Bucks prove me correct

God, they're just so sloppy and awful...but watching Brandon Jennings was completely worth having to sit through the game. He came a rebound and an assist short of being only the second player to debut with a triple-double, the other being Oscar Robertson.

Anyway, here's something else - Life imitates Arrested Development

Milwaukee Bucks

First game of the season is tonight at 6:00 against the Sixers and, for the first time in like 7 years, I guess I'll be watching. I've hated the NBA and blamed that hatred on boring games, stupid officiating, and seasons that were too long, but I think the more accurate reason was that the Bucks were real bad and, worse, real boring. You can't inject any enthusiasm for a team by grabbing players like Andrew Bogut, Yi Jianlian, and Joe Alexander. But you grab Brandon Jennings and I guess I'll come back around to you.



If that's not enough to make you fall in love with Brandon Jennings then check it out -

Jennings also has discovered some good local restaurants and might even be able to add a few pounds to his scrawny frame.

"I like to go into what everybody calls the 'hood area,' " he says. "I go to the social restaurants. Mr. Perkins (Family Restaurant) is off the hook."

Mr. Perkins? I am so in. That's what we're calling it now.

update courtesy of kole:

Halloween Idea

xkcd

If I went as any Back to the Future character I'd go as Eric Stoltz as Marty Mcfly.

Favre as Robert E. Lee

Fact: Like Favre, Robert E. Lee was also known for having fun on the field

Thomas P.M. Barrett writes an article for Esquire comparing this Sunday's Packers/Vikings game to a hypothetical Civil War scenario casting Brett Favre as Robert E. Lee, the Packers as Confederates, and Aaron Rodgers as, I guess?, Stonewall Jackson (but Stonewall died before he was able to replace Lee and demonstrate his better pocket mobility and ability to control throwing back-breaking interceptions late in games). Here. My devotion to the Packers outweighs any discomfort of being analogized to the less-than-sympathetic confederacy. Let the Union lose if that goddamned turncoat Brett Favre is gonna be their general.

So imagine this: At the kickoff to the Fall 1863 campaign, Lee suddenly announces that he's coming out of retirement... and signed with Lincoln's Union Army! Declaring that he has at least one or two more campaigns in him, Lee proclaims that this is nothing personal and that he simply wants to end his military career on a high note, playing for a team with a better chance at near-term victory. Yes, he'll always be a Confederate at heart, but since his wife and children are more than supportive, why not just give it one more go? As for his many admirers in the South who feel a deep sense of betrayal, Lee offers this terse response: "If they don't want me to win in a blue uniform, then they never believed me in the first place."

Let the beat ride

The Schwarzenegger Code

If I was ever in charge of writing a government document I'd overload it up with secret messages.

It was hardly a bill of cosmic import, but Assemblymember Tom Ammiano’s AB 1176 would have helped the Port of San Francisco with some financing issues. It’s the kind of bill that legislators offer on behalf of their cities all the time -- and generally, they are non-controversial. This one was the same -- no substantive opposition, it passed both houses easily -- and normally, the governor would sign it with little fanfare.

But no: Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill -- and sent Ammiano and the legislators a remarkable veto letter. The letter says nothing about the substance of the bill; in fact, the language is really convoluted and it’s hard to figure out what the gov is really saying.

Ideas for the commune

Paging John Beck. I know that without the Orbitz gig we all may have to wait a bit longer for you to buy the huge lot of land for us to start our commune life, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't start making a checklist of ideas to implement into our lifestyles.

It seems to me that the best way to instantly raise your standard of living is to live in the past. If you subsist entirely on two-year-old entertainment, and the corresponding two-year-old technology used to power it, you’re cutting your fun budget in half, freeing up that money for more exciting expenditures like parking meters and postage....

That’s why I’m going to start my own cult. A counter-cult, if you will, but not a cult actually involved with counters like you’d see at Home Depot. My cult will be called the Cult of the Somewhat Delayed, and like all good cults we will shun contact with outsiders. I’ll probably also get some chanting going — I like chanting.

The main purpose of the cult will be to allow us to enjoy two-year-old entertainment and technology without being corrupted by the heathen new-havers. In order to remain blissfully ignorant of spoilers and shiny new temptations, we will constantly live as if it were two years in the past.

90 years ago today

Prohibition began.

Prohibition played a major role in the standardization of bad beer in this country. I am just beginning research on a book length project on beer and local breweries in America and I understand that up until Prohibition, local breweries around the nation made a wide variety of sometimes very high quality beer. I hear the original recipe for Coors produces a quite delicious beer, though I have not had it. But after years of not drinking beer, the public had largely lost its taste for complex beers by 1933 and in order to survive, the breweries who managed to reopen after fourteen years found it in their interests to produce weak lagers that appealed to wider audience. I need to research this phenomenon in significantly more detail, but if we have the Volstead Act to blame for Miller Lite and Keystone, I am going to be even more full of rage than I already am.

Have a beer, celebrate freedom.

Sharks!!

20ft shark bites 10ft great white shark in half. Woah.



Lake Michigan is shark free. Just another reason why Milwaukee is the 2nd safest city in the nation.

And now, from the documentary Spring Break: Shark Attack!, how to survive a shark attack -

Milwaukee

Tisko linked me to a new Forbes.com survey that has Milwaukee listed as the 2nd safest city. Minneapolis is number 1. Milwaukee is the 16th most violent city that Forbes looked at, but we here in Milwaukee don't ever have to worry about dying from a natural disaster so it launched us into second. Like Tisko said, there must be something about Milwaukee that makes judges fudge with the numbers to get Milwaukee to rank well after this and last year's surprise victory in Marie Claire's Sexiest City.

Awful Library Books

I could waste a lot of time here but I have to go to class. This is my favorite so far in a minute of browsing -



This is just calling out for an update, right? I think that I'm just the guy to persuade American teenagers to just go for that facial reconstruction they've always had their eye on cause, let's face it, that face isn't going to grow into that nose.

edit: Then I can recommend this book -



via shysterball

Tina Fey makes ppl's heads explode

Apparently I'm not the only person who can't keep the many permutations of Tina Fey straight. Witness the sad confusion.

Steve Kagen

A House aide has said that Steve Kagen, a democratic congressman from my parent's district, is vowing to vote against ANY health care bill coming out of the House.

A House aide working for a progressive member tells me that Kagen has commented repeatedly on “value-based reimbursement,” in other words moving away from fee-for-service medicine, which tends to give doctors a financial incentive to call for more tests and more treatment, driving up costs. There are substantial pieces of delivery system reform in the bill, though perhaps not to Kagen’s specifications. “It’s unconscionable to use that as a veto,” the aide said. “Except for the public option, there’s nothing objectionable here that should cause anything in favor of reform to vote against the bill.” As the aide put it, this is something of a fig leaf, to pick the fee-for-service issue as a cover for not wanting to take a tough vote in a tough district. It’s certainly possible that this is a principled argument, and with Kagen being a former doctor he may have strong views on the subject. But there is some disconnect between such a stand, the fact that the bill includes many of these delivery system reforms, and the swing district in Wisconsin that Kagen represent. It’s certainly worth being suspicious of tangential arguments from people who claim to be supportive of reform.

I really don't know how he could vote against a bill that supports 9 out of the 10 reforms on his checklist, although I'm sympathetic to the idea of a much more value-based system -

First, we must change the nature of health insurance competition. Insurers, whether private or public, should prosper only if they improve their subscribers’ health. Today, health plans compete by selecting healthier subscribers, denying services, negotiating deeper discounts, and shifting more costs to subscribers. This zero-sum approach has given competition — and health insurers — a bad name. Instead, health plans must compete on value. We must introduce regulations to end coverage and price discrimination based on health risks or existing health problems. In addition, health plans should be required to measure and report their subscribers’ health outcomes, starting with a group of important medical conditions. Such reporting will help consumers choose health plans on the basis of value and discourage insurers from skimping on high-value services, such as preventive care. Health insurers that compete this way will drive value in the system far more effectively than government monopolies can....

Fourth, we need a reimbursement system that aligns everyone’s interests around improving value for patients. Reimbursement must move to single bundled payments covering the entire cycle of care for a medical condition, including all providers and services. Bundled payments will shift the focus to restoring and maintaining health, providing a mix of services that optimizes outcomes, and reorganizing care into integrated practice structures. For chronic conditions, bundled payments should cover extended periods of care and include responsibility for evaluating and addressing complications.

Top 100 Videos of the Decade

From Antville. 3 White Stripes videos in the top 10? I don't think so. Hardest Button to Button and Seven Nation Army don't both need to be there. Frontier Psychiatrist was better than both -

Rand Paul

Rand Paul:

Thank you Jonathan. I met Jonathan a few months ago at a tea party over in Frankfort. The Tea Party Movement seems to be everywhere. In fact, the biggest crowds and meetings that I’ve been to in Kentucky have all been Tea Parties. I had to promise my family one thing when I went out on the road to campaign. I had to promise them that I would never sing. As you can tell, my voice is kind of raspy, so I’m not going to sing. But I do have the lyrics to a song I’d like to tell you. This is a song called Trees, by Rush.

There is unrest in the forest,
There is trouble with the trees,
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas.

So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights.
“The oaks are just too greedy;
And are grabbing up all the light. (sic)
Now there’s no more oak oppression,
For they passed a noble law,
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe, and saw.

Nothing like being lectured about class mobility and being rewarded for your ability from the son of a US congressman.

That ability to be mobile within a society is what characterizes capitalism and freedom. Of course in the olden days in Europe where there was the landed gentry and the aristocracy endowed by birth not by ability or skill. So in our country we’ve always had that ability. But if you allow people to have self-interest and to strive for the best for them and their family what you do is you redistribute goods. Because if I want to become wealthy and I own Microsoft I can only do so by pleasing U.S. consumers. And so that’s what you want. You want to allow capitalism to work.

The Wandering Sons

Cory Chisel is blowing up!

And although I find the album cover sort of hilarious -



the music is real solid -



Of course, back in high school no one would have assumed the runner-up in battle of the bands to The Del-Magnums would reach such heights as playing the Jimmy Fallon show. But, man, The Del-Magnums had a hell of a show.

The Mansion

Michael Lewis (author of Moneyball, Liar's Poker, other stuff) rented a mansion in New Orleans and wrote about the experience. He stretches it a bit to make it fit into the mortgage crisis, but the anecdotes about living in a too large home and its previous owners make some interesting reading.

Monroe went on to buy not only this house but also Rosecliffe, the Newport mansion used in the filming of The Great Gatsby. He was famous for telling anyone who would listen how much money he had given away to charity. After he donated a music building to Loyola University New Orleans, he insisted that the school mount a plaque on one of its walls with an inscription he wrote:

J. Edgar Monroe has donated to ­construction of this building $1,000,000.00 (one million) in cash. my secretary has strongly urged me to make a plaque of this donation so that the students of the music school and the public will know of this gift. father carter, president of loyola university, acknowledged receipt of four $250,000.00 checks, or $1,000,000.00. mr. monroe has given over one hundred million dollars ($100,000,000.00) to organized charity of which the largest share was given to loyola university.

When Monroe’s wife, Louise, died in 1989, the old man wrote her obituary. It opened with a paragraph or two about the deceased, but then quickly moved on to detail her husband’s incredible generosity. “Mr. Monroe is still living and is 92 years of age,” he wrote. “He has been very generous and has given over one hundred million dollars to organized charity...” and so on. He too died in the house a few years later.

Book cover

A book that inspired Mad Men's title sequence?

UWM Post

Johanan Raatz does his best to couch his bigotry in history and science so that we can deem him respectable and grant his ideas consideration -

Patriarchy, for example, is seen in all human cultures throughout history. The more patriarchal a society, the more it seems to flourish. Some argue that matriarchal societies have existed, but these claims are dubious at best. Furthermore, the cultures they point to are usually hunter-gatherer societies, not nearly as fit as cultures that have evolved more patriarchal modes of life, such as the Roman or Mongol civilizations. And in contrast to more patriarchal societies, Western Europe — which is suffering a decline in patriarchy due to destructive social engineering— is also experiencing a general decline overall.

Similar correlations can be seen with heterocentrism. A few years after gay marriage appeared in various Western European countries, the overall marriage rate underwent a rapid decline as well. In addition to heterocentrism, monogamy is another part of the human logos, which is necessary for human flourishing. A strong statistical correlation between single-parent households and poverty has been well known for some time now.

As for Eurocentrism (which, in reality, is “Westernness”), it can be seen by comparison that Western (modernized) societies do objectively better than ones that are not Western. Countries like Japan or Australia are more successful than ones like Cuba or Iran. The United States, a leader among Western societies, has landed men on the moon and provided the highest standard of living for the most people of any modern country.

The new left likes to react against these sociobiological traits by labeling them as “racist,” “sexist,” “homophobic,” “chauvinist,” etc., but in reality these things can be clearly observed to be beneficial to human society. Instead of opposing such things as patriarchy, heterocentrism and the like, it might be a good idea to look to scientific human sociobiology and Darwinian social science to study and promote them. With a little constructive social engineering we can make society more patriarchal, heterocentric, and Western and with any luck raise it to new heights of progress.

Meta

So last night's 30 Rock ended with a Liz Lemon life-inspired porno. The actress that played porno Liz Lemon also starred in an actual 30 Rock-inspired porno playing Liz Lemon (fyi video has swearing) -



And that porn actress, Lisa Ann, also played Sarah Palin in the porno Nailin' Palin. So, this is what we got -

*Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin on SNL
*Lisa Ann playing Sarah Palin in actual porno
*Tina Fey playing Liz Lemon on 30 Rock
*Lisa Ann playing Tina Fey as Liz Lemon for actual porno
*Lisa Ann playing Tina Fey as Liz Lemon for fake porno in 30 Rock
*Joey's head explodes

G-Side

This is good.

Halloween Reccs

John Hawkins at Townhall.com is celebrating the Halloween season by making some movie recommendations for conservatives -

Here's the problem: horror films aren't family friendly. They're gory, they're violent, and they're vulgar. Even setting that aside, there really aren't very many "conservative" movies overall and there are almost no truly "conservative" horror flicks. Still, as a Right-Wing horror film aficionado, I can at least make a few solid recommendations that might have some extra-added appeal for conservatives.

A "Right-Wing horror film aficionado"? Nothing against the movies he picked, which are okay, or whether they really qualify as horror films (Cloverfield? No.) but what kind of messed up nutty right-wing guy do you have to be to not concede the point that horror is the most conservative of movie genres. If you have sex, you die. If you drink, you die. If you do drugs, you die. If you watch too much television, television will kill you!



And if you're going to include Silence of the Lambs as a conservative horror film, why leave off Se7en? The guy kills people who break deadly sins! What about Saw? The entire franchise revolves around the idea that you can torture people to improve themselves, not unlike -

Once the harsher techniques were used on [detainees], they could be viewed as having done their duty to Islam or their cause, and their religious principles would ask no more of them," said the former official, who requested anonymity because the events are still classified. "After that point, they became compliant. Obviously, there was also an interest in being able to later say, 'I was tortured into cooperating.' "

Regardless, any list of recommended horror films is incomplete without the inclusion of -

I want to live and not go to school in Hawaii

Schools in Hawaii are going to take Fridays off -

Students in Hawaii who have dreamt of longer weekends and shorter school weeks just got their wishes granted. As a way to trim the state's ballooning education budget, a new teachers' union contract chops 17 Fridays off the remaining academic calendar for the state's 171,000 public school students, the Associated Press reports. The President's home state will now have just 163 instructional days, while most states have 180.

To be young and dumb in Hawaii. Or to be a teacher. The Beach Boys knew what was up -

The most convincing argument

I've heard to vote Republican.

What word are we looking for?

Read this and see if you come up with the same descriptive phrase as Slate -

In 1997, an unknown Florida hard-rock group called _____ spent $6,000 to make its debut album, ______. Talk about a good investment: An independent label, Wind-Up, signed the group, got Sony to provide distribution, and ______ became, for four years or so, one of America's hugest bands. Its 1999 single, "_____," topped the modern-rock chart for 17 straight weeks. "_______," released the following year, reached the top of the pop charts, and won the Grammy for best rock song. Between 1997 and 2002, the band grossed more than $70 million touring. To date, it has sold 26 million records in the United States.

If you came up with the word "underrated" then you too can write idiotic columns for Slate praising the work of the unknown band Creed. Is there a standard I'm missing when attributing the "underrated" label to something? You'd think that instead of writing an article calling for a critical re-evaluation of one of the most overrated bands of the past decade Slate could use the space to actually promote a band that deserves the space. But then I guess they wouldn't be Slate.

Griffey and Valentine

Look at the cute dogs. Night.

Fielder for Ellsbury?

Fake trade proposed by NBC Sports leaves much to be desired. Here's their rationale for the Brewers -

The Brewers would want a young ace as the primary return for Fielder, but Ellsbury, the major league leader in steals this season, would fit nicely. As is, the Brewers would have to spend about $20 million to bring back Fielder and free agent Mike Cameron next year. They could plug Mat Gamel and Ellsbury into those holes, and since both are making the minimum, use the savings to bring in a pair of quality veteran starters this winter. Plus, they'd get a legitimate rotation option in Bowden, who had a 3.13 ERA in 24 starts as a 22-year-old in Triple-A this year. He projects as more of a No. 4 starter in the AL, but he may be a legit No. 3 in the NL.

I might be completely wrong in the market value of Prince Fielder (or of Ellsbury) but shouldn't Fielder be worth a slightly more marquee player than these two? I'd also balk at any idea that involves the Brewers using the saved money to go after veteran arms. The free agent pitchers available, besides John Lackey, leave a lot to be desired. With Suppan having reached the end of his, uh, usefulness I'd hate to see Melvin give too much money to Joel Pineiro or Jason Marquis only to witness another Suppan-like deterioration.

Either way, since the Red Sox have shown interest in JJ Hardy before, it might be possible to pick up Bowden anyway.

Appleton's Mayor

Kole -

The pace and thoroughness, if not orthographic precision, of this local amateur historian make "What's the Story, Mr. Story" a spellbinding read . . . and it's just mindblowing that this might've actually happened. You may skip or skim the majority of what I send you but I'm begging you, open this and click the "Story" link, read it, be amazed.

Here!

Apparently very little is known about Appleton's first ever mayor and this amateur historian makes a pretty compelling case that Mayor Amos Story is actually the Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story - who happened to die in 1845; Amos Story became mayor in 1857. So Joseph Story faked his own death in Massachusetts then traveled to where Appleton would be founded, changed his name to Amos Story, and became mayor. I believe it because the story allows me to affirm (begun by watching Deadwood) that living in the 19th century would have been nuts. I think that picture of Judge Joseph Story will haunt my dreams for the foreseeable future.

Student Loans

I'm just going to link to this article and say it's interesting so I can pretend that it doesn't directly affect me - Rorty

Quote:

Think of these two lines as a dial between perfect knowledge and no knowledge. In this model, a consumer who knows what he’ll make over his or her life will consumption smooth (perfect, or ‘full’, knowledge, flat consumption line); one who is uncertain about what will happen next will rationally not. So if you know exactly how much you’ll be making in the future, large loans aren’t really a problem.

Now we are currently asking children, 17, 18 or 19 years old, to try and assess how much of a student loan debt burden they can handle vis-a-vis their future income over their entire lives. But, especially compared to their grandparents, uncertainty is so much greater now. The consumption smoothing line invokes a world where everyone with a college degree will get a stable, solid job with certainty (and your employer will, of course, pick up the health care tab).

Interpreting The New Yorker

Anyone know what Sasha Frere-Jones is actually saying in his article proclaiming 2009 to be the death of hip-hop? As far as I can tell, F-J declares hip-hop dead because -

a) He doesn't like The Blueprint 3

b) New Kanye/Kid Cudi don't really rap, or they rap, but the sound is not hip-hop -

Compare it to Kanye West’s “Glow in the Dark” tour, or Kid Cudi’s breakout hit “Day ’n’ Nite,” and you will notice that this is hip-hop by virtue of rapping more than sound. The tempos and sonics of disco’s various children—techno, rave, whatever your particular neighborhood made of a four-on-the-floor thump—are slowly replacing hip-hop’s blues-based swing. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about the rudimentary digital sound of New Orleans bounce or the crusty samples of New York hip-hop: this music wants to swing and syncopate. On major commercial releases, this impulse is giving way to a European pulse, simpler and faster and more explicitly designed for clubs.

Is Kid Cudi rapping on Day 'n' Nite? Have I been mistaken about this?

c) The last time hip-hop was both "popular and weird" was, uh, all the way back to last year with Carter III

Now these rappers are getting all European on us! You can lament the decline of the form of rap popular in the early 90's but I don't know what Jay-Z's new album has to do with it. Seems like a cheap narrative ploy to try and make what would normally be a pretty meh review of a pretty meh album into signifying something only marginally related to the subject. It'd be like saying the new Oasis album has signaled the death of Brit-Pop.

Taser Crazy

Cause there's no way to control mentally ill public urine-ators than by sending 50,000 volts of electricity through them.

Police used a Taser today to take control of a 45-year-old Appleton man who interfered with a crash investigation, removed his pants and began to urinate.

Here

But the rich lost so much money!

While the New York Times continue to report on the plight of the not-so-rich-anymore and, ahem, criticizing their readers that don't feel sorry for them, the JS offers a different view-

He was leaving, even though Mom was sick with ovarian cancer. Even though he had been at her side through two long, miserable rounds of chemotherapy. Even though she now faced the likelihood of a third.

In fact, Dad was leaving because Mom was sick.

In March, he was laid off from his job as a raw materials coordinator for a plastics company called PolyOne, where he'd worked for 20 years. His severance package had provided several months' salary, but by August the paychecks were winding down. Soon the cost of his family health coverage was going to triple, then a few months after that, nearly triple again. They needed coverage so Mom could fight her cancer.

Dad's solution: a four-year hitch in the Army.

Sweet posters

Via Andrew Sullivan, sweet movie posters. Is it so hard to make actual movie posters this awesome?

Stupid baseball article

Buzz Bissinger gives me more reason to ignore him as he does his best to mangle an argument against Moneyball (this is still worth arguing over?) here. Matt Yglesias of all people can debunk his argument readily -

But for a while, detailed attention to statistical work allowed Beane to exploit massive market inefficiencies and put together high-quality, low-payroll teams. But then other people noticed. Michael Lewis wrote a bestselling book about it! So the insights spread, and there are fewer inefficiencies to take care of.

I'd also point out this comment in his argument -

The Lewis book was vintage Lewis--smooth, glib, smart, and unfailing in never letting anything get in the way of his argument. The protagonist of the book, Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane, was hailed as a genius in a land of cave-dwelling front office men, managers, and scouts too stupid and stubborn to understand the statistical nuances of the game and what they truly reflected. The basic thesis of the book--the finding of inefficiencies in the marketplace through expert computer analysis--no doubt resonated. As Lewis told it, what Beane and his minions did was usher in the baseball equivalent of a new period of painting, the Age of On-Base Percentage.

Yes, let's not let anything get in the way of a good argument. If Buzz Bissinger showed any sign that he followed baseball at all he might have realized that the Oakland A's team that exists today (and which he uses as evidence later in the column of moneyball's failure) is run completely differently than that of the moneyball era. The Oakland A's earlier in the decade were criticized for completely abandoning small-ball for the "Age of On-Base Percentage", but the current A's are much more focused on exploiting the base paths -

Blez: You reference stolen bases and obviously it's something that has changed quite a bit about the A's. I think you're in the top three in stolen bases and Raj is one of the league leaders in that number and he really makes the overall team number larger. Did you make a decision to be more aggressive on the base paths because of the lack of power? Did you think, we've got to get some offense some way?

Beane: I really think it's Bob (Geren) trying to take the personnel he has and trying to do the best he can with it. He's playing to the strengths. We don't have a lot of power and it's certainly something in order to be a more complete offensive team it's something we need to get. In a perfect world you have both guys who can steal bases and guys who can hit it out of the ballpark. As much as anything, it's Bob really trying to take advantage of what he has.

The central thesis, as Bissinger articulated it, still exists - the market inefficiencies have just changed. OBP is no longer under-valued in a way that a poor team can benefit from going after overlooked high-OBP players. So the A's have to find a different way to compete.

There's a bunch of other stuff that annoys me about the Bissinger article like the way he uses the failure of Jeremy Brown to discredit Moneyball while ignoring that Beane and the A's were also targeting a similar type player before the Red Sox picked him up first - Kevin Youkilis -

Beane put more stock in empirical evidence than in scouts' hunches, and didn't care that Youklis was pudgy (or, as Lewis put it in the book, "a fat third baseman who couldn't run, throw, or field"), but just loved his ability to get on base (helped in no small part by his 20/11 vision). The book brought minor leaguer Youkilis his first national recognition.

Lewis also revealed that Beane repeatedly tried to trade for Youkilis before Youkilis reached the major leagues. His attempts were blocked, however, by Beane admirer, and now Red Sox GM, Theo Epstein.

I just wish it wasn't too much to ask of sports writers to not completely dismiss, I don't know, logic when making arguments. Especially when the take-away is something I would agree with - like teams such as the Yankees have an advantage due to money to take away talent from teams like the A's who cannot afford to keep it (that's such an apparent fact that I can see the need to continue to bring up a book that was published 6 years ago to lend it some illusion of being interesting or contrariness, some illusion that someone actually disagrees with that). But, screw it, Bissinger doesn't even like Joe Posnanski -

Buzz: This is the same Posnanski who has crapped out to Sports Illustrated and acted several weeks ago like he had discovered Dave Duncan when I wrote about him in Three Nights four years ago in much better depth and prose. That Joe Posnanski? He probably still believes in Moneyball? By the way, how did Billy Beane do this year? Or the year before? Or the year before? Biggest fraud in baseball. As for LaRussa, who you all hate, two world series and one division championship in five years.

It's pretty hard to take someone seriously who is named Buzz. At least as hard as it would be to take an adult seriously who calls himself Joey. And I'm not talking about myself. I'm talking about Joey Harrington.

Butch lesbian

Lady is crazy angry at something but I don't think she needs to take it out on Tinkerbell. (Does it make me gay that I find the Muslim-ified masculine Tinkerbell totally hott?)

Debbie Schlussel:

Oh, and now, there’s this stupid-looking visor/hat contraption, which I predict will, someday in the future, morph into a hijab. Disney said it wanted to give “Tink” a tomboyish look. Uh, talk about overdoing it. The new Tinker Bell could be dating Rosie O’Donnell. Hey, maybe now she/he/it can “run” the Department of Homeland Security.

Look at us! Connecting!

I oscillate wildly between sorta liking John Mayer and hating his guts. On the one hand, he coined the term that titles the best daily baseball wrap-up. On the other hand, he makes some awful music.

On the one hand, he threatens to forcefully sodomize editors. On the other hand, he makes really bad music.



John Mayer:

Have you ever heard me play guitar? I'm really fucking good. You know what I'm bad at? Answering questions about public health care. This is not in my wheelhouse.

Second cast member for

HBO Gilmore Girls

Can anyone really describe a character as "domineering literary lioness" and NOT think of Jessica Walter? Yep, no way.



Don't mean to brag or anything, but I'd totally watch this show I'm imagining in my head right now.

Rottenest

Rotten Tomatoes has a list of the Worst 100 Movies of the Decade. I thought, considering I'll go see anything Dan wants to see at the cheaps, that I would have seen (and probably liked) quite a few of these films. To RT's credit, they picked bad films that were below even my low standards. But now I have some reccs for essential viewing.

I gotta see -



(Can anyone imagine this movie not including some version of this exchange between Seagal and a bad guy -
Bad guy - What time is it?
Seagal - Half-past dead. (shoots bad guy)

Also, Half-Past Dead 2 (starring Goldberg!) did not make the list of worst movies so I might watch that, too, but I have this sneaking suspicion it only avoided the list b/c the creators were able to resist the urge of calling it "Fully Past Dead" or something similar although they probably didn't want to confuse their built-in audience calling out for a Half-Past Dead franchise)


Mostly b/c I think RT may have dropped the ball on this and it is actually secretly totally awesome.

Single Ladies

I thought the only instrument used in the song was handclaps until I saw this video



edit: free d/l available on theirmyspace

HBO Gilmore Girls

I'm going to fantasy cast the HBO Gilmore Girls. I hope this girl from Community is in it because a.) I love her, b.) Community is pretty decent so it'll end up canceled, and c.) I bet she could talk real adorably quick with a bunch of swears like how I dream HBO Gilmore Girls conversations will end up.

Collages

Showcase in New York that looks pretty cool. Everything looks like an album cover to me. Or at least a new desktop background.

America's Most Popular Sport

Is un-American. I hope this brings more hilarity over the next couple months.

Since Roger Goodell wants to bend over for Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and the other bigots and race-baiters among the sportswriter community by shafting Rush Limbaugh, we ought to return the favor by punting the NFL this season.

I have cancelled my DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket package (including the Supercast). I will not watch ONE MINUTE of NFL games or coverage this season---including the Super Bowl.

And I challenge you to join me.

edit: more hilariousness

We're over you, really

We're even holding contests to show how much we're over you. You'll never hear back from us again. Swear to god. Not until next year, when you come back into our home with a possible new ring on your finger.

At least we aren't as pathetic as the Dodgers. Holding contests to win tickets to the World Series by seeing who can rag on the player most likely to lead them there. And they go the personal route.

"Dear Manny. I am a firefighter for the USFS, I make $16 an hour. It's hot, dirty, dangerous, with long hours. My body hurts all the time. It takes four years to make $170,000. My bonus, somebody telling me 'Thanks for the hard work.' You should try it some time."

Batman College

Outline for a Visual Rhetoric Course that sounds like it'd be pretty great to take. Although I bet the enjoyment of the class would largely derive from how annoying the other students in the class were considering some of the topics for discussion -

Now that they're relatively fluent in the language of film, we try to prove something a little more complex; namely, that Superman Returns is very much about 9/11. First, I take them back to September morning; then we analyze the action sequence that's about planes slamming into NYC landmarks, lest they think I'm reading too much into the anxieties the film taps into.

I could just see the film class Matrix lover take that as an opening to divulge all his conspiratorial readings of Disney movies and make me go crazy. It just takes one student to go off on a tangent about how Toy Story is about the evils of capitalism or how Wall-E is nerd wish fulfillment robot rape that I would begin to dread going to class.

The social retard doesn't know how to deal with a woman he likes, so he overdoes it - candy, flowers, gifts and, most damning of all, endless declarations of love. In his mind this is romantic, but in real life it's just creepy and sometimes scary. Wall*E's big love montage - where Wall*E takes the shut down EVE all over the place and wines and dines her unconscious form - is the hyper-realization of that. But the movie takes it even farther and has Wall*E essentially date rape the sleeping bot - he forces open the plate on her body where her hand resides and pulls out the appendage so he can hold it. In the world of Wall*E hand holding seems to be like Doing It, or some variation thereof, and the little garbage bot forcing himself on a knocked out female is incredibly creepy.

The Tim McCarver Blues

I did not know that Tim McCarver was releasing an album, like with him singing -

Enter Tim McCarver doing the American League Championship Series on Fox, the bull's-eye on his back enlarged by the recent release of an album, McCarver crooning from the Great American songbook.

...

The reviews have been brutal.

I couldn't find the music anywhere (yet) so here's classic McCarver from FJM courtesy of Poz.

Top 1st, All-Star Game 2006.

Brad Penny has struck out the first two batters by throwing nothing but fastballs. He's throwing hard. Your announcers are Joe Buck and Tim McCarver.

Buck: "Almost a riding fastball because it's taking off from the hand of Penny."
McCarver: "A Mark Wohlberg fastball. Catch me if you can."

Mark Wohlberg. Not Mark Wohlers. Or Mark Wahlberg. Tim McCarver clearly said a word that sounds like "wole-berg." You know, Mark Wohlberg.

...

McCarver was not watching the game. He was flipping through the Encore / Starz type channels on a small TV in the booth. "Boogie Nights" was on, and this caused McCarver to just blurt out the name Mark Wahlberg. Only McCarver was born in Memphis, and not necessarily as a result, speaks with a crazy accent. So he said "Mark Wohlberg." Then he changed the channel, and came across the movie "The Terminal," which he believed to be the film "Catch Me If You Can." (Starring, he believes, Marisa Tomei, Joe Pantoliano, and Dan Quisenberry.) After McCarver said what he believed to be the name of the new movie he was watching, someone from FOX sauntered into the booth and offered Tim a Kit-Kat bar and a $10 Borders gift card if he'd just watch the All-Star game.

HBO Gilmore Girls?

I'm in -

"Gilmore Girls" creator Amy Sherman-Palladino will be tackling more mother-daughter relationships in a project for HBO.

Sherman-Palladino will write and executive produce an untitled comedy-drama for the cable network. The show chronicles the complicated relationships among three adult sisters, all writers living in the same Upper East Side apartment building, and their mother, a domineering literary lioness who reserves her affections for their ne'er-do-well brother.

The Cove

Saw this tonight and thought it was great. I, for one, will stop my consumption of dolphin and possibly even Filet 'O Fishes (unless I'm really hungry, which means I'll treat it like Arby's).

Half-Irish, Half-Asian

Half-man, half-amazin'

Introduction to my paper for my mother to read -

I am an American, Milwaukee born, but go at things in a split way. My mother is Japanese and born in Hawaii; my father is Irish and born in Wisconsin. They are American, but the reflexive response to “What are your parents?” is that they are Japanese and Irish. In class, when Prof. Ferguson asked “What are Hawaiians? Irish?” I was anxious, as if I felt implicated in the question, and then felt guilt for assuming that implication with a culture where I’m merely a 4th generation signifier identifiable only by a name and a slight slant in the eyes. But I presume that this is similar in the identity of many Americans, this desire to be identified as American without losing their ethnic heritage. That is what would lead students in class to suggest that ethnic labels such as “German” could be so liquid for Americans, deciding when and how to define themselves as such. If one was not familiar with these easily assumed identities, they could be excused for believing there is a great influx of international tourists during Octoberfest or St. Patrick’s Day when it appears everyone is either German or Irish. But rather than limiting any larger national consciousness from forming, this sort of dual identity is the larger national consciousness. As Walt Whitman wrote in “By Blue Ontario’s Shore”, “Here is not merely a nation but a teeming Nation of nations”. Out of Fanon, Bhabha, and Spivak, it is Fanon’s belief in the formation of a national culture and consciousness through the fight for liberation that is the least viable theory for the creation of a national identity because of the paradoxical element of creating an identity. The national identity, as Bhabha argues, is much more how “the scraps, patches, and rags of daily life must be repeatedly turned into the signs of a coherent national culture” arising from both the “continuist, accumulative temporality of the pedagogical, and the repetitious, recursive strategy of the performative” (145). Being accepted as American, in identity, is not to create oneself in the American identity, but to have the definition of America shift its narrative identity to include what was once considered Other (the immigrant, the slave) through repetitive daily actions.

If you can read that without wincing then feel free to grab the entire thing where your capacity for embarrassing and awkward argumentation will be tested.

It's not weird

Joan Jett sounded like a curmudgeon all wanting to get back to waiting in line for records and getting angry at the modern usage of the word "rock" and I was gonna hate her but then -

I never lived in Wisconsin. One of those images you see as a kid — I might have been six or seven — it was a Sports Illustrated cover. Everybody was completely muddy, so muddy you couldn't see who was wearing what uniform. One guy had a swipe across the helmet where the mud was wiped off, and you could see part of the G through it. For some reason, as a kid, just seeing that G, I became a Green Bay Packers fan. Isn't that weird?

Joan Jett, that is like the least weird thing about you.

Esquire

Blue House Painters

House
Originally uploaded by joeyhepatitis

This is my favorite house in Milwaukee. On nice days you can look through the front door out the back to Lake Michigan. I drive past it every day to get to school and I think, "Oh, I'm gonna work real hard and make a bunch of money and buy this house later in life." But that feeling doesn't last for the next mile or so to campus, only to return when I pass the house on my way back to Whitefish Bay and I get a little disappointed in myself for not following through. But that feeling goes away soon, too.

Congress of New Urbanism

UWM has an Architecture Lecture Series nearly every week.

Friday, November 6
“Wisconsin Chapter of the Congress of New Urbanism” presentation by Tom Moes.

Since you're a city employee now, Kole, you should come down and go to this thing with me. We can talk about the Milwaukee Riverwalk and how much enjoyment it has provided for drunken perambulations.

New Best Lost Thing

Good lord. I thank God every day for the existence of people who have more motivation than myself to provide me with the finished products of things that would otherwise languish in the recesses of slackers' brains under the "Wouldn't it be cool if" file.



via

Mike Cameron != Jason Kendall

I have liked Tom Haudricourt lately but this kind of upset me -

Centerfielder Mike Cameron and catcher Jason Kendall produced as expected, tempering their offensive shortcomings with their defensive prowess and leadership.

...

It is important to be strong defensively up the middle to be a playoff contender. Cameron and Kendall handled those positions effectively but made $10.7 million and $5 million, respectively. Both players are free agents and would have to agree to significant pay cuts to fit the budget for next year. Cameron will be 37 next season and Kendall turns 36 in June, so it might be time to look for younger options.

I understand for argument's sake that it is convenient to lump the two veterans that are going into free agency this year together, but that's about it for any comparisons that could be made between the two.

Jason Kendall is a non-entity at the plate and for all his supposed great leadership skills he did catch for the worst pitching staff in baseball this year. For someone who is praised for calling great games he should shoulder part of the blame for the collapse this year.

Cameron, meanwhile, had a season that was just a little worse than last year and completely in line with his career averages -

2008 - .243/.331/.477
2009 - .256/.353/.450
career - .250/.341/.448

He has been, by all accounts, an above-average center-fielder and could be considered a bargain at $10 million. Lucky for the Brewers, Cameron has said he'd take a sacrifice to stay in Milwaukee. Considering, as Haudricourt notes, that there aren't any in-system replacements for Cameron the Brewers might want to think about taking him up on that offer.

ice cold 6 year olds

If you take away the basic weapons, these pre-pubescent gangstas are gonna improvise and get expert on killing with paper cuts. Painful.

Zachary’s offense? Taking a Cub Scout utensil that can serve as a knife, fork and spoon to school. He was so excited about joining the Scouts that he wanted to use it at lunch. School officials concluded that he had violated their zero-tolerance policy on weapons, and Zachary now faces 45 days in the district’s reform school.

It's never a good thing when Milwaukee gets a shout out in the New York Times.

In Milwaukee, where school officials reported that 40 percent of ninth graders had been suspended at least once in the 2006-7 school year, the superintendent has encouraged teachers not to overreact to student misconduct.