Saturday, October 30, 2010

Quote of the day

Charles Krauthammer:
This is how the great post-partisan, post-racial, New Politics presidency ends - not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a desperate election-eve plea for ethnic retribution.

Of course, I've already said much the same thing, but I like the way that he put it...

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Friday, October 29, 2010

Attack Ads, Circa 1800

One of the most tiresome aspects of any election season is the endless media hectoring and plaintive cries of the uninterested about how campaigning is much more negative than it used to be. The folks at ReasonTV have got a little historical perspective. Ain't it great?



Historical perspective. It's a good thing.

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Quote of the day

(stolen from a radio caller)

In the 80s, we had Ronald Reagan and Bob Hope and Johnny Cash. Now we have Barack Obama and no hope and no cash...

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Wednesday, October 27, 2010

God and Man in Minnesota Politics

As Glenn Reynolds keeps saying, the "D" stands for Desperate.

Kathryn Jean Lopez notes an extremely distasteful mailing from the DFL (Democrat-Farm-Labor) party in God and Man in Minnesota Politics:
I think it’s safe to say it’s unholy politics. That’s a bipartisan problem for sure. But there is reason for bipartisan, ecumenical offense here. It’s an insult to suggest there isn’t some convenient anti-Catholicism here. But more so, it’s an insult to intelligent debate. Tim Pawlenty doesn’t “Ignore the Poor,” and I don’t know many men of the cloth who do either.
And it's an insult to intelligent debate to claim that the there's no anti-Catholicism in that ad.  Take a look for yourself:


So they're using imagery that's insulting to Catholics in order to impugn a Republican candidate who happens to be an evangelical pastor.  Nice job, guys.

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Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Fed-up voters may put GOP in power, ready or not

Byron York accurately sums up the current electoral landscape:
In the normal course of politics, after a party has its clock cleaned as badly as Republicans did in 2008, the losers go off to recover -- off to the desert -- while the winners go on to govern. For the defeated, regaining the political momentum can take years.

Normally, we should be in the early stages of that process. Instead, it appears that Republicans are about to retake one, and perhaps both, houses of Congress. The normal cycle of defeat and renewal has been speeded up considerably.

Why? Because Democrats have been screwing up faster than Republicans can recover. The GOP might not be fully ready to govern, but voters are increasingly convinced that Democrats don't deserve to.
Voters are right to be so convinced.

It is also important to keep reminding people that, as disappointing as the Republicans in the Congress were during the Bush administration (and George W., for all that he did right, was awful on spending issues), the real problem escalation occurred when the Democrats took control of the Congress following the 2006 elections.

Concerned about deficits?  The Republicans weren't very good in the 2000s.  But the Democrats were significantly worse.


Unemployment?  That escalation began in 2007, when the Democrats took the reigns of the economy.

It's long-past time to remove the speaker's gavel from Nancy Pelosi's hand.  It's long-past time to remove the likes of Barney Frank from the Congress, the likes of Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer and Patty Murray from the Senate.

One week to go.  Remember, and remind, and spread the word...

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Electoral scripture

In 2 Timothy, we read that
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16-17

So, for the next week, the scripture passage to meditate upon (very "useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness") is Ecclesiastes 10:2:
The heart of the wise inclines to the right,
       but the heart of the fool to the left.

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Helpful hint for sports announcers

If you score 31 straight points, and then the opposition scores some points, in a game that you end up winning by 6, you didn't score 31 "unanswered" points, because, well, the opposition ANSWERED some of yours, and some of yours were an ANSWER to some of theirs!

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Monday, October 25, 2010

The great post-partisan uniter at work

Obama: Anti-amnesty Americans are "enemies" of Latinos
"And if Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, we're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us, if they don't see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it's gonna be harder — and that's why I think it's so important that people focus on voting on November 2," he said.

So, is this how "we [come] together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals"? Apparently.

Let me just say that I hope that's not how I'd do it...

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"We'll save you a seat..."

A stupid video...

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Friday, October 22, 2010

It’s Time to Call Barbara Boxer Ma’am Again - By Kathryn Jean Lopez - The Corner - National Review Online

From the mind of David Zucker - It’s Time to Call Barbara Boxer Ma’am Again

Call Me Madam Joe from RightChange on Vimeo.



Brilliant!

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The Barney Shuffle

The Barney Shuffle



Go Sean Bielat.

If I had the power to choose one house race that I got to decide the result in, it would be this one, which isn't even my own. But there may not be a better representative of the Democrats' feckless fiscal policy and arrogance while implementing it than Barney Frank, and he's the one member of the House that I'd most like to see gone.

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Eleven days out...

Just posted my election predictions for Ace's election prediction contest. I may change my mind on a couple of these over the next 11 days, but this is where I am now.

House - net 72 seat gain for the Republicans

AK - Miller
CA - Fiorina
CT - Blumenthal
DE - Coons
FL - Rubio
IL - Kirk
NV - Angle
PA - Toomey
WA - Rossi
WI - Johnson
WV - Raese

Rubio 51, Crist 27, Meek 22

AK Senate - We won't know this one for a while, but, while the polls are tight, I remain skeptical of Murkowski's ability to win by write-in. It's easier to pick her in a poll than it is to actually write her name down on a ballot on which it doesn't actually appear. In any event, it'll be one of the two Republicans who wins.

CA Senate - I'm picking Fiorina based on two Geraghty posts, here and here. I think Boxer ends up with 45-46% of the vote, and loses.

CT Senate - Obviously, I'd love to be wrong on this one, but, while I think it ends up being very tight, the move from Dodd to Blumenthal saves this one for the Democrats. This may end up being a bellwether - if they're able to call it early for Blumenthal, it might not be quite the wave we're looking for - if they're able to call it early for McMahon, no Democrats are safe anywhere. I think it's likely Blumenthal by 3-4% and not over early.

DE Senate - Christine O'Donnell's issues have been vastly overplayed by the leftist media, but she's got some. She's also a bad fit, ideologically, for that state. It ends up closer than the polls have said, but the O'Donnell primary victory ends up costing the Republicans an at-least-nominal-Republican in this seat.

NV Senate - They tried to destroy Sharron Angle as an extremist whacko after the Republican primary, throwing everything but the kitchen sink at her for three months. They raised her disapproval ratings, but not enough. She wins outside the margin of fraud in one of the most satisfying individual results of the night.

WA Senate - This one is going to be very close, but my pick may be wishful thinking. Rossi may not be able to win it outside the margin of fraud, and King (I think) County is one of those places where they seem to manage to manufacture enough votes late into the night to close any gap that needs closing.

WI Senate - Three months ago, I didn't think that Feingold was particularly vulnerable, but he hasn't been close in any recent polling. This one's over early.

WV Senate - A sitting governor with strong approval ratings fails to move up because the President of his own party is so loathed in the state.

I don't think that Rubio or Kirk or Toomey are really in question.

As always, I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks. I yield back the balance of my time.

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"Thanks To Obama And Health Care Reform, I'm No Longer Paying For My Employees' Insurance"

You know, some of us saw this coming...

Thanks To Obama And Health Care Reform, I'm No Longer Paying For My Employees' Insurance
Politics mandated that Obama and his fellow Democrats at least pretend that their legislation will constrain runaway spending. The new law’s very name is part of that pretense. But there is little in the actual legislation that has any real prospect of controlling spending; instead, the law attempts to control premiums by fiat through new regulations and oversight. Government may be able to prevent insurers from pricing policies in ways that make sense, but it can’t force them to operate at a loss. The other shoe, in the form of higher premium prices or a rollback of the new law’s mandates, is certain to drop. Higher prices are the more likely outcome.

...

The law’s supporters will portray employers like me as bad guys who are using the new law as a smokescreen to make changes we wanted to make anyway. Though the accusation is false, it has a germ of truth: Runaway health insurance costs have been a burden for every business that pays them. Every sensible manager has at least considered steps to stem this financial hemorrhage. Many of us were just holding on so as not to disrupt employees’ lives while we waited for policymakers to do something.

Now they have done something, and it only made the problem worse.

Can you say un-in-tend-ed con-se-quenc-es?

I thought you could...

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YouTube - Chinese Professor

Chinese Professor



In 11 days, we can do something about it...

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Obama gets "pretty good" grade - from himself

Remember when George W. Bush stood in front of a crowd and called himself a "pretty good President?"

Yeah, neither do I.



I honestly don't remember ever dealing with anyone who was so into self-acclamation and self-aggrandizement as this buffoon. The band playing "Hail to the Chief" and the adoring cheers of the crowd aren't enough, he's got to go pat himself on the back, too?

And yeah, one could argue that "hey, someone in the crowd yelled 'best' and he's being self-deprecating." But it's not an argument that I'd buy. He could have just ignored the comment. But if you're going to respond, "pretty good" is faux-self-deprecating. It's an obviously deprecated praise indicating that you think you've really been excellent, but you want to express that with humility. (A humility that he's not actually capable of feeling.)  He's not acknowledging less than perfection, he's telling them that he can't actually join them in saying it, even though he agrees.

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The Selfless Wonk - disconnected from reality

He's taken more victory laps (and vacations) than necessary, from my point-of-view...

The Selfless Wonk
President Obama laments:


“I think that one of the challenges we had two years ago is that we had to move so fast. We were in such emergency mode that it was very difficult for us to spend a lot of time doing victory laps and advertising what we were doing because we were moving on to the next thing. I take some responsibility for that.
Hey, at least he's taking some responsibility for something.

Honestly, he sounds like Michael Scott on The Office, interviewing with David Wallace for the job in New York.
DW:  What are your greatest strengths as a manager?
MS:  Why don't I tell you what my greatest weaknesses are?  I work too hard, I care too much, and sometimes I can be too invested in my job.
DW:  OK...And your strengths?
MS:   Well, my weaknesses are actually strengths...
This photoshop (and I don't know who did it, else I'd attribute it) is over a year old, but as appropriate as ever...

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Thursday, October 21, 2010

Making Ignorance Chic

So sometimes, someone links a Maureen Dowd column and I read it. Someone did that today on facebook, referring to this in glowing terms. So I clicked. And it demands a response. Which I generally refrain from doing on facebook, but did today anyway. Please, do NOT try this at home. Reading a Dowd column almost inevitably kills brain cells, and frankly, it hurts, so don't do it. I did it so that you don't have to.

Making Ignorance Chic
...unlike Paris Hilton and her ilk, the Dumb Blonde of ’50s cinema [Marilyn Monroe] had a firm grasp on one thing: It was cool to be smart. She aspired to read good books and be friends with intellectuals, even going so far as to marry one. But now another famous beauty with glowing skin and a powerful current, Sarah Palin, has made ignorance fashionable.
What a load of hogwash. Take a whole lot of individual people with whom you disagree, find one misspoken phrase from a couple, misrepresent things that a couple of others have said or done (does Marueen even understand that the phrase "separation of church and state" is not in the first amendment? Christine O'Donnell does.), take a sardonic spoonerism that you've just missed, and accuse them of making ignorance chic.

What if someone had said that he'd campaigned 57 states and only had one more to go? Said "How's it going, Sunshine?" while campaigning in Sunrise, FL? Said that he sees many of America's "fallen heroes" in the audience? Claimed that 12 dead were 10,000? Is that person making ignorance chic? No, you ignore it, because Barack Obama's a Democrat.

You may not agree with Sarah Palin, but that doesn't make her ignorant, and it doesn't make those who agree with her ignorant. It is one of the least attractive memes of those on the left that those on the right are stupid. It's not true, it's unpleasant and it's unattractive. (Like pretty much everything Maureen Dowd writes.) It goes a long way to provoking the kind of bitter partisanship that you claim to dislike, because it creates an attitude and expectation that you never have to listen to anything that anyone on the right has to say. You just brush it off, because they're lesser beings, stupid, racist, homophobic, "bitter, cling(y), scared" and so you don't have to deal with anything they say. (Yes, I've noted this before.) You can ignore their arguments, because what could they be worth, anyway? You don't need to debate or discuss - you can just belittle. (Like pretty much everything Maureen Dowd writes.)

It's just like all of the leftists and Democrats and "journalists" (I know, that's redundant) laughing at Sarah Palin on Tuesday for her comment at a Tea Party rally on Monday that it was too early to "party like it's 1773." "She's so smart" said one. "Ummm..." said another. "WTF happened in 1773?" asked a third?

Umm...The Boston Tea Party.


(Skip the first link - it goes to the Dowd column at the Times and, as I said, it's not worth the time. The other two links are fine, and you should click them...)

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So you want to go to law school...

I'm not a lawyer. I've never been to law school. But I get the feeling that there's a whole lot of truth in this (very funny) video...

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Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Republicans Kind of ...

Mild language warning (but it's only the language that you see here in the link - good enough for broadcast television nowadays, but I don't care for it.) The article, however, is excellent...

Republicans Kind of Suck
So, we’re all agreed that a barking dog and a zombie apocalypse both suck. Everyone following so far?

Now let’s look at what led us to the political situation we’re in. During the second term of the Bush presidency people just got fed up with Republicans. They were idiots, they were no good at the whole fiscal conservatism thing (which is sort of the whole point of them), we had these wars that seemed to be going nowhere, and the economy was beginning to fail. They sucked, and people were sick and tired of them.

Thus people turned to the Democrats. And Obama.

...

So the Democrats sucked. But not just plain old, usual politician sucked, but epic levels of suck where it’s hard to find an analog in human history that conveys the same level of suckitude. It was sheer incompetence plus arrogance — and those things do not complement each other well. We’re talking sucking that distorts time and space like a black hole.

It’s Godzilla-smashing-through-a-city level of suck — but a really patronizing Godzilla who says you’re just too stupid and hateful to see all the buildings he’s saved or created as he smashes everything apart. Or, to use Obama’s favorite analogy, you have a car stuck in ditch, so you call the mechanic, but the only tool he brings with him is a sledgehammer. And then he smashes your car to pieces and charges you $100,000 for his service. Finally, he calls you racist for complaining. Obama and the Democrats have been so awful, it’s hard for the human brain to even comprehend.
Go ahead, read it all. It's amusing, despite being so true.

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In Obama's Chicago, stimulus weatherization money buys shoddy work, widespread fraud

The classic example of Keynesian economics is, in the words of Keynes himself, to "pay people to dig holes in the ground and then fill them up." It seems as if that's effectively what's been going on with stimulus money in Chicago
Department inspectors visited 15 homes that were being weatherized by CEDA and paid for by stimulus funds. "We found that 14 of the 15 homes…failed final inspection because of poor workmanship and/or inadequate initial assessments," the report says. In eight of the homes, CEDA had come up with unworkable and ineffective plans -- like putting attic insulation in a house with a leaky roof. In ten of the homes, "contractors billed for labor charges that had not been incurred and for materials that had not been installed." The report calls billing problems "pervasive," with seven of ten contractors being cited for erroneous invoicing. And the department found "a 62 percent final inspection error rate" when CEDA inspectors reviewed their own work.

The work was not just wasteful; it was dangerous. Department inspectors found "heat barriers around chimneys that had not been installed, causing fire hazards." They found "a furnace [that] had not been vented properly." The found "a shut-off valve that had not been installed on a gas stove." And they found "carbon monoxide detectors, smoke alarms and fire extinguishers had not been installed as planned."


So now, there's going to be lots of work for the contractors to, in essence, "fill up the holes" that the stimulus money has dug! Woo-hoo! Stimulated demand!

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The Last War

I strongly recommend James Taranto's look at the differences between the election results of 1994 and the expected results of 2010, The Last War
Then again, Obama could "reach out" in a heavy-handed way or in pursuit of unpopular policies, or it may turn out that he's already irretrievably alienated independents. By all means, politicians should study and learn from the past. But the wise thing to have done in 1994 won't necessarily turn out to be the wise thing to do in 2010.

I think he's absolutely right about almost everything in there...

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Friday, October 15, 2010

I just might agree with the President on this one...

Interesting tidbit regarding Obama/Biden ’12:
During his talk to local Democrats, Obama tossed off a little Biden ballad. “The single best decision that I have made was selecting Joe Biden as my running mate,” he told the crowd.

“The single best decision I have made,” Obama added, for emphasis. “I mean that. It’s true.”
You know, that might be true. But when measured against the rest of the disastrous decisions he's made, it's a textbook example of damning with faint praise...

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Green candidate wasn't going to win anyway...

...but this sure isn't going to help. This might be an even funnier typo than the "pubic schools" billboard or the McDonald's "anus burger" signboard. The name of the Green Party candidate in the Illinois gubernatorial race, Rich Whitney, has been misspelled on some of the voting machines.
The last name of Green Party gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney is misspelled as "Whitey" on electronic-voting machines in nearly two dozen wards -- about half in predominantly African-American areas -- and election officials said Wednesday the problem cannot be corrected by Election Day.
It will be interesting to see how many votes "Rich Whitey" gets in those "predominantly African-American" districts...

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Monday, October 11, 2010

9/26/10


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What do marginal rates mean?

Greg Mankiw - Higher Taxes Mean I’ll Work Less

Reasonable people can disagree about whether and how much the government should redistribute income. And, to be sure, the looming budget deficits require hard choices about spending and taxes. But don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that when the government taxes the rich, only the rich bear the burden.
Excellent piece here, read it all. The only mystery here is, how did this end up in the New York Times?

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Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Judge Bars Key Witness From Civilian Terrorism Trial

Judge Bars Key Witness From Civilian Terrorism Trial - NYTimes.com
Minutes before a major terrorism trial was about to begin, a federal judge barred prosecutors in Manhattan on Wednesday from using a key witness. The government had acknowledged it learned about the witness from the defendant, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, while he was being interrogated and held in a secret overseas jail run by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The ruling by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan would seem to be a setback for the Obama administration’s goal of trying former detainees in civilian courts, because it would limit the kinds of evidence that prosecutors could introduce. Mr. Ghailani became the first former detainee to be moved into the civilian court system for trial.

...

Judge Kaplan added that Mr. Ghailani’s status as an “ ‘enemy combatant’ probably would permit his detention as something akin to a prisoner of war until hostilities between the United States and Al Qaeda and the Taliban end, even if he were found not guilty.”

Wow. Who could have possibly seen that coming?

Well, anyone who stopped and thought about if for two seconds. Like I did, and I certainly wasn't alone in this position.

What if, just theoretically, you get a whacked out jury, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is actually found not guilty. Are we then going to release him? Answering "yes" to that question is unthinkable, but what about "no?" It's one thing to hold him indefinitely as an enemy combatant, but after all the wailing that those on the left have done about our prestige overseas being damaged by detention, what's going to happen if we continuing holding someone that a jury has found "not guilty?"

The fact is, there is no possible benefit that accrues to the United States of America by the President and Attorney General taking this course of action. It's all downside for national security, for national prestige, for international relations. But they get to pander to their base while continuing to use the Bush administration as a bogeyman to frighten the children with. Short-term political gain for the Obama administration is the only benefit, and they're harming the country to do it.

Just a terrible idea...
Obviously, it isn't KSM that they're trying to try here, but lets face it - this wasn't only easy to predict, this is one of the easiest political predictions that there's ever been. There really isn't any other feasible scenario.

Just a terrible idea...

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Patriots trade Moss

Stocking up for the future?
the Patriots now have eight picks in the first two [sic - actually four] rounds:

...

Draftniks believe this will be a deep draft -- including at wide receiver -- and New England has certainly stocked up to be major players in it.

If that's what's really important to them, I bet they could get some good picks for Brady, too...


I noted someone on facebook comment that this was "addition by subtraction." No, this is called "subtraction by subtraction." I wonder how long before someone in the media openly wonders whether Brady and Welker might not be missing Moss...

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Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Obama: Fiscal Situation "Untenable" - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

Obama: Fiscal Situation "Untenable"
In further news, the sun rose in the east this morning...

There you have it. The 47 smartest economists around the president of the United States agree that the best way to solve the "untenable fiscal situation" is to boost education spending, weatherize homes, throw more bad money after bad in the housing market, more bad money after bad in the Small Business Administration, and maybe (though only over the president's dead body) freeze all taxes for two years. That oughtta tenabilize it.

Sounds like a recipe for success to me!

No, wait. Not success, that other thing...what is it? Oh yeah, disaster. That's what it sounds like a recipe for.

Say what you will, Obama's not going to go down in the history books as a mediocre President...

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Monday, October 04, 2010

Monday Pythagorean Report - 10/4/2010

One last week, a couple more bullpen meltdowns, a couple more poor starts, a little more struggling offense, another basically .500 week, and the curtain falls on the 2010 Boston Red Sox.

  • And there's really nothing left to say. The games meant nothing, other than preventing the Yankees from winning the east (which is, frankly, not much of a thrill.) They've been playing out the string, and now it's over.
  • I will do some season wrap-ups over the course of the next couple of weeks. For now, it was a frustrating and disappointing season, and we fall back, for the first time since 2006, on "wait 'til next year!"
  • Red Sox Player of the Week - Jed Lowrie, who hit a sparkling .364/.462/.682/1.143 on the week, with two HR, and did it while leading the team in AB. Honorable mention to David Ortiz (.474/.545/.684/1.230) and Mike Lowell (.462/.500/.846/1.346) in what were possibly and certainly, respectively, their final weeks in Red Sox uniforms. (I actually think it likely that Ortiz is back in 2011, but it's possible that he's done in Boston.)
  • Red Sox Pitcher of the Week - Clay Buccholz, who finished strong in his quest for the AL ERA title, albeit falling just short. His last start of the year went eight innings, allowing five hits and one run.






AL Pythagorean Projection Report - 10/4/2010
ProjectedActual
R/G(rank)RA/G(rank)Pythagorean(rank)WLWLLuck
New York5.3(1)4.28(5)0.597(1)97659567-2
Tampa Bay4.95(3)4.01(2)0.596(2)966696660
Minnesota4.82(5)4.14(3)0.569(3)927094682
Texas4.86(4)4.24(4)0.562(4)91719072-1
Boston5.05(2)4.59(11)0.543(5)887489731
Chicago4.64(7)4.35(8)0.53(6)867688742
Oakland4.09(11)3.86(1)0.526(7)85778181-4
Toronto4.66(6)4.49(9)0.517(8)847885771
Detroit4.64(8)4.59(10)0.505(9)82808181-1
Los Angeles4.2(9)4.33(7)0.486(10)798380821
Cleveland3.99(12)4.64(12)0.431(11)70926993-1
Kansas City4.17(10)5.22(14)0.399(12)659767952
Baltimore3.78(13)4.85(13)0.389(13)639966963
Seattle3.17(14)4.31(6)0.363(14)59103611012

Top 5 projections (using current winning %)
Tampa Bay9666
New York9567
Minnesota9468
Texas9072
Boston8973

Top 5 projections (starting with today's record, using Pythagorean winning %)
Tampa Bay9666
New York9567
Minnesota9468
Texas9072
Boston8973

Standings for the week
ProjectedActual
R/G(rank)RA/G(rank)Pythagorean(rank)WLWLLuck
Oakland4.86(3)2.71(3)0.744(1)5243-1
Toronto5.86(1)3.71(7)0.697(2)52520
Kansas City4.86(3)3.14(4)0.689(3)5243-1
Cleveland4.67(7)3.5(6)0.629(4)42420
Baltimore3.14(11)2.43(1)0.616(5)43521
Chicago4.86(3)4(8)0.588(6)43521
Los Angeles3.86(8)3.29(5)0.573(7)43521
Boston4.86(3)5(11)0.487(8)34340
Texas3.86(8)4.29(9)0.452(9)34340
New York5.17(2)6(13)0.432(10)3324-1
Tampa Bay2(14)2.57(2)0.387(11)34340
Detroit2.57(13)4.29(9)0.282(12)2516-1
Seattle3.14(11)5.43(12)0.269(13)25250
Minnesota3.43(10)6.71(14)0.226(14)25250

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Friday, October 01, 2010

More Republican Lies!

In the pages of that purveyor of conservative agitprop known as the ... er ...New York Times...
The Principal Financial Group announced on Thursday that it planned to stop selling health insurance, another sign of upheaval emerging among insurers as the new federal health law starts to take effect.

The company, based in Iowa, provides coverage to about 840,000 people who receive their insurance through an employer.

Principal’s decision closely tracks moves by other insurers that have indicated in recent weeks that they plan to drop out of certain segments of the market, like the business of selling child-only policies. State regulators say some insurance companies are already threatening to leave particular markets because of the new law. And some regulators in states like Maine and Iowa have asked the Obama administration to give insurers more time to comply with some of the new rules.

I know this must be a lie, because President Obama said, over and over again, repeatedly and forcefully, that "if you have insurance you like, you'll be able to keep that insurance."

Well, maybe this isn't a Republican lie. Maybe nobody actually liked their Principal Financial Group insurance...

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My reaction...

...to this story is ... mixed.

Senate votes to turn down volume on TV commercials
Legislation to turn down the volume on those loud TV commercials that send couch potatoes diving for their remote controls looks like it'll soon become law.

The Senate unanimously passed a bill late Wednesday to require television stations and cable companies to keep commercials at the same volume as the programs they interrupt.


Two reactions, both visceral and strong and battling it out. And about equal.

And diametrically opposed.
  • How is it possible that Congressional approval ratings are greater than zero? How can you look at this institution and regard it with anything but contempt? What part of the Constitution is the Congress reading as delegating to them this kind of authority, and where are the grown-ups to say, "this is none of our damned business"?

  • Well, that's far less damaging than most of the things that they do...

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