Closed Circuit to Pops

About goddamn time.

Why Texas is More Likely to Play "One Shining Moment" than Duke

Seems ridiculous right? Duke wins by 30, but I think Texas will do better in March. Well here's why. I can already see the game Duke loses, either in the Sweet 16 or the Elite 8. They're playing a team with two big guys who can score and an athletic backcourt. Sheldon Williams is in foul trouble. JJ Redick is getting face guarded by a 6'7 guy who can run and jump.

The final stat sheet will include Williams having 20 and 15 (plus 5 fouls) in 24 minutes

JJ will shoot 4-15, with 7 whiny faces made.

Paulus will pull a Wojo-double, 14 floor-slaps, 12 shots of hot-girlfriend in the stands and an astounding 24 group hugs at the FT line.

Meanwhile, Texas has the aforementioned 2 big dudes who can score (Aldridge and Tucker), and though their guards were AWFUL against Duke, the have the athleticism to not suck by March (Daniel Gipson was supposed to be good, he might still be, though getting tooled by The Great Paulus and Wayne Turner-reincarnate Sean Dockery certainly isn't a good sign.)

Just saying.

Typepad, WTF?

Has anyone else noted that Typepad blogs have all had posts made after December 10 deleted? Up with Blogger, I guess. At least when it has outages my stuff is still here. (Like that's a good thing...)

And of course, not 2 minutes after I post...yes, it has been noticed.

Why the Knicks Should Trade for Ron Artest

Overheard in a discussion about whether the Knicks should trade Channing Frye and pieces for Artest:

If you aren't a contender, I'd absolutely trade for him. What do you care if he kills all his teammates? They weren't getting the job done, and presumably it would free up some salary [cap] space.

Hard to argue with that logic.

A Question Concerning Kong (light spoilers)

Full thoughts later (aside from - I liked it.) But for the last 3rd or so of the movie I was reminded of this thread a few days ago at Althouse, (and here as well) wondering if it is too soon to make a 9/11 film. Most thought that it is (though the fact that Oliver Stone is directing seems to be more of an issue than the film itself. My own thoughts are that I think it is definitely time - a true American Hero(es) tale would be good for unity I would think - but that Stone is not the right guy, both by directorial inclination/style and the obvious reaction he elicits.)

People also expressed concern about commercialization of the destruction of New York. But in King Kong, (light spoilers ahead) Kong wrecks most of Broadway, crushes cabs in Times Square and generally makes a mess of Manhattan. Not to mention the fact that the U.S. Army blows some stuff up - even firing a rocket launcher into a residential high rise. Yet this is all ok? Does the fact that it's fictional make it less exploitive? Just asking.

I Was Never Good At Tag As A Child.

I preferred dodgeball. Cause I'm violent like that. So, yeah, Frankie tagged me. Hey at least I won't have the 'weirdest' stories, considering that my competition includes a stripper's retrospective and a genuine bridge & tunneler.

So, Rules:"The first player of this game starts with the topic 'five weird habits of yourself,' and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals. Don't forget to leave a comment in their blog or journal that says 'You are tagged' (assuming they take comments) and tell them to read yours."

1. I'm slightly twitchy: At restraunts, I rend my napkin (assuming it's paper. That would be a neat trick with cloth or linen), spin wine corks, tear off bear-bottle labels, etc.

2. Relatedly, when I'm thinking about something, but not doing anything, I get Spirit Fingers. (Incidentally, in looking up that item, I discovered that a kid I played hockey with growing up was in that movie. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

3. I can remember EVERY embarassing thing I've ever done or said. Call the third grade teacher "Mom" accidentally? Check. Accidentally copy a professor on an email mocking said professor? Check. Throw up at 99 during the century club? Check. (But hey, I rallied...)

4. I'm listening to DasEFX right now. Wrap your mind around that one.

5. And of course, the weirdest thing about me - I'm from Alaska and live there now. To preempt all silly questions. No, I don't own sled dogs. No, I do not live in an igloo. No, I was not raised by wolves. No, when I like a girl I don't just walk up and rub noses with her (though maybe I should try that one out, it might work better). Yes, it's really cold up here right now. Yes, the sun did come up today. No, I was not an extra on Northern Exposure, that fucking bullshit show was filmed in Washington State. No, people in Alaska aren't bitter about that. Yes, that last statement was a lie. And finally, No, my father is not consigliere to the Alaskan Mob.

And the hard part. Which one, which one, where's my bitch?

1. Josh though I'd really LOVE to see Chix's answers.
2. RIA, because I'm curious.
3. Jake because stop studying, it's only law school.
4. Fletch, because I mess with Texas.
5. Steph. Anything to keep you from geo-cashblogging. (Oh, and Frankie wants more Tyge photos.)

Wow.

Before I read any commentary, I have to say that W's speech today is fantastic. Truly spectacular. (And as anyone knows, I'm no bob for this admin, but sometimes you have to give due where due is credit.)

I'm not sure I buy everything, but I think if he had said this bit months ago, he'd have been better off, politically:

When we made the decision to go into Iraq, many intelligence agencies around the world judged that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. This judgment was shared by the intelligence agencies of governments who did not support my decision to remove Saddam. And it is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong.

As president, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq. And I'm also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities. And we are doing just that.

At the same time, we must remember that an investigations after the war by chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer found that Saddam was using the U.N. oil-for-food program to influence countries and companies in an effort to undermine sanctions, with the intent of restarting his weapons programs once the sanctions collapsed and the world looked the other way.

Given Saddam's history, and the lessons of September 11, my decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision. Saddam was a threat, and the American people and the world is better off because he is no longer in power.

Revisionist? Perhaps, but not outlandishly so. This is also the first time he's even given lip service to acknowledging his critics. I'm hopeful without being optimistic that this continues and expands.

Syrania: Grandiose, Insidious and I Want More Films Like It

I saw Syriana on Friday night. I've been trying to figure out exactly how to convey my thoughts on the film. Let me start here. I am shocked that this movie got made. I mean that as a completely value-neutral expression of surprise.

There has been a fair bit of build-up, through rumor and innuendo (not to mention advance press). I was half expecting a polemic - a cross between Fahrenheit 9/11 and The Constant Gardener. I mean, it's a movie about oil and big business, produced by the Clooney/Soderberg Section 8 axis, so it must be a huge anti-Bush parable right? Well, not so fast. (It should be noted that my expectations were not high as the film started. On the way in I was acousted by a gaggle of 23ish patrons who told me something along the lines of 'save myself and two hours'. Not a ringing endorsement.)

If anything, the movie is anti-Liberal. Not 'Conservative,' but Realist in the Samuel Huntington-Clash of Civilizations sense: 'This is the way the world works', it seems to say. The big oil companies are neither good nor evil, they just are. And they have interests, and by virtue of their size, these interests move mountains. About 30 minutes in, this amorality smacked me in the face. Once again, not in a bad way, just surprising considering this was supposed to be a 'lefty-movie'.

Yet, on another level, the movie completely worked as entertainment. The first bit seemed a bit muddled, as there are 4 or 5 distinct storylines. I immediately thought of Traffic, which is no surprise considering that the director and screenwriter was the screenwriter for Traffic. (Soderberg, who directed Traffic is an executive producer here as well.) But as at becomes clearer how the stories intersect (or don't) the film gathers steam.

I don't want to give away plot points, because the movie does play a bit like a mystery, but there were several things of note. Alexander Siddiq is terrific as a "progressive" son of an oil-state Emir. (You may remember him as Saladin's lieutenant in Kingdom of Heaven). His character decides that aligning with America might not be in his nation's best interests, yet he is no Islamist radical. He delivers a telling line: "A nation that has 5% of the World's population yet consumes 50% of its military spending has lost its persuasive power." I'm not sure I agree or disagree, but definitely food for thought. At the same time, there is Chris Cooper's oil baron who declares "China's economy isn't growing as fast as it should because it can't get enough oil. And I'm damn proud of that fact." A not-so-subtle reminder that "Strategic oil reserves" aren't just about profits, but about geopolitical power. (A point very often lost on Liberal interventionists.) My one quiblle is that Clooney's character veers dangerously close to uber-competent, like Arnie in True Lies, if that makes sense.

Undoubtedly, the biggest reason the movie affected me was a single scene where the transferrence Hitchcock invented in Psycho (where we, the audience, begin to subtly root for Norman Bates) is taken to its logical conclusion. It worked on me. And that makes me very uncomfortable. I'm interested to hear from other people who have seen the movie to see if I'm the only one. (And not, it's not the torture scene. Which is graphic, but not overly so.)

All in all, a reminder that things are almost always more complex than we imagine them.

Oh yeah. I don't think Iraq is mentioned once.



Note:According to the author, this is what Syriana means:

It's a fictional place, a term used inside the Beltway, to describe redrawing the borders in the Middle East to suit our interests. It's a made-up name. For example, Iraq is very much an artificial country and that is one reason we're having so many problems there because the Iraqis are not a people with a common identity.

Iraq was made up by the British from three Ottoman provinces after WWI but history tells us the British were unable to unify the Iraqis.

Interesting.

MoneyBuckets

With the success of SABRmetrics over the years, folks in other sports have tried to duplicate the objectivity of the statistical analysis performed on baseball. (For example, try Baseball Prospectus) Unfortunately, no other team sport lends itself to quite that degree of rigor: too many things are happening simultaneously to isolate specific events. (Incidentally, this probably explains the problem of tracking defensive stats in baseball, and in seperating pitching and defense.)

Not that people aren't trying. One of the leading stat-heads in The League has been the Benefactor. The Cuban-TNT kerfluffle basically boiled down to Mark asking Kenny and Charles "what are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes" when it came down to the Mavs defending the Suns pick-and-roll. Well, turns out that Cuban didn't make his billions by being a dummy. Here is some evidence suggesting that switching the Pick-and-roll might be best against the Suns. Interesting stuff, but with all the usual caveats: small sample size, missing variables, etc. Worth reading though.

Maye: Any publicity is good publicity.

First of all, Radley has posted an updated summary of the facts (combined with some well founded speculation, which he clearly identitifes as such.) The blogosphere being what it is, commenters are already (understandably) indentifying errors in some of the early reports, so it's important to stay on top of the facts as they become clearer.

Next, traditional media sources seem to be nibbling at the story: CBS news blog has a piece, and Balko has been "commissioned to write an op-ed on the case by what we'll call for now a national newspaper". I imagine it will compare the fanfare surrounding the late Tookie Williams to this matter.

Finally, Maye's current counsel has this to say to Balko:

Certainly am interested in anything that could be helpful to Cory's case. Particularly would not be averse to talking with other interested lawyers who not only are willing but are CAPABLE of helping with the appeal and, hopefully, the retrial. Sentiment alone, while appreciated, is not helpful from a legal standpoint.

Defense funding would also be extremely helpful. Cory's family, while obviously very concerned about him, are not financially able to obtain all the things that would be helpful in litigating his appeal. And while an indigent can, at the pretrial level, request the court's financial assistance in obtaining things such as expert testimony (re: pathologist to discuss bullet path thru body and reasons that path does not jibe with Cory's statement) and investigative help (for ex. to establish whether anyone else in the surrounding subdivision heard any of the cops announcing before entering), such assistance is not generally available at the appellate level where we now are. If others want to assist Cory in this manner, that would be fantastic.

Although being a cause celebre didn't prevent Tookie's execution this morning in California, he was undeniably guilty. Cory is not.

Let me know your suggestions about establishing a defense fund. Any and all assistance would be greatly appreciated.

As of yet, I have not seen anything regarding such a fund, but if I do, I'll post it.

Happy Happy, Joy Joy

Just wamted to say "Happy [REDACTED] Birthday to pops. He puts the E-Z in Geezeman

Cory Maye, Cont.

I mentioned this earlier, and I get more and more angry as I think about it longer. It just combines the worst aspects of so many mistaken policies: The "war" on drugs; the erosion of civil liberties in exchange for the illusion of security; the thought that racism in America is dead; the arbitrary and irrational sentancing system.

So I'm going to keep talking about it. If it bores you, too bad.

Anyway Battlepanda has a roundup of who's blogging about this story, and of course The Agitator is all over it. Obsidian Wings has thoughts as well.

At this point, from several thousand miles away, it looks like the prosecution has gone into full on CYA mode. Allegations of a seperate warrant for Maye's residence, 'trace' amounts of pot (as if one joint justifies full breach from a SWAT team at 2 AM), and, most incredibly, that there is no record as to the identity of the CI who gave the initial tip. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but at this point its difficult to see anything other than massive, systemic incompetence, or a cover-up, or both.

If I get a chance this week, I'm going to look into MS. search warrant law to see what if I can make any sense whether this is a problem of application, or the underlying law itself. Also, if I come up with any sort of defense fund donation campaign, will pass it along.

I'm Just Saying (Dress Code Edition)

I went to the roller derby and a basketball game broke out. I have so many questions here. Who are the Heat "throwing back" to? They've been around since what 1990? I've seen them play at least once per season since then. They have never had a Rainbow Sherbert slash on their unis. Ever.

I'm Just Saying (Baseball Edition)

Sawx to Rocket: Let's Talk

Tarnished

Calogero kills cop. I'm not sure why but this story really saddens me. A Bronx Tale is one of my favortie movies of all time. Not sure how it will hold up knowing that C doesn't turn out ok.

Suspicious...

Well, Fletcher seems to be correct - the Houstan Texas have "earned" the right to ruin Reggie Bush's career. How do you miss a 31 yard FG by 45 feet? Could I be an NFL kicker?

In other Sunday Sports news - the new Lebron = Andre3000 commercial? Genius.

A Few Legal Links

• First, in the interest of pimping those fine institutions for which I will still be paying in 2015. From the Mondale Red Brick Oven: The MN Life. A superstar-to-be in the legal firmament. You think he ain't? And from lovely Northfield, home of Cows, Colleges and Contentment^tm, the Debate Link. Young debater is a student at Carleton who is interested in the law. There's still time, young man. save yourself while you still can.

• Apropo, David's current lead item is Cory Maye, a story I've been watching this week with disgust. In Mississippi, a black man sits on death row for murdering a white cop. We've seen that movie before of course. But this is not the one where the accused is innocent. There is no question he actually shot and killed the officer. However, the details are shocking. Via The Agitator:

  Here are the details, culled from various media reports and conversations with a couple of people close to the case:
  
  Sometime in late 2001, Officer Ron Jones collected a tip from an anonymous informant that Jamie Smith, who lived opposite Maye in a duplex, was selling drugs out of his home. Jones passed the tip to the Pearl River Basin Narcotics Task Force, a regional police agency in charge of carrying out drug raids in four surrounding counties. The task force asked Jones if he'd like to come along on the raid they'd be conducting as the result of his tip. He obliged.
  
  On the night of December 26, the task force donned paramilitary gear, and conducted a drug raid on Smith's house. Unfortunately, they hadn't done their homework. The team didn't realize that the house was a duplex, and that Maye -- who had no relationship with Smith,-- rented out the other side with his girlfirend and 1-year-old daughter.
  
  As the raid on Smith commenced, some officers - including Jones -- went around to what they thought was a side door to Smith's residence, looking for a larger stash of drugs. The door was actually a door to Maye's home. Maye was home alone with his young daughter, and asleep, when one member of the SWAT team broke down the outside door. Jones, who wasn't armed, charged in, and made his way to Maye's bedroom. Because police believed Maye's side of the duplex was still part of Smith's residence, they never announced themselves (Note added on 12/09/05: Police said at trial that they did announce themselves before entering Maye's apartment -- Maye and his attorney say otherwise. I'm inclined to believe Maye, for reasons outlined in this post. However, even if they did, announcing seconds before bursting in just before midnight, isn't much better than not announcing at all. An innocent person on the other end of the raid, particularly if still asleep, has every reason to fear for his life.). Maye, fearing for his life and the safety of his daughter, fired at Jones, hitting him in the abdomen, just below his bulletproof vest. Jones died a short time later.
  
  Maye had no criminal record, and wasn't the target of the search warrant. Police initially concluded they had found no drugs in Maye's side of the duplex. Then, mysteriously, police later announced they'd found "traces" of marijuana and cocaine. I talked to the attorney who represented Maye at trial. She said that to her knowledge, police had found one smoked marijuana cigarette in Maye's apartment. Regardless, since Maye wasn't the subject of the search, whether or not he had misdemeanor amounts of drugs in his possession isn't really relevant. What's relevant is whether or not he reasonably believed his life was in danger. Seems pretty clear to me that that would be a reasonable assumption.
  
  It apparently wasn't so clear to Mississippi's criminal justice system. In January of last year, Maye was convicted of capital murder for the shooting of Officer Jones. He was sentenced to death by lethal injection.
  
  Let's summarize: Cops mistakenly break down the door of a sleeping man, late at night, as part of drug raid. Turns out, the man wasn't named in the warrant, and wasn't a suspect. The man, frigthened for himself and his 18-month old daughter, fires at an intruder who jumps into his bedroom after the door's been kicked in. Turns out that the man, who is black, has killed the white son of the town's police chief. He's later convicted and sentenced to death by a (Pooh: Majority) white jury. The man has no criminal record, and police rather tellingly changed their story about drugs (rather, traces of drugs) in his possession at the time of the raid.

  In the interest of fairness, Balko has clarified a few facts in the above quotation, and has spoken with the prosecutor on the case. The prosecutor's thoughts can be found here and here.
  
  Balko has been all over this with not just regurgitatiton by actual orignial investigation and reportage. Go there and read on. But remember, Jim Crow is dead.

• Moving on, the Vioxx trials had an interesting development this week. The New England Journal of Medicine issued a "Statement of Concern" about a published Vioxx study. Apparently, the study as released ignored three patients from the experiment group. Unsurprisingly, (though perhaps incredibly) those critical of the suits immediately spun the news by claiming that NEJM was in cahoots with the plaintiffs. Because the medical establishment and the plaintiff's bar are such natural allies, you see. See the comments at this Legal Underground post for more. Though it does appear that this might be something of a tempest in a teapot:

  I've gone both ways on that question in the last few hours, but now I don't think so. While this story makes Merck look bad, idiotically bad, on closer inspection there isn't as much here as you'd think. The data in question are three heart attacks in the final weeks of the VIGOR trial. But the adverse cardiovascular event data in the paper, as published, didn't reach statistical significance, and they don't seem to reach it with these added in, either. On top of that, these data were submitted to the FDA during the drug's approval process, and (according to Point of Law) are on the Vioxx package insert itself.

  So Merck might be guilty of making their data look better for the New England Journal of Medicine, but they're not guilty of hiding it from the world. And I'm not sure about that first charge, either. The lead author on the VIGOR study, Claire Bombadier of Toronto, told Forbes that the paper accurately disclosed the data and the she and the other authors are working on a response to the journal. But the headlines today are going to be variations on the theme of "Merck Hides Data". But as far as I can tell, they should be "Merck Looks Like Gang of Idiots, Blasts Away At Own Foot For Fourteenth Time". But that's not a crime. Yet.

• From the Judicial Activism Goes Both Ways file: Apparently, for purposes of immigration law, an Aggravated Felony is not neccesarily Aggrevated or a Felony. Warning, extreme law-like substance lies beyond hither link.

• Finally, Joe reminds me, once again, that I know nothing about IP law with his analysis of the recent 7th Circuit decision in a KaZaa file-sharing case. Unsurprisingly, the "it was good for them" defense did not work for the copywrite infringer, though Joe does question whether she should have been able to mitigate damages under an "innocent infringer" defense. I'm not sure I agree, but he knows much more than me about this...
  

Edit: Not 20 minutes after I posted this, I came across this bit. Under our system of liberalized pleading, you can file a motion to do just about anything. On the margins, this leads to such things as "Motion for the Judge to Kiss My Ass." Strangely, the judge in question was not amused.

Duke. Gonzaga. Throwbacks.

Since I've previously outed myself as a Dookie, I can crow about today's demolition of Texas. (Though, in fairness, I think Buckman going down had a good deal of influence on the margin if not the outcome.) I've thought that the Devils are overrated at #1 all season, since it seems they have about 2.5 guys (JJ, Lanndlord and Melchionni). Or maybe not, since Dockery seems to have remembered how to shoot, and Paulus and McRoberts showed a lot today. (especially Paulus, though he may indeed have a bit of the WoJo in him. Incidentally, a friend of Josh and mine used to date a girl who was WoJo's girlfriend in college. He (the friend, not WoJo) is also a reality TV "star" and charter member of the Wally Szerbiak posse. What does this have to do with Greg Paulus? Who knows, just thought it was interesting.) It also helps when Reddick is doing his Chris Kingsbury-minus-the-cigs imatation. Texas could turn out to be pretty good (their front-line is tough), but their guards suck. Plus what the hell is P.J. Tucker doing woofing at Reddick? He's in the middle of dropping 41 on your head and you are lucky to only lose by 31...

As for the Zags, I love Adam Morrison. I love his terrible hair, porn-stache and pigeon towed running style. That being said, Gus Johnson needs to slow his roll with the Larry Bird comparisons. Admittedly, going down the checklist

1. Small town hick, (he's from Spokane) - check
2. Making a small school big time - half-check.
3. Genius level basketball IQ - 175, Check (I love when the nations leading scorer gets 5-10 per game on back door cuts)
   
4. Ugly, not-especially-athletic white kid with bad hair and a worse stache - check, check and CHECK
5. As Bill Raftery would say "ONIONS" - Big bad check

there is a passing similarity. But what is the likelihood that he turns out to be much better than Austin Croshere in the pros? I'm just saying...

As a final hoops note of the day. David Stern should be fined under the League's dress code for approving certain throwbacks:

The Wizards/Bullets look like they are wearing workout gear from a NASCAR pit crew. As for the Stags/Bulls, I can't even come up with an analogy. It's almost like they have boxing shorts (notice the foot thick wasteband) over wrestling singlets.

He's also culpable for allowing the Kings to rock these monstrosities:

This still photo doesn't do justice to how awful these are in motion.

Reggie Bush

Or, as I shall refer to him until he proves otherwise, "The Truth"

Pathological Bias: Not Just for Talk Radio

Something tells me this article will be the set up for many a quip in the coming days. Let me be the first:

As doctors increasingly weigh the effects of race and culture on mental illness, some are asking whether pathological bias ought to be an official psychiatric diagnosis.

Actually. No, no I won't. Its too easy. This story is actually slightly disturbing:

"I think it's absurd," said Sally Satel, a psychiatrist and the author of "PC, M.D.: How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine." Satel said the diagnosis would allow hate-crime perpetrators to evade responsibility by claiming they suffered from a mental illness. "You could use it as a defense."

I tend to agree, though if people have real, debilitating paranoia that manifests as extreme prejudice, what then? (For once, RIA has a stronger reaction to something than I do.)

Here are some thoughts from a practicing psychiatrist:

Consider the racist who insults his Asian or Black co-worker. Charges of racism fill the air. Charges are brought. Lawyers are engaged. Levels of victimhood are assessed. The racist is threatened with job loss but responds with the Americans with Disabilities Act that makes it illegal to fire him because he has a Psychiatric illness. The aggrieved victim of the racist sues the company for allowing an atmosphere of intimidation. The company is then forced to pay millions to both the racist (for putting him in a situation which encourages his outbursts and makes him uncomfortable) and the victim is paid millions because he was forced by his company to tolerate such abuse. Teams of lawyers become wealthy destroying companies across America. The worst thing is that this is not even a far fetched fantasy. Once bias is entered as an illness, almost anyone can be charged with it and/or use the illness as a defense. At what point does bias become pathological? It seems to me that for Psychiatrists to offer the legal/grievance professions such ammunition is foolhardy and idiotic.

(While I find most charactures of the plaintiff's bar tedious, there's at least a kernel of truth here.)