling surprise. 1. The Philadelphia Phillies acquired Cliff Lee and OF Ben Francisco from the Cleveland Indians. To acquire the 2008 Cy Young award winner, the Phillies gave up four minor leaguers: pitchers Carlos Carrasco and Jason Knapp, C Lou Marson and SS Jason Donald. All four were the BP top 11 Phillies prospects; Marson looks like he will be a future starting backstop (bats close to 300 in Class AAA Columbus, gets on base about 38% of the time, but has no power) but the Phillies also have catcher Travis D'Arnaud in Class A who also has the look of a future starter at the major league level. No big loss for the Phillies. Carrasco started the year off as the top pitching prospect in the organization but might not have the upside many expected/hoped. On the plus side, the Phillies kept their top two prospects (RHP Kyle Drabek and RF Michael Taylor). Francisco, who plays all three outfield positions, is a useful bench bat (250/336/422), but the centerpiece of this deal is Lee. Philly got one of the better pitchers of the last season and a half and at just $9 million next year, he is affordable for the next 18 months. The Indians get a nice collection of prospects, most of whom could make the majors eventually and no doubt the Tribe is hoping that trading Lee ends up like their Bartolo Colon 2002 deal with the Montreal Expos in which Cleveland got Lee Stevens, Brandon Phillips, Grady Sizemore and ... Cliff Lee. Four and down 4. Last week Jim Johnson officially resigned as Philadelphia Eagles defensive co-ordinator after a six-month battle with cancer; he hoped to return to the team this Fall but obviously he knew that he was losing his fight. Today he died at the age of 68. New York Giants head coach has the best short but sweet comment on Johnson's passing: "His players loved to play for him and his coaches loved to coach with him. It is a sad day for the National Football League to lose somebody the quality of Jim Johnson. It is a sad note on which to start the season." 3. I was trying to think of something to say about the announcement from Brett Favre that he will not return in 2009. As Minnesota Vikings TE Visanthe Shiancoe told the Minneapolis Star Tribune, at least the circus is over. More from Eric Edolm at Pro Football Weekly, Clifton Brown at The Sporting News, Jay Glazer at FoxSports (although I dislike his ending that Favre "may have played his final game"), and Don Banks at Sports Illustrated. I have a lot to say, but will keep it simple. It must not be an easy decision to walk away from a job that is so much more than a job; for professional players, it becomes their life. Favre is just 39 and probably has half of his life in front of him. It must be daunting to think about what the future holds when the only thing you have done for so long is throw a football. Speaking of his future, it undoubtedly includes the Hall of Fame. His retirement, unretirement, retirement II and flirting with unretirement II, doesn't change the fact he was a great, if perhaps over-rated, quarterback. I hope the football world forgives him the agonizing and agonizingly public back-and-forth on his future that he has gone through and put fans (and some teams) through. 2. Now the Minnesota Vikings can figure out their own future. It reportedly does not include Michael Vick. As an admirer of the Green Bay Packers, I hope they pick Tarvaris Jackson. As a fan of quality football, I hope it is Sage Rosenfels. The latter is a competent game manager and solid enough passer. The Vikes only need a guy who can hand the ball off to Adrian Peterson and let their superior defense stop opposing offenses. I think Peter King sets the marks a little high for Rosenfels' success to get over the "Favre hangover." Winning will make the Vikes forget Favre, although it should be noted that the reason #4 is not wearing purple doesn't appear to have anything to do with what Minny did or didn't do, but rather where Favre is mentally and physically at this point in his life. 1. I haven't completed my pre-season analysis for 2009 but after my preliminary look at the teams, I have to agree with Jeff Kaplan at 49ersWebZone.com that Football Outsiders isnt' giving the respect to the San Francisco 49ers that the team deserves. FO has them at 5.7 wins; I think they should approach 500 (eight wins) and a chance to challenge for the NFC West if Arizona slips badly (they shouldn't but you never know). The Niners were strong down the stretch and unless Mike Singletary's high-octane coaching wears out the team quickly, I think the addition of receiver Michael Crabtree makes the 49ers a formidable if flawed team -- If they sign Crabtree. Jack Layton says Alberta is winnable (eventually) The Canadian Press reports: Alberta has historically been somewhat infertile ground for the federal NDP, but leader Jack Layton is hoping that "perseverance and determination" will lead the party to improve on its one-seat standing in the next federal election.If by "perseverance and determination" Layton means "cold day in Hell" he might be correct. Stuff 1. The "well-paid flirt," in which the New York Times explores Japanese hostesses. And Slate advice columnist Dear Prudence handles a question from a couple that ordered a masseuse and ended up with a prostitute. 2. Paul Graham on the difference between a manager's schedule and a maker's schedule. This brief piece is worth reading and I hope managers get the hint. I have both schedules and too much of my day is spent in meetings and interrupted to fit into other managers' schedules. That's why I do most of my writing and editing at home in large, interrupted chunks of time without phone calls, drop-ins or whatever. Meetings, whether formal office meetings or a coffee with a client, fit nicely into 30 or 60 minute increments, which often disrupt the maker's schedule. I'd also add that meetings are sometimes important but 1) rarely need to be as long as they are and 2) are too often a substitute for real work because it feels like people are doing something. 3. The Mental Floss blog has a video of politically incorrect cartoons. 4. A German man dies in a cherry stone spitting contest. 5. Green camping -- don't people vacation for a reason, like, you know, forgetting about the worries of every day life. Shouldn't that include environmentalism? Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Free advice for the new Harper DirCom Gerry Nicholls has advice for whoever replaces Kory Teneycke as Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Director of Communications: • Be real. Don’t try to make the Prime Minister into someone he isn’t. He isn’t a cuddly guy who wears vest sweaters and plays the piano. He is a tough-minded, determined, unsentimental individual. Don’t try to disguise these traits. You won’t fool the Canadian voter. Besides lots of people would see those traits as the hallmark of a strong leader. So let Stephen, be Stephen. Born in the USA National Review Online says in an editorial it is wrong to worry about Barry Obama's birth certificate: The attention paid to President Obama’s place of birth is not unprecedented. In fact, it may be the only thing President Obama has in common with Pres. Chester Arthur, whose opponents whispered that he had been born in Canada. A number of unsuccessful presidential candidates—George Romney, Barry Goldwater, and Lowell Weicker among them—actually were born outside of the United States (in Mexico, the Arizona Territory, and Paris, respectively) to American parents and thereby into American citizenship. If the conspiracy theorists have evidence that President Obama went through the naturalization process, let them show it. But there is no such evidence, because this theory is based on unreality, as two minutes’ examining the claims of its proponents reveals. The hallmark of a conspiracy theory is that a lack of evidence for the theory is taken as yet more evidence for the theory. Indeed, the maddening thing about dealing with conspiracy hobbyists of this or any sort is the ever-shifting nature of their argument and their alleged evidence: Never mind the birth certificate, his step-grandmother said he was born in Kenya! (No, she didn’t.)After noting several bad, foreign-inspired policies Obama supports, NRO concludes: "Like Bruce Springsteen, he has a lot of bad political ideas; but he was born in the U.S.A." Four and down 4. NFL.com has "Top 10 things that changed the game." It would have been more fun if they had ranked them. That said, I would have probably ranked them in descending order in which NFL.com presents them, so perhaps subtlety they did. 3. Weekly betting lines are ready, at least at the Lucky's Race and Sports Book (they manage race and sportsbooks in 11 Nevada hotels). Wagering (not betting or gambling, but wagering) is on now for all 256 regular season games through to Week 17 (January 3, 2010). That seems a long way away and a little difficult to create odds for in July; how is the spread determined for a game more than five months away? ProFootballWeekly.com says the lines are set this early because (according to Lucky's PR director) the early initial lines both give Lucky's some publicity and they provide the sportsbook a chance to assess how the market (bettors) view each team. Wisdom of the crowd and all that. 2. In an update to something I posted last week, Football Outsiders reports, "Just three days after signing with the Ravens to ostensibly replace the recently retired Derrick Mason, former Titans and Rams receiver Drew Bennett has himself retired due to a persistent knee injury." I don't think that Bennett is the answer to Baltimore's problems, but this isn't helping them either. 1. FoxSports.com has a slide show of the top 10 NFL cities. Green Bay should be and is number one, but how isn't Pittsburgh number two? And it should be noted that this is NFL cities, not top fans. I'm not sure Cleveland deserves number four. If it was fans, Buffalo would deserve mention in the top 10. Three and out 3. Sometimes a team doesn't need to make a trade to have an in-season improvement. Case in point is that Tim Hudson could soon return to the Atlanta Braves rotation. Not that pitching reinforcements is what the Braves most needed (Hudson himself says: "As of right now I don't think they need me too much"; a bat to add some pop would be nice and isn't out of the question, although Atlanta might concede that their odds are too great to make mortgaging the future worthwhile (see #1). Hudson's return might make a pitcher expendable, although I doubt that. More likely, a starter (even Hudson initially) will spend some time in the bullpen. 2. Nice little deal for both teams. The San Francisco Giants acquired 1B/corner outfielder Ryan Garko from the Cleveland Indians for Class A southpaw Scott Barnes. The Indians should collect pitching prospects because their farms system doesn't have much in that department and Garko was eligible for an arbitration deal in the vicinity of $2-2.5 million next year. Corner infielder Andy Marte, whom the Tribe has given up on before, has won a job on the major league roster after a big minor league campaign (327/369/593 in Class AAA Columbus). Garko might not be Adrian Gonzalez or Nick Johnson, but he is a definitely an upgrade at first for the Giants who desperately need someone who can swing the bat. Garko's line this year of 285/362/464 is right in line with his five-year career averages. The Giants have an embarrassment of pitching riches in the minors so they won't miss Barnes. Giving up a low level pitching prospect for a player who might improve a team that is 15th in the National League in runs and dead last in Equivalent Average (a Baseball Prospectus measure of complete offense) is a no-brainer. 1. Brian Joseph at Baseball Digest Daily looks at each division's "window" and "target" win-loss record for making the post-season and determines the necessary winning percentage for each team from now to the end of the season to reach the target (American League and National League). The targets are realistic, although the NL Central might require a few more wins than 87, especially with the way the Chicago Cubs are playing. If you want to know the likelihood of a team making the post-season, check out the winning percentage it would need, as well as what the teams in front of it need to do. It is possible for the Houston Astros to win 57.8% of their games, but are the St. Louis Cardinals going to do worse than 52.5% and the Cubs slip to a pace of winning less than 53% of their games? Not likely. Jumping two teams is difficult. Or a team like the Atlanta Braves or Florida Marlins; sure they could win 63.5% of their games, but the Philadelphia Phillies would need to drop more than 50 points of their current pace. The Tampa Bay Rays would need to do better than win 70% of their games to reach the 98 wins projected to win the division and that's assuming that either the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox begin to do worse than they have. Interestingly, the Detroit Lions need to maintain their pace exactly (53.1%) to reach the 86 wins projected to be necessary to take the AL Central crown. AP gets pissy with bloggers & Google The New York Times reports that the Associated Press wants to be paid by news aggregators, search engines and bloggers who use their content: Tom Curley, The A.P.’s president and chief executive, said the company’s position was that even minimal use of a news article online required a licensing agreement with the news organization that produced it. In an interview, he specifically cited references that include a headline and a link to an article, a standard practice of search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo, news aggregators and blogs.In principle AP is right, but they are ignoring the reality of media in 2009. As Ed Morrissey at Hot Air explains: Let’s just call it the Fast Track to AP Irrelevance. Without a doubt, the new policy will have a chilling effect on blogs and aggregators who normally link to their content. Unfortunately for the AP, that won’t result in an increase of revenues, but in having the entire online world ignore the AP. The Times itself discovered this dynamic when it put its columnists behind the $50 dollar Firewall of Sanity. Not only did the world fail to beat down their door to regain access to Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, and Bob Herbert, they also discovered that their columnists became all but invisible in the rapidly-growing and influential New Media. Offered without comment In a story about several South Carolina politicians (mostly Senator Jim DeMint) and health care, the Washington Post reports this vignette: At a recent town-hall meeting in suburban Simpsonville, a man stood up and told Rep. Robert Inglis (R-S.C.) to "keep your government hands off my Medicare." Stuff 1. Dancing bird is amusing for about 30 seconds. 2. Bryan Caplan explains why profit-maximizing insurance companies are not going to scam sick customers. Hint: reputations matter. 3. This is incredible footage of a multi-species sardine hunt from BBC's Blue Planet. Watch the full seven minutes. 4. There's a bee in Mark's light fixture. Well, more than a bee. 5. This, from Indexed, is probably why I don't like talking about the weather. (In fact, I find weather so boring, I typically don't learn about the weather and just take a chance that what I'm wearing is appropriate for whatever God/Mother Nature throws at me each day):  Monday, July 27, 2009
Three and out 3. All the trade speculation -- John Heyman, Joel Sherman, Jayson Stark, Morgan Campbell, too many others to name -- right now is BS because almost every word of it is speculative. It isn't reporting, it is a combination rumour-mongering, guess-work, wishful thinking and make-believe. 2. The New York Yankees have won 22 of their last 28 games. As I type this, the Yanks are leading the Tampa Bay Rays, in the the first game of nine straight they'll play on the road. The Yankees play 19 of their next 26 on the road. It is a month that will really test them. 1. And it won't get any easier on the road trip with Brett Gardner going on the 15-day disabled list with an avulsion fracture of his left thumb after he slid into second trying to break up a double play. He finished the game because he didn't know his injury was that big of a deal. Gardner adds great defense and speed and a good on-base percentage and while the Yankees have three good outfielders, they no longer have any depth. Four and down 4. Roger Goodell will let Michael Vick play but not until week six which means he will be suspended for four or five games (and penalizes teams that are interested in Vick that have a bye-week before week seven). I think this means he is playing 2009 in the United Football League. Shame that Goodell is so punitive on this file. Vick said (through his agent) the only thing he could: "I fully understand that playing football in the NFL is a privilege, not a right, and I am truly thankful for the opportunity I have been given." Jason Cole of Yahoo!Sports said, "In short, how many people could commit a crime punishable by prison or jail time, lie to their boss and the owner of the business repeatedly, continue to embarrass the employer and somehow think they could return to their job as soon as the sentence ends?" That depends: has the employer already punished the person? Why are people forgetting that Vick has already served a lengthy suspension and that he was suspended from pre-season play before he was convicted by a court of law. I also have some problem with considering Goodell Vick's employer; teams, not the commissioner employ players. 3. ColdHardFootballFacts.com counts down and has detailed analysis of the top eight quarterbacks in the NFL today. Some might argue with listing Chad Pennington ahead of Donovan McNabb or Ben Roethlisberger and Kurt Manning ahead of Peyton Manning. But it is well-argued, very good list. One thing to think about: two minutes left and behind by a score, who do you want leading your team? For me its Big Ben or Manning, not Tom Brady (#1), but that isn't what CHFF is rating. (Although Roethislberger is listed as a clutch playmaker.) This is a great football read. 2. ProFootballWeekly.com quotes an unnamed scout who says that Brett Favre might not be happy with the Minnesota Vikings if all he gets to do is hand the ball off to Adrian Peterson. The scout said, "I've never known Brett Favre to want to hand the ball off." But putting the ball into Peterson's hands -- one of the best running backs in football today -- is the Vikes game plan. But as the scout concluded, "John Elway never won a Super Bowl until he learned to hand it off." 1. How do you say "Terrible Towel" in Spanish? The Pittsburgh Steelers become the third NFL team to sign an exclusive broadcast deal in Mexico. I didn't know Steeler Nation went south of the Rio Grande. Abortion and eugencs The Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby on the topic in regard to recent comments about Richard Nixon and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We wrote about something similar in the August Interim. Here is the lead editorial from the forthcoming issue: Offensive abortion viewsJacoby notes that 70 years after Margaret Sanger and 20 years after Richard Nixon and Ruth Bader Ginsburg: "[T]he eugenicist mindset lives on. Ron Weddington, co-counsel for the appellants in Roe, wrote an impassioned letter to President-elect Bill Clinton in January 1993, challenging him to "start immediately to eliminate the barely educated, unhealthy and poor segment of our country" - not through "some sort of mass extinction," but with massive birth control and abortion. "Condoms alone won’t do it ... Government is also going to have to provide vasectomies, tubal ligations, and abortion ... We don’t need more poor babies."It should be noted that the founder of Planned Parenthood, the then president, the future Supreme Court Justice, and lawyer were all progressives, liberals, or Republican moderates. Stuff 1. Amazon apologizes for its bone-headedness. 2. An "An Economic Analysis of the Somali Pirate Business Model," by Scott Carney at Wired.com. 3. Mark Steyn on "Climatology vs demography" in The Corner: "[A] demographic decline is a compound phenomenon, unlike the climate." 4. Cracked.com has "5 Amazing Buildings of the Future (And How They'll Kill You)." 5. Megan McArdle looks at the economics of wedding planning. Debunks some misconceptions and misunderstandings to find that wedding-related costs are not as outrageous as the price tag might suggest. When everything is taken into account, the margins of caterers are "pitifully thin." E.J. Dionne proves that he is an idiot (again) Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne begins today's column thusly: Isn't it time to dismantle the metal detectors, send the guards at the doors away and allow Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights by being free to carry their firearms into the nation's Capitol?The column is not gimmicky in the smart way that counter-intuitive or even smark-alecky columns can be. It is dishonest or, worse, stupid. Dionne says of John Thune, a Republican senator who recently authored a bill that would have expanded gun ownership rights: "Law-abiding individuals have the right to self-defense, especially because the Supreme Court has consistently found that police have no constitutional obligation to protect individuals from other individuals," he said. I guess that Thune doesn't think those guards and the Capitol Police have any obligation to protect him.Dionne knows -- or at least should know -- this is intellectually dishonest. The guards and Capitol Police are hired, in part, to protect Congressmen. The rest of the column is equally disingenuous (or dumb, depending on how charitable you are feeling toward Dionne), so I won't rehearse every "outrageous" quote he selects from pro-gun senators to set up as a straw man, but the column in its entirety is a red herring; his actual purpose is to argue against less restrictive gun laws, not to argue that Congress should make it easier for members of the House and Senate to carry concealed weapons. Imagine the complaints from the same corner if they did. Sunday, July 26, 2009
Stuff 1. Steve Horwitz at Austrian Economists looks at how society is better today than it was 30 years ago from the vantage point of car trips. Consider this under-appreciated point: "The very fact that we had quite good Chinese food in the small town of Hazleton, PA reflects the expanding division of labor and growth in choices." 2. School lunches from around the world. 3. The Boston Globe has an article on the changing zoo -- zoological gardens without "charismatic megafauna." The Globe says what "zoo-goers really wanted was what they have always wanted: animals, up close, and ideally, doing something interesting." But as Jeffrey Hyson, author of a forth-coming book on zoos says, "On the one hand, zoos want to be about conservation and education." 4. BBC reports on the "Indian school for rogue monkeys," because monkeys in towns close to India's border with Pakistan terrorize children, steal food and destroy property. According to the Beeb, "The proposed new monkey school will take in the "worst offenders" and put them through a crash course in good manners." (HT: BoingBoing) 5. "Top 10 Bizarre Restaurants," from Listverse. Dinner In the Sky was in Toronto a few years ago and Dans Le Noir (I think) has just opened in TO. Three and out (Rickey HOF edition)  3. Rickey Henderson is one of my favourite baseball players and there is no player I've watched in my life that deserves to be in the Hall of Fame -- more so than Nolan Ryan, Steve Carlton, Cal Ripken, Tony Gwynn -- other than Barry Bonds. If you are a fan, you know why I say that: career run and stolen base leader (and second in career walks), very good average and great on-base percentage (401), power (297 career HRs, four seasons with 20+), best lead-off hitter of all time, incredible character (is probably the only person to slide into home on an out-of-the-park homerun), part of winning teams, etc... Yet 28 HoF voters did not vote for Rickey Henderson. As ESPN's Jayson Stark said at the time, "Stupefying. Embarrassing. Inexcusable." Yahoo!Sports blog has a neat collection of pictures and quotes from Rickey's career. David Whitely at FanHouse has a great tribute, as well. 2) I would have liked him anyway, but he spent most of his career with my two favourite American League teams, the New York Yankees and the pre-Billy Beane Oakland A's. As Cliff Corcoran said at Bronx Banter, "It’s fitting that the Yankees and A’s are playing today as Rickey Henderson, who spent four and a half of his prime years as a New York Yankee, enters the Hall of Fame wearing an A’s cap. Having come of age as a fan during Rickey’s Yankee heyday, Rickey holds a special place in my baseball heart, and seeing the green and gold flash against those midnight blue pinstripes will keep those memories flooding back." If you click on the BaseballReference.com page for Henderson you'll see how many incredible years he had with those two teams including leading in SBs in 9 of his first 11 seasons with three 100 SB seasons. His 1990 MVP season in midst of the A's dynasty was phenomenal. 1. Ted Keith does a nice job covering the induction of Rickey and Jim Rice (also inducted today). In the AP's coverage of the two making the HoF, I learned something about Rickey Henderson: "Henderson said a high school counselor who needed players for the baseball team provided even more spark. 'She would pay me a quarter every time I would get a hit, when I would score or stole a base,' he said. 'After my first 10 games, I had 30 hits, 25 runs scored and 33 steals. Not bad money for a kid'." Rickey didn't give his speech in the third person and he ended it reminiscent of his speech when he passed Lou Brock as the all-time base stealing leader, but with tremendous humility: "My journey as a player is complete. I am now in the class of the greatest players of all time. And at this moment, I am very, very humbled."  This is not an easy read Adam Hochschild writes about the problems in the Congo in the New York Review of Books, and it is much more compelling and detailed than Delphine Schrank's piece in the June Atlantic (about the Second Congo War's effect on the local habitat and indigenous species). The NYRB article is called "Rape of the Congo" and not surprisingly it relates in horrifying detail the use of rape as a weapon in war: No one has been harder hit than Congo's women, for almost all the warring factions have used rape as a calculated method of sowing terror. An hour and a half southwest of Goma on bone-jolting roads stand several low buildings of planks and adobe; small bleating goats wander about and a cooking fire burns on one dirt floor. There is no electricity. A sign reads Maison d'Écoute (Listening House). The office of the forty-two-year-old director, whom I will call Rebecca Kamate, extends from the side of one of the buildings; its other three walls are of thin green tarpaulin with a UNICEF emblem, through which daylight filters. The floor is gravel. Kamate pulls out a hand-written ledger to show to Anneke, her colleague Ida Sawyer, and me. Ruled columns spread across the page: date, name, age of the victim, and details—almost all are gang rapes, by three to five armed men. Since the center started, it has registered 5,973 cases of rape. The ages of the victims just since January range from two to sixty-five. On the ledger's most recent page, the perpetrators listed include three different armed rebel groups—plus the Congolese national army. Racial preferences in 2009 Shelby Steele has a must-read column in the Washington Post on racial discrimination, racial preferences and black underdevelopment. The bottom line: Racial preferences only extend the misguided logic of disparate impact. They, too, presume discrimination without evidence. All blacks, even President Obama's children, are eligible for the redress of a racial preference. We must presume that, even in the Sidwell Friends School by day and the White House by night, the president's daughters -- as blacks -- encounter a racial animus that so predictably disadvantages them that the automatic redress of a racial preference is required. Obama himself has pointed out the absurdity of this, and yet privileged blacks such as his daughters remain the most sought-after minorities by admissions officers seeking "diversity."What black America needs is honesty: Today's "black" problem is underdevelopment, not discrimination. Success in modernity will demand profound cultural changes -- changes in child-rearing, a restoration of marriage and family, a focus on academic rigor, a greater appreciation of entrepreneurialism and an embrace of individual development as the best road to group development.And everyone and no one is happy. It doesn't help solve the problem of black underdevelopment, but liberal politicians get to feel good and race hucksters get to stay in business. Peter Pan Syndrome and declining birth rates Ottawa Citizen editorial page editor Leonard Stern examines the role of the new "Not the Marrying Kind" of man when it comes to falling birth rates. Some guys remain children themselves and women find such men unappealing as potential fathers to their own kids. Other men find that children or even a serious (monogamous) relationship with a woman to cramp their style. It is an interesting idea, although I think Peter Pan Syndrome (a sociological term used to criticize the phenomenon of males who appear not to grow up and which shouldn't be confused with the psychological concept of puer aeternus) is vastly over-exaggerated. There is nothing wrong with playing video games as an adult, nor is it incompatible with raising children as long as it doesn't lead to neglecting one's fatherly duties. Of course, Stern is correct to lay the blame not squarely on the shoulders of women. Saturday, July 25, 2009
Stuff 1. Kelly Jane Torrance writes in the Washington Times about not finishing books that aren't very good. It is advice that Tyler Cowen gives in Discover Your Economist (he also suggests walking out of movies that you don't like). It is based on the idea of sunk costs, of both time and treasure. I followed the advice, even leaving good books if a better book beckoned. I have enjoyed my reading that much more for it. 2. Slate answers "Does Soda Taste Different in a Bottle Than a Can?" 3. Eco-comics looks at whether there are too many comic super heroes. 4. Cracked.com has "10 Species of Angry Commenter You Encounter on the Web." 5. A slender-billed vulture was hatched in India, giving hope to saving the species. If the future of a species is in the hands of a single bird, the species is in trouble. Anyway, the dying off vulture populations have led to an increase in feral dogs which has led to an increase in rabies so this type of thing matters.  Isotopes are really sexy now that Americans have noticed The New York Times has a story on the global isotopes shortage. Unlike Canadian stories on the issue which were designed to play gotcha with the Conservative government, the Times piece explains how they are used in medicine. Friday, July 24, 2009
Four and down 4. It is sad to hear that Philadelphia Eagles defensive co-ordinator Jim Johnson will be replaced by Sean McDermott, the team's secondary coach. Johnson has been defensive co-ordinator for ten years and is one of the three best in the business; last year the Eagles were third in total defense and fourth in points allowed, not unusual for this Eagles team. It was every bit as much Johnson's blitzing, aggressive defense as Andy Reid's coaching that had Philly in five NFC championships the past decade, including last year. And as a result of that aggressiveness, the Eagles were always in games and always a thrill to watch. But Johnson, 68, was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma in January. He attempted to remain with the team to return to full-time duty this Fall despite intense chemo treatments but it has proven too much for him. The Eagles organization isn't thinking about how this will affect the team on the field (at least right now), but as BleedingGreenNation notes, "As sad as it is to see JJ go, there's a lot to be excited about McDermott who was rumored to be in the running for several coordinator and even head coaching jobs this summer." According to Eagles coach Andy Reid, McDermott has handled the interim defensive co-ordinator duties in the pre-season quite well. I'm not sure he'll be Jim Johnson-good and the Eagles will almost surely regress slightly because of the change, but the team has a great defensive unit. The difference will be noticeable during the games when Johnson's aggressive game-playing might be absent. In the meantime, my prayers go to Jim Johnson and his family -- including his football family. 3. This could be the wish being father to the thought (to use Anthony Powell's wonderful phrase): The AP reports, "Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh is 'optimistic and hopeful' that wide receiver Derrick Mason will come out of retirement and rejoin the team during training camp." Mason announced his surprise retirement earlier this month. But just in case, the Ravens have signed former Tennessee Titan and St. Louis Rams WR Drew Bennett. Bennett was signed for the veteran minimum salary after playing just one game last year. He was signed after participating in WR try outs for the team today. In his eight years, only once has Bennett caught had more than 738 yards or scored more than four TDs, and that was in 2004 with the Titans (1247 yards, 11 TDs). This screams "let's load up with wideouts and see if one of them catches on." Even if Mason returns, which seems unlikely, the Ravens would need receiving depth. I'm just dubious whether Bennett brings much. Former Seattle Seahawk D.J. Hackett, who also attended the try out, would have been preferable. 2. Nick Higgins at Football Outsiders examines the "Third Year Wide Receiver Rule," which is shorthand for the conventional wisdom that WRs typically breakout in their third season. The article is focused on fantasy drafting, but it usefully examines the trajectory of WR early careers. Higgins concludes: "The 'Third-Year WR Rule' has served as a fairly good rule of thumb over the years, but it doesn't tell the whole story. The 'Second- to Fourth-Year WR Depending On Their Draft Round and Stats From Previous Seasons Rule' isn't as catchy, but it is more predictive for identifying potential breakout stars." In other words, the CW is right up to a point. 1. The NFL is moving from a two-day, weekend draft to a three-day draft that will start Thursday evening. I like it because it provides more football coverage and crazy in-depth analysis in the middle of Spring. It also means that the first round, which began mid-afternoon on a Saturday this year, won't be competing with the the Fox game of the week (baseball). There will be the standard complaint of this change being "excessive and gluttonous" but that's football. And why not try to make more money for the NFL Network in having some premium material on it in the middle of the misnamed "off-season." Three and out 3. SI.com has a slide show on the last no-hitter for every team. Which team has not had a no-hitter in nearly three decades? The Cleveland Indians, who last had a no-hitter in 1981 (thrown by Len Barker). 2. ESPN.com's Jayson Stark on the two top pitchers supposedly on the trade market, Cleveland Indians southpaw Cliff Lee and Toronto Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay: "The Indians aren't anywhere near as motivated to trade their ace, but they'll do it if they're blown away. The Blue Jays, on the other hand, appear to be looking for ways to make the Halladay trade happen, because they know they can't re-sign him and this is as marketable as he'll ever be." Sounds exactly right. I think that the Jays put out the idea of Halladay being available to see what they could get and have found out it isn't nearly as much as they'd like. That said, it still makes sense to trade him now with a deal that doesn't quite "blow them away" (even if they claim it does for PR purposes) and get a top-notch prospect along with three or four other mid-level prospect or high-risk/high-ceiling minor leaguers. 1. My plan for this weekend was to write a longish piece about why the St. Louis Cardinals should acquire LF Matt Holliday from the Oakland A's. Today the Cards traded highly regarded prospect Brett Wallace and others to Oakland for Holliday. Wallace is a corner infielder who projects to hit 300 without much power and get on-base about 40% of the time. That mustn't been easy to give up, especially considering how quickly he is ascending through the minors. But no prospect is a sure thing and there is much to be said for the Cardinals doing what they can to win now. If Holliday can hit like he has recently, the Cards, already the best team in the NL Central but probably not one of the three best teams in the National League, become that much stronger for the stretch and more dangerous in a short playoff series. Most people think that Holliday has been a disappointment this year but his 286/378/454 mark 1) roughly matches his road numbers when he played for the Colorado Rockies (296/370/486) and 2) is what you would expect for a hitter like Holliday playing half his games in a pitcher's park like The Coliseum. He struggled early, but has hit better in the past month after adjusting his swing and batting stance. Holliday is a better hitter than any of the other players on the Cards outfield merry-go-round and he is an important defensive upgrade (see Cliff Corcoran at SI.com) and a decent baserunner. Perhaps most importantly, he provides protection for Albert Pujols in the lineup. On a personal level, I'm happy because the remaining three games for the Yankees against A's this weekend just got easier for the Bronx Bombers. Stuff 1. P.J. O'Rourke interview with A.V.Club.com. 2. Schargel Consulting Group has a list of "25 Things About To Become Extinct" in America: the Yellow Pages, dial-up internet, movie rental stores, VCRS, the milkman, mumps and measles, and analog TV. And as Andrew Roth says at the Club for Growth blog, "And most of them are going extinct because of two fantastic words: creative destruction." 3. "10 more utterly disgusting foods," from Listverse.com. I wouldn't eat it, but scorpion soup doesn't sound that bad to me -- no stranger than eating fish, which I won't eat, either. Most of foreign delicacies would not be to my taste -- fermented fish, rotten eggs, corn tumours, poultry blood -- but this takes the cake: "Casu Marzu is a traditional Sardinian sheep milk cheese, notable for being riddled with live insect larvae." 4. At Slate Jeremy Singer-Vine examines why, "Why doctors won't stop using an outdated measure [BMI] for obesity." 5. People getting stuck in tar walking across the street. 'To kill your own child, you must be crazy, or I don't know what' The Montreal Gazette quotes Abdul Mubian from the saying, "To kill your own child, you must be crazy, or I don't know what," about the so-called honour killings within the "Afghan community" that have rocked Canada. Well, not really rocked. This sort of thing is not surprising and most people don't care. Anyway, in response to Mubian's "or I don't know what" comment the answer is obvious: Muslim. On polls and Palin The Washington Post reports on the soon-to-be former governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin: Last year's Republican vice presidential nominee remains a deeply polarizing figure, and there are warning signs for her as she emerges as a possible contender for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. While she is still widely popular among those in her party, she has lost ground among Republicans generally and among the white evangelicals who are so critical in the early presidential primaries.At this point, such a poll is fairly meaningless. It is probably even more meaningless to Palin who would find such numbers a badge of honour or a challenge rather than a giant stop sign to her ambitions. Getting past Vick's past A lesson on tolerance from a former NFL coach, no less. Fanhouse has this tidbit in a post on Michael Vick's return to professional football: "Obviously his values are a little different than mine or yours probably," [UFL Orlando coach Jim] Haslett told the Orlando Sentinel, "but as long as he does what he's supposed to do, I think he deserves a second chance. Out of the four cities in this league, this would be the city that would probably accept him.Players are paid to play, not be role models. It's nice that Haslett can acknowledge and get past the fact that his and Vick's values are different and that they can still work together to try to win football games. American health care works Last week, Investors Business Daily ran a great piece on health care reform, jam-packed full of important refutations of the arguments Big Government health care reformers make in an editorial entitled, "Reformers' Claims Just Don't Add Up." It is worth reading in its entirety, but this is especially important because it destroys a common myth about the current U.S. health care system: America has the best health care in the world, and most Americans know it. Yet we hear that many “go without care” while in nationalized systems it is “guaranteed.”Americans don't know this. Liberals lie and Republicans are so busy screaming that Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats are socialists that they won't stop and make an intelligent argument against those Democratic lies. This is extremely important information. Democrats might misdirect and say, "sure, now let's make this affordable," but the question for them is then, "Will the changes you propose threaten what works with the current health care system?" The system needs some reforms to make health care affordable to more consumers, but that does not necessitate an overhaul. (HT: David Gratzer at NewMajority.com) Thursday, July 23, 2009
The Surveillance State Jacob Sullum reviews Ross Clark's The Road to Big Brother: One Man’s Struggle Against the Surveillance State: Yet there is something to be said, fiscal concerns aside, for not having a cop on every corner. The sense of being constantly watched tends to put a damper on things, potentially affecting the topics people discuss, the way they dress, the businesses they visit, even the books they read while sitting on park benches.I haven't given the issues of privacy and public surveillance much thought, with my position on it being nothing more than a gut libertarian distaste of having the state watch people. Clark seems to provide pragmatic as well as principled reasons for being skeptical of the surveillance state. Four and down 4. ESPN is reporting that Michael Vick will be given a four-game suspension once he returns from his the indefinite suspension that began three months before the former Atlanta Falcon star went to jail and (technically) served concomitantly with his sentence. It appears he will be able to train and play pre-season games, so his suspension takes effect when the season begins on Labour Day weekend. I've already stated my opinion that he has been punished enough, but that he was likely to face additional sanction. My guess is that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wanted to punish him even more (he's a real law and order type), but that anything more than four games would be seen as vindictive and disproportionate. Perhaps he will end up in Orlando, who has his United Football League rights, where he would demonstrate to NFL teams that he can still play professional-level football. In fact, with the four-game suspension, the chances that he ends up in the UFL have increased dramatically. 3. SportsBusinessJournal.com reports that new Buffalo Bills wideout Terrell Owens is getting his own line of cereal, from PLB Sports, maker of Flutie Flakes. 2. I'm not a fantasy football guy, but the player spotlights at FootballGuys.com are good even for fans of football that don't partake in football pools. I think FG's Chris Smith is right on the money about Carson Palmer of the Cincinnati Bengals and why he will reemerge as an elite (or near-elite) quarterback: "[T]hey added rookie offensive tackle Andre Smith from Alabama and he will immediately step into a starting spot and be an upgrade for the club. Kyle Cook should win the starting center position for the team and he should improve as the year goes on. A true reason for optimism is the addition of veteran WR Laveranues Coles who should complement Chad Ochocinco well this season with his strong, underneath presence. Coles brings a hard-working, veteran presence to the Bengals." 1. Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has been accused of sexual assault. My guess is that this civil suit ends up going away. The fact that a criminal complaint has never been filed seems fishy to me. I hope it doesn't end up too much of a distraction for Big Ben and the Steelers. Three and out 3. Mark Buehrle needed just 105 pitches to complete a perfect game, 5-0 win over the Tampa Bay Rays. Any perfect game is impressive, but the Rays are a good hitting team which makes the feat that much better. Check out the catch Dewayne Wise needed to make to keep the perfect game going. 2. Bill James breaks his silence on steroids and the Hall of Fame. If you are at all interested in this issue, read it. Print it out, save it, read it again two, five and ten years from now. I generally agree with everything James says except this: "The discrimination against PED users in Hall of Fame voting rests upon the perception that this was cheating. But is it cheating if one violates a rule that nobody is enforcing, and which one may legitimately see as being widely ignored by those within the competition?" Yes, it is still cheating. The question is how we judge the cheaters if half of players were cheating (probably too high) as opposed to 5% of players (probably too low). 1. Mark Lamster's MetropolisMag.com's article on the new stadia for New York Yankees and New York Mets. Liked this, which he goes on to explain: "As built, the new parks fit the characters of the teams that call them home." Caplan on charity Bryan Caplan gives us something to think about regarding charity (think telemarketers, door-to-door fundraising, canvassers on the street, etc...) and by extension taxation: Whenever someone appeals to my charity, four questions pop into my head: Obama's health care press conference President Barack Obama insults doctors and insults the intelligence of the average American. Here is the official transcript; his speeches are never as impressive when they are read (compared to being watched). Here's one part that is quite offensive when you get right down to it: Right now, doctors a lot of times are forced to make decisions based on the fee payment schedule that’s out there ... The doctor may look at the reimbursement system and say to himself, ‘You know what? I make a lot more money if I take this kid’s tonsils out.'Wesley Smith comes to the defense of doctors: First, that’s an outrageous slander against all but the worst doctors. Second, if a physician recommends surgery instead of medical treatment, a different doctor generally does the procedure. Third, even assuming that unnecessary tonsillectomies or other surgeries are frequently performed–because the clear import of the statement is that this is a common occurrence–how would his reforms change anything? In fact, given that part of this is going to be paid by reducing physician payments, the impetus for unnecessary surgeries would increase.Asked whether "the American people are going to have to give anything up in order for this to happen?" the President replied: "If there’s a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that’s going to make you well?" Does he really think it is that simple? He goes on to explain: But the system right now doesn't incentivize that. Those are the changes that are going to be needed -- that we're going to need to make inside the system. It will require I think patients to -- as well as doctors, as well as hospitals -- to be more discriminating consumers. But I think that's a good thing, because ultimately we can't afford this. We just can't afford what we're doing right now.Interesting concept. How does nationalizing health care incentivize patients to be more discriminating consumers? Wednesday, July 22, 2009
What I'm listening to on YouTube Or, how the internet makes my life better Why listen to music on YouTube? Don't know, but here are the last five songs I listened to whilst reading until I decided to poke around and find useless videos: Stupid Girl by Garbage, Little Red Corvette by Prince, Black and White Town by The Doves, Renegades of Funk by Rage Against the Machine, and Flight of the Bumblebee by Stas Venglevski (on the accordion). That is what Tyler Cowen is referring to when he talks about the kind of cultural sampling that is so easy and inexpensive online (see Create Your Own Economy). And it's not just music clips of novelties, concerts, or old videos, but the other 'useless' videos (see my earlier Stuff post) and three-quarters of my life online. That is one way in which our lives have become so much richer with the internet with very little cost other than the initial cost of the computer and an internet connection. This is especially true if you accept that that there is nothing inherently superior in information relative to entertainment (as I do). Or, to be clear, that the consumption of useless information -- why should I care about California's budget situation or the U.S. health care debate -- is a form of entertainment. So, yes, I'm calling "news" useless information. The point is I get to dabble in it any time I want and I do so often. Or none of this makes sense because I'm blogging at 3:20 a.m. and putting off sleep because sleep is for losers. Which raises another issue: how many more hours of sleep would I have had in my life if it were not for the internet? Stuff 1. This YouTube video is one of the funniest things I've ever watched. This one is probably the dumbest. 2. Getback.com has a pretty cheesily written slide show on celebrities who broke their vows of chastity. 3. The M.I.T. Technology Review reports on ground-breaking brain surgery at the University of Virginia that uses sound waves and avoids both radiation and scalpel. It uses sound waves to "precisely burn out small pieces of malfunctioning brain tissue without cutting the skin or opening the skull" and could be used in treating Parkinson's disease and other disorders. 4. I'm sure we've covered similar ground before: "Top 10 Gruesome Medieval Torture Devices," from Listverse. 5. From Manswers: How to get out of handcuffs: What I'm reading 1. What's Next: Dispatches on the Future of Science: Original Essays from a New Generation of Scientists edited by Max Brockman. Of special interest are essays by Nick Bostrom on "How to Enhance Human Beings" and Christian Keyesers on "Mirror Neurons: Are We Ethical by Nature?" (The funny thing is that I picked up the book at a used bookstore by accident thinking that it was the latest from John Brockman, editor of such books as What Have You Changed Your Mind About? and What Is Your Dangerous Idea? 2. iPod and Philosophy: Icon of an ePoch edited by D.E. Wittkower, the 34th in the so-and-so and Philosophy series. The latest books are not nearly as good as the early ones (The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer and The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real.) 3. The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program's Quarterly report to Congress. Scanning more than reading. 4. "How China polices the internet," by Kathrin Hille in Financial Times magazine. 5. "Cocksure: Banks, battles, and the psychology of overconfidence," by Malcolm Gladwell in the July 27 New Yorker. Three and out 3. Whenever I see a player from yesteryear fall down a notch on all-time lists, I am a little saddened and perhaps no more so than yesterday. Manny Ramirez hit his 537th homerun, bumping Mickey Mantle out of the top 15 on the career HR list. It really doesn't matter but I like to see the old Yankee greats near the top of such lists. Ramirez should pass Mike Schmidt (548) by the end of the season. USA Today reports: "Mantle is the ninth Hall of Famer Ramirez passed on the all-time list since the start of last season. The others were Lou Gehrig, Eddie Murray, Mel Ott, Eddie Mathews, Ernie Banks, Ted Williams, Willie McCovey and Jimmie Foxx." Quite an impressive list and remember that Ramirez has never been found guilty of using a performance-enhancing drug. He was suspended this year for using a banned substance (which is distinctly different according to MLB); in fact, ManRam has passed about a dozen drug tests in the past. 2. Kansas City OF Jose Guillen is quoted in the KC Star: "I hate making excuses,” he said. “If I suck, then I suck. And I suck. That’s the way I’m playing. If you suck, you suck. You have to take responsibility in this game. Right now, that’s the way I feel. Yes, I suck." Guillen is in the middle of a three-year, $36 million deal and hitting just 243/312/371 (his career OBP is only 322, but the other numbers are under his career average although he has had worse seasons, including 2005 with the Washington Nationals). Says Guillen: "I’m embarrassed by the money that I making ... I feel very embarrassed ... Sometimes, I feel I should take money out of my own pocket and buy tickets for every fan." It isn't Guillen who should be embarrassed. Royals GM Dayton Moore gave him the big, fat contract just one year removed from a horrible season in Washington: 216/276/398. Or his terrible 2002, split between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Cincinnati Reds: 238/287/367. With Moore fess up to his mistake? 1. On Monday, the Blue Jays organization said they wouldn't make any more public comments about Roy Halladay and his trade situation until 1) he was traded or 2) the July 31 trade deadline passed. But that was Monday. On Tuesday, the Associated Press reported: "Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi still hasn't received an appropriate trade offer for Roy Halladay, and has set a July 28 deadline to complete a deal for the 2003 Cy Young Award winner. 'At this point, it's probably unlikely that we'll trade Doc,' Ricciardi said Tuesday." MLB.com reports the same story. My guess is that the asking price is too high and with a greater understanding of the value of top prospects, few teams are willing to pay it, so there won't be a deal. But it is unfair to fans and the players for Ricciardi to repeatedly talk to the media about this issue. Why didn't he follow interim president Paul Beeston's lead and keep his mouth zipped? Tuesday, July 21, 2009
What's a few trillion among friends Bloomberg reports: U.S. taxpayers may be on the hook for as much as $23.7 trillion to bolster the economy and bail out financial companies, said Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.Remember, nearly all of this was put into place before Barack Obama was president. Barofsky’s estimates include: $700 billion bank-investment program (TARP) $6.8 trillion in bank aid offered by the Federal Reserve $2.3 trillion in programs offered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. $7.4 trillion in TARP and other aid from the Treasury $7.2 trillion in federal money for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, credit unions, Veterans Affairs and other federal programs Repeat, that's trillions, not billions. But that is beyond the comprehension of the public, or for that matter their elected representatives. In fact, standing what Senator Everett Dirksen supposedly said, a trillion here and a trillion there and pretty soon the money isn't real anymore -- its just numbers. Stuff 1. "15 Images You Won't Believe Aren't Photoshopped." I saw the giant Eddie Murphy head in Times Square in July 2008. 2. Speaking of pictures that look they were photoshopped, here's a floor made of pennies. 3. Tom Watson might be kicking himself after Sunday's "choke", but here are "The Most Painful Putts in Golf History," according to OpinionJournal.com. 4. Step-by-step instructions for carving Mario mushrooms from radishes. (HT: Offworld) 5. Slate answers the question: "Do animals masturbate." Favourite part: "Horses and donkeys, whose masturbatory habits have been particularly well-studied, engage in 'rhythmic bouncing, pressing, or sliding of the erect penis against the abdomen'." By the way, so do deer. Golden State pols (sorta) face reality The Los Angeles Times reports: Most of the details have yet to be released. But interviews with lawmakers and staff involved in the negotiations suggest that the plan would reshape government in California, significantly scaling back many services that have been offered to residents -- particularly the elderly and the poor -- for years.One can hope. Reshaping California government and scaling back services is vitally necessary, although we'll have to wait and see how true it all ends up being. While the LA Times did not have details, the New York Times reports: All told, the deal contains $15.6 billion in cuts, about $2.1 billion in borrowing, $3.9 billion in new revenues and about $2.7 billion in accounting maneuvers like shifting a payday into the next fiscal year, which Mr. Schwarzenegger had claimed he would not brook.The Associated Press reports on the other "accounting maneuvers": The rest of the deficit will be made up by a combination of borrowing from local governments, shifting money from other government accounts and accelerating the collection of certain taxes.Postponing a payday and the other gimmicks put off the full reckoning for CA's embrace of liberalism. We'll see how strong that embrace might still be when legislators vote on the measure on Thursday. And borrowing money from municipalities, as the San Jose Mercury News reports, will mean cities will have to cut back services, too. The humorous part of this whole mess is this, as reported by the NYT: The governor [Arnold Schwarzenegger] also said, on his Twitter feed: "We’ll actually be having a CA Garage Sale at the end of Aug to auction cars and office supplies." He will sign some of the items to increase their value.What kind of government covers its costs by auctioning off autographed cars? On the plus side, an existing, unused oil rig off the Santa Barbara coast will begin drilling again -- the first new offshore oil project since the 1960s. It's a bit of progress toward reality. Three and out (read 1 & 2 even if you are not a baseball fan) 3. With their third consecutive 2-1 victory, the New York Yankees are now tied atop the AL East with Boston Red Sox, who blew a 2-1 lead to lose 6-3 against the Texas Rangers last night. According to Baseball Prospectus's Jay Jaffe, the Yanks face one of the most difficult remaining schedules (only the Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays have a more difficult schedule, but that's because they both have to play the Bronx Bombers). Should be one helluva race down the stretch. On the plus side, seven of New York's remaining ten against Boston are at Yankee Stadium. 2. Bruce Markusen's BronxBanter latest "Card Corner" feature is about Rickey Henderson, one of my all-time favourite sports figures. Three of my favourite sports stories are about "Rickey" as he called himself, and Markusen relates all three of them. Here is my fave: "In the early 1980s, Henderson signed a contract with the Oakland A’s that included a $1 million bonus. Later that same year, Oakland accountants found an unexpected balance of $1 million in their ledgers. They soon discovered that Henderson had never cashed the sizeable check, instead putting it in a frame and hanging it on a wall in his home." 1. True story (probably), as reported by Joe Garagiola last night. In 1962, a San Fransisco sportswriter jokingly told Giants skipper Alvin Dark that new pitcher Gaylord Perry was going to hit a ton of homeruns. Dark replied, "They'll put a man on the moon before he hits a homerun." Seven years later, on July 20, 1969, minutes (or hours) after the lunar module landed on the surface of the moon (but before Neil Armstrong stepped outside the module and directly onto the moon), Perry hit his first career homerun. He would go on to hit five more. Monday, July 20, 2009
'A bad day for trolley lovers' That is Tim Marchman's headline on a post noting that "One hundred and six years ago today, the Ford Motor Company shipped its first Model A, to Dr. H.W. Yates of Detroit." That's the thing with progress: there are still losers. If the Left of 1893 was like the Left today, there would have been programs protecting the jobs of trolley drivers and progress would have been stifled. That, no doubt, would have made Al Gore happy. Four and down 4. At FootballOutsiders.com, Will Carroll goes through the various injuries that should be concern to fans/fantasy players. A couple takeaways: Brett Favre's surgery suggests he's back, Derrick Mason made the right decision to retire, shoulder surgery for Ward Hines might help his career if it forces him to a a little less physically, Tom Brady is fine and LaDainian Tomlinson isn't the player he used to be. 3. Also at FootballOutsiders, Aaron Schatz says there does not appear to be a "Verducci effect" for running backs -- that is, NFL RBs who massively increase their workload from one year to another are not likely to suffer major injuries because of it. 2. Former Atlanta Falcons QB and convicted dog fight enabler (he never fought the dogs and it is kind of confusing what he did exactly) is a free man and the speculation about him returning to the NFL is rampant. I'm of the school that Vick has served his debt to society and considering that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell suspended Vick indefinitely before he went to jail, he has been sufficiently punished by the NFL. Lots of players have returned after serving time for gambling, trafficking drugs and killing another person while driving drunk. I think being involved in dog fighting is worse than gambling, not as serious as vehicular homicide while under the influence, and probably about the same as dealing drugs. Goodell likes to clamp down on law-breakers, but he has already punished Vick -- for a month of training camp in 2007 and three months of that season before he went to jail. Punishment should be proportionate and providing finance for the gambling side of dogfighting does not warrant a suspension of more than the ten-plus games Vick has already missed. 1. There are, of course, other considerations in Vick returning to action: is he in shape to play, what is the level of his skills (he appeared to be in slight decline before the two-year absence from professional football), and, perhaps more importantly, who wants/needs him. Most reports say as many as a half dozen teams would be open to signing Vick. There is a PR hit, for sure, and that might scare some organizations. But teams who want to win should stop the moralizing and pick up the QB if he is better than the guy starting/backing up now. To my mind there are only two teams that wouldn't care about the PR and who have a QB situation that could be improved by Vick: the Washington Redskins and Oakland Raiders. Vick is probably better than either Jason Campbell ('Skins) and JaMarcus Russell (Raiders). The Buffalo Bills are too conservative to sign Vick even though it is probably 50-50 that he would be an improvement over Trent Edwards. Ditto for the Cleveland Browns and whoever might win their starting job. The Tampa Bay Bucaneers aren't going to pick up Vick despite the fact he would be the perfect backup behind Byron Leftwich until Vick was in shape to play, but the Bucs are under the impression that they have a legit three-way battle for the QB starting job. The Denver Broncos could upgrade over Kyle Orton with Vick, but they probably don't think of it that way. My guess is the NFL will slap another four to six regular season games on top of the suspension, making Vick an unattractive gamble for anyone this year. Three and out 3. I liked what the Pittsburgh Pirates were doing organizationally until I read that Bud Selig has endorsed the direction of the franchise (subscription required): "The Pirates [are rated] as having one of the best farm systems in the game. That leads me to believe they are on the right track in Pittsburgh. I understand that fans there don’t want to hear about the future because they’ve been losing for so long. The organization is making good strides, though, and I believe it is only a matter of time before they win." The Milwaukee Brewers weren't a very successful franchise on the field when Selig owned them and his acumen seems to be more on the business end of things than evaluating talent. And Selig is a liar and a douche bag, so I really don't know what to think of the Pirates anymore. 2. Just days after reportedly offering to extend the contracts of their middle infielders/trade bait, the Pittsburgh Pirates have have put off further talks with 2B Freddie Sanchez and SS Jack Wilson. The potential for acrimony with this set of circumstances -- an offer, a pulled offer, disputes of this or that happening and this or that being said -- is huge and hugely counter-productive. My view of the Pirates organization is becoming clearer. 1. Kirk Minihane is right: Dwight Evans was a better player than Jim Rice. Minihane (correctly) says that it is no real embarrassment that Rice will be in the Hall of Fame (to be inducted this weekend), it is just that Evans was better. Unfortunately for Evans, for too many HOF voters, inclusion in the hallowed Hall is just a matter of reaching certain milestones -- 300 HRs, check (382); lifetime 300 BA, almost (298). Statheads would say that the counting stats are not as important as the rate stats and that the baseball writers who vote for the HOF don't understand that fact or most other realities of evaluating players. All this is true, although I'm not sure if even Evans rises to the level of the HOF. After all, this is Cooperstown, not the Hockey Hall of Fame where being merely very good rather than truly great warrants inclusion. Stuff 1. The Washington Post has a graphic about space debris from human activity. 2. OpinionJournal.com's excellent slide show of the best in sports photos from the week, especially the incredible fencing shot (slide #8). I'd also like to know what's going on through Anna Gonek's mind (#14). 3. Giant cupcakes. A British cupcake (4 feet by 6.5 feet, weighing more than 330 pounds) is dwarfed by a California confection that was 7 feet tall and weighed 8000 lbs. 4. Darth Vader dancing. This comes close to being a sacrilege. 5. Looking something up about poker, I came across this great description of Simon and Garfunkel: "[L]ooks like a porn store clerk and napoleon dynamite."  Sunday, July 19, 2009
Waste of money The New York Times reports that parents pay $15,000-$40,000 for advice from professional consultants to help get their kids into a dream college -- the parents' dream college, no doubt. At such prices, no wonder there are an estimated 5,000 "independent admissions advisers." Governors don't like health care reform package The New York Times reports that there is bipartisan opposition from the states against Obamacare. By "reports" I mean there is a single sentence mentioning it: "At their annual summer meeting, in Biloxi, Miss., the governors said that their concerns dominated discussion, with striking levels of bipartisan hostility voiced during a closed-door luncheon on the topic on Saturday." The rest of the story is inside Washington stuff, including the issue that abortion funding could derail health care reform. But as the lead paragraphs note, considering how much health care the states pay for, changing the health care system will have ramifications for politics outside the beltway, too. Stuff 1. Film.com has "The 50 Greatest Movie Monologues." Good list but I have a few quibbles. I think the Al Pacino monologue from Scent of a Woman is over-rated (as is the movie). It doesn't belong on the list at all, but #6 is ridiculous; the speech doesn't have much content and Pacino doesn't deliver it as much as yell it. Also Peter Finch's "Mad as Hell" speech from Network should be much higher (top ten easily, probably top five). Robert Shaw's Jaws speech at #2 is a little unorthodox but an inspired high pick. 2. The beluga whale cam at the Georgia Aquarium. I'm a sucker for zoo cams. 3. "10 Gaming Gadgets That Will Make Us Hurt Ourselves." If the small sample size of our family is any indication, the Wii thingees are perfectly safe, although the Wii car lighter adapter seems a bad idea. 4. Turn a two-piece KFC meal into Colonel’s Chicken Corn Chowder, aka "fancy fast food." 5. Behold the condescension of liberalism as Senator Barbara Boxer (D, CA) addresses Harry Alford, president of the National Black Chamber of Commerce President. Saturday, July 18, 2009
Three and out 3. I am shocked by this report from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "The Pirates have approached shortstop Jack Wilson and second baseman Freddy Sanchez about multiyear contract extensions, putting on hold, for now, the possibility that either will be traded by Major League Baseball's July 31 deadline." It is possible that teams might be more interested in Wilson and/or Sanchez for more than a short-term rental, but this move seems at odds with everything reported about the Pirates over the past six months. 2. The auction for Roy Halladay will get insane, but the presumption that the Los Angeles Dodgers would have to give either staff ace Chad Billingsley or starter Clayton Kershaw and one of their starting outfielders, Matt Kemp or Andre Ethier, is loony. I don't know why the Dodgers would give up either Kemp or Ethier, bound to be impact everyday players for the long-term. Halladay would be only a marginal improvement over Billingsley (and given the salary difference, an unwise use of resources). Halladay will be worth lots but giving up anything more than top prospects and undoing part of a winning team for an 18-month rental is foolish and counter-productive. 1. All Star pitcher usage dictated by the office of the commissioner? Probable but disappointing and dictatorial. Stuff 1. The business (and more) of yo-yos from the Wall Street Journal: "Advances in yo-yo technology and the current economic downturn have fueled the latest comeback for the sport." And there's a disturbing angiogram of a professional yo-yo user's hand. 2. LATimes.com has "Bizarre and unusual destinations around the world" slide show, including underwater and treehouse restaurants, the great blue hole off Belize, the world's largest pool, New Zealand's Hobbit motel, Australia's Shark Bay, and the Lower Antelope Canyon. 3. Some of these are weird excuses in sports, some are dumb, but a few (A-Rod being young and stupid when he used PEDs, James Harrison not wanting to go the White House) seems to be sincere explanations. 4. Businessweek.com has a slide show of "The Most Counterfeited Products." 5. Cracked.com takes on skateboarding. If you aren't a teen anymore, don't skateboard, unless you are this dude.  Friday, July 17, 2009
'What blogs do you read?' I think this, from Eric Crampton of Offsetting Behaviour, makes a lot of sense: In the last several recruitment rounds at Canterbury, I've asked prospective hires which economics blogs they read. Some of my older colleagues think the question a bit from left-field, but I cannot imagine a better way for a young economist to stay on top of the current debates in the field as they're transpiring. If it's in print, it's already a couple of years out of date. And if you're just finishing up your PhD and you've never heard of the economics blogs, it's a pretty strong signal about the range of your interests.Some econ departments also encourage their professors to blog and someday high-end blogging may be as prestigious as getting published in the economic journals. On a more personal level, knowing what blogs another individual reads -- or even whether someone is a blog reader -- tells me a lot about a person. That's why I'm not happy that blogrolls are disappearing (due to the declining utility of linking) because the importance of linking misses the point: they are important for signalling. Insight into immigration At Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen notes: Sebastian Flyte, an unusual commentator, wrote:To which Cowen adds: He has a point. Female migrants should on average be prettier, ceteris paribus, than those who stay in the old country. That means holding constant income, education, and some other variables. Female immigrants should find it easier to marry into the receiving country's population than do male immigrants. From a public choice point of view, the women in the country receiving the immigrants should be more suspicious of liberal immigration policies than should be the men in the receiving country. It is up for grabs whether male immigrants should be handsomer or uglier than average, relative to their home country populations, again holding constant some relevant variables.But generally women don't oppose immigration more than men. Is that because they are being irrational? Or is there more to it than mate-hunting? What's more amazing: space exploration or the free market? Don Boudreaux sent this letter to the Washington Post: Such "wonder and glory" [of the moon landing] is funded with money forcibly taken from taxpayers. This process inspires no awe and is decidedly inglorious. Moreover, achievements even more wondrous and glorious than moon shots surround us daily - for example, New York City is fed day in, day out, without fail. Millions of people from around the world work to grow, process, warehouse, deliver, cook, and serve food so that eight million New Yorkers eat well each day. No one plans this wondrous achievement, and no one is forced to contribute toward its realization. It's the happy result of hundreds of millions of persons peacefully pursuing their own self-interests within markets. Three and out 3. New York Mets fan Ken Belson describes his experience of going to five recent Mets games: "Then there is the streak of five Mets games that I saw during a recent 18-day stretch. Somehow, in those five games, against the St. Louis Cardinals, the Yankees, the Philadelphia Phillies, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds, the Mets did not score a run. That’s right, not one. In the 45 consecutive innings I witnessed, the Mets managed 15 hits — all of them singles — struck out 32 times and grounded into five double plays." The Mets aren't really that bad; Belson is just that unlucky. 2. Speaking of the Mets, I totally endorse this idea. retiring #8 on August 8th (8/8). Two hall-of-famers wore #8 for the Mets: Yogi Berra (manager of the 1973 Mets) and Gary Carter. 3. You could see this coming the moment the Toronto Blue Jays released struggling southpaw reliever B.J. Ryan: the Chicago Cubs, who have only one lefty in their bullpen, have signed him to a minor league contract. The Jays are still on the hook for his $10 million per season salary this year and next, minus the major league minimum if Ryan makes the Cubs roster. I thought it was the right thing for the Jays to cut him and it is worth it to the Cubs to give him a try. UCal's rep The Calgary Herald reports that University of Calgary president Harvey Weingarten is denying that job cuts at the institution will hurt the university's reputation. Of course, the University of Calgary's reputation is already sullied by its having charged several pro-life students with trespassing for peacefully demonstrating against abortion. Abortion and eugenics Michael Gerson writes about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's comment (in a New York Times Magazine interview): Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of.Gerson says that Ginsburg is not racist, merely a product of her class and environment; no one, says Gerson, was arguing for eugenics at the time (not really true, but we'll leave that) so: It is more likely that Ginsburg is describing the attitude of some of her own social class -- that abortion is economically important to a "woman of means" and useful in reducing the number of social undesirables. Neither judge nor journalist apparently found this attitude exceptional; there was no follow-up question.Tom Blumer of Newbusters also faults Emily Bazelon, the NYT writer who interviewed Ginsburg, for sloppy journalism, and the Justice for blindly accepting the prejudices her time: Thanks to the remarkably incurious Bazelon, we don't know [who the undesirable population was]. What we do know is that at least for some time during her legal career, in her early 40s, Ginsburg, as a member of the unidentified "we" referred to earlier, thought that abortion as a means of controlling the population of relative undesirables was okey-dokey.I'm not sure what the difference is between not supporting eugenics and merely favouring getting rid of the socially undesirable, but Gerson and Blumer are correct to say that Ginsburg's views are unexceptional. That is sad, but also encouraging; if eugenic abortion to eliminate black people was once acceptable but isn't anymore, perhaps eugenic abortion to eliminate the disabled may also become unacceptable. Or, dare say, even abortion itself. It might be worth noting that Emily Bazelon is Betty Friedan's cousin and the granddaughter of radical judge David L. Bazelon. Just saying the interviewer has a very left-wing pedigree, so she was unlikely to ask the Justice any tough questions. Stuff 1. 10 Unusual Computer Keyboards. (HT: Newmark's Door) 2. Accessories for guns, including a cup holder. 3. Mental Floss has "The 10 Most Bizarre Athlete Superstitions." (Via the Wall Street Journal online) 4. The Daily Beast reports that the Fund for the Public Interest (Ralph Nader's group), "the nation’s largest fundraiser for progressive causes," has "issued checks to thousands of former workers in the last several weeks after settling a $2.15 million class-action suit alleging it subjected workers to grueling hours without overtime pay." Reminds me of years ago that ACORN campaigned for an increase in the minimum wage in California and when they were successful, they lobbied for an exemption because the increased wage threatened their viability. Leftist hypocrites. 5. Top 25 economics blogs, a slide show from the Wall Street Journal. Thursday, July 16, 2009
Greenshirts are on their way Reuters: "Wal-Mart index to rate products' environmental impact." New Scientist: "Smart tags to reveal where our trash ends up." Three and out 3. The Philadelphia Phillies have signed Pedro Martinez to a $1 million contract, with incentives that could bring the total to $2.5 million. If he has anything left in him after several seasons with significant time on the DL and not playing professional ball thus far in 2009, this could be a great, inexpensive, in-season improvement for the Phillies. There is no player in any sport that I dislike so intensely but whose performance I admire so much. Martinez is under-appreciated players of this generation and is probably one of the half-dozen best pitchers of all-time. What I don't like about him coming back is that unless it has a perfect record over the next three months, he is going to wreck the prettiest line in baseball: a career record of 214-99 (with a 2.91 ERA) in 17 seasons with the Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, Montreal Expos and New York Mets. 2. Is it merely coincidence that the biggest hitter and biggest pitcher mentioned in trade rumours are named Matt Holliday and Roy Halladay? I don't think the Oakland A's are going to trade Holliday because the pair of supplemental picks are likely to be better than anything most other teams are willing to part with. I don't see the Boston Red Sox in the Holliday market, the New York Mets aren't likely to make a big splash unless they get hot before the July 31 deadline, and it appears the St. Louis Cardinals might be in the Halladay sweepstakes. 1. There is something strange in John Heyman's "Which GMs are facing the most pressure entering the second half?" article at SI.com. You would think that such a list -- Heyman has a dozen general managers on the hot seat, or about 40% of them -- would list the reasons why the GM is facing more scrutiny and might be in trouble. But for almost all the GMs Heyman lists, the writer also provides reasons why the team's troubles are not the general manager's fault or why his job is safe: injuries (Omar Minaya, New York Mets), contract situation (Mark Shapiro, Cleveland Indians/Brian Cashman, New York Yankees), a combination of injuries and contract length (J.P. Ricciardi, Toronto Blue Jays), deserves more time to rebuild (Neal Huntington, Pittsburgh Pirates), built up good will (Jim Hendry, Chicago Cubs), close relationship with the owners (Josh Byrnes, Arizona Diamondbacks), unexpected resugerence after numerous bad years (Brian Sabean, San Francisco Giants/Dan O'Dowd, Colorado Rockies), being "highly regarded" (Dayton Moore, Kansas City Royals), a "guess" that the GM deserves more time to prove himself (Frank Wren, Atlanta Braves), there is nobody else who will take the job (interim GM Mike Rizzo, Washington Nationals) or a gazillion reasons, none of which are persuasive (Omar Minaya, New York Mets -- yeah, I know he's listed twice). Awful, pointless column that doesn't deliver on the promise of the headline. My guess: Hendry and Ricciardi are gone at the end of the season, Cashman is out if the Yanks miss the playoffs, Minaya has to go but will survive if the Mets get back in the playoff mix even if they come up short, Byrnes and Shapiro deserve the axe but won't get it, and Moore should go but will need to court more controversy before the ownership fires him. Mid-season MLB report American League East: Boston Red Sox (54-34): Best team in AL and it shows. They are as complete a team as is likely to be assembled and they have some decent prospects in the minors ready for Major League action. They are so good, they might trade starting pitcher Brad Penny for ... it doesn't matter. Left side of the infield insurance might be nice. Their odds of making the playoffs according to BP's PECOTA system is 92.88% -- second best in the Majors. New York Yankees (51-37): Despite a 13-14 start, they have the third best record in the Majors today. They are 12th in the AL in quality starts. Hitting and bullpen are keeping the team afloat and they will probably look for a reliable starter for the back end of the rotation, but it need not be Roy Halladay. If they continue the pace they've had since A-Rod returned on May 8, they'll finish first overall -- not that maintaining a 623 winning percentage is likely, That said, they shouldn't rest on their laurels. A better backup catcher for Posada than Jose Molina would be nice and a fifth starter that could reliably make it into the final third of the game would help to protect against bullpen burnout. Tampa Bay Rays (48-41): They are underplaying their XWL by three games. Some players (Ben Zobrist) are playing way above expectation, others (Dioner Navarro) way under. Regression to the mean will even this all out. They have in-house options to upgrade a poorly performing back end of the rotation, but they are probably stuck using Pat Burrell in the DH spot because of salary considerations. The Rays will be in the playoff picture for years to come, but they are probably short on talent relative to the Yanks and Sox to make it to the post-season this year, but one five-game winning streak (or Yankees losing streak) changes the picture dramatically. Toronto Blue Jays (44-46): Can't seem to capitalize when runners are in scoring position. Know why? It ain't much of a hitting team and thus they seldom score in bunches the way winning teams do. I think they should strip the team from Vernon Wells and Roy Hallady to Marco Scutaro and Scott Rolen in order to compete in 2011 or later. Won't happen, but its a better plan than fiddling with the current roster to finish fourth every year. Team got off to a fast start with over-achieving hitters (and an easy schedule) but every month since April, the team has hit about 20 points lower than the previous month. They'll struggle to make it back to 500 ball. Baltimore Orioles (40-48): They have plenty of nice pitching prospects making their way through the system and the outfield looks to be one of baseball's most productive east of LA (Adam Jones, Nick Markakis and Nolan Reimold). They are in good shape to be a highly competitive team in the near future and have numerous players that could fetch more prospects. DH Luke Scott, who can also play LF, is hitting up a storm (305/384/592) so his value is artificially high, but Aubrey Huff (all corners), 3B Melvin Mora and 2B Brian Roberts could all help several different contenders. Despite their record and status as a seller, the Orioles should play some exciting and competitive 'ball 'til the end of the year. American League Central: Detroit Tigers (48-39): I predicted them to compete for the division title and they have the hitters and pitching to maintain their pace. The team's 4.4 runs allowed per game ranks third best in the AL, partly on the strength of a revitalized Justin Verlander. An option to having to play RF Magglio Ordonez against righties (243/319/292) would give the Tigers a big boost and finding platoon partners on the trade market shouldn't be difficult; such a move would have the benefit of preventing Ordonez from reaching the requisite plate appearances to reach an $18 million vesting option. Problem for the Tigers is they can't really take on payroll. PECOTA says Detroit has a 51.57% chance of winning the division, so they don't need to do anything dramatic but there are upgrades they should make. Chicago White Sox (45-43): The ChiSox have lost just 165 games to injuries this year -- lowest in MLB -- and are about to get LF Carlos Quentin, a contender for the MVP award in 2008 until a late summer injury, back in the lineup. Quentin's return adds major power to a team that ranks 11th in the AL in scoring. CFers have provided very little, with the trio they've used combining for a 280 OBP and 279 SLG. Mark Buehrle has a nice 9-3 and 3.66 ERA and solid stuff from John Danks, but third starter Gavin Floyd has been inconsistent and the back end (José Contreras, Bartolo Colón, Clayton Richard) is nothing special. Minnesota Twins (45-44): The Twins offense is doing well (scoring slightly less than the Texas Rangers) and their pitching has disappointed at times. Francisco Liriano has been a disappointment. An improvement at the keystone (collectively batting under 200) could provide a big boost, but otherwise can't see the Twins dipping their toes in the trade pool. Probably not good enough to compete through the end of September without some of their pitchers performing better than they have. Kansas City Royals (37-51): Great start followed by gradual decline and now they're battling to stay ahead of the anemic Indians. Breakout starter Zack Greinke (and his 2.12 ERA) and under-utilized sensational closer Joakim Soria are all that's worth watching on this team and along with perhaps four or five others, the only players who won't be shopped around/available in a trade. The Royals have a league-low 310 OBP, which happens when the big off-season move is Mike Jacobs (222/296/412). KC may have made matters worse when they traded earlier this month for SS Yuniesky Betancourt 250/278/330 (10 BBs, 2 HRs in 224 ABs). Cleveland Indians (35-54): With the exception of 2008 Cy Young winner Cliff Lee, starting pitching is thoroughly awful; Fausto Carmona, their second starter, is in the lower minors after putting up a 7.42 ERA in 12 starts, and no one has even league average strikeout rate. Bullpen is in shambles, the closer is sporting an ERA north of five, and Grady Sizemore, their centerfield superstar is having a terrible year (235/324/452) when he's not on the DL. Tribe fans no doubt are hoping for another second-half sprint, but it won't be enough. Glimmer of hope: if you go by XWL, they would be seven games behind division leader Detroit rather than 14. Other glimmer of hope: Jake Westbrook returns in late August. False hope: neither Victor Martinez nor Lee will be traded. American League West: Los Angeles Angels (49-37): Injuries/slow start to several key starting pitchers had the Halos in early trouble; injuries to batters (Torii Hunter, Vladimir Guerrero) might make pacing the division from here on difficult. However, skipper Mike Scioscia always gets more out of his players than the stats would indicate and I don't believe the the rotation will keep it up for the Rangers, so everything should be fine. Short-term hitting help would be nice, although the team may eye larger prize of Roy Halladay. Texas Rangers (48-39): Incredibly, the Rangers are about league average in runs allowed with their runs per game about what the Blue Jays and Twins are doing. Several no-names are coming through for the Rangers (Scott Feldman) and Kevin Milwood is putting up good numbers (3.46 ERA in 130 IP). Their hitting is feeling the loss of last year's big run producer, Josh Hamilton, but Michael Young is continuing to hit for average (308) even if he doesn't quite have corner infield power (11 dingers). Could make upgrades through trades and they have prospects to pull off trades that would improve rotation, bullpen and bench. They have lots of needs that can be easily and inexpensively filled if they think they are real contenders for the division title because the wild card belongs to the AL East. Seattle Mariners (46-42): They have inverted their XWL in part because of an incredible 21-13 record in one-run games. They are one three-game losing streak from becoming a deadline seller which is likely with Adrian Beltre sidelined for the remainder of the month (which also makes it impossible to move him). The team has a woeful 27th overall in EqA, a Baseball Prospectus metric that measures total offense, despite the presence of AL batting leader Ichiro Suzuki (362 BA), surprise power-hitting 1B Russell Branyan (22 HRs) and solid hitting from CF Franklin Gutierrez (295/356/445). Mariners will dangle several pitchers including Jarrod Washburn and Erik Bedard, both of whom become free agents in the off-season and both would be a plus for most contenders other than the Red Sox and San Francisco Giants. Oakland A's (37-49): Only the hapless Royals and Mariners score less than the A's in the AL. The team has been hurt by LF Matt Holliday's sub par performance (276/373/419, 8 HRs) and an AL-worse 621 games lost to injuries including starting 3B Eric Chavez and staff "ace" Dustin Duchscherer. A dozen games under 500, the team has lots of trade chits, the biggest being Holliday. Nothing has gone quite right for the team on offense, but they've been pretty lucky with their no-name rotation of youngsters (third-year sensation Dallas Braden, injured Josh Outman, and solid if unspectacular Trevor Cahill, Vin Mazzaro, Brett Anderson), but if Braden regresses to the mean (7-7, 3.12 ERA), the team is in trouble. SS Bobby Crosby and 1B Jason Giambi probably can't be given away (192/331/365, but a team-leading 48 BBs and second most HRs with 11), but SS Orlando Cabrera and reliever Russ Springer should attract attention as might utility player Nomar Garciaparra. The team needs to figure out who is part of the their long-term plans and who isn't. AL Predictions: AL East Boston Red Sox -- stand pat and stay atop division New York Yankees* -- has talent to sustain Rays challenge for wild card Tampa Bay Rays -- just not enough Toronto Blue Jays -- just not good enough Baltimore Orioles -- rebuilding project well underway AL Central: Detroit Tigers -- most talented team in the division, makes small, successful tweaks Minnesota Twins -- just short on talent to challenge Tigers Chicago White Sox -- inconsistent pitching has Sox slip Cleveland Indians -- better second half but too far behind Kansas City Royals -- Greinke and nobody else AL West: Los Angeles Angels -- survives injuries to Hunter and Guerrero Texas Rangers -- pitching regresses Seattle Mariners -- overperforming now results in return to reality Oakland A's -- bad first half, worse second half AL MVP: Joe Mauer (Minnesota Twins) AL Cy Young: Roy Halladay, if he's not traded to NL (Toronto Blue Jays) AL Rookie of the Year: Alfredo Aceves (New York Yankees) AL Manager of the Year: Mike Scioscia (LA Angels) ALCS: New York Yankees over Boston Red Sox National League East: Philadelphia Phillies (48-38): Even with the disappearance of former MVP SS Jimmy Rollins and several under-producing pitchers in the rotation and 'pen, this is the best team in the division. Raul Ibanez was a pleasant surprise before hitting the DL and should cool off in the second half when he returns. Chase Utley is the best hitting 2B in baseball. Statheads hate Ryan Howard, but he drives in the runs. Phillies are good enough to win a disappointingly weak NL East because they put up runs -- their 5.35 runs per game is the most in the NL by three-tenths of a run. Pedro Martinez helps the rotation but there are still holes and the Phillies might not be done shopping. Florida Marlins (46-44): Team always seems to have decent players coming up through the system which allows them to win despite playing .... Emilio Bonifacio (304 OBP) at the top of the order. Marlins could improve internally by promoting OF Cameron Maybin from the minors where he is hitting 337 with a 422 OBP. NL East could be much clearer after this weekend's (July 16-19) four-game series between the Fish and the Phillies. Have the feeling they are going to flatline as the team gives up about a tenth of run per game than they score. Altanta Braves (43-45): Hard to explain why they are coming up short. Oh, wait, this must be it: they have scored fewer runs than the Washington Nationals. They have been baseball's busiest team since the end of the '08 season, but they haven't quite put together a winning team. They've assembled a pretty decent rotation though, with the fifth best fair run average in the NL. New York Mets (42-45): Part of it is injuries -- they've lost an All Star shorstop and centerfield, a power-hitting first basemen, their setup man in the bullpen and two of their starters, more or less at the same time -- but it is more than that. They've had no production out of their corner outfielders or 2B. The team lacked depth so it was entirely unprepared for any injury, let alone a spate of them. The pitching staff is 14th in the NL in strikeouts even though they have Johan Santana starting. But mostly they've had a bad run that coincides with the injuries. They are 14-24 since the beginning of June. Once their players get healthy, the Mets might make a run at reducing their 6.5 game deficit for the division lead/wild card berth, but trading to improve their sorry lot seems like a mistake. Washington Nationals (26-61): It is hard to be that bad and the change of manager might make less of a difference than simply regressing to the mean. Even the Nats can't be this bad for the entire 162 game schedule, can they? They probably aren't even near fielding a respectable team in 2010, so trading Nick Johnson, Josh Willingham, Adam Dunn and whoever else doesn't fit in the long-term plans and getting loads and loads of prospects seems a smart move. A number of teams (Mariners, Tigers and Giants) could benefit from Willingham and almost every contender should have room for Dunn. Fewer teams have room for a 1B, but the Angels, Braves and Giants could use an upgrade like Johnson. National League Central: St. Louis Cardinals (49-42): Further evidence that one should never count Tony LaRussa's squads out. They don't have much in the lineup other than baseball's best hitter (Albert Pujols) and suddently productive Ryan Ludwick, but they score more per game than any team in the NL besides the Phillies, Dodgers and Rockies. They have a bunch of players coming back from injuries (RHP Kyle Loshe) or about to (utility man Mark DeRosa and infielder Khalil Greene) so improvements are coming even without making a trade. At the same time, they have the players and flexibility to make an impact move. Most important need if they can't land Halladay/Holliday would be shoring up a shallow bullpen. Milwaukee Brewers (45-43): Could make a serious run if they teamed up a second strong pitcher to go with Yovani Gallardo. Signing Pedro Martinez would have made a lot of sense, but they will probably settle for an innings-eater like Doug Davis/Jon Garland of the Diamondbacks. Team has a solid lineup and the only tinkering necessary might be a backup to backstop Jason Kendall. Wouldn't surprise me to see them go on a tear and overtake the Cards by summer's end, nor it would surprise me to see them go 10-20 over the month and drop out of contention if they fail to upgrade a below-average rotation after Gallardo. Houston Astros (44-44): 'Stros are riding solid if over-performing starter Wandy Rodriguez, vastly over-performing Miguel Tejada and quitely productive Lance Berkman (271/403/526) to an unexpected level of mediocrity. Should be sellers but the organization always thinks it is in the race up to the moment they are mathematically eliminated. Such delusions are harmful in the long-term whrn it prevents them from rebuilding. Chicago Cubs (43-43): They have exactly matched their XWL, having scored 355 runs and allowing 353. Team might turnaround with the return of star 3B Aramis Ramirez, whose offense they've struggled to replace. Cincinatti Reds (42-45): Just can't get their stuff together, but being just five games out might mean they won't sell off parts that could net some decent prospects. They have been hurt by injuries all year and the latest, CF Jay Bruce, won't help matters any. Pittsburgh Pirates (38-50): They are awful but they have a plan to get back to respectability in 2011 or 2012. They are on their way to their North American professional sports record 17th losing season and have at least a half dozen position players and pitchers they are ready to move including 2B Freddy Sanchez, SS Jack Wilson, 1B Adam LaRoche, closer Matt Capps and starters Zack Duke and Paul Malholm. The price might be cheap enough for some teams to simply improve their bench, although several of the everyday players would improve the Giants lineup plenty. National League West: Los Angeles Dodgers (56-32): The National League equivalent of the Boston Red Sox. Remember, they are the best team in baseball despite losing one of the three best hitters in baseball (Manny Ramirez) for 50 games. In other words, they might get even better. San Fransisco Giants (49-39): Who would have guessed that they would be tied for second in the National League and two game up in the wild card spot at the All Star break? Their hitting is every bit as horrendous as everyone expected (scoring just 368 runs thus far) but their pitching has been the most miserly in the majors (324, 14 fewer than the second best pitching staff, the LA Dodgers). If they could trade for a bat or two, even a Josh Willingham or Jack Cust, they'd be in pretty decent shape. Their offense is so bad -- only two players are above average at their position by BP's all-inclusive offensive measure EqA -- they'd be helped by the addition of most team's spare parts. Colorado Rockies (47-41): They are 29-13 since ditching manager Clint Hurdle, but interim manager Jim Tracy hasn't made the team hit or pitch well all of a sudden. This team is mostly made up of the talent that led the Rox to their improbable 2007 run to the World Series and there are plenty of people who hope such magic returns to Denver. I'm dubious, but utility player Garrett Atkins might help fill in a hole or two as a much eyed trade chit. Arizona Diamondbacks (38-51): Most underachieving team the majors which hasn't been helped by an opening day injury to Brandon Webb. The team is sixth in putting up runs (4.44 per game); the problem is that they are allowing nearly a full half run more per game than they score. Best course of action is giving players chance to develop for next year and trade away from potential free agent pitchers for a gaggle of prospects for the future. San Diego Padres (36-52): Can't score and can't prevent opponents from scoring. Hasn't helped that they've been hit harder with injuries (a total of 701 injury days thus far) than any other team, headlined by their two best starters (Jake Peavy and Chris Young). Other than All Star 1B Adrian Gonzalez, what do they have that anyone would want? The team has been prone to streaks: winning 10 in a row, losing seven in a row, and twice putting together six-game losing streaks. It is hard to imagine the team improving their winning percentage, especially if Peavy is healthy enough to trade. NL Predictions: NL East: Philadelphia Phillies -- most solid team in the division New York Mets -- injuries sink them over June & July dive Atlanta Braves -- 500 season in store Florida Marlins -- 500 season give or take a game Washington Nations -- reaching 60 wins is a stretch NL Central: St. Louis Cardinals -- take the team with the best player to ride to October Milwaukee Brewers* -- talented lineup gets team the wild card Chicago Cubs -- three or four games over 500 gets Cubbies third Cincinatti Reds -- not being a seller keeps them in the 78-80 win vicinity Houston Astros -- coming back to Earth after strong first half Pittsburgh Pirates -- eyes to 2011 and beyond NL West: Los Angeles Dodgers -- autopilot to October, tweak for post-season Colorado Rockies -- pitching and hitting continue to deliver San Fransisco Giants -- lack of hitting does in superior pitching staff Arizona Diamondbacks -- ekes out Padres to stay out of cellear San Diego Padres -- pitching and hitting suck NL MVP: Albert Pujols (St. Louis Cardinals) NL Cy Young: Tim Lincecum (San Francisco Giants) NL Rookie of the Year: Colby Rasmus (St. Louis Cardinals) NL Manager of the Year: Joe Torre (LA Dodgers) NLCS: LA Dodgers over St. Louis Cardinals World Series: Dodgers over Yankees Stuff 1. Hitsville Q&A with Guillaume Vieira about real worldwide music sales. Interesting throughout and highly recommended. 2. From the New York Times: "The Gyro’s History Unfolds." The paper attempts to answer these questions: "Then someone thought, why not make gyro cones the same way you make cars? The question is: Who is the Henry Ford of the gyro?" One possible Ford of the Gyro is John Garlic. Seriously. 3. The value of various life events according to British study as reported by the Daily Telegraph: Being in good health, £180,105; being told "I Love You," £163,424; being in a stable relationship, £154,849; living in a peaceful and safe country, £129,448; having children, £123,592; spending time with your family, £110,04; laughing, £108,021; having sex - £105,210; going on holiday, £91,759; savouring peace and quiet, £89,828; reading a book is worth £53,660; going to the cinema, £21,615; being happy at work, £37,229. I think this is all very interesting but also quite meaningless without a lot more explanation. 4. I'm not buying the the argument made in this Wall Street Journal article that traffic congestion is changing Americans' relationship with the automobile. 5. At Slate, Juliet Lapidos looks at whether assassinations are ever legal? Wednesday, July 15, 2009
It's not health care reform, it's super-duper, limitless Big Government Wesley Smith on the U.S. health care debate: But make no mistake, we are on the path toward empowering utilitarian bioethicists, who you and your doctor don’t even know, to decide what treatments you can have and indeed, when you have to die We are on the path to rationing. We are on the path to health care costs being the catch all excuse for the government to control your personal behaviors–at least those without strong political constituencies–under the pretext of keeping costs low.Giving the government a greater role in health care means giving government more power, including decisions on your life and death. You should read Peter Singer's New York Times Magazine essay entitled, "Why We Must Ration Health Care." Such utilitarian considerations are inevitable in any system, but what should be frightening is giving third parties (the government, or insurance companies for that matter) the right to decide such intimate and life-changing matters for individuals. Sure, the ability to pay is a form of rationing, but at least decisions are left to the individual most directly affected. Singer says: The task of health care bureaucrats is then to get the best value for the resources they have been allocated. It is the familiar comparative exercise of getting the most bang for your buck.There is a certain economic logic to all this, but the problem is that the calculus is based on rather narrow and impersonal inputs. The value to society of keeping alive a disabled elderly person may be less than the value of restoring the health of a young person with a full life ahead of him, but it does not take into account the benefits to the disabled person's family or the disabled person himself; Singer goes so far as to say that a father of young child is irrelevant to such quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) assessments. (Dr. Maurice McGregor cautioned against the use of QALY in the CMAJ in 2003.) Another problem with QALY is that it reeks of quality of life considerations. Why should unaffected bean-counters make such judgements? Having some bureaucrat make such decisions in inhuman and inhumane, not to mention illogical and unfair. Who, other than government officials, gain under such a system? Like Smith says, so much of health care reform is a government power grab. Relatedly, Thomas Szasz writes in the Wall Street Journal today: Our national conversation about curbing the cost of health care is crippled by the vocabulary in which we conduct it. We must stop talking about "health care" as if it were some kind of collective public service, like fire protection, provided equally to everyone who needs it. No government can provide the same high quality body repair services to everyone. Not all doctors are equally good physicians, and not all sick persons are equally good patients.Sameness of care is not the same thing as quality health care, and worse, it costs people their freedom. This needs to be a part of the health care reform debate and the necessity of rationing must be understood by the public. From teaching about to teaching in favour The Daily Telegraph reports: NHS guidance is advising school pupils that they have a "right" to an enjoyable sex life and that regular sex can be good for their cardiovascular health.LifeSiteNews.com has a story about this, too, which includes this great quote: Speaking for the Christian lobby group Family and Youth Concern, Dr. Stammers said, "I'd like to know what scientific evidence there is to back this up. There are an awful lot of overpaid and under-occupied health promotion officers around who are obsessed with sex." Four and down 4. The Baltimore Ravens are an elite wideout away from being a top three favourite to win the Super Bowl (they are still in my top six) so losing their top wide receiver, Derrick Mason, to retirement doesn't help them. As a Pittsburgh Steeler's fan, I'm elated, but as a fan of great football, I'm disappointed that the Ravens route to the post-season just got a little bit more difficult. James Walker at ESPN.com says Baltimore should make a bid for free agent wideout Marvin Harrison (formerly with the Indianapolis Colts) who is a little older and a little slower than Mason but has many of the same skill sets. I'd say make a real bid for Denver Broncos WR Brandon Marshall; Arizona Cardinals WR Anquan Boldin is probably staying put for the season. Joe Flacco is without a reliable receiving partner as Mark Clayton is far from being a first receiver. 3. Peter King is on holidays so SI.com got Washington Redskins TE Chris Cooley to write this weeks' Monday Morning Quarterback column. I'm not sure if it worse or better than the inanities King offers every seven days in his meandering piece of crap, but Cooley certainly strives for Kingesque banality. Put aside the idea of a a Smart Football (a pigskin with sensors) and jump to the things he thinks he thinks. Acknowledging that they are team-mates but that he really believes it, why should we take anything Cooley says seriously once he says: "Jason Campbell is so close to being one of the best QB's in the league." He doesn't like the Pro Bowl moving to the week before the Super Bowl and away from Hawaii. Fair enough comment, but nothing meaty. And then we get this: "I think putting peanut butter, mustard and ham on a sandwich is awesome. The three ingredients are magical when put together." That is an epic insight and I now see the universe anew because of it. Thanks Chris. Any football related comments? He thinks he will have competition for the Pro Bowl (which he doesn't seem to want to go to anyway) because with Tony Gonzalez in Atlanta and Jason Witten in Dallas, there are a lot of very good TEs in the NFC. Even with Jason Campbell feeding you the ball, Chris? Shouldn't that be a difference maker? Back to non-football thoughts, Cooley also doesn't like fans using their cell phone cameras to takes pictures of him peeing and if they do it any more, he's going to punch them. Sports journalism at its best and Cooley ends with a comment about football players not being good writers. Is that irony, phony self-effacing humour, or an admission? 2. Matt Cassel did a great job replacing Tom Brady in New England in 2008 after Tom Brady got injured in the season opener. He was traded to Kansas City in the off-season and he has just signed a six-year deal worth more than $10 million per season. He might be worth that but it's too early to tell. Cassel worked well in Bill Belichick's system and it is far from clear whether he can translate his success within the well-oiled, perfectly maintained machine that is the Patriots to the mostly dysfunctional Chiefs. In fact, when you put it that way, I'd bet that KC regrets this deal sometime long before 2014. I hope I'm wrong because I like what the Chiefs have done this off-season and see them on the track for improvement (in part because of Cassel's steady hand and cool head), but a long-term commitment to a guy with one NFL season under his belt seems foolish, even desperate. 1. The Sporting News analysis of the Detroit Lions includes these comments from Matt Millen: "I really like [rookie QB Matt] Stafford. He has a real arm. He can make real throws. You have to have that guy in the NFC. I also like that tight end (Brandon Pettigrew) they got. I do like what they're doing (there)." Millen is now an analyst with the NFL Network, but he used to be the CEO and de facto general manager of the Lions. During his tenure from 2001-2008, the Lions were 31-84 and winless on the road over the first three years (0-24). He was fired midway through the 2008 0-16 campaign, and even if he wasn't in charge by season's end, he is responsible for the team's dismal showing even after he was discharged. Indeed, he ran the Detroit Lions into the ground. In 2000, they were 9-7 and had made the playoffs in six of the previous nine seasons. Since he took over the team, the Lions have never been close, never posting a record better than 6-9. So my question is this: how valuable is Millen's opinion? Three and out) 3. Lots to read at Tim Marchman's blog lately including (but not limited to) this amusing self Q&A about watching the All Star Game, why Bobby Valentine shouldn't be named the next manager of the Washington Nationals (I agree that the Cleveland Indians would be a better fit), and that contrary to popular opinion Citi Field is not killing the Mets offense (2008 slugging percentage was 395 and this year it's 391). 2. Rumours are flying that former Atlanta Braves and Baltimore Orioles pitching coach Leo Mazzone is being considered for the same job for the Washington Nationals. The report on this from the Washington Post's Nationals Journal blog provided this delicious nugget: "Earlier this year, he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution he regretted leaving Atlanta for Baltimore after the 2005 season, saying, "Once I got there and saw how [the Orioles] operated compared to the Braves, I knew I made a mistake the first week of spring training." You don't often hear sports professionals admit that. 1. At Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski does a nice job demolishing Tim Kawakami's San Jose Mercury News blog post in which the sports hack says that San Fransisco Giants starter Barry Zito is not as good as his statistics suggest because of the southpaw's inconsistency. Green prostitution A Berlin brothel is offering discounts (approximately 10%) for customers who arrive by bus or bike. Stuff 1. Amazing skydiving tricks. 2. WiredScience has "Top 10 Scientific Music Videos." 3. From Mental Floss: "How 16 Electronics Companies Got Their Names." 4. From Cracked.com: "Top 10 Craziest Diets Ever." 5. The New York Times has a neat interactive graphic that shows changes in same-store sales for different companies. Click on the name of the store on the left. Abercrombie and Fitch has the largest peaks and valleys, Walmart is quite consistent and weathered the current economic storm better than others -- at least so far. (HT: Econbrowser) Tuesday, July 14, 2009
The web makes us richer Tyler Cowen has a Q&A with Newsweek about his new book, Create Your Own Economy, and this is the takeaway from both the interview and the book: Human welfare is becoming less attached to wealth than it used to be. It’s quite plausible, for instance, that an upper-middle-class person can be happier than Bill Gates or some other billionaire. You wouldn’t have said the same back in the days of Carnegie and Rockefeller. Importance of property rights John Robson explains the importance of property rights in this short video: Important take away point: property rights protect other rights. Four and down 4. Addition by subtraction, the Dallas Cowboys might be better this year after QB Tony Romo dumped distracting girlfriend Jessica Simpson the day before her 29th birthday. 3. WhatIfSports looks at the Minnesota Vikings with and without Brett Favre and finds that he increases their win total by 0.06 from 11.05 to 11.11 (practically the same), winning the NFC North by nearly three games over the Chicago Bears, but scoring a point more and allowing a point more with Favre. Also, they pass a lot more and run a fair bit less. He might help in the post-season depending on who they face and whether they are adept at stopping the aerial game. All very interesting and predictive only if games are played on computers rather than the field. You don't need a computer to guess that Favre would end up throwing more than Tarvaris Jackson or Sage Rosenfels. 2. Chris Brown, "lead journalist" for BuffaloBills.com says that if new WR Terrell Owens replicates the average of his first two seasons with the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles, he will have 13.5 receptions and a load of other impressive statistics. The idea is that when playing for a new team, Owens produces. Fine in theory, but he was 30 when he joined the Eagles in 2004 and 32 when he was acquired by the Cowboys in 2006. He is now 35 (turning 36 in December). I certainly think Owens is capable of hitting double digit TDs and he no doubt makes the Bills aerial game better (if for no other reason than making it difficult to double team WR Lee Evans who has been blanketed in recent years), but thinking he can recapture the magic of four and six seasons ago to bring them to Ralph Wilson Stadium is wishful thinking. 1. Michael Blunda reports at PFW.com that the Kansas City Chiefs are having a tough time finding TE Tony Gonzalez's replacement. No poop, Sherlock. It will take time but that is part of the rebuilding process, isn't it? If a new tight end is not apparent right now, they'll have time to develop one before the Chiefs are a serious competitor. Three and out 3. SI.com has lists of the 10 most thrilling stars to watch in various sports. Tom Verducci does the baseball list. I'm not sure how someone who hasn't seen Babe Ruth or Ty Cobb play can put them on their list of most thrilling (at best what Verducci has seen are highlights from the careers of Ted Williams and Babe Ruth and I can't imagine he's seen any Ty Cobb), but that is not the worst. The highlight reels make it clear that Jackie Robinson is high (if not number one, very near). Verducci has Rickey Henderson at #5 but he should be higher. But wasn't Roger Clemens as thrilling as Nolan Ryan? Bobby Bonds and Manny Ramirez are as exciting to watch as Williams and Ruth. There is a certain nostalgia going on here as well as Verducci's predictable implicit moralizing about "juiced" players. 2. Joe Posnanski Kansas City Star article on Albert Pujols is worth reading. Pujols has been the player ordained the best player alive after Alex Rodriguez was exposed as a PED user. Pujols would be a superstar if he played in New York, Boston or southern California and his skills and work ethic are undeniable. I don't think even baseball fans realize how immensely talented and fun to watch Pujos is. 1. Mark Fiensand of the New York Daily News says: "With Eric Hinske's arrival and the strong play of both Melky Cabrera and Brett Gardner, Girardi plans on using all three in addition to Johnny Damon and Nick Swisher during the second half, setting up a crowded group in the outfield." I wouldn't call a five-deep outfield "crowded" -- I'd call it deep. I'm not sure why this is presented as a problem. Furthermore, Hinkse also plays the corner infield positions, so there is little reason to play Cody Ransom to give A-Rod a rest; such an option makes the outfield less "crowded." Stuff 1. Here are great movies listed on the New York subway system. What line would you take? I'd take 8 or 15, but 10bis would be tempting. 2. I used to read a lot of history of science in university so I found this slide show of "10 Telescopes That Changed Our View of the Universe" pretty cool. 3. This is quite a funny commercial. 4. Cracked.com has "9 Toys That Prepare Children for a Life of Menial Labor." 5. I'm not sure how Denis Savard and Wayne Gretzky are not on SI.com's list of the 10 most thrilling NHL players of all-time. A case could also be made for Cam Neely and Mike Bossy. The NBA list has the top two right (Michael Jordan and Julius Erving) although a good case could be made for Karl Malone to be in the top five and he wasn't on the list at all. The soccer list would be a difficult one to pare down. Colombian goaltender René Higuita certainly deserves mention, but I'm not quite on board with Lionel Messi and Zinédine Zidane. I'd put Garrincha at number one (not four) and include Rudd Gullit on the list. Monday, July 13, 2009
Stuff 1. The Boston Globe has list of 100 essential New England books. I don't like that no author appears more than once (more Henry James, more Nathaniel Hawthorne) and I have a big problem with the appearance of Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom and the presence of Canadian Margaret Atwood (the fact that she went to Harvard does not qualify her writing as "New England"). 2. "Top 10 Misconceptions About The Catholic Church." 3. If you want to know why poker is thrilling, read Nate Silver's account of his last hand at the World Series of Poker tournament. Silver's previous posts from Las Vegas can be found here and here. 4. Do crustaceans feel pain? Advocates for Animals says yes in a 2005 study. I have no idea how I came upon this today. 5. ScienceDaily.com: "Most Neuropsychological Tests Don't Tell Alzheimer's Disease From Vascular Dementia, Study Finds." Sunday, July 12, 2009
Good people and politics In a Gerry Nicholls post on the federal Conservatives in which Nicholls says the party shouldn't give so much ammunition to a hostile media, one commenter ("Marie") implies that Nicholls is really suggesting that the Tories need to be perfect: No wonder it is hard to recruit good people, but human imperfect people like us all - to stand for election.Good people and politics? I'm of two minds about the concept. 1) I'd rather not have good people in politics because a) their presence could lend legitimacy to the state and b) it would be better to have good people doing good things like raising families, running businesses and volunteering for charities, than doing bad things like lording over others, i.e. government. 2) That leads me to my second thought: by definition good people are not in politics. Once you decide to run for office, you are saying "I'm better than you" and "I can rule you." At that moment, you are no longer a good person in my books. Should politicians have to read a bill before voting on them? Jeff Jacoby writes in the Boston Globe: [Steny] Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, is the majority leader in the House of Representatives. At a news conference last week, he was talking about the healthcare overhaul being drafted on Capitol Hill, and a reporter asked whether he would support a pledge committing members of Congress to read the bill before voting on it, and to make the full text of the legislation available to the public online for 72 hours before the vote takes place.Should pols have to read bills before they pass them? Probably not, that's why they have underlings. But I bet they don't read the bills either. Jacoby says: It is no excuse to say that Congress would get much less done if every member took the time to read every bill. Fewer and shorter laws more carefully thought through would be a vast improvement over today’s massive bills, which are assembled in the dark and enacted in haste.In the column are links to three different initiatives to require members of Congress to read the bills they vote on. It is notable that one specifically addressing health care is sponsored by a conservative group and more general ones are backed by a liberal coaltion and a third by a libertarian outfit. Hold on to your wallets George F. Will looks at the Democrats' insatiable desire for government spending and programs and then connects the dots to find massive tax increases (VAT, middle class income taxes, etc...) in the near future. If you are in the mood for a shorter read, peak at the first half of the column which shows the folly of even considering a Stimulus Three after Stimulus One and Stimulus Two have been ineffective in preventing unemployment from climbing (with the added feature of increasing the national debt). Stuff 1. IGN has the top 100 animated shows of all-time. Some very debatable placements, even taking into account personal preferences (I'd put Superfriends in my top five favourite (it is #50) although that is probably an esoteric choice) but Pinky and the Brain at #47 is objectively an injustice because it belongs in the top ten and Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law is one of the most brilliant cartoons of all-time and warrants a top-half placement. 2. "World's fastest 'everything'." Most the five-plus minutes video is rewarding, especially the cup stacker and gun re-loader. 3. From The Stimulist: "Resolved: The Kid-Coddling Movement Will End." The up-side of the poor economy is that parents are getting tougher with their children. And apparently parents aren't spoiling their kids because they are becoming immune to the marketing of expensive fashions, gizmos, etc... -- or so the New York Times says. 4. "Cyborg crickets could chirp at the smell of survivors" of earthquakes. New Scientist reports that "The Pentagon's priority is for the [mechanical] insects to detect chemical and biological agents on the battlefield, but Epstein says they could be modified to respond to the scent of humans and thus be used to find survivors of earthquakes and other disasters." 5. Restaurants per capita by state. Some are expected (Washington DC tops the list, Utah is at bottom) but there are a few surprises such as Montana near the top and Florida in the middle. (HT: Newmark's Door) Saturday, July 11, 2009
I'm not sure why the Tories are reeling from this story The Barrie Examiner headline: "PC faithful try to regroup after sex charges surface." Read on and you'll find that the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party revoked the Barrie riding association after its president Sarfraz Warraich, 42, and another board member, Arif Mehmood, 43, were charged with gang sexual assault; Warraich was also charged with attempting to obstruct justice. After going through the whole controversy about the Tories, including reporting that there is nothing new to report, the paper reveals this little piece of information: Also charged with gang sexual assault are Ashfaq Gondal, 50, of Barrie; Muhammad Sardar, 45, of Barrie; and Zaidy Hussian, 37, of Innisfil. None are linked to the riding association, according to sources.Were Gondal, Sardar and Hussian also Tories? Is there anything else these five men have in common? Let Connie know you're out there In today's Toronto Sun, Connie Woodcock writes about the communion kerfuffle surrounding Prime Minister Stephen Harper and takes a shot at Catholic teaching and faithful Catholics: Roman Catholics are taught to believe that once consecrated, the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ and all others are excluded from receiving it. It's a peculiar rule and like so much else in that church, one that was manufactured by men not God. If there is one Roman Catholic on the planet in 2009 who actually believes such a physical impossibility in his heart of hearts, I'd be shocked.There are many such people -- those who spend hours and hours in Eucharistic adoration, for example -- and if you are reading this, please let Ms. Woodcock know you, too, believe this central tenant of the Catholic faith. Contact her by email at connie.woodcock@sunmedia.ca. Stuff 1. The New York Times has "The New Generation of Pizzerias." 2. The AFP reports that a study by TNS Infratest for the Expedia online travel agency ... asked 40,000 hotels worldwide to rank tourists from 27 countries based on nine criteria" and found that the Japanese and Canadians are the best tourists and French, Spaniards and Greeks are the worst. Not surprising, Americans were the most generous spenders and tipper but somewhat surprisingly, they were also likely to try to speak the local language. 3. A Daily Telegraph headline: "Prisoner escapes after switching identity with twin brother." When you read on, it is reported that the men were non-identical twins. 4. Scottish researchers found that wallets containing the photos of infants are more likely to be returned when found. 5. Twitter is perfect for lazy journalists because they no longer have to dig around for stories and do interviews. About half of this AFP story on Lance Armstrong not liking the fact he was tested twice in one day for PEDs is based on his tweets. 6. Mental Floss has "A 10 Fact Salute to Casey Kasem" with some interesting facts (he didn't think much of U2 in 1984 and he voiced Shaggy on Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? (although he and the franchise broke up because of his vegetarianism). Friday, July 10, 2009
The state: everywhere but the bedroom (but it makes the bedroom possible) A Vancouver letter-writer to the Ottawa Citizen responds to a column about women not having children: As a young liberal westerner (30 years old) who would love the opportunity to have babies, I can tell you exactly what I need in order to do so. I need the federal and provincial governments to forgive my spouse and I our hefty student loans so that we can finally afford to buy property. (I'd wager that those fecund women in poor countries are not faced with landlords who won't rent to families because of the noise. I bet they pay less rent, too.)Over at PWPL, Andra Mrozek nicely dismisses the notion that Rachel Garrick from Vancouver has a harder time getting by than the "fecund women in poor countries" who "play less rent" by suggesting that perhaps the state could also cover our Starbucks. Garrick's sense of entitlement and inability to fathom the challenges women and children in the developing world face is unbelievable. (Or maybe it's not.) But it might not be unique. A friend of mine who is single that used to live in Toronto said that he had troubles dating because women were married to the state. If they got pregnant and didn't want the child, the government paid for their abortion. If they got pregnant and wanted the child, the government paid for their daycare. If they were sick, the government paid for their health care. If they lost their job, the government paid for their employment insurance [sic]. If they were unemployable, the government paid for their welfare. You get the picture: women don't need a guy. It appears that Ms. Garrick has one but she still wants the government to take care of her and any future little ones and that without the government being there for her, future little ones are impossible. Explaining the bias for the small picture Robin Hanson says of going on MSNBC to talk about health care reform: While I think I have a solid grasp of the long-term basics, I feel very conscious of all the things I don’t know about who exactly has just said what about which proposals that may or may not have what features depending on who makes what deals. I suspect the fear of looking stupid on all those ephemeral details detracts most pundits from taking the time to really understand the fundamentals. Politically speaking, I think this is where I am most of the time Arnold Kling on Tyler Cowen's different strands of libertarianism says: My minor strand I call civil societarianism. Collective institutions that are separate from government -- good. Government -- bad. Activities that can be sustained through profits or philanthropic donations can be presumed beneficial, from a utilitarian-ish perspective. Activities that require taxation are sometimes beneficial in theory, but public choice issues make them much less beneficial in practice.In theory, I can understand certain coercive activities of the state, but in practice I have serious problems with them. Quotidian Technology, viewed in itself, is ambivalent. If on the one hand, some today would be inclined to entrust the entire process of development to technology, on the other hand we are witnessing an upsurge of ideologies that deny in toto the very value of development, viewing it as radically anti-human and merely a source of degradation. This leads to a rejection, not only of the distorted and unjust way in which progress is sometimes directed, but also of scientific discoveries themselves, which, if well used, could serve as an opportunity of growth for all. The idea of a world without development indicates a lack of trust in man and in God. It is therefore a serious mistake to undervalue human capacity to exercise control over the deviations of development or to overlook the fact that man is constitutionally oriented towards "being more". Idealizing technical progress, or contemplating the utopia of a return to humanity's original natural state, are two contrasting ways of detaching progress from its moral evaluation and hence from our responsibility.-- Pope Benedict XVI in his new encyclical, "Caritas in Veritate" Stuff 1. America's most congested cities. Top two: Los Angeles and Washington. Wouldn't it be great if there was even more gridlock in DC? 2. According to the World Bank Enterprise Surveys, in Ethiopia and Cameron 92% of firms pay for private security, whereas in Malawi just 1.3% of companies do. The average in every part of the world excluding OECD countries ranges from 35% in the Middle East and North Africa to 65% in East Asia and Pacific and 64% in Latin America. The OECD average? Zero. 3. HealthScout.com reports that based on studies performed on genetically altered mice, some researchers think coffee might improve memory. 4. Watching the TV news last weekend, I heard the Michael Jackson memorial service was expected to be the most watched event in TV history with a global audience as high as 1.5 billion. Not even close. The Toronto Star reported that the U.S. television audience was 31 million -- fewer than the number of people who watched the funerals of Princess Diana (33.2 million) and Ronald Reagan (35.1 million). Of course, many people would have watched online and there were hundreds of people glancing at the big screens in Toronto Life and Times squares, but not billions. 5. Cracked.com has "7 Classic Star Wars Characters Who Totally Dropped the Ball." C'mon, Darth Vader doesn't make mistakes. And if Vader did blow up the escape pod, there'd be no Star Wars movie or series. Thursday, July 09, 2009
Communion kerfuffle There is some criticism of Prime Minister Stephen Harper allegedly pocketing the Eucharist during the funeral Mass of former governor general Romeo LeBlanc. (See from the Telegraph Journal, LifeSiteNews or Charles Lewis of the National Post.) There are two possible scandals that the media is focused upon: if the PM didn't pocket the communion host given to him by Andre Richard, the Archbishop of Moncton who con-celebrated the Mass, then he consumed the Eucharist which Catholic teaching forbids a non-Catholic to do. The video does not show Harper, a Protestant, consuming the Eucharist, but neither does it show him placing the Host in his pocket. Stephen Harper or at least his protocol office should have known better and not put the prime minister in a situation where he was receiving communion from a Catholic priest. The real scandal, though, is not Harper's or the PMO's. Rather it is the Catholic Church's. My problem is not so much what Harper did or may have done once he was given the Eucharist but rather that he was given the Eucharist. While I am not happy that the Prime Minister or his staff was unaware of the rules of the Catholic Church, I am critical of the fact the bishop provided him the Host in the first place. The Code of Canon Law is clear: Pastors of souls and other members of the Christian faithful, according to their respective ecclesiastical function, have the duty to take care that those who seek the sacraments are prepared to receive them by proper evangelization and catechetical instruction, attentive to the norms issued by competent authority (Can. 843 §2).And: Catholic ministers administer the sacraments licitly to Catholic members of the Christian faithful alone, who likewise receive them licitly from Catholic ministers alone (Can. 844).Harper might not know the intricacies of Canon law but Archbishop Andre Richard should have. In other words, the scandal is the primate's not the prime minister's. And it goes beyond merely presenting the Eucharist to Harper, a non-Catholic. If you watch the video, it appears most of those at the state funeral were getting ready to go up for communion. I doubt they were all Catholic. When there is a strong likelihood of numerous non-Catholics being at Mass (such as for a funeral or a wedding), the celebrant should inform the congregation that non-Catholics are not allowed to receive communion although they may present themselves for a blessing. This much was acknowledged by Winnipeg Archbishop James Weisgerber, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops," who is quoted by LifeSiteNews: I would feel very sorry for the prime minister if he wasn't informed about what the procedure is. I would find it terrible if we put him in an embarrassing situation. My concern is at a funeral of that level everyone knows what the protocol is.I seriously doubt that a priest or bishop informed non-Catholics at LeBlanc's funeral that they should not present themselves for communion. If the PM knew he shouldn't have presented himself for the Eucharist, there is no excuse for receiving communion. But his culpability cannot be as great as the man in the collar who had to know he was violating Canon law and his priestly duties. For Catholics, the Eucharist is vitally important. As the Catholic Encyclopedia notes: [T]hat in the Eucharist the Body and Blood of the God-man are truly, really, and substantially present for the nourishment of our souls, by reason of the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, and that in this change of substances the unbloody Sacrifice of the New Testament is also contained.If you do not believe that, you have no right to receive communion. (Technically, it is not just non-Catholics that should not receive communion, but Catholics who doubt the doctrine or who are in a state of mortal sin because one's soul should not be so stained when receiving Christ.) For Catholics, there is little of more importance that the Eucharist because Jesus Christ is "truly, really and substantially present" in the communion Host. This is what the Catholic Encyclopedia calls "the central doctrine" of the Roman Catholic faith and it is why I consider the clergy's lackadaisical approach when distributing the Eucharist to be an extremely serious scandal. Wednesday, July 08, 2009
What I'm reading 1. Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World by Tyler Cowen. 2. The new papal encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth) from Benedict XVI. 3. "Locking Up Political Speech: How Electioneering Communications Laws Stifle Free Speech and Civic Engagement," an Institute for Justice report by Michael C. Munger. 4. "The Phoney War on Drugs," a Center for Policy Studies report by Kathy Gyngell. Stuff 1. Male "adult film actor" Ron Jeremy was interviewed by The Independent and he said, "Cherry [my pet tortoise] is very much like my daughter; I'm very close with her. I've had her eight years. She's not the brightest, but she knows me and we cuddle." Am the only one who finds this a strange comment? 2. "Robo-bats With Metal Muscles May Be Next Generation Of Remote Control Flyers," from ScienceDaily.com. 3. How Stuff Works has "Top 5 Green Myths," including "Planting Trees Will Fix Global Warming." 4. Tyler Cowen lists the "main threads in modern libertarian thought" from Cato-influenced to Rothbardian anarchism to Hayekianism. 5. Gary Gulman on Craig Ferguson makes a hilarious point about "The Greeks" who haven't done much in the past 2000 years. "All their work was done by 300 BC ... all the big names in Greek history were done by 300 BC like Aristotle, Plato, Socrates and Alexander the Great all by 300 BC. Since 300 BC, John Stamos and Yanni." Tuesday, July 07, 2009
PWPL colloquium on The Pill All the ladies at ProWomanProLife weigh in on the oral contraceptive pill -- aka The Pill. It is worth reading -- all six regular contributors give their view on The Pill in (roughly) 300 words each. It generally avoids moralizing and focuses on two main issues, namely that The Pill is bad for women in both physical and (to use Brigitte Pellerin's word) "metaphysical" senses; there are also questions raised about the wisdom of separating sex and children that are part of that metaphysical sense but also raise important sociological questions. I liked the colloquium and look forward to more from PWPL. I will however take exception to Pellerin's argument that The Pill "beats using abortion as a form of birth control ... Preventing the creation of an embryo beats sucking its brains out and dismembering it," and Rebecca Walberg's claim that preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg isn't the "equivalent of abortion." Pellerin and Walberg are making philosophical arguments here, not scientific or medical ones. Pharmacists for Life explains that using the proper definition of the beginning of life (conception, not implantation) means that sometimes the oral contraceptive pill is abortifacient because it makes the womb inhospitable for a newly created embryo which therefore dies rather than receives the nourishment from its mother that is required to grow and live. These are indisputable scientific facts. We can disagree about whether the embryo has less right to life than a fetus, but the science seems pretty clear. But overall, the colloquium rightfully notes that women get a raw deal from The Pill and I hope that somehow this gets into the hands of a few Pill-minded women. As more than one of the women say, it is shameful that contracepting women do not get all the information they need to make a fully informed decision about their choice of contraception. One last comment on The Pill and it comes from comedian Gary Gulman who said in his routine on Last Comic Standing a few years back and again during his Tourgasm comedy sketch, of all the pills in the world, the one known as The Pill is the one that prevents pregnancy: It tells you where our priorities are as a country that that's The Pill. There are a million pills, but that's The Pill. There is a pill that keeps you from getting polio -- that's not the pill. Take this and it will save your life, take this you won't have to buy condoms, that's The Pill.The part on The Pill starts at 3:15. Three and out (All Stars edition) 3. Two days ago I said, "there are few egregious inclusions or omissions in the National League. Every starter for the NL leads his position at VORP except 3B David Wright who is two-tenths of a point behind Pablo Sandoval." I was wrong. St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina was selected to start despite being a distant fifth in VORP among NL catcher with 8.8. Atlanta backstop Brian McCann is tops in the league at his position by a wide margin: 19.9 compared to Cincinnati Reds catcher Ryan Hanigan's 10.8. In fact, Braves backup catcher David Ross has a better VORP (8.9) than Molina. Not that I'm really complaining; Molina is by far the best defensive catcher in the majors. 2. Last week, at SI.com Tim Marchman explains how he filled out his All Star ballot: to vote "simply for the player I'd most like to watch at each position for whatever reason." Most are still great players -- David Wright is a pure joy to watch, but he is also one of the best hitters period; Evan Longoria was seen wearing a cool brown leather coat, but he is making a claim to being a better 3B than Alex Rodriguez; Prince Fielder is a vegetarian, but also a great power threat; Carlos Pena is a reminder that the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Oakland's Billy Beane all make mistakes (they all released Pena between 2004 and 2006), but he is also the AL homerun leader. There are only a few indefensible picks such as Kansas City Mark Teahan over Ian Kinsler or any other number of other second basemen or Atlanta Braves outfielder Jeff Francoeur, a nearly useless at-bat (247/280/342) with a -8.1 VORP, good for 19th among NL right-fielders. 1. Joe Sheehan makes an interesting point in his July 6 Baseball Prospectus column (subscription required), saying that Alex Rodriguez should have been the starting 3B over Evan Longoria because A-Rod is the bigger star. There is some merit to this argument, but should Ken Griffey Jr. go to St. Louis, too, because of his career stats and former status as a superstar? I'm not being contentious, I just want to know where the line is to be drawn between stardom and actual production. I generally agree with Sheehan's point but wouldn't be adamant about it. Longoria is a great player and rewarding him for following up his Rookie of the Year season with an MVP-type season is completely forgivable, even understandable. I don't get picking Texas Rangers Michael Young and his Ballpark at Arlington-inflated stats over Rodriguez. Nor am I pleased with Manny Ramirez, one of the best hitters of all time who was putting up superstar numbers again before his 50-game suspension, being left off the NL All Stars. What I disagree with is Sheehan's insistence on considering a player's production before this season's Opening Day. At the same time, there is a lot of sense to Sheehan's suggestion in his BP column today that the All Star game should feature the biggest stars and therefore the starters should play the majority of the game rather than appear for an at-bat, play defense for a couple innings and rotate the reserves into the game. If you buy that argument, one must recognize that the biggest stars are not necessarily the players with the best numbers in the current season. Stuff 1. Wired.com has "5 Great Interactive Museums to Visit this Summer." 2. This Boston Globe review of James Gavin's Stormy Weather, a biography of Lena Horne, doesn't tell us much about the book or Horne. If I went by the review alone, there would be no way I'd pick up Gavin's book, although I probably will after I plough threw about a dozen books I have lined up for the summer. 3. Over at FoxSports.com, Jason Witlock writes a horrendous piece of trash about Wimbledon Women's champion Serena Williams in which he says that if she weighed less and took care of herself, could be as big as Tiger Woods and Michael Jackson combined. A sample of Witlock's, er, journalism: "BBWs — Big Booty Women — do not write me angry e-mails. I'm only knocking Serena's back pack because it's preventing her from reaching her full potential as an athletic icon. I am not fundamentally opposed to junk in the trunk, although my preference is a stuffed onion over an oozing pumpkin." While that was the worst paragraph, it is not atypical of the writing in this trashy sports column. What a pig. Do you know how bad you have to be to have me call you a pig? 4. Writing in Standpoint magazine, John Bolton provides an overview analysis of Barack Obama's foreign policy. Hint: he doesn't like it. 5. Cracked.com has "6 Real Islands Way More Terrifying Than The One On 'Lost'." However, if you go to the story about the Brazilian island Ilha de Queimada Grande at the Environmental News Network, they get at least one fact wrong. The fer-de-lance viper is not the most venomous snake in the world; that title goes to Belcher's Sea Snake and about a half dozen other land snakes are more venomous than the fer-de-lance. Still, an island where there are between one to five snakes per square meter is one helluva scary island. Monday, July 06, 2009
What I think about Sarah Palin Apparently I am supposed to have a view about Sarah Palin resigning as governor of Alaska, if the four or five emails asking me what I think about her announcement is any indication. It is too early to speculate what this means in terms of 2012 (or 2016 as Victor Davis Hanson suggests), but I can't see stepping down as governor helps her in the long-term because it will give rise to a damaging narrative that she is a quitter. I think she might go and write a book, make speeches, and possibly host a TV or radio show and all that might help raise her profile or whatever, but just as importantly she will be able to cash in on her popularity/notoriety. For that reason I think her leaving Juneau is not necessarily about politics. That is not a condemnation; in fact, I admire her for that. As for 2012, I think that her chances of becoming the nominee fell from 5% to 0.5% because she will look like an opportunist or a quitter and she won't have a significant political accomplishment she can point to. Yet, theoretically, there is time for her to build a more impressive resume -- as Fred Barnes suggests is necessary -- beyond not aborting her Down Syndrome child. On the other hand, seldom do politicians get a second chance to make a first impression and I doubt she can overcome her toxic reputation in the lower 48. All that said, the snark from the Left and their dupes on the Right -- I'm looking at the Frumkins -- is nauseating and I don't entirely disagree with their criticisms of the soon-to-be former Alaska governor even if I find most of their prejudices against her revolting. My own views are best summed up by the Wall Street Journal editorial that notes that she doesn't have the substance to go with her own natural political talents. In short I'm conflicted. She has the Reaganesque constellation of views that the nostalgic Right (including myself) hungers for, yet I'm not sure they are what a conservative party needs right now. I like her combativeness and (for the most part) her attitude, but understand them to be political liabilities and a poor substitute for actual ideas. I like her regular folk persona, but I don't think the vice presidency or presidency are entry level jobs -- sorry but 30 months as Governor of Alaska and some time as a small town mayor don't count. I think that she has been mistreated, but that she also deserves some criticism for accepting a role (the vice presidential nomination in 2008) for which she was clearly unready and unsuited. I think her (mostly) wonderful life story including giving birth to Trig, a special needs child, while disliking the use of family members as political props and her becoming all bitchy when a lame comedian dared to poke fun at the children she threw onto the national stage. I think that Palin has some wonderful personal qualities, but that alone does not qualify one for high office in the United States. She might have a future in American politics that does not include the White House, by running for the Senate or joining the punditocracy; the former might help her in a later bid for the presidency, the latter sure to hurt her. Or she might find a niche as a heroic voice for families with special needs children. I don't know what the future holds for Palin but I'm sort of glad that her bungled news conference last Friday only reinforces the notion that she is not ready for prime time politics and will probably make a successful run for the GOP nomination in 2012 a little less likely. She has been through a lot and the cost of care for Trig over the course of his lifetime will not be covered by any job in elected office. I hope she goes and makes a lot of money -- and that it is fun enough and lucrative enough that it keeps her out of electoral politics for a long time. Despite David Frum's snark, that is a honourable course to take. Three and out 3. Chris Jaffe says that the "meaningless" July 4, 1985 game between the New York Mets and Atlanta Braves was the best baseball game ever. Sounds like a great game, but how does one determine the "best baseball game" of all-time? 2. Sky Andrecheck at Baseball Analysts looks at improving a MLB team through the draft and it is hardly surprising that Billy Beane (Oakland A's) and Walt Jocketty (mostly the St. Louis Cardinals) are at the top and Brian Cashman (New York Yankees) and Brian Sabean (San Francisco Giants) are at the bottom. (Perhaps teams shouldn't hire general managers named Brian.) The New York Yankees had some great drafts in the early 1990s, but their history is decidedly mixed, finishing in the middle overall (including the pre-Cashman era) judging by pre-2001 picks despite stellar draftees such as Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams and Jorge Posada. Not surprisingly, the always competitive Boston Red Sox are at the top, yet the persistently disappointing Kansas City Royals are third overall in drafting (at least according to Andrecheck's criteria, which might indicate it is the wrong criteria). Anyway, this is the third in a series that started with an article on draft picks and expected wins above replacement and continued with an effort to determine the "probabilities of becoming a certain caliber player." The first two articles are more detailed and stat-heavy, but it is unnecessary to read them to understand what Andrecheck is talking about in rating the organizations and GMs in his latest piece. 1. I don't often pay attention to the minors, but congratulations to Jamie McOwen of the High Desert Mavericks, the class A affiliate of the Seattle Mariners, who entered the California League record book by hitting in 42 consecutive games -- the 12th best minor league hitting streak ever. This doesn't necessarily translate into a successful major league career for McOwen -- only one of the 11 ahead of him, Joe DiMaggio, is a name that would be instantly recognizable to most baseball fans -- but it is nevertheless nice for him on a personal level and he'll always have this distinction (until its broken) even if his professional career, like most players in the minors, doesn't amount to much. Stuff 1. The ruins of a Nazi POW camp in Bowmanville, about an hour east of Toronto, are going to be razed. Here are some wonderful photos of the derelict buildings. 2. Michael Woolf has a 3,400-word article on Politico in the August Vanity Fair. The article is for the most part interesting, but Woolf's description of Politico might also be applied to the article he wrote to the extent that it can be applied to a dead tree platform: "It is constant, unrelenting, second by second. It exalts, and fetishizes, in breathless, even orgiastic news flashes, the most boring subject in the world: the granular workings of government bureaucracy." 3. Writing in the Toronto Sun, Gurmukh Singh warns about ethnic ghettoization in the Greater Toronto Area. As Kathy Shaidle noted, "Thank God a non-white guy wrote this, otherwise he'd be condemned as a 'racist'." 4. Chris Anderson's "Tech Is Too Cheap to Meter: It's Time to Manage for Abundance, Not Scarcity" (an excerpt of Free: The Future of a Radical Price) is worth reading and pondering -- regardless of which side of the producer-consumer relationship you are on. (Increasingly, individuals are on both.) 5. Slate has "What stuntmen think are the best stunt films of all time." It's a really neat concept for a list and I'm glad Stagecoach made it, especially with what some consider the most dangerous stunt of all time. Sunday, July 05, 2009
For conspiracy nuts Cracked.com has a pretty humorous "5 pathetic groups that people think rule the world" and there is this 'graph about the Bilderberg/Trilateral Commission's One World Government agenda: Of course these guys have had decades to establish their plan, but instead they apparently opted for plan B, One-World Clusterfuck. Europe hates America; the Middle East is more fucked than a German whore on coupon day; all China cares about is exporting delicious lead paint; and North Korea is still run by that crazy fucker with the big granny glasses. It's almost as if the result of their "one-world government" conspiracy looks exactly like the random chaos of geopolitical events we've seen for the last few thousand years. Four and down 4. If you read this Minneapolis Star Tribune article from Kiln, Mississippi, it doesn't sound like Brett Favre is coming out of a retirement (again). I figure we won't be clear on this matter until the last week of July. That's terribly unfair to the Minnesota Vikings and their QBs (Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels), both of whom would have a chance to win the starter job in the absence of Favre. But Favre is in complete control and it will be played out on his schedule. 3. Cold Hard Football Facts has a very interesting article on the extenuating factors and favourable circumstances that led to a number of NFL individual and team records. Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are great quarterbacks but they are the beneficiaries of rule changes that helps passers and receivers and hurt defenders. The 2000 Baltimore Ravens were a great defensive team but their 10.31 ppg allowed was assisted by the fact they played a quarter of their games against two of the worst all-time offenses (the 2000 Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns). The perfect 17-0 1972 Miami Dolphins' "schedule was so easy we wish we dated it in high school." And while CHFF touches on O.J. Simpson's record-breaking running, they have a follow-up article noting that he racked up much better stats after hash mark rule changes in 1972. 2. Sporting News Today says don't count the Jacksonville Jaguars out of the wild card race. I'm not a huge fan of either the football or baseball analysis coming out of The Sporting News/Sporting New Today (the news is good, the analysis is more miss than hit) but this is a special kind of stupid. Jax had huge problems last year and don't look much better for '09. They are heavily invested in Jake Delhomme, a vastly over-rated QB, under center. At best, Delhomme has his great moments, but he has his awful ones, too. Overall, he is an average QB. The running game is not what it used to be although Maurice Jones-Drew is solid. There are no receivers worth mentioning, the offensive line allowed 42 sacks last year, no aspect of the defensive game is better than average and the secondary is probably worse than that, the special teams are well below average if you don't include kicker Josh Scobee (who had a significant drop in accuracy last season) and the coaching is questionable because the players seem to have lost confidence in Jack Del Rio. Throw in a difficult schedule that includes six games against division rivals Indianapolis Colts, Tennessee Titans and Houston Texans, two against AFC East standouts New England Patriots and Miami Dolphins, games on the west coast (against the NFC West) and a home game against NFC champion Arizona Cardinals and it is hard to see Jax in the wild card race. If you get to the final paragraph in the SNT story, you'll see they admit it is unlikely that the Jags will compete for a playoff spot but that it can't "be ruled out" either if a string of six unlikely things happen (Delhomme has a great season, the secondary jells, the defensive line gets a lot better, etc...). In the unlikely that half those "ifs" happen, the Jaguars might approach 500. 1. ProFootballWeekly.com says that the four-game suspension to New York Jets OLB Calvin Pace is unlikely to hurt the Gang Green very much, and they are right. Pace is hardly a pivotal part of their defense. But I disagree that "Pace’s suspension also presents a golden opportunity for 2008 first-round pick Vernon Gholston to atone for a disastrous rookie campaign." Gholston was pretty awful in `09 and while Pace`s absence is a chance for the sophomore to redeem himself, there is little reason to believe Gholston will. Three and out 3. Joe Posnanski makes a pretty good case for Mariano Rivera being the best or one of the best pitcher of all-time. And here`s the amazing thing: he has those 500 plus saves, all-time best ERA+, third best all-time WHIP, with one pitch -- the cutter. Every batter he faces knows what to look for when he pitches and they still can`t hit him. Anyway read Posnanski's lengthy article which explains why Rivera is a unique talent -- and baseball personality. 2. The All Star selections have been announced and there are few egregious inclusions or omissions in the National League. Every starter for the NL leads his position at VORP except 3B David Wright who is two-tenths of a point behind Pablo Sandoval. Essentially fans are batting 1000 in the NL (a 0.2 difference is forgivable, even ignorable because Wright might have been ahead of Sandoval during most of the voting period). Most of the reserves and final-spot vote competitors are at or near the top of their position by VORP and among the very best position players in the NL (with the exception of Orlando Hudson of the LA Dodgers, who is third among 2B but who is ranked only 32nd among position players. The fans and manager did a good job. 1. In the American League, fans and managers didn't do as well. Minnesota Twins 1B Justin Morneau is clearly the best at his position by VORP but voters had a difficult decision among him and Kevin Youkilis of the BoSox, Mark Teixeira of the New York Yankees and Russell Branyan of the Seattle Mariners. I'm glad Teixeira won (for obvious, tribal reasons) because I think he is the best overall first basemen when you take into account his slow start and his defense. (Morneau and Youkilis are reserves). Tampa Bay Rays SS Jason Bartlett (362/402/567 and the second-best VORP in the AL at 38.7) has missed some time but that doesn't explain why Derek Jeter won the starting job (308/384/445 and more than a full ten points behind in VORP). I'm not disappointed, but it does seem unjust. Worse, Dustin Pedroia's 12.2 VORP was seventh in the AL among 2B. Aaron Hill of the Toronto Blue Jays is also going and Ian Kinsler might if he wins the AL final spot among internet voters. But what about the other five second basemen who were slighted? Texas Rangers CF Josh Hamilton was voted to start despite not even appearing in the top 100 in VORP in the AL. That is no doubt a result of his fantastic (if over-rated) 2008 and his 2008 All Star Home Run Derby heroics. But he simply doesn't deserve the honour this year (240/290/456 in limited play). Cleveland Indians' Shin-soo Choo, ninth in VORP, didn't make the team at all. There's more, but you get the point. Stuff 1. Writing about politicians, unions and whether reality is optional, Canada's best columnist demonstrates why he is Canada's best columnist. 2. Slate looks at charcoal vs. gas (bbq) in terms of environmental friendliness although by Brendan Koener`s own facts it doesn`t matter: ``Barbecue emissions account for 0.0003 percent of our nation's annual carbon footprint.`` 3. How powerful are airplane toilets? 4. Interesting fact from a New York Times article on Russia just before Barack Obama's first visit there as president: the last time he went (in 2005 as a senator) he was detained by authorities in Siberia for several hours and had his passport confiscated. It was all a "misunderstanding." Or as the Times calls it, the "airport incident was a classic bureaucratic brouhaha." 5. Found this link at Rondi Adamson's blog: Tom and Lorenzo from Project Runway on Michelle Obama. It is wonderfully irreverent and worth checking out. Here they are on Shelley O's Essence cover feature: "[S]ame mistakes she always makes: too matchy-match with an out-of-proportion accessory." And Adamson's comment on Michelle Obama is right on: "I think trying to portray her as some sort of new millennium Jackie Kennedy is foolish." Saturday, July 04, 2009
70 years ago today Lou Gehrig gave his ``luckiest man speech.`` (That means 11 years ago, I went to my first baseball game at New York Stadium, a game in which Gehrig`s widow threw out the first pitch.) Below is the speech (fuller audio but not the video is here) and here is the AP story on how MLB is recognizing the day today by raising awareness for ALS. Three and out 3. Ed Price at FanHouse.com says that the Toronto Blue Jays would be doing better if Vernon Wells were playing up to his $18 million a year contract. True, but the middling numbers that Wells puts up are predictable. He is a slightly better than average center fielder and that`s all (when you equalize for ballpark effects and quality of opponents). He isn`t going to perform like an All Star every year just because he had a couple of fluky very good seasons. So instead of imagining what the Jays would be doing with Wells performing better, imagine what the Jays would be doing if they had that $20 million to spend elsewhere. Yet even if Wells was playing to his career averages, it would probably be worth a win or two more to the team over the course of the season. 2. Four of the top five run differentials in the majors (going into Saturday's games) belong to American League East teams. There is the L.A. Dodgers followed by the Tampa Bay Rays, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays. One helluva thrilling division. 1. At Hardball Times, Dan Turkenkopf looks at the old saw that strength up the middle (2B, SS, C, CF) is the key to winning baseball and championships. It's true up to a point but Turkenkopf suggests that perhaps a better explanation is that a "balanced team is more important than anything else." That seems reasonable. That said, there is still a fair amount of evidence that championship teams (as opposed to merely winning teams) have disproportionate strength up the middle. Stuff 1. What tattoo locations say about you. 2. National Review Online has 50 things wrong with Waxman-Markey climate change bill. 3. Cool video of a cat catching a bat in the air. 4. Longish but fascinating article about the fireworks show in New York in the Wall Street Journal. 5. ReasonTV's interview with P.J. O'Rourke is just short of 16 minutes and worth watching in its entirety. ("There wouldn't be an America without the automobile.") Friday, July 03, 2009
Three and out 1. Glen Hanlon writes at Slate about why he doesn't like the out-dated camera angles used to show batters and pitchers. There is some good video to show how the off-set camera both distorts locations and "fouls up baseball watchers' sense of movement" compared to the dead center camera angle. He has a point, but also misses the larger point: the future of baseball is online where viewers will decide which angle or angles to watch games. That said, the article has an interesting brief history of camera angles in broadcasting. 2. Last month, San Diego Padres 1B Adrian Gonzalez was walked at least twice in eight consecutive games -- the first player to do that since at least 1920 and he is probably the only player to ever do that in the majors. Hardball Times looks at other multi-walk streaks. Only four players have had seven multi-walk games in a row: Barry Bonds, David Justice, Jack Clark and Mickey Mantle. Mantle is the only player to have more than one five-plus consecutive multi-walk games. 1. SI.com has a neat slide show of steals of home since 2000. Really like the Mike Sweeney, Gary Matthews Jr., Scarborough Green and Roger Cedeno steals. Was there even a throw to home to try to get Orlando Cabrera out? Stuff 1. I have my doubts if these are all real, but if they are, these are incredible basketball trick shots. 2. Using robotic tractors to tow aircraft on runways could save airlines $7 billion a year in fuel costs and cut 18 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. Even if the numbers are exaggerated by twice the real number, that would be significant cost savings. 3. From Forbes.com: Five lies about ObamaCare. Relatedly, did you know that on the health care file, Obama's foe is a Canadian? 4. CTV has "Laureen Harper's summer song list 2009." It appears to be the kind of list that politicians (and their spouses) release to show they aren't square. Bull or no bull, I'm glad to see Kid Rock tops the list. 5. Sports Illustrated has the 50 highest paid American athletes (including salaries, winnings, endorsements, etc...) and the 20 highest paid non-American athletes. Of the U.S. athletes, the top two are golfers and four of the next five are basketball players. Of the non-Americans, a few play professional sports in North America, but most are in European football and auto racing. Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Three and out 3. Baseball infographics. What is the monetary value of all the stolen bases in MLB last year and lots of other interesting stuff can be found there. 2. Patrick Sullivan at Baseball Analysts looks at the best players by position over the past year (July 1, 2008 through July 1, 2009) because two half seasons of stats is as indicative of anything as a single full season. Not many surprises other than how superior David Wright is at the plate even with his dearth of HRs this season. Expect Tampa Rays 2B Ben Zobrist to be on the list next year (he didn't have enough at-bats to qualify this year). Also, for all the talk of the decline of Derek Jeter, he is clearly the second best hitting SS in the game today. 1. This Wall Street Journal story is a few weeks old but contains a stunning statistic: just 26 current major leaguer players and managers have a university degree (out of more than 1000 eligible players and managers). According to a broader definition of best educated (level of education and what schools players attended), the Oakland A's, Tampa Bay Rays, Arizona Diamondbacks, Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays are in the top five, while the Atlanta Braves, Texas Rangers, Cincinnati Reds and Florida Marlins are in the bottom four. The full list is here. There does not seem to be much correlation between team success and how educated its players are. Our patriotic duty to wait for permission to cross the road A bunch of patriotic Canadians living in America write about Canada Day and it is, as one would guess, overly lame. Comedian Rick Moranis has this to say about his fellow Canucks: Canada Day comes and goes modestly every year. Sure, there are retail sales promotions and a long weekend. But there isn’t bluster or commodity in Canadian celebration. Canada isn’t big on bunting. Or jet flyovers, fireworks, marching bands or military pomp.Peace, order and good government at the traffic light. About a year ago I got into an argument with someone at an intersection for crossing on a red. The other person said I was a bad example to his young child. I told him that I thought he was a bad example by sheepishly obeying a government sign to not walk even though one's own eyes made it perfectly clear it was safe to cross. I guess the obedient (subservient?) pedestrian is a better Canadian than I am. Stuff 1. Yahoo! has the 10 "most annoying characters on tv ever" and it's not bad but I would have the whole cast of Full House (not just Kimmy Gibbler), all the male characters from Friends and Jessie Spano rather than Screech from Saved by the Bell. I'm glad that Carrie Bradshaw from Sex in the City is on the list (#8) and can't imagine how anyone could disagree that Fran Fine (The Nanny) deserves the top spot. 2. Best way to order fast food. 3. Mark Steyn wonders: "Is politics some kind of affirmative action program for sociopaths?" 4. This is from Science Daily a year ago: Researchers observer that "drivers cannot perceive the urgency of braking of the lead car and that this frequently leads to crashes," but have developed an algorithm that could reduce rear-end accidents. The video is more informative than the article. I have my doubts about the "cost of treating neck and back injuries from rear-end collisions has spiked to $8.5 million a year" which seems low to me. 5. Happy birthday to Listverse -- it turns two today. It celebrates by posting its top 10 most popular lists. They are all very good and worth wasting some time with. |
