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Monday, September 29, 2003
 
Tigers Update: The Tigers closed their season with a roar, winning five of their last six games to avoid tying or surpassing the 1962 Mets' record of 120 losses, including one incredible comeback from 8 runs down. They ended the season with 591 runs scored, which was only the 15th worst total for an AL team in the DH era in a non-strike year. They allowed 928 runs, which was the ninth worst total of any AL team in the same era. Their run differential of -337 runs was the worst since 1932, when the Boston Red Sox allowed 349 more runs than they scored, and is third all-time in the AL (the Philadelphia Athletics of 1915 are second with 333). Oddly enough, all three teams ended their seasons with 43 wins.
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Amusing article by Matthew Miller in the Boston Globe yesterday. It is summarized (by the Globe) as follows:

"Republican icons Milton Friedman and William J. Bennett acknowledge the link between the birth lottery and poverty. Can their conservative brethren learn from them?"

Now, the first thing that strikes me is the "birth lottery" comment. This is a natural fallacy of childhood that many people never outgrow. Those of us fortunate enough to be born with loving, caring parents, often contemplated in our youth how lucky indeed we were.

Of course, from our parents' standpoint luck had nothing (barring the occasional "accident") to do with it. They got married, settled down, engaged in the necessary (and enjoyable) preliminary calisthenics and nine months later, a baby was born as a result.

Indeed, the whole notion of a "birth lottery" is silly when one thinks about it hard for a moment as an adult. The image is of babies waiting around for the stork to take them to their new homes when their number to come up. Baby #100223757 is flown to the Gottbucks' family, while baby #100223758 is dropped off at the Trailerfolks' clan. But of course a simple understanding of biology reveals that it has nothing to do with a lottery, it has to do with a sperm and an egg. We are NOT lucky to have had our parents, no matter how wonderful they may have been in that role. I could NOT have been born just as easily to any other set of parents, and to argue so is silly.

Miller assumes that Bill Bennett and Milton Friedman agree with him on the notion of the lottery (in fairness, Bennett does appear to agree). Friedman appears to be acknowledging that his own success is due to luck, but of course this could simply be modesty, since the alternative is admitting that you are fortunate because you deserved it--you worked hard, and were intelligent and took advantage of the opportunities that are offered to everyone in our society.

The point of the article appears to be that "look, a couple of conservative icons agree with me on the birth lottery, so let's propose some policies based on our mutual agreement". The first policy he proposes is the expansion of EITC to "millions of workers who do not receive the EITC", via a federal guarantee of $9-$10
per hour.

"The "grand bargain" here requires the left to stop trying to place the full burden of a living wage on employers while the right accepts the need to have government fund the rest -- to the tune of a fresh $85 billion a year."

This is grand "bargain" indeed. The left gives up trying to place the full burden of a living wage on employers, while the right gives up $85 billion. Such a deal!
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Wednesday, September 17, 2003
 
Tigers Update: The worst season in the history of the Tigers is finally approaching its end. The Tigers have already become the first team to lose more than 110 games since the 1965 New York Mets; the only remaining question is whether they will end up with the most losses in modern baseball history (120, by the 1962 Mets). The odds look pretty good right now, as they would need to go 5-7 the rest of the way to avoid tying the Mets and 3-9 (roughly their seasonal average) would give them the record.

Mike Maroth has already become the first 20-game loser in the majors since Brian Kingman in 1980; Jeremy Bonderman would have surely joined him had the Tigers not ceased sending him out to the mound every five days.

The Tigers have scored 524 runs, which means they are on pace to score 565 runs, which would be the fourth lowest amount of runs scored for an AL team in a non-strike year since the advent of the designated hitter rule in 1973. On defense, they have given up 851 runs, a pace that would indicate 919 runs allowed by the end of the season. That would be the twelfth most runs allowed by an AL team in the same time frame. The difference between their runs allowed and their runs scored (354) would be the worst in American League history, beating out the 1932 Boston Red Sox, who were outscored by their opponents by 349 runs.
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Friday, September 12, 2003
 
Krugman's off his meds again.

"Meanwhile, the crudity of the administration's recent propaganda efforts, from dressing the president up in a flight suit to orchestrating the ludicrously glamorized TV movie about Mr. Bush on 9/11, have set even supporters' teeth on edge."

No, Pablo, it's this nonsense from you that sets my teeth on edge.

"Maybe it was the pressure of other commitments that kept Mr. Bush from visiting New York yesterday; but one suspects that his aides no longer think of the Big Apple as a politically safe place to visit."

Perhaps he missed it, but Mayor Bloomberg specifically requested that VP Cheney not attend because the security procedures would interfere with the families of the victims. Obviously security would not be any easier with the President there.

"Four months ago it seemed that the 2004 campaign would be all slow-mo films of Mr. Bush in his flight suit. But at this point, it's likely to be pictures of Howard Dean or Wesley Clark that morph into Saddam Hussein."

I don't get the fascination with Clark among the left; surely he is not likely to win in the primaries entering at this late date. And I'm sure Krugman is horrified at the prospect of Howard Dean morphing into Saddam. Tough.

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Monday, September 08, 2003
 
Are You Ready for Some Football? During one of the games this weekend, Fox Sports asked fans to log onto their website and vote on the question of whether winning the first game was important in the NFL. This may seem obviously so; after all there are only 16 games in the season, so that one game is the equivalent of 10 games in baseball.

However, a different picture emerges if you look at the record of teams winning their first game. In 2002, 16 teams went 1-0 to start the season. Their combined record was 137 wins and 119 losses. If you take away the 16 opening day wins, they combined for the remainder of the season to go 121-119; basically .500 football.

Oddly enough, the picture was even worse for teams starting the season 2-0. There were eight teams that went 2-0 to start the 2002 campaign; they combined for a record of 66-62. After removing the 16 wins, the 2-0 teams were a combined 50-62 from week 3 on, substantially worse than .500 ball.

This does not appear to be a one-year fluke. In 2001, 15 teams that started off 1-0; for the remainder of the season they went 111-114. There were eight teams that started out 2-0; for the rest of the season they were 52-60.

What's going on here? I suspect that the schedule-meisters at the NFL have been making an effort to have the good teams play the good teams and the bad teams play the bad teams early in the season. Note the Raiders-Titans game last night and the Philly-Tampa Bay matchup tonight for examples of the former, and the Arizona-Detroit game for the latter.
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Wednesday, September 03, 2003
 
Listened to several of Dean's stump speeches in the last couple days. The Seattle one is quite amusing, mainly because they left in the warmup speakers. Professor Hubert Locke (sp?) felt compelled to denouce "that psalm-singing fascist in the Justice Department," (about 6:40 into the clip, note the wild applause this comment brings). Professor Locke is a little weak on the English language however. He says "... thank you for enabling we ordinary citizens...". Take out the "ordinary citizens" and it is obvious that he means, "thank you for enabling us...."

The other speakers are funny mostly because they deliver applause lines at the wrong time.
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