The Royals are Good at What their Owner Wants Them to Be Good At

Depending on your source, the Royals payroll is up somewhere between a little and a significant amount over 2012. It is still near the bottom of the league, however. Just something to keep in mind when you see the new Forbes piece about MLB team values, and you learn that David Glass has made somewhere on the order of $361 million owning the Royals just in the increased value of the team. They also made $16.3 million dollars last year in operating income. Just something to keep in mind.

A What Sink?

These people are elected by a vote... of real life other people!

A few Tennessee lawmakers apparently inquired whether a new sink at the state capitol designed for custodial use was a sink for Muslims to wash their feet in before prayer, theAssociated Press reported Monday. The lawmakers were reassured that it is simply a "mop sink." 

“I confirmed with the facility administrator for the State Capitol Complex that the floor-level sink installed in the men’s restroom outside the House Chamber is for housekeeping use,” Legislative Administration Director Connie Ridley wrote in an email. “It is, in layman’s terms, a mop sink.”

Conspiracy!

This is a pretty awesome parody of 9/11 truthers:

The Empathy Party

In example 37,867,045,983 of why I believe the major difference between conservatives and liberals is that liberals have an ability to imagine what life might be like for someone other than themselves, here is Senator Rob Portman on why he no longer opposes gay marriage:

"I'm announcing today a change of heart on an issue that a lot of people feel strongly about," Portman said. "It has to do with gay couples' opportunity to marry. And during my career in the House and also last couple years here in the Senate, you know, I've taken a position against gay marriage, rooted in part in my faith and my faith tradition. And had a very personal experience, which is my son came to Jane, my wife, and I, told us that he was gay and that it was not a choice and that, you know he, that's just part of who he is, and he'd been that way ever since he could remember."

I don't know if Rob Portman has any other kids. If he does, and it just so happens one of them is an illegal immigrant, a single mother, not wealthy, or  has a pre-existing condition, he might just end up becoming a Democrat.

Friday Song Day

Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside for my friends who love the Heartless Bastards.

 

Kansas City Sports in 13

I went looking for a post I had done on how Kansas City's major sports fortunes were the worst of any city with at least two teams, and I found out that I hadn't updated it in 3 years. So, here is your depressing state of Kansas City sports, 2013 edition. What you are looking at is the number of times teams in these cities played in and won their respective championship games/series.

The first number is appearances in title games. The second it the number of times they won the championship.

Atlanta 6 app. (1 title)
Baltimore 2 app. (2 titles)
Boston 17 app. (8 titles)
Buffalo 5 app.
Charlotte 3 app. (1 title)
Chicago 11 app. (9 titles)
Cleveland 4 app.
Cincinnati 2 app. (1 title)
Dallas 9 app. (5 titles)
Denver 8 app. (4 titles)
Detroit 13 app. (7 titles)
Houston 4 app. (2 titles)
Indianapolis 3 app. (1 title)
Los Angeles 15 app. (10 titles)
Miami 6 app. (4 titles)
Milwaukee/Green Bay 3 app. (2 titles)
Minneapolis 3 app. (2 titles)
Nashville 1 app.
New Orleans 1 app. (1 Title)
New York 24 app. (14 titles)
Oakland 4 app. (1 title)
Philadelphia 7 app. (1 title)
Phoenix 3 app. (1 title)
Pittsburgh 8 app. (4 titles)
San Diego 2 app.
San Francisco 8 app. (5 titles)
Seattle 2 app.
St. Louis 6 app. (3 titles)
Tampa 3 app. (1 title)
Toronto 2 app. (2 titles)
Washington D.C. 3 app. (2 titles)

And our relative neighbor, Oklahoma City, has had one team now for 4 years and already has a championship appearance. Oh, and we had the best MLS team in the regular season last year and they didn't play in the title match either. There is probably another "and" here somewhere.

A World of Yahoos

Big buzz this week regarding Yahoo's CEO announcing employees will no longer be allowed to work from home. This has touched off a fairly large debate about whether people are more productive at home or at the office. Some research out seems to suggest people are more productive at home than at the office. I certainly know I can be more productive at my dining room table than at my desk (at least when everyone else is also at the office).

But I think the more interesting aspect of the whole model is how employees are held accountable. To me, what Marissa Mayer is saying by telling Yahoo employees to come back in is "we don't have an effective system for determining whether you are doing a good job other than to see you here working." That is a pretty terrible message. Companies that have clear goals and performance expectations based on those goals should always be able to let anyone work from anywhere - for any number of hours - and determine whether  the employee is successful based on their performance against those expectations. I would guess there are less of those companies out there though than there are Yahoos.

Respect

I haven't been posting much, mostly due to a level of busyness I have not experienced previously. Still busy today, so I will  outsource this post to Thom Yorke. In an interview with Esquire, Thom explains proper behavior in political arguments:

Respect is if you're having a political argument with someone, just before you get to the point where you call them a fascist, you sort of step back and wonder how on earth they've ended up at this point of complete ignorance and stupidity.


That sounds about right to me.

Yet Another Thing That Blows My Mind - Foot Volleyball Edition

I took an inventory of all the people I know, and I am 99.9% certain I don't know anyone who wouldn't severely hurt themselves trying this:

Bo Jackson and Kansas City Sports

I finally watched the 30 for 30 special on Bo Jackson last night. It was really good, and it makes a very salient point that Bo came along at the end of a more innocent era. In that era, sports pages were dominated by sports instead of steroid use, prison sentences, fake girlfriends, etc. Anyway, I think I have a post coming some day on why I turn the radio channel every time the sports talk is about any of the previously mentioned distractions.

But today, I simply want to acknowledge the bittersweet feeling of watching a time when Kansas City sports mattered. I was a kid then, and I loved Bo Jackson. I met him when I was 12 at the KC airport, and he was extremely nice and gracious to an excited kid asking him to sign the title page of a Garfield comic book. To me, it was totally natural that my favorite Royal was on commercials and cartoons. As an adult, I can hardly imagine what it would be like for a Royal to be in the national spotlight in the same way. I can't imagine it from a Chief either.

The special last night said that the Royals were derided for taking Bo in the MLB draft. Everyone thought he would abandon baseball for an assured Hall of Fame career in the NFL. But the Royals believed it was the right move. They had just won a World Series and didn't have much to lose anyway. Back then, the Royals could do almost nothing wrong. Nearly three decades later, they can do almost nothing right. And the Chiefs just played badly enough to earn their first ever number one pick in the NFL draft... a draft that nearly everyone agrees has the worst crop of quarterbacks (their biggest need) in years.

That is just KC sports these days. Everyone assumes the Chiefs will pick a bust at number one, and that Wil Myers is destined for greatness because the Royals traded him. Hard to blame anyone for thinking that way. Bo has been gone for a long time.

Any Questions, No Questions.

Of all the crazy things I have heard in the gun debate thus far, I think maybe the craziest is that one of Obama's executive orders was to allow federally funded research on gun violence for the first time since 1996. We live in a very strange world.

NBA Draft Note

So, this is pretty off topic for right now, but I was just thinking about it...

If you are an NBA drafting over spot 5, don't take a center. That is all.

Gun Rights

Is the unspoken message here that in the eyes of the NRA not only do gun owners have rights, but so do guns themselves?

Rathner says the NRA will ask for an accounting of every weapon turned in and then go to court to stop the firearms from being destroyed. If that doesn't work, Rathner says they'll change the law.

We have now reached the point where gun advocates thinks more guns are the answer even for people who do not want them. We are nearing the end, right?

Good Thing Kansas is a Long Way From Water

The House finally passed a relief package for Hurricane Sandy victims. Sixty-seven Republicans still voted "no" for the package, including the guy who represents a Katrina-devastated district in Mississippi.

Closer to home, all four Kansas Reps voted no making Kansas and Montana (which only has one Rep) the only two states to vote unanimously against helping storm victims. Here in Missouri, Republicans were a bit more generous with only Sam Graves flipping the bird to the coast.

So I guess the question is whether coastal reps will remember the next time Kansas has a devastating outbreak of tornadoes.

Best Albums of 2012

Almost missed the Top 10 this year! Nothing like just getting it in under the wire.

Those of you who check in on this blog from time to time won't be surprised at many of the choices here. Several of the folks below made appearances on the Friday Music Day posts. This was a great year for music, particularly music that resurrects some of the great rock styles. The list below has music that recreates the early 60s, the classic 70s, the New Wavy 80s, great Motown, and blistering bluegrass.

On top of it all are the Heartless Bastards. Arrow is just a great classic bar rock album. They can bring the crunch and they can slow it down a little too. This album just fits about any time.

‎10. Blunderbuss, Jack White
9. Boys & Girls, Alabama Shakes
8. O Be Joyful, Shovels & Rope
7. The Sheepdogs, The Sheepdogs
6. Carry Me Back, Old Crow Medicine Show
5. The Lion's Roar, First Aid Kit
4. Divine Fits, The Divine Fits
3. Heaven, The Walkmen
2. Signs & Signifiers, J.D. McPherson
1. Arrow, Heartless Bastards

Also in contention: Lambchop, The Magnetic Fields, The White Buffalo, Turbo Fruits, Tanlines, Dwight Yoakum, Dirty Projectors, Dinosaur Jr., Murder By Death, Beach House, The Lumineers, The Very Best.

Here also are my top songs. Gone Tomorrow is one of my favorite in sometime... and if I am not mistaken there is an ode to the great Randy Savage in the lyrics.

My Top 10 Songs:
1. Gone Tomorrow, Lambchop
2. Northside Girl, J.D. McPherson
3. Hold On, Alabma Shakes
4. Default, Django Django
5. Heaven, The Walkmen
6. Shivers, Divine Fits
7. Andrew In Drag, The Magnetic Fields
8. Ghost Fields, Murder By Death
9. Brothers, Tanlines
10. Feeling Good, The Sheepdogs

Friday Hijinx

I really enjoyed this...

Consensus

So about that scientific debate around climate change...

Disabled Americans Indeed

It takes a lot anymore for me to be surprised by Republicans... But even as cynical as I have become, this nearly made me spit out my coffee:

The Senate Tuesday fell short of the two-thirds vote required to ratify a United Nations treaty aimed at securing rights for disabled people around the world, when the vast majority of Republican senators voted against the treaty. The final vote was 61-38 vote. All the nay votes were Republican. 

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities essentially makes the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act a non-binding international standard. It requires no change to U.S. law.

Read the article. This is essentially a high water mark in the idiocy, ideology, and isolation of modern conservatism.

NBA Danceoff

I vote Joey Crawford.

Performance Artist

Bill O'Reilly is one, apparently.