NBA Finals Game 1 in a Nutshell

This picture tells the whole story.

Or, if you prefer your stories told in gif form, you can use this one.

NBA Finals

It's a little difficult for me to explain just how excited I am for this year's NBA Finals. I adopted the Thunder when they moved to OKC on the premise that we will never likely have an NBA team in closer proximity to KC. It's a little depressing because Oklahoma City now joins the list of cities whose teams have played for a championship since the Royals won the '85 World Series (it is all of the cities with at least two franchises and most of the ones with only one).

Wait, griping about KC sports is not the point of this post. The point is that this is the first time "my" professional team has played for a championship in my adult life. I don't know what that means necessarily, but I am quite excited.

Will they win? I don't know. I like their matchups. I don't like their inexperience. Kevin Durant is my favorite player and has been incredible in the playoffs. Lebron has been otherworldly for the last two games. I guess in the end these are my predictions:

OKC in 7
Durant wins MVP.
Lebron loses but redeems his rep by playing very well.
The Finals have a higher rating than they have since Jordan.

Killer

Mind blown.

The white mask that Michael Myers wears in the Halloween franchise? It was in fact a William Shatner Mask spray painted white. Apparently it was the cheapest mask they could find at the costume store, and it didn't take much to make it one of the most iconic and terrifying masks of all time.

While I'm Complaining...

A Johnson County mom is leading a crusade to get a statue of a partial woman snapping a photo of her own bare chest removed from the Overland Park Arboretum. Look, I may not agree with her but if she wanted to make an argument about how the artist's intention is not properly conveyed, or that she doesn't agree with the interpretation, or that the shock value outweighs the interpretation, or whatever, I could respect her position.

This, however, I can not respect:

“I didn’t take the time to understand the artist’s message,” Hughes said. “I was really thinking, ‘Good grief, what is that doing here?’ It is vulgar. It is provocative. I thought it was glorifying sexting. For me, it is very offensive.”

 Why take time to try and understand something, when you can just react?

A Win For Big Government... er the Voting Public

Last night voters in Springfield continued their reign of tyranny, trampling the rights of small business owners and smokers by reaffirming the smoking ban on workplaces and public spaces they had enacted just a year ago. These voters proved once again that, just like big government, they care not a bit for the will of the people. The small band of freedom fighters that had managed to get the issue back on the ballot only a year after the public had overwhelmingly supported it the first time around were disappointed but pointed out that sinister special interests were not going to let the ban be lifted.

“They were funded by special interest groups,” she said, referring to large donations One Air Alliance received from the American Cancer Society and American Heart Association.

Truly an example of special interest looking out only for their own selfish desires.

In all seriousness, however, there are several things about this whole affair that are worth noting:

1. The repeal effort was led by a doctor. Actually, it was led by my favorite doctor/school board member. How this impacted his adherence to the hippocratic oath is probably up for debate.

2. I'm not sure whether to celebrate the people of Springfield not changing their minds based on a silly argument that the ban limits freedom, or to be concerned that quite a few of the votes to uphold the ban must have come from people who really would consider this to be a rights issue but are willing to take away rights to do things they don't like.

3. I followed a few Facebook debates on this subject, and as BSD pointed out to me, many of the people arguing about "freedom" are really just people who want to make money off of smokers. Ah well, same as it ever was.

And Sometimes Numbers Don't Tell the Whole Story

So I went into last night's game armed with my research that says the Thunder are better when Westbrook shoots more than they are when Durant shoots more. And last night, Westbrook shot more. And the Thunder won.

But you could not convince me with all the statistical evidence available on the planet that the Thunder wouldn't have been better off with Durant taking 5 more shots and Westbrook taking 5 less. I see the numbers, but I also see the game. So what is the inconsistency?

If I ever have time, I will spend some time trying figure out if there is a pace difference in the games where each guy takes more shots. Or if there are certain matchups? Or if it has to do with the other team's quality?

I don't know, but I do know that when I watched last night I was not thinking "Shoot, Russell, shoot!" I was yelling "Pass it to Durant!"

Sample Size Matters

I declared on Twitter yesterday that the Oklahoma City Thunder should obviously ensure that Kevin Durant gets more shots than Russell Westbrook. I based this on the fact that Durant had more shots in the two wins thus far against the Spurs in the Western Conference Finals, and Westbrook had more shots in the two losses. It also just happened that the two wins came at home and the two losses on the road. That didn't matter because the stats fit my perception of what is best for the Thunder.

I like to think of myself, however, as one who like empirical evidence and can admit when I am wrong. So...

If you expand out to the rest of this year's playoffs, the Thunder are 5-2 when Westbrook takes more shots, and 5-1 when Durant takes more shots. Pretty close. Even more interesting is that in the 66-game regular season the Thunder were 21-5 when Westbrook took more shots and 24-13 when Durant took more shots.

1. I was wrong.
2. Shoot, Russell, shoot!

Nihilist Apes

More mainstream liberal columnists are usually a bit too demure to write what they really think. At the very least they seem to write it, sober up, and then soften the edges a bit.

Today, Michael Tomasky is not having any of that:

It’s just a shockingly unserious approach to a very serious problem of roughly 4 million uninsured Americans who have cancer, diabetes, emphysema, and the like. Republicans don’t give a happy crap about any of these people. They have no interest whatsoever in trying to solve a public problem. See, this is the Democrats’ burden, and when you come down it, the true difference between the parties these days. Democrats are actually concerned with trying to address a public-policy problem in a responsible way. You can disagree with their way, but they’re at least trying to do something positive in the country—help those 4 million as best they can. This involves difficulty and choices because nothing meaningful in life doesn’t. It also requires the people to stop being selfish apes for five minutes and look at the larger picture. 

The Republicans, on the other hand, are complete nihilists. They don’t care about solving any policy problems. They care about two things. They care about politics—advantage, winning, humiliating Obama. And they care about ideology, their drunken and medieval belief that the market can fix everything. But wait; it’s not even really a belief. They’re dumb, but they are not that dumb. They don’t fully believe it. Like Romney accidentally acknowledging to Mark Halperin that huge budget cuts cause recessions. It’s just the garbage they say because it sounds good. No pain! Nothing is complicated! Be selfish!

Get 'em Mike! This is from a piece on the Daily Beast in which Tomasky talks about Republicans wavering on the repeal of the popular pieces of ACA.

Heaven

Do yourself and favor and listen to this.

On Heaven, The Walkmen's seventh full-length album in 10 years (out May 29), the band continues to refine and mature its increasingly stately, deliberately paced sound. The wiry intensity of "The Rat" long consigned to the archives, The Walkmen's members again assert their place as kings of the dramatic slow burn — in "Line by Line," "No One Ever Sleeps," "Southern Heart" and beyond — though they also make the most of upbeat outliers like "The Love You Love" and the title track, a rousingly devotional pep talk in which Leithauser urges a loved one to "remember all we fight for."

Clutch

Just so you know. Via ESPN.

Time Travel

From Buzzfeed:

Politacos

Every now and again I have a touch of sympathy for critiques of liberal behavior. This paragraph struck me as generally accurate:

In the course of this culinary blending, a multibillion-dollar industry arose. And that’s where leftist critics of Mexican food come in. For them, there’s something inherently suspicious about a cuisine responsive to both the market and the mercado. Oh, academics and foodies may love the grub, but they harbor an atavistic view that the only “true” Mexican food is the just-off-the-grill carne asada found in the side lot of your local abuelita (never mind that it was the invading Spaniards who introduced beef to the New World). “Mexico’s European-and-Indian soul,” writes Rick Bayless, the high priest of the “authentic” Mexican food movement, in his creatively titled book, Authentic Mexican, “feels the intuitions of neither bare-bones Victorianism nor Anglo-Saxon productivity”—a line reminiscent of dispatches from the Raj. If it were up to these authentistas, we’d never have kimchi tacos or pastrami burritos. Salsa would not outsell ketchup in the United States. This food of the gods would be locked in Mexican households and barrios of cities, far away from Anglo hands.

On the one hand, I really love Rick Bayless's food. And I can appreciate the desire to create ethnically authentic experiences and cuisine as much as the next white guy. On the other hand, I really love kimchi tacos. The world would be a worse place without them.

Missouri Again

Would it be too much for someone in our state to do something that receives some positive national attention instead of doing stuff like this:

In March, officials accused a Missouri guardsman of participating in neo-Nazi activities while also serving in the military’s honor guard, which routinely helped pay last respects at funerals for veterans who fought in WWII. The sergeant was fired from the honor guard after former coworkers said he kept a picture of Adolf Hitler in his living room and tried to recruit them to the white supremacist movement.

We are really having a tough go these days. Hopefully it's just a phase...

Science Friday - Safety Warning

Don't put your hand in the large hadron collider.

Via TPM.

Time is Still At It

A couple of months ago, I posted on my complaint that Time Magazine thinks the American  public doesn't care about world issues (and may well be right). This week Time garnered a lot of attention when it released a cover of a mother breast feeding her 4 year old child. The cover is certainly startling, but I was more interested in how it compared to the covers of the European, Asian, and South Pacific versions of the magazine.

Sure enough, Time has once again gone with some strange American pop sociology project, while the rest of the world learns about things the rest of the world cares about.

Avid reader Jackknife Rodriguez believes I am making too much out of this whole thing. His argument is that many of editions have specific covers, and I am just cherry-picking the most egregious examples. You can go click through the covers here, and decide for yourself.

Always Good To See Us in the Limelight

Missouri - embarrassed by those we elected once again.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

We Ain't Got Much, But We Got More Than Some

I have made a fairly regular habit of complaining about sports in KC on the blog. And my largest gripe is that we haven't won a playoff game in the major sports since 1993. (For the record, this does not include Sporting KC who I think should be included if hockey is included, but whatever. Go Sporting!)

But recentness is only one way to look at the numbers. If you look at them from an overall perspective, things are a little better. A chart on Slate shows championships in the major four sports by city. KC is there with our 2 (that happened eons ago). But also on the chart is Houston, who has 3 teams and only 2 championships as well. Indianapolis has 2 teams and 1 championship. Phoenix has 4 teams and 1 championship. Seattle has 2 championships. Charlotte has 0 championships. Milwaukee has 2, and one of the teams isn't even there anymore (the Braves).

Speaking of the Braves, the winner for least decorated city per team has to be Atlanta. Atlanta has 1 championship despite having all 4 major sports for a fairly lengthy period of time.

There is no real point to this, by the way. Just making myself feel a little better after watching Luke Hochever pitch this weekend.

How to Teach By Bertrand Russell

If you have never been, you should check out the blog Brain Pickings. There is almost always something very interesting there. Yesterday, they posted Bertrand Russell's 10 commandments of teaching. It sounds like the opposite of what most people actually do.

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

But How Do I Back It Up?

The Explainer piece today tells us that the human brain can store a lot of video, audio, and documents.

Most computational neuroscientists tend to estimate human storage capacity somewhere between 10 terabytes and 100 terabytes, though the full spectrum of guesses ranges from 1 terabyte to 2.5 petabytes. (One terabyte is equal to about 1,000 gigabytes or about 1 million megabytes; a petabyte is about 1,000 terabytes.)

So while our retrieval system can leave a little to be desired, our storage capacity still bests most of the hardware you can buy today. It won't be long before that isn't the case no doubt, but before you worry too much about the rise of our computer overlords, remember that the juice just isn't there to run a human brain outside of a human.

Friday Song Day

I believe 2012 is shaping up to be the year I appreciate female singers like never before. One I really appreciate is Erika Wennerstrom of the Heartless Bastards. "Parted Ways" ways is form their new album Arrow.

Losing Even When You Win

Lebron James has been taking quite a bit of antipathy from the public and media ever since he left Cleveland for  South Beach. I don't know the guy, so I'm not sure what kind of person he is. But I do know that repairing your image requires precisely half of the following tale:

 LeBron James gave the Heat a performance to remember. And then paused to give a 7-year-old boy a gift he won’t soon forget. James walked off the court Monday night at the Prudential Center shoeless moments after scoring the Heat’s final 17 points in a 101-98 comeback win against the host Nets. He then took off his shoes, autographed them and handed them Daniel Julez Smith, the nephew of singer Beyoncé Knowles, who sat courtside with husband/rapper/Nets minority owner Jay-Z at the game. “Am I going to miss those shoes?” James said. “No, I got another pair. We came too far to take the foot off the gas. I looked at the scoreboard and didn’t know what I was doing individually. I knew I was making some plays though. I didn’t know I scored 17 straight.” The celebrity duo witnessed James’ fourth-quarter effort that salvaged an otherwise sloppy effort by the Heat, which won the second of back-to-back games. The victory in the Heat’s final game in New Jersey against the Nets, who will move to Brooklyn next season, was Miami’s third in a row.

Directly between the word "Smith" and the word "the" this story goes from feel-good to groan inducing. If only the comma was a period we would be left thinking about how Lebron played a magical game, didn't choke, and made some kid's day. But it is a comma, and the second half let's us know that it wasn't just some lucky kid. It was a kid who already had an extraordinary amount of luck by being Beyonce's nephew. It morphs from some sort of real life Mean Joe Green moment to a type of weird offering to the rich and famous. Maybe Derrick Rose needs to talk to him about the folly of placing too much importance on rappers.

There's Famous... and There's Famous

Via True Hoop, Derrick Rose comments on President Obama in a GQ article:

"I remember when he wasn’t our president, when I was a kid, when he’d just be walking down the street, a state senator. He was just always there. I didn’t appreciate it then. I was in high school and just wanted to see rappers."

I was trying to think who I wanted to meet when I was in high school. I'm not sure it was anyone famous. I think it was just girls.

Amazing Stats in Baseball (and Longevity)

My Twitter feed has been filled recently with weird stats about 49 year-old pitcher Jaime Moyer. Moyer last night became the oldest pitcher to win a game in Major League history. The Twitter pieces have ranged from the age disparity between him and the opposing pitcher, to the disparity between the speed of his fastball and that of the average pitcher. Anyway, most of the stats have been interesting, but this one from Buster Olney kind of blew my mind...

Elias: Jamie Moyer has pitched to eight percent of all hitters in major league history. - @Buster_ESPN

Just a reminder: major league baseball is over 100 years old. Crazy.

Chart of the Day

Primarily useful as a guide for who is going to hell of course...

From ESL, via the Canadian National Post.

Walkability

In an interesting series on the current state of walking, Tom Vanderbilt references WalkScore, a website that tells you just how walkable your neighborhood is. I was dismayed to see quantified what I already knew to be true. My eastern Waldo neighborhood isn't particularly walkable. In fact, despite the fact that I live squarely within the more urban part of the city (as compared to the sprawled out edges of KC), my neighborhood scores a 51.

This is doubly depressing since I really like walking, and my old address in Midtown scored a much better 81. I talk with Ancillary Wife regularly about the walking being what I miss most about my old locale. But WalkScore actually provided a silver lining. It shows how close establishments of various types are by walking distance. Here are a few:


Restaurants - 0.33mi - Governor Stumpy's
Coffee - 0.79mi - The Classic Cookie
Groceries - 0.88mi - Aldi
Shopping - 0.27mi - J R Mini Mart
Entertainment - 1.53mi - John Wornall House
Banking - 0.68mi - U.S. Bank

Aside from the fact that the JR Mini-Mart isn't much of a shopping destination unless you need cigarettes or any drink that comes in a bag, this seems encouraging. I can stroll out on a Sunday morning and be at a coffee joint in about 15 minutes. On a day when I had some time to kill, I could make the full round trip to the grocery store in about an hour, and if I was insistent on doing some drinking and wanted to walk home I could make it less than 10 (as long as I wanted to stop before Stumpy's closes at 10).

And, I also have the benefit of having three places that house some of my favorite people all very short walks from home. So, the neighborhood isn't as walkable as I would like, but I am going to try and focus on the bright side. Besides I looked up the family farm where I grew up, WalkScore 0. They obviously forgot to factor in Grandma's house.

Collecting Posts

So I have had some trouble getting time to get stuff up on the blog recently... To keep the 8 of you from going without, here are some highly recommended reads.

From Friends:

Templeton Rye Whiskey & an Epic Road Trip by Dan @ Gone Mild

One in Which I Get My Craft On – Bottle Cap Window Dressing by Deliberate Obfuscation

The United States of Waving by Jackknife Rodriguez

From Others:


Fast Booze: A guide to getting drunk in fast-food restaurants. @ Slate

Place-dependent output @ The Economist

A universe without purpose @ LA Times

How to Lose Faith in America

Just go read the comments on just about anything on the Star's website. The comments that depressed me this morning were the ones after Barb Shelley's column on what healthcare freedom means to her.

When you read the comments, just remember they were made by people that are our neighbors and co-workers (maybe even our friends).

June 5

There is a 99% chance one of my favorite albums of the year will be released on this date.

Here is the trailer for "Heaven" by The Walkmen.

Look At Me! Look At Me!

Here is one of those things you probably already knew but didn't have any proof for.

Researchers at Western Illinois University studied the Facebook habits of 294 students, aged between 18 and 65, and measured two "socially disruptive" elements of narcissism – grandiose exhibitionism (GE) and entitlement/exploitativeness (EE).

GE includes ''self-absorption, vanity, superiority, and exhibitionistic tendencies" and people who score high on this aspect of narcissism need to be constantly at the centre of attention. They often say shocking things and inappropriately self-disclose because they cannot stand to be ignored or waste a chance of self-promotion.

The EE aspect includes "a sense of deserving respect and a willingness to manipulate and take advantage of others".

The research revealed that the higher someone scored on aspects of GE, the greater the number of friends they had on Facebook, with some amassing more than 800. 

Those scoring highly on EE and GG were also more likely to accept friend requests from strangers and seek social support, but less likely to provide it, according to the research.

The article also explains that there have been other studies suggesting increased narcissism among students, though it also points out that the relationship between social media and narcissism is thus far correlational and not causal.

No report yet on what writing a blog about whatever happens to interest you correlates with. I am pretty sure it correlates with being awesome.

Why I Can Eat a Bag of Pretzels

Because they don't smell!!!

The study, carried out by the Institute Food and Nutrition in The Netherlands, saw participants serving themselves custard out of squeezy tubes, while different concentrations of custard aroma were wafted past their nostrils. When a stronger smell was used, the amount of custard the participants ate decreased. The result appears in the wonderfully titled journal Flavor. 

So, I will now start working on my best-selling diet book,  "The Bacon, Cheese, and Onion Diet." I will make millions!

Chart of The Day

Can't imagine what this chart might mean...

Geoengineering is Deja Vu, not Vuja De

"...you ever get that funny little feeling Vuja De? No, not Deja Vu. This is Vuja De. This is the strange feeling that somehow, this has never happened before." - George Carlin

Please forgive the cliched quote intro, but I am too disturbed by the subject of this post to come up with more original material. I've noticed an increasing amount of reporting dedicated to the idea of geoengineering, or 'hacking the planet,' as a way to address global climate change. The majority of the coverage seems to hinge on two points.

First, world politics, and specifically the U.S. political process, is so hopelessly mired in talk of economics (i.e., that's code for having a vested interest in the status quo or being scared of the cost of remediation as demonstrated by James Inhofe on Rachel Maddow) that the best case scenario of meaningful action on climate or pollution issues will be too little, too late. Second, really smart guys like Bill Gates think we should prepare for global level interventions that are independent of emissions such as seeding the troposphere with reflective material and the like. Only cursory mention of negative effects is ever mentioned.

Hopefully I'm not the only person scared negative feces by this. Set aside the fact that, much like genetic manipulation, even testing certain geoengineering schemes has the potential to do widespread and irrevocable harm. People, smart and otherwise, seem to be treating the idea of geoengineering as a brand new thing that we need to try out to see if it really works. Even assuming that the giant science experiment to see what would happen if millions of years worth of carbon was aerosolized called global climate change isn't conclusive because the science is 'fuzzy,' there's another easy example of how poorly examined solutions often create more problems than are solved.

About 100 years ago, we decided there wouldn't be enough nitrogen fixed through normal processes to support food for a growing population. Enter the Haber process to artificially augment the nitrogen cycle. Great idea in principle, but mix in big business pushing artificial fertilizers and food producers being too lazy to test soil before applying fertilizer, and what do we have? There's a lot of money wasted on excess fertilizer, there's a giant dead zone in the gulf from runoff, and water is too polluted to drink safely in one of the nation's richest agricultural areas. We could have addressed much of the nitrogen deficit by fertilizing with animal waste instead of lagooning it, but building that infrastructure was too much trouble I guess.

Unfortunately it seems that half-assed, cheap ideas are rarely cheap in the end, but are always half-assed. History seems ready to repeat with geoengineering. Logically it seems that if we purposefully augment the composition of the environment as a response to global emissions, but we don't limit global emissions, we lock ourselves into a geoengineering loop until the day we run out of fossil fuels.

You might assume from reading this post that I'm about to start drinking heavily, and I was until I bought 10,000 shares in an Silicon Valley start-up that specializes in artificial volcanoes. That should be more than enough to finance my new floating, domed, solar, tidal, ship-based city state in the Caribbean. Have fun living an Escape from New York scenario on the mainland, suckers!

Friday Song Day

This one is from Lambchop, a band that has been around for a long time but I have just discovered. Also the video fits in with the theme of the previous post...

Photo of the Day

Courtesy of ESL... Ooooh Yeah!

The Science of Basketball

In which two of my great loves, basketball and statistical nerdery, are combined...

There are smart basketball coaches in the world, but when you hear a coach called a "genius" you can pretty safely assume the speaker hasn't really thought about his word choice. These days, however, actual scientists are getting into the business of figuring out sports. The results are often amazing, and this paper is one of the best examples I have seen yet.

March Madness!

A bracket from Ted McCagg.

Blunt Amendment

Congratulations to Democrats on defeating a bill that likely would have resulted in insurance companies and employers denying coverage for all sorts of things.

Congratulations to Missouri on once again being associated with backwards ignorance and deception.

Classic Sexism

Buzzfeed has a contribution of several vintage ads that are all sexist in some way or another. Most all of them are offensive, but I have to say I found this one kind of funny...

Reading Habits

Slate shows us the latest issues of Time Magazine in 4 different places, and asks if Time thinks Americans are stupid.

It might be that Time thinks we are stupid. But from these two examples, it certainly also seems that Time might just think we couldn't care less about anything happening outside the U.S. of A.

Maybe That Moon Base is a Good Idea

Rick Santorum is deeply and sincerely stupid:

“When you have a worldview that elevates the Earth above man and says that we can’t take those resources because we’re going to harm the Earth; by things that frankly are just not scientifically proven, for example, the politicization of the whole global warming debate — this is all an attempt to, you know, to centralize power and to give more power to the government,” Santorum said.

Fortunately, if we do harm the Earth then we can just.... damn.

Where Entitlement Spending Goes

The next time your right wing blowhard uncle, or co-worker, or buddy tells you that the problem with the U.S.A. is that we have created a welfare state where everyone is dependent on the Feds and has no motivation to work, you can show them this chart:

For the record, the 10% left is about 5% of the total federal budget. Please share with said blowhards.
(via Kevin Drum)

Gulf of America

I admit, I am a sucker for stories like this:

A lawmaker in Mississippi is pushing to change the name of “the body of water located directly south” of the state, the Gulf of Mexico, to the “Gulf of America.” 

State Rep. Steve Holland (D) has introduced HB 150, which says that “for all official purposes within the state of Mississippi, the body of water located directly south of Hancock, Harrison and Jackson counties shall be known as the ‘Gulf Of America’; and for related purposes.”

The Gulf of America, birthplace of Freedom Fries.

A Warning

If you wake up sometime in the next week with missing patches of skin, or bleeding eyes, or your brain draining from your ear; something from this project has probably escaped and made its way around the world:

On Sunday, February 5 at approximately 11:25 am ET, a Russian drill broke through to a prehistoric subglacial lake located more than 2 miles below the surface of Antarctica, Russian state news outlet Ria Novosti reported... 

...Even more exciting is the prospect that the lake contains perfectly preserved or independently evolved life forms, likely microbial, giving hope to the idea that similar or analogous lifeforms could be found in outer space under the frozen lakes on Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus.

What could possibly go wrong when humans come into contact with microbial lifeforms that haven't been in our environment in the entirety of our existence? Probably nuthin.

Friday Song Day

This may not last, but I think I may make an effort at sharing some good music on Fridays.

Let's start with a song I have been listening to all week. It's by a couple of Swedes that go by First Aid Kit, and it is called Lion's Roar.

Depraved Indifference

As Mitt Romney recently reminded us, corporations are people too. That includes the NBA. So I am wondering whether the league, in possession of its personhood, could be charged with depraved indifference over what it did earlier this season to the New Orleans Hornets. To review, David Stern and company allowed a group of jealous and petty owners to block a three-way trade between the Hornets, Rockets, and Lakers that would have put Chris Paul in L.A.

In damage control mode, they then approved a trade between the Clippers and Hornets that caused a whole host of interesting things to happen, but none of those included anything happening in New Orleans. Bill Simmons covered this in a recent column by citing a reader from New Orleans who said this:

"Eric Gordon, our main get in the CP3 trade to the Clips, has played two games (TWO!) this season and may not be back until mid-March. He also turned down an extension, making him a restricted free agent come July. Are the Hornets now covered in the blood of the murdered Lakers-Rockets deal? Has David Stern effectively killed basketball in New Orleans?"

And yes, Eric Gordon has played only two games. But to understand the whole magnitude of what has happened, let's look at the results this season from what the Hornets would have received in the scuttled trade and what they ultimately received.

Denied Trade
Luis Scola
14.6ppg, 5.6rpg, 22 games

Kevin Martin
21.0ppg, 3.3rpg, 2.7apg, 20 games

Goran Dragic
7.9ppg, 3.7apg, 22 games

2012 First Round Pick (Knicks pick)
Currently Pick #15

Accepted Trade
Eric Gordon
21.0ppg, 5.0rpg, 2.0apg, 2 games

Chris Kaman
9.2 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 1.2 bpg, 17 games

Al Farouq-Aminu
4.7ppg, 4.3 rpg, 22 games

2012 First Round Pick (T-Wolves pick)
Currently Pick #12

I'm not even sure these numbers tell the whole story because the Rockets have been far better than the Hornets. The Rockets are 12-10 to the Hornets 4-18. So it isn't like Aminu and Kaman aren't getting opportunites to put up better numbers. If basketball folds in New Orleans, this trade will be the bullet that does it. And it won't be hard to find the suspect that fired it.

Oscar Nominees - So Far

My wife and I are trying to see as many of the Best Picture nominees as possible before the Academy Awards take place. We have managed four so far, and here is what I think about them.

Moneyball - Sports movies often suffer from the difficulty in translating the game to film. Fortunately, this one is about the most important part of professional sports - the part that happens off the field. More specifically, it is about the business side. If you are a sports fan, this is your chance to see how the sausage gets made.

Midnight in Paris - I am beginning to believe that Paris itself is a great actor. It gives every movie it is in a kind of whimsy that seems to be unique to the city. I think it must be the way the directors feel about their subject that brings this out, but Woody Allen certainly loves the city. Owen Wilson does a nice job of playing the self-aware character in a crowd of intelligent but oblivious upper-crusters. This movie also gives you the chance to see a guy who once played Tony Blair debate with the real life wife of Nicholas Sarkozy. That does not happen everyday.

Tree of Life - I have no idea. I admire the concept. I like people trying new artistic methods. I don't mind the placement of cinematography ahead of storytelling. I am impressed by child actors who can seem like real kids on film. I love space. I like the idea of asking big questions. And yet, I spent most of the movie being distracted by things like "who is this person who is now braiding the mom's hair?" and "what kind of dinosaur is that?" Really, I have no idea.

The Descendants - Clooney! Clooney! This is a great movie. The dialogue at the beginning about how everyone thinks people who live in Hawaii are immune to life sets the tone perfectly. This movie is about real life, or at least what real life is like when major life events happen. The are sad, funny, and maddening all at the same time. This movie has all of that, and it has a lot of George Clooney running funny. My front-runner for Best Picture.

Douchebaggery

I don't know much about Terrell Suggs, but I like him a little bit more now...

Dynasty of Fishiness

There has been an awful lot of smoke around the New England Patriots over the last decade. Between Spygate, tampering charges, and spawning a general manager that most Chiefs employees believe is spying on them, I think there is pretty good evidence a fire is burning somewhere. And with all of that context, this:

Cundiff told me he initially thought he was at fault, that he had looked at the scoreboard too early, before the down number had been changed. In fact, the Gillette Stadium scoreboard was off by a down. On Monday, Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs told ESPN that Ravens players thought the team had made a first down after receiver Anquan Boldin fumbled out of bounds on first-and-10 from the Patriots’ 23-yard line. Instead, the ball was marked where Boldin had lost it, a yard short of a first down. On second and third downs—which the scoreboard said were first and second—the Ravens threw unsuccessfully into the end zone. Ravens P.R. director Kevin Byrne told me—and Cundiff later learned—that team officials watched the All-22 video of the game on Monday and confirmed the scoreboard malfunction.

Could this randomly happen? Sure it could. But it sure could also fit into a tidy little pattern.

Big Shot Rob

Kobe vs. Shaq?

Robert Horry says Phil Jackson started the whole thing...

I think Phil Jackson started that feud. It happened many times that after team practice he would say, “Kobe said this about Shaq, and Shaq said that about Kobe… We couldn’t believe how could that happen, because just the day before we saw them together, jumping on one another. Phil liked it when there was conflict of some sort.  

I always tell people; if you look at those championships, you’ll see who were the closest players on the team. Normally those are the guys who are the first to hug each other. And when we were winning, it was always Shaq and Kobe who hugged. I think this will answer your question. Later it was blown out of proportion by the media and both players started doing something that didn’t make sense.

Very interesting... (via True Hoop)

You Wouldn't Believe Me If I Told You

If you are conservative that is literally true I think because I don't work for Fox News...

Democrats trust everything- except Fox News. NBC does the best with them at +50 (67/17), followed by PBS and CNN at +49 (66/17 and 65/16 respectively), ABC at +38 (57/19), CBS at +35 (58/23), MSNBC at +33 (56/23), and even Comedy Central at +4 (36/32). Fox News comes in at -36 (25/61). 

Republicans meanwhile don't trust anything except Fox News. PBS comes the closest to breaking even among non-Fox outlets, although not very close, at -30 (26/56).  It's followed by CNN at -49 (18/67), MSNBC at -51 (18/69), NBC at -52 (17/69), CBS at -54 (17/71), ABC at -56 (14/70), and Comedy Central at -59 (12/71). But Fox News comes in at a stellar 73/17. 

Independents are with the Democrats. They trust everything except Fox News. Main takeaway from this poll: tv news has become just as polarizing as the political parties in this country.

This is from a Public Policy Polling study. The full thing is here. Very interesting.

The Other Side Has Them Too

The Creationists may be full of it, but many ministers are less sanctimonious than some scientists. Like this guy, for instance...

 

I love the moment around 3:30 where Robert Wright puts his hands up as though he might be concerned about vomiting. I would suggest that might be from the stench of bullshit arising around him.

Creationists Be Creatin'

Your Missouri House of Representatives at work:

(b) If scientific theory concerning biological origin is taught in a course of study, biological evolution and biological intelligent design shall be taught. Other scientific theory or theories of origin may be taught. If biological intelligent design is taught, any proposed identity of the intelligence responsible for earth's biology shall be verifiable by present-day observation or experimentation and teachers shall not question, survey, or otherwise influence student belief in a nonverifiable identity within a science course;

What Are Newspapers For?

Granted, there is a follow-up post where the New York Times Public Editor tries to explain himself, and in all honesty there is some room for debate on where the line gets set... but this is how he started the first post on newspapers and the truth:

I’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge “facts” that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.

Uh, yeah. They should do that.

Envy and Math

So I guess I am outsourcing most of my blog posts to others these days, but they are just saying things I think deserve to be repeated. This time it's Matt Yglesias in a post on Mitt Romney's comments about inequality concerns really being just envy.

This is the real issue here. There's a sense that a lot of us have that our public policy ought to be aiming to produce large gains for everyone. You often hear that for one reason or another the United States "can't afford" this or that. We "can't afford" to pay people Social Security benefits. We "can't afford" to build high-speed trains. We "can't afford" to give everyone early childhood education. But why can't we afford this stuff? Are we a poor country? No, we're not. We're one of the richest countries that's ever existed. Are we a poorer country than we used to be? No, we're not. But a very large share of the gains we've made over the past three decades have gone to a relatively small number of people. If the gains had been broadly shared, then the burden of paying for that basic infrastructure and public services would have to be very broadly shared. But the gains have been very concentrated, and so if we're going to afford that stuff, a large share of the revenue has to come from the people who've gotten the money. 

That's not envy, that's math.

How to Be Remembered

Forever to be known primarily as the guy who cut the best basketball player ever, Clifton "Pop" Herring sounds like a guy who is probably remembered by the guys who played for him for much fonder reasons.

Pop had his best season two years after Jordan left. The Bucs made the state playoffs for the first time in their history. In their opening game, against Hoke County, they had a 12-point lead with 90 seconds left. Pop emptied his bench. One assistant coach nearly had a fit, because the game was still in question, but Pop wanted all his guys to be able to say they'd played in the state playoffs. He even put in a kid they called Bouffant because of his perfect red hair. "Bouffant can handle the pressure," Pop said, and Bouffant could. He scored two points, and the Bucs won by 11, and they rode home in celebration, grooving to Billie Jean by Michael Jackson, because Pop always loved his music.

A much better way to think of the guy.

Quote of the Day

From Kevin Drum, in a piece explaining that Mitt Romney's experience makes it harder for him to get by on platitudes about the free market.

Americans may be ideological free marketers, but operationally they're just folks who believe in a day's pay for a day's work. If you rub their noses in the the true face of modern capitalism, they aren't going to like what they see.

This is What Dedication Looks Like

A friend of mine posted this pic on Facebook. Either somebody mislabeled these or...

Frank Martin knows intensity and passion, but he thinks excitement looks like a guy in an erectile dysfunction commercial (ok maybe he is right about that one too).

And dedication? Well, he looks dedicated to working on his Rock imitation anyway.

Juvenile Humor to Start the New Year

Ouch!!!!!!!

We Are Very Small

This picture is from Discovery. That is what the U.S. would like if is was on Saturn.

Top 3 - Guys I Want With the Ball Shooting for the Win

1. Carmelo Anthony - I wouldn't put him in the Top 5 overall guys in the NBA, maybe even the Top 10. But I can't think of anyone who is better at making sure they get a quality shot when everyone know they are about to shoot it. And he makes more of them than anyone else.

2. Kevin Durant - Would be number one if you couldn't push him out on a drive. The best shooter in the league be a wide margin.

3. Derrick Rose - Can get a shot anytime. The shot he made to win the game on Christmas was just crazy. If he was a better pure shooter, he would be nearly unstoppable.

Rye Whiskey Is Back... For Better or Worse?

I have been seeing more and more articles recently like this one form the New York Times:

Over the last few years, though, that has changed, as rye has emerged as a go-to craft spirit of the moment. Interest in its production has also come back, as small artisanal distillers, like Templeton and Delaware Phoenix, have popped up across the country, referencing old recipes and archaeological records to create new spirits strongly rooted in tradition. And big whiskey companies that mostly make bourbon — Buffalo Trace, Heaven Hill — are not only bottling small batches of specialty rye but offering tours to spirit enthusiasts.

That first sentence has been bothering me. I think I covered similar territory in a blog a while back, but I don't like drinking the "spirit of the moment." It makes me feel weird when I go up to the bar and order the thing that has become chic. That is surely just a bit of hipsterism at best and an appalling display of elitism at worst. But it is still a feeling that is hard to shake.

However, I have decided to make peace with the idea. I am going to choose, instead, to embrace the rising popularity of rye. Because if my favorite drink becomes more popular, the logical outcome is that I will be able to get it more places. And there will be more varieties. And people will invent new cocktails.

So here is to rye whiskey and its new found popularity. May it be the Jack Daniels of the next generation.

Chart of the Day (Maybe the Year)

So what are the 99% upset about? This chart from Larry Bartels (via Kevin Drum) shows it all. It is a graphic representation of how responsive politicians are to the views of different income groups.

The really striking thing is that this data was pulled from voting records in the 90s. When you look at it like that, the 99% have been pretty patient.

Relegation

Freakanomics has a post theorizing about what relegation could do for American sports.

Had the Pirates and Clippers played in something like the English Premier League, the Pirates would have been relegated in 1995.  And the Clippers would have been gone in 1981-82, sparing Los Angeles this team entirely. 

In North America, though, despite years of failure, both teams have been consistently rewarded by their league. The Pirates – via luxury payments from teams like the Yankees – are actually profitable. And the Clippers have routinely been granted high draft choices and – via the intervention of Commissioner David Stern – were recently given the amazing talents of Chris Paul.

Would relegation be good for KC? It would probably mean that we could actually have a team competing in each of the major 5 sports (I am officially counting soccer). There would simply be no reason that we couldn't have a team competing in whatever a step down from the NBA would be competing at the Sprint Center with a chance to make it to the NBA if they did well enough.

On the other hand, all of our current major sports franchises would have been relegated in the past two decades at a point, and one of them would probably have been stuck in Triple A for God knows how long. So, I guess I am still trying to puzzle out how I feel about it as a KC sports fan. Anyone have any thoughts?

Best Songs of 2011

I ranked the albums, but I am busy this time of year. Thus, the songs are gettting the alphabetical list treatment. They are all really good though.

21 Great Songs of 2011

A Little Bit of Everything - Dawes
All the Talkers - Centro-matic
Breaker Breaker - Peter Bjorn and John
Cruel - St. Vincent
Die - Girls
Dog's Eyes - Wye Oak
Ffunny Ffriends - Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Gold on the Ceiling - Black Keys
Gratisfaction - The Strokes
I Might - Wilco
Lippy Kids - Elbow
Miranda - Surfer Blood
Morning Thought - Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.
On and On - Tapes 'n Tapes
Payne's Bay - Beirut
Raw Meat - Black Lips
Revolving Doors - Gorillaz
Ride Ride Ride - Vetiver
Separator - Radiohead
Shredder - Jeff The Brotherhood
Velcro - Bell X1

Best Albums of 2011

Going in reverse order this year because I posted this list on Facebook first and God forbid I have to type it again.

‎10. Arabia Mountain - Black Lips

 This is just a good time. Nothing wrong with having a good time.

9. Nothing is Wrong - Dawes

 There is no song here I love as much as When My Time Comes, but that really isn't much of a criticism. I firmly believe that A Little Bit of Everything is Taylor Goldsmith singing the song he wishes Warren Zevon would have sang before he died.

8. Gimme Some - Peter Bjorn and John

 They may forever be known as the "Young Folks" band, but these Swedes just keep making great music. And they can almost always put me in a good mood.

7. Smoke Ring for My Halo - Kurt Vile

 I'm not sure how you can mean monotonous in a good way, but I would here. This album just feels like a 2 a.m. haze. I also mean that in a good way.

6. El Camino - The Black Keys

 There is more going on here than with Brothers, but I'm not sure that is a good thing. I think I like the production stripped way down with these guys, but the songs are still great and nobody else does 60's blues/soul rock like they do. And I hope to get another chance to see them live. I would recommend anyone who hasn't seen them do the same.

5. Build a Rocket Boys - Elbow

 The whole album is great, but the reminiscence on childhood in Lippy Kids, is the most beautiful song I heard all year.

4. We Are the Champions - Jeff the Brotherhood

 Remember when Weezer was great? I do, and I am glad that Jeff the Brotherhood and the soon to be metioned Surfer Blood do too. I am also glad that Jeff the Brotherhood thought that old -Weezer would be more awesome if they sounded a little more like the Ramones.

3. The King is Dead - The Decemberists

 I shall not name the band that most are invoking related to this album, but if it sounds like them, that is quite an accomplishment. And this time the best song isn't about a dad who kills his kids!

2.The Whole Love - Wilco

 I really hadn't been a big fan of the last two Wilco albums. Then this one comes along and kind of feels like it has all the best parts of Summerteeth and A Ghost is Born, and Wilco resumes their status as one of my favorite bands.

1. The Rip Tide - Beirut

 Everything Zac Condon does is a little different than what he did last time, but this is the first time he did it a little more like everybody else. And yet, there is no mistaking it for anything but Beirut.

Honorable Mention Category 1 - Bands I discovered this week through other Top Ten lists in this thread and will probably be in my revised best of 2011 in 6 months.

Candidate Waltz - Centro-matic

 I have been listening to this a lot over the last two days. I was not at all surprised to find out they were from Austin, because Spoon was the first thing I thought of when I heard it. Thanks to those who put it on their lists.

It's a Corporate World - Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. 

 I have to admit I had been avoiding this band based entirely on their name. Big mistake. I have an uneasy relationship with electronic music, but this is the kind that stays in my playlist for a long time.

Honorable Mention Category 2 - Bands that made great first albums, tried to get fancy and made suspect second ones, then decided to return to what worked and made great third ones.

No Color - The Dodos

Outside - Tapes 'n Tapes

Honorable Mention Category 3 - Album that made me feel a little schizophrenic.

King of Limbs - Radiohead

 My reactions to this album: 

1. Radiohead is releasing a new album!

2. What?

3. I'm not sure about this...

4. Actually, maybe...

5. They got me, these songs are stuck in my head (I really love Separator)

Honorable Mention Category 4 - All Others

Tarot Classics - Surfer Blood (EP)

The Errant Charm - Vetiver

Strange Mercy - St. Vincent 

Father, Son, Holy Ghost - Girls

Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Wye Oak - Civilian

Middle Brother - Middle Brother

Alpocolypse - Weird Al (yeah I said it, and I mean it)

Biggest Disappoinments

9 Types of Light - TV On the Radio

Angles - The Strokes

Doing it Their Way

The old hometown has a new brewery. They make great beer AND great amateur videos.

Down at the Pub

It seems no one has explained to the Brits that employers occasionally check your Facebook page.

The average British person is under the influence of alcohol in three-quarters of of his or her tagged Facebook photos, according to a new study.

Although, if the number sits at 76% I suppose employers can't really hold anything against you because they ultimately have to hire someone. Carry on then. Cheers!

Performance Artist

I am beginning to think that must be what Ron Artest Metta World Peace really is:


Thanks for passing this along Jackknife.

Government's Role to Play

You can't have free enterprise without government, whether you like it or not.

A study for the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School found that “some form of open access regulation has at this point been adopted by every country in the OECD except the United States, Mexico, and the Slovak Republic.”

When someone tells you they are pro-markets, they usually mean they are pro-business. Those two are very different things...

Kevin Durant Averages 50

According to his facebook post, Kevin Durant needs contacts. Good God, he couldn't see and led the league in scoring. What can he do once he can see???

Football Analogy Run Amok

In his most recent column, David Brooks argues that Obama has been far from the regulatory monster the right makes him out to be:

In the first place, President Obama has certainly not shut corporate-types out of the regulatory process. According to data collected by the Center for Progressive Reforms, 62 percent of the people who met with the White House office in charge of reviewing regulations were representatives of industry, while only 16 percent represented activist groups. At these meetings, business representatives outnumbered activists by more than 4 to 1.

Brooks says this has the left up in arms, and he is right. I think liberals see this as Democrats embracing one of their most important critiques of the Republican party. Brooks hits at the issue at the end of the column by making a statement that, in its falsehood, describes exactly why liberal support for Democrats is wavering .

Second, it is easy to be cynical about politics and to say that Washington is a polarized cesspool. And it’s true that the interest groups and the fund-raisers make every disagreement seem like a life-or-death struggle. But, in reality, most people in government are trying to find a balance between difficult trade-offs. Whether it’s antiterrorism policy or regulatory policy, most substantive disagreements are within the 40 yard lines.

The analogy at the end is the useful part here. I, and I think a lot of liberals like me, believe the game is absolutely not played between the 40 yard lines. It is played entirely too close to our end zone, say between the 20 and 40. That gives Republicans the chance hit a reasonable touchdown play every now and again, and to get at least a field goal on every possession.

Democrats meanwhile throw the occasional hail mary while spending most of their time trying to run out the clock without turning the ball over. Any football fan knows that is not a way to win the game.