Why So Long in the Face?

Is the president wearing down? Don't know about the real one, but the WSJ illustrated version sure is. Maybe this version has a valid conception of reality.

From Slate.

Great Show

I feel supremely confident that I saw the best show in KC on Saturday night, and I was not at Elton John. Wilco and Andrew Bird put on the best concert I've seen in some time. It was the first time I had seen Bird, and he blew me away. He played several instruments and looped them together in nice arrangements, and he displayed whistling ability that bordered on supernatural.

After an opening like that, I was concerned that Wilco might actually seem a little flat. No worries. I've seen Wilco before, but this show was the best by a wide margin. They played a nice mix of songs from their now 6 albums, and they also put in two encores. Dan thought the encores (complete with fireworks) were a cheap gimmick. He may be right, but I could care less (and would add that I haven't been to a show without such a pre-planned encore in a long time). The band was on all night, and they seemed to step it up another notch in each encore.

Sure the band was probably pandering to the crowd when they said it was the best crowd they had on the tour, but as someone who has been a part of several crowds at music shows I would argue it was a pretty damn good crowd. When the crowd is totally into the show, it makes a difference. The energy was good.

The only gripe I have is that Stretch (proprietor of Grinders and Crossroads KC) took to the stage both before and after the show determined to make me believe I was at a Ted Nugent show. He screamed like he was MCing a monster truck rally and he killed a good vibe at the end of the show by yelling "F*#% You Elton John!" Everyone in the crowd was just looking around wondering what the hell was going on. Stretch has a couple of really cool businesses, and I even like his art. But man, stay off the stage.

The Morals of Molars

From the NY Times, via Kevin Drum:

For American dentists, times have never been better.

The same cannot be said for Americans’ teeth.

With dentists’ fees rising far faster than inflation and more than 100 million people lacking dental insurance, the percentage of Americans with untreated cavities began rising this decade, reversing a half-century trend of improvement in dental health.

How many positive trends can be turned around in a matter of 8 years? Several, apparently.

Fighting Someone Their Own Size

I guess I'm feeling kind of anti-conservative today. Maybe it's because I read this:

The right is unapologetic. "The Democrats chose to outsource their airtime to a Seventh Grader," wrote National Review's Mark Steyn. "If a political party is desperate enough to send a boy to do a man's job, then the boy is fair game."

This is in relation to the 12 year old who gave the Democrats reply to a radio address by the president concerning SCHIP. His family has subsequently been ripped a new one by conservative bloggers and radio hosts.

I really want to believe that we all want basically the same things and we just have different ideas of how to get there, but then I read something like this and I just don't know.

Gored

Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize. What did the leading conservative magazine have to say about that in their blog?

Al Gore should hand it over to General Petraeus and the U.S. military.

Al Gore should share it with Osama bin Laden, because bin Laden is also anti-global warming.

The Nobel Prize might as well be a prize at the state fair.

It's important to remember that this isn't a fringe site, and these aren't the commenters. These are leading conservative "minds". Classy bunch.

Methusela

I know interest in the NBA is low, but I like it. So if you want to read this blog, you'll occasionally have to deal with an NBA story.

Training camp is back in session, and pre-season games are underway. This does not excite my wife at all, incidentally. Anyway, I was checking box scores and came across the fact that getting significant sub minutes for the Denver Nuggets was Stacey Augmon. That is the same Stacey Augmon who was part of the the great UNLV teams of the early 90's. He's 39 years old. Somewhere Kevin Willis is smiling.

Lewis Black

Every time he is on the Daily Show he's good.

But last night was over the top good. If the link changes it will be the video titled Limbaugh.

Best Line (in reference to the flap over Obama not wearing a flag pin):

I'm not comfortable with any idea that can't be expressed in the form of men's jewelry. If it takes more than two cuff links to say it, you lost me.

Watch until the end to see the Fox Anchor bring Bill Clinton into it, and conflate two unrelated issues by pointing out they both contain the word "that".

They Eat Their Own

When asked to do so, right-wingers will take a break from hating lefties and focus on their own kind. So who do they find vile on their own side of the aisle (all the while spitting bile and ready to pile on those who's style is... ok enough)?

Ranking is on the left, er, the other side of right, and the number of top votes for each person is, naturally, on the far right:

18) Ted Stevens (4)
18) Olympia Snowe (4)
18) Mel Martinez (4)
18) Sean Hannity (4)
18) Lincoln Chafee (4)
17) Bill O'Reilly (5)
14) Lindsey Graham (6)
14) George W. Bush (6)
14) Mitt Romney (6)
12) Arnold Schwarzenegger (9)
12) Rudy Giuliani (9)
8) Andrew Sullivan (11)
8) Chuck Hagel (11)
8) James Dobson (11)
8) Ann Coulter (11)
6) Arlen Specter (12)
6) Pat Robertson (12)
4) Larry Craig (13)
4) Michael Savage (13)
3) John McCain (17)
2) Pat Buchanan (18)
1) Ron Paul (23)

That's a pretty weird list right? The funniest part to me is that four of the poll respondents still hate Lincoln Chaffee enough to vote him number one.

80's Movie Line of the Week

Apropos to the day I'm having.

Rick Moranis as Dark Helmet in the Mel Brooks sci-fi spoof Spaceballs:

Out of order? F***! Even in the future, nothing works!

Obama V. Hacks

Dan over at Gone Mild has a great post about political hacks and their attempt to degrade Barack Obama for the crime of being right. Dan runs a large section of Obama's 2002 speech denouncing the war. I had heard a couple of quotes from the speech, but had never seen all the context. No matter what you think of him, this is pretty impressive prognostication.

Setting the Bar Low

The Economist has a story about the positives and negatives of a Hillary Clinton presidency. The main negatives are the legitimate concerns about the dynastification and continued polarization of American politics. Among the positives is this line:

Mrs Clinton is the anti-Bush: a woman who speaks in clear sentences, who has a formidable command of the facts, and who, on health care, is willing to learn from her mistakes.

Quite a statement about where we stand today.

Run Off the Field

The Chiefs ran for 10 yards today. All day. That was the total for the whole game. Yet on several occasions the offensive coordinator killed offensive momentum by insisting on trying something that hasn't worked all year. Probably time to start looking for a new offensive coordinator. Or maybe the head coach made that call.

Learning

I attended a conference this week. Conferences are interesting because you usually learn something, but not always what you assume you will. Here are a few things I learned at mine.

Steak is the worst food to serve at a conference banquet.

Trade show floors would be easier to navigate if you were deaf or rude.

There is apparently a large group of people who spend more time and effort worrying about and improving their "virtual life" than their real life. And they are stoked about it.

I don't really like magicians.

People often ask you what you like or dislike, but they would learn more about you if they asked what you're indifferent about.

Same Ol' Story

President Bush will veto the SCHIP bill today, setting the stage for a battle in Congress to override the veto. In all likelihood, the president will prevail.

There have been several arguments as to why the president thinks SCHIP expansion is a bad idea. As usual, most are misleading.

But one is true. The president's people claim that if SCHIP is expanded, some families who already have private insurance will be tempted to switch to public insurance. According to CBO estimates, 35% of children eligible under SCHIP also have access to private insurance.

And this is where the philosophical difference between liberals vs. conservatives comes squarely into view. Liberals believe that a system where some who don't need a particular benefit (in this case health insurance) but receive it anyway is a worthy trade off to ensure that all who need the benefit receive it. Conservatives turn that philosophy on its head. They believe that a system where some who need a particular benefit but do not receive it is a worthy trade off to ensure that no one receives a benefit they do not need.


There are many other examples of this, from classic "entitlements" to imprisonment. It reallys is the core of the stereotypes about "bleeding heart" liberals and heartless conservatives. The interesting question, though one likely not soon answered, is what sorts of life experiences or brain hard-wiring does it require for us to come to such radically different value judgements?

Radiohead

The band is releasing its new album on its own website. How much?

"It's up to you."

Pretty cool.

Movie Lines

At a nice dinner party this weekend, I was told that Andrew Sullivan had been running a poll about best movie lines ever. I haven't found it on the blog, but from the conversation in sounded like the top five were contained to generally well respected movies. That's fine, but don't the generally well respected movies get enough recognition already. How about great lines from ridiculous movies?

More specifically, how about great lines from 80's comedies? For members of my age group (particularly male members), these movies were the foundation for our media habits. Maybe that signals awful times ahead for the country, but I suspect it is harmless. It's also funny.

I thought this would be a post including many of the great lines from 80's comedies, but it just grew and grew. No matter how big it got, however, I still didn't think it was complete. So, I think 80's comedy quote for the week is in order. You could certainly do it everyday, but I don't want a blog that is half movie quotes.

To kick things off let's go to the Coen brothers' classic Raising Arizona:

H.I.: There's right and there's right and never the twain shall meet.

Qualified Pessimism

I haven't completely come around on the Royals, however. Now that the season ending stats are in, you can make a case that the Royals are the hardest working team in baseball. I say that because of two statistics: home runs, and strikeouts.

Home runs make run scoring much easier. When you can hit the ball out of the park, you don't have to string as many hits together to score runs. The Royals were 27th in the league in runs scored, and they were dead last in home runs. They hit 102, which was 16 behind the next closest team (Minnesota) and roughly 100 less than the top five teams (of which 4 were NL teams oddly enough).

Strikeouts make run stopping easier. The less the ball is put in play, the less chance something bad will happen. The correlation between K's and runs allowed isn't as strong as the one between home runs and runs scored, but it exists. The Royals finished 26th in strikeouts.

The other thing about these stats are that they seem to be two pretty good indicators of physical talent. Batters who hit home runs are physically gifted. Pitchers who strike batters out are usually physically gifted. The Royals would seem to have a paucity of physically gifted players. I think there is reason to be cautiously optimistic about the Royals future, but until we see more physical talent it will be hard to expect too much.

Cautious Optimism (And Increduility)

I'm generally not a big pessimist. Yet, when I posted on the KC sports scene all looked as bleak as could be. And now, only three days later things seem a bit better.

First of all, the Mike Sweeney era is most likely over. Mike took out an ad in the Star thanking KC fans, which was no doubt a class move. The problem with Sweeney was never his class, it was his general inability to play baseball for longer than 2 months at a time. You can argue that isn't his fault, but you also have to recognize that it was a killer for a franchise that decided to make him the franchise.

Second, I was wrong about the Chiefs (for a week anyway). I was totally unprepared to see the Chiefs open up the offense in San Diego. The personnel favors a passing attack right now, but I really thought Herm and Mike Solari would let their philosophy get in the way of a change of scheme. Let's hope they recognize that it isn't just a good idea when they're behind two scores at halftime. The defense is playing really well right now.Amazing what a difference a pass rush makes.

Local Sports Pessimism

Perhaps it is because I lost my "Royals will win at least 72 games" bet last night as the team wheezed to a 10-0 loss to the worst other team in the division, but I'm not feeling good about our KC sports these days.

The Royals seemed as though they might have turned a corner earlier this year playing over .500 baseball for a couple of months. Things have fallen apart at the end, however, and much of the (at least my) enthusiasm has waned. The rookies have been decent, which is nice, but after all that has happened the Royals are only going to be 6 to 9 games better than last season. That isn't huge improvement when you're coming from 100 losses.

The Wizards meanwhile perfected the disaster that was the Beckham "event" by losing a game they really needed to win 1-0 to one of the worst teams in professional soccer. Not the kind of showing you want to have in front of your largest crowd ever. The great Wizards blog Downthebyline hasn't even posted about the game yet. Hopefully, he (or she) isn't comatose after the disaster. The Wizards are still officially in the playoff picture, but by no means are they a "sure thing".

The Chiefs are adding to my depression by being one of the 2 or 3 worst teams in football. I'll suck it up and say I was wrong if they go beat San Diego this weekend (and with Norv Turner on the opposing sideline perhaps I am being too negative), but I give the Chiefs roughly zero chance of beating a desperate Chargers team in San Diego. Beating the Vikings 13-10 at home is not the kind of win that portends great things for your season.

There is also no word, and little hope, of the city adding a franchise to play in the Sprint Center. Until a new pack of teams needs to sucker us into to leveraging their demands, that front should stay silent.

Finally, since there are a few more of you reading this than there were the first time I posted on the subject, I want to show the (updated) list of what other multi-sports franchised cities have done since 1985 when we last had a team playing for a title (I didn't count soccer as one of the 4 major sports, the Wizards have won an MLS title).

Atlanta 6 app. (1 title)
Baltimore 1 app. (1 title)
Boston 11 app. (5 titles)
Buffalo 5 app.
Charlotte 3 app. (1 title)
Chicago 10 app. (8 titles)
Cleveland 3 app.
Cincinnati 2 app. (1 title)
Dallas 6 app. (4 titles)
Denver 7 app. (4 titles)
Detroit 10 app. (6 titles)
Houston 4 app. (2 titles)
Indianapolis 2 app. (1 title)
Los Angeles 13 app. (8 titles)
Miami 4 app. (3 titles)
Milwaukee/Green Bay 2 app. (1 title)
Minneapolis 3 app. (2 titles)
Nashville 1 app.
New York 20 app. (11 titles)
Oakland 4 app. (1 title)
Philadelphia 4 app.
Phoenix 2 app. (1 title)
Pittsburgh 4 app. (3 titles)
San Diego 2 app.
San Francisco 5 app. (3 titles)
Seattle 2 app.
St. Louis 5 app. (2 titles)
Tampa 2 app. (1 title)
Toronto 2 app. (2 titles)
Washington D.C. 3 app. (2 titles)

New Orleans is still the only other city with multiple franchises not to make a championship game, and they have only had two teams for 5 years. That will make you pessimistic.

Headlines

The New York Times has is currently featuring a story with the headline:

Blackwater Shooting Scene was Chaotic

If the point of the headline is to make me want to read the story, then this one gets an F. You can't take the one thing I probably already knew about incident and use that as bait to read the story.

Blackwater Shooting Scene was Serene would be headline worthy. Otherwise, the mood of the scene probably shouldn't be the feature.