Budgeting For Dummies

Let's say you have a montly budget of $3,500. Do you think you'd be able to cut your expenses by about $130 bucks each month without severely impacting your lifestyle? I bet you could. The Federal government, however, is unable to accomplish such a task. If they could, maybe they could find a way to cut $130 billion from a $3-4 trillion budget... which if they kept it up could balance the budget in 10 years.

On a related note, I for one am extremely pleased that my taxes won't be going up next month (and the year-long reduction in payroll taxes is nice, too!).

The Sensible Middle Ground

I suppose I should take some comfort in the fact that I've been accused of being both a denier and a warmist. But the polarized nature of the global warming debate is no laughing matter. Limiting the debate to only two valid positions—for or against—makes a constructive discussion impossible. If we truly want to make progress on climate change, we must acknowledge a middle way—one that recognizes that while we do need to deal with the reality of global warming, solutions based on worst-case scenarios will actually do more harm than good.

The smart middle path means making green energy so cheap everyone wants it. There's nothing confusing about it.

- Bjorn Lomborg

"Teachable Moments"

Earlier this year, I received an e-mail from our assistant athletic director, just drawing our attention to a change in the rules for clothing in high school athletics. Specifically: Rule 9, Section 6, Article 1b of the National Federation of High Schools rule book, which states: "Items displaying seams stitched on the outside of the garment in a visible contrasting color to the undergarment will be illegal beginning with the 2009-10 school year."

I've always felt the clothing police were going a bit overboard in our high school sports (especially considering half the officials don't actually go through proper procedure for things that MATTER, like starting a race), and this just continued the trend of ridiculous requirements. But I certainly didn't think the new stitching rule would actually have an impact on results. How wrong I was. In Baltimore County, the fourth-place finisher in cross-country finals was DQ'd for violating this rule, thereby costing his team the title.

/head explodes

The idiots who make rules for high school sports are always doing crap this (like banning the A-11 offense in football). And pretty much the only way I can defend this rule (and outcome) is that it is teaching our student-athletes that those with power will create arbitrary, pointless rules that serve no purpose other than to further their own sense of control and prevent change. And since they will have to deal with people like this their whole lives, I guess it's good to teach it to them at a young age. But it's a pretty damn sad. And really, how does a coach "winning" because of this rule actually accept the trophy?

How Traditional Statistics Lose Baseball Games

Last night's Yankees-Red Sox game provided a perfect example of how strict adherence to the so-called "Book" can cost a team a game. The Yankees had a 3-1 lead in the game heading into the 8th inning, with starting pitcher CC Sabathia still going fairly strong and at a relatively manageble pitch count. However, he allowed the first two batters of the inning to reach base, giving up a single to Nick Green and a walk to Dustin Pedroia. Another single by JD Drew made the scored 3-2 and forced Sabathia from the game, with 0 outs and runners on 1st and 2nd, and the 3-4-5 hitters due up for the Red Sox. Manager Joe Girardi brings in the unspectacular but generally serviceable Alfredo Aceves from the bullpen who allows a single and a sac fly to put the Red Sox ahead 4-3 and they went on to win the game and stay unbeaten against the Yankees this year.

Of course, it's very easy to Friday-morning quarterback the decisions made by Girardi here - who comes out of the bullpen, when you pull Sabathia, etc. And lord knows callers to WFAN will all be spouting their opinions on it all day long, interspersed with Mike Francesa's inane ramblings of Boston's undeniable "confidence" and "swaggar" against the Yankees. Anyway, here's my take on what should have happened in the 8th (and I said this at the time, too, not just after the negative (for the Yankees) result occured):

Once the first two men were on base with nobody out, the leverage index (LI) of the at-bat was 4.28. LI is basically a measure of how "important" an at-bat is - how much will the expected outcome of the game change based on what happens in this at-bat (if the score is 10-0 in the 9th inning, this is very low leverage, because no matter what happens, it probably won't change the overall outcome of the game). An average at-bat has an LI of 1.00, so this at-bat was over 4 times more "important" than average (after Drew's single the LI was 4.50, then to 4.33 after the score was tied). The point is, the Yankees REALLY needed outs in that situation.

(See those high bars in the lower part of the graph in the 8th inning? That's Leverage Index.)

Common baseball wisdom is that you bring in your closer (who is presumably the best relief pitcher; it certainly is the case for the Yankees) in the 9th inning to protect leads of 1-3 runs, because in those situations the closer earns a save (or more accurately, "save"). I believe that you use your best bullpen pitcher in the highest leverage situations; these are the situations where you really need an out. 0 out and 2 on in the 8th inning has a higher LI than bases empty in the 9th. So at this point, Girardi should have brought in Mariano Rivera to try to get out of the 8th inning with the lead, and then have some other pitcher (Aceves, Coke, or a combination) pitch the 9th. With a tiring starting pitcher, you gave up a 3-1 lead with your best pitcher sitting on the bench, because it wasn't yet conventioanlly-appropriate to bring in a closer. [Occassionally pitchers will be used for 4 or 5 out saves, and VERY rarely 6 outs, but for the most part (and especially early in the year), this extremely atypical.] Commonly-held baseball wisdom (and the idiotic "save" statistic) contributed to the Yankees loss last night, because the manager was using out-of-date tactics on how to employ a major league bullpen.

The downside, of course, is that if Rivera DOES manage to get out of the inning with the lead intact (and let's assume he is unavailable to come back in the 9th), you will have lesser pitchers trying to get the final 3 outs and record the save. And if they fail at that, Girardi will be the one who is criticized, since he bucked the trend and used his closer in the 8th inning. So it really isn't in his own personal interest to do so, from the perspective of the media attention he will recieve: if Rivera pitches out of the jam, Rivera will get the credit; if he doesn't, Girardi will get the blame (these perverse incentives facing managers are similar to the points made about NFL coaches not going for it enough on 4th down). But if teams want to win more games, they should become much more creative about how they use their best bullpen arms. It might mean an extra couple of wins per season, which can make the difference in making the playoffs or not. Bringing in your best pitcher to get out of jams in the 8th inning (or the 7th or possibly even 6th) will cost your closer saves, but win more games for your team. Owners of fantasy teams with that closer won't like it, but hopefully that is not part of the decision-making process for MLB managers. It seems quite obvious to me that blowing leads in high leverage situations with your best pitchers on the bench is sub-optimal managing. The rule for bringing in closers should not be "save situation", but rather "extremely high leverage".

[Addendum: This situation is of course tailor-made for the "Joba to the bullpen" contingent, and although I disagree with that sentiment I see how this game makes people feel that way. But the above discussion is about in-game strategy, not personnel decisions. Even if you have Joba/Bruney available in the bullpen, the point still stands that you want the best pitchers throwing the highest-leverage at-bats late in games.]

MLK The Remix

Auto-Tune is the audio processor that transforms Kanye West from a whiny, talentless hack into a whiny, rich guy who sells millions of records. And one of the greatest new trends of the week is using Auto-Tune to put a funny spin on speeches and the news. None finer than this rendition of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. And people say the internet is waste of time!

Budget "Cuts"

This video puts it in pretty good perspective.

Big News!

Toronto may finally be getting a professional hockey team! Can they use improper pluralization rules, too?

We Beat the 6th Seed in the West. Time to Get Overconfident.

The Vancouver Province is really trying hard to jinx the Canucks. They're actually accepting submissions for a Stanley Cup parade route. You know, if they manage to win 12 more games against 3 of the best teams in hockey. Which would be awesome, but it's probably a bit premature.

Going to Rd. 2, Online Update-Style!

Goal: VAN BURROWS,A. 28' Snap (19:41 OT)

OK, This Rocks

I love parkour, and if I was 10 years younger maybe I'd try it out. And this video is parkour for bikes, therefore making it sweet like Easter candy. It's Danny MacAskill doing some mind-blowing tricks on a bicycle. This is probably the coolest thing I've seen in 2009.



Who needs some Mountain Dew?

Play Ball!

Baseball season is finally here. Now I can ignore politics for 6 months, thankfully.

Quote of the Day

"...And many of us are hoping that all those in power fail, because those in power have a grating habit of being annoyingly self-righteous, hopelessly corrupt, resolutely incompetent and completely apathetic about the freedoms that they have sworn to protect."

(link)

The Shock Doctrine, Revisited

What are the odds that Naomi Klein writes a book about how Obama and the current administration/Congress is capitalizing on the current crisis to implement a whole slate of reforms they have been wanting to implement for years? It is far from shocking to see politicians (and their apologists) claiming that the mess we're in clearly shows the desperate need to implement whatever policies they have been advocating regardless of the state of the economy. I'm pretty sure that famous saying about the Chinese words for "crisis" and "opportunity" being the same is a myth, but to politicians, it certainly isn't. And that goes for those from the left as well as the right. They're all the same snake-oil salesmen.

Man, oh man. March Madness and baseball season can't come soon enough.

What Year Is It?

Are we seriously still supposed to get excited about a 23-year old guy smoking pot? Considering this is an activity that has been undertaken by not only the greatest swimmer of all time, pretty much every NBA player, and the current President of the United States, perhaps we need to rethink whether this is the big horrible deal it is made out to be. I really wanted Michael Phelps to NOT issue a stupid apology for being a perfectly normal young man, but of course we're not quite that far advanced yet.

So it was with great pleasure that I read Radley Balko's "A Letter I'd Like to See (But Won't)". I know that this isn't the only important issue out there, and I personally don't even care if I ever smoke marijuana ever again. But for some reason I get really angry about a society declaring WAR on its own citizens for what they decide to put in their own bodies.

As an aside, best headline for this story: "Pot of Gold".

Beer Pong Is Dead, Long Live Beer Pong

When out-of-touch oldies like Rick Reilly are finally getting around to writing about beer pong in ESPN the Magazine, I think it's pretty safe to say that beer pong's days as a cultural force are numbered (if a bunch of frat boys playing with water (WATER!) in a tournament held in a casino in Vegas hadn't killed it already). An alternative death blow can come from appearing in the lifestyle section of the New York Times. (See also: Ugly Sweater Parties).

Pretty Nice Xmas Gift for Yankee Fans

So this is what happens when the Yankees miss the playoffs. They've now added first baseman Mark Teixeira to their lineup for 8/$180. Quite a pickup for the Yankees, and Cashman deserves some credit for what he's pulled off this off-season. Teixeira projects to have a batting line of about .295/.390/.550, and he's a switch hitter still in his prime who is pretty much a lock to hit 30 HR's. By all accounts, he's a plus defender, although that is somewhat expendable at first base. But this solves a lot of questions for the Yankees and most certainly makes them the favorites in the AL East next season (and on paper, probably the best team in all of baseball). This will (rightly) raise a bunch of questions about the competitive balance in baseball, but you can't really fault the Yankees for spending the cash they're bringing in with their new money-making machine stadium. You can fault them a bit more for the way their fleecing NYC taxpayers for that stadium, but they're no worse (except the numbers are a bit bigger) in that regard than pretty much every other professional sports team.

So yeah, this signing worries me in terms of what it means to the Yankees on the field this season - but it just makes everyone else (i.e. the Rays) that much more of an underdog, and therefore that much more fun to cheer for (and the Yankees that much more fun to cheer against). And can you imagine if the Yanks miss the playoffs again, given what they've done this off-season?

From the Desk of Douglas Adams

"On [that] world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."

"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy?"

"I did," said Ford, "It is."

"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"

"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."

"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"

"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."

"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"

"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in."

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