So I agree with Wil about Hillary, and am deeply amused that he finally sees the Clintons for who they are, but goodness gracious:
"historical opportunity -- maybe even a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity"?
"fundamentally change how my government interacts with the rest of the world"?
"she's been moving the goalposts"? (Michigan/Florida shenanigans excepted, how exactly has she attempted/accomplished this? - it's not as though the Clintons can literally rewrite the rules of the Democratic nomination process, not if they don't even understand those rules (point #2))
"a Clinton victory in the primary about as likely as jumping off the roof of your house and landing on the moon" (futures markets still have her nomination odds anywhere from 10-15%; I'll give Wheaton benefit of doubt and assume he means the odds that she goes to Denver with a lead among pledged delegates)
"millions of Democratic voters -- many of them first time voters who, like me, finally feel truly inspired by someone"
See THIS is why people talk about a cult. Obama's nomination is not a birthright, not a sinecure, any more so than Hillary was "inevitable" as of last fall.
Close race for the Libertarian nomination, now that Bob Barr has thrown his celebrity hat into the ring.
I would seriously consider voting for Wayne Allyn Root in November, were he the LP nominee. (What have I got to lose? I predict the major networks will call California for the Democrat as soon as the polls close.)
I'd be very unlikely to vote for Barr (though nothing is impossible) and still less likely to vote for Mary Ruwart, though I'm tempted to read her books.
The rest of the LP field either is running on a fervently anti-war (if not "impeach Bush") schtick (deal-breaker for me), or doesn't stand a chance of being nominated.
They've entered a golden age of lead writing: Everywhere you look on the site there are one-sentence introductions in amazing "action prose." The sentences are short and simple -- they not only completely avoid wasting words but also get a tremendous amount of meaning from 25 words or less.
This comment may misidentify Pavel Kubina's team (as I saw later in the thread) but the video is if anything even better than the soccer goal that inspired the original Deadspin post.
(Title of my own entry refers to the notes on the goal horn. It's an augmented A-flat chord. I think if I heard all 30(?) NHL goal horns I could identify most or all of the pitches within the chords. A gift and a curse, as Mr. Monk would say.)
"when it comes to regulations, one should never arbitrarily increase the complexity or uncertainty of the law.
Complexity is bad because it ups compliance costs, often makes evasion easier, and because complexity itself increases uncertainty: as tax laws proliferate, it becomes harder to know whether you are in compliance. It also makes the government's administrative overhead multiply like those bacteria that can kill you in five minutes after first contact.
Uncertainty is bad because it reduces the ability of people and corporations to plan for the future. It's hard to estimate your ROI if the tax laws that govern your investment change every year.
Change is bad in general because every time the tax law changes, your nation experiences a sudden loss of human capital: all the understanding of how the old law becomes useless, and people have to spend valuable hours learning to understand the new law."
--Megan McArdle
I think Ken Korach used not only the same words, but even the same cadence, for both Mark Ellis's 10th inning walk-off home run today and Marco Scutaro's walk-off home run off Mariano Rivera a year ago.
I think both my father and father-in-law would appreciate this link.
No, I don't own a business. I have some small percent of a Limited Liability Company, if that counts. The free time I'd spend running my own business would probably come at the expense of that (i.e. at the expense of writing questions, organizing quiz tournaments, etc.).
Young teachers save school, lose jobs.
"San Diego Unified needs to balance the budget; layoffs are based on seniority, not performance."
The second part is why public education as we know it is ultimately a lost cause. Those of you who disagree, and are doing something about it, have my admiration for your heroics. Do the best you can...
This Reason post is a good exhibit about why comment threads are sometimes worse than useless.
Shortening Radley Balko's bullet points even further:
In January 2008 a North Little Rock SWAT team raided a guy's home. He was asleep, thought he was being robbed, reached for a gun. A cop saw him reach for a gun and shot him. Other cops heard the shot and also shot him.
After ten days in intensive care he was transferred to police HQ, questioned for five hours, and eventually jailed, where his woulds got infected because the guards wouldn't treat him.
No drugs found. A scale and some plastic bags found (the guy's sister says they're part of her jewelry business). Guy charged with running a drug enterprise, meanwhile the neighbor who saw the whole raid may have been intimidated (by police) into silence.
After one newspaper article, the judge in the guy's case issued a media gag order. (To be as charitable as possible, this probably involves fear of a tainted jury pool.)
To recap: In today's America you can be home-invaded (on a no-knock warrant granted three weeks earlier -- Balko points out why this time lapse is incongruous), shot at, left to rot (literally!) in jail, then face trumped-up charges.
The comments started out well: Offers to contribute to a (hypothetical) legal defense fund for the guy. Then it descended into this "legalize drugs now!" (which I agree with) "wake up and revolt, people!" (which I don't) miasma, which of course is exactly what will endear a cause to ordinary people.
I'm not holding my breath for enough Reason commenters to get their act together and actually arrange funding and/or advice for the defendant. But I hope I'm wrong.
No-knock raids and general police brutality aren't a campaign issue right now but ought to be (what would've been the best high-profile example of this instead got framed as a racial issue by certain publicity whores). Certainly worthier of a candidate's time than gimmicky oil tax policies.
#1. Some politicians wear flag lapel pins.
#2. Some politicians don't.
#3. In theory, some people criticize the politicians who don't.
#4. Many people, however, criticize those critics. Richard Cohen, for example.
At this point isn't the ratio of #4 to #3 just sky-high? (And the ratio of #2 to #1 is pretty high also.)
This post contains a fantastic video reminding us how amazing Google's search functionality is.
The ensuing comment thread involves one particular user ("DRB") who has surprising opinions about what constitutes a level of insubordination worthy of firing someone. I have no idea who DRB is but there's a strong chance he or she is a rotten human being; I pity his or her co-workers and especially family members.
Congratulations!
Way to set your own movement back. Few things in life are more self-fulfilling than this kind of frustration and resentment.
I would much rather have Barack Obama as president than Hillary Clinton; however, I'd much much rather have Bill Clinton as first lady than Michelle Obama, and the difference has become so vast that if I were required to cast a Democratic ballot today (May 6, 2008) I would vote for Hillary.
Just saying.
Not necessarily the best, just the ones that I suspect are most widely known among people who are at least casual fans. Sometimes what they really remember (or know of, if before their birth) is the moment (rather than knowing the year or even the teams) but I still count that.
UPDATED May 7, reordered a bit.
1. Game 4, 2004 ALCS (really what people know about is Games 4-7)
2. Game 7, 2001 World Series (I'm surprised I hadn't thought of this first, but if it didn't even cross my mind then who else's mind isn't it crossing? - Yankee fans of course will fondly remember the back-to-back heroics in Games 4-5)
3. Game 6, 2003 NLCS (Bartman's foul ball)
4. Game 6, 1986 World Series (you could argue for this higher depending on the average age of these hypothetical casual fans - a lot here hinges on how old you think these fans are and how Northeastern they are)
5. Game 1, 1988 World Series (Kirk Gibson's home run vs. Dennis Eckersley)
6. 1951 NL tie-breaker ("the shot heard round the world")
7. Game 5, 1956 World Series (Don Larson's perfect game)
8. Game 6, 1975 World Series
9. April 1974: Hank Aaron breaks Babe Ruth's record
10t. Game 7, 1992 NLCS (usually framed as an attack on Barry Bonds for not throwing Bream out)
10t. 1978 AL tie-braker (the Bucky Dent game)
Removed from the list above: Texas 30, Baltimore 3 (formerly #7 hence Paul's comment), Ruth's called shot, Pujols HR vs. Lidge, Game 7, 1960 World Series (Bill Mazeroski's home run)
Would you consider Game 2, 2000 World Series? ("Clemens throws bat head at Piazza," but I don't think people associate this with a specific game.) It probably wouldn't make the top 10 anyway, would it?
And I don't think people especially remember the games in which career records were broken (McGwire #62, Bonds #71, Bonds #756, Rickey's stolen base -- for a quick 10 points each name the opponents in any of those games) so much as that they were broken.
Another honorable mention: Game 1, 1996 ALCS (Jeffrey Maier)
Meanwhile, the game that inspired this post was Game 5, 1999 NLCS (Mets over Braves in 15), yet I don't think even that game makes the top ten. (Trying to pretend to be a casual fan, I'd slot it ahead of Jeffrey Maier but behind Sid Bream. Game 7, 1992 NLCS should probably replace Ruth's called shot in the 10 proper, since it's not like people can readily place the year or opponent on that, just the idea that Ruth did it once.)
Last honorable mention before I finally let this post lie: Game 5, 1995 ALDS. If ever there was a game that I thought would resonate through the ages, and that arguably ought to... and yet I claim that hardly anyone ever even thinks of this game.
The past two times we've gone to the symphony, we've eaten at Max's Opera Cafe first but had a wait for our table and a chance to go to the next door book store. Both times I've opened a critically acclaimed book to a random chapter.
Thomas Frank (What's the Matter With Kansas) wasted several sentences pointing out that he usually wouldn't be caught dead listening to Gordon Liddy, then basically mailed in the part that was supposed to show exactly why Liddy was offensive.
Al Gore (The Assault on Reason) made the bizarre claim that it was once possible for basically anyone to get a universal soapbox for their expression -- Thomas Paine, for example. It should be obvious why this isn't true now -- we can all publish, but life is way too short for anyone to care what everyone else has to say, as opposed to whoever happens to interest them most. But even when a common forum existed, access wouldn't have been anywhere near universal. Most people would have been too busy subsisting.
You can make it easy for anyone to speak, or you can guarantee that everyone hears what is said, but shouldn't it be obvious why you can't achieve both at once?
"A 129-minute hockey game is the equivalent of a 19-inning baseball game, the likes of which cause oohing and ahing for decades if it happens in the postseason. That is, it would cause oohing ahing. The longest postseason game in baseball history went 18 innings."
--King Kaufman
Think quick and tell me everything you know about that 18-inning game. I immediately recognized it, though I didn't watch it (I suspect few people did). Without looking up the details, as I recall this game involved two teams that played each other in several post-season series over a 10-year span. It had two particular heroes, of whom one is now a national disgrace and the other a utility infielder in Arizona.
So would you say the longest game in post-season baseball history achieved anything close to "oohing and ahing for decades," as opposed to being a mostly forgotten curiosity three years later?
"Today in Oakland A's History" has been featuring radio calls from these fantastic A's victories all year, but today it was a loss, specifically this 17-16 game.
...a game I remember well because I was at this 1-0 game.
(Ah, Retrosheet, correcting one's faulty memories: I could've sworn that 5-0 game was a 1-0 game, which it was until the 8th.)
Here.
My two favorite parts:
There's nothing the matter with honest moneymaking. Wealth is not a pizza, where if I have too many slices you have to eat the Domino's box. In a free society, with the rule of law and property rights, no one loses when someone else gets rich.
...and...
I've got a 10-year-old at home. She's always saying, "That's not fair." When she says this, I say, "Honey, you're cute. That's not fair. Your family is pretty well off. That's not fair. You were born in America. That's not fair. Darling, you had better pray to God that things don't start getting fair for you."