Month: May 2006

‘Basketball’s decision-makers, it seems, are simply irrational.’

More insight via Malcolm Gladwell. An excerpt:

Basketball presents many of the same kinds of problems. The fact that Allen Iverson has been one of the league’s most prolific scorers over the past decade, for instance, could mean that he is a brilliant player. It could mean that he’s selfish and takes shots rather than passing the ball to his teammates. It could mean that he plays for a team that races up and down the court and plays so quickly that he has the opportunity to take many more shots than he would on a team that plays more deliberately. Or he might be the equivalent of an average surgeon with a first-rate I.C.U.: maybe his success reflects the fact that everyone else on his team excels at getting rebounds and forcing the other team to turn over the ball. Nor does the number of points that Iverson scores tell us anything about his tendency to do other things that contribute to winning and losing games; it doesn’t tell us how often he makes a mistake and loses the ball to the other team, or commits a foul, or blocks a shot, or rebounds the ball. Figuring whether one basketball player is better than another is a challenge similar to figuring out whether one heart surgeon is better than another: you have to find a way to interpret someone’s individual statistics in the context of the team that they’re on and the task that they are performing.

In “The Wages of Wins” (Stanford; $29.95), the economists David J. Berri, Martin B. Schmidt, and Stacey L. Brook set out to solve the Iverson problem. Weighing the relative value of fouls, rebounds, shots taken, turnovers, and the like, they’ve created an algorithm that, they argue, comes closer than any previous statistical measure to capturing the true value of a basketball player. The algorithm yields what they call a Win Score, because it expresses a player’s worth as the number of wins that his contributions bring to his team. According to their analysis, Iverson’s finest season was in 2004-05, when he was worth ten wins, which made him the thirty-sixth-best player in the league. In the season in which he won the Most Valuable Player award, he was the ninety-first-best player in the league. In his worst season (2003-04), he was the two-hundred-and-twenty-seventh-best player in the league. On average, for his career, he has ranked a hundred and sixteenth. In some years, Iverson has not even been the best player on his own team. Looking at the findings that Berri, Schmidt, and Brook present is enough to make one wonder what exactly basketball experts—coaches, managers, sportswriters—know about basketball.

Smackdown in the Senate

American Heritage has an essay on the assault on Senator Charles Sumner by Representative Preston Brooks 150 years ago today. The essay details the events leading up to the attack — an inflammatory speech by Sumner — and the aftermath. Here’s what they say about the acutal assault:

Brooks avoided the potential difficulty of a fair fight by entering the Senate chamber after that body had adjourned. He waited chivalrously for all the ladies to leave, then approached Sumner’s desk, where the senator was franking copies of his speech to be sent to supporters. Brooks spoke a few words explaining his presence, then began whacking Sumner over the head with his cane. When the senator raised his hands, Brooks became excited and, he recalled, felt “compelled to strike him harder” than he had intended.

Sumner managed to get up and stagger down the aisle, pursued by Brooks, as a pair of congressmen tried to separate the two men and several others argued over whether to get involved. Sen. Stephen Douglas, who had been another target of Sumner’s abuse, was called to the scene but chose not to interfere, worrying that, in view of the state of relations between him and Sumner, “my motives would be misconstrued.”

Brooks recalled that by the time his cane finally shattered, less than a minute after he first confronted the senator, he had dealt Sumner “about 30 first rate stripes. Towards the last he bellowed like a calf. I wore my cane out completely but saved the Head which is gold.”

Think of It More as Jesus’s Shot Glass

Girl #1: So the entire time i’m watching this movie, I’m like, what is the Holy Grail? They never explain what it is. And I’m thinking it’s probably like, some kind of trophy or something…? Like maybe a fashion trophy…? Or something…?
Girl #2: Uh huh.
Girl #1: Yeah but no, it turns it out it actually has to do with like, Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene or something.
Girl #2: So it was like… Jesus’s trophy?

–H&M dressing room, 5th Ave

Overheard in New York

Pixar, how about a pixie?

Saw the trailer for Cars, the new Pixar film, yesterday. It stars the voices of Paul Newman, Owen Wilson and Larry the Cable Guy. (Also Cheech Marin, George Carlin and, of course, John Ratzenberger.)

Let’s see — Toy Story and Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars.

Not a whole lot of female characters and no female leads unless you count Mrs. Incredible.

Bonnie Hunt does seem to be a featured voice in Cars.

Just noticing.

Gift giving advice

TBogg has a recommendation:

I just noticed that Dr. Seuss’s Oh, The Places You’ll Go! is making its annual pilgrimage up the charts which can only mean that it must be graduation season.

A word to the wise:High school and college graduates don’t want a copy of Oh, The Places You’ll Go! as a graduation present. They’d rather have an iPod. Or a Miata. Keep in mind that this bright-eyed, fresh-faced graduate with their whole life in front of them might someday be your primary caregiver as you enter your twilight years of reflection and remembrance. The last thing you want to hear as the pillow is placed firmly but insistently over your face is, “Oh, the places you’ll go.”

I suggest the 60GB one. In black.

A couple of good lines to start the week

  • President Bush said today that he has nothing but respect for Mexico and its people and he will always speak the truth to them. Here’s my question, when can we get that deal? That sounds pretty good.
  • The Senate voted 63-34 to make English the official language of the United States. They say it’s a largely symbolic amendment with no real effect. You know like the congressional ethics bill.

Jay Leno Friday night

Summertime

According to the National Weather Service, Albuquerque averages three days a year where the temperature reaches 100°, 22 where it reaches 95° or more, and 63 with a max of 90° or more.

Two down, 61 to go.

Best line of the day, so far

“When Janet Jackson had her wardrobe [malfunction], it took Congress 40 days to change the law. It’s now over 120 days, and Congress hasn’t done a damn thing about securing a safer workplace for these miners and for these families.”

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., four months after 12 miners died at West Virginia’s Sago Mine.

Netflix vs. Blockbuster

Emily, official younger daughter of NewMexiKen, provides a consumer report on video rental:

Recently, I switched from Netflix to Blockbuster. I’m probably the only one dumb enough to try this switch, but the once-a-week in-store rentals was very attractive.

I thought I’d write to tell you how much better Netflix is. …

With Blockbuster, it took 5-6 days each time I mailed in a video. That’s versus 3 with Netflix. And, in the two months I was with Blockbuster, I didn’t receive the movie at the top of my queue more than once or twice. In fact, once they even sent me Disc 2 of a TV series.

Anyway, just thought I’d share my experience so none of the rest of you goes through the same annoyances!

Unforgiving Border

A better article than most about the human element (from many sides) in the immigration issue — At Unforgiving Arizona-Mexico Border, Tide of Desperation Is Overwhelming. An excerpt:

Frank Ormsby, a rancher, and his brother, Lloyd, said that after living for more than a decade in the middle of the buildup of the Border Patrol and the growing waves of immigrants, they are just plain sick of all of it. There are more backpacks littering the desert than rocks, they said, and enough money is being spent on equipment for the Border Patrol to rebuild New Orleans.

To them, illegal immigration is a huge business managed by powerful interests to make money and political careers. Among the beneficiaries, Frank Ormsby said, were immigrant smugglers, whose fortunes increased every time a new law enforcement effort was announced, and the Border Patrol, whose budget has increased fivefold in 10 years.

“There are so many agents they could stand hand-in-hand across the border and stop illegal immigrants if they really wanted to,” said Mr. Ormsby from beneath a wide black cowboy hat. “The money we are spending on the Border Patrol, in gas, in equipment, in technology, what do we have to show for it?”

“I see so much waste,” he added. “Ray Charles could see it.”

Christopher Columbus, Failure

A history of Christopher Columbus from AmericanHeritage.com. It begins:

No matter how widely he had been hailed as a hero 14 years before, by 1506, when he died (500 years ago today), Christopher Columbus was all washed up.

Crowds from across Spain lined the streets of Seville in 1493 to welcome him home from his first voyage to the Americas, but he already hadn’t found what he was looking for, a seaway to India’s spice-trade ports. He never would, though the search consumed the rest of his life. A little genocide here, some slavery there, several mutinies, and multiple executions of crew members later, and Columbus fell out of favor with the Spanish crown and the public. When he died he was surrounded by family and by the trappings of his substantial income. But he went to his grave with the gouging sense of injustice he couldn’t forgive and of failure he couldn’t explain.

Drug testing

A friend has gone through the all-too-common experience of a drug test recently. In commemoration of her uneasiness, I repeat a story I wrote at the time of my last drug test (first posted on NewMexiKen in 2003).

Drug test
By NewMexiKen [1998]

You’ll be pleased to hear that all of your government secrets are in drug free hands. Yup, today was the day I got called with 53 minutes notice for my random drug urine test. Illegal search and seizure if you ask me, but I had to sign a waiver and give up my rights when I got a security clearance. My attorney advises me that this has probably already been litigated, so I went and did my thing for a drug free U.S. federal workforce. Hope Centrum Silver doesn’t set off any alarms.

Actually, I can state unequivocally that I have been controlled substance free, so the test was more annoying than anything. Too bad, if I failed I would have had my security clearance pulled and been given a probationary period doing nothing for the same money for months, as happened to at least two guys in our office last year. Poor bastards really suffered.

Highlight of the experience. I said to the person administering the test, This must be an unpleasant job.” “Best job I’ve ever had,” she replied. Whoa! In this job she is called a “Collector.” Can you even imagine her other jobs?

And for those who’ve never had this little indignity, no they don’t watch. They just don’t let you take anything in with you and they check the temperature of the specimen to make sure it is body temperature. Of course, they may have a camera in there and I may be action news “film at 11.”

Or in my case, perhaps “America’s Funniest Videos.”

It’s the birthday

… of Joe Cocker. He’s 62. Deadwood’s Timothy Olyphant is 38.

And James Stewart was born on this date in 1908. Stewart received five best actor Oscar nominations in his long career, but won only for The Philadelphia Story in 1941.

But the big birthday news is that today, May 20, 2006, Cher is 60.

The Homestead Act

… was signed by President Abraham Lincoln on this date in 1862.

The act provided settlers with 160 acres of surveyed public land after payment of a filing fee and five years of continuous residence. Designed to spur Western migration, the Homestead Act culminated a twenty-year battle to distribute public lands to citizens willing to farm. Concerned free land would lower property values and reduce the cheap labor supply, Northern businessmen opposed the movement. Unlikely allies, Southerners feared homesteaders would add their voices to the call for abolition of slavery. With Southerners out of the picture in 1862, the legislation finally passed.

Library of Congress

My Goal Is to Go Around the World in 90 Days on the Cheap

Matt Gross, the Frugal Traveler, has left on an around-the-world trip.

Some guidelines first. Circling the globe presents an seemingly infinite number of travel options, and narrowing them down requires one to be patient, open-minded and occasionally arbitrary. I am beginning in the Mediterranean because it’s summer and I want to go to the beach. Odessa is also on my list, precisely because I had heard little about it except that it’s a hot party zone. And while I went to Shanghai last year, that city struck me as so fast-moving that I couldn’t wait to see how it’s changed in the intervening months.

But the real challenge is not in choosing the route but in accomplishing the journey as the Frugal Traveler. Though my travels might take me to some of the wealthiest corners of the globe like Monaco, my budget is limited: for lodging, free if possible, with a $100 cap per night; and for meals, $40. Like Phileas Fogg, who embarked on the voyage to show it could be done (and to win a £20,000 bet), I too had something to prove: that it doesn’t take a sack full of cash to live the high life.

NewMexiKen, too, would like to be Phileas Fogg. Anyone want to go? Anyone want to pay for sponsor it?

The US in Peril?

At The New York Review of Books, Jeff Madrick offers a lengthy review of Kevin Phillips’ American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century.

In Kevin Phillips’s view, the Bush energy policy is a prime example of America’s failure to confront its most difficult challenges. Phillips, once a member of the Nixon administration, has written a timely book that argues that America is very different from the independent and omnipotent nation portrayed by President Bush and his administration. Dependency on oil is one of three major tendencies that will seriously undermine America’s future, he writes, the other two being the influence of radical religion and the growing reliance on debt to support the economy. For Phillips, these constitute “the three major perils to the United States of the twenty-first century,” and he offers little hope that the US will avoid the consequences. Since he wrote his widely read The Emerging Republican Majority in 1969, Phillips has published several books lamenting how poorly the Republicans have handled their responsibilities. American Theocracy is his most pessimistic work to date.

In some ways Madrick thinks Phillips is a narrow optimist.

Phillips’s three major threats to the nation are well chosen, and he presents much information about them; but he could usefully have considered other perils to the US as well. The rising cost of health care, for example, is as grave a concern as the three issues on which he concentrates. Unless that system is radically reformed the US will face a future in which growing numbers of people will not receive adequate treatment. The cost of education is on a similar trajectory, as the chances of getting even a minimal education in the poorer neighborhoods become smaller. Similarly urgent are the failures of the economy. Despite rapid increases in productivity, which is historically the source of a rising standard of living, family incomes are not growing. In fact, after the five recent years of economic expansion, median family income is roughly what it was in 1999, even though wages at last rose early this year.

Madrick himself, however, proves more optimistic than Phillips about America’s ability to change and recover.

If you don’t have the time or inclination to read American Theocracy, but these issues interest you, Madrick’s review is very worthwhile.