Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Fuhhhhckkkkkk
Posted on 9:53 PM by Unknown
I know this might not make the outer ring of you black-light disaster mandala, but Charlie Davies-rad forward for the US National Team- was seriously injured in a car wreck today. His prospects are iffy. Davies is one of my favorite new players and I had ironically just got him for my new Winning Eleven team today. Clearly this is what makes it tragic. No. Anyone injured is upsetting, this one is just coincidental and I hope the guy is okay because he is a tremendous athlete with lots of potential.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Statomatics
Posted on 8:27 PM by Unknown
If you care about statistics...and environmental statistics...and the misuse of statistics and numbers and information in general than....this.
That's how this stuff enters the dialogue and becomes fact. Someone says "5,000 polar bears in the wild" and doesn't remember where the number came from. Meanwhile, someone who needs to make a point about polar bears takes the number and incorporates it into their world view. But they have a source! A source who said a number with nothing underpinning it. Hmmmm. But it fits the world view and now everyone must incorporate it or deny it, even though it is a number with no real meaning. Great.
That's how this stuff enters the dialogue and becomes fact. Someone says "5,000 polar bears in the wild" and doesn't remember where the number came from. Meanwhile, someone who needs to make a point about polar bears takes the number and incorporates it into their world view. But they have a source! A source who said a number with nothing underpinning it. Hmmmm. But it fits the world view and now everyone must incorporate it or deny it, even though it is a number with no real meaning. Great.
NFL Players Get It Right
Posted on 7:58 PM by Unknown
Sometimes NFL players come off like preening morons, which makes us.....me...forget that the majority of them are intelligent adults. It is heartening to see a rejection of Limbaugh as owner. While I am sure some African-Americans would play for him, I imagine getting big name free agents would become somewhat of a problem.
Also, one thing I took from the Donovan McNabb incident that doesn't seem to be brought up so much is that Rush Limbaugh was simply hitting his own pitiful average (to reference another sport on this.) It wasn't that he made an unusual gaffe over McNabb, it was that he used the same logic he always uses, very little and skewed tremendously, to try to make a point that only makes sense to a limited and specific audience. The only difference is that in sports it is harder to argue over the results. McNabb is unarguably one of the best quarterbacks of his generation. He is consistently successful. He was before Limbaugh talked him down and he has been since. But this isn't an aberration. Limbaugh is always wrong. He is compensated for his bad judgement, not his foresight. If he was accurate, he wouldn't have hopeless wasted millions thrown at him. He gets paid to get it all wrong, because there is a specific audience out there who need it to come to them wrong so that it will seem to them like they were right all along. Buy the Rams Rush, and will see you create one of the worst franchises in the history of the league. That is, if you hold to your track record.
Also, one thing I took from the Donovan McNabb incident that doesn't seem to be brought up so much is that Rush Limbaugh was simply hitting his own pitiful average (to reference another sport on this.) It wasn't that he made an unusual gaffe over McNabb, it was that he used the same logic he always uses, very little and skewed tremendously, to try to make a point that only makes sense to a limited and specific audience. The only difference is that in sports it is harder to argue over the results. McNabb is unarguably one of the best quarterbacks of his generation. He is consistently successful. He was before Limbaugh talked him down and he has been since. But this isn't an aberration. Limbaugh is always wrong. He is compensated for his bad judgement, not his foresight. If he was accurate, he wouldn't have hopeless wasted millions thrown at him. He gets paid to get it all wrong, because there is a specific audience out there who need it to come to them wrong so that it will seem to them like they were right all along. Buy the Rams Rush, and will see you create one of the worst franchises in the history of the league. That is, if you hold to your track record.
USA!
Posted on 6:36 PM by Unknown
Congrats USA for making the World Cup for the 6th straight time. Was anyone able to watch the game?
This....Exactly
Posted on 6:22 PM by Unknown
Sorry for the feast or famine nature of posting recently (to those who read anyway) and the lack of actual writing in the postings. I was working at the elementary school and busy everywhere else. A three day weekend found me rarely at home.
This article on student debt hits to close to home for me to even write about. If I start it will turn into the kind of downward sucking vortex whose spin science has shown us can not actually grow large enough to hamper a ship. Mine could. My student debt isn't even that high. It is just that unpayable. The frustrating part is that you are not allowed to advance in society until it is. I can't get an assistantship or any other loans for grad-school until my debt is paid, or being paid, the same process really, but I can't get a better job, especially in this economy until I go to grad school, which is pretty much all I have ever wanted to do. The frustrating thing is, and I have a feeling this isn't just me, is that I did nothing irresponsible along the way. I went to school, like we are all supposed to. I went to school, I even tranfserred to a cheaper school fearing the financial implications. I graduated and got a good job on JET. The only real mistake I made was leaving JET but that was for a girl, and when you are 24 you make decisions about girls that you really shouldn't. After that I did okay for money but the economy crashed. I didn't see that as what was happening at the time but reading back now it is clear that Japan went down before America, and Miyazaki went first in Japan. (If you exclude Okinawa, which started from further down and is always kind of down.) When I quit eikaiwa I was lined up for a very good paying job that disappeared due to the economy and I had quit eikaiwa because I wasn't getting paid. Schools in Osaka stopped paying for full time teachers because their city government went in debt. Osaka built the ATC and tried to bid on the Olympics, meanwhile me, and people like me suffer under the yoke of our on seemingly responsible decisions. It is at the point now, and I am sure I am not alone in this, where joining the military seems like the only rational decision and the only way to address debt. Debt that I again emphasize was incurred in trying to make all of the right decisions. Not by spending on credit cards, not in buying cars. Not in building useless skyscrapers or starting senseless wars. I am just part of a group of people who it has been decided are just big enough to allow to fail.
Update
One related thing I forgot to mention is:
This system of debt serves to create a permanent underclass that finds it impossible to move up in society based on their own merit. It means that grad-school and other professions are accessible to people who don't need learns and can have their debts paid for them. Of course, that includes people who worked hard and earned scholarships. But also includes a class of dilettantes who will only reinforce their position. This couples with the current health care disaster to create an underclass and force it down lower and lower and render it permanent.
This article on student debt hits to close to home for me to even write about. If I start it will turn into the kind of downward sucking vortex whose spin science has shown us can not actually grow large enough to hamper a ship. Mine could. My student debt isn't even that high. It is just that unpayable. The frustrating part is that you are not allowed to advance in society until it is. I can't get an assistantship or any other loans for grad-school until my debt is paid, or being paid, the same process really, but I can't get a better job, especially in this economy until I go to grad school, which is pretty much all I have ever wanted to do. The frustrating thing is, and I have a feeling this isn't just me, is that I did nothing irresponsible along the way. I went to school, like we are all supposed to. I went to school, I even tranfserred to a cheaper school fearing the financial implications. I graduated and got a good job on JET. The only real mistake I made was leaving JET but that was for a girl, and when you are 24 you make decisions about girls that you really shouldn't. After that I did okay for money but the economy crashed. I didn't see that as what was happening at the time but reading back now it is clear that Japan went down before America, and Miyazaki went first in Japan. (If you exclude Okinawa, which started from further down and is always kind of down.) When I quit eikaiwa I was lined up for a very good paying job that disappeared due to the economy and I had quit eikaiwa because I wasn't getting paid. Schools in Osaka stopped paying for full time teachers because their city government went in debt. Osaka built the ATC and tried to bid on the Olympics, meanwhile me, and people like me suffer under the yoke of our on seemingly responsible decisions. It is at the point now, and I am sure I am not alone in this, where joining the military seems like the only rational decision and the only way to address debt. Debt that I again emphasize was incurred in trying to make all of the right decisions. Not by spending on credit cards, not in buying cars. Not in building useless skyscrapers or starting senseless wars. I am just part of a group of people who it has been decided are just big enough to allow to fail.
Update
One related thing I forgot to mention is:
This system of debt serves to create a permanent underclass that finds it impossible to move up in society based on their own merit. It means that grad-school and other professions are accessible to people who don't need learns and can have their debts paid for them. Of course, that includes people who worked hard and earned scholarships. But also includes a class of dilettantes who will only reinforce their position. This couples with the current health care disaster to create an underclass and force it down lower and lower and render it permanent.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Joel Tudor
Posted on 6:12 PM by Unknown
I confess to having never heard of this guy until he was brought up at the gym yeterday. Good on you man.
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