Journalism... It's a Sprint, Not a Marathon

NPR posted these awesome pictures of the press corps hauling ass after the ACA decision.

RUN!!!!!

My Recent Blogging in a Nutshell

Lazy!

ACA Ruling in Nutshell

Roberts!

Total NBA Final in a Nutshell

:(

NBA Finals Game 2 in Nutshell

Dammit.

Even Nutshellier

Now this one is a gif too...

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.