Breakfast of Champions

My philosophy of government

2008-04-05T18:53:00.003-04:00

Since I'm now actually asking for your money (which i'm going to get a bit more active and therefore annoying with in coming months), I figure that I owe it those of you who are forced to listen to my drivel to explain where i'm coming from and why I think it is so important. Some of you will find these arguments familiar, meaning that you were one of those lucky souls I used to hone my methods. We begin by answering the question, Are governments necessary?

In recent years, we have heard a lot about the value of "market based solutions", which when taken to its extreme is probably best described as an incredibly unholy marriage of Adam Smith and Ayn Rand. All of our problems, they say, can be solved by allowing individuals to essentially do as they choose. Supply and demand will ensure that any product or service will be provided if it has utility. Self interest will ensure that people act honorably and provide quality; if a business didn't, people would learn about this and said business would not survive long. If the super-strong theory of market based solutions were true (or even just consistent), then governments would be nearly unnecessary. However, if we can prove that "market based solutions" are not sufficient to solve the problems of our society on their own, we will have shown that there is a need for governments. The logic that we use will also give us some hints as to how we can determine what goods and services are best provided by governments. We will work with the example of healthcare.

I ask you all to start with the assumption that in the year 2008, in a modern economy such as the United States, all people should be entitled to reasonably good healthcare, at the minimum (let's not debate what "reasonably good" is). I truly hope this is something we all agree with. Let's now imagine a society which has entirely "free market healthcare". In this society, doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies charge you on a by-use basis for their services, the pricing of which is based purely on supply and demand. Insurance companies pop up; people have a choice of paying a single annual fee to such a company, in exchange for which they get certain health services for free or a reduced cost. Sounds great right? Competition ensures costs stay low, and people can either have a guaranteed cost for their annual healthcare (which is slightly higher than their expected cost to allow for the insurance company to make some profit) or roll the dice if they think they will be healthy for the period in question. However, we can immediately find two issues that destroy the "free market healthcare utopia".

First, what happens to the people who roll the dice and lose? We are not talking about poor people in this category per se - but they won't necessarily be rich people either. They will still have heart attacks, strokes, get cancer; they are not insured to pay for these expensive treatments and can't afford them. Do we really think that these people should die (i'm not exaggerating - these illnesses will kill you if not treated) because they made a decision which, although probably poor, went horribly against them? Doing so would go against our prime assumption, that all people are entitled to such healthcare. Hence there needs to be some type of institution that provides emergency crisis health care services, and there is no way such an institution can be "free market". QED.

Even more troublesome are those who can not afford insurance at all. These people will always exist in any free market society. At the very least it will include those who are disabled and unable to earn a living in our "free market" paradise. Are they not entitled to any healthcare? We have had societies in the past where the poor were not entitled to modern healthcare - this is how plagues begin, it is in nobody's best interest. Hence there needs to be some type of institution that provides all health services to those who have no means of purchasing any, and there is no way such an institution can be "free market". QED.

By this simple logical argument we have shown that in order to fulfill the modern requirement that all people receive healthcare, we need to have a government. Exactly what this government health care (note i do not use the term "government health insurance", which is a dishonest frame) will do is a subject for another post, but it is clear that we need something.

Another great government service to use this argument with is defense. The next time somebody mentions the benefits of a "free market society", you can respond "I don't feel that I get any benefit from the Iraq War; I would choose not to pay for it in your 'free market' society" Once I actually got the response that if everybody said this then there is no way the Iraq War could go on. So I guess I'm not entirely against free markets.

Next up I think will be a bit on fiscal policy...

2008 BoC Matching Contribution Program

2008-03-02T13:49:00.005-05:00

For those of you who haven't met me, I tend to get kinda into politics at about this point in the bi-annual election cycle. One of the offshoots of this is that a portion of my hard-earned money goes to direct support of those who selflessly put their lives into the public eye by placing their name on the Democratic ticket. In order to generate a bit of interest and get some others involved, I've decided to invite you, the readers of this note, to have your campaign donations matched out of my pocket. Here's how it will go down:

For those of you that aren't aware of it, there is a site called Actblue, which effectively acts as a clearinghouse for donations to Democratic candidates up and down the ballot. I have created a page, the BoC supported candidates, featuring candidates that I have chosen to specifically support. Just go to the site, follow the simple instructions, and it automatically shows me what you have done (it gets published publicly too, so it's not like i'm spying on you). Every once in a while, I'll tally up what's on the board, and match.

Most of the candidates on the list are what would be referred to as "second-tier" candidates. I feel this is where your donations can do the most good, specifically because these are a bit under the radar. Occasionally I'll be adding new candidates, with the ultimate goal of having 10-15 on the page by mid-summer. I'll try to keep Facebook updated in line with Actblue so that you can easily see who your choices are. If you want any information about why I have/have not chosen candidate XYZ, feel free to ask.

A few more points of interest and clarifications:

1. It is up to you to follow any relevant regulations regarding your contributions. These can be found on Actblue.

2. This is for congressional races only. Obama appears on my Actblue page, but he is not eligible for matching contributions. Dude's got plenty of money.

3. Matching is capped at $50 per person per candidate. I reserve the right to impose caps of any other type, at any time, for any reason, or no reason at all. Like America in the current administration, this isn't a democracy.

4. In order to be eligible, I have to know you personally. The point of this is to get my friends invovled. I encourage anybody else who wishes to do something similar for their friends.

5. Depending on the success of this enterprise, there may be a social outing for those who have participated.

That's it, have at it.

A couple hundred words on the junior senator from CT

2007-03-31T19:23:00.000-04:00

I'm watching the first NCAA semi-final, and I got to thinkin about the antics of JoJo the circus clown. In case you haven't been following, Lieberman has step by step been going back on his election promise to caucus with the democrats. First, after the inauguration, he stated that he was only in the democratic caucus because he had to choose one caucus or the other. And even then, only because they gave him the chmnship of governmental affairs and homeland security. Last week, he would not rule out a switch to the GOP. Now, the AP is consistently listing him as "I-CT" rather than the confused "ID-CT" (a change with which i of course agree). At the time of the inauguration, Joe was in fact the kingmaker - had he caucused with the GOP, the bastards would have been able to organized the senate. Based on Joe's lukewarmness on the dems (which results, i guess, in part from their lukewarmness towards him), many have opined that the GOP may in fact take back the senate for 22 months or so ala 2001 in reverse. But, rest assured, this can not happen...let me explain...

The situation today is critically different from when Jeffords defected 6 years ago. Every 2 years, each of the 2 houses passes an organizing resolution, defining the leadership and naming committee members. Generally, the OR states that the manner in which the senate is organized (ie who the leadership is), is permanent until the next congress is sworn in. However, in 2001, with the senate evenly split, this posed a problem. Because the senate is organized 17 days earlier than the vice president is sworn in, at the time of the organization, the tie-breaking senate vote was cast by Albert Gore, Jr for Tom Daschle. However, the GOP was able to get language into the OR that stated,

if at any time during the 107th Congress either party attains a majority, . . . the provisions of this resolution shall have no further effect . . . except that the committee chairmanships shall be held by the party which has attained a majority.

When Dick was installed as the president of the senate, they were able to pass a new OR, installing Lott as ML. However, for the 110th congress, Reid was of course smart enough to ensure that such a provision was not included. Therefore, no matter what happens with Lieberman (or for that matter Sen. Johnson, who has unfortunately not yet returned to the floor), the democrats will control the senate until at least january 3rd, 2009. Thus sending Joseph Lieberman (CFL-CT) to the dustbin of history, never to rank among the great statesmen of the early 21st century, such as say James Jeffords (I-VT).

Can we finally start racing?

2007-03-25T09:58:00.000-04:00

So, there have been a few requests for some diagrams. But clearly those are coming from people who really have no respect for the limited nature of my conputer skillz. For those of you who don't use blogger, i create this blog by typing into a blank white box and then it magicall appears - and even that really pushes me to the limit. There is some good animated stuff on the official America's Cup site, which you might find helpful. But now it's time to go over what happens during a sailboat race, specifically the America's Cup.

The most critical rules of racing are those that determine who gets right of way. Whenever 2 boats are near each other, one of the boats always has total precedence, and the other one must remain completely clear. Determining who has right of way is relatively easy; a boat on starboard tack always has RoW over a boat on port tack, and for 2 boats on the same tack, the leeward boat (ie further from the wind) has RoW. There are some exceptions and clarifications to this (for instance, all boats are entitled to "room at the mark" under some circumstances), but keeping just these 2 rules in mind will let you follow the racing on TV. Let's look at an example of each of the 2 RoW rules affects a specific situation.

The classic case of the starboard-port rule is an upwind crossing. In this situation, 2 boats on a beat, one on part tack and one on starboard, are heading towards a collision. The starboard tack boat has complete right of way here and the boat on port tack must make clear. If the boat on port tack can not cross clearly in front, she has 2 basic choices; either "duck" the boat on starboard tack (ie change course to cross behind), or tack to starboard. If choosing the latter, the boat on port tack must take care not too tack too close to the boat on starboard tack; this will also earn a penalty.

An application of the windward-leeward rule comes into play when 2 boats are both running under spinaker, on the same tack. The leeward boat has RoW, and can force the windward boat to "keep it up", pushing her closer to the wind, even if it is away from the optimum course to mark. Then, the leeward boat can suddenly either fall off the wind (towards the mark) or gybe to the other tack, both of which should result in a small advantage. There is a limit to how far the leeward can push the windward boat, but the rule is quite subjective and it is seldom called.

The only part of the race that we haven't really discussed is the pre-start. In the America's Cup, the 2 boats in each race can enter the starting box 5 minutes before the start. This period is critical, as both boats will battle to gain an advantageous position at the starting gun; both of the RoW rules are fully in effect here. The 3 primary goals of the pre-start are to reach the starting line 1) right at the start, 2) at full speed, and 3) on the correct tack and favored end of the line. The pre-start is usually very exciting - boats will attempt to dial up their opponents into irons, and circle each other, both trying to have the best start possible as well as cause a penalty on their opponent.

So that's a decent overview of the AC racing. The real show starts on April 16 and runs through early July.

On the Water - Crewwork

2007-03-11T20:36:00.000-04:00

To sum up the science and art of making a sailboat move into a single post is perhaps the ultimate exercise in futility - made no easier by my lack of familiarity with fancy instaweb tools like graphics. For this i apologize, and i'll therefore try to keep it simple.

Sailing (assuming you are trying to get somewhere and not just out enjoying a cruise) involves 2 seemingly simple tasks; find the wind, and given the wind, make the boat go as fast as it can. All sailboats have a crew that (during a race) are completely focused on these two tasks. This is true for all boats, from the smallest dinghy crewed by a single hand, to the America's Cup Class boats (ACC) which carry 16. On the Parlay, we liked to have at least 5, and sometimes as many as 10 - in practice, this made us more similar to the ACC boats than the dinghies so that will be my focus.

All crews have a "brain trust", even if all members have other responsibilities in addition to this. First, there is a Captain or Skipper, who is in charge of making all final decisions in the race. ACC boats will also typically carry a Navigator and a Tactician, as well as a Helmsman, whose job it is to physically steer the boat. Smaller crews will generally combine these jobs (eg Skipper is also physically the helmsman). Everybody on the boat except for the brain trust is involved in the physical operation of the boat, which can be roughly divided into 2 parts, executing maneuvers and trimming sails.

Modern racing boats generally use two sails, a mainsail and a headsail. The mainsail attaches to the mast, and extends back along the boom; in this way 2 of the 3 sides of the sail are attached along their whole length to solid structures. The mainsail is entirely controlled by acting on said solid structures. Generally a racing boat will use a single mainsail in all conditions (although in heavy winds it will not be raised all the way up - this is called a "reef"). There are 2 main controls for the mailsail, the traveler and the mainsheet. Together they control the position of the boom; directly back along the center of the boat when hard on the wind, far from the center when running. When tacking or gybing, the only change that must be made to the mainsail is to move the traveler to a position that is the mirror image or its initial position; the sheet is generally not changed.

On the other hand, virtually all boats carry a number of different headsails. When sailing into the wind, a sailboat will use a genoa or a jib, which is a small genoa (for this discussion i'll use the terms interchangeably). The front edge of the genoa attaches to the forestay, a piece of metal that runs to the top of the mast. Unlike a mainsail, the bottom edge of the genoa flies freely, and the sail is controlled by a 2 sheetlines (one for each side of the boat) that attach to the corner of the sail that is opposite the forestay. For a genoa, only once side is attached to a solid structure. Similar to the mainsail, the sheet line is brought in (ie tightened) when hard on the wind, and let out (ie loosened) when reaching. Unlike the mainsail, the genoa requires significant effort to move during a tack or gybe. After the tack is begun, as soon as the sail begins to backfill with wind, the sheet that was holding the sail is released, and the opposite sheet is brought in. The net effect of this is to actually pass the entire sail in front of the mast! If done correctly, the wind will actually help move the sail across, making the tack end quickly, leaving the boat traveling fast and the crew not as worn out.

When sailing with the wind, a sailboat will use a spinnaker, the sail that looks like a big balloon. The top of the spinnaker is attached to a point at the top of the mast. The lower corner that on the windward side of the boat (ie port side when on part tack), is attached to the guy line, which goes from the middle of the boat, through the end of the spinnaker pole and attaches to the sail. The spinnaker entends forward from the mast in the direction opposite of the boom, and holds the sail open. The lower corner to the leeward side of the boat is attached to the sheet line. None of the 3 edges of the sail are attached to a solid structure; for this reason, the spinnaker is the most difficult sail to handle. It's beyond the scope, but gybing the spinnaker can be roughly described as:

release the downhaul
release the guy line from the spinnaker pole
have the flyer manage both sheets
raise the end of the spinnaker attached to the mast
lower the pole via the topping lift (not too fast, or you'll drop it on the
foredeckman)
pass the pole under the forestay
raise the pole with the topping lift
attach the pole to the new guy line
have the flyer manage the new sheet only
lower the pole on the mast end, and
tighten the downhaul.

of the basic moves during a race, this is certainly the most difficult, as it requires 4 or 5 crew members to have great communication and timing.

At the risk of leaving out an enormous amount of what goes on on the water, I think i'll stop here. If anybody wants to point out faults or pieces that i've missed here in a comment, feel free.

The Smartest Guys in the Room

2007-03-04T11:50:00.000-05:00

Taking a break from sailing, I watched the Enron movie this morning - for anybody who hasn't seen it yet, i definitely recommend it.

Without devolving into old-style political ranting, i didn't know exactly how closely tied in Enron/Ken Lay were with the current administration. The movie creates a pretty clear line that goes from:

Ken Lay's pocket - Enron was the single largest corporate donor, to
george bush's election (such as it was an election), to
the rise of the deregulation crowd (the federal energy reg cmte was run by one of Lay's cronies), to
the rolling CA blackouts (the trader tapes in the film are pretty incriminating), to
the CA recall/Governator election (key reason for davis's unpopularity), to
w's second election (davis would have been a very strong candidate), to
the downfall of enron (bush administration explicitly and implicitly helped enron build its house of cards)...and so on

The idea of Enron as a house of cards is itself a pretty good metaphor for the administration. All of the same elements are there - the nuremberg defense, silencing of critics, removal of any dissent, lack of recognition of reality, hubris, belief that they were changing the world, crony-ism, laziness of those who should have provided checks and balances in the system. When will the other shoe truly fall on the administration? This us attorney scandal has all the characteristics of nixon's saturday night massacre, and i don't think abu gonzales's teflon can protect him. but i've also said that before...

How does sailing work, in general?

2007-03-03T20:10:00.000-05:00

Let's take a step back from the AC, and get a bit into how a boat moves using only the wind. Today's racing boats are the result of literally thousands of years of research into materials, sails, hydrodynamics, equipment and meteorology.

A common misconception is that sailboats are "pushed" by the wind. While occasionally there is some truth to this, the way a sailboat moves is in fact much closer to how an airplane wing works. Without stepping into DRC/CEJ dork-territory, picture an airplane wing...when it goes through the air, the pressure differential creates a force ("lift") that "pulls" the wing up...and the airplane is attached to that wing. Now take that wing, and rotate it so that the part that was atttached to the plane is now attached to the boat. If you cause the wind to go acros this wing/sail, it will cause a similar pressure differential, and "lift" the sailboat forward. The offshoot of this is that you are now able to have the boat travel in the direction opposite to the wind. This is called beating; when a sailboat is going in the same direction as the wind, that is called running.

However, no sailboat can ever go directly into the wind - the airplane wing doesn't work if you rotate it 90 degrees from its normal orientation. When a boat is pointed directly into the wind that is called being "in irons" or "dead into the wind". As a boat tries moves away from irons, it is able to travel faster and faster. This provides an interesting situation in a race; if the course is set up so that you would want to travel directly into the wind (also called sailing "upwind" or just "up", you have to choose between traveling more directly towards your goal at a slower speed, or less directly toward your goal at a higher speed. This leads to the concept of velocity made good ("VMG"); VMG is the rate at which you are approaching your goal. If you are moving 10 mph directly towards your goal, you are making 10 VMG. If you are traveling at a 45 degree angle to your mark, you are making about 7 VMG. If you are travelling at a 90 degree angle to your mark, you are making 0 VMG. The goal in a sailbody race is to always maximize your VMG.

For each boat, there is an angle to the wind for which if you move slightly closer your speed begins to drop dramatically. Generally, if you are trying to sail directly into the wind, you want to point the boat at this angle. This is called sailing "close-hauled", in most boats, it is 30-40 degrees away from irons. Clearly, even sailing close-hauled you will never get to a point that is directly into the wind. Because of this, the boat will have to zig-zag up the race course. The act of the bow of the boat crossing the direction of the wind is called a tack; when the stern of the boat crosses the wind, that is called a gybe. Tacking and gybeing both require switching the sails from one side of the boat to the other. If the sails are on the left ("port") side of the boat, the wind is coming over the right ("starboard") side; this is called being on starboard tack. Similarly, if the sails are on the starboard side of the boat, that is the port tack.

We can now describe a full 360 degree turn. Starting out in irons, turning the boat to starboard puts you on a port beat. Contintuing, when the wind is coming directly over the side, that is a port reach, then port run. When the wind is at your back, that is a dead run; continuing the turn to starboard you pass through starboard run, starboard reach, starboard beat and then back into irons. Each of these terms is called a point of sail.

That's enough for today - next time we'll take look around an America's Cup Class boat.

back, with a new focus

2007-02-25T12:30:00.000-05:00

apologies for the extended absence - after contributing so grandly to the stunning victory of november 7, i found my blogging to lack a certain focus. rather than filling the page with thoughts on who might run for MS-SEN or challenge al wynn in the primary season. i just don't want to add to the media feeding frenzy. i don't know who is going to win the presidential nomination and i kinda don't care - i follow the house and senate much closer.

but fortunately for everybody out there, another of the many subjects on which i am a renounced expect is about to again enter the international spotlight. one more fleet race in early april, and then the 32nd America's Cup gets going for real. so as not to mince words, the coverage of the america's cup is total crap. i realize the sport is not massively popular in this country, but how do they expect to grow it without getting as much exposure as possible? with that as my goal, i'm gonna do my best to keep some running commentary on the racing and the off-water shenanigans, hopefully contributing to your knowledge of the sport - a little infotainment if you will.

With almost 2 months to go until the first Louis Vuitton race, I figure a FAQ is a good place to start...

Q: What is the America's Cup?
A: Often referred to as the oldest trophy in sports (first awarded in 1851), the rules governing the cup are contained in the deed of gift. After the completion of the race series, a racing team (called a "syndicate"), presents the winner with a challenge, which specifies the terms under which the following contest will be held. While there is no set time frame, the Cup generally runs approximately every 4 years.

Q: What happens after a challenge is accepted?
A: For the first year or so after a challenge is in place, other syndicates sign up for the right to race for the cup. For the 32nd running, it appears there will be 11 challengers representing 9 countries (italy has 3 challengers). The challengers then race in the Louis Vuitton Cup, the winner of which will race the current defender (Alinghi, from Switzerland). The AC is a best of 9 series.

Q: How does the racing work?
A: All of the races in the AC and the LVC are "match races" (ie, one-on-one). In the 31st AC, the course was 6 legs, back and forth between 2 points, going alternatively with and against the wind. I assume the 32nd AC will be similar, but like i said the coverage is terrible so i can't find that info anywhere.

Q: Why is it called the America's Cup?
A: The United States has won 28 out of the 32 America's Cup races so far, including the first 25 which represents the longest winning streak in the history of sport, lasting 132 years. However, the Cup is actually named after the first winner of the cup, named America. America was a revolutionary boat, that badly outran the entire british fleet around the isle of wight, in front of Queen Victoria. HRH, somewhat embarrassed, asked who placed second, prompting the classic line, "Your highness, there is no second.

Q: What kind of boats do they sail?
A: The rules governing the boats are specified in the terms of the challenge (this section is about 50 pages long). However, the boats are not identical - running a legitimate AC syndicate requires years of research, computer simulation and at least $50mm. There are always charges of rule breaking, including several trips to the court in various jurisdictions. Espionage is also a concern, specifically about the shape of the boats' keel. Simply put, the results are generally fantastic, with incredible boats that lead, down the road, to a huge amount of the innovation in the sport.

That's enough for now - next time we'll look into what actually happens during the race.

Eve of the election

2006-11-06T21:21:00.000-05:00

(Full disclosure...this is rephrased/negated from an episode of the West Wing but i felt it appropriate...)

Allow me to speak words of a man who in 24 hours will effectively become the former president of the united states. he has sullied, and dishonored his office, the highest in the land, the most powerful in the world.

he has served this country relying only on what is in the shortest-term personal self interest of himself, his business partners, and his presumed friends. and i say this despite our complete disagreement on every substantive matter of public policy. for in the end, the presidency is more than a simple catalog of policies misimplemented, crises ignored, battles fought under false pretenses. it is a stewardship...a sacred trust. a committment to sacrifice every fiber of your being, every thought, every moment, every everything in service to your nation.

president bush has failed at this, in every measurable way. he deserves nothing less than our total contempt, as he has shown no less to america and to the world for nearly 6 years.

thus follows the basis on which i charge you to select officeholders tomorrow. to agree with bush is to be wrong; to oppose his tyranny is to be right for all time.

Real quick this am

2006-11-01T08:05:00.000-05:00

I'm late for work already, but I just wanted to link to this post on dKos. If you have any friends who are still repugnantcant's, this would be an especially good read for them.

Canvassing with Lamont campaign

2006-10-29T12:54:00.000-05:00

So in the theory of adding a little bit more to the election than some cash and many hours boring anyone who will listen about the importance of the Illinois 6th (go tammy duckworth!), I took the train out to Stamford, and spent a day canvassing/phone banking for the Ned campaign. Those of you who know me best know that it takes a lot to get me outside of city lines...and even more to get me to the Nutmeg State. Here's the story of a rainy day in Connecticut...

I had been in touch with Ned's 4th CD volunteer coordination staff about at least helping out on election day. They responded immediately and enthusiastically, and also suggested I get out and do some canvassing pre-election if i could. I got in touch with the proper people at the Stamford office, drank 6 beers and caught the early train.

Unfortunately, it was raining when I got out there, so we would be phone banking rather than canvassing. Phone banking, for those not familiar, involves getting a list of names that are presumed to be friendly-ish, and calling the people on the list. Contrary to popular belief, the purpose of this is not really to try to persuade - it is really to try to identify a list of people who are going to vote for Ned, and should get a reminder to vote on election day. Cold calling is not a massively fun activity; out of 50 names, 30 don't pick up when they see "Democratic Headquarters" on their caller ID. Of the other 20, 10 refuse to answer. Of those 10, 8 will answer, but are just trying to get to you off the phone as quickly as possible. One of the other 2 will be a "leaning Joe", and that person will have some ridiculous story...such as they oppose bush, oppose the war but would not really consider voting for Ned. But as I was told...if they are gonna vote for Joe, there usually isn't anything you can do about it.

When the rain stopped for a few minutes, we did make an attempt at canvassing (same as phone banking, but knocking on doors)...unfortunately by the time a second downpour began, we only had spoken to 3 people (out of maybe 30 doors), all of whom were strong Joe supporters...one was even intentionally rude to us - i figure that inability to think about the upcoming election with people from the other camp is a hallmark of bush/lieberman supporter.

Morale at the HQ was very high among both the Ned and Diane campaigns (the Dem party shares an office in Stamford). They don't believe the polls (there are many reasons to take them with a grain of salt), and truly feel that their GOTV and ballot placement is worth 3-5 pts. Based on the people i met, these are all true progressives; speaking to them you really would think you are reading dKos. Seeing so many people in there on a Saturday showed me that this election is not over; that Ned still has a real shot going into the last week; that election will truly be decided by the support of the people, rather than the support of the big-money out of state GOP donors!

A little explanation to the template changes

2006-10-26T21:20:00.000-04:00

If you noticed the BoC takin a little longer to load today, it's because I added a bit of googlebombing code to the bottom of the page. The idea, as far as i get it, is that it makes it more likely for these links to show up at the top of the google search when you try to find out info on these Repugnantcant's. MyDD's Chris Bowers is running the program; if you want to see the logic/ethics behind it I suggest you read his open letter to the press on his site. If you want to take part, you can find the source code on mydd also.

It will be gone in 12 days. Just like the kleptocrat congress.

100th out of 100

2006-10-15T21:05:00.000-04:00

So I was recently asked which current Senator I most wanted to see defeated this year. My questioner, clearly expecting Santorum or Allen and were incredibly surprised when I brought out our old friend, the junior senator from Connecticut. Simply put, no one member of the Senate would do more to slow down the agenda of Progressivism and Change in the 110th congress; no one member would do more to ensure the rubber stamping of the administration.

For evidence of the fact that Joseph Lieberman is not a Democrat, just read the Hartford Courant (or look at the main link summary on the dKos). Despite the fact that Lieberman has stated in a highly equivocal matter that he intends to caucus with the Dems, he claims to have no view on the gubernatorial race on CT and, more importantly, NO OPINION AS TO WHO SHOULD CONTROL THE HOUSE. Simply put, while disagreeing with the party line on occasion is reasonable, no lawmaker should be considered a member of a political party unless he/she believes that their party should control both houses of congress. If you are a lawmaker, and do not believe the Democrats should control the house, you are NOT A DEMOCRAT. Please repeat this to everybody you know, especially registered voters in CT.

To repeat, the worst possible situation in the senate would be to take 6 seats but lose LIE-berman's (we call this the 50+1 scenario). This would then in effect leave Little Joe the ability to determine control of the chamber, a position that he would translate into chairmanship (GOP or Dem) of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee...the exact committee that would likely have primary responsibility in subpoenaing Joe's best friends, members of the Chimp Administration. This can not be allowed to happen. This prima donna can not be given veto-power over great democratic senators like Webb, Tester and Brown. This election can not be lost because one man can not accept that his time in the spotlight has come to an end.

Best NY Mag Ever?

2006-10-10T21:44:00.000-04:00

So I go to the mailbox (bottom row second from the right for #40A) and as occurs once weekly, a brand new issue of New York Magazine was waiting for me. Stepping into the elevator, I take a look at the cover, as per usual, and decide, this may be the greatest New York Magazine ever.

For those of from outside the 212, this is not The New Yorker magazine. Breakin it down for you SAT style...New Yorker is to the upper east side as New York is to Flatiron District (ok...soho). New Yorker is to Seinfeld as New York is to Weeds, if the Greatest Show on TV were set in the city at least. Or if you want to get personal, New Yorker is to Danny Craig as New York is to Chris Johnson, just without the facial hair. But i digress...

To start with on the cover I see a full-color 8 inch photo of "Stephen Colbert" (ie in character) promising an interview with Stephen Colbert (ie the parson). The other cover articles, in no order...

Jukebox:Dylan, Beck, Killers, Ludacris
Sofia Coppola
Beer for Grownups
Rove's Last Stand
2 more cautiously optimistic 2006 Election (sponsored by Diebold) articles

This much me in one place...i basically had to read the whole thing straight through. Gotta hand it to my Aunt Selma for initially settin me up w/ the subscription a few years ago. And of course the 2 best parts of the magazine aren't even on the cover: crossword and real estate listings. New York crossword puzzles are just right for me...just hard enough so I can't ever quite finish. The perfect parable to end a magazine issue so clearly written with just me in mind...

at least until i buy the 4BR on pg 103

Update: So it turns out Danny Craig now has facial hair too. That kinda kills my running metaphor that you may have just read. Now, part of me wants to go back and edit the work I did on this...but I'm not the type to revise history. I mean, denying that I implied Danny did not have facial hair would be akin to saying that Iraq is not currently in a state of Civil War.

Right Wing Conspiracy or Just a Coincidence?

2006-10-03T22:06:00.000-04:00

I wanted to post on the US Gulag Creation Act of 2006, but I held off despite the fact that the truly despicable thing got almost no press.

I wanted to post on Foley, but that's gotten a lot of press and I definitely can't add much.

But this one affected me personally so I wanted to put it up.

For those of you in the vast majority who don't quite get what I do for a living, let me simplify it by saying that it leaves a little bit of time during the day for a bit of internet surfing. JPM company policy is something like "reasonable personal use" which I take to mean checking baseball scores, paying bills and reading DailyKos and some other political stuff. Today, I try to log onto dKos...and I get denied by the "secure computing" daemon. I figure it is either a) some kind of error or b) JPM being super worry-ish about what their employees are looking at.

Get home to get my fill of the Daily, and i find this little guy in the recco diaries. For those of you who read my site but are too lazy to try out the links (yes i know that's redundant) basically dKos got added to Secure Computing's site (which would filter down to my getting shut out at work) as containing Profanity and "Mature". I can only assume "Mature" means that its posters generally don't engage in infantile activities like calling their political opponents unpatriotic or hitting on 16-year-old male employees (ok i had to get 1 in).

Funny thing is...comparable sites on the conservative side...and when i say comparable i mean wonderful publications like RedState, LGF and RUSH LIBAUGH's homepage are NOT listed by Secure Computing. Now, admittedly dKos has probably been a touch R-rated over the last 3 days, but then again so have all the majors. I don't know how sites get listed on Secure Computing, but I suggest you go to this link for Secure Computing and fill out the form to state in no uncertain terms that dKos is invaluable part of the global media...and the ability of them to get their information out at places of employment is critical for freedom of speech.

New member of the family...

2006-09-20T22:58:00.000-04:00

So, I decided to add a new blog...but this one is gonna be a little different.

BoCeatdrink is the place to go to figure out where I've been going out either to dinner or other in New York. The idea for this came from TMQ, who wants to create an online database of places that we've been and liked and places that we want to go.

In other words, the goal here is to get interactive. Unlike the BoC mothership, I'd love to let other people posting on here (as well as commenting of course)...if you think you have something to add to the process of spreading the news of your favorite (or least favorite) places to go, just leave me a comment and i'll consider your request for adminship. Boston people, if you can fill me in on where people are going up there that would be great...I feel really lost when i'm in your neck of the woods these days.

Update: Danny made the astute observation that I did not leave instructions for gaining the power to post on eatdrink...just leave the email address you use for blogspot and i'll set you up.

What a win!

2006-09-17T11:59:00.000-04:00

Tough to say much beyond the obvious about the 47-21 romping we laid down on the Little Sisters of Mercy. Game was not even as close as the score really, just a complete and total drubbing of a theoretical national championship together.

As a Michigan fan, I know by now not to get my hopes too high for the rest of the season, but you can bet i'm gonna take a few days to savor this and not think about Iowa, Wisconsin, MSU or the Buckeyes.

Apologies and the trip to Portugal

2006-09-15T20:42:00.000-04:00

Sorry I haven't been around lately to provide my trademark witty prose, but I just spent a week chillin in Spain's Oregon. It was a truly once in a lifetime chance to spend an entire week with Tony Kim, who I only see every week. We made an agreement to have no contact after the trip, lest someone view our relationship as just a "bit too close". Which it is.

I'd love to post some pictures of the trip here, but one of my many faults is that I never remember to bring a camera to anything...so I need to wait for a copy of somebody else's; and dammit this is the perfect time to go wax multimedia on the BoC.

Other than being in Lisbon, we spent 2 days in the southern Portugal resort town of Lagos. Important to remember that an "o" in Portuguese is almost always pronounced "oo" and an "s" is pronounced "sh" so instead of going to the capital of Nigeria ("la-gohs"), we went to "La-goosh". Out of any number of drunken expoits that occurred there, let me relate the greatest ever bar gimmick I have ever come across.

Lagos is strictly a town for tourists, and despite recent development it still caters to a decent group of backpackers and other youth types. Who we avoided by staying in the only 4-star hotel in town. So the last night we're there we step into this dive bar and see a funnel in use...good sign. But then on the wall, we see...in chalk...a running tally BY COUNTRY of the number of recent beer bongs. Australia was way ahead with about 500 (it was an aussie bar)...the US and Canada were neck and neck for second just short of 200. THK, JAP and I decide that we are going to beat the Canadians, at least that night. So all the non-soon-to-be-grooms in the crowd start to funnel. After a few each, it starts getting competitive to kill the bong with the greatest possible speed, this being a competition at which I am quite adept.

After completing what would prove to be my last funnel, I give a quick high-five to the aussies (they had a similar competition against the kiwis on the night), and turn back to the bar only to get a face full of foam. According to the bartender, I had not finished my beer. Was there foam left in the tube? Of course. Beer? 1/2 inch MAX. But hey it's their bar and rules are rules. I take it like a man and start bitching to the bartenders, and apparently start getting a bit aggressive. So I get tossed out.

But I've been tossed out of nicer places.

Quick jab at the corporate media

2006-08-22T23:07:00.000-04:00

A lot of stuff on dKos is good, but political (sometimes slightly leftish for even me). This is just good, no matter what side of the divide you are on. If any corporate media bigwigs are on this site, print, TV, cable, whatever...get your eye on the ball; You are truly the cause of much and the solution to little.

The magic numbers

2006-08-19T12:27:00.000-04:00

Seven. Fifteen.

These are two numbers that should be on your mind full time from now until November. They are the exact number of Senate and House seats that we must pick up in order to relieve our nation from its current tyrranic rulers. Some people say that we need 6 senate seats - but if you read the BoC a touch closer, you will learn that Leiberman is NOT a democrat, so Lamont in CT-SEN would be a pickup.

I added a link to my page on ActBlue, which is a clearinghouse for contributions to Democratic candidates. That page is still under construction; I will soon add comments as to why these seats are important and why I specifically chose them for everlasting fame by appearing on another website that I assume will be similarly lightly-visited. Also, you'll see some other links to contribute at the bottom of this page.

Highly recommend you take a look - and if you actually contribute that would be great! If you have a candidate with solid progressive credentials you want me to add just leave a comment and I'll consider it. If you have an ActBlue page you want me to link to, same deal.

First and Fourth (at least) Amendments Restored!!

2006-08-17T18:03:00.000-04:00

In a stunning confirmation of what everybody knows to be true, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor (of Detroit no less) rules that the Illegal Bush Phonetapping Powergrab (IBPP) is in fact illegal. More than the decision (as if that isn't enough!) is the completely cogenent, sensical and unbiased way in which Judge Taylor refuted every single claim by which the Fuhrer claimed that he had any legal basis to do this. I highly, highly recommend that you read every word of the decision (it is linked from the Times site) - this has the potentiality to be the watershed event that re-starts the rule of law in our great country.

Most important talking point - the end of the IBPP will not prevent the government from spying on terrorists! All it will do is prevent the government from illegally spying on non-terrorists like me. How do I know this to be true? Because the executive already has at his disposal a court, FISA, which will act quickly to rubberstamp any REASONABLE request to set up a phonetap on a US-Overseas phonecalls (or even US-US phonecalls!). The government should have all the authority to tap phones in order to find lawbreakers including terrorists - but they should always have to get a warrant. This is true both by law and by reason.

A lot of the Anti-Constitution folks (including their newest member) say that the warrant requirement simply protects the guilty - if you have nothing to hide, why would you care who is listening? The great fallacy in their logic is that the people who the Illegal Spying Committee have chosen to listen to are not chosen at random. You can be sure that along with the terrorists who came under the watchful eye of the NSA, there were any number of political opponents who the Bushies also conveniently forgot to get permission before listening to. Warrants are not there to protect the guilty - but they are completely indispensible for protecting those who have done nothing wrong other than oppose the current government's policy. Opposing the current government's policy being something any true American should be doing anyway.

Gonna throw in a quick LIEberman section, seeing as how the prima donna got a link above. The RSCC has now officially stated that they will not support their own candidate in the upcoming election. If not official, this is the last straw that makes little joe a full-fledged member of the GOP. If senate control is clear, he may still well caucus with the Dems for a while - but if/when he has the ability he will swing the Senate to the evildoers without batting an eyelash. There is plenty on CT-SEN on dailykos, and they say it better than I do...but if you vote in CT, and don't hate America, you should support Lamont wholeheartedly. If you don't live in CT, look at the list of Dem sens supporting the Traitor. Call/Write/Email them...especially Pryor, the man is asst chair of the DSCC for pete's sake!

The countdown Begins!

2006-08-13T21:49:00.000-04:00

That's right...Entourage is on in 15 minutes, which means only one thing...less than 24 hours to the Season Premier of Weeds! It is my firm belief that this is the best show on TV, so if you have SHOW or SHOW on demand, it should become a priority in your life.

Perhaps my favorite thing about the show is how they are able to put in so much social commentary without beating you over the head with any of it. Maybe i've never really been to that part of northern california (or northern va, or metro dallas or metro atlanta)...but this is as damning a picture of suburban sprawl as you will find. See Celia's description of her "solarium" from season 1 for a great example. In any case, i have little worry that season 2 will disappoint - there are just too many plot lines left open from season 1 for it to become repetitive.

Plus, I am just really unlikely to come out against anything featuring Mary-Louise Parker, who is truly the finest actor/actress on television.

In the words of Season 1:

Satan! Satan! Lend me a dollar!
Satan! Satan! Lend me a dollar now!

A truly sad state of affairs...

2006-08-11T19:03:00.000-04:00

In order to avoid any confusion, let me offer sincere congratulations to the British intelligence service (and, according to what I read, the Pakistani intelligence service also) on their successful disruption of the recent terror plot. They are imitable example of what can be done when a society gets serious, rather than political, about fighting terrorism. When a society finds terrorists by following the law instead of creating fear among its citizens. When a government, no matter its ideology, treats protecting its citizens as the primary goal of its existence.

Back on this side of the pond, the response from the gestapo was swift and pathetic. Almost too swift. To quote the NYT,

On Wednesday, when the administration already knew that British agents were rounding up suspects in what they believed was a plot to blow up planes en route to the United States, Vice President Dick Cheney had a telephone interview with reporters to discuss the defeat of Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut in a Democratic primary. Mr. Cheney went off on a rather rambling disquisition, but its main point was clear: In rejecting Mr. Lieberman, who supported the war in Iraq, the Democrats were encouraging "the Al Qaeda types." Within the Democratic ranks, the vice president added, "there's a significant body of opinion that wants to go back. I guess the way I would describe it is sort of the pre-9/11 mind-set, in terms of how we deal with the world we live in."

This is the essence of power abuse - using the advance knowledge of covert intelligence activities to try to score a political point. Similar to when the bastards expose a lifelong covert operative, this type of leak can seriously harm the Global War on Terror. It's in fact completely different from when the New York Times blows the whistle on illegal government activities that impinge our civil rights.

Fortunately, it looks as though the general populace has taken this as nothing more than politics. What I think happened is that, despite their protestations otherwise, the all-spin zone gang realized that the result in Connecticut bodes worse for them than they can possibly imagine. There has been a lot of discussion on Kos, but anybody who believes that the Iraq War is/will be anything other than a negative for the administation in November is clearly not paying attention. The American public realizes that our presence has not only made the region (and hence our region) less secure, but the lack of capacity in our military has emboldened any number of potential enemies to do as they wish.

No longer is the Democratic Caucus at all split on the war - now that Lieberman has joined the GOP, we have officially differentiated ourselves. They want to continue doing whatever it is they are doing, as long as GWB wants to keep doing it. We realize that staying the course in Iraq only destabilizes and diverts our attention from the real threat! Their way involves handing out lucrative no bid contracts and settling old scores; our way actually involves going after the people who want to do America harm! Lest we forget,

During a news conference at the White House on March 13, 2002, Bush said something close to what Kerry quoted. "I truly am not that concerned about him [Bin Ladin]," the president said, according to the official White House transcript.

New Dork Box

2006-08-08T22:05:00.000-04:00

Keepin it short and sweet...got a new piece of bling...the 15" MacBook Pro...it is pretty sweet to be able to post while watching a combination of Saving Private Ryan and the results from the CT Senate primary come in. A little ways to go, but I'm starting to get more confident that Lamont will pull out a squeaker...then all hell breaks loose...

A new link and my Favorite Rant

2006-08-05T12:54:00.000-04:00

If you've spent more than 5 minutes in the same room with me, you are likely aware that publicly financed stadium constuction is perhaps the world's greatest evil. I could go on for hours, but instead I've just added a new link to Neil DeMause's excellent Field of Schemes website/blog, which adds a dry wit to a summary of the current headlines on the topic.

For those that are uneducated as to the issues involved, there are 3 cardinal rules that assure you and I will continue to pay for palaces that allow billionaires to continue to profit off of the athletic achievements of multi-millionaires.

First, owners (and to an even greater extent commissioners) do NOT care about their local communities. Any rational fan has long since accepted - and for that matter, the owners freely admit - that sports are a business; but if so, why do they need such obscene public subsidies? Other forms of entertainment - museums, operas, orchestras and theaters - also receive public subsidies, but unlike sports teams these are not businesses. Why? Because they are [mostly] non-competitive. In addition, to the best of my knowledge, the MoMA did not threaten to move to NoVa in order to fund their new facility.

Second, in order to get a stadium built, the pro-stadium forces can try as many times as they like, but only need to succeed once. Conversely, the anti-stadium coalition (if any), needs to have a perfect record in order to succeed. Flags fly forever, and once the stadium is approved, the team has won...at least for now.

Third, the complexity of the deals by which your hard-earned tax dollars get wasted will double in complexity every 18 months. Call it Moore's Law of Stadia. In the Good Old Days, your friendly city council and/or state legislature would simply shell out cash to build a stadium - and yet somehow it would end up privately owned, with only minimal tax revenue going to the state. Voters eventually got wise to this method (maybe it was the sweepstakes-style big checks that tipped 'em off), so now the method of paying for your new 9-figure piece of civic pride is a complex mix of tax-emempt bonds, property/sales tax subsidies, land acquisition payments and, in the case of MLB, lower revenue sharing payments. Nowhere is the complexity of the deals clearer than in my hometown. A degree in economics is not enough to figure out either of these deals...and even then there are probably subsidies that we aren't even being told about!

So i'm sure you are now asking..."What can I do to stop this travesty?" Short answer: vote. If you say live in Minnesota (probably the most enlightened anti-stadium state), the approval of Corporate Sponsor TBA Field by a one-vote margin in the State Senate is certain to be a big issue in the fall. Find out if your representative represented your best interests, and if not, kick the bum out and explain to all your friends why they should do the same. I like new stadiums as much as the next guy...but this is about priorities.

A Haiku about Alka Seltzer Morning Relief

2006-08-03T07:49:00.000-04:00

Head pounding, mouth parched.
Two white disks - descent from blue;
Fizz me straight to work.

Reminiscences of a drunked night

2006-07-28T22:16:00.000-04:00

So how does someone like me end up playing online poker and blogging on a Friday night in the summer? Let me explain...

Went to dinner last night at Buddha Bar, right next door to Tony's place (and hell no i did not stop by, even to see Dan). For those of you that don't know me that well, I'm not a wine guy. I like the stuff fine, and a quiet evening splitting 2 btls btwn 2 people is always time well spent, but we often just don't get along the next day.

I thought Buddha Bar was nice enough, although it fit into that wide swath of restaurants that I enjoyed but is low on the list of places I am likely to become a return patron of. This may sound odd...but I found the menu confusing, had no idea what to order. I tend to be against the concept of family style anyways because I like to plan out my whole meal, and not be at the whims of others' non-Kashrut dining habits. But I digress...

As always at these events, start out with a few drinks at the bar, then had several bottles of an excellent red and white wine (of which I don't remember the latter label). One issue with having 2 bottles going at the same time is that if I am also involved, a pattern develops where I drink from one glass, leaving the second in easy reach of any wait-person desirous of refilling it. This continued for a significant period of time. And then the revelry began...

In list format, naming no names other than my own...

The Louis XIII came out
A glass of red was knocked across the table, covering my [new] light yellow shirt with a fine glaze
Several members of our party starting trying to pick up this blond woman when her date would step away
The Louis XIII came out, again
We left the restaurant. We may have been kicked out, I just don't know...
The text messaging feature of my phone stopped working...on a side note, if you sent me a text last night I didn't get it
We headed towards the Hog Pit. Outside of the bar, I tried to take down a road sign with my bare hands; the bouncer suggested I not do so. Suprisingly, he still let me into his bar
Several more beers were given to me. These really hurt...
I head home in a semi-blacked out state, only to arrive at work 45 minutes late

Sometimes, I even inspire myself.

How is this not bigger news?

2006-07-18T21:17:00.000-04:00

So, I've been trying to avoid the political arena here for a bit, but I just couldn't stop myself after seeing a summary of Alberto Gonzales's testimony in front of Specter, Leahy and the boys of the Justice Committee.

I know you are capable of reading the article yourselves, but there are a few points that I just can't avoid repeating. First, after receiving his subpoena to appear in front of the Committee, Albie managed to not submit his written statement on time. This isn't the HUAC we're talking about; where i'm from, a letter from the US Congress asking for your testimony to rationalize your clearly illegal activities should get your attention.

But the bigger point is that when the Office of Professional Responsibility was directed by Congress to investigate, they were unable to get started due to an inability to get security clearance; these clearances were personally denied by our President. It is exactly this type of abuse of power that calls for the immediate appointment of a Special Prosecutor, who then obviously has to be given the clearance to do their job. After a slightly encouraging possibility of the program at least being reviewed by FISA, it is now clear that this would be a paper review at best - which I guess we all should have known from the start. In fact I think the Wiretappers made a strategic flaw here...if you are going to be investigated, why not be investigated by FISA? They are almost certainly the court with the most expansive view of the power of the Executive.

Any concerns that a further review of the program would further declassify it are completely ridiculous; the existance of the thing is known to pretty much everybody right now, and knowing what safeguards (if any) are there to protect the rest of us is hardly going to make the thing less secret! The question I would like to ask is...where does it stop? Is there anything the Unitary Executive is NOT allowed to do?

My Recent Activities, but only the minutia

2006-07-09T19:22:00.000-04:00

For those of you that are fortunate enough to not have the chance to spend time with me on a regular basis, I thought I'd fill everybody in on what is going on in my life...but only the highly trivial stuff. Enjoy, but don't look for any hidden meaning.

I was in Detroit for a long weekend for the 4th, and that means that we allegedly would cross the state line to Indiana, where we would allegedly purchase fireworks that would be "illegal" in Michigan, and then allegedly set them off over the lake while actually drinking tequila. Last year, we had a friendly fire incident due to which we made two important changes in the way the show is managed; first, spent fireworks were to be placed into the bonfire for disposal only on highly rare occasions and second, in perhaps the greatest piece of irony I have witnessed to date, my brother was named safety officer. This year's show had the biggest explosions we have had so far, but they seemed to go off a little close to the ground. It is a fact that a firework with a 50-foot explosive radius gets your attention when it goes off 10 feet above the ground.

Also in Detroit, I hit what I claim to be the greatest golf shot I have ever played. The setup - Lying 2, 195 yards out, 15 feet in the left rough on a par 5, with a tree between me and the green. Similar to a pitch over a trap to a narrow green, this is a shot i just don't have in my bag (the play that one with a 7-iron and some type of bump-and-run bc I can't hit a 60 degree). Anyway, I take a 5-iron, planning to close the face, knock it 100 yards up on to the fairway and have a good shot at the green in 4 (which isn't bad given my double bogey handicap). Needless to say, I catch all of it, and it's a seeing eye grounder around the tip of the tree branch, but with a slight draw that rolls 10 feet from the hole. And, contrary to popular belief, I am able to sink a tricky putt for birdie.

A lot of people wonder why Americans don't like soccer; for me it's all the diving. Now, you see some of it in the NBA too, but at least there you have a somewhat unwritten rule that if you dive you are 10% less likely to be on the right side of the charge/block equation. Maybe I just have an overly American sense of honour and justice, but when 12 guys per game get carried off in a stretcher, only to jump right off and back on the field, it slows down the game worse than a mid-inning lefty/righty pitching change, and just twists the blade a bit too. And the refs don't seem to care. I'd like to see the italian soccer team play a game of football or hockey just because i think they deserve to see what real contact sports are like. on another note, congratulations italian soccer fans - but remember that the US would have beaten the eventual world cup champions of Juventus hadn't paid off the refs.

Just finished reading Cobra II (an operational-level history of the planning and fighting of the Iraq War). As i'm sure you know, I have some issues with the ideology of some of the people in our government, but what really gets to me is the general incompetence. Just one point the book makes that I want to emphasize; when you use trumped up or carefully selected intelligence to sell a war to your public, that's partially the public's fault for being so gullible. But when you give that same faulty intelligence (flowers and candy?) to the troops on the ground, and some of them are KIA because of it, you have no right to be running a country. It's borderline criminal what happened - I recommend the book although it's a touch dry. In related news, at barnes and noble I saw a book approximately titled "has the israel lobby become too powerful"; interesting topic, but my answer is "well, that depends on who you consider to be the israel lobby". The most powerful group lobbying the current Waffen SS kommander is the evangelicals. My understanding of their theory (and please comment if I am wrong...) is something like "jews being in charge of the holy land is a prerequisite of the coming of the coming of the christian messiah. said event will lead to the brutal murder and eternal damnation of all jews, both the afformentioned ones running israel as well as the diaspora".

Personally, I don't consider anybody with this view to be part of the Israel lobby - the means DO NOT justify the ends.

[editor's note - these people don't know what the diaspora is, but i don't know what term they would use in its place]

Citizens' Bank Hates Me

2006-06-26T21:26:00.000-04:00

Time to get back on the ole horse and this is a good one to do it with.

For those of you who read this and didn't know me in college, i had a little tiff with Citizens Bank. To keep a long story short, they stole about $2k from me - basically one day my account had $2k and the next day it had zero, w/o any transactions in the interim. I showed them what happened, they give me half of it back, I complained up the chain, they did nothing about it, so I eventually took them to small claims court and lost. Just to clarify - this was over a matter of a thousand dollars almost 4 years ago.

So i recently got an etrade brokerage acc't when they bot brownco (which i had used before), and i went on their website, which made a good point that if i opened up a cd i could get 4.25% interest on my cash balance. So i try to open up a CD acc't...but i get denied. Just to clarify, ETrade currently has my margin business which when I turn the tap on allows me to borrow a lot of money from them; but they won't pay me FFF6 minus 75 bps on my cash. However, if you get denied a savings account (once again this is akin to somebody saying they won't hold your money) you are legally permitted to ask why. I request the thing that you are allowed to request when you are denied an account and i just got their form today and i am apparently an "account manipulator" - if you know what that means, please tell me...but,

in the space for "reporting institution"

in big black letters and 3 part harmony

are the words
citizens bank

And they say corporate America can't hold a grudge - I think this calls for a really immature prank ala Animal House. Maybe I'll drive to Woonsocket, RI and egg their headquarters.

As an aside, I get some solace out of the fact that the Stros have 2x in a row beaten out the Citizens Ballpark Phillies for the playoffs on the last day of the year...payback's a bitch MF!

Deep Thought

2006-03-22T15:39:00.000-05:00

Since when do Coke and Pepsi need like 38 different cola flavors? Most of them are just nasty, and it's gotta be expensive to develop/market/distribute them. Does anybody actually drink diet black cherry vanilla coke as their standard, or even on occasion?

The only rationale I can think if is that they are just trying to get shelf space...if a section of your local Sprawl-Mart has rat feces flavored slightly lower cal double caffeine pepsi, then even if nobody drinks it, they figure at least the space won't be taken by a coke product.

Now that is progress!

Quote of the Day

2006-03-21T19:58:00.000-05:00

"A gold mine is a hole in the ground with a liar on top,"

Mark Twain

Quote of the Day

2006-03-20T20:09:00.000-05:00

From NYTimes.com: "It is unfortunate that we are in civil war," said Mr. [Ayed] Allawi, who served as prime minister after the American invasion and now leads a 25-seat secular alliance of representatives in Iraq's 275-seat National Assembly. "We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people through the country, if not more."

"If this is not civil war," he said, "then God knows what civil war is."

One more on the WBC, and then I promise to stop...

2006-03-17T08:37:00.000-05:00

so i just want to state...despite the us losing last night, i want to take back all the reservation i had about the wbc...sure there were problems and they will make some changes for next time, but i believe that 50 yrs from now, the start of the wbc will be viewed as one of the most important events in the history of the game, and Bud Selig deserves an enormous amount of credit for ignoring the whiners and complainers and pushing it through
I guess the only other issue that needs a touch of attention is the possibility that the tournament may lose a bit of respectability due to (perceived) bias towards the United States. I have seen 3 examples of this in the press, but there may be others...First, some people say that the US was in the "easy" bracket. I don't believe this is true. The 3rd place team in the US bracket, Canada, was stronger than 2 of the other 3rd place teams (Taiwan and Italy) and I'd take them in a 7 game series against the Netherlands or Panama also. Plus, both logistically and for fan interest, it made sense to set up the first round by geographical region...hence you end up with a US/Canada/Mexico bracket. Second and third are the 2 badly blown calls, one each in the Japan and Mexico games, the former likely changing the outcome of the game. I haven't seen the replay of the call from the Mexico game, but I hear it was a horrible miss. However, and those of you who know me know i love a good anti-Selig conspiracy theory, I have a real tough time thinking that the fix was in here. I don't even know it was in the best interests of the sport to have the US in the finals; the carribean/asian exposure that these results will have should be a great thing for the sport.

Looking fwd to 2009...

On My Recent Absence and the WBC

2006-03-12T18:49:00.000-05:00

As per the brillant words of Thomas Quealy, this blog has recently went downhill. My apologies. After completing jury duty (more on this below), I spent a weekend in D.C. where Poff got legally married, and a week trading the Asian open. But this is no excuse...

Instead of describing what jury duty is like, I'd just like to run over the schedule. I show up on a Wednesday morning, 8:30. We all got their 60 minutes early because they wanted to be sure everybody was there on time so that the overview portion would not have to be repeated, which was a futile exercise and they repeated it anyway. Then, they sit you in a hot, smelly room for a number of hours, the monotony being broken only by them calling out a list of names for a jury pool (anywhere from 1 to 4 times per day, i got called once during the time i was there but the case settled while we were walking to the courtroom) and an exhorbitantly long lunch break (2 hrs bid). And then we repeated it the next day. People who find the jury process frustrating could solve that problem by recognizing a simple assumption on which the entire system is basd. In the view of the State of New York, it is preferrable to waste an hour of time for 500 jurors than to have a judge/attorney/defendant spend one more minute of the day doing their job than necessary. This is the irish system that allows us to fraternize with 500 of our fellow residents of New York County, and dispense (of) justice.

So I am watching the World Baseball Classic with Tony and Thomas (Meredith was there too) on the 50 incher (it is not being shown in HD, which sucks). United States vs. Japan; kind of like World War II, but with some blown calls by the not-yet-ready-for-primetime umps. I think those of us who are real baseball fans are appreciative of having so much of the game on TV this early in the year; personally I lament that it will all disappear on Thursday, despite the debauchery which is sure to ensue from having the tourney start on St. Patrick's Day eve. As you would have guessed, I have made several insightful comments on the play of the game to those fortunate enough to have watched it with me, but the best was likely noting that the Japanese team is being managed by Sadaharu Oh, the US team by...Buck Martinez. Not a lot of majesty in that selection...I can't believe he was really USA Baseball's first choice.

Olympic Curling and My Civic Duty

2006-02-24T23:08:00.000-05:00

For anybody who has been living under a rock for the past 12 hours, Fenton's team made history by taking the bronze medal in Men's Curling, the first Olympic medal the US has ever won in the sport (women's or men's). It's unlikely that this will live up to other great moments in the annals of the American Olympic experience like the Men's Baseball victory in Sydney or Paul Gonzales's gold in the light flyweight in Los Angeles. However, the sheer volume of the coverage (I swear every TV I've looked at for 2 weeks had people carrying brooms on it) will certainly do wonders to raise awareness of the sport in the Unites States. For a month or so, after which we'll forget it for 4 years. Kind of like figure skating with 44-lb stones.

In other words, on Wednesday I am fortunate enough to be able to travel down to Centre Street bright and early in order to personally ensure the proper functioning of our criminal justice system. I don't want to come out against the jury system, because that would be un-American, but it is amazing the kinds of things they let juries decide. Especially things like patent cases and drug safety cases. Do 12 people off the street in New Jersey really have the ability to determine if Vioxx was legally responsible for causing some guy's untimely death? Personally I don't view myself as capable of understanding either the law or the science behind such a case, and I almost have a chemistry minor. I think the reason this persists is...the people who could really judge are squarely in the drug industry's pocket. So, I guess this system is as good as any.

I am a bit intrigued about the whole thing, but from a "is it really as horrible a waste of time as people say" perspective. Any good ideas for things to do while waiting indefinitely in a cold, dank jury room?

MLB 2006 Preview

2006-02-20T18:44:00.000-05:00

So pitchers and catchers has finally come, and we all get to trade in the monotony of arbitration numbers for the minutia of Tamba Bay's LOOGY's new dungball which won't see the light of day past Kissimmee.

That being said, it is not uncommon for me to hear the complaint that I adjust my baseball thoughts mid-season in order in accord with the prevailing winds, so as to make myself appear after-the-fact more accurate. With the majik of the instaweb, I can now prove to each and every one of one of you that I either know my stuff or am capable of finding websites that do. We'll run through standings and Wild Cards, the playoffs, and a few awards.

NL East:

Atlanta
Philadelphia
New York
Florida
Washington

The fact that Atlanta lost a few guys in the offseason doesn't affect the fact that I declared this year that I will pick them every year until they realize worse. Despite a top 5-10 MVP season from Howard, the Phils print but don't use playoff tix for the 3rd year in a row. steM easily break their own record for "Best 3rd Place Team in History". Marlins firesale v2 won't take them to their 3rd series until 2008. Nats fans, you will learn that Pythagoras is a vindictive bitch.

NL Central:

St. Louis
Houston
Milwaukee
Chicago

Unlike their East counterparts, this is the end of the run for an aging Cards team; I hope the new ballpark is nice. Houston is there as a placeholder; this Stros team has more what-ifs than the USA Men's Hockey Team. Milwaukee, 2007 World Series champs if they make the right moves next year. Cubs, one year away from moving to the irrelavant list with Cinci and Pittsburgh.

NL West:

Los Angeles
San Diego (WC)
Arizona
San Francisco
Colorado

Will be suprisingly strong division this year; I expect a 3-team race into September and a dead heat finish bringing the Dojers back to the playoffs. Arizona will be the suprise team in the NL - maybe their season will look like the Nats last year through August, except with a much better team. The Barry Bonds Show should be fun, in a "we didn't really like you when you were here and although we feel bad about it, we're also happy you didn't never won a World Series" kind of way. That will be a horrible, horrible baseball team, if I wasn't so lazy I might go back and switch em with the Rocks.

AL East:

Boston
New York
Toronto
Tampa Bay
Baltimore

Boston people, don't be too happy - the BOS/NYY rivalry is no longer relevant as including best teams in the league. The Rivalry is a spectacle of its former self, which was itself a spectacle...can you have a spectacle of a spectacle? I don't know, but both of these teams will have plenty of time to think about philosophy in late October. Rays most improved team in the AL - I would have put them in front of Toronto, but the Jays gave me a 5-year contract that prohibits me from doing so. O's will trade Tejada mid-season; STL? HOU? SD? I don't think they would trade within their division, so NL is most likely.

AL Central:

Cleveland (tie)
Chicago (tie - WC)
Minnesota
Detroit
KC

The best division in baseball, this year's version of the '05 NL East, with KC playing a rendition of the Nats that actually follows the law of large numbers. The White Sox Series was no fluke; only reason they don't run away with things is 3 of the top 6 teams in baseball are trapped in the old Norris. If Minnesota can keep all of their starters healthy, you have to give them a shot to make the playoffs. Even Detroit puts up a solid season; think 162 games similar to the first 60 games of 2005.

AL West:

Anaheim
Oakland
Texas
Seattle

When you have arguably the best hitter in baseball locked up long-term at a reasonable rate, and a rotation of above average innings eaters, you beat out a scrappy Oakland team by double-digits. That's a given. Washburn will be easily replaced by a stronger Erwin Santana and an underrated Jeff Weaver. I honestly don't know what to make of Texas, except that they will be closer to the A's than the M's. I'd probably buy them to win the division or Wild Card on Trade Sports, just because you get a lot of volatility in that trade.

For the awards, I'm listing who will be deserving according to me at the end of the year, not who the idiot writers pick.

AL MVP:

V. Guerrero
T. Hafner
M. Texeira
A. Rodriguez
M. Tejada

Watch for Thome, I want to have his name mentioned in here as a dark horse if the Sox do win the division.

NL MVP:

A. Pujols *stretch I admit*
J. Edmonds (on the chance they change the rules and Pujols isn't eligible)
B. Giles
R. Howard
J.D. Drew
J. Bay
A. Dunn

AL CYA:

Johan Santana *this is getting easy*
C.C. Sabathia
J. Vazquez
J. Westbrook
F. Hernandez (will be higher if his team wins 70 games)

NL CYA:

J. Peavy
R. Oswalt
B. Sheets
A. Pettitte
T. Hudson
P. Martinez
M. Prior
D. Willis
C. Carpenter
J. Smoltz
C. Zambrano

The top pitchers in the NL in 2006 will match up with the top pitchers in any league in history. The offshoot of this is a) there will be a bias in the press to say that the AL is better than the NL and b) it will be a lot of fun to watch. At the end of the year, any of these 11 would finish 2nd in the AL CYA. All awards ignore Clemens's possible return, but if forced, say #2 in the AL, #5 in the NL.

World Series: Cleveland over Atlanta, 5 games. 1995 avenged and all that.

That's it...let's see how it looks in October!

Olympic TV Viewership Blog Part I

2006-02-11T13:15:00.000-05:00

For those of you who don't know, I tend to watch a lot of Olympic coverage. Currently, I have Ol Betsy (aka my DVR) set up to record all of the coverage on all channels (although it requires some manual intervention to avoid recording the same thing on say NBC and NBC HD). So far, since my watching of the event began (2:30 am yesterday), I have spent approximately 5 of 11 hours of my life watching, pausing only to sleep and post what you are currently reading.

I was pretty impressed with the show they put on for the Opening Ceremonies; they managed to put on quite a pageant without being overly hokey or commercialized. This morning, for anybody who missed the 20k individual biatholon (won by Michael Greis, beating out biathalon king Ole Einar Bjoerndalen by 16 seconds) it was your loss; it is a fantastic sport, even if only because it is one I know I could never do.

Among the multimedia following the event, the one thing I really with they had was a www.nbctimelagolympics.com. In other words, a site that pretended (much like the announcers do) that the events were being shown to us live. This way, you could get all the news you wanted without spoiling the prime-time events 6 hours in advance. Dorks, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't even think it's that hard to do...isn't there some kind of revert to a past time functionality that you could mirror the site to?

The Revolving Door continues

2006-02-07T23:31:00.000-05:00

In a little noted news story, the White House nominated a new member of the Culture Ministry (aka the Federal Communications Commission): Robert M. McDowell. I was appalled.

We have heard about the love affair that the WH has had with nominating lobbyists to places the likely would not belong (eg Big Lumber lobbyist to the Forest Service, Christine Todd Whitman to the EPA), but I think this one may be the worst. According, Mr. McDowell is a senior vice president and assistant general counsel at the Competitive Telecommunications Association (CTA), meaning that he represents the likes of Cisco, Qwest, RCN and Tellabs. Notice that all of the verb in that sentance are in the present tense; Mr. McDowell is not taking any type of haitus between these two jobs. Forgetting that there is a precisely zero percent chance that he protects the public from the dangers of media conglomeration (lest we forget, the media is a public trust), one would also have to assume that he would not even fairly represent the Baby Bells, who are the CTA's sworn enemy.

While I am sure that McDowell is has excellent credentials, one would think that in the current climate, the WH would at least try to create a facade of independance in one of our nations key regulatory bodies. I truly believe they have no shame.

Since the game was marginal,

2006-02-07T23:08:00.000-05:00

I thought it made sense to cover the coverage. Here is a group of random, unconnected points on how I think ABC fared. Remember...these guys paid several hundred million dollars for this thing, so by all rights it should have come off well.

In no particular order:

It seemed to me like they didn't have Mick Jagger's mike turned up all the way. No it's not my setup - no chance the B&W's would let me down. A lot of people said they thought the Stones were horrible, but I think this was a big part of it.
But for that matter...why not take a very slight chance? I mean the Stones following Paul McCartney is kinda like following vanilla ice cream with a slice of dry toast. You know who I pictured up there bringing the place down? Franz Ferdinand. But network execs wouldn't do that bc they are to afraid of the Gestapo...er...FCC
I thought the studio portion of the halftime show was pretty decent, at least in comparison to the feeble effort these things usually are. Did anybody else see some tech intern with headphones get caught in the camera view for a second?
The MVP of the game should have been that Steelers OG, #66, I think his name was Fannica. Props to Madden for giving the guy due.
I liked bringing the former MVP's out before the game. The only similar, better gesture in recent memory was bringing out the All-Century Team during the All-Star Game at Fenway.
I'm not sure I believe that the Ford Escape Hybrid really gets 36 MPH highway/31 city. If that is actually true, they should make all non-Hybrids illegal to make. The $3K for the feature pays for itself in a year!
Did it seem to you like ABC had trouble selling all of those coveted $2.5mm Super Bowl Advertisements? They must have run like 20 promos for Grey's frickin Anatomy (the second season of which, by the way, is not even watchable. Add to that the rest of the promos. But then you have to remember ABC's corporate partners...Walt Disney corp didn't bring in any legit revenue for the ESPN mobile ads, the Disney World ads and my guess is most of the previews were produced by one of DIS's 300 studios. This reminds me of back in the day, when 2 POS internet companies would sell ads to each other and claim it as "revenue". I don't see how ABC made money on this game.
For the paying customers, let me give you a piece of advice. Funny commercials can be good, but when they are all funny, they are easily forgotten. The 2 articles I remember are (as above) the Ford Escape w/ Kermit (not necessarily funny) and the ones for the new Escalade. Maybe the Big Dos are making a comeback.
Probably my single pet peeve in all of sports coverage is when they talk to any coach for either team during the game. My favorite part of the game is how Cowher completely dissed the Michelle Tafoya-character at half-time. That dude deserves a ring.

A sneaky way to take back the Senate

2006-01-30T18:42:00.000-05:00

Ah my first foray into politics...

I was reading Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball (http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/) today. It's a good site, actually runs down House and Senate races and handicaps them; my #1 gripe is that it isn't updated enough (3 stories in 3 weeks is a rarity). In his article on the Dems chance to retake the Senate, he rated it as a relative long-shot due to their need to pick up 6 out of 7 vulnerable GOP seats as well as hold all of their own. This was a good point, but it made me think of another possible strategy.

What is the greatest recent political victory for the Dems other than the 2000 Presidential election? I'd have to say when Jim Jeffords bolted the GOP, handing the Senate back to it's rightful owner (I refuse to condone the election of Norm Coleman). If I were running things, my #2 priority behind elections in PA, OH and Montana would be having a chat with some of the northeast/liberal House and Senate Republicans, who have to be angry that their agenda (which is by and large a good one) is being completely ignored. Some BBG/LATimes poll data came out today showing that Bush only has support of about 63 percent of self-described "moderate Republicans"; isn't it possible that some of the 37 is represented in Congress? Take a look at how the American Conservative Union http://www.acuratings.org/ rates these Senators (for reference, Sam Brownback (R/KS) is a 94 lifetime and Ted Kennedy is a 3.

Lincoln Chafee - R/RI - 41
Olympia Snowe - R/ME - 51
Susan Collins - R/ME - 57
Arlen Specter - R/PA - 44 (although he "improved" to a 75 in 2004, the last year they publish)
Ben Campbell - R/CO - 55
Judd Gregg - R/NH pulled a 79, but I think they let Katherine Harris do the tally...

In any case, my message to the 6 of you I just mentioned is this: You are no longer a Republican. Maybe you used to be. But you're not anymore - it's about time you accepted it. Lincoln, you didn't even vote for your party's presidential candidate! Olympia and Arlen, you guys are spearheading an investigation into wiretap-gate and given it bipartisanship.! Judd, your #1 issue is the environment! Susan, you're rated 83% by NARAL pro-choice America. Ben, I don't really know anything about you, but if you buck your party on 45% of the ACU votes you must be a good guy! Isn't it time for to start voting your conscience.

Anand's going away party, coincidences and likely irreversible liver damage

2006-01-29T17:34:00.000-05:00

Anand finally decided to stop holding everyone hostage - turns out his threat to locate himself away from the Least Coast wasn't just a bluff. I don't think it's too tough for anybody who knows the tall indian to picture him rolling down the PCH in a convertible, skipping work to sit on the beach, or becoming a vegetarian, so I'm sure this move will suit him well.

Funny story...and hopefully it doesn't fall into the "you had to be there category"...

So I order a vodka/soda and hand my card to the waitress; she walks away, but then comes right back and says "You're kidding, right?" I'm already in fine form at this point, so I have no idea how to formulate a response to this, but long story short, the guy who owns the bar we were at, Stitch (http://www.stitchnyc.com) is named Nicholas Cohen...same spelling and all. The other Nick Cohen is an Irish Jew; I guess you just need a semi-unusual background to end up with such a mixed race name. This is the first time either of us has ever met somebody with the same name, so next thing I know I'm drinking like a half dozen [unneeded] shots on the house, and we took some pictures. Cool guy, good bar, worked great for an unorganized group of 50, and a coincidence that would have left me confused even if that first vodka/soda had been my last.

Just like most celebratory nights with this group, we ended up at a sketchy karaoke place. This was a different one than we usually go to; it served alcohol (many are BYOB) which usually would be a good thing, but in this case was the bargoing equivalent of running up the score. I didn't wake up until 2.

I gotta admit...

2006-01-28T18:04:00.000-05:00

I don't really know what i'm doing here. I mean, aren't these things intended for the computer literate? Not someone who is having trouble installing an external hard drive. Not someone who has to call over tech support three times a day.

But I guess it's just time for me to stake out my own personal acre of the intsi-web. I figure now's a good time, because pretty soon there won't be any homesteading space left and then the market gets in a bubble and then rental rates go up and the next thing you know you're dropping a fortune each month on a 700-sq footer that has a view of a big black wall.

Do people usually set up some kind of guideline type thing for one of these? Well, whether they do or not, I'm going to...because I'm just that kind of person and I wouldn't want Poff to show up one day and take over.

I like the idea that you can say whatever you want, but you have to sign for it. No anonomous posting. And while we're on the subject, a nice tear into your moderator is a good time for all...but let's try not to base the whole board on it. Some preferred topics, baseball, politics, and general keep in touch type stuff. You can expect me to wax delicious for a while about my work and I apologize in advance...tough to shut it off after 12 hours sometimes. If you're not interested in a discussion of the effect of rho decay on an options position, feel free to skip these parts. No being a front-running troll for your preferring sporting team, unless it's the Pistons.

And if you could help with the hard drive, I'd really appreciate it.