To Neo-Con and Beyond!

A New Blog

2006-05-08T22:45:00.000-05:00

For you non-baseball fans who are readers of the blog (at least those who I haven't scared away) I have a new blog which may interest you.

Red Sox 7 Yankees 3

2006-05-02T10:50:00.000-05:00

I was not able to watch the game due to my schools late closing but I did see the game play by play and was very frustrating. The Yankees have two relievers who have any reliability out of the pen. They have one good LOOGY who can't LOOG against Ortiz and Sturtze who should be known as a ZOOGY (Zero outs only guy). Then they have Small and Proctor. Small is useful for spot starts and long relief. He walks too many and strikes out too few to be used with any reliabilty out of the bullpen. Proctor is a strange case. He walks many batters and strikes out a lot and is a home run machine waiting to happen. But he is a useful reliever who can take up a few innings. The major problem is that Torre isn't aware of most of this. He thinks Sturtze=Farnsworth and that tied road games are not for Rivera. So far this thinking has cost 2 games and it will keep on happening. When Dotel comes back the Yankees will have the best 7-8-9 combo in the league but right now they need to find somebody for the seventh. I think that Jaret Wright would be the best choice. He has stamina and he has potential if he doesn't have to go through the lineup more than once. He needs to be in the pen when Pavano returns in June so we should start training him for it and give his starts to Small or Proctor.
In better news the Yankees top prospect is now up to Double-A at the age of 20. In 2007 we're looking at a rotation of Hughes, (maybe called up in July or so) Wang, Chacon, Johnson, Pavano, and one of the Yankees AAA pitchers and that rotation is one with very good possibilities.

Tampa Series

2006-04-27T23:41:00.000-05:00

The Yankees won Game 1 in impressive fashion and won Game to in the third-order standings. Unfortunately the real game is first order and having a WHIP on offense of 2 for the game does not guarantee runs. In fact the Yankees were very creative in finding ways to not score including a 6-1-5 fielders choice double play. Eventually the Devil Rays broke through in the tenth with two runs against Rivera. The Yankees loaded the bases in the bottom of the tenth but couldn't score. It was mystifying that Torre went with Williams and not Phillips as a pinch hitter but that's the cost of sentimental signings. Then in game 3 the Yankees got lucky and scored three unearned runs against the Cy Young candidate Mark Hendrickson (0.00 ERA).

Series Preview Yankees vs. Tampa Bay

2006-04-24T22:01:00.000-05:00

The Yankees open a three game series against the Devil Rays on Tuesday. This series is one the Yankees have got to win at least 2 of them.

Mussina vs Kazmir
Yankees Winning Probability (This is based on Pythagorean records adjusted to starter. I am using a majority of starter performance based on ZIPS projections right now because of the small sample size). The Yankees have an approximately 69% chance of winning this game. Kazmir has an approach which could play into the Yankees hands. The Yankees are a patient team and Kazmir relies on batters chasing pitches out of the zone. I could definitely see Giambi having a big day against him. This game is probably the one the Yankees will have the most trouble with.
Wang vs McClung
Yankees Winning Probability- 80%. This game is one the Yankees should easily take as they send out the inconsistent Wang against the consistently bad Seth Mcclung. Look for pretty much everyone to have a good game.
Chacon vs. Hendrickson
Yankees Winning Probability- 72%. The Yankees chances are probably better than this as Hendrickson's predictions is brought down by his 1 start where he had a zero ERA. Chacon has been either bad or lucky this year. Against the Orioles for example he gave up only one run in 6 innings but he did it without striking out many and he walked three batters. The other starts he was not good at all. The Yankees will probably hace to score a lot of runs to win this game which looks to be a slugfest.
This series looks like one the Yankees can take and their expected series is a 2.2-.8 series victory. They probably aren't at that high a probability as they are pitching over their heads but
their offense is excellent and the D Rays pitching isn't.

Yankees over .500

2006-04-24T16:30:00.000-05:00

The Yankees finished taking 2 of 3 from the Orioles bringing their playoff odds up to 54%. In Game 1 they faced off against Kris Benson with Chen Ming Wang. Wang had walked the bases loaded and had two outs when Melvin Mora hit a ball to Jeter's left. Jeter showing his poor range had to make a weak off-balance throw and Phillips had to jump to get it. The umpire called Mora safe but replays showed that he came down before Mora did. That led to three runs scoring. Then in the ninth inning with the bases loaded and the Yankees down one Matsui had a full count. He took a pitch which appeared to be an inch or two off the outside corner. The umpire called it a strike and the game was over. Then in Game two Shawn Chacon somehow held the Orioles to one run despite giving up 3 walks and striking out only three. The Yankees in Game three went with Randy Johnson to take the series. He pitched surprisingly well despite only hitting around ninety and havng a slider which was flat for the first 4 innings. Giambi provided most of the offense. In the second he hit a homerun and hit another in the third. In the 5 with the bases loaded he hit a line drive hard down the first base line but right at Millar then in the seventh he hit a double which was off the base of the wall. In the third Torre showed why managers should be seen and not heard. First Jeter hit a single then he was picked off as he was running on the pitch. Then Sheffield hit a single and was caught stealing. Then A-Rod reached on an error and Giambi homered. Torre by himself took a grand slam away from Giambi and gave him a two run homer.

Yanks 9 Twins 3

2006-04-16T22:41:00.000-05:00

Record 6-6
Pythag Record 114-48
The Yankees salvaged the last game of the series against the Twins. The first two games were
very frustrating as they got dominated by a rookie pitcher who probably shouldn't be starting.

The next game they almost stole a game despite having a terrible starters matchup of Santana vs. Wright. They rallied and were leading 5-4 in the ninth. Mariano Rivera continued on and faced Luis Castillo. After possibly striking out Castillo on check swing he induced a weak groundball. Unfortunately it was placed in exactly the right spot and Castillo beat it out. Next he possibly struck out Mauer on dubious calls before giving up a single which Matsui misplayed into a double when he threw to third. Then he struck out White and Hunter. Then Mourneau came up to bat. Rivera induced a little bloop to second. Cano couldn't reach it and Rivera lost a game where he pitched a great inning. Then the Yankees beat up on Radke and his relievers for 9 runs in a game where Wang had his best game of the season and maybe a game where he starts striking out more batters. He struck out 8 batters and seemed to be throwing better soft stuff.

Yankees 9 Royals 7

2006-04-12T10:39:00.000-05:00

Record 3-4
Pythag Record 111-51
Playoff Odds 33%

The Yankees started off the game well with Damon hitting a double, A-Rod walking and Giambi hitting a 3 run homer. It appeared that the Royals couldn't handle the mystique and aura of Yankee stadium. In the third with the Yankees leading 4-1 and with the bases loaded with 2 outs they got into the Royals middle relief. This would ordinarily be a good thing but the Yankees decided to stop hitting such stars as Mike Wood and Elmer Dessens. Meanwhile Wang had given up 3 more runs and when Sturtze came in he showed why he was not a marquee relief pitcher. He gave up 3 runs in 1/3 of an inning and gave way to Mike Myers who got a pickoff and a strikeout. Then in the 8th inning town 7-4 the Yankees came up to bat. Due to their innovative lineup the Royals could bring in their second best reliever who's also a lefty and have the platoon advantage for 3 batters of five with the other two being switch hitters. Fortunately the Yankees scored 2 runs and had runners on first and second with 1 out for Johnny Damon (remember that spelling Jhonny Peralta). Damon struck out but Jeter came through with a three run homer. Then Rivera came in and nailed it down in the ninth. Giambi continued with his walking ways walking three times and bringing his season total up to ten.

Guity Even of Proven Innocent

2006-04-10T23:22:00.000-05:00

It seems from DNA evidence that Duke's lacrosse team did not rape strippers that they hired. The story was perfect for the press. You had all these trendy things going in the story. You had rich vs. poor, you had white vs. black, and you even had rape on college campuses. The story couldn't be more perfect except that the girl was lying. So far the story isn't that strange although there was a strange presumption of guilt on the students based on one of the least reliable sources possible. But Duke has refused to undo their punitive actions against the team. The coach has been fired and the season cancelled all because nobody considered that the students might be innocent. It turns out that even DNA evidence isn't enough against the presumption that athletes are all evil rapists. Duke will probably try to justify this on some moral ground but who would they be fooling. If they held every team to this standard Coach K wouldn't be making many more commercials. The story of assault seems implausible from the outset. It assumes that all 46 of the people there are complicit in the crime which makes very little sense. Suppose, for example, that 95% of athletes at the party would not report this assault (a figure which is probably high) there would be an approximately %90 chance that the crime would be reported. Assuming semi-rational behavior, nobody would be that stupid. In fact the history of these assault cases is not so good with Bryant standing out.

Yankees Angels

2006-04-09T21:56:00.000-05:00

The Yankees salvaged the last game of their series against the Angels 10-1 the Yankees have an extremely inconsistent offense with a standard deviation of around 4 on an average of 6 runs a game. Mussina was sharp for the whole game except for his one bad inning which is a trademark of Mussina. The Yankees offense teed off against Bartolo Colon despite the presence of Miguel Cairo playing first. There is no real reason why a lefty who hits fastballs well and can play defense, (Andy Phillips) would be sat in favor of a player who is completely worthless at everything he does. In Game 2 of the series Randy Johnson pitched better than he did on Opening Day even though he allowed 2 more runs. Johnson struck out 8 batters and walked none. He also allowed no homers. I think that Randy Johnson will have a better year than any pitcher not named Santana or Halliday. The Yankees offense was bad but not as bad as they seemed. The Yankees put 26 balls in play against the Angels. 2 of them went for hits. That is a .077 BABIP . The league average last year was around .300 if ythe Yankees had had average luck they would have had 5 more hits. This may be a bit high because they weren't hitting the ball hard all the time but I can think of three hits which the Yankees were unlucky to not get. One came from Cano who hit a low line drive straight at a fielder. The second time came with runners on first and second and 1 out. A-Rod hit a ball up the middle which hit Santana's knee. That prevented one run from scoring. In the eighth with Sheffield on second A-Rod hit a line drive which was grabbed by Kotchman that stopped another run from scoring. As for the first game I can't comment as I didn't see it but it looks like Chacon's magical mystery tour may be over. As for unluckiness the Yankees Pythagorean record is 4-2 with their record 2-4.

A's 9 Yankees 5

2006-04-06T00:41:00.000-05:00

Record 1-2
Pythagorean Record 1.59-1.41
In the third game of the season Torre proved himself to be worse than the blind squirrel. For the second game in a row Torre fumbled through his bullpen options and came up with maybe the worst one possible. Due to the Yankees lack of bullpen depth (Ahem Colter Bean) they were forced to go to Jaret Wright for two innings. Then with the score tied Torre faced a dilemma. Who should pitch the 8th and 9th. Farnsworth was supposedly out, having worn himself out with a 10 pitch outing the previous night, but that didn't turn out to be true (if it was true it would also be nonsensical like Guillen taking out two starters for rest on day 2 after an off day). Of course leaving Wright in was the obvious choice, right? Having done this calculation about Farnsworth Torre bided his time. First Wright gave up a triple, then after some bad defense and two runs later, he brought in the one who was unavailable, Kyle Farnsworth. This begs the question of, "Why not at the beginning of the 8th?" Torre seems uncapable of realizing that a tie game is an important situation and is one which should be entrusted to your best relievers. However Torre is like a blind squirrel in that, he knows that Rivera is his best and most important reliever (not always ,see game 2, but usually, especially in the playoff), but that is where the similarities end. A blind squirrel is a tragic creature trying to make the best out of bad circumstances. Torre takes a great situation and makes it into a bad one. Also nobody congratulates the blind- squirrel for his vision and votes him 'acorn gatherer of the year'. Finally and most importantly the blind squirrel is left to freeze and starve to death while Torre is entering his tenth year as manager.
Wang was good for the first 4 innings but was betrayed in the 4th by Jeter messing up an easy double play ball (he made up for it though by flipping to home plate 5 years ago). Wang did give up to hard hit balls after that but he relearned the dangers of being a Yankees groundballer (or flyballer heck with Posada even a strikeout pitcher isn't safe) and you can't blame him for how he pitched depressed. In the next inning he walked a run in despite throwing a perfect pitch on 2-2 which was called a ball. The defense was atrocious with Jeter's error and Cano making an error in the eighth.
The Yankees hit two home runs but aside from that were dominated by Haren, who struck out 8 batters. This was a disappointing game because it was a winnable game lost through bad defense and worse managing.

A's 4 Yankees 3

2006-04-05T00:23:00.000-05:00

Record 1-1
Pythagorean Record 1.355-1 (This record is the some of their pythagorean percentages in each separate game and then adding them).

The Yankees started off strong putting runners on 2nd and 3rd with nobody out in the first. Harden came back and struck out Sheffield, A-Rod, and Giambi to end the inning. The teams each scored 3 runs in the first eight innings (The Yankees with singles and groundouts and the A's with a single and two homeruns). The Yankees bullpen was looking good with a scoreless 8th. Then Torre struck with his first game-changing decision. In the bottom of the ninth in a tied game he can bring in the best reliever ever or a glorified ROOGY. This is one of the highest possible leverage situations and is the closer's secondary role. The A's understood this and brought in Street, but Torre went with loyalty, went with past performance, went by the book, and went with Scott Proctor. The results were predictable a walk, a sac bunt (again done in a high percentage time) ,then an intentional walk, and then a game winning RBI single.

Who Looked Good: Mussina looked solid giving up 2 earned runs in 7 innings. His curve was breaking sharply and he parlayed it into 6 strikeouts. He did give up two homers which is a bad sign. He walked only one and hit another for a very solid K:BB ratio. At the plate Posada was hitting the ball sharply and had a good night despite being robbed of a double. Damon was very solid with a couple of walks and a double. A-Rod had a good night with a pair of singles.

Who Didn't Look Good: Robinson Cano had a bad game despite a base hit because he was swinging at the first pitch far too often. Bernie Williams looked overpowered at times as well.
Scott Proctor also did not do exceptionally only getting the out they gave him.

Other Notes: Rich Harden looked exceptionally sharp and could turn the Cy Young ballot into a three man race with all three pitchers being under 30 years old. In the 7th inning Jeter sacrifice bunted Damon over to second. Needless to say, a hitter of Jeter's caliber shouldn't be bunting. This is a scene which will repeat itself over and over this year.

Yankees 15 A's 1 (8th inning)

2006-04-04T00:13:00.000-05:00

Yankees Record 1-0
Pythagoran WPCT% .995

The Yankees dominated this game starting in the second inning. The first two hitters got out but the Yankees got back to back walks before finishing the inning. Zito had little velocity, with his fastball hitting an 84 mph max, and little location on his curveball. In the second inning the Yankees batted around and more for 7 runs capped by an A-Rod grand slam. After that it was just piling on runs.

What Was Good: Besides the obviously great offense there were some interesting things happening. Bernie Williams showed good bat speed and was taking pitches up the middle and showing better plate discipline. Randy Johnson was okay but did not look that impressive having only three strikeouts. He did, however, have a few balls hit for easy popups which is a good sign.
A-Rod looked in good defensive condition by robbing two hits down the line. He showed his weakness on bunts when he fumbled a softly hit ground ball.

What Was Bad: Giambi made an error on a ball he should have had pretty easily. Aside from that Everything was perfect although Giambi had a small collision with Posada due to, it seemed bad communication on a pop fly.

Other Interesting Tidbits: The A's outfield defense is sick they have a ton of range and will take away a lot of doubles and singles. Frank Thomas and Jim Thome seem to be pretty similar players as injury-prone DHs. Wy the extra risk of injury to Thomas is worth 8 mil a year and Aaron Rowand is beyond me. Both are looking good with Thome and Thomas homering in their first game.
P.S. By the way, how can you not love a pythagorean winning percentage of .995.

Illegal Immigration

2006-03-30T22:44:00.000-06:00

In this post I'll examine McCain-Kennedy circulating right now. First there are a few ground facts about my thinking on illegal immigration. Illegal immigration is not a national security issue, a terrorist will not take the risk of being stopped at the border. Instead he'll cross from Canada or get a student visa (this has the plus of being available even to ~~former~~ current terrorists who get a good education so that they have a future even if that terrorism thing doesn't work out). Illegal immigration is an economic issue and the misunderstanding of free trade leads to significant opposition. This is why McCain-Kennedy is relatively pointless. The guest worker program is a good idea, although it seems relatively pointless as is it is already in effect and operating much more efficiently than the bill's system would. Also the $2000 fee is useless to catch criminals and only a pointless hardship on those who are doing nothing wrong. Citizenship possibilities are a good idea and the relative ease of deportation among those who apply would allow us to control our citizenship. However, there are only two ways to stop illegal immigration, take away the carrot or add the stick. Adding the stick is very hard since conditions in Mexico are much worse than in America and deportations leaves the deportee no worse off than before. However adding a carrot to legal immigration is simple. One, streamline citizenship for legal immigrants and, two, remove immigration quotas. This can be done at a profit to the country and the U.S. is not runnig out of land any time soon. Furthermore, the humanitarian benefits to this are tremendous. Not only are more people able to make it to the U.S., but they don't need to get here by traveling with abusive criminals. One problem which I haven't addressed but is solved is that of criminals bringing drugs over the border. The major problem is that border agents are overrun. If only criminals try to cross the border a far higher percentage will be caught and jailed or extradited to Mexico.

Jewish Conservatism

2006-03-28T23:34:00.000-06:00

Listening to talk shows gives you a sense of all the non-intellectual arguements of liberals. One of the favorite ones is "What Would Jesus Do/Drive/Pay out in welfare." The thing is that these callers are generally correct. Jesus was a man with strongly egalitarian views. In fact his movement is probably most similar to Korah's movement. Both were premised on the idea of, "All men are holy so why do we need priests?". It is true that Jesus would probably support the social program of the Democrats. That is why it is so much easier being a Jewish conservative. When your debater notices you're religious and uses that much used rebuttal you can laugh it off because you don't have to defend the words of someone who was (from the Jewish perspective) a charismatic, but false prophet. An example came up during the Medved show. He was arguing for something or other and a caller used his most devestating attack. "You call yourself a Christian, but..." the easy reply was, "No I don't I'm Jewish.

A Katrooian Birthday

2006-03-26T21:36:00.000-06:00

Have I ever told you what they do in Katroo?

They work and they toil for the big BBU.

“It should never have happened it never was planned

Katroo should have been a birthday paradise land

It started out small just a party or two

Then having a bird became the ‘in’ thing to do

So we paid quite a bit for the service they’d give.

For one day a year our children knew how to live.

But the poor kids shouted “we want those birthdays for me”

So we gave them “Happy Birthday See-cur-it-y”

Each kid in the land no matter his riches

Gets the same birthday whatever his wish is

You’re taught propaganda as you ride on the goat

Katroo “double-think” that you know well by rote

Like “If you weren’t in Katroo then what would you do

The government knows what is good for you”

And, “This land is good all life here is pleasant

Please ignore the report of this poor oppressed peasant.”

Then you’ll go to the mountain and you will see

All of Katroo and you’ll shout “WE ARE WE”

You’ll eat spools of hot dogs despite your protest

Because differences cause all social unrest

Then the butchers, those vermin of capitalist vice,

Saw the demand for franks, so they jacked up the price

This couldn’t continue so we made price controls

On butchers then bakers, who stopped making rolls.

Then the time-telling fish once so many and fair

Due to our hunting became exceedingly rare.

Then we cut off the heat to the mustard-off pool

Anyone jumping in was branded a fool

Then the snip-snippers you see wanted minimum wages

So we killed them all, first one by one then in stages.

Then we needed more money, no problem, taxes galore

Those who protested, well, they aren’t heard anymore.

Then let’s find a pet, we culled all the tallest

We found one 3’3, the tallest of allest.

We send it back in a box, sealed with the finest of waxes.

Who cares what it costs, it’s funded by taxes.

Then those Birthday palaces, we need twenty or more

Just to handle one birthday du jour.

And the singing herrings and the cutters of cake

Are union employees, all in on the take.

Today you are we, that is true as can be

There is no one alive who is you-er than me

Be happy you aren’t some person boring and droll.

Like a peasant, a farmer, or even a prole.

Instead you’re important, a disciple of Stalin

So be happy, be ‘free’, you’re birthday is callin’

Don’t skimp on the money, it’s not yours your savin’

So go with the service of your birthday bird maven”

Then there were two parties, and then there was one

Then everyone was equal, for then there were none.

Torah vs. Capitalism

2006-03-26T19:32:00.000-06:00

We see that many commandments in the Torah seem to have negative unintended consequences. For example the prohibition on interest is one which given human nature leads to less money being loaned. So I would say that three bedrocks of free-market capitalism run afoul of the Torah’s command. 1. Charging interest is a key need of capitalism because without interest no bank (and there would be no banks) will lend money to a company if it has no prospect of gain. 2. Cut-throat competition is a major part of a free-market as is obvious. The Torah, however, says that it is forbidden to drop prices to drive another store out of business. 3. The third prohibition is that of Loshon Hara our system requires circulation of information good and bad. Loshon Hara forbids this except in cases of personal need. However, even with no personal need having negative information widely known is important. The interesting common denominators of these commandments are that they can be done to non-Jews. It seems that G-d only requires us to sacrifice are economic wellbeing for other Jews. No utopian vision is needed when dealing with people of different faiths.

Megillah Thoughts

2006-03-18T22:38:00.000-06:00

Having been tagged by Tobie I will belatedly relate my thoughts on the Megillah. The first thing I noticed was how sometimes a Midrash explanation will be widely accepted even when it makes absolutely no sense. For example most schools it is considered as fact by many of the people in various Yeshivas that Esther married Mordechai but it is going against p’shat and the Megillah’s words to sy that (it says the king sought out young virgins). Another thing which occurred to me is how little we know of all the characters. The story, told with more depth in the characters and having the things which are skimmed over in the Megillah told in greater detail, would make a fascinating book. The last thing is that it seems that Mordechai and Esther only got rid of Haman. King Acheshvarosh didn’t really care about the Jews. The Jews did all the fighting and Acheshvarosh never planned to use the army against them and never used it for them. He had Haman killed but the reason the Jews won was because G-d no longer turned away from them. The last thing I noticed was how similar Acheshvarosh was to the people against Israel. When the Jews successfully defended themselves against enemies who want to kill them his first reaction was look how many people they’re killing imagine what they’re doing outside the capital. It’s a classic “blame the victim” mentality.

Wisdom of the Crowds part II

2006-03-18T21:56:00.000-06:00

In my last post about the NCAA I made predictions about the brackets and predicted better accuracy than the experts. So after one round I want to see how I did. First let’s see how the three “experts” did. Expert 1 predicted 26 of 32 games right this is a very good percentage and far excels any of the other two experts or my ways of picking. Expert 2 predicted 22 games right. Expert 3 predicted 21 games right. Now, how did the non-experts pick? The favorite, chosen by better seed, won 23 of the 32 games or better than 2 of the experts. The team with the better RPI won 22 of the 32 games behind one expert ahead of another and tied with a third. The bettors at Trade Sports were right in 23 of the games. Thus far it appears that the crowds, the bracket makers, and RPI are all equally good at picking and they all equal or do better than the experts.

Biologists against Evolution

2006-03-16T23:38:00.000-06:00

One of the foundations of evolution is that if you separate a population into two different enviroments they will get more different as time goes on. Therefore it seems strange that biologists reject as racist the idea that there are some genetic differences between the races. First of all we know that there is one large genetic difference between the races, skin color. To see that is the only difference is implausible and ridiculous. I will try to give current and an evolutionary basis for why blacks are faster than whites. The evolutionary basis is rather simple. If you don't domesticate animals there is more of an advantage for speed. Also speed has no value in a heavily agrarian economy. Okay so know we have a reason to expect added speed among blacks (and also among the Native Americans), if we find data which is significant which supports the hypothesis we should accept it (absent other data, of course). So lets take a look at the NFL. You have a significant of white players but far underrepresented. Okay the devil's advocate says that's because the blacks have more drive than whites. However that can't explain why, among those with the drive (the NFL players) the last white running back has been in the last millenium and ditto for any good wide reciever. So why are the biologists so up in arms against it. Eugenics. That movement has soured evolutionists on ever taking their ideas to their politically incorrect, logical conclusions.

Freddy Adu of the Blogosphere

2006-03-15T21:29:00.000-06:00

Or at least among the Search For Emes commenters. In general I would say that until 30 years old everyone with acess to new technology. After that half the people drop off from keeping up every 15 years. This is purely based on ancedotal knowledge but it makes sense to me. (By the way thank you Search For Emes for making me a multicelluar-organism).

The Wisdom of Crowds 1

2006-03-15T20:35:00.000-06:00

I decided to see how far a person could go in the NCAA brackets. I made my predictions having watched zero games this year and checking three web sources. However I'd be willing to bet that my predictions beat around half of the experts if not more. I made three brackets. One bracket was straight favorites in seeding. This is testing the knowledge of a group of experts (those who make the seeding). The next bracket was based on RPI which adjusts a teams winning percentage to strength of schedule. This is betting based on past performance. Then my last bracket was based on the line at this trading market this is the widom of crowds. After each round I'll compare the brackets to those of various experts who posted their brackets. An interesting thing about these brackets is when telling others my idea they revealed their misunderstanding of probability and game theory. Their view was that there are going to be upsets so therefore you can't pick only favorites. The problem with that is that of course if you had to pick a winning percentage for your picks it wouldn't be perfect but you don't know who'll lose. As an example say you made 100 picks each with a 60% chance in your favor. If you pick all the favorites you can expect to get 60 right. If you pick only 60 favorites you expect to get 52 right (.6 times 60=36 plus .4 times 40=52) You have lost 8 points because you assumed the games were dependent variables not independent variables. This seems to be how people act as a Yale study shows. They had a T-Square maze where there was no pattern except for a 60-40 split of right to left. The rat eventually hit its maximum potential at 60%. However the students were stuck at 52%. There are two possible reasons they got to that exact percentage. One is that they found patterns and 60% of the time the patterns pointed to the right side. The other possibility is that they subconsciously realized the odds but didn't realize how to act on them efficiently they only knew to bet on one 60% of the time.

USA 4, Japan 3

2006-03-12T18:39:00.000-06:00

I thought the WBC would be pretty good baseball. I was wrong it's amazing baseball. I just watched Japan play America and it has got to be up their in the classic games I've seen and it ranks ahead of any non-playoff game. First of all you had Japan really pumped about this game. Remember Japan loves baseball and wants to show itself as the equal to America. So the first batter was Ichiro and he hits a home run. The US threatens in the bottom of the first but the choker A-Rod comes up and hits into a double play. Then in the second Japan gets two runs and the US can't score. Over the middle innings the US ties the games on home runs by Chipper and Derrick Lee. This is already a good game but the final two innings are what makes it great. In the eighth Japan loads the bases with one out. They have a very fast player on. A fly ball is hit and the runner tags. The US claims he was out for leaving early but they lose. Then the (American) umps overrule the call and call the runner out. The game is still tied though and the US goes 1-2-3 on the ninth. Then Japan loads the bases on walks but Lidge strikes out Japan's cleanup hitter. Then comes the bottom of the ninth. First Vernon Wells hits a single. A sac bunt which Randy Winn beats out leads to first and second nobody out. Then Michael Young bunts but the lead runner is thrown out. Then Jeter is hit by a pitch. Bases loaded one out. Griffey runs the count full but then on 3-2 swings on a pitch out of the zone. It comes up to A-Rod, the one who buckles under pressure, A-rod lines the pitch past the pitcher. The ball hits off the second baseman's glove and the USA wins. The game was classic and it had an Olympics feel to it. Japan and to a lesser extent the US cared a lot about who won. As a Yankees fan I am worried about the fact that Jeter laid down two sacrifices. Just imagine Damon then Jeter I bet he'll break the record for sac bunts.

Yankee Haikus

2006-03-09T21:46:00.000-06:00

1st Base- Giambi
Steroid user
14 Home Runs in July
Does he still inject?
2nd Base- Cano
Just twenty-three years
He saved the Yanks from Womack
Can he draw a walk?
Shortstop- Jeter
Loved by McCarver
The god of playoff clutchness (tm)
He dives into stands.
Third Base- A-Rod
Fourty-eight homers
Beats out the great Joltin' Joe
Why do they hate him?
Tomorrow I'll go with catcher and outfield.

My Motto

2006-03-08T23:48:00.000-06:00

I feel that the motto on top might reveal more of my views than any other line.

State of Fear

2006-03-08T23:44:00.000-06:00

I must say State of Fear is not the best written book and not the deepest book but it does have something no other book has. After you hate the disingenous Hollywood enviromentalists you get the payoff near the end of the book. Martin Sheen gets eaten by cannibals.

Petty Talk Show Host Rivalries

2006-03-04T20:11:00.000-06:00

Listening on Friday to Michael Medved it struck me how much talk show hosts despise some of the others (usually those ahead in the ratings). For example Medved was saying how any talk show host who says we are selling away our national security in the port deal is a deliberate liar (ahem Savage). Also when telling a website plugging caller why she had been cut off (by the way why do some people constantly call up these shows some of the hosts actually know these people from their calls) that I don't run my show like an infomercial for my book (ahem Hannity). Not to be outdone Savage will call the two hosts ahead in the ratings Hush Bimbo and Pawn Vanity. Of course he also claims he doesn't care about ratings but whenever they come out he trumpets his success for hours.

Dvar Torah III

2006-03-04T20:03:00.000-06:00

This is late but the parshah is kind of boring until you think a lot about it.

It seems that there are three kinds of religious law. You have the purely religious which is represented by the giving of the Torah. This is law designed for us to serve G-d such as praying and learning. Then you have in parshat Mishpatim the law which is made to create a well functioning society. These laws are the ones responsible for protecting property rights and establishing courts. Then there is the third type which is designed to give us structure in foreign territory. Take this parshah. It doesn't really matter to G-d how big the different vessels are or the exact service. However, it is essential for us to be able to rely on the structure of religion. Just this evening I was at a shivah house. The process of mourning is one which is unknown to the mourners. They have no idea how to express their grief and what outlet they should use. However, halachah tells us that they must sit low in mourning for one week. This is a tremendous source of comfort.

This may be just a pet peeve but....

2006-02-27T23:04:00.000-06:00

I feel really annoyed when sports columnists make projections without spending any time on getting a .500 baseline. An example today was Phil Rogers handicapping the WBC according to him the U.S., Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Japan were expected to combine for around 1.1 WBC wins. This out of 1 winner. Another example was ESPN's NFL projections. They finished 92 games off or around 3 games off per team a large reason for this is that they predicted the average team for a slightly better than 9-7 record. If I was making a 5 minute list then I wouldn't worry so much about it but these people have integrity and have editors to ensure integrity and accuracy. Shouldn't they spend that extra 10 minutes to get it close.

Dvar Torah Again

2006-02-24T16:33:00.000-06:00

This weeks Parshah and Haftorah place an emphasis on the limits of slavery. From only a 6 year duration for Jewish slaves to the penalties for mistreating a non-Jewish slave one of the major emphasises is the limits of your rights to people as property. This surfaced in the 19th century when it was people who were devoutly religious who led the abolition movement. In fact science before the public opinion changed had no real problem with it. This is because science has the major limitation of being worthless in regard to moral questions. Darwin's evolution was used to support eugenics and in fact it did support it but that didn't make it right. Science concerns itself with what is and therefore when used to make moral judgements assume that that is what should be. Religion can make the moral judgements because they have the overriding philosophy that allows them to make judgements about what should be.

More Ports

2006-02-22T23:58:00.000-06:00

Listening to Mike Gallagher (the host who you feel really bad when you agree with him see also Savage, Michael.) you get the feeling that the real debate seems to be whether any Arabs can be trusted, What would his position be on a group of American-Arabs who bought the port. Logically it should be the same as his position here but of course he wouldn't say that.

Arabs and Ports

2006-02-22T22:30:00.000-06:00

The port deal should make everyone uneasy. The question is, is that uneasiness worth the cost of relations to UAE and the damage to our support of free trade. First of all the Arab country will not have control of security and almost certainly will not be hiring Arab employees to run the ports. This company is large, multinational, and has had no ties to terrorism. Therefore the debate boils down to can we switch to a global economy but leave one ethnic group completely out of it. Taking away this contract would alienate an important ally and lead to more terrorism. In fact this idea taken to the limits of what is supported would make the Arab countries completely isolated except for oil. This leads to huge income gaps and large unemployment rates. This isolation would lead to greater hate of the U.S. as we were (somewhat correctly) considered the cause for this misery. Of course the opponents are a combination of terrorism hardliners who object to the Arab part of the deal and the group which knocked ou the Conoco sale which objected to the foriegn ownership of the resources based on their debunked economic theories.

Crazy Names

2006-02-21T22:18:00.000-06:00

During Driver's Ed I passed a Doctor's office operated by Gengha Khan. Maybe he should learn some Asian history.

Guilt by Association.

2006-02-19T23:36:00.000-06:00

As I listen to talk radio I hear the ads. Surprisingly all of them seem to be for debt removal or for getting money for home. This is true even for the shows whicha re during the commutes. You wonder are they misadvertising for their audience or is the giant talk radio audience just one giant group of deadbeats. Also if it is the second one how does this make sense conservatives are richer and in general during the commute their audience is weaker. Is it just all the housewives for whom the ads are tunes. You can learn a lot about the peole you agree with by just listening to the ads.

My Favorite and the Weirdest Rock

2006-02-18T23:44:00.000-06:00

Check out the link and listen to the song and here the clever but twisted sounding song. Remember that this was sent as a Christmas thank-you to an actual person. It contains such gems as "The robot council had us banished to an asteroid that hasn't undermined our holiday cheer." and, "Where we're working in a mine for our robot overlords did I say overlords I mean protectors."

To all Prius Owners

2006-02-18T23:43:00.000-06:00

Sunday's Dilbert is for you

The Winter Olympics

2006-02-18T23:08:00.000-06:00

The interview after a black man won a skating medal was very amusing. This had nothing to do with his race but due to the fact that the man clearly had no desire to be interviewed and showed no emotion about winning the medal. Throughout the entire interview he looked straight ahead and kept a poker face. After the interview the interviewer lifted her eyebrows kind of saying Huh. Of course it doesn't help that another American skating champion when asked if he was happy for the winner said he was happy for the silver-medalist.

Bad Fantasy

2006-02-18T23:04:00.000-06:00

Reading a fantasy book due to boredom I came across the bad writing cliche that annoys me maybe most. The scene the hero has been attacked it is close quarters and he throws his attacker up against the wall. How would he fall? You can think of many good descriptions such as with several bones breaking or he fell and was still for a long time. However invariably the bad writer will describe it as falling in a boneless heap and think he/she is being clever doing so. It gets annoying after the fifth book you read describing a villian falling that way. Speaking of he/she annoyances you have the matter of their militaries. Invariably some high position will be held by a female who will be second in competence to only the hero/heroine. Fact women will always be worse sword fighters than men because they lack the muscle. The gun is the only reason women can function as effective fighters. Besides those two things the book was so-so.

A Dvar Torah

2006-02-17T14:30:00.000-06:00

Hopefully this will be something I keep up but I hope to post a dvar Torah based on the weeks parshah which has deeper implications. All these thoughts are my own. This is my own interpretation which is based on my own logic.
The next day, Moses sat to judge the people. They stood around Moses from morning to evening. When Moses' father-in-law saw all that [Moses] was doing for the people, he said, 'What are you doing to the people? Why are you sitting by yourself and letting all the people stand around you from morning until evening?' 'The people come to me to seek God,' replied Moses to his father-in-law. Whenever they have a problem, they come to me. I judge between man and his neighbor, and I teach God's decrees and laws. Moses' father-in-law said to him, 'What you are doing is not good. You are going to wear yourself out, along with this nation that is with you. Your responsibility is too great. You cannot do it all alone. 'Now listen to me. I will give you advice, and God will be with you. You must be God's representative for the people, and bring [their] concerns to God. Clarify the decrees and laws for [the people]. Show them the path they must take, and the things they must do. 'But you must [also] seek out from among all the people capable, God-fearing men - men of truth, who hate injustice. You must then appoint them over [the people] as leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties, and leaders of tens. 'Let them administer justice for the people on a regular basis. Of course, they will have to bring every major case to you, but they can judge the minor cases by themselves. They will then share the burden, making things easier for you. If you agree to this, and God concurs, you will be able to survive. This entire nation will then also be able to attain its goal of peace.' Moses took his father-in-law's advice, and did all that he said He chose capable men from all Israel, and he appointed them as administrators over the people, leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties, and leaders of tens. They administered justice on a regular basis, bringing the difficult cases to Moses, and judging the simple cases by themselves.

What we have here is the start of judicial delegation. However this doesn't seem to be either a clever idea or one which had not been used. It seems impossible that Moshe could judge all the cases of a population which was at least 1 million people. So what was Yitro's great idea and why is it so important that is mentioned in the Torah. My explanation will answer all these questions and more. First of all Moses's judging was happening very soon after the giving of the Torah (according to the Ramban). He was teaching them the Torah by judging the cases which required some interpretation of the written Torah and wasn't something already decided or mentioned explicitly. Yitro's major innovative idea was that it wasn't just Moshe who could interpret the Torah but it was for the people who didn't have constant revelation from God also.

This is the why it is so key for this to be mentioned before the Divine Revelation at Sinai. That the Torah is "an inheritance for the Congregation of Jacob." Also the judging was happening recently after the incident of the Golden Calf. Moshe was trying to bring the people to God through him. Yitro was telling him that the Torah was given to the masses and that Judaism must be able to survive Moshe. This was the reason for the Temple and its high priest being somebody besides Moshe. The Temple was created mainly as a place for the average man to become closer to God and not mainly as a shrine to Moshe or the Torah. In a similar way we see that the sin for which Moshe didn't enter Israel was the hitting of the rock. All the explanations about why it was so wrong seem to assume that what isn't wrong for us was wrong for Moshe. However I think the major problem was that the well ran out immediately after Miriam's death. Moshe speaking to the rock would be an opportunity to show that it wasn't Moshe's power which led the Jew's but God. Instead he hit the rock which indicated that Moshe used his power to get water from the rock and they couldn't suceed without him. Therefore it was necessary for him to die before they entered the land so that they could see that they could conquer the land through God's grace alone without any of the people who took them out of Egypt. This was necessary for the people to survive in absence of Moshe or later the Temple.

Mormons v. Religion

2006-02-17T00:39:00.000-06:00

Intelligent design isn't the biggest clash between science and religion just the biggest clash among the popular ones. However the Mormans face a problem which strikes at the core of their religion and it will be interesting to see how the matter settles. Mormon teaching is that basically the Jew's blessing came to the Indians and then to the Mormans (this is based on just my scanty knowledge and all the stuff you pick up from reading Orson Scott Card). However mDNA analysis which is unique in that there is no change from generation to generation but is only passed down from the mother. This shows no Jewish mDNA in Indian blood. To non-Mormans this is hardly surprising but this is close to finding Jesus and Joseph's DNA and finding that they matched. However there are three ways they can try to deal with issue. You can say scientific and religious truth are separate and unrelated. This has been tried against evolution but you still have the issue of why G-d switched the facts just to trick us. There is the method tried by the evangelists and by some of the more right-wing (ultra-religious is the term used but really they don't see themselves as ultra-religious just as religious as required) religious Jews this says that all of this is a pack of lies and that the scientists are atheists who don't know the truth. Also there is a third way which is a reinterpretation of the text based on present knowledge. Not knowing Mormon scripture I do not know how they can do this but this is the option which gives the best religious way of dealing with problems and allows the members to function in face of evidence used against their religion.

A NYT Song (Click on the title then go to MIDI File to get music with it)

2006-02-12T13:25:00.000-06:00

I am the chief editor of the New York Times print edition

I routinely write things bordering libel, treason, and sedition

I know what Bush is doing and I fight him on everyday

Just recently I wrote a story on the secret NSA

So I know everything behind the Senate and House closed doors

What I could tell you about all their secrets you it would surely floor

And I can write on secret documents and they will let me be

Because my speech is free under Constitutional guarantee

Because his speech is free under Constitutional guarantee

Because his speech is free under Constitutional guaranguarantee

Then I can publish columns which are libelous and spurious

My Shield Law defense always will leave my suers so furious

But still in fighting those evil neo-cons and supporting causes Dem

I am the very model of a member of the MSM

But still in fighting those evil neo-cons and supporting causes Dem
I am the very model of a member of the MSM

I know all the legal history United States versus NYT

It means that I can publish even things I should not ever see

I love the movie about those two gay cowboys on Brokeback Mount

I mention it in fawning articles to much for you to count

About the bloggers we attack with horrendous ferocity

But for those Christians we reserve all of our venomosity

But about crazy Moslems we must show great sensitivity

Therefore we only show pictures of a dung-filled Nativity

Therefore they only show pictures of a dung-filled Nativity

Therefore they only show pictures of a dung-filled Nativitivity

Then our circulation is now falling quickly every day

It seems that people do not care anymore what we have to say

But still in fighting those evil neo-cons and supporting causes Dem
I am the very model of a member of the MSM
But still in fighting those evil neo-cons and supporting causes Dem

I am the very model of a member of the MSM

When I know what is meant by the terms blogging and podcasting

When I start off by talking some sense and stop my bombasting

Then when I realize that my speech can be a dangerous thing

And that all of my great power does responsibility bring

When I can write an article without a gratuitous Bush slam

When I can stop comparing every war we fight to Vietnam

In short when my readers believe what I say more or less

You will say that a better paper has never come off the press

You will say that a better paper has never come off the off the press

My journalistic writing which is lacking in integrity

Has only been brought up to the beginning of the century

But still in fighting those evil neo-cons and supporting causes Dem

I am the very model of a member of the MSM

But still in fighting those evil neo-cons and supporting causes Dem
I am the very model of a member of the MSM

Old Peoples' Homes

2006-02-10T16:39:00.000-06:00

One of the most bogus issues out there is the problem of property taxes driving old people out of their homes. Old people who own houses are one of the most affluent group and there is no reason to give them special tax breaks. The assumption is that you have a right to live in your house for the rest of your life. In fact there is a simple non-governmental solution to this if people are really bothered by this. Allow people to sell their houses to others with the sale effective after their deaths. The seller would get pretty close to full value for his house because of the rise in real estate value. The problem is that these people demanding government action deny that there should be any tradeoffs to the goal of letting people stay in their houses without paying taxes. Heinlein's solution of people setting the value which is the same for both buying and taxes would work although it would never happen. He adds the important clause that you can block a takeover by raising the value and paying 3 years back taxes.

Caretta Scott King

2006-02-08T22:07:00.000-06:00

Many people are outraged at the Democrats turning Mrs. Martin Luther King's funeral into a political rall ala Paul Wellstone. This doesn't bother me so much. The sentiments expressed however wrong are ones that she approved are and given how political her life was it seems only appropriate that her politicla views are expressed.

The Wonderful World of Farming

2006-02-03T11:27:00.000-06:00

In my English class we are learning about the Romantic poets. Of course this involves discussing the history and people moving off the land. My teacher was bemoaning this and how it was so much better working on the farm as a farmhand. This is because there was less crime (not true murder rates have gone down tremendously since the 1700's) and you didn't have to worry about losing your job (also strange since a bad farming year wiped you out). Of course they had to leave to work in the terrible factories. Here my teacher makes a mistake fundamental to people who don't understand economics. He credits minimum wage laws and unions with helping the workers overall. The fact is that unions are pointless in the unskilled labor which went on in the factories. People were desparate to work there and the law didn't protect them from ununionized workers (the law was twisted against unions but without favoritism towards them they would have failed.) Also the bad conditions were not just a way of saving money by the owners there was no real way they could have had factory safety with the technology then. The most disturbing part though is how negative the Yeshiva education is about present society. The teacher asked the class whether today's society was better than the 1700's and only 2 people in the class said it was better. The people were me and a kid who just came from public school.

The State of The Union Address

2006-01-31T21:33:00.000-06:00

Ths address is one I would rate a B-. The first 25 minutes were pap except for the admirable defense of supporting democracy. The speech said nothing of value for a while and was just Rah-Rah rambling. Then he entered his domestic policy phase. He started off strong by rejecting tariffs and supporting permanent tax cuts and supporting immigration. Then he started off on plain dumb ideas. One is increased government funding for alternate energy sources. This is the idea whichwon't be stopped by the reality against it. Also he made the misleading statement saying that they cut non-security disgressionary spending that is true but partly because so much of that stuff is shoved into nondisgressionary spending. Also the most revealing time in the speech was when the Democrats started applauding the line where Bush said my plan to save Social Security was stopped. If there ever was a party with no agenda it is the Democrats today. For the second year in a row the Democrat response had a message which was something like, " We love Jesus now listen to us on the other issues." There was the usual support for raising spending and cutting the budget by raising taxes. Of course its easy to balance a budget with no military but that is secondary to the governors. Also he endorsed the illegality of drug importation from Canada. The last strange thing is that medical care for the non-poor elderly has become a moral obligation. The old who aren't eligible for Medicaid are richer than average. Why should the government support them?

The Worst Investment

2006-01-31T09:26:00.000-06:00

In 1985 the Dow Jones was 1500 points now it is close to 12000. Gold was around $325 an ounce and is now close to $600 this makes these buy gold advertisements annoying because it is one of the worst investments out there. Gold is around a 4% return over the past 20 years. The stock market is around an 11% return annully over the past 20 years.

Maybe the most inaccurate statement made in announcing.

2006-01-28T22:44:00.000-06:00

The Bulls announcers were describing the game in a postgame summary tonight and they said that Ben Gordon had scored the Bulls last ten points and that all of them were needed. The final score of the game was 111-91.

The Idiocy of Yankee Kool-Aid drinkers.

2006-01-23T22:36:00.000-06:00

At my school I was talking about the Yankees with a fellow fan. In a short conversation he manged to state several foolish positions. First he claimed that Sheffield was a good defensive outfielder citing his strong arm. This ignores his lack of range and his disdain for hustling. He then claimed Matsui was a savvy fielder. ( Although he claims to have listened to the games he obviously hasn't seen the terrible routes Matsui takes.) Robinson Cano was described as fast despite having only 1 steal all year. The most idiotic point was his attempt to characterize the Yankees as young. This definiton works only if you feel 32 is young and even then they are slightly old. Of course he didn't want to admit that this was trouble so he tried to argue that these days aging doesn't matter.

Do You Recognize a Pattern

2006-01-23T22:30:00.001-06:00

John Kerry (or his office) decided to make a statement of beliefs on the ultra nutty website Daily Kos basically it was standard boilerplate about how the Bush administration let Osama go at Tora Bora because they were preparing for war with Iraq (I think John Kerry is a fan of Von Klausowitz military strategy.) When you consider the fact that extra soldiers would be pointless it's strange to see what the War in Iraq has to do with Tora Bora. But the point is that both Gore and Kerry have started going off the liberal deep end after losing. After Hillary Clinton you'll see this pattern repeat itself.

Do You Recognize a Pattern

2006-01-23T22:30:00.000-06:00

Osama lovers in America

2006-01-23T09:15:00.000-06:00

It is deeply disturbing that Osama Bin Laden can make a book go from 216,000 to 20 with just one plug. A large segment of this market are the moonbats who only narrowly voted Osama worse than George W. Bush. The author is even more despicable efusing to disacosiate himself from the endorsement. He either is a terrorist lover or a money-grubbing author. Among those people its hard to say which is worse.

A Crazy Bumper Sticker

2006-01-23T09:12:00.000-06:00

Coming back from the library my father pointed out a bumper sticker which said. "The Hokey Pokey is What it's all about." There may be deep theological implications to this but I'm not going to bother examining them.

Grossman Under Snap

2006-01-15T23:57:00.000-06:00

It looked extremely rocky for the bear front team that day

the score was 7 zip and it was only the second play,
and so when Peanut let Smith by and for six he did blaze
there was a morbid edge to the fan's alchoholic haze.

A straggling few gave up on the Bears for the day
The rest clung to the hope that "Winner" Orton wouldn't play.
If only "mighty" Grossman could but complete one of two
I might put money on them if even that he could do.

But the Bears then went three-and-out and then did so again
It seemed their only chance was for Vasher to jump the passing lane
So the Bear fandom sat through the punting drive after drive
For there seemed but little chance of the dead offense coming alive

But Rex took them deep to score six at the end of the half
To start the third they got six more and the fans started to laugh
They were down but two and they knew what would soon occur
Their defense would hold strong and young Rex Grossman would endure

Then from the fans there did rise a fearsome cry of battle
For they knew that they would win they were going to Seattle
The game was surely over the fat lady had just to sing
For Chitown mighty Chitown was the clear defensive king

There was ease in the hard count as Grossman marched them down once more
But what was this? The Panthers took the ball and proceeded to score
And when responding to the score young Grossman brought them back
Drama in this famous second city was not any lack

Fans eyes were on Smith when he ran the reverse for twenty
Agonized Bears watched as he scored beating Thompson plenty
And after the touchdown the fans hearts were suddenly flipped
When the kick hit the uprights because mighty Kasay slipped

The Bears were down eight just an easy, quick score and a two
With mighty Rex in the backfield a simple thing to do
They drove the ball quickly to the thirty-seven yard line
Rex looked to Gage too long, to Ken Lucas it was a sign

From the bleachers black with Bears fans there came a muffled roar
like the beatings of a storm wave on a stern and distant shore
"Bench him, bring in 'winner' Orton." Shouted someone in the stands
And its likely they'd have done it had not Lovey raised his hand.

First down brought the Panthers nine yards the Bears did need a stop
A loss and a gain of four and they punt, one chance to top
Rex gets the ball with only one minute left in the game
A Rex incomplete pass the receiver deserves the blame

A strike outside to Muhammed it is now first and ten
This is time in football which separates the boys from men
A sneak, an incomplete, a pass and then its fourth and one
a chance to continue or perhaps the game is done.

Grossman heads up the line hears the cheers from the nervous fans
everyone is looking closely from tots to the eldest grans.
He has Moose Muhammed on an out looks over with fear
the moment stops as the high pass comes over him but near

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright
the band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light
and, somewhere men are laughing and little children shout,
But there is no joy in Chitown
for Chicago is now out.

Mystique, Aura Fail

2006-01-14T23:27:00.000-06:00

The Patriots lose to the Broncos in a game where it was assumed they couldn't lose. Also they lost because they played carelessly not at all like the playoff hardened veterans are supposed to play. Thank G-d that the AFC championship will probably be between the two best teams.

Another Great Moment for Women's Sports

2006-01-14T23:23:00.000-06:00

A boy's high school hockey team beats the woman's olympic team in an exhibition 2-1. This was event hough there was no checking which would have given the boys team a bigger edge. This is one of the many reasons Title IX is stupid it denies that men are not only more adept at sports but better at them. Also they are not huge money drains on colleges as women's colleges are. I don't think women are in significant danger if they lose their guaranteed equality in sports money.

Michael Savage is nuts (Volume XXXXXXXXXIIII)

2006-01-11T23:39:00.000-06:00

Michael Savage was making a huge deal about Feinstein correcting Kennedy during a diatribe of his. His basic assumption was that Kennedy is a Manchurian candidate with Feinstein as the queen of diamonds. This is reasonably humourous. Michael then went on a rant about how FoX News wouldn't cover this story and how this showed that it was in the pockets of the Communist rat filth.

The Alito Hearings

2006-01-11T23:34:00.000-06:00

These hearings are completely pointless. It involves Democrats attacking Alito with empty platitudes and then attacking him for answering with empty platitude. But seriously it is the problem with the committee structure. A bill can be killed in committee with majority support. However the full Senate can't bypass this committee. Judges have no reason to be kept in committee as any questions are suitable for a full senate. Unfortunately you can't mess with the Mystique and Aura of the Senate structure.

Arming Africa

2006-01-05T23:11:00.000-06:00

It seems that the best way to prevent genocide is to arm the citizenry however the humanitarians have been brought up to believe that private gun ownership is evil. This is perhaps their cause which will cost the most lives. The reason this interests me is because of a conversation I had on Thanksgiving about what technology brought back from today would mean the most rapid technological advancement of the world. I would say the technology which would make the most difference is probably navigating equipment and the technology backround. However the one which might make the most difference is a bow which would be distributed to the serfs which could penetrate armor. For example a cheap crossbow which could be distributed would allow the people to stop the army from taking their crops and would probably make the most difference in limiting government power as they couldn't just oppress large numbers of serfs with no personal consequences. This is the reason for the Second Amendment. It is the ultimate check on government. An armed citizenry cannot be ignored and oppressed without serious consequences. Nothing can stop an unreasonable search and seizure by the government or the quartering of troops in your house better than a pistol. Again militias were private groups. The Second Amendment is the true base for all our freedoms we have today.

Pat Robertson the Fool

2006-01-05T23:03:00.000-06:00

Pat Robertson has come out saying that the stroke is God's punishment to Sharon for his disengagement. I would like to publicly apologize for having onc esupported his statement about Chavez. This man is not only an idiot but an evil one. He is one of two prominent men publicly saying this right now. The other is the President of Iran. Pat Robertson hosts a show listened to by gullible fools who don't see him as the fraud he is. Furthermore considering Sharon's body type its more a miracle he didn't have strokes before now than retribution now. (One is at .01 the other is at 0 respectively.)

A Warp Drive Possible

2006-01-05T22:57:00.000-06:00

Some serious scientist is saying that he can make a ship go faster than light in our dimension by going into a separate dimension. Probably this won't happen because to work we would have to rework the laws of physics. The Air Force has expressed interest though so there probably is more to this than just half-baked ideas. The most interesting thing is that he said he could build a working engine in 5 years. This is about the time it is taking Microsoft for their next operating system. If this is true it will have a secondary wonderful effect of making NASA irrelevant.

May Sharon have a Complete Recovery

2006-01-04T23:32:00.000-06:00

Sharon's internal bleeding has apparently not stopped and the operation must continue. My sincerest wish is that Sharon should completely recover quickly. Even more important is the danger of the country being left leaderless while he is under. With people like the Arabs who celebrate at news of his stroke, (also there are the Amir like Jews who are celebrating and they are equally disgusting) there must be a serious concern that they will launch heavy terrorist attacks on Israel. Perhaps in the global considerations the lack of leadership while Israel makes its final decision on attacking Iran's reactor is the most serious. However when Sharon recovers from this stroke he should immediately step down from any leadership position for these reasons. Someone with such a critical job should not be one who can become incapacitated at any moment.

Texas 41, Usc 38

2006-01-04T23:30:00.000-06:00

An amazing Rose Bowl was played showing the superiority of the BCS to the previous system since the Rose Bowl wasn't bound by conference. It also demonstrates why college football is so much more entertaining (with two good teams) than the NFL. One reason is that the defenses are worse which makes each play more likely to be a breakaway play for a big gain. Another factor is that the clock stops on first downs within 2 minutes of the end of the half. Also there is more offense which means more lead changes and more interestiong football since a defensive struggle is one of the most boring things to watch. The final factor is the lack of good kicking which makes even the PATs not automatic

Russia, Ukraine and the Joy of Competition

2006-01-02T22:45:00.000-06:00

Russia recently has entered into a dispute with Ukraine after they cut off natural gas supplies from Ukraine after the expiration of the current contract. The real problem is that Ukraine is where the natural gas to Europe goes through and is saying they will take gas instead of transit fees. Natural gas prices in Europe have shot up. This case clearly shows the dangers of relying on any one group to supply a necessity. This is why I don't think widespread boycotts of middle-eastern oil is a good thing. The money may go to support terrorism but the important thing is to make collusion/ natural problems have less of an effect on the economy and the market. Russia seems to consider Ukraine as a Taiwan type country to be meddled with as needed. When the power of orange elected the non-Kremlin candidate Russia decided to retaliate. One can only hope this solved peacefully and without the use of serious weaponry.

2006-01-02T22:42:00.000-06:00

This is the first in hopefully a series of Narnia the Musical. This song is when the witch announces her claim on Edmund it combines Tradition and Matchmaker from Fiddler on the roof
White Witch: Who day and night must punish every treason?
I say that I do, Deep Magic is my reason.
And who has the right as an evil villain
To punish you instead?
All: The White Witch, The White Witch, Tradition!
The White Witch, The White Witch, Tradition!
White Witch: Who must know the way to do the evil rite,
The wicked rite, the needed rite,
Who must take the traitors worthless life
So my prophesied knell won't ring
All: The White Witch, The White Witch, Tradition!
The White Witch, The White Witch, Tradition!
Edmund: First time I ate Turkish delight, Next time I ran away.
I hear they've got it in for me, I hope it's not today
All: The Traitor, The Traitor, Tradition!
The Traitor, The Traitor, Tradition!
Lucy: And who discovered the door in the spare 'oom
And was told imagining was my nome de plume
All: The Lucy, The Lucy, Tradition!
The Lucy, The Lucy, Tradition!
Matchmaker
Aslan: White Witch, White Witch, make your pick
But once you do, get out real quick
White Witch, White Witch, pick me please
And leave the poor child alone.
White Witch, White Witch, I 'll go alone
You cut me up, I'll pick you no bone.
White Witch, White Witch, I'll take the scorn
when my long mane is shorn.
Peter go lead the whole army
Edmund stay behind away from vice
Luce and Sue will then come with me
Until they reach the place of sacrifice
White Witch, White Witch just make the cut
I'll be as peaceful as any mutt
In just one day, are armies will battle
So slaughter me as you would a cattle.
Aslan Oh Aslan, It's so very hard to choose
Boy Edmund, King Lion, the other I lose.
But I'll defeat you, a quick rout, Right? Right.
I just flip a nickel, or maybe I'll cheat.
But the picked one is dead, vultures will eat.
Aslan, I flipped it, your side was on the top
It's perfect, it's great, your head will chop
Think I have mercy, compassion, Yeah, Right.
You thought I wait a small bit, I'm killing you tonight
Your reign will have then ended- ending spring blight

2005-12-26T14:20:00.000-06:00

A Simple Way to Solve the Abortion Issue
Richard Posner once suggested a system for adoption of baby selling. This attracted huge amounts of criticism from both the left and right. The criticisms seem to be in two forms. One is that it is wrong to sell humans (but giving them away is fine.) The other seems to be that it would mean that only rich families could afford adoptions. It seems that 40% of Americans are interested in adoption but are worried about the costs. This cost comes in time and money however if you could buy babies straight from the parents large amounts of costs would be avoided. For instance anyone with no criminal record would be able to bid for the rights to adopt the child. Depending on the supply available it might be how much the mother must pay to give up the child. This would have the effect of reducing abortions due to the fact that abortion has large emotional costs and small financial costs. Also anti-abortion groups would probably be willing to subsidize bids for children who are still going to be aborted. This system works well with or without legal abortion. Legalized abortion would raise the mother's asking price. This benefits the mother because she now has extra money and has avoided the emotional turmoil of

money. This significantly benefits the child too because they aren't killed and would be adopted by families higher up on the socio-economic ladder than they are. The criticism based on the fact that you can't sell humans is ridiculous. Why is it any better to give away humans than selling them?

2005-12-22T23:06:00.000-06:00

Why I wish that stores would be in a Christmas not holiday spirit

The reason is one of pure asthetics if a store says Happy Holidays they will probably have something like Frosty the Snowman playing this is terrible music. However if they say Merry Christmas than the music playing might be something better like Joy to the World or some such. I can take overt Christianity on my songs but I can't take Frosty the Snowman.

2005-12-21T23:08:00.000-06:00

Intelligent Design

A court in Pennsylvania has ruled that intelligent design is an establishment of religion and therefore it is unconstitutional to teach it as a science course. I would like to explain my opposition to this decision. Intelligent design has become a major debate with both sides unwilling to differentiate between two issues. One issue is its constitutionality the other is its advisability. The fact is that intelligent design as science is garbage. It extrapolates to nothing and is pointless to teach in science class because it is a dead end. It encourages science to give up quickly and say, "We can't understand how this works so therefore it must be beyond human comprehension." Therefore there is no reason to teach it not as science and not as religion. Intelligent design is almost a non-denominational form of creationism. It is saying Some Intelligence (insert name here) created all life. Because it is not an establishment of any religion it is constitutional. The real question for the court was is it science or is it religion. If it is religion it is possibly unconstitutional, but if it is science it is definitely allowed. The fact is that intelligent design is definitely science it asks a question of how something happens and explains the given facts. It isn't incredibly good science in my opinion which is why I would not vote to teach it if I was on a school board. However a court rather than scientists deciding what science is good enough is pointless. This is because a court is not as scientifically knowledgeable. If a court had decided what was science we would be much poorer and stuck to the first written opinion on the cause of something. Darwin would be banned and we would be studying Lemark's theory of inheritance which has nothing to do with genetics and basically says if Arnold Schwarzeneggar has children they will have huge muscles because Arnold lifted weights. The Big Bang theory would be removed and Einstein would be unconstitutional because he challenged the science of Newton which everyone knows is true. Therefore intelligent design is science possibly the correct science but in my opinion is bad science and should not be taught.

2005-12-18T01:58:00.000-06:00

Much of the opposition to the Iraq mission we're in is based on the rather racist assumption that Arabs are too evil/stupid for democracy. The thing is that so far democracy in the Middle East has had as much sucess as democracy in Africa. However political correctness (in this case correct) insists that it has nothing to do with racial differences. In the Middle East liberals must balance their support for government building with their contempt for the war. Therefore they must deny that Iraq can handle democracy. My only dilemma about this war is that our government's job is not to save lives but to protect America. Even with this in mind I have two justifications for going in. 1. Given that we aren't living in a libertarian paradise we must utilize our life-saving resources for the best gain. That is Iraq where we are saving 10s of thousands of lives a year. We save these lives by eliminating Saddam who was a mass murderer but also by lifting our sanctions which killed many Iraqis (not 100s of thousands but 10s of thousands). The large problem is that people refuse to put a value on human life arguing that a life is priceless. Therefore they end up not valuing human life at all. Those who are called callous for putting a monetary value on life are the ones who truly realize what life is worth (to the last dollar). However to those who claim life is priceless how do they explain suicide bombers or soldiers falling on a grenade to protect their friends. These people are putting a value on their life and are putting something above it. (This may be twisted or noble but it is the value they truly believe their life has.) 2. Even if government shouldn't spend money to save lives I still believe we should be there because a stabilized democracy does not attack America. Iraq will not attack Israel or support terror as a terrorized democracy dependent on the U.S.

2005-12-15T22:10:00.000-06:00

Elections in Iraq have been going on sucessfully. This seems to disprove the extremely racist arguement that Arabs aren't sophisticated enough for democracy (on the other hand their voting rate is down 20% and nobody will ever be as popular as Saddam). The arguement against going into is very interesting. If we should spend roughly 50 billion dollars (inflation adjusted) to save 1000 lives in New Orleans why shouldn't we spend 400 billion and 2,000 lives to save 10s of thousands of lives a year (due to a lack of Saddam, sanctions and increased prosperity). Also we now have a country which is not a supporter of terror and instead is a large drain on terrorist resources. Terrorists have commited themselves to fighting in Iraq and can no longer back out. Iraq is one of the least effective places where they spend their terrorist dollars and lives. They have a terrible kill-ratio and must use their dollars attacking fellow Arabs something which never drums out support. The terrorists lack an exit strategy from Iraq unless we provide them with victory by giving them the country. In addition terrorists are losing access to the second most oil-rich nation and the large support Saddam Hussein gave them. (Yes Saddam Hussein did support terror unless you believe blowing up Jewish civilians isn't terror.) Only if we abandon Iraq again will we lose the benefits of a major ally in the region.

2005-12-10T22:00:00.000-06:00

The Chronicles of Narnia.
This movie was surprisingly good. First of all it didn't try to be too clever with its dialogue. Also the characters acted and looked as they should in the book. Plus there was great British accents which are key to any movie. ( A great example of this is Chicken Run. You take a good movie and add British accents and you have a great movie.) The characters were well acted although from about five minutes into the movie you hate Susan and Edmund. Lucy I disliked dispite the writers wishes. The action was patterned on Lord Of The Rings and was done well. The movie also didn't try to be more overtly Christian than the book and left it to the intelligence of even the most oblivious viewer. All in all I would give it 3 and 1/2 stars.

2005-12-03T22:34:00.000-06:00

Congress... Making Libertarians look better and better.
Flush from the sucess of the steroids hearings Congress has turned to another travesty in sports. Congress has decided to hold hearings on the BCS. Yes with high spending, a war and high public contempt for Congress they have decided to attack something which has no relation to them. Congress obviously feels that they have the right to investigate anything and everything. Remember Congress is doing this on our dollar all for the importance of hearing testimony from spurned schools. What comes next Congress investigating the instant-replay system or hockey's shootouts or maybe Congress should decide the results of prizefights.

2005-11-29T23:40:00.000-06:00

Why are salries up this year?
With B.J. Ryan and Billy Wagner getting huge long term deals the question is why are they paying more now than projected. One factor is that the 47 million to Ryan is really only worth 37 million in cost today since player salaries go up around 10% a year. Furcal is asking for about 50 mil over 5 years it sounds high but with the magic of compound inflation it is only around 42 mil over 5 years. Also the Cubs ridiculous contracts to Eyre and Howry are a factor. Like Benson before the Cubs essentially decided that the market for relievers would start at that baseline.

2005-11-29T23:39:00.000-06:00

Why is liberal Europe so anti free speech.
Europe which is frequently held up as a model of progressiveness and tolerance. However with regards to free speech they don't seem to think of it as important. For example a historian was put in jail for publicly denying the Holocaust. Although I don't really care about Holocaust deniers going to jail I do care about the government saying that merely expressing a view is grounds for jailing. I wouldn't like it if denying global warming was a jailable offense. Or what about denying the effectiveness of farm subsidies. The EU sees no problem with these laws and plans to make racial incitement a crime across Europe. This is an offense which possibly could criminalize supporting Levitt's research on the relationship between abortion and the crime rate. I think a large part of it is the lack of a state church. In general a religion believes that it is the correct one. So in a free market of religion the more information exchanged the better since it will lead people to them. Therefore in America freedom of information and of speech was encouraged. However Europe had state churches. With those you want as little information spread because it could lower your share of the market even if you are superior. Europe had very little time where one religion didn't dominate the country. Eventually it caught up with them because the lack of information which leads to efficient religions led Europe to atheism.

2005-11-25T14:52:00.000-06:00

When Politics Goes Too Far
I don't mind the protests outside Crawford these people obviously feel strongly about it. But it gets a bit pathetic when you protest on Thanksgiving. These people are so emotionally against the president that protest is more important to them than their family.

2005-11-20T22:29:00.000-06:00

The Golden Age of Judiasm.
As a Yeshiva High Scool student my religious teachers will frequently mention (or assume) how the times of the Kings and the Temple was the golden age of Judiasm. I feel that this is largely in the imagination of those talking about it. Here are my conditions for a period to be a religious golden age. A- The country must be in control of itself. This excludes most (basically all) of the Second Temple era when Israel was a puppet state of the Romans. B- The country must be in a time of wealth or at least no starving. C- The country must be largely observant of the Torah. Given that there are possibly two leaders whose time qualified for the description of "A Golden Age." One was Joshua who led the Jews into the land and presided over its capture. The other was Solomon who led the country to peace and prosperity and built the first Temple. Other leaders such as Ezra led a religious revival but the Jews had no control of the land. The Macabees for a short time gave the Jews control but didn't lead a religious revival. David might qualify but having 2 civil wars (David and Absalom) as well as an attempted coup by Adoniah within 40 years makes me leave it out as a time of prosperity. Again the modern State of Israel is an independent political entity but there hasn't been a corresponding religious revival. The second topic about the school is the holidays. For some reason the teachers at my elementary and high school refuse to make any relationship between the holidays and the seasons. It is this ignorance which leads to the question of, " If Succos is about the Succos in the desert then why is it now?" The answer obvious to one who knows about the holidays is that Succos is mainly about the harvest. Take Shavous this holiday has been completely dissociated from the calendar. In all my Shavous sppeches I have almost never heard it mentioned as Hag HaBikurim. I realize that the emphasis isn't on agriculture anymore but I still would like those reasons to be at least acknowledged.

2005-11-16T04:22:00.000-06:00

Congress shows its anti-life colors.
Tom Coburn is an obstretician and a Senator from Oklahoma. He promised to remain a citizen doctor if he was elected. The senate ethics committee than said it was wrong to earn money outside the Senate (except for novels or creative works.) This creative exemption is for services which are bought not because you are a Senator. Ignore Gingrich, Boxer and Hatch who cashed in on their Senate experience with some really awful novels/songs. The rule itself is stupid as it pretends that a Senator needs full attention to do his job.

2005-11-10T22:34:00.001-06:00

The Real Reason I Hate Scooter Libby
Its the nickname because you see kids the indictment started off as a regular case and is now going sooooooooooooooo sloooooowly.

2005-11-10T22:34:00.000-06:00

Pat Robertson Please Shut Up.
Proving opponents points that he is a complete moron Pat Robertson predicted a natural disaster to hit a Pennsylvania town which voted out an intelligent design favoring school board. Such statements are irresponsible when attacking individual judges who ban it. But if a town votes on something please show some respect for the democratic process

2005-11-10T22:26:00.000-06:00

Why as a Conservative I Can't support the ANWAR Bill.
Congress is deciding whether to allow drilling in ANWAR unless you believe that the pristine beauty of ANWAR is worth several billion dollars you should support this. The problem is that Congress also is subsidizing the drilling to the tune of several billion dollars. If there is enough oil then we don't need the subsidies and even if there isn't a lot then when oil supplies are lower the drilling will start when it is economically sensible. But then again that solution would appeal ro nobody not the enviromentalists or Republicans.

2005-11-09T23:05:00.000-06:00

Those who Fail History are doomed to Repeat It.
Congress has decided that what the consumers need to lower the burden of high oil prices are high taxes on oil. These ideas range from very stupid (a tax on profits in excess on x billion dollars) to potentially lethal (a tax on all barrels of oil sold for more than $40 a barrel). At the very least these measures will do nothing to lower oil prices in the short-term and raise the prices later by eliminating incentive for new exploration. But the most probable outcome is that oil companies have no buisness activities in the U.S. to avoid the tax and the Senators who voted their conscience and stuck it to the oil companies will make speeches railing against outsourcing. In fact since oil prices are based on supply and demand and not especially on the cost of drilling and refining it will have wide variance in its profits. Therefore if you cut the highs by a 1/3 extra say then they will have to reduce the lows also. The way to do this is to limit supply to the U.S. to avoid the tax (assuming no loopholes) or put all your costs there to lower profits. So possibly this will eliminate tax revenue or maybe raise gas prices. But then again for the Dems it could bring us one step closer to solar power.

2005-11-08T22:21:00.000-06:00

The wins fallacy
Johan Santana was robbed plain and simple. Colon had 21 wins and so won the award. In games Colon started his team had a 67.9% chance of winning and due to their superior bullpen won 72.4% of the time. When Santana started with 1.2 fewer runs of support his team had a 67.2% chance of winning and won 69.6% of the time. A classmate of mine argued for Colon due to the wins. He argued that a pitcher's only job is to win games and that it is a skill separate from ptiching. He said that Colon gave up lots of runs in wins and thus boosted his ERA however he had the skill to prevent more runs than necessary from scoring. In fact Colon had a 7.20 ERA in his losses and a 2.79 ERA in wins Comparatively Santana had a 6.44 ERA in losses and a 2.02 ERA in wins. So not only did he make a stupid statement generally but also the numbers don't support his claim either.

2005-11-08T22:19:00.000-06:00

Thoughts on the Torture Bill.
I must say that the WaPost revelations don't surprise or anger me. These terrorists gave up there rights when they attacked civilians specifically. The Senate Bill is stupid since it ruins the threat of torture which is much more effective than questioning and hoping. I do think we should have a special exemption from a pro-terrorist torture bill for the CIA banning it from torture. Frankly I don't trust the CIA with dealing with terrorism. However you have to wonder the mentality of a reporter which prompts him to reveal the location of a secret prison. I mean they're secret for a reason. But these are journalists and they should get a Shield Law to protect them from responsibility for stories.

2005-11-08T00:25:00.000-06:00

Riots in Paris
The riots in Paris are not only worrying in the fact that it could happen to all of Europe but it also illustrates the classic flaw in immigration policies. The major problem is that France was too (classic) liberal to close the borders to immigrants on such a large scale. However their welfare system meant that their was a large incentive for immigrants to come from Arab countries and not work. Frequently a country can survive mistakes if they are made uniformly. Take the S&L scandals in the 80's you combined a good idea (bank deregulation) with the politically expedient (insurance of bank deposits). If you remove either one the events don't happen. Or take Vietnam either we could have never gone in or we could have gone in strong. However we went with a middle path which meamt that we caved in to the antu-war movement in America. So France now has a large underclass of immigrants who are largely angry that due to France's employment protection they have no jobs. America doesn't have that problem because most of its immigration is illegal which is controlled by the market. Also America's welfare system is not close to what an illegal will make. Therefore illegals are largely people who want to be here and like the U.S. So then in France you take this mix largely caused by humanist socialism and add in the religious fervor. This is a mix which can explode at any time.

2005-11-06T23:54:00.000-06:00

The value of a human life.
This is an annoying factor in debates. You will say that something isn't worth the money since you're spending a billion dollars for one human life. Than the usual response is " You're so evil a human life is priceless." In fact human life is probably valued by peope at $1,000,000 a year including the discount rate I'd guess. Also by Katrina the view has now come up that we should have spent the two billion to stop the hurricane it seems like it costs 200 billion dollars and 10 billion in human life damges (ten years a person.) However this ignores the rate of return on money which on the stock market is about 1.07 over an average of 150 years between hurricanes your expected real cost on the 2 billion is 2 billion times 1.07 to the 75 power which comes out to around 319 billion dollars which means building this levee wouldn't have been the economic decision. Bird flu on the other hand is an immediate danger with a high-risk of happening within the next 10 years this means the money we are spending is probably well-spent.

2005-10-30T15:49:00.000-06:00

Another parody

In enterprise of legal kind with con-law exciting
She sent one of her deputies on to do the legal fighting
But when to run the lotto Bush came her place was with the buyers
That uncorrected, unaffected, well-connected lawyer girl with the name of Harriet Myers

In gambling the legal way Ha Ha there she did stay Ha, Ha
That uncorrected, unaffected, well-connected lawyer with the name of Harriet Myers
When Bush beat Gore in 2000 that is what the court said
Of his lawyer personnel he made Myers the head
She worked for him on GWOT and other legal fires
that educated, somewhat dated, High Court fated, Counsel girl with the name of Harriet Myers
Good advice she gave Ha Ha like on Abu Ghraib Ha Ha
that educated, somewhat dated, High Court fated, Counsel girl with the name of Harriet Myers
When Rehnquist hit the dust to appoint her he proceeded
For his wife said to him straight out a women is needed
So he went and nominated her called her opponents liars
That Bush crony, knowledge phony, one and only "scholar" girl with the name of Harriet Myers
She had to withdraw Ha Ha She didn't know Con law Ha Ha

That Bush crony, knowledge phony, one and only "scholar" girl with the name of Harriet Myers

2005-10-24T16:19:00.000-05:00

The Banality of Welfare
Israel passed a hot lunch law and the Supreme Court said it couldn't go to the hareidi schools which don't meet the governments educational requirements. Reaction against this came strongly from the Left (and Right). The rhetoric was that the Supreme Court had said that children must go hungry if they are religious. Suddenly a law which was not there for all of Israel's history is required to feed the children. Also interesting is that the controversial law in the U.S. is that if the legislature gives money to religious school is it allowed. In Israel the separation of religion is one step less although it is in general probably more left than the U.S. is in this matter more right-wing.

2005-10-24T00:35:00.000-05:00

Game 2
Wow Podsednik one of 2 or 3 regulars with no regular season homers hits a game winner. This is after a sub-par throw lets the Astros tie it in the ninth. Brad Lidge is either in on the fix or something to give up a HR to Podsie. Fox did have one funny thing in their broadcast. They were talking about Tim Raines and said he was indestructible thats why he was called "Rock" Raines. Lets put it this way the reason for that was the reason for his headfirst slides.

2005-10-22T23:40:00.000-05:00

Fox's 5th Column for Cuba
Fox's broadcast was discussing viewers in Cuba watching Contreras. Then they went down to their on the field reporter who talked about Contreras's brother. He said, on national Tv, that he was going to secretly go to a shack of a friend to watch the game. A smarter mind would have questioned the wisdom of telling someone's plans to break a facist law.

2005-10-20T14:05:00.000-05:00

Is an ansible in the works.
In the book Ender's Game Oeson Scott Card predicted the blogosphere at a time when few considered the internet like that. In his later books to make the plot work he needed FTL travel of information. The way he had it done was by splitting a philote and transporting the halves then a move on one would instantly cause the same movement on the other. This is clearly against physics, right, nothing can travel faster than light. Enter quantom in recent experiments photons were split. They were then placed far away so there could be no communication between them. At the time both photons had undetermined spins. In fact they could have been spinning in all the different directions and according to superposition were going in all possible directions. Then one photon half was measured instantly the other half recorded the same spin. Somehow the photons communicated instantly. The useful thing is that it theoretically works under any distance constraint including several light years.

2005-10-20T13:59:00.000-05:00

Myers on the court a good idea?
I am far behind on the Myers story frankly because it isn't that fascinating ( and I'm lazy.) For some reason Bush decided that his legacy would be a possibly conservative Justice with no judging experience or real Constitutional understanding. I have little doubt Myers is smart. To get to head of the Texas Bar as a pro-life woman you have to be smart. However because she has no dominant philosophy she is likely to make decisions based on her sense of right and wrong. This was precisely the problem with O'Connor. She was slighty conservative as a judge but she could easily fit her opinions to elite opinion because she had no dominant philosophy to bemd it around.

2005-10-14T10:37:00.000-05:00

A great Dilbert comic

2005-10-14T10:11:00.000-05:00

The Yankees in the year and in the playoffs demonstrated their chief needs. 1. Center Field 2. Relief Pitching 3. A Starter. Options for Center Field are clear. We could sign Brian Giles and trade Sheffield for Cameron. Sign Preston Wilson (he'll probably be overpayed.) Or we could sign Jaque Jones. We could save money by leaving Bubba Crosby in there. He has little offense but he would be a huge upgrade on Williams defensively. Relief Pitching can be solved by signing B.J. Ryan who is 29 with no arm problems also we should resign Gordon for 1-2 years (2nd year option) For starter there are two options A. Milwood or B. Burnett both these pitchers have a good history of K/BB rates. You wonder how much would these moves raise the Yankees payroll the answer is zero. The reason is that Bernie Williams (15 mil), Kevin Brown (15 mil) and Karsay (6 mil) are coming off the payroll. The team also needs a backup catcher, DH and backup 1st baseman (Giambi can't play defense.) Mike Piazza might be a useful backup and an option for DH. The option for DH is Nomar Garciappara who would be cheap and could be a backup infielder. An option for defense at first is Doug Mankievitch.

2005-10-09T14:20:00.000-05:00

One simple question? Thoughts on the DS
Why is it that announcers cannot accept an event as meaning something in of itself. An extreme example of this was used last night. With the Cardinals up 7-0 the Padres scored 2 runs. The announcers said this is just what they need a couple of runs to get their fans back in it. Not that the runs were important or anything. Ozzie Guillen also had one of the worse decisions he could have made turn up golden. With the bases loaded and nobody out he brought in El Duque. The criterion for a pitcher there are 1. Low walks 2. High Strikeouts 3. Not a lot of homeruns 4. Groundball pitcher 15. Veteran Leadership . His translated stats are 6.1 K's/9, 3.6 BB's/9 and 1.2 HR's/9. Bobby Jenks has 11.1 K's/9 3.4 BB's/9 and .6 HR's/9. Oh yeah he's the closer.

2005-10-01T22:27:00.000-05:00

Why the anger over liberals under the bed?
Blogger Andrew Sullivan is angry about the book "Help Mommy There Are Liberals Under My Bed." He makes the excellent point that we shouldn't politicize (sp?) our children. However this book is at least up front about it. Dr. Suess's Lorax and Bitter Butter Battle are both two very political kid's books and less up front.

2005-09-30T16:31:00.000-05:00

Why the attacks on Bill Bennett?
Bill Bennett a radio host and former secretary of education recieved a call in which argued for abortions due to Levitt's thesis. This thesis is that the reason for the crime decline in the nintys was that poor blacks were not having as many children which lowered the numbers of those most likely to commit crimes. Bill Bennett responded that if you aborted all blacks the crime rate would go down but that would still be a monstrous evil. The Democrats heard the trifecta of a conservative who said blacks were more likely to commit crimes and could be taken out of context to say kill all blacks. This was an opportunity which could not be missed. Of course the White House called the comments inappropriate because it's the path of least resistance. Couldn't the White House show some backbone just once.

2005-09-22T21:11:00.000-05:00

What Went Wrong?
People have been blaming everyone for Hurricane Katrina. My general feeling is that it was handled pretty well (the one exception is the buses.) Consider the following. Only 650 people died. Of those people most had the chance to get out and didn't. The Superdome held up well and only one person died there (a suicide.) Also the levees had been built sufficiently for a category 3. The levees would have cost $2 billion dollars to upgrade to protect from level 5 and as this is a once in 150 years hurricane it wouldn't be cost-effective. There does seem to be a lot of exaggeration about this. For example one WaPost Online article attacked Bush for his slow reaction to "the worst disaster of the century." Didn't we have a tsunami a year ago. Basically the hurricane took very few lives of people who couldn't evacuate.

2005-09-21T21:37:00.000-05:00

First Place.
The Yankees are now in First place in the East with the Red Sox loss. The White Sox look like they'll fall to 3 up in the Wild Card and 2 1/2 in the division.

2005-09-15T22:05:00.000-05:00

I am sick and tired of players playing the day after their parents die. Recently Brett Favre played through his father's death. This is not something I like. For one thing the media assumes that the parents really wanted children who would care more about the game than mourning over their parents. Even so you can say Favre dad was his coach so he might have wanted it. But Roger Clemens mother died. She had no relationship to his career. Roger Clemens said he would retire specifically to spend time with the family. Now he can't wait a single day to overcome his grief. It is not a tribute it is callousness.

2005-09-13T23:07:00.000-05:00

A Rant Song
As some day it may happen that a fool must be found,
I've got a little list, I've got a little list
Of political idiots who might well be underground
and who never would be missed, who never would be missed
There's the person who proclaims in a pompous nasal tone
I'm really quite mainstream and so no party is my own.
Then the populist who speaks with an eye to the polls
And when the public swings his opinion quickly rolls
And all third parties who in spoiling elections insist
they'd none of them be missed they'd none of them be missed
He got them on his list, He's got them on his list
and they'd none of them be missed they'd none of them be missed
There's the sixties protest singer and the others of his kind
And the latest hip rappist-I've got him on my list
Those who only demagogue and are the blind who lead the blind
They'd none of them be missed, They'd none of them be missed
Then the idiot who lives in a diverse cultural zone
Has respect for all nations and all cultures but his own.
And the lawyer from the city who then joins the ACLU
Who fights for the Democrats but not for Republican you
And that singular anomaly the animal activist
They'd none of them be missed they'd none of them be missed
He's got them on his list He's got them on his list
and they'd none of them be missed they'd none of them be missed
And that idiotic nuisance who right now he can be found
The conspiracy theorist I've got him on the list
Those who insist blindly the economy's in the dumps,
They'd none of them be missed they'd none of them be missed
Who say oil is running out so we'll hit ten dollars at pumps
Such as--What d'ye call him--Thing'em-bob, and likewise--Never-mind,
And 'St--'st--'st--and What's-his-name, and also You-know-who--
The task of filling up the blanks I'd rather leave to you.
But it really doesn't matter whom you put upon the list,
For they'd none of 'em be missed--they'd none of 'em be missed!
You may put 'em on the list--you may put 'em on the list;
And they'll none of 'em be missed--they'll none of 'em be missed!

2005-09-07T14:47:00.000-05:00

I had an arguement over who had the better overall infield the A's or Texas.
The A's have Chavez, 23 runs above average this year, Crosby 20 runs above average, Ellis 20 above average and Johnson 9 above average. This is a total 72 runs above average.
Texas has Teixera, 47 runs above average, Soriano 5 runs below average, Young 10 runs above average, and Blalock 6 above average. This is a total 58 runs above average.

2005-08-30T21:06:00.000-05:00

Giambi hit another runs last night. That brings him right up to around a 1 OPS. I had a debate with classmates over Giambi verse Ortiz. BP lists the numbers as Ortiz with 130 EQR and 595 AB and Giambi having 100 EQR and 395 AB. There WARP3 had Ortiz up two wins or a win every 100 AB. This leads me to believe that Giambi is having the better if not more valuable year.