Sobering Thoughts |
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Comments on politics, the culture, economics, and sports by Paul Tuns.
I am editor-in-chief of "The Interim," Canada's life and family newspaper, and author of "Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal" (2004) and "The Dauphin: The Truth about Justin Trudeau" (2015).
I am some combination of conservative/libertarian, standing athwart history yelling "bullshit!"
You can follow me on Twitter (@ptuns).
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Monday, November 30, 2009
Four and down (Weekend recap edition) 4. Watching the Buffalo Bills game live was quite the treat. The atmosphere was electric, the most energetic is has been since October 2008 when the Bills were two games above 500 (just before their predictable crash). Whether it was a new coach, talk about hiring an elite coach in the off-season, Terrell Owens' 197-yard performance last week or the fact they were facing their most hated rivals, the Miami Dolphins, the game felt different before we even hit the parking lot and the throng of tailgaters. It was fun to be part of because football is entertainment and when 70,000 people get together to watch a game their first priority should be having a good time. Winning helps and for the first time since the home opener, it felt like the Buffalo Bills were about to embark on winning football -- if not yesterday, then sometime in the foreseeable future. And the Bills did win and, more importantly, against their dreaded rivals. The Bills were ahead of the Fins 24-14 (on a 51-yard pass play to Terrell Owens) after the two-minute TV timeout at the end of the game. An interception cinched it and the Bills eschewed taking a knee and went for another touchdown, which they got when Fred Jackson ran seven yards into the end zone. It was a mildly risky move. They could have fumbled the ball, Chad Henne could have led a long drive for the Fins and Miami could have kicked an on-side kick to lead to another scoring drive. All that would be incredibly unlikely in the remaining moments of the game, but it was possible. The post-game hosts on 550 AM hated the additional score, which they said was irresponsibly risky and, perhaps worse in their mind, "bad form" because it was bush league running up of the score. I don't think there is any such thing as "running up the score," but there are several defensible reasons for doing it: get fans excited, encourage fans to make to the trip to Toronto to see the Bills play the New York Jets Thursday night, signal to players and fans that the team won't be the same under new coach Perry Fewell, and to overcome the conservative loser's mentality that has afflicted the Bills for too long. Run up that score and give the fans and players something to get excited about. 3. The Pittsburgh Steelers lost in overtime to the Baltimore Ravens, 20-17. There will be some second-guessing of the decision not to play QB Ben Roethlisberger -- WR Hines Ward has criticized the quarterback sitting out the game -- but it was the right decision. The Ravens are a brutal and barbaric team that hits harder than any other defense; the Steelers have a questionable O-line. Why risk Rothlisberger over the longer term? It just doesn't make sense. Dennis Dixon made some mistakes and miscues, including an interception in overtime that was returned for 26 yards to set up the winning field goal, but overall he did well considering the circumstances. He was under pressure -- both in the grand scheme of things in being forced onto the stage in something close to a must-win for the Steelers, but also on the field facing a Baltimore defense that likes to blitz -- and he composed himself very well; few pundits gave the Steelers much chance to win on the road against the Ravens without Big Ben. The game went to OT. It is still a loss and it might keep the Steelers from defending their championship, but it was a good, exciting game that was closer than anyone would have predicted. Dixon did well. 2. Some QB quick hits: as fans have come to expect, Peyton Manning leads his Indianapolis Colts to a come-from-behind 35-27 victory over the Houston Texans with 28 unanswered second half points before the Texans score a junk time touchdown; the Atlanta Falcons rode backup quarterback Chris Redmen (23/41 for 243 yards and 2 TDs) for to a come-from-behind 20-17 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ... Carolina Panthers QB Jake Delhomme had four picks on Sunday against the New York Jets, raising his season total to 18, and 23 over his last 12 games if you include January's playoff embarrassment; Mark Sanchez threw one pick himself (and no TD passes) in the 17-6 win. 1. No matter how great Tennessee Titans quarterback Vince Young appears to be during Tenny's five-game winning streak and mistaken it now seems in hindsight to have benched him for an extended period beginning early in the 2008 season, it must be remembered he did take himself out of game and he had serious personal problems to the point of threatening suicide. All that is worth keeping in mind as pundits second guess Titans coach Jeff Fisher. Now put all that aside and behold the last second pass to Kenny Britt shown below which a joy to watch no matter who you cheer for and what you think of Young as a player or person. Even more amazing, that was the culmination of an 18-play, 99-yard drive with three fourth-down conversions (4-4, 4-4 and the 4-10 that scored), and six first downs. Give your kids the gift of gay sex for Christmas WorldNetDaily reports: A popular role-playing combat video game featuring graphic homosexual sex between a man and an elf has hit store shelves just in time for Christmas.Remember when the concern about video games was violence. Now parents have to worry about debauchery, too. Shaidle on the essence of political debate and our personal views Kathy Shaidle: "[People] make judgements based on the evidence of their senses, then rush off to the next thing.." Read the whole thing. Really, read it. Sunday, November 29, 2009
The climate change version of the dog ate my homework The Sunday Times reports: Scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.Of course, this comes on the heals of UEA's climaquiddick. Where are the superprojects? NYT asks The New York Times laments the lack of superprojects in the pipeline (of course they do): Generation after generation, giant public works projects have altered the American landscape. The Erie Canal and the transcontinental railroad come to mind. So do massive urban sewer and sanitation systems, the Tennessee Valley Authority, rural electrification, the Hoover Dam, the Interstate System, the subway networks in San Francisco and Washington, the Big Dig in Boston ... and the list abruptly stops.There's always highspeed trains (some $8 billion set aside in the stimulus spending binge last winter) or infrastructure for a huge public health care system If there is anything in the Obama administration’s approach that can be compared to the megaprojects, it would be the giant computer system, now being planned, to make health records available in hospitals and doctors’ offices across the country. Some economists argue that computerized records would raise economic output just as the Hoover Dam did 73 years ago. Still, only $19 billion has been set aside; the project is expected to cost nearly $100 billion, and who knows if the funding will materialize. Saturday, November 28, 2009
Four and down (best four of what remains of week 12) 4. Miami Dolphins (5-5) at Buffalo Bills (3-7): This is a pretty heated rivalry and the hometown crowd missed the chance to boo the Fins at Ralph Wilson Stadium because the Bills played their "home" game against Miami at the Rogers Center in Toronto last November. Another TO, WR Terrell Owens, is coming off his best game of the year (197 yards on nine catches, including a team-record 98-yarder for a touchdown) in a losing effort in Jacksonville and its the first home game for the Bills since owner Ralph Wilson canned coach Dick Jauron. Looking forward to watching this at Orchard Park tomorrow afternoon to see the fan reaction to both new coach Perry Fewell and Terrell Owens, and to see Miami's wild cat live, even if it features Ricky Williams rather than Ronnie Brown. Added bonus: Fins QB Chad Henne, a product of the University of Michigan, can throw and he has experience throwing in chilly November Great Lake weather. Miami wins by double digits. 3. Indianapolis Colts (10-0) at Houston Texans (5-5): The Texans lost against Indy two games ago, 20-17. Over their past four games, the Colts have outscored their opponents -- which have included the Texans, Baltimore Ravens and New England Patriots -- by just 10 points and yet still sport a perfect record. The Texans sometimes flash a potent offense and they might score against an Indy team that ranks in the middle (15th) in defense. The Colts, though, have Peyton Manning and all he does is move the ball down the field and scores. According to Cold Hard Football Facts we should "Expect Peyton Manning to stand in the pocket clean and pristine all day" because Houston is second last in forcing negative plays (mostly sacks) and Indy commits the fewest negative pass plays. With that kind of time in the pocket, Manning will shred the Houston D. Colts win a high-scoring, possibly back-and-forth game. 2. New England Patriots (7-3) at New Orleans Saints (10-0): The Saints hope to continue their perfect season and one of only two teams to do that (the '07 Pats) are hoping to stop them. I'm looking forward the Saints #1 ranked pass defense, led by DB Darren Sharper, facing QB Tom Brady and WRs Wes Welker and Randy Moss. This MNF matchup is the toughest challenge Drew Brees and the Saints have faced thus far and probably their biggest road-block to a perfect season. (I'm not saying that if the Saints win, they're going 16-0, just that this will be their hardest-fought victory if they do run the table.) I think the Pats are under-appreciated this year, but the Saints have no weaknesses. Playing in the SuperDome, New England will need to luck to win. 'Cuz you can't analytically predict luck, I'm going with the Saints by seven. 1. Pittsburgh Steelers (6-4) at Baltimore Ravens (5-5): Both were expected to be powerhouses, but Pittsburgh has been hurt by injuries, especially defensive back Troy Polamalu, while Baltimore has clearly missed defensive co-ordinator Rex Ryan who fled to New York with some key defensive parts. These teams hate each other and their three games last year might have been the three most physical games of the '08 season; their playoff encounter is the most physical game I've ever seen. Ben Roethlisberger is out, coming off a game which he left with a concussion and of course they are still missing Polamalu. To make matters worse, the Steelers lost their backup quarterback Charlie Batch and are using clipboard carrier Dennis Dixon. If he gets hurt, Pittsburgh will use Tyler Palko, who was signed on Thursday and whose only NFL experience is two practice sessions (Thursday and Friday). For that reason, the Ravens by seven in a bar room brawl-like contest. Pittsburgh will keep it that close because Rashard Mendenhall will run the ball effectively. The Steelers has lost back-to-back games, while the Ravens have lost two of their past three. Both have a lot to play for. Cowen on Scrabble Excellent advice on how to do well in Scrabble. The impetus for the post was a line by Sarah Palin that in her family they "hoarding" Ks and Qs, which Tyler Cowen says is a dumb strategy. He concludes, not altogether unfairly I should add, "If this is her game of Scrabble, you can only imagine what her foreign policy would be like." Advice to the BC NDP Globe and Mail reporter Gary Mason has 10 things for the British Columbia NDP to do to get re-elected. They are pretty safe and predictable, but the NDP won't follow it because they are certifiably crazy. I have my own list for the NDP road back to victory. Here's one: don't be insane. Here's number two: don't do insane things. That's it, but they won't follow my advice, either. You can't ask tree-hugging, socialist crazies not to be tree-hugging, socialist crazies because that's what they are. If they weren't that, they wouldn't be. Weekend stuff 1. "How to go to a zoo." (HT: Kottke) I understand what they're saying about not taking children; zoos are a much richer experience when you can take a few minutes to appreciate each exhibit. Also, the most interesting parts of the zoo are seldom the children's favourites (gorillas, monkeys, elephants and lions) but smaller animals, preferably ones that are difficult to locate in their display. 2. Media death watch: the Columbia Journalism Review blog notes that at the end of December, the Washington Post will shutter its New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles bureaus. 3. Slate's Christopher Beam on "How do movie blurbs work?" 4. "The 50 Most Interesting Articles on Wikipedia." (HT: Marginal Revolution) 5. Woman's Day has "8 Mind-Boggling Optical Illusions," although Newmark's Door says it is less mind-boggling and more "entertaining" or "surprising." 6. BoingBoing has a game-themed tetris cake. 7. MentalFloss.com has a history of Black Friday. 8. Barely Political has the "10 hottest girls in gaming." I love YouTube comments because you get gems like this: "id fuck them but they are not real so i wouldnt MARRY them." Me on TV I’ll be on Behind the Story on CTS Sunday night at 7 pm local time in Ontario and Alberta (re-broadcast the following Friday at 11 am) and available elsewhere in Canada if you are a Rogers digital subscriber. At some point after it has broadcast, it is available here at CTS’s website. We’ll talked about the politics of the torture allegations in Afghanistan, not mentioning the Muslim connection to the carnage at Fort Hood, Stephane Dion’s wife criticizing Michael Ignatieff, religion and the media, Facebook and privacy issues, and the guy who was misdiagnosed as being in a coma for 23 years. Former John Turner director of communications Ray Heard was on with me (he's fairly right-leaning). It was fun. Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Four and down (Thanksgiving edition) 4. Before going the three games, just want to bring attention to this fact, just two weeks after mainstream football pundits were fretting about the loss of parity: 15 of 32 teams have records of 6-4, 5-5 or 4-6. While 4-6 teams have uphill battles ahead of them, half of the NFL is chasing four wild card spots. 3. Green Bay Packers (6-4) at Detroit Lions (2-8): Lots of those pundits who worried about the lack of parity in 2009 are also fretting that the miserable Lions are allowed to continue the Thanksgiving tradition of hosting a Thanksgiving game. The Lions are coming off a game in which they beat the Cleveland Browns 38-37, the Packers are coming off a game in which they lost linebacker Aaron Kampman and cornerback Al Harris for the season. Which fact is more important? The Packers have Tramon Williams filling in for Harris and rookie Brad Jones (7th round pick) replaces Kampman. Hardly inspiring. Fortunately for the Pack, Lions QB Matthew Stafford won't play (shoulder injury) and WR Calvin Johnson probably won't suit up (knee and hand injuries) and if he does, he won't play a full load. When Detroit and Green Bay faced each other in Week 6, Stafford and Johnson were scratches and the Packers won 26-0. Oh, yeah, the Lions are also missing two starting safeties (Ko Simpson and Kalvin Pearson). Green Bay will win with QB Aaron Rodgers exploiting Detroit's depleted D, and their own injured defense catching a break with the Lions missing key components of their offense. 2. Oakland Raiders (3-7) at Dallas Cowboys (7-3): Boys QB Tony Romo may not inspire a lot of confidence these days, but the Raiders are using QB Bruce Gradkowski? Seriously? He might be a step up from JaMarcus Russell, but not much of one. The Cowboys are tied for the league lead with eleven passes of 40 yards. The passing game is inconsistent but all they need is a big play between Romo and Miles Austin or Patrick Crayton and a more consistent use of the three headed running game (Marion Barber, Felix Jones and Tashard Choice) and their offense should do well against an Oakland team that has surrendered an average of 23.4 ppg. They are scoring an average of just 10.8 ppg. This fact might explain why: after CB Nnamdi Asomugha, the best two players in a Raiders uniform this year are kicker Sebastian Janikowski and punter Shane Lechler. That is probably important because they aren't going to score often (just four TD passes in 10 games in '09) and need to get the three points when they can and keep opponents deep in their own zone when they don't. The Cowboys are one of the most talented teams in the NFL, but seldom perform at the level they should; they shouldn't have trouble shining against Oakland. Dallas got good news today when TE Jason Witten was cleared to play. The Raiders have never lost in Dallas (3-0). That is about to change. 1. New York Giants (6-4) at Denver Broncos (6-4): The Broncs has lost four in a row. The G-Men snapped a four game losing streak of their own when they beat the Atlanta Falcons in overtime last Sunday. Denver gave up an average of 11 ppg when the opened with six consecutive wins but are surrendering about 30 points a game since Halloween weekend. The Giants have a lot more depth and the better quarterback regardless of whether the injured Kyle Orton starts under center for the Broncos. But they are also traveling 2000 miles less than three days after an overtime win on Sunday and playing a mile above sea level. In recent weeks, Denver opponents have exposed the Broncs weaknesses after studying the tape: Pittsburgh and Baltimore went to the no-huddle offense to keep the Denver D guessing and substitutes on the side-lines while San Diego (32-3 victory in Denver last weekend) ran 200 yards against a front seven that weren't as good as the early season stats indicated. New York hasn't had the chance to prepare, allowing Denver to somehow edge out the visitors for the win. My sentiments exactly Mark Shea in a long post on Sarah Palin, some of what he says I agree with, some of it less so, but I second this completely: So yeah, I mostly dismiss Palin. But not because she's Palin. Because she's another pol offering the average admixture of truth and falsehood that inspires me to not be inspired by American pols. I agree with this and find it offensive Matthew Yglesias: But it also seems to me that going all the way back to the rise of George W. Bush in 1999 we’ve seen the conservative movement tending to fetishize stupidity and put forward the notion that there’s something actually un-American about being thoughtful, having respect for scholarship, or incorporating any kind of nuance into your discussion.Yglesias is talking about Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin, and its true up to a point. But there is also some revisionist history going on. Bush didn't play to populist sympathies in his first run for the presidency as he tried to elevate the debate and was surrounded by neoconservative foreign policy experts (Paul Wolfowitz and Condi Rice) and deep domestic policy thinkers (Marvin Olasky) during his bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000. Also, Newt Gingrich, a one-man ideas generator, is in the employ of the American Enterprise Institute and is often mentioned as a candidate in 2012. Rudy Giuliani practically employed the whole of the Manhattan Institute during his failed 2008 bid for the party's presidential nomination. Of course, Giuliani failed and Gingrich is on the margins of the party, so perhaps Yglesias has a point. Midweek stuff 1. Forbes.com photo essay on the world's most expensive homes. 2. Slate's Nina Shen Rastogi on "The Turkey-Industrial Complex," specifically answering the question: "How do farmers produce so many birds for Thanksgiving?" Keeping with the Thanksgiving theme and marrying it with popular fashion, Slate's Brendan Koerner looks at "Which kind of turkey is best for the environment?" 3. From Listverse: "Top 10 Bizarre Tourist Attractions." I haven't seen it, but from the description, Vale de la prehistoria in Cuba doesn't sound bizarre. 4. CNBC has the 15 richest members of Congress. Important stat: contra the stereotype, eight of the top ten are Democrats. Please note that the figures are estimates rather than precise valuations. 5. Good news for the biodiversity crowd: Science Daily reports "New Chameleon Species Discovered in East Africa." 6. The Daily Telegraph has "Top 10 funny quiz show answers." Idiotic might be more apt than funny. 7. Ryan Cole in the Wall Street Journal: "Not-So-Silent Cal Wrote With Eloquence." Who isn't a Calvin Coolidge fan? 8. Shaolin monk balances on two fingers: 'How much greenhouse gas emission abatement is enough?' That would seem to be a heretical question in the climate change community, but Richard S.J. Tol, Research Professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute (Dublin) and the Professor of the Economics of Climate Change at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, weighs the costs, benefits and opportunity costs of dealing with climate change: Climate change primarily affects poor people in faraway places. Poor people often live in hot places. They are more exposed and cannot afford to protect themselves against the vagaries of the weather. This means that climate policy is not for our benefit, nor for the benefit of our children and grandchildren. Climate policy is for the benefit of the children and grandchildren of people in distant countries (Schelling 2000). We have a moral obligation, however, to avoid harming others or to compensate them if we do.He concludes that Europeans have done more than they need to while most of the rest of the world has not done enough. I don't entirely endorse his conclusions, but his is a measured and reasonable voice in the climate change debate. Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Ross Rebagliati, Liberal candidate and walking advert against drug use Rondi Adamson points to a Maclean's interview with Ross Rebagliati, a pot head, former Olympian and future Liberal candidate. The guy is a walking advertisement against drug use. Some excerpts from what appears to be some excellent satire: Q: Now, the focus has changed. You’ve just been acclaimed as the federal Liberal candidate in the B.C. riding of Okanagan-Coquihalla. Why politics?From starting to pay attention to politics to federal candidate for the Liberals ... He mentions that he once met Pierre Elliott Trudeau as a pre-teen. The former prime minister signed a napkin and wished him well. It was "a really great experience" but he doesn't have the napkin any longer. About the current Liberal leader: Q: What do you think of Michael Ignatieff?So he's interested but not that interested. He's not terribly prepared as a candidate. Can't talk about the leader's popularity? Try using the talking points the party provides. Q: Are there other issues that you feel strongly about?Because the seniors are our future, too. Q: What about youth issues? What would you do to try and get young people more involved in Canadian politics?I presume he did a ton of drugs immediately before the interview. When asked if he still used marijuana, he evades: Q: There’s another inevitable question—do you still use marijuana?That's a profile in courage. Q: But that question is going to keep coming up.And he'll have a lot of credibility, especially with his courageous stand of not taking a stand or answering the question about whether he uses now. And in his final response, to the question "What’s your campaign theme song going to be?" he replies, "I like the Bob Marley song Get Up, Stand Up." He's still using. Monday, November 23, 2009
Best Buy bastards From Confessions of a Closet Republican: So, I'm checking out Best Buy and smack dab on the front page, right on top of the "Shop Thanksgiving Day at BESTBUY.COM" is Happy Eid al-Adha. Odd, methinks, since nowhere does it say Happy Thanksgiving, just shop Thanksgiving Day.(HT: Blazing Cat Fur) Infinitely better than the Frumkins Ross Douthat's blog post, "Waiting for the Reformers", on revitalizing the Republican Party and making it both politically viable and policy relevant is worth reading. He is right without being pretentious; he challenges the party and his allies without being condescending. Social justice for thee but not for me Bill Frezza writes about social justice, socialism dressed up as Christian caring for one's brother, as long as someone else is paying the cost. Frezza notes: When I asked a well-to-do Progressive friend whether Social Justice would be served confiscating her vacation money and giving it to the poor she allowed that it would be. Yet she added that she would oppose it on the grounds that this would violate her property rights. And if Congress passed a 100% surtax on all vacation travel, using the money to provide subsidized healthcare? Would that be Social Justice, a violation of property rights, or both? After all, vacations are widely recognizes as a luxury while most proponents of Social Justice believe that healthcare is a basic human right. Don't rights trump luxuries?Charity is a great personal virtue, but there is no such thing as coerced charity. But for the social justice crowd, doing good (and satiating their own conscience) consists of requiring others to doing good rather than doing it themselves. Four and down (Monday Night Football edition) 4. The Houston Texans (5-4) host the Tennessee Titans (3-6) on Monday night. The Texans are an unpredictable team -- they are one of only two teams to beat the Cincinnati Bengals this year, and the only one to do so by double digits, but they were also blown out at home by the New York Jets and a rookie quarterback making his NFL debut -- and no one should be surprised by any result in this game, from a blow out victory either way to a close one decided on a game-ending field goal. 3. When these two teams met in Nashville in week three, RB Chris Johnson had 197 yards running. That is amazing. More amazing: he added 87 yards receiving, for 284 yards of offense from the line of scrimmage. On the year, Johnson has a total of 1353 yards of total offense (1091 rushing, 262 catching) and there is still seven games to go. Those are MVP numbers. 2. A Titans win in their contest with the Texans would make for a very interesting AFC South. The Titans are 3-6 after starting 0-6 but turning it around to win three straight. The Indianapolis Colts lead the division with the best record in the conference at 10-0. Right now the Jacksonville Jaguars are second in the AFC South at 6-4 and in the wild card by the first tie-breaker (conference record). With a win, the Texans would join Jax, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Denver Broncos at 6-4. The Baltimore Ravens and Miami Dolphins are very much part of the playoff picture with 5-5 records; since 1990, more than a quarter of the teams that had such a record after week 11 make the playoffs. But a Titans victory would put the Texans in a tie with Baltimore and Tennessee just one game behind them; seven per cent of teams that are 4-6 have made the playoffs since 1990. The New York Jets would be the only other 4-6 AFC team. Within the division, a Tenny win would have the second and last place teams separated by just two wins. At the beginning of the season who would have thought the Jags would be in second and the Titans in the cellar? 1. I'll predict a Texans win by seven, but I'd be surprised if I was right. Here, however, is my reasoning: the Titans have a great ground game in Chris Johnson but the Texans have a great aerial game with QB Matt Schaub and WR Andre Johnson. Passing wins games. Sunday, November 22, 2009
Coming. Liberal. Crackup. Janine Krieber, Stephane Dion's wife, had posted a note on Facebook attacking Michael Ignatieff although it has since been deleted. According to the Canadian Press, Krieber, "a fellow university professor", said the party should not be surprised Iggy is having trouble making charges of Tory tolerance of torture stick because the Liberal leader has himself support "coercive interrogation" in past writings. She is reported to have written on Facebook: "The party base understood (in 2006) and Canadian citizens are understanding now. Ignatieff's supporters didn't do their homework. They didn't read his books. They contented themselves with his ability to navigate the cocktail circuit.CP reports: Krieber writes she wants her vote to go to a party that is dedicated, that supports its leader through rough times and values work ethic and competence and isn't hypocritical in its support.It's never good when the wife of a former leader criticizes his replacement. Saturday, November 21, 2009
Four and down 4. In the battle of the one-and-eights, the atrocious Cleveland Browns visit the woeful Detroit Lions. But the Lions have some offensive weapons (QB Matt Stafford, WR Calvin Johnson) while the Browns have extreme trouble scoring. The last Cleveland wide receiver to score a touchdown was against the Baltimore Ravens -- by the since departed Braylon Edwards on November 2, 2008. That's right, nearly 13 months ago. The Browns have just a pair of wins in their last 18 games -- both against the Buffalo Bills. The Lions play well at home and will win, but it could be real ugly. 3. Mark Gaughan wrote in the Buffalo News this week that it won't be easy for the Buffalo Bills to lure one of the big name coaches (Mike Shanahan, Terry Crowher Mike Holgmren, or Jon Gruden) to the team. That is an under-statement because there are three obstacles to signing an elite coach: 1) most of the elite coaches will want to play with a contender, 2) the Bills are notoriously cheap, and 3) owner Ralph Wilson gets a lot of say on personnel moves but elite coaches want to run the show. A fourth impediment is that some of these coaches are going to wait to see if Wade Phillips (a former Bills coach) is still coaching in Dallas after this season. The Cowboys job is probably a more lucrative and promising possibility for the likes of Shanahan or Holmgren than the lackluster Bills. 2. Another problem for the Bills is that according to the Associated Press, Mike Holmgren might be interested in the job of running the Cleveland Browns as general manager, "football guru" or some other title -- a job that is already open/can be created any time. Also, I'm almost certain that Jon Gruden and Terry Crowher are at the top of Dan Snyder's list to replace Jim Zorn as coach of the struggling Washington Redskins. I can't see any of them going the dysfunctional Oakland Raiders (the dysfunctional Redskins have a prouder heritage, better players and more money). I'd also be careful if I were with the Bills about raising expectations. Getting a Crowher or Shanahan would excite the Bills fan base and signal to them that the organization is ready to spend money and do what it takes to compete. But if they can't (or won't) sign such a coach after so much talk about doing so, the fans are going to see it as just one more failure by the team. 1. The Redskins, Browns, Bills and Raiders are all probably looking for new coaches in the off-season and all four have awful quarterbacks. The team that improves at that position the most will have a coach hailed as a genius for turning the team around. The end of the coming Liberal crackup? The latest Ipsos-Reid poll shows the Liberals at 24%, the lowest level for the party under Michael Ignatieff and just five points ahead of the NDP. The Tories are at 37%. In the critical battleground of Ontario, the Conservatives lead the Liberals 39%-29%. Now, not all is lost. As Ezra Levant said, Warren Kinsella was canned from the Liberal War Room, thus giving the Grits a chance to turnaround their (mis)fortunes: When Ignatieff hired Kinsella, the Liberals were essentially tied with the Conservatives. On the day [Peter] Donolo fired Kinsella, the Liberals are 15% behind. I call it the Kinsella Effect; Donolo calls it time to end amateur hour, and bring in some grown-ups.That's funny and maybe even true. Kinsella's style of attack was terrible, depending on countering the slightest perceived slight with ballistic missiles or even making mountains out of cupcakes. No doubt the Liberal attack and counter-attack will be better with anyone but Kinsella running the show. Canadians need an opposition party that will critique policy rather than complain about trivial slights. But Iggy's problems were not all Kinsella's fault. Ignatieff is an elitist, out-of-touch, effete, academic who is unable to connect to real Canadians. Part of it is that those Canadians are changing and that the Liberals might not be their default party anymore. Obama: the captain who is deliberately steering toward the iceberg Douglas Holtz-Eakin derides President Barack Obama's spending policies in the Wall Street Journal. He says: Recently, the White House signaled that it will get serious about reducing the deficit next year—after it locks into place massive new health-care entitlements. This is a recipe for disaster, as it will create a new appetite for increased spending and yet another powerful interest group to oppose deficit-reduction measures.I'm pretty sure that Obama and the Democrats know this and that creating new government-dependent constituents is more important to them than controlling health care costs or providing universal health coverage. Bigger government is always more expensive government and to pay for it the U.S. will borrow trillions, with the national debt at the end of the next decade projected to exceed 17 trillion. Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, explains why this is a problem: The planned deficits will have destructive consequences for both fairness and economic growth. They will force upon our children and grandchildren the bill for our overconsumption. Federal deficits will crowd out domestic investment in physical capital, human capital, and technologies that increase potential GDP and the standard of living. Financing deficits could crowd out exports and harm our international competitiveness, as we can already see happening with the large borrowing we are doing from competitors like China.He notes that the White House claims to "understand these concerns, but the administration's policy choices are the equivalent of steering the economy toward an iceberg." I would add that understanding the problem and caring about it, and then doing something about it, are completely different things. Obama and the Democrats want bigger government, whatever the cost. Holtz-Eakin has the only solution -- and it isn't the gimmicks the Democrats are currently using in their dishonest budgeting. America needs a pro-growth tax regime and massive entitlement reform (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid), not new entitlements. Weekend stuff 1. The Telegraph has a "list the world's 20 oldest continually-inhabited cities" that is full of interesting tidbits of information. 2. Joe Carter at First Things has "Top 100 Spiritually Significant Films?" (Sorry baseball fans, it is not that Joe Carter.) 3. Christopher Beam at Slate: "If the government knows how much it's spending improperly, why doesn't it stop?" 4. Listverse has "Top 10 Scariest Filipino Monsters." 5. Theodore Dalrymple writes about "Le Corbusier’s baleful influence" at City Journal. 6. The Large Hadron Collider at the CERN labs in Geneva is back up and running. Are you worried about the end of the world? 7. Over at The Examiner, Tim Worstall wonders why the question "Why won't my parakeet eat my diarrhea" shows up so high on google searches. 8. From Onion Radio News: "Survey: Positive things better than negative things." 9. Forbes.com has "The 10 Questions You [entrepreneurs and businessmen] Should Never Stop Asking." 10. New Scientist video shows how traffic jams occur: Buy a carbon offset and stop a polar bear from plummeting to its death The New York Times reports (via Kottke): "The carbon offset has become this magic pill, a kind of get-out-of-jail-free card," Justin Francis, the managing director of Responsible Travel, one of the world's largest green travel companies to embrace environmental sustainability, said in an interview. "It's seductive to the consumer who says, 'It's $4 and I'm carbon-neutral, so I can fly all I want.'" Offsets, he argues, are distracting people from making more significant behavioral changes, like flying less.Of course, offsets are as BS as man-made climate change or polar bears dying because we drive SUVs. AdFreak brings this ad to our attention: Of course The Daily Telegraph reports: David Curry, the MP who heads the committee responsible for policing Commons expenses, has claimed almost £30,000 for a second home that his wife has banned him from staying in, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.And: Mr Curry now rarely stays in his constituency and when he does so he has stayed at the £40-a-night Travelodge hotel in Skipton rather than at the taxpayer-funded cottage. Friday, November 20, 2009
Asia increasing pollution faster than its economy is growing Interesting little article by Jean-Marie Grether and Nicole A. Mathys at VoxEU which finds that "the Earth’s 'polluting centre of gravity' since 1970. It is heading east faster than GDP, which suggests that Asian production is getting more carbon-intensive." Prince Edward Island's moronic land policy Gods of the Copybook Headings notes the story of Melvin Griffin, a Floridian who was fined $29,000 for violating the island province's non-resident land ownership rules. The CBC explains these rules: P.E.I. has strict laws regarding non-resident land ownership under the Lands Protection Act. Anything more than two hectares needs to be approved by cabinet, and in this case cabinet said no.As GCH's Publius notes: Naturally it has pleasant side effects for the locals. By limiting the pool of potential purchasers, it keeps housing affordable for the locals. It also holds back the province's economic development. Less capital flowing into the island. That may not make much economic sense, but perhaps they're not interested in making money. Maybe they like PEI the way they remember it growing up. Few strangers from "away." Not much traffic. The glass is half full Headline on a Canadian Press story: "Flaherty says government will undertake no new spending in next year's budget." Of course, last year at this time, the Tories weren't on the verge of announcing $50 billion in deficit spending in 2009/10. That's the half full side of the cup. On the empty half: Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says there will be no cuts in spending. CRTC proves it's own irrelevance by not considering it's own relevance Melissa Cassar of Fleishman-Hallard, had a post at FH's The Political View blog about the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission hearings on fee-for-carriage (the dispute between broadcasters and the cable/satellite carriers). She says the discussions were "troublesome" because they completely avoided the discussion the regulators, broadcasters and carriers needed to have: The debate didn’t touch on new technologies, not even the Internet. It failed to consider online and mobile mediums and the CRTC made no attempt to discuss whether or not Canada’s current broadcasting system would be relevant or even viable in the next 10 to 15 years. Instead, the CRTC chose to take a short term approach to investigate one piece of an industry which by nature is defined by rapid change and convergence.Does anyone think we'll be watching television on TVs through cable packages with broadcaster-determined schedules ten years from now? (Or five years?) The broadcasters are married to their time-worn model where they draw up a schedule of TV shows, they air the programs, most people watch it when they are told, and some people with various technological fixes from VCRs to TiVo can time shift as they like. It worked well for a long, but it is getting old and increasingly inconvenient (at best) and useless (at worst). The future of television is over the internet (computers linking to 54-inch flat screens, unless the McGuinty government zaps those), with consumers calling up what they want to see, when they want to see it. It might be pay-per-view, it might be subscription based, it might be something no one has thought up yet, or probably some mix of them. (Probably with less advertising meaning that consumers will have to pick up more of the cost of programming directly, but that's another issue.) The point is the CRTC discussions are based on a model with a best before date that is fast approaching. Thursday, November 19, 2009
Canada Free Press, the Frums & Sarah Palin Judi McLeod writes about David Frum and his wife Danielle Crittendon and their dislike of Sarah Palin: Dani’s only woefully out to lunch on Sarah Palin, while her husband David is out in left field.But Frum is right about one thing: Palin is incredibly thin-skinned. If you can't stand the heat, baby, get out of the kitchen. That said, I like her criticism of the "lamestream media." Plain nonsense Left-wing science fetishist Chris Mooney says: I just learned his book Signature in the Cell made the top ten list for Amazon science books of 2009. This reinforces a fact that I have long emphasized–conservatives support their authors, promote them on radio (as Michael Medved did yesterday), buy their books in droves, turn them into stars. Liberals and academic scholar and scientists, in general, don’t have the same drive to win the war of ideas. This is why Bjorn Lomborg is always such a big success, for instance, while authors of pro-science climate books regularly struggle to get noticed (unless they are Al Gore with preexisting celebrity).Or liberal books are boring and dumb. On profits and prices Writing about profits in the provision of health care in the current issue of The Freeman, Art Carden quotes Steven Horowitz: Profit is not just a motive; it is also integral to the irreplaceable social learning process of the market. Critics may consider eliminating the profit motive the equivalent of giving the Tin Man from Oz a heart; in fact it’s much more like Oedipus’ gouging out his own eyes.Carden says: It’s a misconception that profit is something tacked onto the price of goods and services. If that were so, why would profits change from year to year and why would companies go out of business? Profit and loss are indispensable to consumer well-being because resources are scarce and have alternative uses. How do we decide how much to devote to making people well and how much to devote to feeding, clothing, entertaining, and educating them? It isn’t merely that this is a difficult question to answer. It is literally impossible to answer in any meaningful way without market prices, profits, and losses.As Hayek argued, prices are instruments of information exchange. That's it and it is so much. As Russell Roberts makes clear in his novel The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity, prices provide the unseen harmony of the world by orderly establishing the priorities of everyone's preferences. They are a beautiful, peaceful, good thing. Reminder about my social conservative blogging Most of it now appears at Soconvivium, The Interim's blog. Four and down (four to watch on the weekend) 4. New York Jets (4-5) at New England Patriots (6-3): The Jets are in free-fall after a 3-0 start and probably won't be a serious threat to the Pats at any point of the game, but the hatred between the two teams is serious, rookie Jets coach has been bad-mouthing his division rival since getting the job in New York last Winter and all eyes will be on Bill Belichick the week after his supposed blunder. Jets defense is pretty decent, but the Pats are the third best scoring team in football, so it will be surprising if New York keeps this game within single digits. 3. Atlanta Falcons (5-4) at New York Giants (5-4): A pair of underachieving teams that are currently battling for a wild card spot; if things hold, this could be a tie-breaker to determine seeding or even the final playoff spot. The Giants are on a four game skid, but coming off a bye week, Eli Manning might be healthy enough to not launch balls a yard over the heads of receivers. According to Cold Hard Football Facts, the G-Men have the worst red zone defense in the league (75.9 touchdown opportunities in opponent's 20 being converted into majors). The Falcons are having their own troubles with Matt Ryan who not demonstrating the same accuracy he showed in his phenomenon rookie season; that makes sense because as Ryan develops, coaches will call fewer conservative plays and call more high-risk, high-reward plays. Ryan isn't quite there yet. It won't help that Michael Turner is questionable after an ankle injury last weekend. I like New York at home by seven. 2. Indianapolis Colts (9-0) at Baltimore Ravens (5-4): The Ravens offense was a little over-rated earlier this year and their defense is not nearly the dominating beast it was last season. The Colts are fourth in scoring and second in points allowed, and are going for a perfect 10 and 0 start. They face the fifth stingiest defense in the NFL (17.1 ppg). Whatever the team stats, this game might be the best game to watch this weekend because of the contest between Colts QB Peyton Manning and the intense and aggressive Ravens defense. Colts win by more than a field goal. 1. San Diego Chargers (6-3) at Denver Broncos (6-3): The AFC West division title is on the line, with Broncs hoping to end a three-game losing streak (the first team to open the season 6-0 and follow that with three consecutive defeats). Their last win was last month against the Bolts in San Diego (34-23) in week six. The Bolts have won four in a row. Denver might be without QB Kyle Orton, who hasn't practiced all week after leaving the game last week with an ankle injury, and will certainly be a huge underdog if Chris Simms is under center. Broncs are fourth in points allowed (16.8 points per game) but after allowing a measly 11 ppg in their first six games, have allowed an average of 28.3 ppg in their three losses, so they can't count on their D keeping them in the game if they don't have Orton efficiently scoring for them. San Diego has a super-charged offense and are almost unstoppable when they have their running game going like they did last week when RB LaDainian Tomlinson ran for 96 yards and scored a pair of TDs. They need to run the ball better than usual -- they are dead last in rushing yards per game (75.1). I like Bolts by six if Orton plays, by 13 is Simms starts. Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Say it ain't so The Daily Telegraph reports "Evelyn Waugh, the author of Brideshead Revisited, conducted "fully fledged" homosexual love affairs with three fellow students at Oxford, a new biography has claimed." It really isn't surprising, just disappointing. Sanity The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear the case of six American Indians who upset with the team name of the Washington Redskins. I liked that these people utterly failed to rope the SCOTUS into their racial identity politics games: The appeal was supported by more than 30 law professors, 13 psychology professors who are experts on stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination and by the Social Justice Advocacy Group, a coalition of non-profit and religious organizations and socially responsible investment entities. Finally The Buffalo Bills have announced they are "relieving" Dick Jauron of his "coaching duties" which is a nice way of saying Ralph Wilson fired his coach. That move is long overdue but insufficient. Jauron is an awful coach but he is the tip of the terrible iceberg in Orchard Park. As Dan Graziano of FanHouse noted, the fact that Jauron's last decision was announcing that Ryan Fitzpatrick and not Trent Edwards was going to start this coming Sunday in Jacksonville is evidence that the team is truly awful. As Graziano notes: "This quarterback decision is that of a team that has no real quarterback. And when you don't have a real quarterback -- a reliable, stud, franchise-type quarterback -- well, that's when people's careers end." Four and down 4. The MNF crew repeatedly noted how dreadfully boring the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens game was and in many ways it was. (When I checked the Game Fan Rating for this game at NFL.com, it was 18 out of possible 100.) But the criticism isn`t completely fair because most of it was aimed at the Browns. Sure the Browns didn't score at all, but the Ravens had only one offensive touchdown and they did all their scoring in the third quarter. The Browns defense played well, keeping the Ravens to 274 yards of offense. Incredibly, that was more than a 100 yards better than the Browns could muster (160 yards), with QB Brady Quinn failing to throw for the century mark (just 99 yards passing, completing 13 of 31 passes). Quinn is awful in a way it is hard to imagine a professional player being bad, but whatever shortcomings the passer rating has, it is obvious that Quinn's 23.5 rating for the Ravens game was atrocious in a special way; it marked the fourth consecutive time that Quinn's passer rating was worse than the game before. The Browns defense is competent -- or at least flashes competence every once in a while -- but their offense is horrid: ranked last in yards, passing yard, points per game (8.7) and sixth last in running yards. 3. The criticism of coach Bill Belichick won`t end any time soon, but the New England Patriots coach does have his defenders. Steven Levitt at Freakonomics liked the call because it was supported by the data, including David Romer`s research which shows that teams kick too much. We should also keep in mind that if the Pats got first down, all the critics would be praising Belichick`s brilliance and courage. Hindsight analysis is a waste of time, but worse, it is often wrong, focusing on the outcome of the specific play call rather than the data upon which such decisions are often made. As I noted yesterday, NFL Advanced Stats says it was the high percentage play -- contra what the former jocks masquerading as analysts on the various broadcast shows are saying. Or read Peter King's SI.com MMQB column in which he inadvertently makes the case that Belichick made the right decision. Says King: "Let's place the odds of Brady getting two yards at 60, 65 percent. The odds of Manning going 72 yards to score a touchdown in less than two minutes ... that's maybe 35 percent." So, go for it on fourth and two and it is a 60-65% chance of making it and then basically running down the clock and winning 34-28 or punting it and having a 65% chance (100 minus the 35% chance that King gives Manning to score) to maintain the lead. In other words, it is a toss-up. 2. The Pittsburgh Steelers lost at home against the Cincinnati Bengals 18-12, getting swept by their AFC North divisional foe and thus are on the wrong side of a potential tie-breaker at season's end. The division title might be out of reach, but I like Pittsburgh's remaining schedule and thus their chances of making the playoffs following a 6-3 start: a pair against the unimpressive 5-4 Baltimore Ravens, at home against the 5-4 Green Bay Packers and 2-7 Oakland Raiders and road games against the 1-8 Cleveland Browns, 2-7 Kansas City Chiefs and 4-5 Miami Dolphins. It shouldn't be hard to go 5-2, maybe even 6-1 against those teams. 1. Some commentary by Ken Carbone at Fast Company on the design of various team helmets. I totally disagree about the Cleveland Browns (it is not simple, it is bland), Cincinnati Bengals (it is tacky), and the New England Patriots (classy and not the obvious red, white and blue -- and what if the Patriot logo looks like John Kerry?). I think Carbone is dead wrong about this: "This bilateral approach is sometimes successful for teams such as the Minnesota Vikings, St. Louis Rams and Philadelphia Eagles. Horns and wings usually come in twos making these symmetrical designs feel natural." The Rams helmet could make you dizzy. The best helmet belongs to the Dallas Cowboys. (HT: Gerry Nicholls) From the confab to save the world to way station in just 29 days AP reports on the Copenhagen climate change conference and how world leaders are playing down expectations: President Barack Obama and other world leaders agreed Sunday that next month's much-anticipated climate change summit will be merely a way station, not the once hoped-for end point, in the search for a worldwide global warming treaty.Yet less than a month ago, Prime Minister Gordon Brown was blathering on about having just 50 days to save the planet. I hope, but don`t expect, journalists to ask him some really tough questions, especially if Brown praises the outcome of Copenhagen. Monday, November 16, 2009
Four and down 4. Everyone in the football world is talking about Bill Belichick's decision to go for it on fourth down on his own 29 yards. For example, some former coaches at EPSN.com, Christopher Gasper at the Boston Globe, Judy Battista at the New York Times, Bob Kravitz at the Indianapolis Star, Peter King at Sports Illustrated, and the dudes at Cold Hard Football Facts, plus nearly every other football columnist. I can't help but think that Peyton Manning got into Belichick's head: the New England coach feared this generation's greatest quarterback making a 70-yard drive after they punt away the ball so he made a seemingly questionable play call and gave Manning less than 30 yards. Yet according to Advanced NFL Stats, Belichick made the right call: With 2:00 left and the Colts with only one timeout, a successful conversion wins the game for all practical purposes. A 4th and 2 conversion would be successful 60% of the time. Historically, in a situation with 2:00 left and needing a TD to either win or tie, teams get the TD 53% of the time from that field position. The total WP for the 4th down conversion attempt would therefore be:3. Worse than going for it on fourth and two, was Belichick's clock management in the fourth quarter and questionable timeouts. The timeout just before the two-minute timeout tut probably gave the Indianapolis Colts a chance to strategize about defending on the play. Really boneheaded timeout call by Belichick -- ten times worse than going for it on four and two. 2. The biggest story about tonight's Monday Night Football game is not who starts for the Cleveland Browns (1-7) or whether the struggling Baltimore Ravens (4-4) can re-establish their defensive superiority and solid offense, but whether fans will punish their team by showing up late for the game. Shouldn't the fans come to see the old re-located Cleveland Browns? Another story: the Browns are making their 29th MNF appearance and they could conceivably do worse than they did on September 7, 1981 when they lost to the San Diego Chargers 44-14. 1. The Buffalo Bills would be a much better team if they didn't have to play the fourth quarter. They came back to tie the game 17-17 against the Titans in Tennessee before giving up 24 unanswered points in the fourth quarter, including a pair of touchdowns returned on picks, to lose 41-17. I am tempted to say that giving up a pair of picks for scores in the final three minutes is the most important stat of the game. Then I look at their third down conversion rate (5 of 14) and say that is a big reason for their problems. But it is this stat that sums up the offensively lame Bills: it was the 46th consecutive game in which a Bills QB failed to throw for 300 yards. Of course, the Bills sucking is nothing new; the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle has an excellent article entitled "Decade of Disappointment" on Buffalo's woes. Fact of the day My favourite blogger notes: Only 35,000 viewers for Fox Business Network at a typical moment in time; MR content gets a bigger audience than that.Of course, Marginal Revolution doesn't have 35,000 viewers at a typical moment -- or at least I don't think it does. Still the comparison is astonishing, considering the popularity of the Fox News Channel, I thought there would be some spillover to FBN. Strangest story I've read in a while The AFP reports: Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi gave a speech to 100 young Italian women recruited by a model agency and urged them to convert to Islam, newspapers reported on Monday.Kadhafi gave each woman a Koran, the "Green Book" of the Libyan revolution and an instructional "How To Be Muslim?" He is reported to have shouted at them: "Convert to Islam, Jesus was sent for the Hebrews, not for you. But Mohammed was sent for all humans." The theologian/revolutionary added: "You think that Jesus was crucified, but this is not true. God took him to heaven. They crucified someone who looked like him. The Jews tried to kill Jesus because they wanted to put the religion of Moses on the true path."(HT: Rondi Adamson) Thursday, November 12, 2009
Four and down 4. The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Denver Broncos in the rarified air of Invesco Field at Mile High by a convincing 28-10. The Broncs had an impressive 6-1 record going into the game while the 5-2 Steelers were missing four defensive players: Ryan Clark, Lawrence Timmons, Travis Kirschke and Aaron Smith (Smith is gone for the season). Still Denver could not capitalize. They scored a field goal on their first drive, but every subsequent drive ended in either a punt or interception. -- they're only touchdown was a forced fumble returned for score. The normally conservative Kyle Orton threw three interceptions (he threw one in the previous seven games). Pittsburgh's defense was incredible, playing what some call the Times Square Defense of players appearing to stroll around without any rhyme or reason. Yet, they were always opportunistically ready to disrupt or steal a pass. Meanwhile, the Steelers offense was running on all cylinders with Ben Roethlisberger throwing three TDs, Rashard Mendenhall running for 155 yards and Hines Ward catching a pair of touchdowns including including one in which he jumped over a defender who went to tackle his legs. Mike Wallace made a nice 25-yard play for a touchdown which was great, but even better was the post-game interview with coach Mike Tomlin. Asked what he thought about the play, he said it scared him. Tomlin explained that Wallace, a rookie, might not realize he still has a lot of development ahead of him. Amazing. And why the Steelers are an elite organization, not just a great team. 3. Tonight the Chicago Bears and San Francisco 49ers kick off the winter Thursday games. The story-line for this game is that Niners coach Mike Singletary is facing his old team. I don't find that narrative very interesting. More important is that the 3-5 Niners and 4-4 Bears both desperately needing a win to remain relevant in the playoff hunt. I think there is more on the line for Singletary. The team bought into his no-nonsense ways, but they won't if they continue their losing ways. I think the Bears defense is getting progressively worse, QB Jay Cutler doesn't have reliable targets, and WR Michael Crabtree is ready to have a breakout performance for San Fran. The home team Niners win. 2. Gregg Doyel has a really good piece at CBSSports.com that gives credit to where credit is over-due: the Cincinnati Bengals. They have defeated the bruising Baltimore Ravens twice and Pittsburgh Steelers once. Impressive. Carson Palmer is an under-the-radar Pro Bowl-calibre QB. Cedric Benson is second in rushing yards. I predicted Cincy could challenge for a playoff spot and at 6-2, they are co-leading the AFC North. They are doing all this despite being one of the most inexperienced teams in the league. 1. At the Fifth Down, George Bretherton compares the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1-7 and winless until hosting Green Bay on the weekend) and New York Jets (4-4). Them sound like fighting words, but when you read it there are a lot of superficial similarities, but that's it. Bretherton concludes: "Do the Jets deserve more credit for, among other things, significantly improving their defense and altering the team’s chemistry in a positive way?" Well, those are extremely important differences, and ones that make it more likely the Jets will be playing meaningful games in December. Against human exceptionalism The Washington Post reports on cooking for pets: The slightest rustle of the Milk-Bone box gets mutts and purebreds alike drooling. But for pet parents who pledge allegiance to Whole Foods and the locavore lifestyle, the number of unpronounceable and unthinkable ingredients in mass-produced canine treats can cause a paw-size pause. So, if cooking at home is good enough for human foodies, could it work for your pet, too? Many animal lovers and canine chefs think so. Recession is hurting burglars The Freakonomics blog notes that burglaries are down during this economic downturn and the theory is that with so many more people unemployed, the chances of finding a home with no one in it during the day has decreased. Cities across the country are reporting steep declines in burglary rates. Isn't this child abuse? From a press release on an academic paper on Obama-themed children's books: Given the media blitz surrounding the last U.S. presidential campaign and that book authors are often inspired by the world around them, it's no wonder the market for children's literature has seen its share of books about the new president, according to a Kansas State University children's literature expert. But the number of titles about Barack Obama is astounding, said Phil Nel, K-State professor of English and head of K-State's children's literature program. Nel recently presented the paper "Obamafiction for Children: Imagining the 44th U.S. President" at the American Studies Association conference in Washington, D.C. Last he counted, Nel said there were around 60 children's titles about Obama - including two dozen before he was elected to the presidency and more than 35 since. The total does not include books about members of the Obama family or Bo, the family dog. Wednesday, November 11, 2009
It is not often I agree with Jim Coyle ... The Toronto Star columnist says that politicians aren't in the game just because they can serve the public good: it is exciting, it pays well and there are numerous perks, it is ego boosting, it is an environment where "misfits and nerds can thrive" (by which Coyle means it is a place where intensely competitive non-jocks can compete), and "propinquity to power and the powerful is seductive." That last point is important and while Coyle probably wouldn't go as far as I would -- I think most people relish the opportunity to control other people -- few pundits will admit as much as he did. "Public service" is seldom actually about the public and the service is often selfish. Stuff 1. Blender's list of the 33 most over-rated things in music sounded so promising. I almost stopped reading after #30 and #29. And the concert encore is annoying, not over-rated. 2. A video presentation on how different cultures around the world count money. 3. A ten-second video of Senator Barbara Boxer being a real witch. 4. ForeignPolicy.com has a photo essay on slums. They say the photojournalist wanted to challenge stereotypes, but it confirmed everything I thought I knew about slums. 5. Listverse has "10 Unabashed Quacks in Medical History." You gotta love Albert Abrams' Dynamizer. The Left's hypocrisy on capital punishment Andy McCarthy in The Corner: First, if we didn't have a death penalty, the Left would be arguing that life imprisonment and other lengthy sentences are violations of the 8th Amendment. You cannot be certain in the assumption that we could do better without the death penalty. At the moment, the Left has to understate its argument against imprisonment because having people serving long sentences is important to its argument that we don't need the death penalty. Once the death penalty was gone, though, they would be arguing for release of incorrigible, violent felons — and some of them, inevitably, would be released.Nothing illustrates this better than when Canada banned the death penalty in 1976. (No Canadian had been executed for 14 years at that point.) Warren Allmand, a long-time MP and cabinet minister, was Solicitor General at the time and he argued that capital punishment was unnecessary because Parliament was in the same legislation imposing stringent life-sentence prison terms that would be defined as 25 years for cases of first- and second-degree murder and high treason. Yet just four months later, in the Fall of 1976, Allmand proposed the creation of Judicial Review which would allow for early release (the "faint hope" clause) for everyone but multiple murderers because, as Allmand said, "to keep them in prison for 25 years, in my view, is a waste of resources, a waste of person's life." Did Allmand have a change of heart or was he lying during the capital punishment debates? Politicians and the economy Russ Roberts notes this apt analogy: Politicians taking credit from what they’ve done for the economy are like little kids working the controls of video games without putting any money in. There’s all kinds of stuff happening on the screen of the video game and they think that it’s all due to the frantic work of their fingers. Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Executing John Allen Muhammad Today the state of Virginia executed John Allen Muhammad for his role in the murder of 10 Washington-area citizens in October 2002. Technically, Muhammad was executed for a single murder, the Oct. 9, 2002 murder of Dean H. Meyers. As the Washington Post noted, unlike the victims of Muhammad and his accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo's capricious killing spree, he knew how and when he was going to die. Naseem Rakha writes an op-ed in the Post about how the execution of Muhammad will not bring back the dead or console the living relatives of the victims. Rakha tells the story of Marion Lewis whose 25-year-old daughter, Lori Lewis Rivera, was killed out of the blue at a gas station ans asks: Will watching his daughter's killer die help Lewis, or any of the other victims' relatives who plan to attend the execution, move on with their lives?But that is beside the point. The state does not execute murderers because it will provide closure for the living. It does not execute criminals because it will deter future crime. We, as a society, execute murderers because it is what they deserve. As I noted in the National Post nine years ago: David Gelernter, a Yale professor maimed by the Unabomber, says in his book Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber, "we show our respect for the dead, and proclaim the value of human life, by taking the trouble to execute murderers." I love this story about Bill Parcells Bill Parcells has coached four NFL teams and is now vice president of football operations (consultant with decision-making powers) for the Miami Dolphins. The Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessy has a good piece about the former New England Patriot's coach: When it’s football season, he stays at his place in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and makes a 20-minute drive each morning to the Dolphins training facility at Nova Southeastern University in Davie.The whole article is worth reading. I particularly like the description of Tuna's three houses and his routine. Rev. Rutler on The Times In a post about the New York Times refusing to print an op-ed from Archbishop Timothy Dolan, Fr. George Rutler notes: There are many items that the Times, which claims to publish everything that’s fit to print, has printed although they were not fit. There were, for instance, its mockery in 1920 of Goddard’s hypothesis that rocket propulsion can take place in a vacuum, a denial of Stalin’s forced famine in Ukraine and a whitewash of his show trials by its Moscow bureau chief Walter Duranty, its advocacy of Fidel Castro, and its benign regard for the Soviet spy Alger Hiss. The cost of the congestion -- why only the cost? The OECD says that congestion costs the Toronto area about $3.3 billion in lost productivity. There are also health costs (increased smog and emotional health of frustrated drivers) and other opportunities costs (less time with the family), but what about the indirect benefit of congestion: suburban living. People enjoy larger or more affordable houses, safer neighbourhoods, better schools, newer amenities, etc..., and part of the cost of all that is a long commute into the city. But no one ever talks about what congestion buys people: a more enjoyable and affordable lifestyle. Cowen on Berlin Tyler Cowen: I like spending time in Berlin. But I am never sure I like Berlin itself, West or East. Berlin is Germany being imperial. Berlin is Germany looking toward the east. Today Berlin is Germany pretending it is normal, while not yet having a new identity. Coming. Liberal. Crackup. Four by-elections and four ridings in which the Liberals failed to do better than third. The Liberals got 10, 13, 14 and 20%. Two of those ridings were in Quebec and one in Atlantic Canada. I guess the fact that one in five voters put a check beside the Liberal candidate's name in the Nova Scotia riding of Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit is the best news the Grits have today. Monday, November 09, 2009
Celebrating 20 years Perhaps because my two closest friends at high school were from Ukraine and Poland I tended to notice seemingly minor events that were buried deep inside the paper. Before November 9, 1989 there was August 25, 1989, when Tadeusz Mazowiecki became Poland's prime minister (two months after multi-party elections) and the first non-communist leader in the Eastern bloc. That was a glorious day. On September 11, 1989, the Hungarian border with Austria officially opened, months after the first "cracks" appeared and thousands of prisoners of the Eastern bloc sought freedom illegally. That was a glorious day. I'm not sure November 9, 1989 and the protests that preceded it, would have occurred were it not for the liberalizations that communist governments acquiesced with for several months. I'm sure many communists, especially those in Moscow, thought these acquiescences were temporary and that eventually the protests would blow over. But freedom won. The opening of the Berlin border and tearing down that obscene wall that divided not only families and the German nation but the free world and the communist one, is day that is justly celebrated. Stuff 1. The Daily Telegraph reports that NASA has said 2012 is not true. 2. Tyler Cowen's post on measuring movie critics is worth a read, both for the article he links to that looks at movie critics and how much they deviate from one another and his own process for determining what might be a good movie to see. 3. Pictures from within Bellavista, a Colombian prison. (HT: Marginal Revolution) Note the cutlines which describe a functioning economy within the prison wells. Also notice the numerous pictures of the Virgin Mary. I also have no doubt that pictures mask how horrible life within the prison must actually be. 4. LiveScience has the top ten things that make humans special. 5. Cracked.com has a funny video on the "6 Types Of Youtube Videos There Are Waaay Too Many Of" (might not be appropriate for all maturity levels). 6 Types Of Youtube Videos There Are Waaay Too Many Of -- powered by Cracked.com |