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Friday, November 21, 2008
Mussina for the Hall?A New York Post writer trashes the notion: Mike Mussina was a solid pitcher, great at times. He never got hurt and was never awful. For the most part, every time he took the mound his team had a chance to win. But he’s not an all-time great, he’s not an immortal. Only immortals should go into the Hall of Fame.
Right now, there are six or seven (depending on where you stand on Roger Clemens) current or recently-retired hurlers who are pretty much locks to go into the Hall over the next 5-8 years. Those pitchers are Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Mariano Rivera, John Smoltz and possibly Clemens. Does Mike Mussina really belong in the same group as those guys? Of course not. You could argue (and the Yankee fans are gonna love this one) that Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling deserve to go ahead of Mussina, and you wouldn’t be nuts. It's my considered opinion that Mussina should definitely go into the Hall of Fame; he's way above the dividing line. Consider his 270-153 career won/lost record. That's 127 games above .500. Granted, Mussina labored for some good teams in his career, but that's an extraordinary number. Tom Glavine is 102 games above .500. Greg Madddux is 128 games over sea level. Randy Johnson is 135 games up. Price brings up a few pitchers who have a few more wins than Mussina: Many Moose supporters will bring up his 270 wins, but if you’re gonna use that as a barometer, then Jim Katt (283), Burt Blyleven (287) and Tommy John (288) should go in ahead of him. But they also have lots more losses; Kaat was only 46 games above .500, Blyleven only 37 games and John 57 games over even. Labels: Mike Mussina
Nate Silver Not Much of A Political AnalystHe got a lot of attention for his interesting charts and graphs, but like a lot of math-oriented folks, he doesn't analyze things other than numbers very well: This might be the key passage of my interview with John Ziegler on Tuesday, for it is, in a nutshell, why conservatives don't win elections anymore. It is not that conservatism generally permits less nuance than liberalism (in terms of political messaging, that is probably one of conservatism's strengths). Rather, the key lies in the second passage that I highlighted. There are a certain segment of conservatives who literally cannot believe that anybody would see the world differently than the way they do. They have not just forgotten how to persuade; they have forgotten about the necessity of persuasion. Perhaps Nate could provide us with a similar analysis for the question of why the New England Patriots don't win Super Bowls anymore. Hilariously, the exchange that leads to this observation is when Nate denies that Barack Obama launched his political career at Bill Ayers' house. He's just amazed that the guy he's interviewing seems to believe this nonsense, and concludes that it must come from listening to too much conservative talk radio. Now, of course, Barack Obama did launch his political career at Bill Ayers house. Now maybe Nate has some sort of definition of "launch" or "career" or "house" that enables him to deny it. Maybe there was a phone call that Obama did just before going over to meet Ayers that really is the official launch. But Nate doesn't bother with that, because he doesn't see the necessity of persuasion. Everybody knows that Barack Obama didn't launch his political career at Bill Ayers' house. Ayers is just a professor of education who lives in his neighborhood.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Say What?TalkLeft, which is actually a pretty sensible liberal blog, talks about the silly indictment of Dick Cheney for abuse that went on in a Texas prison. But get this: Unfortunately, of all the real and imagined crimes for which Cheney and Gonzales deserve indictment, these are far down the list. 3 Cheney and Gonzales deserve indictment for imagined crimes?
Monday, November 17, 2008
Hyping the Global Warming ScamDid anybody catch NBC's "going green" for Sunday Night Football yesterday? At halftime, they featured Bob Costas and Meredith Viera somberly (but not soberly) presenting a segment on global warming. To let us know how seriously NBC takes global warming, they had flown Viera, a camera crew and I presume her makeup artist and hair stylist to Sydney Australia, which according to Viera is facing the loss of its famed Opera House due to the rising sea levels. Viera informed us that the sea levels could rise as much as 200 feet; that's only one order of magnitude greater than Al Gore's nutty claim of 20 feet (which is in turn, an order of magnitude greater than the IPCC's claim of 18 inches). Viera also mentioned that the Today Show would be broadcasting from the Snows of Kilamanjaro, which are disappearing, possibly because of NBC's lighting for the Today Show set. Guys, if you really want to set an example, get the NFL to move your game to the mid-afternoon, when all those stadium lights won't be necessary. And tell the audience to turn off the TV and sit quietly for three hours, trying not to breathe too fast.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Hail Mary PassNow Alan Keyes has filed suit about Obama's citizenship. Look, folks, this is fruitcake stuff. Don't buy into it. The evidence that Obama was not born in Hawaii is non-existent. The evidence that he was is abundant. We'll look like idiots for believing this nonsense.
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