top 5 of today!

2 phenomenal pieces from the new yorker begin today's post:

1. the new yorker endorses barack obama. This campaign has been so long and wearying that it took quite a bit to inspire me. and the editors of the new yorker did just that, with this stirring piece in which they remind all of us of what we've forgotten. I had forgotten the extent to which the idea of Obama restores every facet of life in which we find ourselves betrayed by government. and this is important, when you turn to another riveting feature on
2. evaluating voter tendencies in ohio. george packer paints a compelling, if concerning, portrait of the struggles of ohio voters to accept a candidate of obama's mold: lofty, young, and liberal with a littany of promises. While Obama has the coherence to validate his proposals, is this marketable to low-income white voters who have been burned by democrats over the years and are conditioned by the subtle prejudices of race and class? a legitimate question, and a concerning when when you consider the critical swing states (colorado, nevada, florida, ohio, north carolina, pennsylvania, new hampshire, minnesota).

Next, paul krugman skewers the mccain health care plan. the argument is very simple. mccain cuts the tax breaks for employers to provide insurace. so obviously, they don't. then everyone gets some money to buy health care. people with money have some extra money to buy it -- great! sick people and poor people get fucked - bad. what encapsulates the mccain campaign better?

But the people gaining insurance would be those who need it least: relatively healthy Americans with high incomes. Why? Because insurance companies want to cover only healthy people, and even among the healthy only those able to pay a lot in addition to their tax credit would be able to afford coverage (remember, it’s a $5,000 credit, but the average family policy actually costs more than $12,000).

Meanwhile, the people losing insurance would be those who need it most: lower-income workers who wouldn’t be able to afford individual insurance even with the tax credit, and Americans with health problems whom insurance companies won’t cover.

Note: post-debate, this has got to be the biggest point that obama scored over mccain, particularly in noting how people with pre-existing conditions get left out. well, that and mccain's insane plan to buy all the bad mortgages, which is either a) already in the bailout, in which case, who cares, or b) not in the bailout, in which case, wtf is the bailout for, and c) way to increase government ownership, stalin. oh, and also mccain's insane "speak softly"/"next up, baghdad" gaffe.

Sarah Palin Ruminations
The new republic has a very nice piece entitled, "barracuda". the critical point here: palin often took challenges personally, turning dissenters into political opposition, and devoting herself to eliminating her detractors. does this sound...eerily familiar? (new york times subnote: cheney! cheney! cheney!) Part of the reason i found the article so fascinating was that it paints palin as motivated very little by logic, and very strongly by victory. and that seemed to work out quite well for her.
slate's ten to toss
i absolutely loved slate's "ten to toss" article. in this article, the awesome emily bazelon along with chris wilson tear apart 10 of president bush's most egregious executive orders (reminiscent of this american life's evisceration of bush's "signing statements"). from presidential secrecy to separation of church and state to violations of the geneva convention, there are are some great orders to toss in this list, and the list itself is a reminder that we did not have merely a well intentioned neophyte in office, but a president/VP tandem determined to covertly push forward a socially neoconservative agenda while protecting their consituency at every turn.

the red sox advance, defeating the angels 3-1. what are the key points here:

• jon lester. amazing. even if he didn't beat anaplastic large cell lymphoma, amazing. but he also did that.
  
• jason bay. the kind of 5 tool player i love.
• theo epstein. this red sox team is the 4th iteration since their first championship. they continue to be competitive in a way that's one step ahead of the market by being flexible. by the way, this is also a testament to terry francona's managing.
• justin masterson. jesus, the guy is a rookie. he's not ready to be your 8th inning setup guy. okajima and delcarmen can do the trick. save masterson for 6th/7th innings eating. trust me; with daisuke, you're going to need to fill those middle innings.
• the rays are a great team that terrifies me. great pitching, good OBP guys, great defense, great speed. we'll see.

i'll leave you with a graph that teaches us what makes people go to grad school. sad, really.

www.phdcomics.com

random thoughts, part 1: baseball, disenfranchisement

it's really tough for me to comprehend, as the baseball playoffs start, that i'm not going to see manny donning a red #24 and hitting cleanup for the red sox ever again. my personal history with baseball is a weird one. when my family moved to boston, i was 6, and looking for a hobby. i settled on baseball cards, and adopted the red sox as my baseball champions. i really loved baseball as a kid, especially because my dad would often score tickets to baseball games (i didn't go to a basketball game until I was in college, and I barely remember the one football game I attended.) I went through a lull in my fandom from about age 8-16, mostly because I wasn't in Little League, and additionally because of the baseball strike. My love for baseball was brought back by 3 seminal Red Sox: Nomar Garciaparra, Pedro Martinez, and Manny Ramirez. Nomar, a brilliant but brooding hitter, took business negotiations from the front office personally and was sent packing in 2004. Pedro helped deliver the first Red Sox championship in 86 years before cashing in on one last paycheck (sorry Mets fans), but Manny stuck it out until this year. From a fan's perspective, Manny was always a joy to watch. We loved his goofy personality (including ridiculous handshakes individualized for each of his teammates, my favorite being his 'gunslinger' handshake with Millar) that served as a perfect counterpoint to how locked-in he always was at the plate. I'll never see anything in baseball as great as the 1-2 punch of Manny and Ortiz: Ortiz with his ability to just muscle anything over the fence, and Manny, the hitting savant par excellence.

But the other reason I loved Manny is that he recognized baseball for what it is: a game. He loved baseball, worked hard at it, and was great, but his life didn't end on the field and he said as much. Sportswriters hated this about him, and always got on his case about not being the kind of 'gritty, dirt-dog, hustler' types that they always love. Here's a hint about why writers hate Manny and love David Eckstein. The gritty dirt-dogs? They're always white. Guys who 'play the game the right way'? Always white. Guys like Manny, whose combination of athletic ability and work ethic make his at-bats look easy? They're lazy (and they're usually black or hispanic). These are the same guys who think that the great era of basketball was in the 80s, because everyone was slower, and Larry Bird was amazing. Anyways, I'll miss you, Manny, and if the Sox go down in the playoffs, I'll be rooting for the Dodgers, no doubt. Well, actually, maybe not. I'll probably root for the Cubs, with their 100 year drought, or for the Phillies (because I'm getting slightly worried about the psyche of Philadelphia sports fans). But I'll watch the Dodgers, and when Manny hits a bomb, watches it for 3 seconds too long, jogs around the bases, and does a 14-move handshake with a bewildered and slightly annoyed Jeff Kent, I'll cheer.

By the way, the Sports Guy wrote an awesome article about Manny, so if you're a sports fan, read it.

And in other thoughts, voter disenfranchisement! I went to rolling stone to read an awesomely vicious takedown of John McCain's seemingly spotless biography (I loved it, but if you like McCain, you'll hate it, and maybe hate me) and ended up reading a 23 page report on voter disenfranchisement in Ohio in 2004. In an example of everyone's tendency to revise history in order to make it more palatable, I had completely forgotten about how overwhelmingly exit polls had favored Kerry and how incomprehensible it was that the polls were off by as much as they were (John Zogby called the explanation for the discrepancy, that democrats had participated more in exit polling than Republicans, "preposterous.") Well this piece painstakingly reconstructs all of the separate voter intimidation, voter exclusion, and plain old fradulent tactics conducted in Ohio, at the behest of the GOP. Upon reading this, I immediately thought 3 things:

1. It's really sad that voter disenfranchisement may be my number one fear about why Obama might not win on November 4th. After all, we've already seen examples of voter intimidation in Michigan, and I certainly don't feel confident that the type of organized intimidation orchestrated in the last 2 elections is going to either suddenly cease or be overcome in this election.
2. There's a really interesting article in the Times that talks about George W. Bush, and how his likeability may very well increase when he is a former president, as his personality shifts to the forefront and his policy decisions fade into the background (the article notes similar transformations for Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter). But I think its important that we not forget that beneath his charm, and even beneath his "aw shucks, I'm not that smart" populist sensibilities was someone not afraid to break the rules to win, and certainly not hesitant to expand executive power to push his agenda forward, even if it included trampling basic rights of American citizens to privacy, habeas corpus, etc. If anything, I think in the future, I'll look back on President Bush as a genius for hoodwinking everyone into believing he was too dumb to be sinister. And this brings me to my most important point:
3. Potential voters need to recognize the GOP they are voting for. Republicans at this point (no matter what talking points they parrot) are not the party of small government and self-reliance. They're the party of lobbyists, fat cats, and influence that say that if you can't win by the rules, make sure you've got enough money and power to change the rules, and make sure of it by buying off all the people who've got the money and enforce the rules. It's a smart plan, honestly, but its vile, and lets not pretend that it has anything to do with the party of Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. This is a party that guts the financial security of Middle America by preying on their hatred of gays, immigrants, and abortion so they can give kickback to the billionaires that illegally finance their re-election campaigns.
   

More soapboxing after the VP debate. The Times had tons of weird, non-political stuff, and I plan to talk about it. For now, enjoy Homer Simpson's attempts to vote!

a little bit of a strange time

Today, im a little politically overwhelmed - not that its impeding my ability to absorb new information but more that i feel a little saturated with perspectives and am thus unable to offer any of my own. mostly because ive been inundated with so much press feedback and interpretation of both the bailout saga and the first debate that its a little difficult to express fresh opinions. so in this post, after a few direct thoughts, i'll attempt to highlight a few tangential, yet interesting pieces ive encountered in the last few days.

The Bailout
honestly, im not exactly sure how to react, since responses are all over the place. On one hand, I have come to believe that a bailout is probably necessary - I was roughly convinced of this by a very effective Planey Money podcast, which talked about two very interesting ideas: that the slowing of the economy validates ben bernanke's "financial accelerator" theory, and that the seriousness of the situation is reflected in money market funds "breaking the buck."

So, a bailout is probably helpful. But it has had detractors on two sides. House Republicans oppose what they view as the socialization of America, and Democrats such as Dennis Kucinich on Democracy Now articulated a disappointment with the lack of taxpayer and homeowner protection, bankruptcy protection, and ceo income capping. I might be way off here, but it sounds somewhat like Republicans don't want the government getting involved, and Democrats are annoyed that their involvement doesn't seem to be defending taxpayers as much as it should.

The Candidates
How did the candidates react to this? Well, John McCain returned to Washington last week, and attempted to co-opt the bailout proposal that emerged as evidence of his bipartisanship, despite the fact that a proposal had existed before he ever showed up (and temporarily collapsed on his arrival). All weekend, we heard how great John McCain was at bringing Republicans and Democrats together. Yesterday, we saw that that was horseshit, as House GOP members summarily rejected the proposal. So, naturally, after taking credit for encouraging bipartisanship, McCain would recognize his failure to successfully achieve it, right?

Not really - his only response to the failed bill was a hilarious statement in which he blamed Obama for Democratic partisanship. Wow. I loved the analogy (can't remember whose) that compared the hypocrisy of that statement to the guy who murdered his parents, then begged for clemency because "he was an orphan." So, McCain's an idiot, and lets not waste anymore time with that.

(EDIT: This morning, McCain released a statement echoing Obama's FDIC proposal below, so I'll back off of the 'idiot' comment. Of course, he'll probably take credit for this proposal, and I reserve the right to put 'idiot' right back out there when that happens.)

Obama, meanwhile, released a very smart suggestion yesterday, calling for the FDIC limit to be raised to $250,000 in order to protect small businesses. A measured, thoughtful, reasonable response. HOW IS THIS ELECTION CLOSE? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Anyways. The crisis of today raises parallels with the Great Depression and FDR's landmark New Deal legislation. So, should we be looking for Obama to be an FDR-type president? Here are some interesting articles. The first discusses the New Deal and its appropriateness in a modern context. The second discusses a call from progressive Democrats for resurrection of New Deal era legislation. The final one asks how Obama might implement some of FDR's policies. The truth is, though, you're probably not going to see much of this behavior. Obama isn't a proponent of government over-regulation. As has been discussed before, he's a University of Chicago style Democrat, believing largely in the power of markets. I think you will see an increase in government oversight and consumer protection, but other than that, don't expect to see the market in chains. (For the record, I think that this is probably a good thing. So do some dudes from Freakonomics, and they're very smart.)

I guess this stuff isn't as tangential as I thought. Alright, some random other thoughts:

1. Lay off of Bill Clinton, already! Look, Im pretty unashamed with my Clinton homerism, but honestly, why is it the end of the world that his endorsement of Obama is a pragmatic one? There are more than enough people with (justifiable) Obama crushes. I would think that a few people out on the trail whose endorsement seems more subtle and reasoned might play well with independent voters who are sick of over-the-top swooning over his candidacy. Plus, on Meet the Press, you could see him really passionate about his work with the Clinton Global Initiative as he promoted successes in Africa and railed against those who undermined local successes by refusing to look more closely than at the total 'African diaspora.' He's doing honest, important work, and we should cut him some slack.
2. Killer This American Life episode. Called 'Going Big', it talks about people who "take grand, sweeping approaches to solving problems of all sorts." Particularly inspiring is the first story on Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children's Zone. I can't wait for next week's piece on the economy.
3. Everyone listens to the Moth podcast, right? I realize not everyone can detach themselves from all social interaction and listen to as many podcasts as I do, but The Moth is once a week for 15 minutes, and is hilarious. Come on, people.
4. Baseball Playoffs!!!!!!! I really need to save this for a separate post, but my beloved Red Sox once again square off with the dreaded Angels! Will we send them to playoff oblivion as we have done en route to our last 2 World Series victories? Alot depends on the health of 3 of our best players: Josh Beckett, J.D. Drew, and Mike Lowell. Yeah. I need a separate post for this. Later.
   

antiprobiotics.

Probiotics are stupid. The premise, ostensibly, is that eating a bunch of bacteria might help the digestion of people with IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). This is awfully convenient, because IBS cannot be assessed quantifiably (the readout is generally based on patient symptoms) making this type of "therapy" succeptible to a whopping placebo effect. Who says that these bacteria can out-compete your endogenous flora? And even if it did, how do we know that is a good thing? Commensal bacteria constitute a vital presence in your gut, serving many functions other than digestion. They help prevent infection by more dangerous bacteria. They make sure your immune system doesn't respond inappropriately to harmless bacteria. In fact, one of the more popular models for inflammatory bowel disease involves a damaged immune response to your gut flora. Plus, as Lauren Sandler points out, the marketing techniques essentially imply that you can use 'probiotic' therapy to lose weight. Its even more egregious overseas. So, don't pay a premium for something that is in no way scientifically validated to be helpful.

On the other hand, using worms to treat allergies - that may actually work, and interestingly, in a way that commensals might also act - by serving to dampen your immune response so it doesn't respond to inappropriate things, like pollen. This is summed up in the hygiene hypothesis.

Other Science thoughts, courtesy of Nature News:
1. SIDS - Excellent work from Cornelius Gross's group. They engineered a mouse with excess levels of the serotonin 1A receptor, which acts as a negative regulator of serotonin levels, based on prior associations of serotonin with SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). The resulting mice experienced sudden drops in heart rates and sudden death at early ages, mimicking SIDS phenotypes. Nature News article here, Science paper here.

2. Schroedinger's Cat, alive! - Someone explain this to the nerd in me who owns A Cartoon History of Time and wants to understand shit like the Copenhagen Interpretation!

The notion is exemplified by the paradox of Schrödinger's cat, a thought experiment in which a cat is locked in a box with a vial of poisonous gas that would be broken if a quantum particle was in one state, and remain intact if the particle was in another. While the box is closed, the particle exists in a superposition of both states simultaneously, so the poison must also simultaneously be both released and contained, and, in turn, the cat must be both alive and dead. When the box is opened, the quantum superposition collapses, and the cat is either killed or saved, in an instant.

Now, Nadav Katz at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his colleagues have performed an experiment in which they pull a quantum state back from the brink of collapse, 'uncollapsing' it and returning it to its unobserved state. Effectively, they have peeked at Schrodinger's cat in its box, but saved it from near-certain death (N. Katz et al. http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.3547).

To physicists raised on the textbook Copenhagen interpretation, any notion of uncollapsing a quantum state seems “astonishing”, says Markus Büttiker, a quantum physicist at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. “On opening the box, Schrödinger's cat is either dead or alive — there is no in between.”

Help!!!!

Other, Other Thoughts:
1. Nadal triumphs at Wimbledon - Now, I'm a huge Federer fan. I think he's a true surgeon on the court, hitting impossible angles and exhibiting that 'sixth sense' where he sees 5 shots ahead. But Nadal bested him honestly this time, and he did so with an almost inhuman defensive consistency, hitting precision groundstrokes, forcing Federer to come to the net, and then hitting passing shot after passing shot. It was pretty phenomenal. I'll just say 2 things. First, I really hope this inspires Federer to raise his game. He's got about 4-5 years left, so hopefully he's still got some great tennis in him. I think he's been stagnant for lack of a true challenger in the past few years, so this is exciting. And 2) I didn't really appreciate the Nadal homerism by the commentators. It goes back to the desire to see a champion torn down, to see him (or her) exposed as mortal. Why not appreciate the dominant run that we've seen for the last 4 years (12 of the last 13 grand slam finals, 13 grand slam titles including 5 wimbeldon, 4 us open, 4 australian open titles) instead of being so eager to anoint a successor? It's kind of a shame.

2. Destruction of the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan - The attack clearly appears to be a response to the growing threat of Indian influence in Afghanistan. To quote:

Pakistani intelligence has long supported militant groups fighting in Kashmir and Afghanistan as a means to influence regions on its borders and, according to some Western diplomats and military officials, it maintains those links today, including with some elements of the Taliban.
Pakistani intelligence, which regards Afghanistan as its backyard, fiercely resents India’s growing influence here, Afghan officials said. The Afghan Interior Ministry said it believed that the attack was carried out in collaboration with “an active intelligence service in the region.”

The US has for a long time been allied with Pakistan, which included use of Pakistani airspace for attacks on Afghanistan shortly after 9/11. One would assume, however, that the recent pattern of behavior would demand a shift in policy.

3. This American Life: By Proxy: This week's This American Life is fantastic. It speaks of people who have had to act as proxies for others in many facets. The most interesting, and gut-wrenching, is the story of an Iraqi translator who gets caught in the crossfire between American soldiers, for whom he works and considers noble until the events of Abu Ghraib, and Iraqi civilians growing increasingly resentful of American occupation. By the way, on the Wikipedia page for the events of Abu Ghraib (which everyone should flip through just to be fully aware of what happened), I just want to highlight a couple of responses.

Rush Limbaugh: "This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of emotional release?"

Senator James Inhofe: "I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment [...] [They] are not there for traffic violations. [...] If they're in cell block 1A or 1B, these prisoners — they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. [...] Many of them probably have American blood on their hands. And here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals." (It's been estimated that at least 90% of detainees were innocent)

Yes, I know this was a million years ago. But please. Don't listen to Rush Limbaugh or any program on which he appears. And please, for the love of God, don't ever vote for James Inhofe.

4. Should abortion procedures be taught in medical school? (Obviously, yes). E.J. Graff at Slate had an interesting perspective on this, as he noted that in a recent poll, 80% of people believe that abortion should be allowed in at least some cases. Isn't this enough that ob-gyns should be formally trained in this procedure? Thoughts?

This is your brain on drugs

Some pretty great stuff today.

First, roid rage hits the labs! Apparently, beta blockers and ritalin are not only used on college campuses, but amongst neuroscientists to make them smarter! Maybe they're hitting the pills to compensate for beer-induced publication lag implied in a recent Oikos article. Or maybe, they're TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD! Zort.

Apparently, scientists aren't the only people who could use a little cognitive jolt. Medical doctors may need it to try and break the shackles of legislative oppression. Talk about forcing your hand. I totally agree with the author's perspective here, which is that whatever your political/religious ideals, its probably not a good idea to force doctors to say something that they may not believe is true:

The South Dakota law requires doctors to give patients who come for an abortion a written statement telling them that "the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being," and that they have "an existing relationship with that unborn human being" that is constitutionally protected. (What does the constitutionally protected part mean? Who knows.) In addition, doctors are ordered to describe "all known medical risks of the procedure and statistically significant risk factors," including "depression and related psychological distress" and "increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide."

Yikes.

Now, lets shift gears. David Greenberg at Slate wrote one of the most interesting articles I've read in awhile, about how Republicans have been so effective at restrictively defining the meaning of patriotism to use it as a weapon. I find everything he has to say about how conservatives and liberals have tended to define patriotism to be pretty accurate. I guess its not surprising that the Republicans have won this battle, but what is most interesting is the requisite communal, unquestioning nature of Republican patriotism versus the progress-by-debate nature of Democratic patriotism. In lieu of this mentality, is it any surprise that Republican party members often sublimate their personal agendas to support the party while the Democratic party is often fractured and weakened by similar 'diversity of thought'? This point was made absolutely to perfection by Bill Bradley 3 years ago in one of the best Op-Ed pieces I've ever read.

The unity of the Republican party should be kept in mind as recent stories have revealed that interrogation techniques used in Guantanamo were based quite directly on Chinese Communist techniques used to extract false confessions from American prisoners during the Korean War. Oh, but they did remember to change the the name given in the original report on these techniques: “Communist Coercive Methods for Eliciting Individual Compliance.” Wow.

Meanwhile, I may have gone a little overboard on the Obama-hatred in my last post (for example, he is against the retroactive immunity granted to phone companies in the wiretapping bill from Congress). Still, the faith-based pandering irks me. Good thing someone is watching his centripetal progress.

And finally, the Red Sox and Yankees start a series today. This in the wake of a disastrous 3-game series in which the Sox were swept by the surging Tampa Bay Rays. So, rather than get depressed over that, I'll instead point you to an excellent study from the Hardball Times concerning how important speed differential is to the value of a change-up. Enjoy!

come back, 8-10 readers!

i've prepared a nice long post!

1. Robert Mugabe and the Problem from Hell.
I'm sure I don't really need to blog about the ruthless efficiency with which Mugabe circumvented democracy (again) to maintain his stranglehold over Zimbabwe. So I'll just mention this last chance for something good to happen. Mugabe is attending an African Union summit in which the legitimacy of Zimbabwean elections will certainly be subject to debate. Sadly, these discussions are going to be mediated by President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, who had an opportunity to decry what was happening, and spectacularly blew it. Mostly because South Africa has its hand in the politically corrupt pot as well. Nevertheless, this summit is a last gasp at some type of negotiation.

I can't even fault the US position here, which is to support tightening of economic sanctions. Its just that its not going to work. I mean, first of all, the nation is already dirt poor with something like a 200,000% inflation rate. Which essentially is resulting from Mugabe and his cronies printing tons of money to ship overseas, as well as keep some portion for themselves to stay afloat, while sadistically devaluing the currency of his constituents. Will he really care if the country gets a little poorer?

2. Barack Obama Plays the Game.
He comes out in reasonable support of gun control, against restriction of capital punishment to only murder, and in support of this congressional garbage allowing wiretapping. It doesn't take a genius to see that most of these are political maneuvers to try and win the fight over moderates, but don't expect a bleeding heart liberal like me to be happy about that shit. Now, he has a solidly liberal voting track record in the Senate, so all is not totally lost, but come on Barack. That wiretapping bill sucks.

There's a nice article in the Times about his poor response to being labeled as Muslim. I mean, he's barely giving it a Jerry/George style "not that there's anything wrong with that!" Plus, its a little depressing for the state of tolerance in our country to read a quote like this:

“The joke within the national Muslim organizations,” Ms. Ghori said, “is that we should endorse the person we don’t want to win.”

I know that Obama has delivered very stirring speeches on race and religion, so I'm disappointed in this type of behavior.

3. The Supreme Court rules on gun control and restricts capital punishment.
I don't have that much to say about this. I was actually encouraged by what I've read of the Scalia decision, which reminded those reading that this was not a decision permitting unfettered gun ownership. But I don't think everyone sees it that way:

“I consider this the opening salvo in a step-by-step process of providing relief for law-abiding Americans everywhere that have been deprived of freedom,” Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the N.R.A., said in a statement.

So there are 2 possibilities. Either people will see this as framing the debate along more rational lines, eliminating moronic hyperbolic arguments ("they won't let us protect ourselves!" "they want people walking around with AK-47s in their trenchcoats!"), or gun enthusiasts will smell blood and go for the jugular. As we see above, one of these already appears to be true.

4. Are we sort of friends with North Korea now?
No. And lets not pretend that this big showy 'disarming' by North Korea is some huge diplomatic accomplishment of any sorts. This fantastic Slate article describes how the Bush administration serially screwed the pooch with this thing over and over again until we got where we are now, with less leverage than ever before, basically hoping that a country that has exploited loopholes and renegged on verbal agreements while reprocessing plutonium has suddenly turned a moral corner:

"There is one big difference between 1994 and 2008: The United States had lots of leverage back then—and it has very little now. There are two reasons for this. First, when Clinton dangled the threat of force in front of the North Koreans in '94, they might have believed he'd really use it; Bush never even dangled a threat, and, with military forces stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan, such growling wouldn't have been credible anyway. Second, and more important, by 2008, the North Koreans had already reprocessed plutonium and set off an atomic bomb; they were a bona fide "nuclear state." They could walk away from the table with a more sincere shrug than we could."

5. Has SportsCenter lost its touch?
According to Slate, yes, in an article in which they paint the current anchors as sycophantic shells of Dan and Keith with a Tic Disorder-like catchphrase obsession. I for the most part agree with them (particularly because I long for the days of Craig Kilborn's "Yahtzee!" and Dan's "the whiff.." and have sworn a blood oath against Scott Van Pelt's "f'thray" and Linda Cohn's stupid first-last name merge nicknames (I-Rod, ManRam, etc.)). But I disagree once it gets to pinning their failures on an obsession with showy, unimpressive basketball highlights. I'm sorry, Matt Feeney, but that's when you stop sounding like a scholar and start sounding like an octagenarian who liked the game more when it was slower and Jeff Hornacek would make the All-Star Team. Well, anyone who's awake enough to keep up knows that the level of skill in basketball continues to skyrocket, so please cut this "glory days" garbage. Allen Iverson can break Hornacek's ankles and then rap about it. Suck on that, Feeney.

6. Why is it so bad that Roger Federer is so good?
It's not. Stop hating on a once in a lifetime athlete. Read David Foster Wallace's virtuoso essay on Federer's greatness for confirmation.

7. Is Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III a Classic?
Sort of. Lil Wayne is like what Andre 3000 could have been if Andre hadn't tried to turn into Prince and ended up jumping the shark 8000 times puncuated by a mediocre album that wasn't half as good as its counterpart (I'm talking to you, The Love Below). He's capable of sounding like an extremely self-aware pop sellout ("Lollipop"), or deep/introspective ("Mr. Carter"). On Tha Carter III he's sort of an amalgamation of all things, and he does so successfully. But I personally enjoy his albums where he he still felt that he was the best rapper to whom no one gave credit. That is why, if asked, I'd tell anyone to download his absolutely inimitable Tha Carter, or his mixtape Da Drought 3, or even The Leak, a release of some tracks that, in my opinion, would have improved Tha Carter III ("I'm me", "Gossip"). Still, Lil Wayne is awesome, and I'm glad he set a nice standard which I can only hope will be matched by...

8. The Return of The Clipse.
Who, if you remember, penned one of my all time favorite hip-hop albums, Hell Hath No Fury. This is such a razor-sharp album that it basically defined a new niche of hip-hop, coke-rap (check out this very interesting perspective on the birth of coke-rap, from of all places, the New Yorker). So, according to Pitchfork, we can expect a new Re-Up Gang album in August and a new Clipse album in November.

and finally,

9. Is it time to start getting unhealthily excited about The Dark Knight?
yep.

baseball and statistics!

what could combine to be better? this cool hardball times article attempts to quantify the value of a playoff win. nice.

i have so much else to say, and so like last week, i'll list it to make sure i get to it:
- more mugabe, more UN.
- Obama's ever-increasingly religious platform, and the voters who don't fit that demo
- supreme court rules on gun control
- north korea gets safer
- how is the recession affecting plastic surgeons and amusement parks?
- how smart is an octopus?
- there's a 3rd VEGF, and its important?
- what's so important about len bias?

see? told you i have a lot to say. i'll try to get to it all in the next few days.

boston celtics thoughts

i'm not a celtics fan, but its cool to see a team that won the championship primarily because of incredible team defense and sacrifices from 3 (albeit aging) superstars. also, lets all celebrate for KG, who as has been repeated ad nauseum over the past few years, is probably not your prototypical thrive-in-the-last-seconds, MJ-type, but was truly an unselfish team player all year and anchored the true strength of this team (defense).



oh, and stay tuned, because here's what i have on my radar over the next day or 2:
- darwinism
- michelle obama
- lipitor/the pharmaceutical industry
- intelligent design
- conan o'brien

playoff basketball!!!

have i not talked about RadioLab yet? Yeah, its awesome. It's sort of a mix of sociology and quantitative science. They take subjects like zoos, leadership, laughter, catchiness of pop songs, and then assemble both anecdotal and research-based observations to help deconvolve these macro phenomena. It's totally fascinating. More factually based than malcolm gladwell, yet pursuing more rewarding topics than steven levitt.

New topic. I love playoff basketball. I love playoff football and baseball too, which I'll talk about when the time comes, but basketball is the first sport I loved. I don't think I'll ever get over the athleticism. The pace is just so much faster than other sports, and the individual athleticism amplified in a cooperative team structure...no other sport gives you more "holy crap did you just see that" moments. And now, a few thoughts on the best player on each team remaining in the playoffs, with nickname in parentheses.

Chauncey Billups, Pistons (Mr. Big Shot): I'm sorry but what exactly is the obsession with this guy? Shoots a terrible percentage, and this whole "mr. big shot"...who has earned their nickname less? He killed them the last 2 years in the playoffs and is basically a corpse now. Forget you.

Lebron James, Cavaliers (King James): Obviously the most overall physically talented, and probably does the most plays that truly stun me. Maybe because he's built like a freaking linebacker. I know its tough for him because he's on a crappy team, but I don't see the playoff assassin in him that I want to. Here's hoping that in game 7 in the first minute he takes it to the hole, eviscerates Rajon Rondo and puts the world on notice.

Kevin Garnett, Celtics (KG/The Big Ticket): I like KG. He's a team player who truly seems to care about winning. I dont think you have to be that guy who takes the big shot (he's clearly tentative) if you do all the little things that help your team win. I think that can still make you great. If he had a true alpha dog on his team, they'd win like 40 championships in a row. Just a fearless guy at the end of the game (like Manu Ginobili).

Kobe Bryant, Lakers (Black Mamba): First of all, GREATEST NICKNAME OF ALL TIME. Who doesn't want to be freakin Black Mamba? And it fits him perfectly. Kobe is one of those weird dudes who grew up in Italy, probably had no peers, came to high school where he was too good for everyone, and went straight to the emerging Laker Dynasty. No wonder he's a recluse. I used to hate him, now I love him. I would love to see a standoff either between him and Lebron (where despite inferior skills at this point he would win just by force of will) or Chris Paul (a guy cut out of his mold at a different position).

Tim Duncan, Spurs (The Big Fundamental): Worst nickname of all time. Almost every basketball fan I'm friends with hates this guy. And now I'm going to sacrifice all of my friends by saying how much I disagree. Yeah, he might be a little boring, but this guy competes. He's not as fast as he used to be, but he still wins by being smarter than everyone else and picking his spots. Anyone notice him dismantling the Suns at the end of every game? I don't care that he doesn't throw down thunderous dunks. Right on with your 8 foot bank shots, big fundamental. Anyone who doesn't think he's the greatest power forward of all time is an idiot and not a real sports fan, and has to be stopped.

Chris Paul, Hornets (CP3, pictured): I'm sorry but that's it???? CP3? for the transcendent player of this year's playoffs? I LOVE this guy. Insanely competitive, but doesn't need to score a million points to do it. The guy took Psych classes in college to try and understand his teammates better. Check out this story if you don't think he's awesome. Plus, in the playoffs, he's taken it to a new, even more insane level. This guy is going to leave Isiah, Stockton, and other awesome point guards in the dust. And with the exception of Deron Williams, there's nobody who can do anything close to guarding him. So he just wreaks havoc on every defense. It's crazy, like watching Barry Sanders on the basketball court. Awesome.

I'd be happy with almost any of these guys matching up in the finals. Maybe not Spurs-Pistons or Spurs-Cavs, but Spurs-Celtics, Cavs-Lakers, Cavs-Hornets, Cavs-Spurs, Celtics-Lakers, Celtics-Hornets....it's all gravy. Playoffs.