There Is A Heaven And Hell

It's between your ears. And you're living in one or the other right now. Your call.

Real Life Turning Points

This example is on my mind:

On July 7, 2008 the Cleveland Indians traded CC Sabathia.

They were defending Central Division Champs, having fallen 1 game short of the World Series, to the Red Sox. They had won 96 games in 2007.

Cliff Lee's record was already 11 - 2. His era, I think, was 2.43.

The Indians finished 81 - 81 in 2008.

The Indians finished 65 - 97 in 2009.

Defending division champs, current Cy Young Award winner, and a guy who didn't make the previous year's post-season roster is 11 - 2, and looking every bit of it.

On that day, with two aces showing, Dolan and Shapiro folded the hand.

The 'Turning Point', A Proposed New Item For Box Scores.

Here are 3 examples:

1) Damon steals third after stealing second.
2) Holliday fails to catch ball with belly.
3) 2 Yanks score on dropped 2-out popout to 1st.

The 1st one is arguable, maybe there's a 2nd TP in that game. Go ahead.

The next one most everyone would agree with, even though the game didn't end until another 4 or 5 guys reached base.

And, last, the third one was such a TP, the lead changed (and in this case ended a game).

That's it. Just adding a great tool for knowing where to look in a particular box score at some point down the road.

The Unified Theory of Steroids

Originally written on February 14, 2009

How can a drug make a man hit 73 home runs? It can't.

Let's separate the player's health from all his skills. Hand/eye co-ordination, strength, years of knowledge from playing the game.

It seems like it's all older players who are prominent in the steroids saga.

So, I propose that the steroids delay the deterioration of the player's health, including vision.

While the skills curve goes up over time, then plateaus, the health curve is constantly declining. Add them together, and they sort of even each other out with the skills curve being dominant, until health wins the battle, and the curve goes down.

So, the steroids delay the decline of the health curve. So, for a while, the health curve levels out, while the skills curve is still climbing.

This fits in with the book 'Outliers'. He says it takes 10,000 hours of doing something before you're an expert at that. Good for opera singers and chess players, bad for athletes. Hello, Mr. Steroids!

It's All in the Timing

Stop me if you've heard this one before. What's the difference between the Idiot Boy who just served as our President for 8 years, and the auto-biographer from Alaska who wants to be President?

LIPSTICK!!

This Blows 'Twilight' Away

Sarah Palin sounding the alarm over physician and family 'end of life' consultations as 'Death Panels' reminds me of Frankenstein freaking out the first time he sees fire. But then, that's an uneducated, unthinking beast, who's greatest skill, unfortunately is to horribly upset the equally uninformed townspeople.

Mary Shelley's fictional creation, on the other hand...

Financial Alchemy 21st Century Style

AIG FP was running an illegal Ponzi scheme all along. All the 'investors' understood this.

Every contract written by AIG FP was determined to have a risk of $0 in claims. It all went to the bottom line, and got paid out as bonuses. They learned the secret of how to turn lead into gold, and attached a perpetual motion machine to it. Any relationships between risk and reward ceased to exist.

Their analysis was based on their knowledge that housing would rise 5% per year, forever. No matter whether borrowers defaulted or not, the ever-rising property values would heal all wounds.

They were all in on it. AIG, Wall Street Banks, Rating Agencies, etc.

Since it was a Ponzi scheme, it had to collapse eventually. Prime loans, sub-prime, makes no difference. Ponzi schemes always collapse. When this one collapsed, all the 'investors' were made whole by the extortion of the taxpayers, known as the TARP bailout and others.

So, file charges for Ponzi, Extortion and Racketeering. Let the courts decide. And get all our $ back.

I'll Be Succinct

Excellence is cyclical. Mediocrity is perpetual.

This article is about the large number of really bad teams in the NFL so far this year:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/sports/football/15jets.html?ref=football

There's a lot of newer owners and/or brand new head coaches. That's a bad recipe.

High Finance Is Perverse

I made it to the Finance Department of a mid-level Corporate Office. Elsewhere, I was responsible for payroll checks getting out, through the distribution of W2's, etc...

The trick, when you want something, is to hide it in a big pile of $. It doesn't matter who, what, where, or when.

So these guys doing mergers, or IPOs, or going private, or whatever, and the derivatives guys, and the 1980s junk bond guys, all of them all of the time, just want to move large sums of $ around, taking a minuscule percentage, which accumulates to a lot of real $.

Nobody's ever seen $50 Billion in one place at one time. But, it's just an entry on some ledger, with a little slice trimmed off here or there.

So the real waste is not just what gets stolen via the vigorish, the total waste is all those deployed $ that had no more added value (and since the taxpayers bailed their sorry asses out, a great big negative value) than moving a pile of dirt back & forth with a dozer.

Oh Yeah, Real Fair

Just watched A-Rod hit a single to drive in Jeter who had hit a double. Teixeira flew (flied?) out between them. Here's where they rank by salary:

1 Rodriguez, Alex $ 33,000,000 New York Yankees
2 Ramirez, Manny $ 23,854,494 Los Angeles Dodgers
3 Jeter, Derek $ 21,600,000 New York Yankees
4 Teixeira, Mark $ 20,625,000 New York Yankees

http://content.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/salaries/top25.aspx?year=2009


Oh yeah, real fair.


Which is what this a-hole in college, named 'The Bag' said one night. Three of us left a bar late one night, and come upon some guy whose only crime was that we were drunk. Bag threatens to kick his ass or something, and the guy reaches into his trunk and pulls out a tire iron, or golf club, or something. The Bag starts yelling, 'Oh yeah, real fair! You've got a club!' and politely declines to further the hostilities.

What's To Keep

the likes of Henry Paulson from becoming a lobbyist, say, on behalf of 'not regulating derivatives'?

Nobody Knows Nothin'

A topic revisited!

Colts draft Peyton Manning out of Tennessee with the overall #1 pick.

The next year, the Browns pick Tim Couch, from Kentucky, also with the overall #1 pick. I'm pretty sure its the same conference.

So, short of a paternity DNA test, it's the same player!

Different results. And it's not really anybody's fault.

CONFIRMED! CONFIRMED! CONFIRMED!

In week 1, the San Diego Chargers won on a touchdown run by Darren Sproles at the end of the game. There was some deception involved, and it worked perfectly.

The next week, against the Baltimore team, needing a touchdown to win on fourth down, Darren Sproles is lined up in the exact same formation as the previous week. This week, it happens that Ray Lewis is watching.

Once the ball was snapped, in the blink of an eye Lewis had tackled Sproles. Like when a guy swings and you know its a home run. That fast.

Ray Lewis is a football savant. Been in some pretty hot water off the field at least once. We'll find out later if he has other skills. But Ray probably watched that film of Sproles' touchdown 20 times in film sessions. So, when he saw it before him, his specially trained brain KNEW IT. Like the Terminator locking in on a target. Or Luke Skywalker's final shot. It's always some sort of greenish-hued screen with crosshairs and shit. He's waited through 59 minutes and 45 seconds of official time, dragging his massive 34 year old body on and off the field for over 3 hours.

Then, on that greenish screen, in some neon color the word 'Confirmed' starts flashing, and its over.

Wolf In Sheep's Clothing

From the excepts, it sounds like Glenn Beck is trying to come off 'moderate'. Not like when he gets all worked up 5 days a week on radio and TV spouting his poisonous venom.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/21/glenn-beck-obama-better-f_n_294052.html

I saw the same thing last week when Serena Williams went on Good Morning America after her profane tantrum at the US Open. She was dressed in a high cut white blouse with a white sweater. I'm guessing that's how they dress in the Jane Austin books?

What's The Difference...

between Fox News' Glenn Beck and MSNBC's Jim Cramer?

Two Roads Diverge...

For a long while there, Howard Stern's audience was considered 'the fringe element'. He had a radio show in NYC, and some very rabid fans. His content was considered over-the-top. Lesbian Dating Game, strippers, ambush interviews, prank phone calls, racial stereotypes, practical jokes, offensive language. The list goes on.

Over time, he began syndicating the program to other, usually large, hip cities. Then he got a couple of TV shows on the E! cable channel, pay-per-view specials, DVDs, wrote and published a couple of books, and even put out a movie. He could go on Letterman or Leno whenever he wanted to promote something.

Then came the mainstream imitation. Each of those 'bits' described above has become a TV show of its own. Not by Stern, but by other people. Then came the next generation of 'shock jocks', who grew up listening to him. Of course, they try do do the same stuff he did.

So, Howard Stern's sensibility has become part of the mainstream, for better or worse. Where once his fans were at the far end tail of the Normal Distribution Curve, now they sit comfortably within the sweet spot. Not everybody was happy when it was happening, and many people don't like the results. But, he did it fair and square, with the help of a profit-making enterprise to support him.

Something similar is happening in our political world today. Fox News caters (panders?) to an audience that believes the President is a Socialist, was not born in the US, a recent survey shows that 1/3 of this demographic in New Jersey believes he may be the anti-Christ, they cheer a guy who heckles the President, and the here-to-fore politically incorrect notion that a Black person can't lead our country is no longer whispered behind closed doors. It's talked about openly, in code.

ABC News estimated that 60,000 to 70,000 people showed up in DC to protest something. Supposedly taxation and big government. Yeah, right. Posters of Obama with Hitler mustaches were common. There was a lot of offensive stuff.

But, these guys aren't playing fair and square. Unlike Stern, who had a clear motive and sponsor, those pulling the strings here are hidden from view. They are preying on the Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD, in biz parlance) of the citizenry. Led by an advocacy group that dresses up like a cable news channel, anything goes with these puppet masters.

So, these citizens are the 'fringe element' today, but before too long, if we're not careful, their techniques and beliefs will spread, and these people's beliefs will become part of the mainstream, right there in the sweet spot of that same Normal Distribution Curve. And that would be a shame.

"Insurance" Is A Means Of Spreading Risk

It's funny, well, not really funny, more like maddening, watching a word being misused.

The traditional idea of insurance is that a risk is quantified as to how likely it is, how expensive it may be, and how far into the future it may occur. Then a payment stream is developed to, over time, provide a profit to whoever accepts the obligation to reimburse the insured in case of a loss. This is a 'financial product' that had been used successfully throughout the world for thousands of years.

Now, we talk about health care insurance as if someone, Uncle Sam, I guess, is going to subsidize each person's expenses. I don't get it. If every person's annual health care expenses exceed the premium paid by him/her and/or his employer, where is the profit for the so-called risk-taker?

Obviously, based on their premiums, Medicare and Medicaid aren't really insurance. It seems like people in general want to see that expanded. Which might be OK, but let's not call it 'insurance'.

Irving Kristol, Godfather of Modern Conservatism, Dies at 89

Above all, Mr. Kristol preached a faith in ordinary people. . “It is the self-imposed assignment of neoconservatives,” he wrote, “to explain to the American people why they are right, and to the intellectuals why they are wrong.”

Reminds me of this one: "Every statement I make is false."


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/19/us/politics/19kristol.html?hp

Let's Put This Another Way

Even when I am certain I am 'right', I will replay my assumptions in my mind, looking for flaws. I will also replay the other guy's arguments, looking for what it is he sees that leads him to different conclusions.

Would SC Representative Joe Wilson have yelled "YOU LIE!" to a speaker/officer at his country club? Or his gun club? No. Way. And those 2 guys would be white. Would his buddies have stood up for him? No. Way.

But, this here Obama fella is just another Nigra. Heh heh.

We're Only Human

Last night in Fenway, the Angels left fielder let the game winning hit drop in front of him. He didn't dive, and it looked like he was really close to where it hit the ground.

So, he'll get blasted, and maybe called some names.

I just learned this story this year. Bob Gibson and Tim McCarver were being interviewed by Bob Costas. In game 6 of the 1968 Cardinals-Tigers World Series, Lou Brock gets thrown out at home in the late innings on a great play by Willie Horton. Horton was out there for his hitting, not his defense. Gibson gets somewhat intense about the fact that Brock DID NOT SLIDE! It's 40 years later, and Gibson cuts no slack. Did I mention that Lou Brock is in the Hall of Fame? Brock has claimed he would have been out even if he slid, but Gibson says, flatly, well, we would have to see that to know that.

So, even the great Lou Brock can have a moment.

No, Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right

I saw the video tapes where the Acorn counselors were advising people how to avoid paying taxes, condone prostitution, and condone under-age prostitution. Inexcusable.

So, the US Senate and the US House have voted to cut off funds to Acorn. But, it was a set-up, no laws were broken by anybody.

Now, when a Halliburton or Blackrock gets caught doing whatever horrible things they've actually been doing (without being set up), they get 'suspended' from future work. Then, when an opportunity comes up, the suspension is lifted.

I imagine Acorn's total national budget is less than what Dick Cheney made each year as CEO of Halliburton. Acorn maybe can't be as selective in who they hire as Halliburton.

So it goes.

Unexpected Moments That Changed The World

I'd like this to be a thread where people add their own examples.

In 1973/1974, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band have spent months rehearsing and recording the album Born To Run. But they're stuck on the title song. This whole thing should take a week, max. But Bruce just isn't happy. This is like 6 months in by now.

So, Steve Van Zant is the friend of a friend, who says 'you should check out my band'. Steve comes to a rehearsal. He may or may not even be aware of the problems. Anyways, he's there about 5 minutes and says, 'Have you guys tried doing it this way'? The rest is history.

ESPN: The Worldwide Leader in Reportage Integrity

Here's Fox News' Glenn Beck citing 'The University of I Don't Remember':

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/15/glenn-beck-17-million-att_n_287136.html

This is what passes as commentary/reporting on an alleged 'news' channel.


On ESPN, they have a talk show called Pardon The Interruption. It's hosted by two authentic Washington Post reporters, Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon. At the end of each show, they ask, 'Rially, what'd we mess up?' and Tony Rially will fill in some missing piece of info, or correct the year something happened, or how many wins so and so had. It's just dumb old sports, but they're reporters, so they rely on, and appreciate editors, no matter how insignificant the topic. Why not be accurate?

It's not complicated, if you have any interest in factual reporting.

I Have Friends Who Are Economists

Here's a couple of thoughts on why Economics is not a science of any sort. Not a definitive argument by any stretch. Yet.


1. Past performance may not be indicative of future results.


Absolutely true for mutual funds. Absolutely true for internet stocks, housing, derivatives, world-wide financial systems.


2. There were a few professional Economists who were trying to get people's attention regarding sub prime mortgages, derivatives, housing bubbles, etc. Obviously, they were unsuccessful in getting their message across. Even in hindsight, I've seen and read very little about this small group. One of the few things I saw was a montage showing all these esteemed panel members rolling on the floor, laughing out loud night after night at one of the very few guys who was balls-on right. I'm not aware anyone has tried to square away what *did* happen with how it *should have* happened within the professional Economists community.



3. What good are they, anyway? Any idiot could, and did say what would happen following the repeal of Glass-Steagall of 1933 in 1999. Overwhelmingly passed by both houses.

Generic Heading

On Labor Day, I was at the grocery store. The guy in front of me bought two items: onion chip dip, and vanilla ice cream.

The Decline of Western Civilization?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/14/mtvs-chest-dressed-who-we_n_285557.html?slidenumber=0#slide_image

Notes:

1. Check out Jeniffer Lopez. She looks like someone's grandma. Remember that Green Versace dress a few years ago? I even remember that it's Versace! It's in the final picture.

2. MJ's father Joe is doing pretty good for himself!

3. Beyonce picture #2? Smokin'!

New Crock Pot In The House!

So, what's the downside health-wise by not browning beef or chicken before throwing it in the crock pot?

I don't care about aesthetics or presentation, just health risks.

Thank you.

And if you have any REALLY easy recipes, please send them along.

Thanks, again.

Neurotic Is The New 'Normal'

I do things contarary to my best interests sometimes. And, as I'm doing them, I usually know this. This is my definition of 'neurotic'.

Since the '70s, our country has been in a downward spiral in regards to the greatness of our dreams. We have a lower expectation of the American Dream, and many more of us have no dream whatsoever.

The '70s were pretty much the end of the period of unending expansion of overall wealth in America. Robots were invented that could weld or paint better and faster than any worker. Large quantities of high paying (union) jobs would inevitably and inexorably be lost. This was unavoidable.

At the same time, CEOs figured out that the economics of production and distribution had changed. Given a narrow enough focus, each CEO was able to make the case that his company would be more profitable by closing US facilities, and sending the work elsewhere. Concurrent with this, thanks to Jack Welch of GE, the shareholder became the only 'stakeholder' of concern. Workers become (more) fungible, and sub-contracting could eliminate a CEO's concern need for workers entirely. And the workers they retained have seen a major diminishing of their retirement benefits. Very few large corporations offer traditional employer-paid pensions any more, having insidiously replaced them with worker-paid 401(k) plans and the like.

But, obviously, the overall result was fewer high paying jobs and workers in the US.

So, here we are 30 or so years later. Monied organizations have, over time, created a very tilted playing field. Regulatory issues have been gutted, taxes have been dramatically lowered for the wealthiest (Warren Buffet, again this week, commented on the foolishness of this), and political influence is in the hands of the corporate lobbyists.

With all the money in the hands of a wealthy few, there is very little remaining of the traditional middle class. It's just math. So now, all the people who had been middle class, and no longer are, are finding things not so much to their liking.

So, how do they react? They blame the guy that came in to clean up the shit. They're being told by the very people who sold them this bill of goods that the efforts to fix things will hurt them. And their children. And, for some reason, they choose not to investigate any further. I will stereotype, and say most of the good people who went to DC yesterday are on Social Security and Medicare, or will be soon. Hey, my parents received SS and Medicare, as well as Tri-Care medical from the military, and they LOVED it. My parents also had pensions from various government employers that they had earned during their working careers. My parents retired in the late '70s, when the gravy train was still running full bore. And after 'retiring', they were able to find some sort of white collar jobs. Today's job market is so tight that bread-winners are now 'happy' to get the type of jobs my parents got after they retired.

So, the problem, not enough good jobs, has been perpetrated over 30 years. The rich got (massively) richer, and now there's not enough middle class to keep things going.

And the people who are most affected have been convinced they should resist all efforts to improve things either in the short term or long term.

And that is the classic definition of 'neurotic'.

Nobody Knows Anything

"Nobody Knows Anything" - William Goldman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Goldman

This guy had a big role in the movies All The President, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, The Princess Bride (he wrote the book), and a bunch more great stuff.

First batter gets on first, and is promptly thrown out stealing second. The next batter hits a double. If the first batter had not been thrown out at second, how many runs would have scored when the second batter had finished hitting?

A. 0
B. 1
C. 2
D. Cannot say

You don't know. We don't know if the runner was safe at second, or still at first. Who knows what the manager, catcher and pitcher would have decided to do? Maybe the other manager, batter and runner would have had different ideas? Two batters, and we have NO IDEA how history might have changed. Now, imagine a complex system where variables or decisions are altered.

So, what if the Indians had had a mission statement that read: "Our organization is committed to winning our division each year, resulting in a sold out stadium every day."

I can tell you how things *have* turned out. Pretty bad. I can name, for certain, six players on the active roster: Sizemore (on the DL), Hafner, Carmona, Choo, Shoppack, and Peralta. These other guys playing these September games have no meaning to me. Most of them will never be in an Indians uniform again.

So, if the stadium was full, and it could have been - that's been proven, they'd have more revenues: more seats sold, parking, concessions, higher ticket prices I believe, better TV and radio ratings, etc... Could all this have paid for a Manny, and a Thome, and maybe different strategy on CC, certainly on Cliff Lee, Casey Blake, Victor Martinez...

It's Hard Work. How Do You Keep Them Motivated?

I saw an article on the web where it says they're expecting thousands of tea-baggers for a get together in Washington, DC today (Saturday).

I wonder, when they're all done with the festivities, what will they think? The anti-war people always figured they were closer to ending a war. The civil rights people dreamed of more people being accorded their civil rights.

So, when these guys are high-fiving and quaffing a brew about their accomplishments, what will each one be thinking? "Yes! We're maintaining the status quo!"? "OK! We kept the deficit at $1.4 trillion!"? "We da men! Squashed some needy peoples' dreams out there!"?

It has to be a self-diminishing 'high', doesn't it?

Laugh, But Worry

This is the 2nd change in the Obama admin that Glenn Beck has accomplished.

Beck was onto Sara Palin before ANYONE else.

Compared to this circus geek, just imagine what she could accomplish once she gets organized.



http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/09/10/beck_strikes_again_yosi_sargen.html?hpid=sec-politics

Worst Thing Since...

I have bi-focals that I wear about twice a year. My contact will fall out, and I'll want to give my eye a 'rest', so I'll wear the glasses if I need to drive. The pair I have is not even two years old.

I've also had bi-focal contacts. To summarize, they both suck. In order to conjure up the bi-focal effects, there's all sorts of curves and shit in the lenses. So they're lousy as regular glasses. Forget about seeing any details. And the 'effect' happens at all the wrong times.

In short, this bi-focal technology is about as good as 8-track tape technology. But this is just my eyes, so wtf?

Chemistry, Shmemistry. Just Win, Baby!

Jim Thome is making about $15 million this year. Before agreeing to a trade with the Dodgers, he made them aware he hadn’t played 1st base in four years, and felt his body could not handle that. So the Dodgers are paying $2.5 for him to exclusively pinch hit in 31 games plus the playoffs. And if they make the World Series, he can DH in the American League park.

In 1969, Jim Bouton spent the last part of the season with the Houston Astros, who were fighting for the National League West Division title. This was actually the first year of division play, as each league had expanded to 12 teams (2 divisions of 6 teams) from 10. No wildcards, though. Anyway, Houston comes up a couple games short. Bouton, of course, wrote the fabulous book Ball Four about his time with the Seattle Pilots and the Astros during the 1969 season. If you haven’t read it, please do. It has won various literary awards for non-fiction and is on many ‘best American book’ lists. Bouton wondered aloud whether the Astros might have benefited from picking up the controversial Richie (Dick) Allen. This guy hit the ball as hard as anyone, and was still in his late 20s. He is Black, and had a few things to say about civil rights. I mean, it was the 60s. Other players said, no, he would hurt the team chemistry. Bouton thought a few well placed RBIs might have created plenty of team chemistry, and gotten them into the playoffs. And they probably could have had Richie Allen for a pittance for 2 months.

Brilliant!

Sometime during the short-lived roll-out of New Coke, the guys at Pepsi declared they had won the cola wars. That hadn’t won anything. The guys at Coke just lost their minds for a period of time. So I remember Pepsi putting a full page ad in the USA Today declaring victory, and giving every Pepsi employee the next day off. A little later, the guy who took all the credit for the victory, John Scully wrote a best seller called something like: ‘The Other Guy Blinked: How Pepsi Won The Cola Wars’. Properly impressed, Apple Computers recruited this guy to run their company. In just a few years, Scully decided Steve Jobs wasn’t really needed, so he forced Jobs out. Apple floundered, Scully got fired, and at least one other guy followed him. Apple managed to buy a company Steve Jobs was involved with, was it NeXT?, and over a period of time was able to put him back in charge.

Great American Lives

Sunday night they showed Joe Morgan interviewing a couple of Dodgers in the dugout before tonight’s game. I can’t recall seeing that before. They don’t usually let reporters or announcers in the dugout. But, Joe is a 2 time MVP, Hall of Famer, and a great enthusiast/teacher of the game. I think he is leading what we consider the great American life. He reminds me of Yogi Berra on this.

Yogi grew up in poverty in St. Louis. Didn’t finish high school, and English was probably not spoken in his home. So, he takes all 5’ 7” of himself to NYC, the home of the great Babe Ruth, the immortal Lou Gehrig, and on the current roster, the regal Joe Dimaggio. All he did was win 2 MVP awards, and about 10 World Series rings. And then spent the rest of his life in baseball, becoming the most beloved Yankee in history.