Again yesterday Philip Rivers is at the podium babbling about “one bad play” as if that phrase meant something.
For one thing, maybe he should consider not making that “one bad play.” At least not doing so in every game he plays in. How many quarterbacks in the NFL make one horrendously bad play in every game they play in? Right.
But even if you accept the premise of a flawless game other than the “one bad play,” he is spouting nonsense. The Chargers scored three touchdowns in the first half and zero in the second half. The difference between three touchdowns and zero touchdowns is not “one bad play.” Had they played at a three touchdown level in the second half that “one bad play” would have cost them one touchdown and they would have won by four points rather than losing by ten.
Why ever they are losing, it is not because of “one bad play.”
Monday, November 12, 2012
Keeping Us Safe
I do believe that our FBI may be just slightly overstaffed these days.
I have been suspecting that as I watched them running around looking for nitwits to whom they could sell Play-Doh and then string along and eventually charge with “attempting to deploy weapons of mass destruction” after six months of underground plotting. Not to mention tracking down the guy who was shopping at too many hair salons so that they could charge him with plotting to blow up the New York subway system using hair spray.
But then, when a woman walks into the FBI office with emails from another woman telling her to “stay away from my man,” and both of them are married but neither of them to the man cited in the emails, instead of saying, “You have to be kidding me,” they launch a major investigation and discover, amazingly, that adultery is afoot.
So, thanks to the FBI, not only are we being kept safe from morons with Play-Doh, but we are also safe from maniacal adulteresses.
I have been suspecting that as I watched them running around looking for nitwits to whom they could sell Play-Doh and then string along and eventually charge with “attempting to deploy weapons of mass destruction” after six months of underground plotting. Not to mention tracking down the guy who was shopping at too many hair salons so that they could charge him with plotting to blow up the New York subway system using hair spray.
But then, when a woman walks into the FBI office with emails from another woman telling her to “stay away from my man,” and both of them are married but neither of them to the man cited in the emails, instead of saying, “You have to be kidding me,” they launch a major investigation and discover, amazingly, that adultery is afoot.
So, thanks to the FBI, not only are we being kept safe from morons with Play-Doh, but we are also safe from maniacal adulteresses.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Fox Sports Wierdness
I just finished watching Texas Tech defeat Kansas in double overtime. That is not particularly remarkable (other, perhaps, than them needing overtime to do it), but the commentary from the Fox Sports announcers at the beginning of the first overtime was truly bizarre.
Texas Tech won the toss and chose to go on defense. The announcers expressed surprise and said that the decision was unusual. They went on at length about how Tech made the decision in order to force Kansas to choose the direction of play, thereby giving Texas Tech the wind at their backs. They went on at length about how, “It’s very unusual not to take the ball when you win the toss in overtime.”
Kansas scored a touchdown in their possession and when Tech went on offense the announcer commented, “This is why they deferred, in order to have the wind at their back.” Throughout the whole two periods of overtime they continued to bloviate about Tech's "remarkable" decision to "defer" on playing offense at the beginning of overtime.
First of all, the winner of the toss chooses offense or defense and, regardless of their choice, the loser chooses direction of play. So Tech's choice of defense played no role in whether Kansas chose the direction or not; as loser of the toss they were going to choose direction anyway. Since both teams play the same direction in overtime, Kansas was pretty certain to choose to play downwind regardless.
Further, have you ever seen the winner of the toss in overtime choose to play offense first? No, you have not, because they never, ever do that. College football does not play “sudden death” in overtime; each team has an opportunity to match or best the opponent’s score. By going on defense first, they know precisely what they have to do to answer the opponent when it is their turn on offense. Playing offense first puts the team at a significant disadvantage.
And these clowns at Fox, all the way through two periods of overtime, never did figure out how badly they were displaying ignorance.
Texas Tech won the toss and chose to go on defense. The announcers expressed surprise and said that the decision was unusual. They went on at length about how Tech made the decision in order to force Kansas to choose the direction of play, thereby giving Texas Tech the wind at their backs. They went on at length about how, “It’s very unusual not to take the ball when you win the toss in overtime.”
Kansas scored a touchdown in their possession and when Tech went on offense the announcer commented, “This is why they deferred, in order to have the wind at their back.” Throughout the whole two periods of overtime they continued to bloviate about Tech's "remarkable" decision to "defer" on playing offense at the beginning of overtime.
First of all, the winner of the toss chooses offense or defense and, regardless of their choice, the loser chooses direction of play. So Tech's choice of defense played no role in whether Kansas chose the direction or not; as loser of the toss they were going to choose direction anyway. Since both teams play the same direction in overtime, Kansas was pretty certain to choose to play downwind regardless.
Further, have you ever seen the winner of the toss in overtime choose to play offense first? No, you have not, because they never, ever do that. College football does not play “sudden death” in overtime; each team has an opportunity to match or best the opponent’s score. By going on defense first, they know precisely what they have to do to answer the opponent when it is their turn on offense. Playing offense first puts the team at a significant disadvantage.
And these clowns at Fox, all the way through two periods of overtime, never did figure out how badly they were displaying ignorance.
Criminal Infidelity
Lord knows I’ve never had any real regard for David Petreaus; have regarded him as much more of a politician than a general. And you all know by now how I feel about politicians.
He wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post just before the 2004 election which was an undisguised advocacy for the reelection of George Bush; a move which is unconscionable in a serving officer and should have gotten him fired. It got him promoted, by Bush of course.
I watched him testifying to Congress about missing weapons in Iraq and telling them how his command was "so desperate to distribute weapons" that they were "literally kicking them out the doors" of helicopters at hot landing zones. It was clear to me that he was either incompetent or lying at that point. Since when do you throw weapons out of helicopters when you don't know which side will pick them up? Not to mention that, given the amount of weapons that were missing, something like 3500 helicopters would have been required to carry them. Congress, of course, lapped it up and thanked him for his service.
The missing weapons were arguably sold on the black market to the insurgency during his command, and a senior colonel named Ted Westhusing committed suicide and left a message accusing Petreaus of failing to properly supervise his command. It was covered up, so we will never know the truth of the matter, and Petreaus was again promoted.
He commanded a staff which rewrote the counterinsurgency manual, put his name on it and took full credit for the work of his staff. He then took credit for the work of his predecessors in Iraq who had enrolled the Sunni tribes in fighting against al-Queda and became known as author of the “surge,” which had nothing to do with anything, and savior of the war in Iraq.
Pertinent to more recent events, any serving officer who allows a “journalist” to follow him around for months for the purpose of writing a biography about him is a self-seeking publicity hound and is utterly beneath contempt.
All of that being said, that he is summarily removed from command of the CIA, either by himself or by Obama, for something so trivial as an extramarital affair with a woman not under his authority strikes me as absurd beyond belief.
We have members of Congress who engage in prolonged affairs with their own staff members, and not only are they not removed from office, but Congress does not even discipline or admonish them, and when they run for an additional term they are reelected. We have a Senator who drove one of his extramarital affairs off a bridge and drowned her, and he served another four decades in the Senate, being reelected six times. We have a president not only engaging in extramarital affairs, but doing so in the damned oval office, and we reelected him and regard him as one of the nation’s greatest statesmen even today.
But for some reason, Petreaus boinks a journalist and he is gone with not even one day’s notice. The mind utterly boggles.
He wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post just before the 2004 election which was an undisguised advocacy for the reelection of George Bush; a move which is unconscionable in a serving officer and should have gotten him fired. It got him promoted, by Bush of course.
I watched him testifying to Congress about missing weapons in Iraq and telling them how his command was "so desperate to distribute weapons" that they were "literally kicking them out the doors" of helicopters at hot landing zones. It was clear to me that he was either incompetent or lying at that point. Since when do you throw weapons out of helicopters when you don't know which side will pick them up? Not to mention that, given the amount of weapons that were missing, something like 3500 helicopters would have been required to carry them. Congress, of course, lapped it up and thanked him for his service.
The missing weapons were arguably sold on the black market to the insurgency during his command, and a senior colonel named Ted Westhusing committed suicide and left a message accusing Petreaus of failing to properly supervise his command. It was covered up, so we will never know the truth of the matter, and Petreaus was again promoted.
He commanded a staff which rewrote the counterinsurgency manual, put his name on it and took full credit for the work of his staff. He then took credit for the work of his predecessors in Iraq who had enrolled the Sunni tribes in fighting against al-Queda and became known as author of the “surge,” which had nothing to do with anything, and savior of the war in Iraq.
Pertinent to more recent events, any serving officer who allows a “journalist” to follow him around for months for the purpose of writing a biography about him is a self-seeking publicity hound and is utterly beneath contempt.
All of that being said, that he is summarily removed from command of the CIA, either by himself or by Obama, for something so trivial as an extramarital affair with a woman not under his authority strikes me as absurd beyond belief.
We have members of Congress who engage in prolonged affairs with their own staff members, and not only are they not removed from office, but Congress does not even discipline or admonish them, and when they run for an additional term they are reelected. We have a Senator who drove one of his extramarital affairs off a bridge and drowned her, and he served another four decades in the Senate, being reelected six times. We have a president not only engaging in extramarital affairs, but doing so in the damned oval office, and we reelected him and regard him as one of the nation’s greatest statesmen even today.
But for some reason, Petreaus boinks a journalist and he is gone with not even one day’s notice. The mind utterly boggles.
Friday, November 9, 2012
Fiscal Cliff
The Wall Street Journal has an article yesterday about how Congress and the White House are now turning toward dealing with the “fiscal cliff,” that is, the “year-end spending cuts and tax increases that threaten to push the U.S. back into recession.” You can’t read the whole article unless you are registered, but that’s okay, because the WSJ never says anything worth reading anyway. I just used them to broach the subject.
The teaser goes on the say that, ”Whether this represents a temporary truce, or a step toward a pact to trim the deficit, won't be known for weeks.” Since the “fiscal cliff” was purportedly created for the express purpose of “trimming the deficit” with its tax increases and spending cuts, I’m not sure what point the writer was trying to make with that little gem.
There are several things that are actually rather amusing about this situation, putting aside the sad fact that it is likely to wreck our economy. Reality is that the measures that Congress takes to resolve it are also going to wreck our economy, so there’s no point in getting too wound up about it. Our economy long since passed the point where it could be restored. We’ll keep it going for a while yet with bandaids, but…
The people in office who are frantically trying to deal with this problem are, of course, the same people who created it to begin with. They kicked the can past the election, apparently hoping that they would not get reelected and that someone else would have to deal with it, and then they spent an inordinate amount of money, time, money, energy and money getting reelected so that now they do have to deal with it and they consider than an “unforeseen circumstance.”
Then there is Obama still blaming Republicans for wrecking the economy with their reckless and irresponsible tax cuts and at the same time demanding that not only should two-thirds of those “Bush tax cuts” be extended, but so should the tax cuts that he piled on top of them. We need to continue $2.2 trillion of the “Bush tax cuts” and $1.2 trillion of his tax cuts so that he can reduce the deficit and pay off our debt.
Republicans say that tax cuts will boost the economy, while Democrats do not make that claim. Democrats say that tax cuts will restore the economy, which Republicans ruined by making tax cuts. They also say that eliminating the existing Republican tax cuts will crash the economy. Actually, no Democrats before this one have said anything like that, and they mostly raised taxes rather than cut them, but modern Democratic economic theory has become all but indistinguishable from Republican's.
Obama has made a fetish out of not extending the “Bush tax cuts” for the “one percent” and has been equally adamant about not allowing them to expire for anyone else, so the discussion on the “Bush tax cuts” is apparently going to continue for a full eight years after he is out of office and we are seemingly never going to hear the term “Obama tax policy” uttered in his second term any more than we did in his first. Democrats don’t do budgets and they don’t do tax policies. They do do tax cuts.
Not to mention that shortly after the “fiscal cliff” is dealt with we will hit the spending cap again.
The teaser goes on the say that, ”Whether this represents a temporary truce, or a step toward a pact to trim the deficit, won't be known for weeks.” Since the “fiscal cliff” was purportedly created for the express purpose of “trimming the deficit” with its tax increases and spending cuts, I’m not sure what point the writer was trying to make with that little gem.
There are several things that are actually rather amusing about this situation, putting aside the sad fact that it is likely to wreck our economy. Reality is that the measures that Congress takes to resolve it are also going to wreck our economy, so there’s no point in getting too wound up about it. Our economy long since passed the point where it could be restored. We’ll keep it going for a while yet with bandaids, but…
The people in office who are frantically trying to deal with this problem are, of course, the same people who created it to begin with. They kicked the can past the election, apparently hoping that they would not get reelected and that someone else would have to deal with it, and then they spent an inordinate amount of money, time, money, energy and money getting reelected so that now they do have to deal with it and they consider than an “unforeseen circumstance.”
Then there is Obama still blaming Republicans for wrecking the economy with their reckless and irresponsible tax cuts and at the same time demanding that not only should two-thirds of those “Bush tax cuts” be extended, but so should the tax cuts that he piled on top of them. We need to continue $2.2 trillion of the “Bush tax cuts” and $1.2 trillion of his tax cuts so that he can reduce the deficit and pay off our debt.
Republicans say that tax cuts will boost the economy, while Democrats do not make that claim. Democrats say that tax cuts will restore the economy, which Republicans ruined by making tax cuts. They also say that eliminating the existing Republican tax cuts will crash the economy. Actually, no Democrats before this one have said anything like that, and they mostly raised taxes rather than cut them, but modern Democratic economic theory has become all but indistinguishable from Republican's.
Obama has made a fetish out of not extending the “Bush tax cuts” for the “one percent” and has been equally adamant about not allowing them to expire for anyone else, so the discussion on the “Bush tax cuts” is apparently going to continue for a full eight years after he is out of office and we are seemingly never going to hear the term “Obama tax policy” uttered in his second term any more than we did in his first. Democrats don’t do budgets and they don’t do tax policies. They do do tax cuts.
Not to mention that shortly after the “fiscal cliff” is dealt with we will hit the spending cap again.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Argument For More Debt
Mark Weisbrot writes yesterday in The Guardian about the benefit of an Obama second term and how the media facilitated that eventuality. His piece is, as Guardian pieces tend to be, fairly well reasoned in a liberally slanted manner, and I will comment on just one statement that he makes in support of America’s fiscal position. It is one much used by economists in arguing for continued deficit spending, and I regard it as absurd.
“For the record,” he says parenthetically, “the US currently pays less than 1% of GDP in net interest annually on the federal debt – less than it has paid during the past 60 years.”
When you make an application for credit, does the bank look at the amount of interest you pay as a percentage of your employer’s income? “I pay interest on my $400,000 mortgage at 3.9% which is $15,600. My employer’s income is $12.6 billion, so I am paying a mere 0.0012% of my employer’s income in interest.” Right, I don’t think so.
For a long time economists cited government interest as a percentage of government revenue. That, however, became a large and frightening percentage, so they began citing interest payments as a percentage of government expense. Since we spend more than we take in that was a smaller percentage, but eventually that also became a large and frightening percentage, and so now we are citing interest payment as a percentage of GDP. That is a completely meaningless number, but it has the advantage of being small and thus facilitates the argument for continued deficit spending.
Economists used to do the same thing with government debt, by the way. They cited the amount of the debt as a percentage of annual government revenue, then of annual government spending. When the amount of debt became larger than annual spending, that is the percentage was larger than 100%, the basis switched to a percentage of GDP and the basis for interest payments followed suit.
I have no idea what basis they will use when the debt as a ratio of GDP becomes too large as it has in, for instance, Japan, where it is more than 200% of GDP. Probably use the world economy or some fictional World Bank balance.
The other nonsensical aspect of this issue is that the reason for our low cost of interest on the debt is that government has artificially set interest rates at zero and left them there indefinitely. The reasons why this is a pernicious policy are too numerous to go into here, but the policy is idiotic in the extreme and eventually the interest rate which we pay on that debt is going to go back up to a sane level. When it does the grits, as we say in the south, are really going to hit the fan.
If you don’t know what grits are, I recommend Wikipedia, although it says that they can be fried in vegetable oil or butter. Good God. Frying them in anything other than bacon drippings or lard would be criminal.
“For the record,” he says parenthetically, “the US currently pays less than 1% of GDP in net interest annually on the federal debt – less than it has paid during the past 60 years.”
When you make an application for credit, does the bank look at the amount of interest you pay as a percentage of your employer’s income? “I pay interest on my $400,000 mortgage at 3.9% which is $15,600. My employer’s income is $12.6 billion, so I am paying a mere 0.0012% of my employer’s income in interest.” Right, I don’t think so.
For a long time economists cited government interest as a percentage of government revenue. That, however, became a large and frightening percentage, so they began citing interest payments as a percentage of government expense. Since we spend more than we take in that was a smaller percentage, but eventually that also became a large and frightening percentage, and so now we are citing interest payment as a percentage of GDP. That is a completely meaningless number, but it has the advantage of being small and thus facilitates the argument for continued deficit spending.
Economists used to do the same thing with government debt, by the way. They cited the amount of the debt as a percentage of annual government revenue, then of annual government spending. When the amount of debt became larger than annual spending, that is the percentage was larger than 100%, the basis switched to a percentage of GDP and the basis for interest payments followed suit.
I have no idea what basis they will use when the debt as a ratio of GDP becomes too large as it has in, for instance, Japan, where it is more than 200% of GDP. Probably use the world economy or some fictional World Bank balance.
The other nonsensical aspect of this issue is that the reason for our low cost of interest on the debt is that government has artificially set interest rates at zero and left them there indefinitely. The reasons why this is a pernicious policy are too numerous to go into here, but the policy is idiotic in the extreme and eventually the interest rate which we pay on that debt is going to go back up to a sane level. When it does the grits, as we say in the south, are really going to hit the fan.
If you don’t know what grits are, I recommend Wikipedia, although it says that they can be fried in vegetable oil or butter. Good God. Frying them in anything other than bacon drippings or lard would be criminal.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Doom! (?)
The doom sayers need to suck it up. I have said this before; this nation is one whole hell of a lot stronger than they seem to think it is. It survived eight years of Bush, it has already survived four years of Obama and it will certainly survive four more years of Obama. It would have survived Romney if it came to that. We’ve lasted 236 years and you think one silly ass in the White House is going to bring us down? Get real.
Californians approved additional taxes; that was a bit of a surprise. We rejected repeal of the death penalty, which was another surprise. I think adding the work rule and the $130 million spending requirement doomed that one. The writers of that proposition got a bit too clever.
San Diego voters approved a $2.88 billion school bond which the school district does not even pretend is for capital spending; the bill clearly says it is for maintenance issues. How stupid is that?
Every one of the incumbents was reelected for federal office, of course. Congress has an approval rating of 9% but its members are reelected at a 100% rate in San Diego County. And we wonder why democracy is failing.
I see that Michelle Bachmann was reelected, so I'll be able to keep harassing my niece in Minnesota. I'm sure she's thrilled. Alan Grayson is back, so we'll be subjected to another two years of his loud mouthed jackassery, which the left will adoringly label as "highly intelligent attack politics."
Californians approved additional taxes; that was a bit of a surprise. We rejected repeal of the death penalty, which was another surprise. I think adding the work rule and the $130 million spending requirement doomed that one. The writers of that proposition got a bit too clever.
San Diego voters approved a $2.88 billion school bond which the school district does not even pretend is for capital spending; the bill clearly says it is for maintenance issues. How stupid is that?
Every one of the incumbents was reelected for federal office, of course. Congress has an approval rating of 9% but its members are reelected at a 100% rate in San Diego County. And we wonder why democracy is failing.
I see that Michelle Bachmann was reelected, so I'll be able to keep harassing my niece in Minnesota. I'm sure she's thrilled. Alan Grayson is back, so we'll be subjected to another two years of his loud mouthed jackassery, which the left will adoringly label as "highly intelligent attack politics."
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