infinite improbability

It's nice when your hockey team doesn't suck

If a sports team is going to be losers, they have to at least be lovable losers, like the Cubs, not downright pathetic laughingstocks like the Devil Rays (who might be getting Zimmer as a coach, by the way). And, since the Tampa Bay Lightning have never fallen into the lovable loser category, not having enough of a storied history of losing for that, they've fallen into the pathetic perpetual laughingstock category for most of their existance, with the exception of one losing playoff series back in the late '90s. Until last year that is, when they finally started to get their act together, and actually won their division. Granted, it was the worst division, but the won it none the less, which is more than can be said for any other Lightning team.

The nice thing is, unlike the last time they were in the playoffs, this year they don't appear to be sinking back into the dregs of the league, but instead are the only team in the NHL that still has a goose-egg in the loss column, and are at the top of ESPN's power rankings. It's so nice to get to root for a team that doesn't suck, particularly when you have been loyal when everybody made fun of you for being a fan.

The economy is better (and don't blame 9-11 for the downturn)

CNN has a story about howGDP growth posts strongest growth in nearly 20 years - Oct. 30, 2003, which is interesting, but what is really interesting about the story is the chart that shows the GDP growth for the last three years. We entered the recession in the first quarter of 2001, and the recession ended in the fourth quarter of 2001--since then, we have had eight straight quarters of positive economic growth. People have placed the blame for the economy partly on 9-11, but that really can't be the case since the quarter immediately following the attacks was the first quarter that things started turning around.

The figures for the third quarter of 2003 show a 7.2 percent GDP increase, the largest since 1984. Hopefully, the figures will help increase consumer confidence in the economy and further bolster growth.

In which Kathryn compiles a list of rants that were too short for individual blog entries

--I don't think that there is a new buzzword that I've gotten sick of faster than the term "metrosexual." It showed up on the horizon about a month ago, and now it's everywhere. I first saw it when ESPN's repository of all things marginally sports related, Page2 did a whole big thing about manly-men vs. metrosexuals, and well, that was enough on the issue for me. Since then though, cable news stations have done stories, Gene Edward Veith wrote about it in World, and the other night I was flipping channels and that new lousy Alicia Silverstone show had her character dating a 'metro.' Enough already!

--Ok, I'm really sick of Bill O'Reilly and his show. The other night, he was having fits about Kill Bill and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with complaints about Ludacris thrown in for good measure. He basically thinks that they are corrupting America's youth, and that it's impossible for parents to keep their kids from seeing violent content (when I was growing up, the only violent content I saw was the evening news, and I don't think that it's really that much harder to keep violence away from kids today). However, he's criticizing the movies in question without having seen them, and insists that any critics which may have given them good reviews (I don't know of any that actually liked Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and don't intend to see it myself), are just eliteist and don't care about family values. When it was pointed out that violent entertainment isn't new, Shakespear is violent and Oedipus Rex is violent, he writes those off by saying that those are for adults--um, so are the movies he's complaing about, that's why thay have an R-rating, and besides, Oedipus would be pretty nasty if it were made into an accurate movie--the eye gouging scene made me physically nauseated just reading the play. But, that doesn't fit with his agenda. As for Ludacris, he's become O'Reilly's favorite whipping boy, but Bill is so out of touch with popular culture that he didn't even seem to find out that the guy exists until a few months ago.

--Speaking of the media being out of touch with culture, it's been in the last few months that the media has figured out that rappers have been doing the whole pimp persona, despite the fact that pimping has been a major theme for the past several years. And, only a few people have figured out that when rappers talk about being pimps, most of them are not necessarily talking about literal pimping of hookers, they are talking about the over-the-top, ladies man persona that they see exemplified in the pimp lifestyle. My sister and I've been using "pimp" in that (non-literal) sense for at least the past three years, so I was kind of suprised that it took that long for the media to catch on. (I picked up the term from two guys I worked with one summer who were both aspiring rappers and used it that way).

--That gives me an idea. Maybe the reason that most contemporary Christian music is something like three years behind everybody else is because they get their idea about what's 'in' in music from mainstream media sources.

Test

testing...

Yankees lose! YANKEES LOSE!!!

The Marlins win! Becket pitches a complete game shutout on three days rest! The second winning season in Marlins' history ends in winning the World Series! W00t! And best of all, the Yankees got beat.

New study about homeschoolers released--but is the research any good?

The Home School Legal Defense Association commissioned a study of adults who were homeschooled. If you happen to run in homeschooled circles, it's likely that you will hear of this study soon. The survey was conducted over the internet in early 2003, and had about 7000 responses.

I have a few comments on the study. I took the survey, as did my sister, and we both agreed that the design and distribution of the survey were statistically questionable. There were questions that were worded in such a way that it was pretty clear what answer they were hoping for (and the other answers to those questions were so outlandish that there really was no other option). On one question in particular, I was forced into an answer that I don't think to be theologically correct, but which was the only answer that wouldn't have made me look like a heretic. That wasn't the biggest reason that I don't think that the study is accurate though. The big problem is that the survey group was self-selected--that is, those that were surveyed were not randomly selected from a group of all known homeschoolers nationwide, the survey group was instead a self-selected group of people who happened to hear of the survey, primarily through homeschooler channels, such as the HSLDA e-mail list, Crosswalk.com, or other similar sources (I learned of it through an e-mail forwarded by my parents). As a result, the people who chose to participate in the survey were already likely to have favorable impressions of homeschooling--the survey is not likely to have reached former homeschoolers who had bad experiences and who now have nothing to do with homeschooling, and is also not likely to reach low income former homeschoolers who do not have computer access. And, it's certainly not going to reach people like the guy I graduated with who is now a heroin addict (which has nothing to do with his being homeschooled, but which shows that even former homeschoolers aren't immune from stuff like that).

The study may be accurate despite what I've just described, it might not be, but the problems that I've mentioned mean that there is no way to tell. I doubt that's going to be a problem for those homeschool parents who are just using the survey results to show concerned relatives that they aren't going to warp the kids for life by homeschooling them. However, if outside researchers look into the study and find out that sloppy research methods were used, it's not going to look good for homeschoolers and for the National Center for Home Education.

I tend to agree with the study that most homeschoolers are well adjusted, but if we're going to prove that, we need to do so with studies that are more statistically sound.

What the national media isn't (for the most part) telling you about the Terri Schiavo story

Online polls by local news sources have been running, by and large, in favor of not starving Terri Schiavo to death, while national news sources seem to be polling just the opposite. Why is that? Not because the Tampa Bay area media is so much more conservative than the national media, because they aren't. Rather, it's because those of us who live in the area have been following this story for the last few years and have heard the whole story, where those folk who have only heard the news from the national news outlets (including the more conservative Fox News) are not hearing the same things that we are.

For one thing, Michael Schiavo, the husband, has a fiance who he has two children with, and the sooner that Terri gets out of the way, the sooner he can marry her. Why not just divorce Terri then, and marry the new woman? Why, it's perfectly simple. If he's still married to Terri, then when she dies, he gets what's left in the fund that was set up for her care--a fund that was set up when Michael sued to get money to care for her, based on the idea that he would be caring for a severely handicapped woman for many years to come. Funny though, as soon as he won the case and got the money, he suddenly "remembered" that Terri said that she didn't want to be kept alive by extrordinary means and started the legal proceedings to try to remove her feeding tube. Oh, yeah, by that point, he had found that new woman--does anyone really think that he had Terri's best interest in mind when he was already shacking up with a new honey?

You also aren't going to hear very much in the national media that Terri has never recieved any rehabilitation, even though that was what the fund was supposed to go towards--as soon as Michael Schiavo got the money, he stopped any real care of her.

This is not, and never was a "right to die" case, it was always about a husband (who may have been abusive before Terri's brain injury), who wants his wife dead so that he can get her money and marry his new girlfriend.

Terri's bill passes the Florida senate

The bill to try and save Terri Schiavo passed 23-15, and will be going to Governor Bush to sign, which could happen at any time.

Joe Thousandaire

Ok, ok, I know that this is not exactly highbrow (well, in fact it's decidely lowbrow), but I watched the season premier of the new Joe Millionaire, and well, all I can say is, it appears that Fox managed to find the 14 stupidest women in all of Europe. But then, they fit quite well with the star, who, upon being given a geography lesson so that he would actually know the names of the countries the women were from, promptly asks, "where's Dutch?" and has to have it explained to him that the Netherlands is the name of country and that Dutch is the nationality. And we all thought that Jessica Simpson was dumb.

Instant Replay. Or, even Dungy admits that we were robbed

Well, Dungy doesn't exactly say that, but the implication of what he has to say is that the Bucs were robbed in their loss to the Colts--robbed by a bad call that they couldn't even have challenged.

ESPN has this story about Tony Dungy's reasons for why he thinks it's time to reconsider whether instant replay is doing what it's supposed to do. His one example is an interception that the Colts had against the Panthers that was overturned on the challenge, without clear and convincing evidence that the call on the field was wrong. Not having seen that game, I don't know whether or not that was a good decision by the ref that reviewed the play, but Dungy isn't usually one to complain unless there really was an egregious error.

The other example that Dungy used was a bad call that went in his own team's favor. The Colt's huge comeback against the Bucs on Monday night two weeks ago couldn't have happened if it wasn't for Mike "that idiot kicker" Vanderjagt's onside kick that was recovered by the Colts. The kick was a pop-up kick that did not even touch the ground before the Colt's caught it. Apparently, the rules state that the ball much touch the ground, and that the recieving team must have the opportunity to catch the ball, for it to be a legal kick. Vanderjagt kicked it directly to his own guy, so that the Bucs had no opportunity to catch the ball. The ruling should have been a 15 yard penalty against the Colts, with possession going to the Bucs. If the correct ruling had been made, the Bucs would have had a short field with plenty of time to run down the clock. Instead, the Colts got great field position, and marched down the field for a touchdown, making it a one touchdown ball game. The problem is, there is nothing in the instant replay rules dealing with this situation. Dungy says, "Now that's as big a play as you can have, and if the official doesn't think it hit the ground, you can't go back and replay it."

Drat, now I'm going to have to root for the Marlins

I don't even like baseball, but when the post-season rolls around, I feel compelled to watch. I had been rooting for the Cubs, primarily because I was hoping for the two cursed teams to make it to the World Series--it would have made for a pretty interesting side show.

But, with the cursed series no longer a possibility, since I don't like the Yankees, and since I don't think that a team that finishes out their season with two straight losses to the Devil Rays, of all teams, deserves to win, no matter who wins the game tonight, I'll still root for the Marlins. If nothing else, it would be kind of wacky for the team that has only had two winning seasons in it's history to win the World Series in both of those seasons. But, if the current ownership pulls what Wayne "the abomination of desolation" Huizenga did to the team, then well, here's me putting a preemptive curse on the Marlins that they will never have another winning season if the ownership starts selling off all the good players.

Chinese in Space

The Chinese just launched their first manned space flight. This could be the best thing to happen to the American space program in years--it would be great for NASA innovation if we end up getting into a space race with China.

Hell freezing over?---Doh, I jinxed it

The Cubs are currently 6 outs away from winning the Pennant.

Update:

Ok, that's the last time I post something like that before it's said and done. Oh well, there's always the next game. That, and I don't even like baseball untill the playoffs roll around.

Forget the overrated QB's, lets talk about the underrated ones

Particularly, in the underrated QB department, I'm thinking of Brad Johnson of the Buccaneers. That guy gets absolutely no respect. At the moment, he has the number 3 quarterback rating at 101.1, behind Steve McNair (107.8) and Peyton Manning (101.3). The next best QB is Tim Couch with only 93.8. Last season, he finished the season at #3 on the list, ahead of such vaunted QBs as, Manning (#5), McNabb(#7), Favre(#12), McNair(#17), Vick(#18), and Culpepper(#26). Despite this fact, people keep saying things like "He's no Vick." Sure he ain't no Vick--he's got a better QB rating than Vick, and he's a better decision maker than Vick. Just because he's not as mobile as Vick doesn't mean that he's not a good quarterback--Mike Vick could learn an awful lot from Brad Johnson's decision making skills.

To add insult to injury, when Rush Limbaugh was looking to justify his claim that McNabb is overrated, he said that McNabb of last season was more like last season's Brad Johnson than last season's Daunte Culpepper (the point being that Culpepper is a good QB and Johnson is mediocre). The absurdity of that is that Johnson actually was very good last year while Culpepper struggled terribly. Oh, but Rush thinks that he can insult McNabb by comparing him to Johnson.

On other football-related topics, did anyone see what happened in the Ohio State vs. Wisconsin game? I haven't seen the tape, but apparently, an Ohio State player was caught on film choking the Wisconsin QB while they were in the pile after a play. There are questionable things that go on under the pile (remember Earnest Graham accusing a FSU player of deliberately twisting his ankle while they were under the pile), but choking the quarterback is just nuts. That's someone going into the game to deliberatly take one of the other team's players out of the game, and the guilty party should be kicked out of football. It also raises the question as to whether the helmet to knee hit that took Willis McGahee out of the national championship game last year really was an accident. A lot of people questioned it then, and after what went down this weekend, it's looking like a pattern.

She's gonna Kill Bill

I just got back from seeing Kill Bill, and all I can say is wow. It's simply brilliant. Forget what you read in reviews, none of them adequately described it--you have to see it for yourself.

movies and more movies

Earlier this week, I went to see Luther which I highly recommend. I was a bit sceptical going in, because the only comments I'd heard about the movie were from the sort of people who are liable to like any "Christian" movie. Anyway, despite my initial scepticism, I thought that it was a really good movie, if you are the sort of person who likes historical flicks. One thing that I liked about the movie was that it showed Martin Luther as a real human being who got discouraged and depressed, which is the side that you don't usually see presented.

Shifting gears entirely, I went to see School of Rock with my brother tonight. It was pretty funny, though it would have been better if all the little kids in the theater had shut up--not only did they keep talking, they laughed when it wasn't supposed to be funny, and didn't laugh when they should have because they were too young and didn't have the musical knowledge to get most of the jokes.

At the movie though, we saw the trailer for Kill Bill which we'd been debating whether we wanted to see, but the trailer pushed us over the edge, and we're going to go see it tomorrow. It took some convincing for the parents to agree that my brother could see it, since my mom read all the reviews about it being the most violent movie ever made and all that, but everything I've read suggests that it's not the disturbing kind of violence that's in some movies I've seen. If you've seen it and it really is gorey and disgusting and we'll get grossed out and wish we hadn't seen it, please let me know. And, if it really was as cool as it looks, well, I'd like to know that too (without any spoilers, though :=)

Is the Barbie Linux thing offensive?

Here's the question. I came across the Barbie Linux thing on a mailing list that I subscribe to--a lot of the people on the list thought that it was offensive to women because of some of the things that the spoof has Mattel people saying (I'm not going to post those excerpts because I think that it needs to be read in context). I personally don't think that the article should be offensive to women in computing, because I see it as spoofing the way that Mattel markets computer products to girls (like the afore mentioned fashion games).

Anyway, what do other people think?

Barbie linux

This article is a hilarious spoof of Mattel and Barbie. Also, check out Hacker Barbie.

Now, if only they did have a Barbie Linux. It sure would be better than those dumb Barbie computer stuff that they do have--it might actually teach girls something about computers, unlike those dumb Barbie fashion games that Mattel puts out.

Political Double Standard

I was listening to Glenn Beck this morning (he's the only talk radio guy I'll listen to--he's conservative, but doesn't follow the party line on everything). Anyway, Glenn Beck was talking about the allegations that Arnold Schwarzenegger groped multiple women over the past 30 years. He was having a fit that conservatives are acting like it doesn't matter, and that instead of dealing with the reality of the accusations they are questioning the timing--just like Clinton supporters did in the time leading up to the 1994 election when all the "bimbo eruptions" were coming out. Beck was saying that it doesn't matter that Arnold is a Republican, if he's a womanizer, it draws serious questions upon his character and what kind of governor he will be.

Stepping back from the Arnold Schwarzenegger situation to take a broader look at American politics, this isn't the first time that the same Republicans that criticized Clinton looked the other way when people in their party were doing the same thing. Hardly a word was said when Newt Gingrich ditched his second wife after having an affair with a much younger staffer, despite the fact that he was one of the primary Clinton attackers. And, in local Florida politics, several years back (also during the peak of the Clinton scandal), the chairman of the Florida Senate telecommunications committee had an affair with a telecom lobbyist at the same time that the committee was considering telecom deregulation. You'd think that people would complain, considering that the guy is not only cheating on his wife, it's a major conflict of interest when the guy in charge of deregulating the telecoms is sleeping with a telecom lobbyist. Did anybody complain? No. Why? Because he was a powerful Republican from a strongly Republican county and it doesn't behoove people to bite the hand that feeds them, so to speak.

You can't attack a guy on one hand and say that he's a characterless bum because he's a womanizer and then turn around a few years later and try to elect a known womanizer just because he's in your party.

Dave Barry Strikes Again!

You may remember that Dave Barry published the phone number for the American Teleservices Association (ATA), a number that then got so many calls by people that the ATA ended up disconnecting the number because of the inconvenience of handling all those calls. Well, Dave is back with a new phone number. He writes:

I realize that this makes many of you angry. I realize that many of you would like to, once again, let the telemarketers know how you feel. And I am, frankly, tempted to reveal to you here that the American Teleservices Association (www.ataconnect.org/) seems to have a phone line working (at least for now) at 317-816-9336.

But would it be right to reveal this? I mean, yes, you could call the ATA again. But the ATA surely doesn't WANT you to call again. It's inconvenient! And to insist on calling somebody who doesnt want to be called, even if you have the legal right to call, well, that's just plain rude.

Read the rest of Dave Barry's column

It would just be a shame if the telemarketers had to deal with inconvienient phone calls.

The US blew it

Germany beat the US 3-0 in the semi-finals of the FIFA Women's World Cup. The US just plain looked pathetic. They had no offense, their passing was sloppy, and they just didn't look anything like the defending champions should look. It was not a pretty sight.

In general, it looks like the US Women's team has not done as good a job as the men's team in developing young players--whereas the men's team is young and just going to get better as young players come up, the women's team just looked old. I actually wouldn't be surprised if the US men's team actually becomes a serious threat in the next few World Cups. They had a lot of young players in the last Cup who should only get better with experience, and there are players coming up like Freddy Adu that should add a lot to the team. Also, most of the members of the under-17 team train pretty much full time at the IMG sports academy in Florida, and have for quite some time (a while back, a lot of schools were mad because one private highschool had a team that was full of 17-under stars, including Donovan and Beasley who played in the last World Cup--nobody could beat the team).

The Seven Samurai

Tonight I watched Akira Kurosawa's most excellent movie Shichinin no samurai, known in English as The Seven Samurai (remade as The Magnificent Seven). It's a really cool movie, and it's amazing how many different American movies clearly had scenes (or entire plots), ripped from it. There were some scenes that George Lucas obviously stole and put in Star Wars, and almost the entire plot of Thirteenth Warrior (down to the villager's last stand) appears to be taken from Seven Samurai (though there are also elements stolen from Beowulf).

I knew film makers in other countries ripped stuff from Hollywood movies (I have a Bollywood flick that is a complete and total rip of The Wedding Singer), but I didn't realize that American directors stole stuff from other countries. I guess it shouldn't have surprised me--I mean, how many Americans actually watch old foreign films?

Interesting site statistics

I was kind of surprised to find that I've had quite a few hits on my blog from people doing searches for hawiian shirts. The only mention I made about hawiian shirts was in complaining about movies depicting all Floridians wearing said shirts. I've also had people visit because they were looking for Abercrombie or Hollister, both of which I mentioned in my entry about Abercrombie suing American Eagle over the number 22.

Been watching sports

Well, I've done quite a bit of sports viewing over the last few days, including watching the MLB playoffs (despite the fact that I don't even really like baseball). Last night when the A's pulled off the extra-inning win with a bunt, before it happened, I said to myself, "self, this looks like a smart time to bunt," so I was pretty happy when I was right, seeing that I hardly even pay attention to baseball but I called it. Also saw China lose to Canada in an upset in the FIFA Women's World Cup. For some weird reason, the only games I've managed to see thus far involved China--haven't seen a single U.S. game yet. Then, Miami nearly got upset by West Virginia, which I would have been happy to see--the touchdown run that gave WVU the lead was pretty sweet. Too bad they couldn't keep Miami from converting on 4th and 13.

Also went to my brother's Ultimate game--he plays in a Parks and Rec league. They lost by one point, which was kind of a bummer, but not the end of the world. His team is mostly made up of students from the community college, since the guy who's kind of in charge of the team is a classical guitar professor there and talks a bunch of people into playing. Tonight was the first game of this season so there were some new people who weren't on the team before, and it was kind of funny because the one guy on the team is the guitarist for this moderatly well known Christian band Scarecrow & Tinmen, and when he showed up, one of the new guys walked over and was like "I haven't met you before, but you must be Seth White," to which Seth responded something about how he forget that he's sort of famous. I think that it would be kind of weird to go places and have people know who you are (not that I knew that he was anybody other than just "Seth from Jedidiah's Ultimate team," since I haven't listened to Christian music in years--but that's a subject for another time.)

Rush update

Well, Rush Limbaugh has resigned his position as an ESPN commentator, so I guess this should be the end of this brief saga.

Regardless of what anyone says, race should never have come up in the discussion of Donovan McNabb's playing ability. This is 2003, and it's pretty pathetic that someone can't play the game without someone bringing race into the equation. The reason that the race of the QB has been mentioned in recent years was because of some milestone, such as two black starting quarterbacks in a playoff game, or two black head coaches coaching two black QB's in a game, and the point of those mentions is to show how far we've come. Limbaugh's McNabb comment was of an entirely different variety, because he was essentially saying that McNabb doesn't deserve what he has and is only getting it because of special treatment, which is not true. McNabb is overrated, but he's still no Akili Smith (a black QB who isn't that good, and who the media has no problem saying isn't good), and he's certainly better than guys like Trent Dilfer, who, despite not being very good, still had a starting job. The main problem in Philly right now isn't even McNabb, it's Andy Reed's boneheaded play calling which hasn't even been taking advantage of McNabb's strength--his ability to run the ball. Heck, he hardly even left the pocket when they got their clocks cleaned by the Bucs, but when he did, he got decent yardage.

Rush Limbaugh and Donovan McNabb

If there was any doubt before, there shouldn't be any doubt now that Rush Limbaugh really is an idiot. His comments about Donovan McNabb being overrated because the media wants a black quarterback to succeed are just nuts. If he wants to argue that McNabb is overrated, he can go right ahead and a lot of people would agree with him (I tend to think that the media overlooks his poor passing because they are enamored with mobile quarterbacks). But, to turn it into a racial issue is totally uncalled for.