Nucleation
This, again, illustrates why the ant-AGW faction drives me around the bend. It has everything: a paper is published, the Echosphere picks it up and wildly misrepresents it to claim that global warming has now been disproven. And none — none — will ever correct the record. In fact, this will be dragged out as a bullet point for every “global warming is a myth” post in the future.
Weekend Linkorama
Mathematical Malpractice Watch: Coaches
In Gregg Eastebrook’s column today, he laments that only 16 of the 32 coaches in the league have won a playoff game.
Well, only 4 to 8 teams will win a playoff game in any particular year. If you plug that into a probability calculation, it would take about 3-4 years for a group of coaches to get to the point where half of them had won a game. Of course, playoff wins tend to be bunched around certain teams and coaches who win get retained while coaches who don’t get fired. So let’s say that in a typical league, you’d expect 4-6 years for about half the coaches to have a playoff win. That’s pretty close to the typical lifespan of a coach. In other words, this is about what you’d expect.
Is this new? Are teams suddenly going with inexperienced coaches? Nope.
In 2000, 13 of the 31 opening day coaches had a playoff win.
In 1990, 14 of the 28 opening day coaches had a playoff win.
In 1980, 11 of the 28 opening day coaches had a a playoff win, albeit with fewer games.
So, yeah. It’s not amateur hour at all.
(Doing the research on that was entertaining. So many flopped coaches who never amounted to anything. And so many who came in with little record and went on to greatness. It’s kind of fun to click on, say, Jimmy Johnson’s name and see that he had no playoff wins going into Dallas and so many in front of him. Experience is not everything, even in coaching.)
Easterbrook has a mental block on coaches, frankly, seeming to think that the only coaches that should be hired are “proven winners”. When a team hires a coach from college, he’ll slag that, pointing out the difference between college and the pros. But if they hire a coordinator from an NFL team, he’ll slag that since they have no head coaching experience in the pros. And if they hire an NFL coach who hasn’t won in the playoffs, he’ll slag that too, apparently.
I guess the only thing teams can do to appease TMQ is to clone Tony Dungy.
Kiva
I love stuff like this:
Intercontinental Ballistic Microfinance from Kiva on Vimeo.
It’s a visualization of the Kiva microlending effort, which is helping to build real businesses and success in third world countries. That’s real foreign aide, not the corrupt welfare bullshit we usually call foreign aide.
13 Ghosts
The blogosphere is aflutter about a recent article outlining a supposed method for picking the winner of Presidential elections. The author has 13 points he evaluates the election on and if a candidate has eight of them in his favor, he will supposedly win election. Supposedly, this method correctly reproduces the winner of almost every past election — that is, if you credit it with picking the winner of the popular vote instead of the electoral college. And he’s claiming Obama will win in 2012.
The criteria are:
1. Party mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the House of Representatives than it did after the previous midterm elections.
2. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3. Incumbency: The incumbent party’s candidate is the sitting president.
4. Third Party: There is no significant third party challenge.
5. Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6. Long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
7. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
8. Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
10. Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
11. Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
12. Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party’s candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
13. Challenger charisma: The challenging party’s candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.
I scarcely need get into how silly and subjective this is. Nate Silver has thoroughly and systematically torn apart this “method”, pointing out that the author frequently changes a candidate’s “charisma” rating and bizarrely counts Obama’s most unpopular policies in his favor.
It seems to me you don’t need to go to 13 points to have a good feel for an election. You really only need two:
1) Is he of the incumbent party?
2) How’s the economy doing?
That explains the elections of 2008, 2004, 2000 (if you count that as a Gore win), 1996, 1992, 1988, 1984, 1980, 1976, 1972, etc. Really, the only 20th century President I can think of who won re-election in a crummy economy was FDR. To be fair, one of those wins was because the GOP ignored the plain language of the Constitution, which says, “On no account can the President of the United States be named Wendell Willkie. Seriously, guys.”
That having been said, I do think Obama will probably win in 2012 for the same reason FDR kept winning: the economy is not as bad as it was when he took office and the opposition is comprised of gerbils and circus clowns. Obama will be able to point to healthcare reform, Osama bin Laden and the withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s weak on the economy and the deficit, but even marginal improvements will negate that.
Obama is polling 40% right now, but that’s ahead of previous re-elected incumbents. And he hasn’t really started campaigning. While Obama might poll badly 14 months in advance, he has a tendency to exceed expectations in actual elections. His tendency is to let his opponents rant and rave and foam at the mouth right up to the point when he beats them. He beat Clinton and McCain this way and it is quite likely that he will beat beat Perry or Romney. The GOP continues to miss this about Obama: he has ice water in his veins. He doesn’t panic; he doesn’t freak out; he just slowly and calmly wins.
It’s simply a fact that American hate to throw out incumbent Presidents. They really need something to vote for and the GOP isn’t there yet. Half the country is mad that they almost hit the debt ceiling while the other half is mad they go so little for almost hitting it. They’re doing some decent things — especially at the state level. But the national party still seems confused at best and the polls keep jumping to whatever the lates flavor of the month is: Trump, Bachmann, Perry, [insert next GOP hopeful here]. “I’m not Bush” didn’t propel Kerry into the White House in 2004. I just don’t see “I’m not Obama” working out in 2012.
I mean, what does it say that some of the biggest GOP guns are clearly angling for 2016?
Of course, things can change in the next year, which makes Mr. 13 Points even more irrelevant than normal. At this point in 1991, Saturday Night Live ran a sketch where Democrats debated over not being the nominee against Bush the Elder. If the economy implodes, Obama can have all the points he wants; he’s still going to lose.
But I doubt the economy is going to get worse. I doubt a huge scandal is going to erupt. I doubt that a third party challenge will come from the Left. And that, most likely, leaves us with four more years of Obama.
I can probably deal with that if the GOP holds onto the House and picks up some Senate seats. That division of power would force Obama’s hand on the deficit and spending if he wants any legacy at all. The GOP may or may not believe in small government, but they definitely believe in opposing the Democrats. It’s no accident that the best part of Obama’s presidency has been the last eight months.
The Bond Films: Connery
(To clarify a point from the last post on this: I watch these when I’m on the treadmill, but that watching is spread over multiple nights. I’m getting better, but a half hour is about my limit on the hamster wheel.)
I’m about to commit an act of blasphemy. Sean Connery was not the ideal embodiment of James Bond, even if such a thing could be said to exist.
Connery was, however, perfect for the movies that the Bond Films became. Watching them in a short time span really drives home that point. The movies evolved to better suit Connery’s performance: his dry wit, his confidence, his skill in making the most ridiculous action scenes believable. The man and the movies became inseparable, which is why they struggled to find a voice once he was gone.
The Connery years simply had style. That’s all there is to it. The rhythms of the movies — jazzy score, solid action, beautiful girls, sexual politics, gadgets — were a rhythm the series would lose after Connery left and never recover. The recent films quit trying and went with a different aesthetic, which is probably wise. The Connery films simply wouldn’t work today. When you watch them, you instantly know when they were made: the inventive 60’s when the Hayes Code was collapsing and film-makers were stretching their wings.
Going film by film:
Dr. No, which I rate 8/10 and IMBD rates as the fourth best of the series is probably the most true to the Bond of the novels. I like it because it is built around a spy adventure, rather than action sequences. Bond kills in cold blood and is focused tightly on the mission. The sex and drinking are a manifestation of his nature, not a distraction from it.
Everyone talks about Ursula Andress as the ultimate Bond Girl. Well, fair enough. But I always preferred Zena Marshall as the beautiful traitorous Miss Taro. And she is at the center of one of the most interesting sequences in the film. A remarkable thing about the 60’s Bond movies was just how coldly Bond and his opponents used sex as a weapon. There is a sequence where Taro invites Bond to her house for a liason so that No’s gangsters can kill him on the way. Once he gets there, they have sex twice — her to delay him long enough for another attempt on his life; him … well just to have some fun before he turns her in. It’s almost jarring. You would almost never see this today.
From Russia with Love, which I rate a 9 and IMDB rates as the third best Bond, is what every Bond film should be. It has a great spy story, a gorgeous Bond girl in Daniela Bianchi and not one, but two awesome villans in Robert Shaw and Lotte Lenya. It adheres close to the novel, has dynamite action scenes and more tension than the entire Moore years combined. The final fights between Bond and Grant and Bond and Klebb are visceral in a way later films would try and fail to reproduce. If I ever took over the Bond series, I would tell everyone to watch From Russia with Love for inspiration.
Russia also continues the theme of using sex as a weapon. SPECTRE tries to use Romanova as bait for Bond and he cooperates because … well mainly because Daniela Bianchi is so beautiful.
By the end of Russia, all the pieces of the next decade are in place. Lois Maxwell and Bernard Lee show up i No. Desmond Llewelyn first appears here. SPECTRE is an established villain. The great music and action rhythms and glamorous Bond girls are ready to become a staple. It would all come together the next time out.
Goldfinger, which rates as the second best Bond movie and which Ebert included in his great movies is a step down, I think, even though it’s the film were all the elements finally came together. I rate it a 8/10. I’m not dissing it; it’s great. And I won’t argue with people who think this, rather than Russia was the pinnacle of the Connery era if not the entire series. It has a great score, an iconic villan, great action scenes, even a dazzling theme song from Shirley Bassey. It has the style I referenced above, which is something the later films lacked. Honor Blackman was never one of my favorite Bond Girls, even if she was the most infamous. And again, we see he naked sexual politics of the early films — Bond saves the world by seducing Goldfinger’s henchwoman.
So why do I rate it below Russia? Well, it’s praising with faint damnation. It’s not that I dislike Goldfinger, I just like Russia more.
Thunderball: IMDB ranks this as the 7th best Bond film and I gave it an 8. A step down from Goldfinger, it still has its pleasures. SPECTRE is in full flower, not as faceless enemy but as a fully realized organization. The underwater battle scene is still thrilling after four decades and Claudine Auger and Luciana Paluzzi are two of my all-time favorite Bond girls.
As before, the use of sex as a weapon is front and center in the tryst between the villainous Volpe and Bond. As with No, she’s delaying him for the bad guys to arrive; he’s having fun and maybe hoping to flip her against SPECTRE. He clearly knows who she is and doesn’t care because she’s hot.
One last thing. There’s is apparently some debate over whether Bond deliberately turned Volpe into the path of the bullet when her henchman try to shoot him. To me, this isn’t even a question. He spots the gun, turns her into it, then casually lays her dead body in a chair. There’s no shock or sadness from him at all. It’s obvious it was deliberate. And utterly consistent with his character.
You Only Live Twice: IMDB ranks this as the 8th best Bond, I give it an 8. What amuses me is that the plot of the film — which is the first to basically ignore the book — is utterly absurd. The idea that SPECTRE could put together its own space program AND keep it quiet is pure silliness. But the movie forges ahead with such confidence and style in its ridiculous plot that I don’t mind at all. It remains one of my favorites, even if it doomed future films by raising the bar on silly plots.
(Ignoring Fleming’s novel would create problems down the road for The Man With The Golden Gun. But I’ll address that when the time comes.)
Diamonds are Forever: IMDB ranks this 13th, I give it a 7.0. I like it more than it deserves, probably because I like Lana Wood and Jill St. John more than I should. But it has other highlights as well, notably Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint. I read some review that described them as terrible villains, but I found them wonderfully menacing.
Interesting point about Kidd and Wint. In the novel, they are explicitly gay. This is hinted at in the movie, but even those hints were excised on TV. Back then, people objected to the portrayal of homosexuality. If it aired now, people would object to the portrayal of homosexuals as villains.
As a sendoff to Connery, it’s serviceable. And the ridiculous moon buggy chase demonstrates perfectly why Connery was so well-suited to the movies. Put any other actor in that scene and we’d be laughing. Put Connery in it and … it works.
Hershey Linkorama
The Bond Films: Lazenby
It’s gotten too quiet around here. I need to find something to blog on. The Shakespeare Project is still going but I’ve gotten pre-occupied with the Millenium trilogy (which I’ll post on) so haven’t finished Labours yet.
However, my wife recently bought a treadmill so I can get my sorry ass into shape. I’m using it every night but I get terminally bored with exercise, so I usually drag down a computer and pop in a movie. And, right now, I’m going through the Bond films. So I though I’d put up a post on them. Actually, a series of six posts, one for each of the six bonds (Connery, Lazeby, Moore, Dalton, Brosnan, Craig).
I’m under no illusions that Bond films are art or “feeelm”. But they’re enjoyable. I think Roger Ebert put it best in his review of The World is Not Enough: Bond films are like wine. Some years they’re good, some years they’re not so good but you can always get drunk on them (actually, I’m not sure that’s quite what Ebert meant). You judge them as they are — for coolness, for Bond, for Bond girls, for action sequences. I don’t think they have any deeper meaning; that’s the fun.
I’ll dive right in with the Lazenby “era” since it’s short (one film) and I’m watching them in order so need to watch Diamonds are Forever before talking about Connery.
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is criminally under-rated (IMDB has it at 6.8, #9 among Bond films), mostly because Lazenby is criminally under-rated. He’s no Connery, true. But he’s utterly competent, comfortable in the action scenes and makes the finale one of the best scenes in the series. The story is very good, mostly because it sticks closely to Fleming’s solid novel (which I’ve read) and because of Diana Rigg’s excellent performance. Actually, Rigg is essential to the movie, which drags quite a bit whenever she is not on screen. The way she deals with Blofeld is marvelous and watching her tangle with his thugs makes one wish she’d been in a slightly different role — one that would have seen her as a sidekick in multiple bond movies.
Actually, I want to explore that last point. SPECTRE only made one appearance in the novels before Bond basically destroyed it. Most of the actions of SPECTRE were, in the novelizations, done by SMERSH. I’m guessing the producers felt that making SMERSH the primary enemy would make the films feel like anti-Communist propaganda. But the decision to move SPECTRE up to the point where it dominated the first seven films was a wise one, giving Bond a recurring enemy that the Moore years sadly lacked and the Craig years are trying to re-create.
How might the films have been different if Tracy had been introduced earlier, being a recurring Bond Girl as Sylvia Tranch was intended to be? Their eventual romance and her death in Service would have been elevated to an epic tragedy.
Anyway, Service is one I really like and I rate it an 8. It would be a 9 but … really … Telly Savalas? Ilse Steppat was awesome as Bunt, bringing the fierceness of Rosa Klebb. Her early death prevented her from reprising the role. But Savalas really didn’t do it for me.
Back in SC Linkorama
Beach Linkorama
The Shakespeare Project: Much Ado About Nothing
For it so falls out That what we have we prize not to the worth whiles we enjoy it, but being lack’d and lost, why, then we rack the value, then we find the virtue that possession would not show us whiles it was ours.
Much Ado is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays and would fight it out with Midsummer Night’s Dream for the title of favorite comedy (Puck has a good right hook). Everything works. The drama is strong, the characters vivid. The dialogue between Benedick and Beatrice sizzles on the page and explodes in performance. They even made a good movie out of it, Keanu Reeves not withstanding.
One element that jumped out at me on a second reading was the critical scene after the failed wedding. Leonato immediately denounces his own daughter, then turns 180 degrees and promises to kill those who slandered her. He is so mortally obsessed with his honor, he almost single-handedly changes this comedy into a tragedy. One could easily see it careening off to having all the leads dead by their own or others’ hands. All because Leonato’s outrage sways with every wind that blows.
What saves the action is the Friar, a part not commented on very much. It is he who suggests delaying rash action until the truth is known. It is he who comes up with the plan to provoke Claudio’s remorse by faking Hero’s death. He literally saves everyone. It’s been pointed out that the only men who survive Hamlet are a student and a soldier. Interesting that the only man in Much Ado who retains hold of his senses is a man of God.
One much-commented upon aspect of the play is the War between the Sexes, as best embodied by Balthazar’s song about the nature of men (which Branagh notably selected as the first words of his marvelous film adaptation). I’ve been recently following the debate between Dan Savage and others about the feasibility of monogamy. Savage has been advocating that people unsuited to it would be better off if they tolerated relationships that are, in his words, “monogamish”: where the occasional infidelity is tolerated so long as the primary relationship is respected and maintained (this being common for much of history). Shakespeare, being an Elizabethan, embraces the idea that men should abandon the “masculine” temperament for sleeping around for the “feminine” temperate of settling down (I’ve described Hollywood versions of this as the Male Maturity Movie). He also embraces the madonna/whore duality and tight control of female sexuality that was so prevalent in his day and has been so damaging to Western thought.
I’m not game to impose modern attitudes on him and pretend that he’s mocking these attitudes: he clearly isn’t. The thread runs through all of his plays. But Much Ado is a great play built on this essential conflict in the natures of men and women and the incompatibility of those natures with societal strictures.
Somewhere, my old English teacher just had an orgasm.
Next Up: Love’s Labours Lost
Weekend Linkorama
The Shakespeare Project: The Comedy of Errors
Marry, sir, she’s he kitchen wench, and all grease; and I know not what use to put her to, but to make a lamp of her and run from her by her own light. I warrant, her rages, and the tallow in them, wil burn a Poland winter: if she lives till Doomsday, she’ll burn week longer than the whole world. – Dromio
The Comedy of Errors is simple pure fun. Oh, I’m sure plenty of people can find deep meaning it. But you don’t have to go that deep to enjoy the pure foolishness of the plot, the characters and the dialogue. I literally laughed out loud a few times, notably in Dromio of Syracuse’s description of Dromio of Ephesus’ wife, from which the above is drawn.
Even in this comedy, however, you see once again how Shakepeare balances his comedies right on the edge of tragedy. A single mis-step and poorly timed meeting and you end up with one brother killing another for sleeping with his wife, the father executed, the servants in prison and the mother flinging herself from the nearest tall building. But the genius of the comedies is that they never have to play out that way. They don’t have a shocking ending for its own sake. We know, from the first scene, that all will end in laughter rather than tears. In fact, I had the whole plot in mind by Act 2. But, as I’ve said, it’s the journey from Point A to Point B that makes these so enjoyable.
Next Up: Much Ado About Nothing. One of my favorites.