1. Don't know much about history....
"Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real."
2. Telephone for Colin Montgomerie!
"British women had facelifts and men had tummy tucks and "man boobs" removed in record in numbers in 2007, new data released on Monday revealed. According to the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS), 32,453 surgical procedures were carried out on men and women in Britain last year, a 12.2 percent increase on 2006".
3. I think they better change the name.
An American firm, General Sports and Entertainment, has acquired Derby County Football Club of the English Premier League. Derby have looked pitiful on the pitch this year and are anchored at the bottom of the league table, but GSE apparently see a future in the top flight for Derby.
The number of foreign-owned clubs is now at about half the league total, with four clubs in American hands (Aston Villa, Derby, Liverpool, and Man U). This is bizarre - is there any other prominent league like this? Of recent transactions that I recall, only Newcastle have been transferred to an English owner. Why the foreign invasion in the EPL?
Monday, February 04, 2008
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Fair Division of First Possession for Football Overtimes
An article....
Excerpt:
In the National Football League (NFL), games ending in a tie are determined by sudden death overtime where the first team to score wins. Sudden death is an efficient means to decide a game which is violent and exhausting.2 However, the sudden death nature confers a significant advantage on the team who has the first possession. While the outcome of a coin flip to determine first possession is ex ante fair, immediately after the toss it is no longer fair because the winning team has a significant chance of scoring on its first possession. NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue has said that “There has been a trend in the last seven or eight seasons that the team winning the toss in overtime wins the game. That advantage of receiving the ball first is becoming unbalanced.”
An interesting point. We aren't supposed to be resolving the outcome with a coin toss. We are deciding FIRST POSSESSION with a coin toss, and the teams are supposed to play out the result, sudden death.
But if winning the coin toss is (nearly) tantamout to winning the overtime, then what is the point?
I think hockey, soccer, and basketball have much fairer systems for resolving ties. And baseball can be excruciating, but there is no question you get your shot in "overtime."
Football is the outlier, all right.
(Nod to KL)
Excerpt:
In the National Football League (NFL), games ending in a tie are determined by sudden death overtime where the first team to score wins. Sudden death is an efficient means to decide a game which is violent and exhausting.2 However, the sudden death nature confers a significant advantage on the team who has the first possession. While the outcome of a coin flip to determine first possession is ex ante fair, immediately after the toss it is no longer fair because the winning team has a significant chance of scoring on its first possession. NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue has said that “There has been a trend in the last seven or eight seasons that the team winning the toss in overtime wins the game. That advantage of receiving the ball first is becoming unbalanced.”
An interesting point. We aren't supposed to be resolving the outcome with a coin toss. We are deciding FIRST POSSESSION with a coin toss, and the teams are supposed to play out the result, sudden death.
But if winning the coin toss is (nearly) tantamout to winning the overtime, then what is the point?
I think hockey, soccer, and basketball have much fairer systems for resolving ties. And baseball can be excruciating, but there is no question you get your shot in "overtime."
Football is the outlier, all right.
(Nod to KL)
The Best Email EVER, Prof Edition
An actual email, received from an actual student, by an actual professor. I have changed details and names, to protect the "innocent."
To put it in context, the prof is teaching an American politics course. Most
of the readings are on JSTOR. Here's the email:
Good afternoon-
XXXXX from your YYYYYY class (NNN) here, I just have a quick question for you regarding the JSTOR articles. I'm hoping/trying to get a jump on them and at least have them all printed out early and have them at hand.
But, regarding the {date} and {date} pieces, "Articles of Federation," and "U.S. Constitution," no authors were listed and I'm having some trouble locating the exact articles. And, when I search within the JSTOR database for "articles..." and "constitution..." there are a number of results.
-It just helps to have the author's name to narrow down the search to fewer articles within JSTOR and find the piece more easily.
I'm sure I'm missing something on this, but, could you lend a hand on this?
Thanks. :)
(Note the emoticon. Nice)
Oh. My. Goodness.
(Nod to {I can't even say. But a hearty nod!})
To put it in context, the prof is teaching an American politics course. Most
of the readings are on JSTOR. Here's the email:
Good afternoon-
XXXXX from your YYYYYY class (NNN) here, I just have a quick question for you regarding the JSTOR articles. I'm hoping/trying to get a jump on them and at least have them all printed out early and have them at hand.
But, regarding the {date} and {date} pieces, "Articles of Federation," and "U.S. Constitution," no authors were listed and I'm having some trouble locating the exact articles. And, when I search within the JSTOR database for "articles..." and "constitution..." there are a number of results.
-It just helps to have the author's name to narrow down the search to fewer articles within JSTOR and find the piece more easily.
I'm sure I'm missing something on this, but, could you lend a hand on this?
Thanks. :)
(Note the emoticon. Nice)
Oh. My. Goodness.
(Nod to {I can't even say. But a hearty nod!})
I get nervous when she's smiling
Obama is beathing down her throat, so why is she so happy?? Well maybe it's because she's fixin' to have workers' wages garnisheed if they refuse to buy health insurance.But don't worry, it won't be expensive because "under her plan, she said, health care "will be affordable for everyone" because she would limit premium payments "to a low percent of your income."
Uh...., Holy Crap?? Personal choice? gone. Supply and Demand? repealed. Go Hill!!!
ps. from the same article linked above, Mike Huckabee says it's time for Mitt to drop out of the race (I am NOT making this up!!!):
"I think it's time for Mitt Romney to step aside," the former governor, who has won only the Iowa caucuses, said on CNN. "If he wants to call it a two-man race, fine. But that makes it John McCain and me."
Serendipity
During the long course of my painstaking research for the previous post, I found the following gem written by David DiBiase of the band "Breezewood Honeymoon"
"Now look at those professors—that’s the way you do it
You do your research with your PhD
That ain’t working—that’s the way you do it
Money for talking and write for free
That ain’t working—that’s the way you do it
Let me tell you those professors ain’t dumb
Maybe get a blister on their typing fingers
Maybe get a little blister on their tongues
They want to publish peer-reviewed papers
They got the fire in the bel---ly
They are movers and shakers
Because they have that damned degree
See that rumpled fellow with the pipe and the tweed coat
Granny glasses and the thinning hair?
That rumpled fellow is a famous scholar
That rumpled fellow is a luminaire
He wants to publish peer reviewed papers… (etc.)
Someday I’ll finish my dissertation
I’ll write it up and I’ll turn it in
Someday I’ll have me a tenure-track position
Man, that’s when the fun begins
I’ll teach class Tuesday and Thursday
I’ll leave the research to my advisees
I’ll criticize them in office hours
I’ll give them all the third degree
They’ve got to publish peer reviewed papers… (etc.)
That ain’t working—that’s the way you do it
They leave the research to their advisees
That ain’t working—that’s the way you do it
Money for talking and write for free"
"Now look at those professors—that’s the way you do it
You do your research with your PhD
That ain’t working—that’s the way you do it
Money for talking and write for free
That ain’t working—that’s the way you do it
Let me tell you those professors ain’t dumb
Maybe get a blister on their typing fingers
Maybe get a little blister on their tongues
They want to publish peer-reviewed papers
They got the fire in the bel---ly
They are movers and shakers
Because they have that damned degree
See that rumpled fellow with the pipe and the tweed coat
Granny glasses and the thinning hair?
That rumpled fellow is a famous scholar
That rumpled fellow is a luminaire
He wants to publish peer reviewed papers… (etc.)
Someday I’ll finish my dissertation
I’ll write it up and I’ll turn it in
Someday I’ll have me a tenure-track position
Man, that’s when the fun begins
I’ll teach class Tuesday and Thursday
I’ll leave the research to my advisees
I’ll criticize them in office hours
I’ll give them all the third degree
They’ve got to publish peer reviewed papers… (etc.)
That ain’t working—that’s the way you do it
They leave the research to their advisees
That ain’t working—that’s the way you do it
Money for talking and write for free"
These guys are GOOD
I suggest that any candidate struggling to survive the primaries would do well to consider employing the consulting firm of F&R Castro to direct their campaigns.
Yes it was just election time in Cuba people. 76 year old Raúl pulled down 99.6% in his legislative district topping even Fidel's 98.4%. The brothers apparently have huge coattails as their full slate of 612 other candidates all won election with a minimum of 73% of the vote.
How did Raúl do it?
"While far less prominent globally than his brother, Raúl Castro has long been popular in eastern Cuba, playing up his rural roots and down-home sense of humor. Some Cubans consider him more pragmatic than his visionary brother."
Oh and then there's this:
"There was only one choice for each office".
In the words of the philosopher M. Knofler:
"That ain't workin', that's the way you do it".
Yes it was just election time in Cuba people. 76 year old Raúl pulled down 99.6% in his legislative district topping even Fidel's 98.4%. The brothers apparently have huge coattails as their full slate of 612 other candidates all won election with a minimum of 73% of the vote.
How did Raúl do it?
"While far less prominent globally than his brother, Raúl Castro has long been popular in eastern Cuba, playing up his rural roots and down-home sense of humor. Some Cubans consider him more pragmatic than his visionary brother."
Oh and then there's this:
"There was only one choice for each office".
In the words of the philosopher M. Knofler:
"That ain't workin', that's the way you do it".
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Warmoak T sends a note, regarding this story.
Excerpt:
Economists are asking the wrong question, Mr. Bloom said at the panel. They assume that “everything is subject to market pricing unless proven otherwise.”
“The problem is not that economists are unreasonable people, it’s that they’re evil people,” he said. “They work in a different moral universe. The burden of proof is on someone who wants to include” a transaction in the marketplace. (Mr. Roth, who acknowledges that “economists see very few tradeoffs as completely taboo,” did not take the criticism personally.)
The theologian Michael Novak, who is also a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, similarly argued that “not all ethical principles fit under economic reasoning,” adding, “the resistance to money is very old and very deep.”
T points out that "An e-mail supposedly clarified Dr. Bloom's position:"
Just to clarify, my remark about evil economists was a joke. This was obvious at the conference itself, though unfortunately not from the NYTimes article.
Well. Here are my thoughts:
The desire to commit rape is also very old and very deep. But it is morally repugnant, and modern society has managed to force men to suppress this desire, partly through socialization and partly through the threat of punishment as a deterrent. Now, most of us agree that rape is a truly terrible crime.
Envy is also an ancient impulse, "very old and very deep." And it is not nearly as awful as the desire commit rape. But it is still bad. Why do government institutions, and psycho-babble "scholars," get to raise the morally repugnant impulse of envy to the status of a virtue? Society will only progress if we begin to treat envy, and the desire to control other peoples' property and bodies, the way we have already ostracized baser impulses.
Some other thoughts here.
(A caveat, to the hysteria-and-anxiety-professionals out there: The impulse to rape is morally more repugnant than the impulse to act on envy. They are similar in kind, but much different in the degree to which they invade one's person and one's dignity. Although, the forcible theft of property and livelihood based on "fairness", the brittle mask envy wears in the moral universe, can come close to rape in its effects. But, yes, rape is worse. My point is only that the fact that an impulse is "very old and very deep" doesn't make it right: rape is old and deep. It's wrong. Distrust of money, based on envy and superstition, is old and deep. It's wrong, too).
Excerpt:
Economists are asking the wrong question, Mr. Bloom said at the panel. They assume that “everything is subject to market pricing unless proven otherwise.”
“The problem is not that economists are unreasonable people, it’s that they’re evil people,” he said. “They work in a different moral universe. The burden of proof is on someone who wants to include” a transaction in the marketplace. (Mr. Roth, who acknowledges that “economists see very few tradeoffs as completely taboo,” did not take the criticism personally.)
The theologian Michael Novak, who is also a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, similarly argued that “not all ethical principles fit under economic reasoning,” adding, “the resistance to money is very old and very deep.”
T points out that "An e-mail supposedly clarified Dr. Bloom's position:"
Just to clarify, my remark about evil economists was a joke. This was obvious at the conference itself, though unfortunately not from the NYTimes article.
Well. Here are my thoughts:
The desire to commit rape is also very old and very deep. But it is morally repugnant, and modern society has managed to force men to suppress this desire, partly through socialization and partly through the threat of punishment as a deterrent. Now, most of us agree that rape is a truly terrible crime.
Envy is also an ancient impulse, "very old and very deep." And it is not nearly as awful as the desire commit rape. But it is still bad. Why do government institutions, and psycho-babble "scholars," get to raise the morally repugnant impulse of envy to the status of a virtue? Society will only progress if we begin to treat envy, and the desire to control other peoples' property and bodies, the way we have already ostracized baser impulses.
Some other thoughts here.
(A caveat, to the hysteria-and-anxiety-professionals out there: The impulse to rape is morally more repugnant than the impulse to act on envy. They are similar in kind, but much different in the degree to which they invade one's person and one's dignity. Although, the forcible theft of property and livelihood based on "fairness", the brittle mask envy wears in the moral universe, can come close to rape in its effects. But, yes, rape is worse. My point is only that the fact that an impulse is "very old and very deep" doesn't make it right: rape is old and deep. It's wrong. Distrust of money, based on envy and superstition, is old and deep. It's wrong, too).
Alternative Alternative Music
The official Indie buzz is huge for NY's Vampire Weekend. Their first album is out and highly rated by Pitchfork. I have to say that they just don't do it for me, people. Their sound is tinny and forced. They seemed, planned, artificial, inauthentic. It seems like they are basically just "havin' a laugh".
Even the rave Pitchfork review describes them as "nothing but clean-cut pop and preppy new wave, tucked-in shirts and English-lit courses."
Ouch!
Let me suggest two alternatives to the alternative plat du jour.
1. Tokyo Police Club. They too have a new album but to me a way more indie vibe and sound. I really like these guys.
2. Times New Viking. Now these guys are indie as F***!! Hot Fuzz would be a good way to describe their sound. Highly distorted and highly recommended.
Even the rave Pitchfork review describes them as "nothing but clean-cut pop and preppy new wave, tucked-in shirts and English-lit courses."
Ouch!
Let me suggest two alternatives to the alternative plat du jour.
1. Tokyo Police Club. They too have a new album but to me a way more indie vibe and sound. I really like these guys.
2. Times New Viking. Now these guys are indie as F***!! Hot Fuzz would be a good way to describe their sound. Highly distorted and highly recommended.
Friday, February 01, 2008
He remembers every kiss*
Magic Johnson sez the Knicks will make the playoffs:
They're going to make the playoffs and be a tough seven or eight seed," he said. "They're settling into their roles. There's no way I don't see them not getting in as the seven or eight seed, especially in the East."
The article points out that the Knicks are "only" 5 games out of the 8th and final slot right now, but somehow neglects to inform us that they are in 14th place (out of 15) with 6 teams between them and the promised land.
This bit of foolishness brings to my mind the immortal words of Jim Mora Sr.: "Playoffs?? Playoffs?? Are you kidding me?? Playoffs??"
*I have searched and searched but cannot find any video of Zeke and Magic's magic moment before the start of the 1988 NBA finals. Can anyone help me out?
They're going to make the playoffs and be a tough seven or eight seed," he said. "They're settling into their roles. There's no way I don't see them not getting in as the seven or eight seed, especially in the East."
The article points out that the Knicks are "only" 5 games out of the 8th and final slot right now, but somehow neglects to inform us that they are in 14th place (out of 15) with 6 teams between them and the promised land.
This bit of foolishness brings to my mind the immortal words of Jim Mora Sr.: "Playoffs?? Playoffs?? Are you kidding me?? Playoffs??"
*I have searched and searched but cannot find any video of Zeke and Magic's magic moment before the start of the 1988 NBA finals. Can anyone help me out?
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