Comments on politics, the culture, economics and religion by Paul Tuns -- in short, everything about the human endeavour from a non-hyphenated conservative perspective. I am Toronto-based writer and editor, whose articles, columns and reviews have appeared in more than 35 publications. I am editor-in-chief of The Interim, Canada's life and family newspaper, author of Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal and a regular contributor to the book pages of the Halifax Herald.

 
Four and down (Thursday night football edition)

4. Tonight, the Pittsburgh Steelers travel to northern Ohio to play their lowly division rival, the Cleveland Browns. The Browns are awful, worthy of the name Browns, and the Steelers have won 12 straight against Cleveland. Even with injuries (Ben Roethlisberger recovering from a concussion, safety Troy Polamalu suffering from the Madden Curse), Pittsburgh is easily the better team. But they were also better than the Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders, the weak sisters of the AFC West, and came away from those two games with a pair of losses, one in overtime and the other in the final minute of regulation. I will reconsider everything I believe in if Pittsburgh loses and am preparing to do so (reading the Koran, giving hockey a chance, ignoring Climaquiddick). But who is going to predict the Browns over Steelers? Not me. Mike Tomlin is shaking up the team, benching some starters and giving some role players and backups a chance, so whatever funk the Steelers were in (they have lost four in a row) they might get over. Pittsburgh wins 24-10 and takes a 58-55 lead in the overall series between the Steelers and both versions of the Cleveland Browns.

3. The Cleveland Browns have given up more than 448 yards seven times in their 12 games and are averaging more than 400 yards allowed per game. There are teams that don't that over the course of several seasons. QB Ben Roethislberger, RB Rashard Mendenhall, and WRs Santonio Holmes and Hines Ward will accumulate yardage. That turns into time on the field (preventing Cleveland from scoring) and points.

2. Steelers in six games with Troy Polamalu: 13.8 ppg allowed. In six games without him: 23.1 ppg allowed. That makes a big difference. Steelers didn't cough up one fourth quarter lead with Polamalu playing, they've blown four fourth quarter leads without him. Of course, it isn't all Polamalu. The team also lost defensive end Aaron Smith early in this season, too. Defense loses two big pieces and it shows.

1. If Steelers WR Santonio Holmes gets 13 yards, he'll have his first ever career 1,000 yard season. He's never had 1000 yards. Not in high school. Not in university. Not in the NFL.
posted by Paul Tuns at 7:42 PM

 
Time declares 2000-2009 the worst decade ever

That's just dumb. Time has a slide show of the "ten worst things of the worst decade ever". Really? Even with 9/11, the botched war in Iraq, the quagmire in Afghanistan, Hurricane Katrina, and the economic turmoil of the past 18 months, does any of that compare to the 1940s and the bloodshed of the Holocaust and World War II? Or the 1340s? Or any decade for most of history when one considers the poverty most people lived in and the misery and unhygienic circumstances that entailed? Detroit may be increasingly irrelevant but even in Michigan, few people must eke out a subsistence living.

Despite the horrible things that went on over the past 10 years, most people live pretty good lives compared to most people in human history. People are living longer, healthier and wealthier lives. I look at it this way: any decade after the mass production of penicillin (1943-1944) is better than any decade before the antibiotic became widely available. Before the 1940s, it was common for people to die of infections, but now it is almost unheard of in developed parts of the world. I simply don't understand calling the the first decade of the 2000s the worst ever, unless it was meant as a shot against President George W. Bush. A little historical imagination would put the past decade in proper perspective. International trade is bringing the benefits of rising standards of living to more and more people around the globe and while there is a long way to go, an unprecedented number of people share in a growing economic pie. Time needs to look at quality of life and not political and other headline-grabbing events to declare the worst decade ever.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:54 PM

 
Three and out (Granderson deal edition)

A three-way deal was consummated yesterday that essentially sent prospects and spare parts to the Detroit Tigers, a pair of starters to the Arizona Diamondbacks and All Star centerfielder Curtis Granderson to the New York Yankees.

3. The Tigers did what they needed to: trade away a pair of largish salaries (about $8.5 million a year for the next three seasons on Granderson and arbitration eligible starter Edwin Jackson coming off his best season) for inexpensive prospects with upside. This gives the Tigers flexibility when more than $30 million comes off the payroll before the 2011 season and they get some players who should be around for a few years in contributing roles. Righty Max Scherzer and lefty Daniel Schlereth from Arizona look to be real pitchers although Scherzer's injury history might soon relegate him to the bullpen. Still his numbers over two partial seasons are impressive: 3.86 ERA and 240 Ks in 226.1 innings. Yankee Triple A CF Austin Jackson has never faced Major League pitching and his value could be diminished once he does. He is all promise and sometimes promise works out, sometimes it doesn't. Chances are Austin Jackson will be league average or just a little bit better and there is value in that. He hit 300/354/405 in Triple A and has great athleticism, so he should be a decent basestealing threat and defensive outfielder. Left-handed reliever Phil Coke was above average out of the Yankee bullpen and if he replicates his '09 performance (relievers are typically inconsistent) he'll be an asset to the Tigers. Detroit gave away pricey but reasonably priced players, but the trade gives them flexibility in the long-term and it is far from clear they could have gotten more for these assets. It is smart to trade away Edwin Jackson after a career year and who will likely regress, but Granderson is under-rated. This trade helps in the long term and while they might have gotten more out of either trade partner Detroit gets a B- for looking out for the future with high ceiling players who will probably be (at worst) league average players and useful bullpen pieces.

2. The early reaction was that Arizona got hosed because they are probably a little worse off and its going to cost them more dough. I think that's probably right. Ian Kennedy looks to top out as a usable fifth starter. He has performed well at times in the minors but also has a history of injuries and a career ERA north of six at the Major League level. He might do better in the National League and he is inexpensive so he is worth taking a risk on, but has minimal value. Edwin Jackson had a career year (3.62 ERA and a 13-9 record) with decent peripherals (2.3 K to BB ratio, just under 7 Ks/9 IP). He is also likely to make about $7-8 million after arbitration. He is also likely to regress (4.66 ERA, 1.58 K:BB ratio). Righty Max Scherzer and lefty Daniel Schlereth make next to nothing and Scherzer has a very good fastball but due to a jerky delivery he is an injury risk. He has a 9.5 K/9 IP and a likely unsustainable 3.86 ERA over parts of two seasons. Schlereth progressed through the minors rapidly and has a lively left arm, but he's pitched in just 21 relief appearances so it's too early to say what he can do. I'd rather have Scherzer at a half-mil each than Jackson at $7 mil. The Diamondbacks will have a solid rotation but they were likely to have a solid rotation anyway. Perhaps Scherzer and Brandon Webb (one start in '09) were too much injury risk for the D'backs, but the premium they paid to avoid that was too great. Grade: C-.

1. My first reaction was to dislike the move because the team needs to keep some prospects around because on a per-bat basis, they had the oldest lineup in baseball. But that fact could also argue for a quick-fix to win now and worry about tomorrow, well, tomorrow. The Yankees were unlikely to use Ian Kennedy at the Major League level unless options one through three (Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, mid-priced innings-eater on the free agent market) didn't work out for the fifth slot of their rotation. No loss there. Phil Coke is a situational lefty and the Yanks should be able to replace him at no great cost. CF Austin Jackson was one of their top two prospects and he flashed above average in all five tools as an everyday player, but the Yankees maximized his value by using him as a trade chit for someone who can more than ably fill the centerfield position over the next three (or four) years. So what does Curtis Granderson bring to the team? Plenty. He hits for power from the left side, plays plus defense, and is a base-stealing threat. Last year he hit 249/327/453, all well below his career averages of 272/344/484 which he should return to with a move into the more hitter friendly confines of Yankee Stadium. He hit a career high 30 HRs and stole 20 bases. His weakness is hitting lefties (183/245/239 in 180 at-bats against southpaws in 2009). To maximize his value, the Yankees must platoon him with a left-handed hitting outfielder (switch-hitters Melkey Cabrera or Nick Swisher will do the trick). Fangraphs has a spray chart that shows Granderson is probably a perfect fit for Yankee Stadium 2.5. At just under $26 million over the next three seasons with a team option for 2013, Granderson is a relatively inexpensive outfield solution who at 28 probably still has three or four quality seasons in him. The more I look at this trade, the more I think the Yankees increased their chances of making it to the post-season this year and next. Giving up spare parts and unproven prospects for a player who can play plus defense, steal a few bases and hit 275/350/580 in 80% of games (against righties) is a great deal, one that merits an A bordering on A+.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:23 PM

 
Midweek stuff

1. Amazing BBC time-lapsed video of worms and star fish eating a seal pup carcass.

2. Treehugger has the "Coolest Environmental Advertising" -- much of it isn't cool, but it is a window into the mind of the environmentalist movement.

3. The Guardian has the fifty best books of the decade. Has it really been a decade since The Tipping Point was published.

4. The Root had a preview of last weekend's Golden Scissors Awards which they call, "The Oscars of Black Hair."

5. Not So Humble Pie has fun science treats -- atom cookies, some petri dish cookies, and a periodic table made of cookies.

6. The Hill reports, "Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and David Vitter (R-La.), are preparing an amendment to force members of Congress into any plan that is passed." Heroes, they (Coburn and Vitter) are.

7. Mental Floss has 11 long movie titles.

8. In model news, the daughter of Mick Jagger, Georgia Jagger, won Model of the Year. And Cindy Crawford prefers to be known as a MILF rather than a cougar.

9. Holy cow, a calf is born with a white cross on its forehead.

10. A video intro to a pop-up book about the Large Hadron Collider.


posted by Paul Tuns at 9:58 PM

 
Three and out

3. Joe Posnanski has a really interesting article on first year Hall of Fame candidates who got between 15 and 20 votes -- good enough for a sizable handful of baseball writers to vote for them but not enough to remain on the ballot. There are some very good players on this list and some baffling results. How does Bruce Sutter make the HoF but Dan Quisenberry not even make it to a second year of balloting? In the second half of Posnanski's article, he points out how bizarre Keith Olbermann's HoF voting is. Worth reading. Pos, not Olbermann.

2. By the way, Olbermann says Tim Raines does not deserve a spot in the Hall of Fame. If anyone makes this argument, that person is not worth talking to about baseball. Or probably anything else, either.

1. Last week the Boston Red Sox signed SS Marco Scutaro to a two or three deal worth about $6 million a year. I figured he would get a three-year deal in the vicinity of $20 million after his career year in Toronto, but the way the BoSox have this deal structured there is a fair bit of protection for both the team and the player. I think Scutaro is in for a significant decline but this is a defensible deal for a team that has money to throw for marginal improvements to address their weaknesses and there weren't a lot of options for shortstop in the free agent market or available in trades. The Red Sox have had shortstop problems for the last half-decade since they traded away Nomar Garciaparra in 2004, and I would guess that either next off-season or the one after, they're looking for another one.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:32 PM

 
Offered without comment

Legal Blog Watch reports:

In Isaacson v. Isaacson, Erik Isaacson is claiming that the value of Traci Isaacson's [$5,500] implants should be counted when the divorcing couple splits up its assets....

Judge Wefald reportedly found that the implant-related claim was "absolutely nonsense," stating that "I can't imagine people would actually waste time thinking that breast implants are marital assets. It just defies common sense. I don't know how you would expect me to award breast implants, if you want me to have them cut out and given to Mr. Isaacson."...

His attorney argued more broadly that medical expenses should be deemed marital assets when they are "clearly cosmetic, elective, (and) non-necessary."

(HT: Hit & Run)
posted by Paul Tuns at 12:50 AM

 
Coming green fascism

Bret Stephens has a must-read column in the Wall Street Journal on the fervor of belief for the adherents of the climate change religion and where it leads these would-be tyrants:

One of those things, I suspect, is what I would call the totalitarian impulse. This is not to say that global warming true believers are closet Stalinists. But their intellectual methods are instructively similar. Consider:

• Revolutionary fervor: There's a distinct tendency among climate alarmists toward uncompromising radicalism, a hatred of "bourgeois" values, a disgust with democratic practices. So President Obama wants to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 83% from current levels by 2050, levels not seen since the 1870s—in effect, the Industrial Revolution in reverse. Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, insists that "our lifestyles are unsustainable." Al Gore gets crowds going by insisting that "civil disobedience has a role to play" in strong-arming governments to do his bidding. (This from the man who once sought to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.)

• Utopianism: In the world as it is, climate alarmists see humanity hurtling toward certain doom. In the world as it might be, humanity has seen the light and changed its patterns of behavior, becoming the green equivalent of the Soviet "new man." At his disposal are technologies that defy the laws of thermodynamics. The problems now attributed to global warming abate or disappear.

• Anti-humanism: In his 2007 best seller "The World Without Us," environmentalist Alan Weisman considers what the planet would be like without mankind, and finds it's no bad thing. The U.N. Population Fund complains in a recent report that "no human is genuinely 'carbon neutral'"—its latest argument against children. John Holdren, President Obama's science adviser, cut his teeth in the policy world as an overpopulation obsessive worried about global cooling. But whether warming or cooling, the problem for the climate alarmists, as for other totalitarians, always seems to boil down to the human race itself.

• Intolerance: Why did the scientists at the heart of Climategate go to such lengths to hide or massage the data if truth needs no defense? Why launch campaigns of obstruction and vilification against gadfly Canadian researchers Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick if they were such intellectual laughingstocks? It is the unvarying habit of the totalitarian mind to treat any manner of disagreement as prima facie evidence of bad faith and treason.

• Monocausalism: For the anti-Semite, the problems of the world can invariably be ascribed to the Jews; for the Communist, to the capitalists. And as the list above suggests, global warming has become the fill-in-the-blank explanation for whatever happens to be the problem.

• Indifference to evidence: Climate alarmists have become brilliantly adept at changing their terms to suit their convenience. So it's "global warming" when there's a heat wave, but it's "climate change" when there's a cold snap. The earth has registered no discernable warming in the past 10 years: Very well then, they say, natural variability must be the cause. But as for the warming that did occur in the 1980s and 1990s, that plainly was evidence of man-made warming. Am I missing something here?

• Grandiosity: In "SuperFreakonomics," Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner give favorable treatment to an idea to cool the earth by pumping sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere, something that could be done cheaply and quickly. Maybe it would work, or maybe it wouldn't. But one suspects that the main reason the chapter was the subject of hysterical criticism is that it didn't propose to deal with global warming by re-engineering the world economy. The penchant for monumentalism is yet another constant feature of the totalitarian mind.

posted by Paul Tuns at 12:46 AM

 
Climaquiddick video

Found this at Division of Labour.


posted by Paul Tuns at 12:39 AM

 
Four and down

4. When analysis amounts to reading the month on the calendar. New York Times football writer Judy Battista has a column (labelled analysis) headlined: "It’s December, So Dallas Invites the Usual Doubts." (I won't just pick on the girl, though. Jean-Jacques Taylor has a story in the Dallas Morning News entitled, "It must be December: Dallas Cowboys stumble, 31-24.") The New York Giants beat the Dallas Cowboys 31-24, a score which doesn't adequately reflect the domination of the G-Men. Batista says of the December-troubled QB Tony Romo, "But if there was a glimmer of good news, it was that Romo was not entirely to blame for this loss." Romo completed 41 of 55 passes for 392 yards and three touchdowns with no picks. He had a 112.1 passer rating and completed 74.5% of his passes. It is hard to blame Romo at all. The Boys had 45 rushing yards, partly a result of the reliance on the aerial game, but the Giants had 100 rushing yards despite calling the same number of running plays (23); the Giants averaged more than four yards per rush while the Cowboys had just under two yards. The Giants rushing defense was fantastic. But despite netting nearly 400 yards in the air, the Cowboys never seemed in the game. Notably, this is the first time since 2004 that the Giants swept the season series against Dallas and the win makes for an interesting stretch with one game separating the Cowboys, Giants and Philadelphia Eagles and everyone having to play the Washington Redskins and a season closing game at Dallas against Philly.

3. More than the calendar, it is the quality of opponents that will determine the fate of the Cowboys. Dallas is 1-4 against quality teams (teams with a better-than-500 record) and 7-0 against teams that are playing 500 football or worse. Their next four games feature contests with the Philadelphia Eagles (8-4), San Diego Chargers (9-3) and New Orleans Saints (12-0). It is not the flipping of the calendar but the quality of opponents that will seal the Cowboys fate.

2. Was that Daryle Lamonica gun-slinging against the Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday? The Oakland Raiders benched JaMarcus Russell a few weeks back and have been playing Bruce Gradkowski at quarterback. He led a come-from-behind 27-24 victory against the Steelers in Pittsburgh on Sunday. The Raiders, who haven't scored 21 points in a single game all year, scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter against Pittsburgh's once stout defense. He completed 20 of 33 passes for 308 yards and three TDs. (The Raiders went into the Sunday contest with an NFL-low five touchdown passes so far this season.) The highlight was a 75-yard pass play to rookie Louis Murphy. The Steelers came back with a touchdown and then Gradkowski led the NFL drive of the week, a game-winning drive in the closing minutes. I was not pleased with the Steelers fourth quarter -- a quarter of football that might cost Pittsburgh a chance to make the playoffs -- but Oakland's comeback was impressive even if it was assisted by stupid Steeler penalties and a complete breakdown by their defense.

1. There are just seconds left in the Baltimore Ravens-Green Bay Packers MNF game with the Pack leading 27-14. It is an important game for both teams -- Baltimore needing it to move a game ahead of the bunched pack (Steelers, New York Jets, Miami Dolphins) in the wild card race and Green Bay to gain a game against the Minnesota Vikings who lost in Arizona on Sunday night. It was also an exciting team, with two quarterbacks who aren't afraid to throw, plenty of picks, aggressive defense and a lot of penalties. The 310 penalty yards are tied for the second most in NFL history. It wasn't pretty and Baltimore tied a record for most pass interference penalties (five, including one offensive pass interference) which made a big difference. But the penalties were flagrant and needed to be called. As one of the MNF broadcasters said, if these teams want to win in the playoffs, they can't be taking so many penalties. (Going into the game Baltimore led the league in penalties, Green Bay was second.) I'm glad the Ravens lost, making a little bit easier for the Steelers to make a late-season move into the wild card.
posted by Paul Tuns at 11:59 PM

 
'Skeptics Guide to Copenhagen'

From The Daily Beast's Tunku Varadarajan, an A-Z guide to the issue of the environment. Three examples (G, K & O):

G is for green, a mantra, a shibboleth, a way of life; the Guardian (house journal of the global-warming platoons); and Gwyneth Paltrow, who has said that she can "just feel" it getting globally warmer in her bones…Maybe her husband's band, Coldplay, should be re-named. Foreplay?

And:

K is for Kyoto, a Japanese city where the only thing of significance to have happened in the last 50 years was a 1997 Protocol which proposed mandatory emission reductions for developed countries. Those who pillory George W. Bush for not submitting the treaty to the Senate for ratification forget that Clinton administration didn't do so either. (Quiz: Who was Clinton's vice president?). Keep an eye, too, on Khosla Ventures (see "money," below).

And finally:

O is for Obama, the man who may just end the Industrial Revolution; and ozone, the g-spot of the climate debate.

The whole thing is worth reading, but make sure you don't miss P and Q.
posted by Paul Tuns at 11:39 PM

 
The Man in Black and Christ in the modern world

I don't know how I found myself reading this article by Russell D. Moore, Dean of the School of Theology and Senior Vice President for Academic Administration at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in the December 2005 Touchstone magazine. It's about Johnny Cash, published a few months after the artist's passing, and the lesson he provides for evangelizing.

Cash wasn’t trying to be an evangelist—and his fellow Bible-belt Evangelicals knew it. But he was able to reach youth culture in a way the rest of us often can’t, precisely because he refused to sugarcoat or “market” the gospel in the “language” of today’s teenagers...

Johnny Cash is dead, and there will never be another. But all around us there are empires of dirt, and billions of self-styled emperors marching toward judgment.

Perhaps if Christian churches modeled themselves more after Johnny Cash, and less after perky Christian celebrities such as Kathy Lee Gifford, we might find ourselves resonating more with the MTV generation. Maybe if we stopped trying to be “cool,” and stopped hiring youth ministers who are little more than goateed game-show hosts, we might find a way to connect with a generation that understands pain and death more than we think.

Perhaps if we paid more attention to the dark side of life, a dark side addressed in divine revelation, we might find ourselves appealing to men and women in black. We might connect with men and women who know what it’s like to feel like fugitives from justice, even if they’ve never been to jail. We might offer them an authentic warning about what will happen when the Man comes around.

posted by Paul Tuns at 10:06 PM

 
Because of people like you and your boss, Tim

Frum Forum flack Tim Mak notes that according to a Rasmussen poll, if the Tea Party protests were a political party, it would do better than the Republicans. Lots of problems with such a hypothetical generic poll, but Mak draws a strange conclusion:

This is a wakeup call for GOP leaders: they will need to find a way to capture the energy of the Tea Party movement, or else be deluged by it.

His point is valid, but one might question the messenger considering that many Frumkins, including Mak, have mocked the Tea Party protests, their tactics and their rhetoric. And the Frumkin compromisers within the party is what makes the Republican Party so boring and indistinguishable from Democrats. In other words, the Republican Party could be more like the Tea Party protests if Tim Mak and David Frum would just go away.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:48 PM

 
Three and out (Edgar Martinez edition

3. Dan Rosenheck of the New York Times asks "A D.H. in the Hall?" Specifically, does Edgar Martinez belong in the Hall of Fame? Martinez, unlike Paul Molitor, spent nearly the entirety of his career only playing offense (he played third for the 1990-1992 seasons and from '94-'02 managed just 10-50 innings in the field each season) and some people think that matters. It probably does, so the question should be how much? Rosenheck says voters must now ask themselves this question: "What is the intrinsic value of playing defense, however poorly?" I will answer the question with another question: "Why would playing defense at a level that hurts the team be considered worthier than not playing defense?" At some level, the critics of the designated hitter are moralizing. That's fine, but they need to understand that in terms of qualifying for the HoF (or alternatively an award like the MVP) the question is how much did the player make the team better. A good-hitting, bad-fielding first baseman or corner outfielder is of less value to a team than an equally good hitter who is not hurting the team on the field of defense. Rosenheck applies some standard DH penalties to Martinez's numbers and finds him in good company (Norm Cash, Boog Powell) but well short of Hall consideration. But after using another set of calculations Martinez is found to be a "notch below" Harmon Killebrew and Willie McCovey, and thus (just barely) HoF-worthy. Rosencheck seems to come down on the no side, but just barely.

2. Here's my thought on Martinez's Hall-worthiness: his numbers are mostly impressive but he played in an era with lots of offense. He was the best at his position for more than a decade but was not clearly among the elite hitters in the game hitting 312/418/515 with 309 HRs. Yet, he is one of 20 players to have (at least) a 300 BA, 400 OBP, and 500 SLG, and of the 12 players eligible to be in the Hall with similar numbers, only Lefty O'Doul is not enshrined (and he probably should be). (Shoeless Joe Jackson would be on the list, also, but he is not eligible, which I increasingly find a crying shame.) He has more walks (1283) than strikeouts (1202). He is one of eight players to have 300 HRs, 500 2Bs, 1,000 BBs, a 300 career BA and a 400 career OBP, joining the likes of Hall of Famers Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, and Rogers Hornsby. All very impressive, and to some degree, HoF voting takes into account not only how one compares to his contemporaries but baseball history. But perhaps the historical comparisons are superficial (Ruth hit more than 700 HRs, Williams had a 344 career BA). How did Martinez perform compared to his peers: he was selected to seven All Star games (good but not great) and was named on the MVP ballot five times, although he finished in the top ten only twice; he never won the award. Only once did he hit more than 30 HRs (37 in 2000). He never led the league in homeruns or slugging percentage, only once led in RBIs (145 in 2000) and twice led it in batting average. The case for Martinez belonging in the HoF is borderline at best. He deserves a serious look, but ultimately not a vote.

1. Last month, Martinez told the Seattle Times that if he were to have a chance he'll need to get the requisite 5% of the vote to stay on the ballot and build support as people's understanding of his candidacy and the place of the DH evolve. He's probably right, but I think the prejudices of the Baseball Writers of America will be difficult to overcome. Nor am I sure that Martinez is the person to convince them.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:40 PM

 
Will on climate change

George Will has written another great column on climate change:

Skeptics about the shrill certitudes concerning catastrophic man-made warming are skeptical because climate change is constant: From millennia before the Medieval Warm Period (800 to 1300), through the Little Ice Age (1500 to 1850), and for millennia hence, climate change is always a 100 percent certainty. Skeptics doubt that the scientists' models, which cannot explain the present, infallibly map the distant future.

On the over-promising committed by politicians, Will says:

Barack Obama, understanding the histrionics required in climate-change debates, promises that U.S. emissions in 2050 will be 83 percent below 2005 levels. If so, 2050 emissions will equal those in 1910, when there were 92 million Americans. But there will be 420 million Americans in 2050, so Obama's promise means that per capita emissions then will be about what they were in 1875. That. Will. Not. Happen.

Thankfully, the promises will go unfulfilled.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:40 PM

 
'Ten Reasons for Calvinists to be Cheerful This Christmas'

From John Michael Reynolds at the Evangel blog. (HT: Caffeinated Thoughts)
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:35 PM

 
I would never make fun of anyone for the music they listen to...

But I will note that I was surprised to find out that Greg Mankiw likes Lady Gaga.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:32 PM

 
Four and down (Best of the weekend edition)

4. New England Patriots (7-4) at Miami Dolphins (5-6): Philadelphia Eagles at Atlanta Falcons has the Michael Vick sub-plot but the Falcons have played uninspired football for most of the season and is wracked by injuries or they might be one of the best games of the week. The Minnesota Vikings at Arizona Cardinals both lead their division and might be a playoff preview, but they too are on the bubble. The Pats have struggled and the Fins haven't replicated their '08 season but this game will dramatically alter the playoff picture. Pats win and they are in good shape and their confidence can be restored and people can stop questioning their genius coach. They lose and Miami is one game behind them in the standings at 6-6, along with the New York Jets who beat the Buffalo Bills in Toronto on Thursday. That is a Miami win means the top three teams in the AFC East will be separated by one game with four weeks remaining. The Fins were unimpressive against Buffalo last week when QB Chad Henne looked outmatched by Ryan Fitzpatrick. Gotta like Tom Brady, Wes Welker, Randy Moss and the boys against the Dolphins even if the team is lacking the kind of of depth they've enjoyed in recent years. I don't know if it is age, injuries, coaching (coaching!), some combination of factors, but the Pats have looked tired recently. They rejuvenate in South Florida and win by a TD.

3. Baltimore Ravens (6-5) at Green Bay Packers (7-4): The Monday Night game will probably be playoff determinative. Packers O-line has given up a league-high 44 sacks but has been much better the past two weeks. However, they face the blitz-happy defense of the Ravens so we'll see how improved they are. Two very good teams, but you can't go against the Pack at home. Packers win at home by three.

2. Dallas Cowboys (8-3) at New York Giants (6-5): The story in this game -- and it will get tired quickly during the broadcast -- is the fact the 'Boys are 5-8 in the three Decembers since Tony Romo won the starting quarterback job in Dallas in '06. The Giants are 1-5 since charging out of the gate with a 5-0 record. Their O-line, once their strength looks meagre, Eli Manning isn't making the plays and doesn't have the playmakers to pass to, the running game isn't what it was the last two years, and their once overwhelming defense looks pedestrian. A lot has gone wrong with the G-Men this year and yet what will pass for analysis in this game is that we flipped a calender so Dallas is expected to lose. It shouldn't be considered an upset but it will be: Cowboys by seven.

1. Tennessee Titans (5-6) at Indianapolis Colts (11-0): Titans started 0-6 but are perfect since replacing Kerry Collins under center with Vince Young. Young has been great, but he hasn't done it alone. RB Chris Johnson has run enough to have the pundits declare him better than Adrian Peterson and put him in the MVP discussion. Even better for Tenny, they have rediscovered their defense. The Titans are now playing a lot like they did in the first three months of '08. The Colts are facing their most serious challenge thus far this season. The Colts have overcome injuries to defense to sport one of the better defenses in the game. And who would you rather have: Peyton Manning or Vince Young. If the Colts keep it close, Manning can win any game in the final two minutes. Flip a coin. My coin came up Indy, and somehow my coin tells me it will be by less than a touchdown.
posted by Paul Tuns at 7:20 AM

 
Weekend stuff

1. The Daily Telegraph reported that a Japanese man married a video game character.

2. A Guatemala man tried to smuggle 60 grams of cocaine into the United States by hiding the powder coke inside a cooked chicken. A BoingBoing commenter said such chicken should be called Chicken Cordon Blow.

3. Listverse has "15 Truly Bizarre Creatures." I used to own several upside down catfish and like them a lot. And I find the King Vulture incredibly beautiful.

4. ScienceDaily reports, "By Feeding the Birds, You Could Change Their Evolutionary Fate." The Wired Science blog has its take on the story, too. Is this a bad thing? Or is species diversity a good thing? Or is species diversity a bad thing if caused by man?

5. Video of a couple updating their relationship status on Facebook -- during the wedding ceremony.

6. TLC Cooking has "10 Ways to Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half."

7. Or, if you are looking to increase your food budget, Forbes.com has the "World's Most Extravagant Meals."

8. Cracked.com has "6 Movie Plots Made Possible by Bafflingly Bad Decisions," which raises the valid question: why did scientists in Deep Blue Sea build a shark research facility in the middle of the ocean instead of constructing a coastal laboratory?

9. Gretchen (The Happiness Project) Rubin has "Eight Tips to Know If You're Being Boring."

10. Wall Street Journal online has video news clip about "Heavage" -- "Man Cleavage Makes a Comeback."


posted by Paul Tuns at 12:29 AM

 
Manning's language at the line of scrimmage

Really funny. You don't have to be a football fan to enjoy this:



(HT: Newmark's Door)
posted by Paul Tuns at 11:46 PM

 
Arianna plagiarizes her defense of plagiarizing

Isaac Clotiner at The New Republic says of Arianna Huffington:

Huffington, in her speech, gave credit to Techdirt for going after Murdoch. But in a speech that is faulting Murdoch for using other people's content, Huffington used the same four examples (in the same order, and often with similar wording!) as another site. The future of journalism indeed.

Clotiner provides Huffington's words and the words she appears to be borrowing. It appears she didn't even make much of an effort to hide the fact that she, em, borrowed liberally from Techdirt.
posted by Paul Tuns at 11:37 PM

 
World Cup draw

Watched it live on Fifa.com and as a fan of the Dutch and Italian teams, I can't complain. On paper, the Dutch have the easiest draw (Group E: Japan, Denmark and Cameroon). The Italians (Group F) have Slovakia, Paraguay and New Zealand, all beatable teams if Italy is playing at top form. Conspiratorial-minded Africans must wonder how host-nation South Africa ended up with France, Mexico and Uruguay in Group A. Early commentary is calling Groups D & G the groups of death (Germany, Australia, Ghana and Serbia, or Brazil, Portugal, Ivory Coast and North Korea). The Americans have a path to the second round with Group C opponents England, Algeria and Slovenia. I can't disagree more with Jack Bell, the New York Times Goal blogger, on what are the most difficult groups (1:26 update). Group A is not easy as he claims and Group E has a clear favourite and is nowhere near a group of death. Group B has two clear favourites (Argentina and Nigeria over Greece and South Korea) and Group F should see Spain and Chile easily dispatch Switzerland and Honduras. There should be some interesting first round matches (opening Uruguay vs. France, Mexico vs. South Africa, day two featuring England and USA and Argentina against Nigeria). I'm looking forward to June and hoping that Brazil and Ivory Coast can dispatch Portugal in the first round.
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:29 PM

 
San Francisco Chronicle headline over-the-top

"Adapt to climate change or die, experts warn." Editors would claim they were not editorializing in the headline because of the inclusion of "experts warn", but it is still needlessly sensationalistic. Anyway, said experts should have very little credibility nowadays.
posted by Paul Tuns at 12:53 PM

 
Coming. Liberal. Crackup.

Paul Monlezun at The Political View blog on Michael Ignatieff's "leadership" of his party:

There is no discipline in the Liberal ranks today...

If you let your own caucus run roughshod over you, how can you expect to govern the country?

That’s the way it was under John Turner...

Them are fighting words.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:59 AM

 
Reading Palin

Brigitte Pellerin reviews Sarah Palin's Going Rogue for MercatorNet. This is going to tell you all you need to know about the book:

Before I cracked the book open I was convinced it would give those of us who like Sarah Palin 10,000 more reasons to like her, and those of them who hate Sarah Palin 10,000 more reasons to hate her. I was right. (As a result, most other reviews are quite predictable, too.)

For the record, I'm both anti-Palin and anti-anti-Palin, but life is too short to read her thick tome.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:56 AM

 
Four and down

4. Last night's game between the Buffalo Bills and New York Jets was nothing special but nothing terrible either. It is about what you would expect from teams that were 4-7 and 5-6 respectively, lacking quality quarterbacks, and having solid if unspectacular defenses (thus preventing a lot of excitement-generating offense). Both quarterbacks were under pressure and hurried most of the game in a way that is not adequately reflected in the statistics. The highlight of the night, as I predicted, was watching CB Darrelle Revis shut down WR Terrell Owens. If I had a vote, Revis would be my pick for defensive player of the year just ahead of New Orleans Saints safety Darren Sharper. Revis limited Owens to just 31 yards and three catches, despite QB Ryan Fitzpatrick regularly throwing his way. Revis has done this all year and to everyone (including Randy Moss twice). It was a spectacular defensive clinic. I predicted the Bills would win 23-13 due to taking advantage of turnovers, but they didn't force one turnover all night. (The Jets forced two, a fumble and a pick.) Jets won 19-13.

3. I disagree with Gary Myers of the New York Daily News. Jets rookie QB Mark Sanchez left in the third quarter after diving head first on a running play. There were stories this week of Sanchez being taught to how to slide feet first from New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi, but apparently Sanchez is a slow learner. He is injured and considering his season -- 11 TDs, 17 interceptions, 53.7 passer rating, 53.2 completion percentage -- perhaps his injury could be an early Christmas present for a Jets team that now finds itself in the playoff hunt despite a 2-6 stretch going into Thursday night's game. Not that Kellen Clemens is much better, but he shouldn't be any worse than Sanchez and it might be better for the rookie to take some time off rather than jeopardize his development by rushing the kid.

2. The Carolina Panthers might benefit some the same type of addition by subtraction at the Jets. Carolina's quarterback, Jake Delhomme, is out with a broken finger on his throwing hand and the team will give Matt Moore the start. Delhomme has thrown 22 picks in his last 12 games, including last year's one-and-out playoff appearance. He signed a four-year, $42.5 million contract extension in the off-season (after his five interception playoff game) but he has passed his best before date and it is probably time for the Panthers to start thinking about who might be their quarterback of the future -- despite having a $10-million-a-year QB already on on the roster.

1. Cold Hard Football Facts has a Who-themed look at football. The Who, by the way, are playing The Half Time Show (it requires capitalization) at Super Bowl XLIV (it requires Roman numerals) in South Florida (officially it is South Florida, not Miami) and thus will be the best Hall Time Show in the history of Half Time Shows. The CHFF story using Who song titles to look at various aspects of this NFL season is typically good.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:53 AM

 
Three and out

3. Tim Marchman looks at two unlikely Hall of Fame candidates, Fred McGriff and Ellis Burks. He says that McGriff doesn't deserve inclusion, and few people would disagree. But a case could be made if one only looked at his peak years (1988-1994) which was a surprisingly good stretch but probably not good enough. Amazing fact about McGriff: "He led the league in home runs twice but only hit 71 home runs in the two seasons combined." About Burks, Marchman says he doesn't deserve enshrinement either, but according to one line of argument about such matters, which Marchman facetiously utilizes, a case could be made. According to one metric Burks is better than Duke Snider and according to another he ranks ahead of Ty Cobb and he had only nine fewer homeruns than Joe DiMaggio. Of course, Marchman is cherry-picking his facts, but there is a larger point: Burks had a more impressive career than most baseball fans would probably give him credit for. Amazing fact about Burks: "Among center fielders with at least 8000 career plate appearances, just two have both a .350 on base average and a .500 slugging average and aren't in the Hall of Fame. One is Ken Griffey, Jr. The other is Ellis Burks."

2. Jerry Crasnick at ESPN.com has a story, "Perusing the free-agent bargain bin." It's a decent read although I have a problem with the premise (and perhaps the definition of a bargain). Not everyone is going to get or go after a Jason Bay or John Lackey and probably only two or three teams are seriously in the Matt Holliday sweepstakes, but it's not like there are those three and then a giant cliff. My guess is that there are a few players who are going to go for a lot more than they are worth (I'm looking at you Marco Scutaro) or get longer deals than are prudent (some team will give southpaw pitcher Randy Wolf a longer contract than is prudent) and a few who won't be paid what they should (Pedro Martinez). What will the going price be for a DH-type 1B Carlos Delgado or a recovering from injury two-time All Star starter like Justin Duchscherer? My guess is that a number of players in the second and third tier of free agents will be more expensive than pundits are predicting as more teams pursue bargains and thus (ironically) driving up their average salary. At least that's what I think will happen with Duchscherer, OF Jermaine Dye, and 3B Adrian Beltre, and a few others. Logic dictates that if Ben Sheets, a former ace pitcher who sat out all of 2008 and has an injury history, is going cheap, more teams will be tempted to take a chance, but that the more teams that express an interest in the high-risk, high-reward pitcher, the more expensive he becomes.

1. These free agent outlay numbers are outrageous -- and I'm not talking about the big spenders. With the amount of revenue sharing that is going on, transferring wealth from high revenue organizations like the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees to low revenue franchises like the Pittsburgh Pirates and Minnesota Twins, the smaller market franchises should be able to spend more money on free agents. The Twins at least have a strong farm system and could be using the money to keep their better players in a Twins uniform a little longer, but there is no talent making its way onto the Pirates and very little to the Washington Nationals. What are some of these teams doing with the money?
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:46 AM