Thanks, Tedy

You are still doing some heavily lifting for your old team.

Appreciatively,
Cav

Photo link here.

UPDATE:  Rodney agrees.

UPDATE:  Troy, too.

Jumping the shark, Bachmann style

Preying on the fears of the 95% of the electorate who never studied science beyond a freshman college course is not cool.

Unless she's got a statistically significant double blind clinical trial up her sleeve.  I don't even think she has peer review (which doesn't really do much) on her side.

Her peers are now Jenny McCarthy and Fonzie.  Photo link here.

Buffoon of the day

Eric Mangini:  I didn't mean to instigate Spy Gate.

Can someone give this guy a hug and a pacifier? Photo link here.

Parody of the day

Source here, via Russ Roberts.

Quotes of the day

A Craigslist search shows women aren't after the bankers.--John Carney

[Sallie Krawcheck] should really be an insurance or financial industry expert and talking-head on CNBC—like Dick Bove. She hasn’t got the operational leadership chops to lead the IT unit that manages Merrill’s Thundering Herd Desk-Top. Would Ike have put a Company Commander in charge of the pivot to Bastogne? Hell no! He asked Patton to do it!--unnamed commenter

I raised $30 million and if you’re saying I can be bought for $5,000, I’m offended.--Rick Perry

I’m offended for all the little girls and parents who didn’t have a choice.--Michelle Bachmann

What does it mean to be a man? No one really knows, but it makes for some damn good television. In the first decade of the 21st century, a critical consensus formed that we're currently living in the golden era of television. ...When you list out the great shows that make up this television renaissance, certain commonalities emerge: high production values, a greater investment in acting talent, and complex plotting that assumes an audience that never misses an episode. But with the sole exception of True Blood—which has camp enough to put it into a genre of its own—all these shows share something else. Every other non-vampire show centers around a modern man struggling with the limitations of his outlook in a world full of complexity and changes that prevent survival through simple reliance on old gender norms. If you want to make a critically acclaimed drama, you need to build up a patriarch, preferably in a highly masculine environment, and then start to peel away his certainty about the way the world works and what it means to be a man in this world. ... Americans can't get enough of watching powerful men run into walls created by the limits of narrow, traditional masculinity. ... The irony is that these new shows about men mine territory familiar to feminism, and could even be described in many cases as explicitly feminist. But for all the feminism on TV, high quality dramas about women haven't taken off. Women get plenty of meaty, complex roles in these top tier shows, but only as supporting characters in shows centered around men's gender drama. ... I blame the nation's inability to deal directly with women engaged in complex, dramatic struggles that call gender roles into question. We are, after all, a country where people can go on TV and call Sarah Palin a feminist without choking on their own tongue. Perhaps the absurdities of being female in this modern era don't lend themselves well to drama, but have to be approached sideways, through comedy. Women do very well heading up some of the best comedy on TV--Amanda Marcotte

Champagne Super Novak.--Brian Phillips

... approximately 40 percent of sunlike stars have at least one low-mass planet orbiting around it. On the other hand, the majority of alien planets with a mass similar to Neptune appear to be in systems with multiple planets, researchers said.--Denise Chow

... how did [analysts] get the 50,000 [additional jobs from the White House plan] number? A preliminary analysis. By whom? When? Using what assumptions? And where did the [New York] Times get that estimate? From the White House press team? But the number 50,000 is treated as something like a fact. One reason it’s not close to a fact is that there’s no way of verifying whether this “estimate” is accurate after the fact. So what’s the meaning of this estimate? None. It’s a meaningless statement. But the media treats it like it’s science. It’s not science. It’s fake science. It’s scientism.--Russ Roberts

... there probably is no market for unbiased media. There is definitely a market for hard-core right-wing opinions. There is definitely a market for what we call mainstream media, where both the opinions and the reporting are biased to the left. There is also a market for something like the Washington Post, where the editorials are pretty centrist while the reporting strikes me as showing zero understanding of anything right of center. --Arnold Kling

Modern research on teacher quality makes clear that the factors used to determine a teacher’s compensation tell us little to nothing about how well the teacher will perform in the classroom. That consistent finding has (or should have) enormous implications for the future of the current system. The results of an employment policy based entirely on credentials uncorrelated to student achievement are obvious: we see wide variation in the quality of public school teachers.--Marcus Winters

The argument for large and expensive efforts to prevent or reduce global warming has three parts, in principle separable: Global temperature is trending up, the reason is human activity, and the consequences of the trend continuing are very bad. Almost all arguments, pro and con, focus on the first two. The third, although necessary to support the conclusion, is for the most part ignored by both sides.--David Friedman

It is a crisis of capitalism because our economic model and policy settings cannot produce sustainable growth, adequate income formation or employment creation. We have lost the housing, financial services and credit creation growth drivers and been left with excessive levels of personal and government debt to unwind, a dysfunctional financial system, and weak labour markets. The capacity to produce and sell goods and services has outstripped that of consumers to borrow and spend. Without credit and jobs, other fault lines have been exposed, including the long stagnation of real wages and extremes of inequality. It is truly a crisis of aggregate demand.--George Magnus

Diversity undermines solidarity. People don't mind paying high taxes to support people "like them." But free money for "the other" leads to resentment and political pushback. If you're a social democrat, this implies a tragic trade-off between social justice for natives and social justice for potential immigrants. But if you're a libertarian, the opposite is true. The welfare state doesn't make open borders impossible. It's open borders that makes the eventual abolition of the welfare state imaginable.--Bryan Caplan

My philosophy is that losers have goals and winners have systems.--Scott Adams

Nice remembrance of Lee Roy Selmon

by Tony Dungy.

Animation of the day: Galileo's observations of Jupiter's moons

Coolest thing from 398 years ago that I've seen. Via John Hempton.

Quotes of the day

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.--Laurence Binyon

There are always groups trying to get America to change the anthem. It's a hard song filled with violence and questions and
exceedingly high notes. But, our anthem tells a uniquely American story. No, it does not go on about fruited plains or home sweet home or Captain Washington on a slapping stallion. It just says very simply that through the night, through the fire, through the bombings, the flag was still there. They won't play games this weekend as New York still burns and America takes tentative first steps back to everyday life. That's OK. The games will be back soon enough. We should still play and sing the national anthem this weekend, loud enough for everyone to hear. Yes, it's a much scarier world today that it was before Tuesday. But it's also been 187 years since Francis Scott Key saw the dawn's early light. The flag is still there.--Joe Posnanski, just after 9/11, 2001

Once upon a time, you see, I lost something, and prayed to get it back, but when I lost it the second time, I didn't, and now this was it, the missing word, the unuttered promise, the prayer I'd been waiting to say a very long time.--Tom Junod

This book haunts me a month after I finished it. I can’t fritter away time on the internet anymore with a clear conscience. I wake up earlier so I can take time to write and focus my thoughts for the day. I find myself trying harder and doing more work at work. It sucks. I miss my life as a slacker.--slamb817

I’m very close to thinking the United States shouldn’t be in Basel any more. I would not have agreed to rules that are blatantly anti-American. Our regulators should go there and say: ‘If it’s not in the interests of the United States, we’re not doing it’.--Jamie Dimon

The board was so spooked by being cast as the worst board in the country. Now they’re trying to show that they’re not the doofuses that they are.--Carol Bartz, former Yahoo CEO

16. Non-Disparagement. You agree, other than with regard to employees in the good faith performance of your duties with the Company while employed by the Company, both during and for five (5) years after your employment with the Company terminates, not to knowingly disparage the Company or its officers, directors, employees or agents in any manner likely to be harmful to it or them or its or their business, business reputation or personal reputation.--Carol Bartz's employment agreement with Yahoo

From the failed Microsoft sale negotiations, to a subsequent bungled and disappointing search deal with Microsoft, through a series of misguided CEO selections, and most recently the Alipay debacle, this Board’s failures have destroyed value for all Yahoo stakeholders. Ms. Bartz’s exit and Mr. Morse’s elevation to interim CEO makes him Yahoo’s fourth CEO in four years and further demonstrates the poor corporate governance Yahoo investors have been saddled with for too long. Even before Ms. Bartz’s hire, Yahoo’s shares materially underperformed the market and their peer group, as graphically evidenced in the Company’s most recent 10-K. Against this background, it is evident that merely replacing the Company’s CEO – yet again – will not be enough to alter the direction of the Company. Instead, a reconstituted Board with new Directors who will bring fresh eyes, relevant industry expertise and increased investor alignment to the table is immediately necessary.--Dan Loeb

I love DSK. I love his wife. They are great people and when they came back to Paris I sent them flowers. But you know, for people in politics, it’s very embarrassing. On the left they had hoped he wouldn’t come back, because I think other people want his job. And on the other side…but even in America, Clinton survived his blow job. But there was not a lot of doubt that that was consensual. They all do it in the political world. They get horny from politics, from power. And he had unbelievable charms. He is really charming. He’s fun, he’s great. He’s a sweet guy—as long as you’re not a woman. That’s the problem.--Karl Lagerfeld

... [JFK] never missed church one Sunday that we were married or all that, but you could see partly — I often used to think whether it was superstition or not — I mean, he wasn’t quite sure, but if it was that way, he wanted to have that on his side. He would say his prayers kneeling on the edge of the bed, taking about three seconds and crossing himself. It was just like a little childish mannerism, I suppose like brushing your teeth or something. But I thought that was so sweet. It used to amuse me so, standing there.--Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

By the end of my two minutes in the private room with the TSA, I was essentially standing in a pool of my own sweat. I’m not sure what you are supposed to call being groped against your will, but somehow I found myself remembering my Crim Law professor lecturing on sexual battery. The thought of my wife going through the same thing made me violently angry, yet I was terrified of even appearing concerned about what was happening, lest they determine that I’m resisting and cast me down with the sodomites. And I had what I think was a pretty standard TSA experience. Consider what happened ... Do you think a TSA administrator would want his wife to go through that? Do you think the Secret Service would allow the President to be touched in that manner by any person other than his doctor or the First Lady?--Elie Mystal

... Greek data are further from the Benford distribution than that of any other European Union member state. Romania, Latvia and Belgium also have abnormally distributed data, while Portugal, Italy and Spain have a clean bill of health. Would a Benford-style analysis have helped spot Greece’s problems? In principle, yes. In practice, one wonders whether politics would have trumped statistics. A shame: according to Benford’s Law, Greece’s data were particularly odd in 2000, just before it joined the euro.--Tim Harford

I have no idea how closely [Moneyball] hews to reality, but ultimately, what I took away from this wasn't a particular feeling this way or that about Beane or the A's or even baseball. I just walked away invigorated by the idea that it pays to gamble sometimes, and that just because something is done a certain way, there's no reason to think it can't be done better. This is a film about faith and risk and the enormous rewards of both, and it is somehow far more commercial and inviting than I would have imagined possible. It's a major accomplishment. Yes… I'd even call it a home run.--Drew McWeeny

[Football] has a role to play, a small role. It's a unifying role. Rich and poor, liberals and conservatives, love football. We just need to show we're all together.--Jason Garrett

... the greatest contests, the ones whose outcomes are most exalting for the winners and most devastating for the losers, are the ones most likely to be decided by infinitesimal turns of luck.--Brian Phillips

The cut in payroll taxes is supposed to have two positive effects on the economy. It would temporarily reduce the cost of labor to companies and thereby encourage them to hire more workers, and it would increase the spending of workers through increasing their take home pay. Such temporary cuts in wage costs to employers will increase employment only a little, and it will be mainly for low skilled low wage jobs that can be easily eliminated after the cuts expire. Since spending by households responds much more to their long term income prospects than to short run changes in their incomes, households would tend to save rather than spend most of their higher incomes due to a temporary cut in social security taxes. Therefore, the employment bang for the buck will be small per dollar of tax cut.--Gary Becker

9/11 feels just as surreal to me, 10 years later

But seeing footage on the History Channel and news outlets is a little easier now than even a couple of years ago.

I remember the conversations with my wife that day. Our apartment looked out at the Twin Towers, and she called me at work to tell me one of the towers was burning. I told her that the news wasn't reporting this; was she sure? She saw the second plane hit, feeling the impact under her feet. Another phone call about whether she should take our infant and mother, who was over visiting, and leave the neighborhood for her parents' apartment. The phones stopped working.  Later I found out that they just turned east off of Broadway when seconds later, the first tower collapsed and the wave of debris and smoke rushed up that street.

Strangely, I remember little about walking home from work. Except for the National Guard Humvee at a seemingly random intersection, with a .50 caliber Browning mounted on it, locked and loaded.

In hindsight, it was good that we drove up to my parents' home in New England for a week.

I didn't get to move back into my apartment for nearly a month afterwards.

I am glad that my colleague's wife was late getting to her job at Cantor Fitzgerald; she's still here for her two kids. And I am sad for my business acquaintance's family who was attending a conference on a high WTC floor that day, as well as for the other victim's families. So many widows, widowers and orphans from that day.

I hope our country can continue to mature in its perspective, culture, and policy formation as a result of this horror. We've taken a few steps forward, and a couple of steps backward, too.

There is a time to mourn, and a time to dance, and I am suspended somewhere in between.

Photo link here.  And a good speech:



Quotes that popped out at me, some already familiar:

Evil is real. And so is courage.

Greater love hath no man than he give his life for his friends.

we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

From Hope and Change

to Stasis and Ambivalence.

Quotes of the day

Late in the morning of the Tuesday that changed everything, Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney was on a runway at Andrews Air Force Base and ready to fly. She had her hand on the throttle of an F-16 and she had her orders: Bring down United Airlines Flight 93. The day’s fourth hijacked airliner seemed to be hurtling toward Washington. Penney, one of the first two combat pilots in the air that morning, was told to stop it.  The one thing she didn’t have as she roared into the crystalline sky was live ammunition. Or missiles. Or anything at all to throw at a hostile aircraft.  Except her own plane. So that was the plan  Because the surprise attacks were unfolding, in that innocent age, faster than they could arm war planes, Penney and her commanding officer went up to fly their jets straight into a Boeing 757.--Steve Hendrix

We wouldn’t be shooting it down. We’d be ramming the aircraft. I would essentially be a kamikaze pilot.--Heather Penney

Photo link here.

Quotes of the day: Bill Simmons NFL edition

Important note: I am never, ever right.--Bill Simmons

Remove my homersexuality from the equation.--Bill Simmons

And for some of his bold predictions:

1. New England, Green Bay, Pittsburgh and New Orleans will win 48 regular-season games combined.
2. Tampa makes the playoffs, Atlanta and Detroit do not.
3. By April 2012, Todd Haley will be the offensive coordinator for the New York Jets.
4. Tennessee vaults Indy, wins 10 games and takes the AFC South.
5. The Browns will be one of our two 2011 sleepers and sneak out a wild card ahead of Baltimore.
6. The Rams go on to win the NFC West.
7. The Redskins will win more games than the New York Football Giants.
8. Everyone who bet Phil Rivers at 12-to-1 as MVP cashes in.
9. Everyone who bet Dallas to win the NFC East at +300 cashes in.
10. Tony Sparano is the first 2011 coach to be fired.
11. a Packers-Steelers Superbowl rematch that Pittsburgh wins in a shootout, 37-34. Yes, even Super Bowl XLVI will have continuity.

Quotes of the day

Look, [playing for Team USA']s just not wearing a cool jersey and playing for yourself.--Trot Nixon

Yeah, I know, it's playing for my country.--Trot Nixon's 9-year-old son, born on 9/11

Bimbo Alert: Mila Kunis

I feel like, in our generation, people don't read.

You got that right.  Too many scripts, too few CB posts.  Or maybe a day with The Road To Serfdom.  That book should be mandatory high school reading.  But why would public schools let anything interfere with the brainwashing?

Source here, via Christian Toto.

Quote of the day

Play hard. Eat well. And don't forget to share.--Lee Roy Selmon

Chart of the day: European bailout cost flows (among Legos)

Source here, via Dealbreaker.

Quotes of the day

We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: The war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party. And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They’ve got a war, they got a war with us and there’s only going to be one winner. It’s going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. We’re going to win that war. President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march… Everybody here’s got a vote…Let’s take these sons of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong.--Jimmy Hoffa

We have Saddam Hussein, this is the Mother of All Wars we’ve got in the next 18 months. For the life or death of this country.--Charles Koch

Can we all go back to then candidate for Senate Barack Obama's "One America" convention speech?  Could the President lead us there?--Cav

People like Rick, they don’t die old men. They aren’t destined for that and it isn’t right for them to do so. It just isn’t right, by God, for them to become feeble, old, and helpless sons of bitches. There are certain men born in this world, and they’re supposed to die setting an example for the rest of the weak bastards we’re surrounded with.--Dan Hill

Consider it a form of horse trading — tax cuts for jobs. There is only one small problem with this strategy: temporary tax cuts rarely result in new jobs and always result in less tax revenue.--Andrew Ross Sorkin

After running up billions of dollars in losses subsidized by the federal government from 1942-71, the postal service was made a quasi-independent non-profit enterprise (the United States Postal Service, or USPS) that no longer receives any direct government subsidy. Financially, USPS held its own until 2007, but since then cumulative losses have amounted to about $20 billion, and it is expected to lose another $8 billion this fiscal year. Obviously, this cannot continue much longer without a resumption of government subsidies, so this is an excellent time to consider major changes in the postal service and the economic environment in which it operates. ... Sometimes, as with the military, there is no good substitute for a government enterprise. Fortunately, that is not the case with mail delivery since competition could be easily introduced by taking away the legal monopoly given to the USPS, eliminating the many restrictions imposed politically on its operations, and forcing it to operate like a for-profit company. These changes will not be easy politically, although New Zealand and many European countries have either privatized or greatly liberalized their postal systems. But radical changes in competition and the regulatory environment are the only way to improve efficiency in mail delivery while trying to meet the major challenges posed by the Internet.--Gary Becker

Photo link here.

I love Bill Simmons and Joe Posnanski

But I think Joe has just out-Grantlanded The Sports Guy.

Excerpting P-R:

Pearl Jam: As you probably know, they were named "Mookie Blaylock" but changed it, apparently worrying that Mookie Blaylock would object. There has been some disagreement about how they came up with Pearl Jam, but realistically that seems like a pretty pointless argument: Great band, pedestrian name. Mookie Blaylock, however, was inspired.

Pink Floyd: Named for a couple of early century Southern blues artists -- Pink Anderson and Floyd Council -- I think it's a pretty good name, though you could imagine a band called Pink Floyd sounding very different.

Queen: Perfect name for that band, both for its regal splendor and, as Freddie Mercury himself said, its "gay connotations." I've always loved bands that went for glory in their names. The Supremes, for instance.

R.E.M.: This was not supposed to turn into a "how bands got their name" post, but you know how it goes here. I was searching and found that R.E.M. had three other name options: "Cans of Piss," "Negro Wives" and "Twisted Kites." They obviously took the right turn, but just the fact that those three were even considered just goes to show you that some musical geniuses should probably not be allowed to name themselves.

The Ramones: I love that Joey Ramone's name isn't Joey Ramone. He was Jeffrey Hyman. He and the other band members called themselves Ramone because Paul McCartney used to go the pseudonym Ramon.

The Rolling Stones: They pulled the name out of a Muddy Waters song, which is great, but the name Rolling Stones could easily be a folk group wearing flower power outfits.

Quotes of the day

Originalism--the theory that we should Interpret the Constitution according to the public meaning of its words at the time of its ratification--serves important instrumental goals. It promises to give relatively clear and objective definitions to crucial but contestable terms, such as “cruel and unusual” or “due process of law,” by recurring to the linguistic usage of those who ratified the Constitution. That interpretive process, though hardly easy, at least protects us from the sort of judicial casuistry that threatens to drain all fixed meaning from the Constitution’s words. ... Originalism has another instrumental virtue: It tends to generate such substantively attractive results as limited government, the rule of law, and respect for individual rights. For that, we can credit not just the sound political judgments of the Founders but also, and more generally, the supermajoritarian constraints imposed on Constitutional ratification. Because the ratification process has to satisfy so many parties, who have many conflicting interests, the Constitution and its amendments tend to support universal values. Contemporary judges, because they do not face those similar constraints, risk following the twists and turns of case law toward unlimited government, arbitrary laws, and disregard for individual rights. Originalism, by recurring to the Constitutional meanings that won ratification, offers a way (though not the only or necessarily best way) to stave off that ugly outcome.--Tom Bell

I understand why Dr. Roubini, who is an academic, would want to re-read Marx. I can see where Mr. Magnus would feel that, in order to make his real argument to the state and the people, he could get better traction by saying something a little scary. I’m not surprised, really, that the same medium that circulates videos of cats playing the piano also re-circulates and resuscitates long-dead and discredited ideas like Marxism. Bringing Marx back from the grave is not helpful, though. Marx was wrong because his model society, of human behavior, was wrong. Haven’t we had enough of the wrong models already?--Infinite Guest

Beijing tells foreigners that they can understand the city, that we have the same sort of buildings: the Bird’s Nest, the CCTV tower. Officials who wear a suit and tie like you say we are the same and we can do business. But they deny us basic rights. You will see migrants’ schools closed. You will see hospitals where they give patients stitches—and when they find the patients don’t have any money, they pull the stitches out. It’s a city of violence.--Ai Weiwei

Newly obtained emails show that the White House was better informed about a failed gun-tracking operation on the border with Mexico than was previously known. Three White House national security officials were given some details about the operation, dubbed Fast and Furious. The operation allowed firearms to be illegally purchased, with the goal of tracking them to Mexican drug cartels. But the effort went out of control after agents lost track of many of the weapons. The supervisor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation in Phoenix specifically mentioned Fast and Furious in at least one email to a White House national security official, and two other White House colleagues were briefed on reports from the supervisor, according to White House emails and a senior administration official. But the senior administration official said the emails, obtained Thursday by The Times, did not prove that anyone in the White House was aware of the covert "investigative tactics" of the operation.--Richard Serrano

The Fremont, Calif. firm, [Solyndra], which promised two years ago that it could help create new clean-tech jobs, announced Wednesday it was closing its doors and laying off workers. Taxpayers might now be responsible for repaying Solyndra’s loan, part of an estimated $80 billion in subsidies the Obama administration had committed to clean technology projects and innovation in this country since 2009. In 2009, Solyndra received the Energy Department’s first loan under the new administration’s program to spur clean technology innovation. Obama and Energy Secretary Steven Chu had visited Solyndra’s plant, and Vice President Biden spoke at its groundbreaking via live video. Each touted the company as a model of the administration’s effort to grow a “green” industry and create millions of new American jobs.--Carol Leonnig and Joe Stephens

[President Obama]’s having his own teachable moment between campaigning and experienced governing. First, he blamed the Bush administration, then he blamed Congress, and now he’s saying [to voters], ‘It’s your fault for expecting too much of me.’ The last thing voters want to hear are excuses or whining. You can’t offer excuses and then be an inspirational leader.--Ron Bonjean

A 9.1 percent unemployment rate is a serious handicap for an incumbent. But it’s not too late for President Obama to change course and make America a friendlier environment for job creation by changing regulations. His cabinet secretaries control regulations that are now discouraging growth. A few examples. President Obama could ask EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to hold off on new environmental regulations until unemployment goes down. He could ask the NLRB acting general counsel to drop the charges against Boeing for opening a new plant in South Carolina. He could ask Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to speed up on drilling permits. He could ask Labor Department Secretary Hilda Solis to go slow on new dust regulations that will result in closure of coal mines, and new regulations on federal contractors for hiring veterans that will cause endless paperwork. There’s Dodd-Frank regulations too. The list goes on, it’s just up to the president….--Diana Furchtgott-Roth

All said and done, I’d give that [$100 million contract, $41 million guaranteed] back [to the Washington Redskins] and I’d come here [to the New England Patriots].--Albert Haynesworth

Photo link here.

As if Paul Krugman couldn't get any smaller

Steve Landsburg has a recap.