Let this be a lesson to astronomers everywhere, be sure to publish first!
Tubes
Youtube strips the audio from any video that might have copyright violations. This is getting ridiculous. I would hope that Obama would revise the laws regarding fair use. But given that he recently appointed the RIAA’s hand-picked lawyer to the Justice Department, I’m not optimistic.
Update: As pointed out at Reason, this essentially bans rick-rolling.
Bushisms
Slate lists the top 25. I drives me nuts when Bush’s defenders — his few remaining defenders — claim that he’s a good president but a bad public speaker.
Effective communication is part of the job description, guys. Reagan was able to advance a conservative agenda, in part, because he could persuade the American people to support it.
Well, that and he wasn’t a unprincipled shill only interested in defeating the other party.
Monday Night Linkorama
My Entry
Into the Bono Contest: “I’m drunk!”.
Managing The Revolution
Sullivan made this point last week:
What we have learned is that once Islamists actually wield power, their popularity collapses. Religious fanatics do not know how to run countries; their real interests lie elsewhere (you can apply that on a much lesser scale, of course, to the competence of the Bush administration). The place where Shiite Jihadism is least popular? Iran. And remember how al Qaeda managed to turn off the Jordanians after various atrocities; and how they lost the battle for the hearts and minds of Iraqis (with the brilliant and brave help of US troops) – after the Bush administration unwittingly gave them a lease of life in that country?
Now: if you’re a rational kind of person you might deduce from this that containing Islamism and letting it collapse under its own insanity is certainly a viable policy, given the unsavory alternatives. You might at least consider that taking the bait from these guys and reigniting religious wars might actually be giving them the oxygen they need.
Once again, I am struck by the parallel between Islamism and communism. The communists were all sexy and revolutionary when they were guerillas. The second they got into power, their ideology failed. Look at the Khmer Rouge. Or Mao. Or the Hollywood worship of Che Guevara and Casto vs. the reality of Cuba.
There are times when we have to fight, however. We couldn’t tolerate Communist incursion in central America. We had to bulk up our military in Europe to prevent a Soviet invasion. We funded guerillas in Afghanistan — eventually producing the Taliban as a side effect.
The current war differs from the last in that the enemy has no compunction about attacking us with small cells of maniacs. That doesn’t necessarily mean we have to go to war with every terrorist coddler out there. But it does mean we have to be more pro-active.
Snowfall Linkorama
As the snow comes down here in lovely PA, I find myself reading the following:
Bush leaves to his successor two unfinished wars, Osama bin Laden living in an unstable Pakistan, a U.S. reputation soiled by Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and torture, a deep recession and what is sure to be the first $1 trillion-plus deficit. In short, a gigantic mess, all the bigger for the peace, prosperity and black ink he inherited.
…
Bush both grew the government and gave laissez-faire a bad name, overseeing a rash of corporate scandals in 2002 and the housing meltdown. The financial wreckage has many fathers, but Bush, the first MBA president, stands among them, failing to restrain the liquidity bubble as it ballooned and asking for $700 billion to rescue banks as it burst. The GOP is fractured and adrift.
“Bush has really destroyed small-government conservatism,” said David Boaz, vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute.
Read the whole thing.
Design
I can’t believe it myself. But ESPN’s recent site redesign actually improve the site. I’m so used to site redesigns making things worse (TV.com’s recent change was horrid).
Balto
Th only thing that surprises me about the Baltimore Mayor being indicted for corruption is that the Governor wasn’t indicted too.
Tooting My Own Horn
Everyone is debating the appropriateness of Sanjay Gupta as Surgeon General and his spat with Michael Moore is in the headlines. I defended Gupta over at Moorewatch, but he was debating minutia with Michael Moore rather than going after the bigger lie, which was claiming that healthcare in Cuba was as good as that in the US.
Over at Moorewatch, I wrote a long post using Moore’s own data to show that this was garbage. The number he used was a “bang for buck” number which ranked the US and Cuba nearly equal because Cuba’s horrid healthcare is cheap and our good healthcare is very expensive. In terms of healthcare quality, we ranked #1 in the WHO survey while Cuba ranked #115.
Another Bubble
Carbon credit scams are a $118 billion business. You should watch Penn and Teller’s show in which they have a random woman sell these in a parking lot. No one cares for any documentation. They just hand over money.
SEC! SEC!
So, as with last year, I’ll give the results of my Bowl Championship points system. I created this a couple of years ago as a response to (then) Cooper Tire’s Bowl Championship Cup. The Cup was given out to the conference that did the best in the bowl season. But it was given out for the best winning percentage with three or more games. So one year, the Mountain West went 2-1 and won the cup. Wahoo.
The system I created works like so: Each conference gets two points for a bowl win, an extra point for a BCS bowl win and loses a point for a bowl loss. So it rewards conferences that are both in a lot of bowls and do well in them. Yes, it favors the major conferences. But it should favor them as they usually have far more depth than the mid-majors (look carefully at the bottom of the Mountain West before you claim they’re as good as, say, the Big 10). The system is fair, I think, because it mostly favors the top conferences but a mid-major can win if they have a really great season.
I’ve now run the series back to the first year of the BCS (1998). Here are the results:
1998-1999: Both systems favor the Big 10, which went 5-0 with two BCS wins.
1999-2000: Both systems favor the Big 10, which went 5-2 with two BCS wins.
2000-1: The Mountain West had the best record at 3-0, but my system favors the Big East’s 4-1 record with a BCS win.
2001-2: The Big East took the BC Cup based on a 4-1 record. My system would have given it to the SEC since they were 5-3 but won two BCS games.
2002-3: Both systems give the cup to the Big 10, which went 5-2 with a BCS win and national title for Ohio State.
2003-4: The ACC wins the BC cup based on a 5-1 record. My system puts the SEC in a tie because they went 5-2 with a BCS win. This is a perfect example of how the systems differ because the Cup favors the conference that had fewer bowl games while my system favors the conference that had more bowl games.
I don’t weigh national titles in the system because of my belief that such title are arbitrary (see previous rantings). But if I used it as a tie-breaker, the SEC would win since LSU took a share of the national title.
2004-5: The Cup went to the Mountain West based on a 2-1 record. I gave it to the Big 12, which 4-3 with a BCS win. That was the lowest winning score (6 points) of any winner.
2005-6: The Cup splits between ACC and Big-12 as both had 5-3 records. My system gives it to the Big 12, which also won a BCS game and a title.
2006-7: The Cup went to the Big East based on a 5-0 record. My system puts the SEC in a tie. Although they went 6-3, two of those wins were BCS wins and one was for the national title.
2007-8: Again, the Mountain West wins the cup with a 4-1 performance. My system gives it to the SEC, which went 7-2 with 2 BCS wins. Their 14 point performance is the highest out of any year in the system.
2008-9: Another year where one conference — the Pac-10 — goes 5-0. But with a 6-2 record, a BCS win and a title, the SEC is favored in the point system.
It’s interesting to watch conferences wax and wane. When the system started, the Big 10 was the king while the Pac 10 was weak. Then the Big-12 took over. Now the SEC rules while the Big 10 is on the outs (6-16 over the last three years). The Big East has been consistently strong. Even the mid-majors have cycles. Conference USA was terrible for a while.
(It’s also fascinating to watch the number of bowls swell from 22 to 34. So much for the BCS killing off the bowls. Why don’t we want a playoff again?)
It may seem like my system is biased in favor of the SEC. But I designed it when the SEC was in a down cycle and it was favoring the Big-12. The SEC does better in my system simply because they get into more bowls and win more bowls. Over the BCS years that I have now entered into the system, here are the records of each conference:
SEC: 50-35 (12 BCS wins) = 77 points
Big East: 32-21 (6 BCS wins) = 49 points
Big 12: 41-42 (7 BCS wins) = 47 points
Pac 10: 31-28 (9 BCS wins) = 43 points
ACC: 36-38 (2 BCS wins) = 36 points
Big 10: 34-40 (9 BCS wins) = 36 points
Mountain West: 21-15 (2 BCS wins) = 29 points
WAC: 17-22 (1 BCS win) = 13 points
Conference USA: 21-31 (0 BCS wins) = 11 points
MAC: 12-16 (0 BCS wins) = 8 points
Big West: 3-0 (0 BCS wins) = 6 points
Sun Belt: 4-7 (0 BCS wins) = 1 point
Independents: 3-10 (0 BCS wins) = -4 points
Now we see the larger picture and it’s one that will cause my friend Chris to explode. The SEC has far-and-away the best Bowl record, followed by the Big East. The other conferences cluster near .500. This is true if you use W-L, national titles, BCS bowl wins o or my system as he marker. The system actually favors the Big 10, which would slip under the Mountain West on pure win percentage. One wonders where that conference would be if it weren’t for Paterno and Penn State (5-2, 1 BCS, 9 points all on their own).
Preserves
Evil planet-destroying George Bush has vastly exanded marine nature reserves. But that won’t fit in with the narrative.
Prediction
Matthew Stafford will be a huge disappointment at the NFL level. I don’t blame him for taking the money. A shoulder injury next year and he’s out tens of millions. But he’s not polished enough to succeed at the pro level. He may never be.
I hope I’m wrong.