The Francis Blog

God "proofs" decimated: Part 2

2012-01-27T14:09:00.000-05:00

The thrilling conclusion! Read Part 1 here

26.If man has evolved from an animal, why doesn't he behave like an animal? Yet man is civilised.
Read a newspaper sometime and tell me how civilized we are. Also, and I know this is a quibbling technical detail: humans are animals.

27.'Chance' isn't the cause of something. It just describes what we can't find a reason for.
Frankly, I have no idea what this means.

28.Science & logic do not hold all the answers - many people are aware of forces at work which we have no understanding of & no control over.
Indeed they do not have all the answers, but they have so many more answers than you that it's tragic. I'm not sure how many forces we have no understanding or control over, though.

This is leaning towards the classic "god of the gaps" gambit, where any detail not already explained in detail by thought and investigation is claimed as proof of god by those who refuse to put any thought into it whatsoever. I hate this argument.

Here's the analogy I constructed when thinking about this earlier. Imagine knowledge of the universe as a 100-mile running race. Science and freethought have made it 50 miles (distances not to scale), while religious belief has not moved at all. But since the former hasn't gotten the full 100 miles, religion calls it failure and declares itself the winner despite having gone 0 miles.

But that wasn't quite accurate. Instead of not moving, the religion runner metaphor poisoned the science one and put one of those cartoon ball and chains on science's feet, then drove its car 100 miles in the opposite direction, and STILL declared itself the winner. That's about right.

29.Look at the date/year on our calender - 2000 years ago since what? Our historical records (other than the Bible) record evidence of Jesus' existence.
2000 years ago since six years after Jesus was supposedly born, since those scholars who support Jesus' historicity thing he was born around 6 BCE. Evidence for Jesus' life is extremely scarce, and the bible itself was not written until decades after his life. Not to mention that the calendar date is totally arbitrary, inasmuch as the 2000 years since it started is approximately 1/2000000th of the life of the Earth thus far.

30.Many people have died for their faith. Would they be prepared to do this for a lie?!
Absolutely, they would. This is one of the great tragedies of religion, and one of the reason atheists endeavor to free minds of it.

31.Much of the Bible deals with eyewitness accounts, written only 40 years after Jesus died. When the books in the New Testament were first around, there would have been confusion & anger if the books were not true.
Only 40 years! The bible is a haphazard collection of ridiculous myths written in a pre-literate age.

32.From as early as 2000 BC, there is archaological evidence to confirm many details we're provided with in the Bible.
Just not true. I can't make eloquent arguments against all of these, especially when they're just factually inaccurate. If this person wrote 1=2, what could I write besides simply "false"?

33.Not one single Biblical prediction can be shown as false, and the Bible contains hundreds.
The bible isn't even internally consistent, so not only can its predictions be shown as false, they often falsify themselves. Also, I can't think of one true prediction from the bible.

34.The evidence from liturature & historical studies claim that Biblical statements are reliable details of genuine events.
Also: not true. Black = white.

35.From the birth of science through to today, there is no evidence to claim that Christianity & science are in opposition. Many first scientists were Christians; Francis Bacon, Issaac Newton, Robert Boyle, to name a few, along with the many who stand by their work & faith today.
The fact that human minds can compartmentalize their religious belief and still be productive scientists does not resolve the tension between the two fields; it simply reveals something of the character of the human brain. Science and religion are absolutely in opposition; one requires evidence and observation to confirm hypotheses, while the other ignores everything that doesn't conform to their factless beliefs. Stop trying to co-opt the legitimacy of science!

36.Science can explain 'how' something works, but not 'why' something works.
Nor is it interested in doing so. Do not presume meaning and purpose where there is none.

37.Science is constantly recorrecting its findings. Past theories contradict certain beliefs which are held today. Our present 'discoveries' may change again in the future to rediscover how we originally came into existence.
This is why science is such a powerful tool. I appreciate the kind words.

38.Evolution describes the way life possibly started, yet doesn't explain what made life start & why. Scientific questions fail to do that. Even if evolution were proved, it would still not disprove God.
Evolution most certainly does not address the inception of life. Science may well uncover the origins of life on Earth, and has made some progress on this front. The fact of evolution may not disprove god, but it most definitely disproves the preposterous assertions of creationists.

39.The two people who discovered Jesus' empty tomb were women. Women were so low on the social scale in first century Palestine, so in order to make the story fit, it would have made far more sense to claim that it were male disciples who had entered the tomb. But it wasn't - we're left with the historical & Biblical truth.
The leader of the Rebel Alliance was Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, a woman. Women were so low on the social scale a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, so in order to make the story fit, it would have made far more sense to claim that it was Admiral Ackbar and General Madine who led the Rebel Forces against the Empire. But it wasn't - we're left with the historical and Canonical truth.

40.Think about Near Death Experiences. It's naive to believe that they all are induced by chemicals or drugs. How do we account for a blind person having this experience, coming back to describe what they had never before seen, a person telling the Doctor that there is a blue paperclip on top of the high cabinet, which they couldn't have otherwise known, an african man being dead in his coffin for 3 days, coming back to life to tell of much the same events which took place as those of many others? We never hear of the witnesses describing "a dream". We're not silly - we know the difference between even the most vivid of dreams to that of reality.
I fell asleep during that paragraph. Few arguments for god are less compelling than the Argument from Experience.

41.There are many skeptics who didn't believe in Jesus before his crucifixion, and who were opposed to Christianity, yet turned to the Christian faith after the death of Jesus. Just as the many who continue to do so today.
And they are all wrong. It's really unfortunate that people keep doing this. Repeating the mistakes people made 2000 years ago is not something to be celebrated.

42.Albert Einstein said; "A legitimate conflict between science & religion cannot exist. Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind".
I love religionists quote-mining Einstein, trying to co-opt some of his intelligence and respect. Einstein was a Secular Jew who rejected the idea of a personal god. Nice try, though.

43.A speaker in Hyde Park who was attacking belief in God, claimed that the world just happened. As he spoke, a soft tomato was thrown at him. "Who threw that?" He said angrily. A cockney from the back of the crowd replied; "No-one threw it - it threw itself!"
Hilarious.

44.It is easier to believe that God created something out of nothing than it is to believe that nothing created something out of nothing.
Neither of these is easier than the other. Did nothing create God out of nothing? "No, God has always existed." Then why can't the universe have always existed? And so on.

45.Stephen Hawkins has admitted; "Science may solve the problem of how the universe began, but it cannot answer the question: why does the universe bother to exist?"
See my earlier comments on quote-mining famous scientists and applying meaning where none is necessary. Hawking [not Hawkins] is an atheist.

46.We cannot confuse God with man. With God in the equation, all things, including miracles are possible. If God is God, he is Creator of all, inclusive of scientific law. He is Creator of matter & spirit.
Indeed we cannot confuse god with man. God is a concept that man made up. Miracles are not possible. These aren't even challenging anymore.

47.If we are the product of evolution - by sheer accident, chance, then we are still evolving. Does it just so happen that we exist here today with everything so finely tuned for our living. as we now have it?
Of course we're still evolving. Do you really know so little of evolution that this is not apparent to you? Every organism on Earth is evolving, always. It is a continuous process. And stop with the "sheer accident, chance" thing - evolution is guided by natural selection. And finally, it's remarkable how little one must understand about the Earth to think it is "finely-tuned for our living." 71% of the Earth is saltwater and about a third of the 30% that is land is actually habitable. Also there are billions of microorganisms trying to kill you.

48.Could it possibly be that the missing link does not exist?!
Again, evolution is continuous, and the concept of a "missing link" is incoherent. We have numerous fossils tracing human evolution back thousands of years. Go to a goddamned museum sometime.

49.God has proved himself to us in numerous ways, all around us. The atheist needs to put his glasses on. What more can God possibly do if man has shut his eyes to him?
God has proven nothing, ever. My eyes are open to more than a 2000-year-old book of myth and superstition.

50.Jesus Christ is either who he says he is, or he is the biggest con man history has ever known.
False dichotomy, of course, but the latter is far closer to the truth.

God "Proofs" decimated: Part 1

2012-01-25T07:00:00.000-05:00

You all know that I take a fair number of swipes at religion and religious belief on TFB - I'd say it's one of my core competencies. And you could hardly find a more deserving target. But there are times, like when I read about the way some freethinkers here in America and across the world are treated for expressing their (correct) views, that I feel like I don't go after it enough.I was gonna let this one go, but then I saw some of the repugnant reactions to the Jessica Ahlquist case (linked above) and got a bit feisty. Yeah, threatening a high school girl for standing up for her Constitutional rights - that's really brave and intelligent of you.

Thus, let's have some fun with a list of "50 Proofs for the Existence of God" that's made its way across the Interwebs and back. I realize this isn't a particularly strong set of pro-belief arguments, but then again, no arguments for the existence of a god or gods is even vaguely compelling, so these will do. As Ken Tremendous from FIRE JOE MORGAN once hilariously said, this isn't so much shooting fish in a barrel as it is "shooting fish in a barrel with a barrel-sized fish annihilation laser," but that's OK.

1.Whilst agreeing that random patterns occur naturally by chance, DNA however, consists of code, which requires a designer.
Just saying that a code requires a designer does not make it so. There's a tendency in the god community to conflate complexity and design, as if one necessarily implies the other. iPhones are designed and complex. Nike's swoosh is designed and simple. Dirt is not designed and simple. DNA is not designed and complex. "Irreducible Complexity" and its ilk are a group the pathetic arguments that intelligent design people use because they either can't or won't understand the gradual evolution of something like the eye.

2.How do you explain the paranormal, such as people witnessing positive or negative sightings, like ghosts or angels? I saw a ghost with a friend of mine - I am not a liar, an attention seeker. Neither was I overtired when this happened.
Awesome question! I explain the paranormal as follows: it does not exist. People witnessing ghosts and angels are imagining them. The human mind is extraordinarily adept at forming patterns where none exist. You're going to have to do better than citing your friends' hallucinations, I'm afraid.

3.Try praying. What good is it when a mind is set to coincidence & disbelief regarding the positive outcome?
Talking to oneself is not a proof of God's existence. As has been pointed out, the idea of a divine plan renders praying useless. If it's in god's plan, praying for something is redundant; if it's not, then praying is futile. I'm not sure I'm "set to coincidence and disbelief regarding a positive outcome" - some things come out good, some come out bad. Things tainted by religion tend to come out bad more often.

4.The law of cause & effect - in order to have an effect, there has to be a cause. Everything is caused by something.
I'm not sure this is a "law," but I understand the principle. What caused your god?

5.Mindless nothing cannot be responsible for complex something.
A baseless assertion, and a false one to boot. A raindrop falling is mindless but its splash pattern is complex.

6.Science can only be the detector of certain things. You cannot scientifically detect emotion, memory, thoughts etc., though scientifically we must.. These things which do not consist of matter are beyond the detection of science.
Neurologists across the world will be quite surprised to learn that they cannot detect memory and thoughts! Also, light does not consist of matter, and science can most certainly detect light. But inaccuracies aside, an inability to scientifically quantify certain aspects of the universe in no way implies a god. Defining a deity outside the boundaries of testable hypotheses may provide insulation from being disproven, but is supported by absolutely no facts.

7.Evolution has never been proved, which is why we call it the 'theory of evolution'. It's a fairy tale for grown ups!
This is an incredible amount of information to get wrong in such a small number of words. The theory of evolution has been confirmed over, and over, and over again through 150 years of rigorous testing. It is called the Theory of Evolution because a scientific theory is an explanation that ties together a large body of facts. This person only thinks that it's called a "theory" on account of lack of proof; in fact, he or she simply does not understand how the use of the word "theory" in science differs from its everyday use. Evolution is a fact. The part about the "fairy tale for grown ups" is quite possibly the quintessential instance of "pot calling the kettle black" I've ever seen. You think that a magical sky-god is going to grant you eternal life, while I understand and accept a thoroughly-researched mechanism that is the cornerstone of all modern biology, and I'm the one with the fairy tale?

8.Atheism is a faith in that which has not been proved. The disbelievers have not witnessed anything to not believe in, whereas the believers believe because they have witnessed. There is no 'good news' to preach in atheism.
Good god (pardon the phrase) is there a lot to correct here. First, Atheism is not a faith. I'll never understand why believers are so eager to drag me down to their level, to criticize my mode of thinking on the grounds that...it parallels their own? Second, Atheism does not need to be "proved." Believers are the ones making extraordinary claims about the world, thus the burden of proof lies with them. All the facts are on my side. Third, "witnessing" is a polite way to say "imagining" or "self-deluding." Fourth, there is plenty of "good news" to preach in Atheism. The world and universe are amazing. Our time here on Earth is short but unique and precious. You are free to do what you think is best to make the world a better place. You define your purpose. This realistic, uninsulated truth is so much better news than anything I've ever heard from a religion.

9.How much of the atheist's faith relies on anger with God as opposed to genuine disbelief in God?
Again, it's not faith, but the answer is: zero. I have zero anger with god because he does not exist. Thanks for asking.

10.Why do many atheists shake their fists & spend so much time ranting & raving about something they don't believe in? If they are no more than a fizzled out battery at the end of the day, then why don't they spend their lives partying, or getting a hobby?! Why don't they leave this 'God nonsense' alone?
The answer to the first question is because of how immersed we find ourself in religion. I live in a nation that is 85% Christian, one where Christian Privilege is so widespread that this author is blissfully unaware of it. Study after study finds that we are, bizarrely, America's Least Trusted Minority. These are the reasons we speak out.

And I do party, and I have many hobbies. I assign my life purpose, not the false purpose promulgated by religious faiths. I'll leave this "God nonsense" alone once it disappears forever into the dustbin of bad ideas.

11.What created God? What came first, the chicken or the egg? I am not going to deny the existence of the chicken or the egg, merely because I don't understand or know what came first. I don't care - they both exist!
Nothing, is the short answer to the first question, because God doesn't exist. Both chickens and eggs exist - hey, we agree on something! The comment about not denying something "merely because I don't understand" is comical in light of this individual's uninformed views on evolution.

12.Improbability is not the same as impossibility. You only have to look at life itself for that backup of proof.
This seems to support my view. The beginning of life on Earth and its resulting complexity are very improbable, yet they have happened, so they are by definition not impossible. This is a proof of God?

13.How could the complexity of human life possibly evolve on its own accord out of mindless cells?
Read a fucking book on evolution. Neurologists and biologists are working on the finer points of this very problem, rather than throwing up their hands and asking idiotic rhetorical questions. Evolution happens over millions of years - you must try to understand the grand time scales across which single-celled organisms evolved into creatures as complex as worms, let alone humans.

14.How could the complexity of the human mind possibly evolve on its own accord out of mindless cells? Where does our consciousness come from?
Didn't we just do this one? Were you struggling to get to 50?

15.What/who knew that our hunger & thirst had to be catered for by the food & drink which we're supplied with?
Um...because if there wasn't food energy and water available we wouldn't have evolved to require them? Was that supposed to be a trick question?

16.Most of us are born with the five senses to detect our surroundings, which we're provided with.
All five of which evolved over millions of years to better adapt us to our environment. Have you ever read about how the modern human eye evolved from crude photosensitive cells? It's fascinating.

17.What/who knew that had Earth been set nearer to the sun, we would burn up?
18.What/who knew that had Earth been set any further from the sun, we would freeze up?
The Earth has an elliptical orbit that varies by some five million kilometers over the course of a year. You are an idiot.

19.What/who knew that had Earth been built larger or smaller, its atmosphere would be one where it would not be possible for us to breathe?
The Earth wasn't "built," and there's no way this is true. Besides, at one point the Earth's atmosphere was indeed once such that we couldn't breathe, consisting of carbon dioxide and supporting only anaerobic organisms. Good times!

20.What/who knew that we require the oxygen of plants, just as plants require the carbon dioxide of us?
Biologists know/knew this. What is it that you want me to answer here?

21.The concept that life came about through sheer chance is as absurd & improbable as a tornado blowing through a junk yard, consequently assembling a Boeing 747!
Random probabilities aside, this was taken up quite adeptly by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion. READ MORE.

22.We are willing to believe in physically unseen waves that exist through the air, operating physical forces & appliances to work, yet not supernatural God forces being responsible for the same.
That is correct - I couldn't have stated it more clearly. We can observe, quantify, generate, and control electromagnetic radiation. You're doing it right now with your eyes. We also understand how these particles/waves are generated. As Laplace observed long ago, there is need to append a god hypothesis onto it.

23.Matter cannot organise itself. An uneaten tomato will not progress on its own accord to form a perfect pineapple. It will transform into mould, into disorganisation. The laws of evolution fall flat.
Matter can and does organize itself all the time - look at a crystal or a snowflake. The tomato/pineapple thing makes no sense. I know this argument and I understand both entropy the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but the Earth is not a closed system, what with the Sun blasting us with photons and all. Evolution does not have laws, but its principles most certainly do not fall flat. Ever.

24.Our 'inventor' of evolution, Mr. Charles Darwin had this to say to Lady Hope when he was almost bedridden for 3 months before he died; "I was a young man with unfathomed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions. wondering all the time over everything, and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire - people made a religion of them." Darwin then asked Lady Hope to speak to neighbours the next day. "What shall I speak about?" She asked. He replied; "Christ Jesus and his salvation. Is that not the best theme?"
The Lady Hope story is a complete fabrication. Next.

25.Where do our moral values held within our conscience come from? If the atheist is right, why then would we care about what we did?! If there is no God, then we've no-one to be accountable to.
Our moral values come from our minds. Mine do, anyway - I don't want to speak for you. Some people's come from ancient books of myth. I care about what we do because my mind is equipped with a conscience, with a sense of right and wrong, that guides my actions. We're accountable only to ourselves and others.

Click here for Part II

The Myth of HDTV

2012-01-23T07:00:00.000-05:00

I've been having a good time positioning myself as an opponent of HDTV, and thought I'd explain the satirical logic behind this quest. Just to be silly, I argue passionately (and facetiously) against this sharper-picture technology. I refer to tube televisions euphemistically as "Classic Def," decry HD as unnecessarily decadent, and tune Bucko's HDTV to an equivalent Classic Def channel every chance I get. I get a pretty fair amount of amusement out of this position - I don't really care much about picture quality, so it's easy enough to just go heel and pick on HD and its proponents.

It's surprisingly effective at getting people riled up and provoking earnest rhetorical counterattacks. The first line of argument that everyone always jumps to is, "it's so much better than regular TV!" I bet you did it just now in your head.

Here's the thing: I know. I have functional eyesight. There's absolutely no question that it's way better than Classic-Def - this is an unchallenged, objective fact. Arguing otherwise is complete folly. No matter how quickly or readily I concede this point, my sparring partners aggressively promote the superiority of the technology. Noted.

Here's the thing: acknowledging that a technology is superior or impressive is not the same as desiring said technology or, more importantly, being willing to pay for it. That's what we do as consumers - we weigh the value of a good or service against the price we would have to pay for it. I know that Mercedes-Benz makes cars better than my current Saturn with 110000 miles on it, but that doesn't mean I'm rushing out to the dealer to buy one. Even though I quite clearly recognize HDTV as a significant technological advance over my tube TV, that doesn't mean I have the desire to pay for it. I realize that the expense of an HDTV is much less than a Benz, but it's the same principle. HD simply doesn't matter to me all that much - I put a very low economic value on this technology while remaining fully cognizant of its abilities.

Editor's note: is anyone still thinking about the original argument about how much better HD is? I bet you are! It doesn't work.

The next point usually advanced is then something along the lines of how cheap HDTV's have gotten. So cheap! They are indeed much more affordable than they once were, but again, a typical price is way more than the value I put on it. I frankly don't care about picture quality, and I already have a perfectly functioning set here at my house. I don't think I would pay even $100 for a new HDTV. Now, if something were to happen to the unit I have now and I was left TV-less, the economics would shift considerably. The difference in monetary value I assign to HDTV over Classic-Def is minimal, as we've seen, but the value of HDTV with respect to absolutely nothing is a few bucks more. Obviously if I had to get a new TV I'd go for an HD one, because that's now the incumbent technology (can you still buy a tube?), but the concepts of replacing and upgrading are night and day for me.

Of course, even in this future dystopia where I have an HD set, I certainly wouldn't get a Blu-Ray :) The exact same reasoning applies (I have a working Classic DVD player), plus I hate the word - it looks like if should be pronounced "Bluh-Ray" instead of "Blue-Ray."

My Favorite Movies: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

2012-01-20T12:00:00.000-05:00

Movie trilogies are notorious for starting off with a bang and gradually losing steam as the series presses on. Sure, there are exceptions, but how many lousy cash-in third installments have you seen of once-great franchises? Fortunately, such a fate didn't befall the wildly successful trio of Indiana Jones movies, which started off with the terrific Raiders of the Lost Ark and ended with today's subject, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

I've waffled for years on how to rank these movies relative to one another. Middle installment Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is clearly the weakest of the three, but the relative merits of films #1 and #3 are the subject of much debate. Finally, I've resolved it in my mind: Last Crusade is the best of the three. It's got the same exhilarating sense of adventure, but with a more focused and interesting plot, and the addition of Sean Connery as Prof. Henry Jones Sr. It's not a huge difference, but I'm calling this one in favor of part three.

I'm not going to write a full treatment of Temple of Doom, but I'd like to make some comments about it before we get to the main attraction. The weaknesses are well-documented: the ridiculous mysticism of the Indian village, the pointless gross-out scenes with monkey brains and eyeball soup, and the inane Thuggee human sacrifice cult. There's also Kate Capshaw's relentlessly annoying turn as nightclub singer Willie Scott. But there's a lot to like about Temple of Doom as well, from the Short Round character to the thrilling action pieces, which are the best in the series. You're treated to:

- Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) fighting mobster Lao Che's thugs and poison that Che has slipped him.
- Jones and his cohorts escaping safely from Che's crashing plane
- The mine cart chase, escaping Mola Ram's underground temple
- A trapped Jones cutting a rope bridge and escaping Ram and his henchmen once again.

Really a lot of dynamite scenes here, and certainly a high-quality movie that I give 4.5 stars; it just doesn't quite measure up to the five-star standards of the other two pictures. Let's move along to Last Crusade.

Young Indiana in Utah
Last Crusade opens with a few scenes not really essential to the titular Crusade but that are still pretty fun. In the open, 13-year old Indiana Jones (River Phoenix) is out with his Boy Scout troop when he happens upon a gang in a cave. Jones recovers their stolen Cross of Coronado and makes his escape via a circus train.

This open sets the backstory and provides the opportunity for some funny in-jokes; Indiana getting the first of his trademark fedoras, learning to use a whip, picking up a fear of snakes, and dealing with his proper, bookish, Holy Grail-obsessed archaeology professor father, Henry Jones Sr (Connery).

Indiana still after the Cross
26 years later, Jones (Ford) rights the wrong of his previous encounter with the gang, recovering the Cross of Coronado after a battle at sea and restoring it to where it belongs, "in a museum" run by pal Marcus Brody.

The Crusade
The nature of this quest is finally revealed in a meeting with wealthy douchebag Walter Donovan (Julian Glover), who tells Indy of the elder Jones' recent disappearance and shows him an incomplete tomb inscription indicating the location of the long-lost Holy Grail ("the cup of Christ"). Upon returning home, Indy receives his father's meticulous Grail diary by mail and sets out to Venice to save his Dad.

Italy
Upon arrival, Indy meets up with Dr Elsa Schneider, a woman whose appearance is many standard deviations above the norm for professional scientists. Honestly, if female scientists in the real world looked as good as they invariably do on film, my days would be a little brighter. Anyway, following Dad's trail to a library, Jones ends up in an underground catacomb where he finds the remainder of Donovan's inscription on a knight's tomb. Jones and Scnheider narrowly escape being set ablaze by members of The Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, then flee from the Brotherhood in a speedboat chase. Who doesn't like a speedboat chase? Jones manages to extract the location of Jones Sr from one of the brothers after pointing out that he doesn't so much care about the Grail, and he and Schneider set off for Nazi territory while dispatching Marcus to Turkey. Also, he nails Schneider at some point.

Germany/Austria
I like movies that take place in castles. When is a castle ever a bad thing in a film? On that note, I highly recommend Where Eagles Dare, a 1968 Clint Eastwood / Richard Burton movie with a castle.

This castle is, naturally, a Nazi one - I think the creative team of Lucas and Spielberg saw how well they worked as villains in Raiders and went back to that well once more. Smart move.

Once in Grunwald castle, Jones locates his father, and the interplay between Ford and Connery opens up a lot of comedic potential for the movie from that point on. It also serves to drive a lot of the action, particularly the bumbling of Jones Sr. After losing the diary to the Nazis (turns out that Schneider, in addition to being fairly easy, is a Nazi agent and that Donovan has sold out to them as well) and being captured, the Jones boys escape via motorcycle and make their way to Berlin to recover the diary. I have no idea how they found who they were looking for, nor where they parked, but they get what they need and try to get the hell out of Dodge.

After an aborted ride on a Zeppelin and later an aeroplane (whose tail Jones Sr memorably riddles with bullets in a botched attempt at tailgunnery), the Joneses finally reach safety and try to find Marcus and beat the Nazis to the Grail location.

Turkey
The Joneses meet up with their old pal, jovial, red hat-wearing Sallah (John Rhys Davies), find out that Marcus has (of course) been captured by the nefarious Germans, and head to the Canyon of the Crescent Moon to head them off. Indy, Sallah, and the old men take on the Nazis' military escort. My favorite part is when Sallah rounds up a few camels despite Indy's strict instructions not to: "I said no camels, Sallah - that's five camels!"

After an epic struggle with the Nazi tanks (one of which flies off a cliff with Indy apparently but obviously not really on board, the quartet chase after Elsa and Donovan to the Grail location.

The Canyon of the Crescent Moon
Naturally, the Grail can't be had so easily as to just wander into the temple and grab it - the cup turns out to be guarded by lethal booby traps, as the poor saps Donovan sends in at first learn the hard way. Indy has no intention of doing Donovan's dirty work, but a pistol shot to Henry's side convinces him to pursue the Grail to save his father's life. Fortunately, with the Grail diary, he's able to defeat the three traps.

1) The Breath of God - "only the penitent man will pass." Jones figures this out just in time to avoid having his head sliced off.

2) The Word of God - Jones remembers that "Jehovah" starts with an I in Latin a bit late, but still manages to traverse a chasm by stepping on the right lettered stones.

3) The Path of God - Indy bravely jumps across an insurmountable canyon, only to discover that it was an optical illusion.

Schneider and Donovan follow, and decide they should be the first to pick out the chalice granting eternal life. Schneider picks out a gaudy bejeweled one, Donovan drinks from it, and ages almost instantly, turning into a pile of bones and disintegrating in a matter of seconds. "He chose...poorly."

It's fun to watch Donovan's ignominious end because of what a greedy sellout he is. Every time I watch this movie, I can't help but think: why would anyone want to be immortal? I absolutely would have no interest in an infinite existence, on Earth or anywhere. Maybe that (and its utter lack of truth) is why I find the Heaven Myth so unappealing, I don't know. But I can assure you, I wouldn't risk my life on Elsa Schneider's low-chance-of success cup identification prowess just to gain something that doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun anyway.

Indy, of course, "chose...wisely," picking the modest "cup of a carpenter" that was indeed Jesus', and scrambles back to the temple entrance to save Henry with the Grail's healing power. Schneider greedily tries to take the cup past the temple seal, bringing the whole structure crashing down and casting her in a bottomless pit after one last futile effort to grab for it. The Joneses, Marcus, and Sallah ride off into the sunset.

Speculation and Conclusion
Someone made a point about Raiders of the Lost Ark that I find difficult to reconcile: for all of the protagonists derring-do and heroics, the end would be exactly the same even if he hadn't done anything: Nazis find the Ark, open it, and die. I can't find a way out of that logic, unfortunately. The same is not true for Temple of Doom - without Indy's infiltration of the temple, Mola Ram enslaves kids indefinitely, and they and that rock never get back to the village safely.

I wonder, then, how Indiana Jones' work affects the conclusion of Last Crusade. If he's not around, and Henry Jones sends the diary back to America and Indy doesn't drag it back to Europe, the Nazis might never find the Grail. Pretty much neutral. If they did manage to find the Grail without the diary, using the inscription or whatever, they would probably have still either died via the booby traps or from bad cup selection - again neutral. I dunno, once again I'm not sure that Indiana Jones' adventures result in a net positive here.

But who cares? These movies are too fun to worry about such matters. Just grab some popcorn and watch, alright?

Work

2012-01-20T07:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I held a meeting for which I sent Outlook invitations to four coworkers. In a stunning burst of diversity, I completed the Response/Attendance matrix with the minimum number of invitees:

- One responded yes and attended
- One didn't respond but attended anyway
- One didn't respond and didn't attend
- One responded yes and didn't attend

Now that is efficiency. The only way I can think to better it would be to have six invitees; four would act as described above and the additional two would both decline. Of course, one would show up.

The Flaming Ice Cube

2012-01-19T12:00:00.000-05:00

Cleveland has a burgeoning restaurant culture, largely based here in Downtown and nearby Tremont, and spearheaded by top chefs like Michael Symon (Lola, B Spot), Zack Bruell (Chinato), and Jonathon Sawyer (Greenhouse Tavern). This culinary renaissance is a good thing for a Clevelander like me who wants to see quality establishments of all sorts in my city, but I have to admit that the places themselves aren't a huge draw for me personally. The top joints seem a little pricey for a cheapo like me, and my visits to Symon's (now closed) Bar Symon and Sawyer's Greenhouse Tavern were very underwhelming.

But that's OK, because I have The Flaming Ice Cube.

I love the Flaming Ice Cube. It's my favorite restaurant ever (with all due respect to Mad Mex and Lam's Oriental Cuisine), and not just because it's a vegan restaurant and I am, of course, a vegetarian. I've been to vegetarian/vegan places that I didn't think were very good, I assure you. I like the Flaming Ice Cube simply because virtually everything I've tried there is fantastically good (and very affordable). For my birthday dinner this year, there wasn't even a doubt in my mind where I was going - The Cube (or as Kim and I call it, "Cubo.") It didn't disappoint.

I do wonder a bit about the business aspect of The Cube, in part because I don't know anything about business. In fact, I think about the commercial aspect of FIC every time I go there, because I'm paranoid it's going to close. I hope they're doing well, because I'll be really upset if they don't stay in business. Why am I worried? Not because of a lack of customers - there have been a fair number of people there every time we've gone. Maybe my concern stems from the name. I might be missing the meaning, but "Flaming Ice Cube" doesn't immediately strike my mind as a place to get great food. I walked past it a number of times thinking it was a coffee shop, or, weirdly, a place that sold Icees and Sno-Cones. That latter one probably is my bad, but the skepticism over such a cryptic name seems justified. Hell, I didn't see The Shawshank Redemption for years because of its awkward name, and Shawshank doesn't even have vegan Mexican pizza.

In fact, I might never have gone were it not for a Groupon that Kim secured. I thought, OK, I'll give it a try, and now I've been there who knows how many times. I think this is the model that most of Groupon's commercial customers seek - garner first-time visitors with the Groupon and earn repeat business based on the initial visit. Mission accomplished.

I also wonder how non-Veggies view a place that bills itself as a "Compassionate Cafe" and boldly advertises itself as a vegan restaurant. For me it's a huge plus, but I think there's a widespread misunderstanding of the diversity and quality of vegan food, as illustrated by the graph below:

The diversity in the right-hand pie chart illustrates a rare conundrum that a place like Cubo presents for me. One of the (minor) drawbacks of the vegetarian lifestyle is a general lack of options - most places I go to for dinner have one or two non-meat choices, and that's it. In some respects this isn't such a bad thing - deciding between three things is a lot easier than between thirty, so I don't have to agonize over the entire menu.

At the Cube, though, I have the entire menu at my disposal, and it's funny how challenging I find this, simply because I'm so unaccustomed to it! I have to say, it's a good problem to have, especially since everything there is so good. Buffalo Chik'n sandwich, Chik'n Quesadillas, Pizza Burger, Black bean salad, Dijonaise Panini, flatbread pizzas - it's incredibly diverse and it's all excellent. They have some sort of peanut butter sandwich there and I'm convinced that somehow even it is good, even though peanut butter is the most malevolent, disgusting substance in the universe. I don't write about food very much, and I'm realizing that I have no idea what kinds of things food critics write. All I can tell you is that, if you live in the Cleveland area and you like food, you need to go to this place. Call me, I'll meet you there.

I enjoy the clientele at the Cubo too. The waitstaff are always friendly sorts, and the place attracts a diverse group of customers. In one of the best examples of "don't judge a book by its cover," we once ended up in a conversation with a fellow patron who didn't at all fit the stereotypical mold of a vegan restaurant customer. He was a middle-aged, somewhat badass fellow who rolled in on a motorbike - let's face it, not the kind of cat you'd look for in a Compassionate Cafe. He told us he was really into veganism, googled the Cube, hopped on his bike, and cruised downtown from the suburbs to check this place out and loved it. Right on, dude!

Now I'm hungry. That's alright - soon enough I'll head back to the Cube and try the Pulled BBQ. Mmm...pulled.

SOPA sucks

2012-01-19T07:00:00.000-05:00

You can often tell a lot about the intellectual vapidity of certain positions and movements by the degree of stupidity and logical incoherence of the arguments advanced by its proponents.

And so it is with SOPA ("Stop Online Piracy Act") and PIPA ("PROTECT IP Act," where "PROTECT" is an acronym as well), two Internet freedom-destroying measures (named in typically Orwellian fashion) that are now being considered by the United States Congress. The fading notion of American exceptionalism takes another big hit if this idiocy passes and allows the silencing of American voices.

Naturally, the bill's ~~corporations~~ supporters don't see it that way. First, we have former US Senator and current MPAA chief (making him, essentially, Hollywood's top lobbyist) Chris Dodd, who spoke out against the "Blackout Day" carried out by web giants like Reddit and Wikipedia, claiming that:

[The blackout] is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use their services. It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today.

Please, Mr. Dodd, come down off that high horse. I know this is your industry's big money grab and you're upset about being called out on it, but an "abuse of power"? I'd say this consciousness-raising effort is a lot less of an abuse of power than, say, donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to politicians to get rubbish like this passed in the first place. I trust we all noted the irony in Dodd's mention of "the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today," the exact freedoms threatened by SOPA and PIPA.

But Dodd's remarks pale in comparison to the comments made by lead sponsor Lamar Smith (R-TX), who contributed this hideously inapt analogy:

Like online piracy, child pornography is a billion-dollar business operated online. It is also illegal. That's why law enforcement officials are authorized to block access to child-porn sites.

Fuck you, Lamar Smith. This is so fucking stupid I almost can't type. Yeah, online piracy is just like child pornography...except for the part where...goddamnit, Lamar Smith I'm not even going to finish this sentence. I don't need to, right? We all see how amazingly dumb this is, yes?

I was at first mildly surprised that Smith didn't follow Godwin's Law and invoke Hitler to demonize his enemies, but then I realized he was the one in favor of censoring shit, making such a comparison fairly difficult. You'll note that the bills' opponents have been more civil - I'm in no way offering such a comparison, just noting and explaining its absence. No one supporting this measure in any way deserves such a comparison - they're just very misguided and, in the case of people like Smith, very dumb.

Editor's note: I just now considered calling him "Lamar Sith" throughout this piece but decided against it. And THEN, just now, after writing that, I went to browse for a photo of Smith and found this gem:

No soup for you

2012-01-18T12:00:00.000-05:00

Jimmy Dimora

2012-01-18T07:00:00.000-05:00

Those of you living in or near Cuyahoga County have probably heard of the trials and tribulations of former County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora, currently (finally) on trial for Federal racketeering charges. Those of you dwelling elsewhere may not have, so I'll summarize; Dimora, longtime head of the local Democratic party, was the major target of a years-long Federal probe into corruption into county government. He was arrested in 2008 and charged with all manner of corrupt dealings, peddling influence, making patronage hires, and receiving all sorts of kickbacks like prostitutes and Vegas vacations. It's frankly pretty ridiculous reading about all the misdeeds the probe uncovered.

As a formality, let's start with the fact that he's clearly guilty - I don't think there's anyone besides potentially Dimora himself who thinks otherwise. The accused's own defense was, "I'm not doing anything different than any other public official does," which is the kind of thing people say when they are criminals. The prosecution has ninety witnesses ready to testify against Dimora - I'm no legal expert, but that seems like a lot, as do the 44000 phone call recordings and 1000 pieces of evidence. Dimora's defense team has...one piece of evidence. Literally. Many of the other public officials charged in the case have already taken plea deals and 60 convictions have been handed out - Dimora is the only one who insisted on going to court. The trial itself doesn't even really seem to be about whether Dimora was guilty - it's an exercise in evaluating whether the Federal prosecutors have assembled their case carefully enough over the past six years to convince a jury that Dimora's actions were illegal, not simply unethical.

Naturally, as figures who've grown accustomed to power so often do when faced with the possibility of losing that power, Dimora isn't going out quietly. He initially refused to step down as commissioner (the position has since been abolished) and did all sorts of abrasive things like angrily trying to throw reporters out of public meetings. Nothing says "innocent of corruption" like yelling at members of the media and trying to have them removed from public sessions. Now, as his trial commences, he seems determined to cause as much trouble and waste as much (more) taxpayer money as possible. Initially, despite his obvious (and ill-gotten wealth), he demanded public funds to pay for his defense, which seems almost deliberately douchey - fortunately, a Federal judge said no to that request.

And oh, the attorneys he does have on his side. It seems every day they're trying some idiotic legal maneuver, filing frivolous pre-trial motions, claiming inexplicably that Dimora is facing "double jeopardy" prosecution, filing documents late intentionally, antagonizing the prosecution mostly, it seems, because they can, despite repeated admonshments from the judge. Basically, every thing they're doing screams "we don't have a legitimate case, so we're going to try for any technicality we can find." Frankly, if I was a juror, such shenanigans would impact negatively my view of the defendant's case. We'll see how the actual jurors feel about matters here within the next few months.

Dreams

2012-01-17T07:00:00.000-05:00

I had a weird dream the other night. This isn't ipso facto an unusual thing - you probably did too. Dreams - from the inexplicable geography, to the curious temporality, to the bizarre events - are weird things. But this time, I did something I'd never done while experiencing even the most off-the-wall subconscious brain waves of my career: I quit.

Honestly, I didn't know that this was an option. I've been through all sorts of rough stuff in dreams - being arrested, losing my car, making out with a girl and taking off her t-shirt only to discover that she had another identical t-shirt underneath, having a snake (a snake! a snake!) interfere with my batting in a baseball game - and always bore it up as well as I could. For some reason, I become amazingly credulous in my dreams, as occurrences that a skeptic like me wouldn't accept for two seconds in my conscious life suddenly seem entirely plausible. Of course I'm a Turkish DJ - why wouldn't I be? Once, a few years back, I realized during a dream that I wasn't experiencing an actual reality and woke up shortly thereafter, but I didn't know I could just say "no mas."

This time, I was getting out of a car. In classic dream fashion, it wasn't my car, nor even one I recognized. Also, I have no idea where I was. The car was, however, surrounded by (infested with, also?) bees. And flying debris - these small wood chips flying around as if I was in one of those money-grab wind booths, except the dirtiest one ever. And no matter how much I tried to shoo things away or get the bees out of my car, neither they nor these goddamn wood particles would go away. At some point, is occurred to me: fuck this. I think I even said it: "fuck this, I'm in a dream and I want out" and folded my arms. And I was awake.

Is this a breakthrough? Have I gained some grasp over my subconscious? I don't know, but I want to think I did. The true test will be the next time some strange days descend upon my subconscious mind - will I recognize it for what it is, or will I fall for it like I have so many other times? Alternatively, what if something really weird happens in my actual life (weird things happen to me a lot) and I mistakenly think it's a dream and try to extricate myself without success? We shall see.

Suit up!

2012-01-16T07:00:00.000-05:00

Is there any logic to fashion? I ask because I really don't know, and I'm not convinced that Yahoo! answers does either. I use the suit as an example because it's a type of dress that is universally agreed-upon to be fancy, or "dressed up." Look at a picture of the G20 if you don't believe me.

Incidentally, I was wondering about the part in The Dark Knight where Lucius Fox says that "three buttons are a little '90's." What are we doing now - back to two? Four? Five? Is it like that old Onion article, Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades except for suit buttons? I have no idea. Good thing I hardly ever wear suits.

But why is that? What is it about a suit that people recognize as classy and formal? Why does a business suit give off that impression, while a clown suit doesn't? Why does a hooded sweatshirt look less professional than a button-down dress shirt? I'm sure it has a lot to do with culture - you get accustomed to seeing Presidents and CEO's in suits from a young age, and of course they're going to strike you as dress-up clothes. But they had to become accepted as such in the first place - how did that happen? And do we think that even if from our childhood we saw Presidents and CEO's wearing clown suits or hoodies that they would then seem dressed up? I doubt it. As with my monologue on why funny words sound funny, I suppose it has to do with both culture and the innate aesthetics of the object.

While I'm here, If you watch sports very often, you've probably noticed that almost everyone who appears on television to discuss or commentate upon sports wears a suit. Have we thought about whether this makes any sense? Where was this committee that decided which professions would be suit-wearing ones and which wouldn't? I'm a scientist, and no one I work with - other scientists, engineers, managers, executives - wears a suit to work. Yet every Sunday, there's these fellows on TV talking about sports, something that, let's face it, is really really trivial, dressed to the nines. Like, without exception. Wouldn't it make a little more sense to have these dudes dressed in polo shirts, given the extremely low gravitas of their work? I'm confused.

#ows

2012-01-12T07:00:00.000-05:00

I support strongly the Occupy Wall Street movement, a fact that will not come as a surprise to regular TFB readers. I realize that you may not, and that's fine - I'm not going to try to convince you that it's worthy of your support.

I do, however, wish that people would make a greater effort to at least understand it, a task that is not made particularly easy by the manner in which the media and many public figures have chosen to represent the OWS movement. If you haven't yet, I think it's in your interest as an informed citizen to read The Declaration of the Occupation of the Wall Street of New York City. It's not so long that you'll be tempted to give it a tl;dr, and it will help frame the rest of this article.

All done? Great! Again, I personally find the stated goals of the group - to publicize those facts they list and encourage public assembly and debate - very worthwhile. You still may not, but at least now you know what they are. This is more than many people, including many of the people who speak most vociferously against the movement, have done. If you were/are opposed to OWS but took the time to read and understand their charter, I give you a lot of credit. And now that everyone at least understands the purpose of the movement, I'd like to make some comments about how it's been misunderstood and misrepresented. And if you skipped it, here's another hyperlink that will give you a chance to read it before we discuss further.

It's not violent
You wouldn't know it at times by the way police in riot gear have frequently and regrettably dealt with the protestors, but they're not an actual problem worthy of police in riot gear. They really aren't. It's a nice coincidence that police across the nation solved all of their actual crime in their cities just before Occupy started, so they could concentrate their resources on harassing a bunch of protestors, and that John Pike was able to conserve enough pepper spray (a food product, as Fox's Megyn Kelly reminds us) for those kids sitting on a sidewalk at UC Davis. You've seen the videos, you've seen the photos - it's completely unnecessary and saddening.

Someone made the interesting point that the very fact that we've enabled these police forces, provided them with all this riot gear and weaponry, leads inexorably to the sort of violence and clashes we've seen, and there's probably something to that view. But I've seen Occupy Cleveland, and those protestors don't pose a threat to anything. To the credit of Cleveland's Finest, there hasn't been any excessive force and the police have apparently been fair and civil. But the point is, they've managed here to allow peaceable demonstration with a minimum of interference. Ironically, if it weren't for the police, these incidents (violent and otherwise) at the Occupy demonstrations across the nation would be virtually negligible.

It's not a left-wing thing
It kinda seems that way though, doesn't it? It's certainly portrayed as being so, and there can be little doubt that the vast majority of the 1% against which the 99% has aligned themselves are conservative Republicans. On the other hand, if all of the 99% are Democrats, then the group of individuals vying for the GOP nomination for President are seriously wasting their time.

I suppose this is a convenient, if lazy, narrative to buy into, and admittedly I initially thought of it that way. It took none other than Michele Bachmann to spark additional thinking on the topic. You see, Bachmann is wrong about every single thing she says, so when she characterized OWS as "the Obama re-election team," I knew there must be more to it than I had recognized at first.

Forget for a minute that her statement is immediately ridiculous because of how cautiously Obama has distanced himself from OWS, and consider again a few of the corporate behaviors that the Occupy people are opposing:

- They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

- They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

- They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.

These aren't inherently left-wing or right-wing topics. These are protests against the way the relationship between Corporate America and Political America benefits a very small slice of society at the expense of everybody else. Thee sorts of things - the cozy dealings between politicians and their huge Wall Street donors, giant taxpayer-funded bailouts - should be the scourge of Tea Party members every bit as they should be for Progressive liberals. If you profess a belief in "limited government" - and for all my disagreements with the approach and policies of the Tea Party, I think they are sincere in their desire for less government intrusion, at least in certain realms - you should oppose strongly the things Government and Business are doing together. Most of you are in the 99% as well.

The extent to which Occupy continues to be viewed as a liberal, left-wing phenomenon is, I think, an extension of the success the Republican Party has had in convincing people to vote against their own economic self-interest while continuing to enrich the wealthiest Americans. It's remarkable, from a political perspective, the extent to which Republicans have controlled the message on this topic despite all evidence to their contrary. How else to explain a hilarious text message I heard on a radio show I heard the other day, suggesting that Obama's reelection slogan should be, "Twice the Taxes, Half the Jobs." Misinformation like this, easily refuted by some eye-opening graphs constructed by Paul Krugman and the mathematical fact that taxes have decreased during the Obama presidency, keeps a healthy portion of the 99% from supporting a movement that is in fact very much in line with their beliefs and objectives.

It's not about "envy"
This is the way that those who are under fire prefer to view OWS - the protestors are simply envious of our wealth and power and are lashing out. Wrong. For me, at least, this doesn't enter into the equation - being ultra-wealthy and having this outsize influence on politics has no personal appeal to me. It doesn't make the world any better, that's for certain. I saw an episode of "Million Dollar Rooms" on HGTV the other day and all I could think was, "why would anyone ever want a room worth over $1 million?"

Wanting a fair system is not the same as being jealous of those who exploit it.

It's not a bunch of hippies looking for a handout
Nevertheless, that's the prevailing narrative, because it's way, way easier to parrot than doing what all of you TFB readers were patient and intelligent to do - actually read and understand the principles of Occupy Wall Street. As Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi demonstrates with a collection of priceless quotes, that's the way the 0.1% themselves prefer to view things. And who could forget Newt Gingrich's thoughtless, mean-spirited suggestion that the protestors "take a bath." Zing!

As an interlude, I've praised Taibbi's work before, but it's worth another mention because no one's documenting our modern era of finance and corruption better than he is, particularly in his brilliant, passionate Griftopia.

Here's the thing - it's far, far easier to character assassinate those against whom you disagree than to argue the merits of their ideas. Why bother reading the Declaration they prepared when you can launch ad hominem attacks? Much less taxing (ha!), though I think it betrays a lack of thought on those who would oppose OWS. I'm not talking about you TFB stalwarts, of course - you definitely took the time to read the link I provided to the document and met it intellectually. Maybe you didn't agree with it and can provide solid reasons why, and I respect that, but you didn't use generalizations and stereotypes in place of well-reasoned arguments. Right?

By far the worst offender on this front was comedian Adam Carolla. Now look, I like Carolla - I think he's a funny guy with interesting ideas, and enjoyed a recent performance I saw of his at a comedy club downtown and his first book, In Fifty Years, We'll All Be Chicks. But his take on OWS was appallingly stupid, a brutally ignorant tirade that never once even attempts to give any thought or consideration to the goals or ideas of the movement. Why bother with that heavy lifting, when there's the younger generation to harangue instead?

Go ahead, read a transcript of Carolla's rant. I'm going to go ahead and say that referring to an entire generation of people as "ass douches" isn't a strong indicator that you've given particularly deep thought to the political issues at stake here, and indeed Carolla has not. He sees people who he doesn't like, stereotypes them, generalizes them, and dismisses them.

Whatever. It's not like Carolla is the first older guy to criticize the younger generation. You know what generation has viewed younger people as less disciplined, less ambitious, less...good than themselves? All of them. That's what older people do. They bitch about younger people, rambling about "these kids today" and all that. They will always do this, because adults are bizarrely incapable of remembering that they were once kids and young adults who had older adults viewing them disdainfully. I'll be careful not to do this too much when I'm older, but I'm sure it will creep into my discourse a little bit.

The thing is, Carolla isn't necessarily wrong in his view of many members of the Millennial generation. They may indeed have an overdeveloped sense of entitlement and difficulty in dealing with the real world, though I would argue that doesn't qualify lumping an entire generation in as "ass douches."

Even if they were, that doesn't matter
But guess what? THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH OCCUPY WALL STREET. Even if Millennials are a bunch of spoiled brats and all the things he alleges about Occupiers are 100% true, he's made no point whatsoever about the goals of OWS, which of course you all read some time ago at the start of this piece. It's not some reductio ad hippium, where an idea can't be valid if the people actively promoting it don't strike one's fancy. He's made a bunch of crusty old man generalizations in place of analysis - guess what, pal, I'm not a Millennial, I don't fit any of your crude stereotypes, and I very much support OWS, so what now? Exactly.

All I'm asking is that, when you form an opinion on the Occupy movement, that you base that opinion on their actual goals and ideas - the items they set out in their Declaration, the injustices they've protested passionately. Don't base it on stereotypes of who's hanging out in Zucotti Park, or where you think your party affiliation should place your opinions. Base it on the facts, and agree or disagree, you'll be a better citizen for having done so.

The Fountain of (Very Creepy) Youth

2012-01-11T07:00:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure that it's accurate to say that I was "watching" the Dr Oz show the other day. I mean, yeah, it was on the TV and I both saw the images from and heard the audio of that TV, but I was at the gym and was certainly not responsible for turning it on. But enough stalling.

This particular installment of Oz's program had the good doctor discussing Human Growth Hormone (HGH)'s use as an "anti-aging" treatment. His guests were a couple of doctors (one was opposed to prescribing HGH to adult patients for cosmetic reasons; the other one had a conscience) and several women who had been taking the drug to look and feel "younger." Oz can be prone to indulging woo and pseudo-medicine, but here he moderated the discussion impartially and seemed genuinely interested in his and the audience's learning. I wish he would have been a little more against the practice, but his conduct was professional here (unlike his irresponsible sensationalism about arsenic in apple juice).

The Francis Blog is nothing if not unprofessional, so I'm free to say that if you're taking (or prescribing) HGH simply so you or a patient can look "better," then you're very likely making a mistake. Take a step back and think about it: how unnatural and weird is it to give growth hormone to someone who stopped growing many years ago because that's what humans do? Do these people take Flintstone's chewables, too? I recognize there are some cases, such as children with developmental issues, where this treatment (the HGH, not the Flintstones) is appropriate. Trust me, none of the women on this show fit that bill.

Two of the characters were particularly appalling. One was the pro-HGH doctor. I took a minute to look very closely at this fellow, to see if I could literally see dollar signs in his eyes. His arguments for prescribing HGH to overweight women with too much money were so strained, so lame, that you got the sense that he didn't really believe them so much as that he was simply reluctant to give up his practice's cash cow.

The other was this horrible-looking woman who proudly boasted that she was 64 but looked 45. I was really hoping that someone would point out that she actually looked like a 64-year-old woman with a creepy stretched-out face, not a 45-year-old. It was so delusional, and no one called her on it. I half expected her to ask someone, "wanna know how I got these scars?" But she was so absolute, so unwavering in her belief that she was defying age and staying young, when she so clearly wasn't and wasn't.

And that's the shame of the whole "anti-aging" industry and concept. Unless you're traveling at relativistic speeds, and you're not, you age one second for every second that elapses, no matter how much weird shit you put in your body. I remember Suzanne Somers a while back talking about all of these hormones and medicines she takes as pills and injections (at least one of which in a place that, though I can't speak personally to it, seems like it would be unpleasant). You can't stop aging, no matter how credulous of an individual you may be. You can't fly, either. You can eat right and exercise and keep yourself as healthy as possible, to the extent that such shrewd behavior counts as anti-aging, but anything else is delusion.

Although some might differ, I don't consider myself old yet, but when I get there, I promise you I'll age with some dignity. No plastic surgery, no bullshit medicine, and, you're hearing it here first: no hair replacement of any kind. When you're bald, you're bald - just deal with it. I wonder if the anti-aging fad is a byproduct of many Americans' inability to deal with death, that maybe the way we cling to anything that can miraculously prolong our life in some mysterious chemical way mirrors the way so many of us harbor unreasonably wishful beliefs about an afterlife. Not this blogger.

Cleaning out the spam box

2012-01-10T07:00:00.000-05:00

One of the benefits of having blogs that no one reads is that I have enough time to look through all the comments people leave - you know, the one a week. Naturally, given this paucity, I was surprised to see five e-mails sitting in the Inbox of my blog (the other blog, actually, but that doesn't affect the point here). In case you can't see where this is going: they were all from the same spam source.

But there's more weirdness than simply another bout of digital diarrhea dumped on my unsuspecting articles by yet another spammer advertising some idiotic product (which I will absolutely not name here). No, this individual decided to drop "comments" on five fairly arbitrary and not necessarily recent) articles, but before getting to their moronic promotion, left a gibberishy actual comment as well. This is about those comments.

Regarding an article my cohort Figgs wrote in November 2010 about Ohio State beating michigan:

If Auburn obtains beat by South Carolina in your SEC Championship and is also knocked through the BCS name game
What can we do when we have many boring free time? How about try to get access to the online games? When we talk about the game, we need to talk about the [name of entity]

My SEC Championship? The BCS name game? Worth pointing out, I think that there has been an SEC title game since this one, with different teams. Interesting timing.

Regarding an article Figgs wrote hating on michigan:

You might not be the only a single hating on michigan, but you've definitely elevated it to an art work form

No commenters ever call my work "an art work form." I'm sad now. Interestingly, this particular bit of wisdom clevely regurgitates something in the comments, not in the original article as well.

Regarding an article I wrote in 2010 about Derek Jeter's contract negotiations:

That's not only a typo - it's more than two hundred million dollars. near somehow looks baffled how the Yankees don't wish to carry on having to pay Jeter

Seriously, why are you doing this? Did you mean to just start spamming and became so enthralled with our content that you couldn't help by leave unintelligible comments as well? Also, the first sentence is almost a complete copy and past of a sentence I wrote in the article, except with "more than" substituted for "over." WHY?

On an article I wrote complaining about Cleveland's low spot in an ESPN Power Rankings:

thinking about how dominant and disciplined Cleveland has looked the previous two instances out, wouldn't you consider them more than the 5 clubs graded just forward of us

This is weird. What I've now noticed, reading through the articles a little more carefully, is that this is clearly some sort of bot generating these comments. What I can't understand, however, is why they run the original text through Google Translate (or Babelfish, or whatever), then back into English for their dumb comment. Hence, "BCS title game" becomes "BCS name game." What does this step accomplish? What does this entire practice of leaving a token copied-and-pasted-and-messed-up comment before your dumb ad accomplish? So strange.

About a good Cleveland sports weekend:

I don't really feel as positively concerning the previous weekend in sports activities as I recognize I should, mainly because the steelers won final evening on Monday evening Football.

I wonder if this intelligent commenter enjoyed the end of Sunday's game as much as I did? Yeah, let's watch that again:

Fannnnnntastic.

Change

2012-01-07T07:00:00.000-05:00

Life's a Brees

2012-01-06T07:00:00.000-05:00

New Orleans QB Drew Brees set the single-season passing record in 2011, throwing for 5476 yards and easily eclipsing Dan Marino's 1984 mark of 5084. Ordinarily, this accomplishment would be highly celebrated, but I've found that this one has come with more caveats than kudos. "Of course someone broke the record," people are saying - the NFL's modern rules make it much easier to pass for a lot of yards. Marino had to do it at a time when more hitting of receivers and quarterbacks was allowed, while today's lax rules have resulted in a proliferation of 4000+ yard passers. Brees' "record" thus isn't nearly as impressive as Marino's. It's a sham. On this topic, Bill Simmons writes:

Was it right that I didn't get excited about Drew Brees' new passing yards record? It reminds me of Oscar Robertson averaging a triple-double, or any of the Bonds/McGwire home run records; it's impossible to separate the era from the accomplishment itself. When Dan Marino threw for 5,084 yards in 1984, you were allowed to (a) pummel the QB every chance you had, (b) dive at the QB's knees as he was throwing the ball, (c) crush any receiver coming over the middle, and (d) jam receivers at the line by any means necessary, even if you had to use a crowbar or a chainsaw. It was impossible to throw for 5,000 yards back then. Only two other 1984 QBs cracked 4,000 yards (Neil Lomax and Phil Simms); nobody else cracked 3,800 yards; and only five guys even attempted 500+ passes (Marino's 564 was the highest). In 2011? Ten QBs will crack 4,000 yards; six will crack 4,500 yards; two (including Tom Brady) will crack 5,000 yards. Heading into Week 17, ten 2011 QBs have already thrown more than 500+ passes, with Brees leading the way with 622. It's a totally different game. Heading forward, we're going to see multiple QBs throw for 5,000 yards every season … right?

All of this is true...except that it's not.

The key misstatement that Simmons makes is that, "it's impossible to separate the era from the accomplishment itself." This is quite simply not true - the league and individual statistics are so readily available that there's no excuse for making a statement like this. Baseball has taken it further, with numbers like WAR and Win Shares that translate across eras. There's a little more heavy lifting to be done in football, but it's very much possible to consider various achievements with respect to their eras. Consider Robertson's triple-double that Simmons cites; I've seen articles explaining how, once you adjust for posessions per game, LeBron's numbers far exceed the Big O's. That's an inverse situation from Brees/Marino, because it's actually gotten more difficult, but the point is that you can readily make that comparison with available information. And Bonds and McGwire did steroids - I have no idea what he's trying to gain there.

Yes, the rules have made passing easier in today's NFL than it was 27 years ago (except, apparently, if you're the Cleveland Browns), and it's fair to discount Brees' gaudy numbers somewhat on that basis. But have those casually dismissing his achievement (and, for that matter, the stellar season of Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers) bothered to actually look at the numbers? This is the kind of lazy non-analysis typically performed by people who can't be bothered to look up or understand an OPS+ - I'm dismayed to see this insidious mode of thinking has made its way into football as well.
First, a quick comparison across eras:

1984
League Average Passer Rating: 73.2
League Average YPG passing: 205.9

2011
League Average Passer Rating: 82.5
League Average YPG passing: 229.7

Again, I'm not disputing that teams have become more adept and efficient at piling on passing yards - they clearly have based on these figures, and the rule changes have no doubt aided that transition. I am saying, though, that you need to make a baseline comparison before just sloughing off a guy who threw for over 350 yards a game. I mean, what if Brees threw for 100000 yards this year? Would it still not be a significant accomplishment? Is Marinos's record always going to be the height of quarterbacking, no matter what, because of these rule changes that took place? Of course not - a shrewd analyst compares across eras and evaluates from that standpoint. Knowing the differences between seasons, let's compare our elite passers to that season's averages:

1984
Marino Passer Rating: 108.7 (+35.5)
Marino YPG passing: 317.8 (+111.9)

2011
Brees Passer Rating: 110.6 (+28.1)
Brees YPG passing: 342.3 (+112.6)

Rodgers Passer Rating: 122.5 (+40)
Rodgers YPG passing: 309.5 (+79.8)

The pro-Marino argument typically rests on how much better he was than any other QB when he set his mark, and indeed he exceeded the league-average YPG by just under 112 yards a contest. That's a lot. Drew Brees, slacker that he was, playing in today's wildly inflated conditions, only managed...just over 112 YPG more than league-average. Inasmuch as the record in question was for passing yardage, this seems the most relevant number, no? I mean, if Brees passed for exactly 5085 yards, then we'd write a different story, but since he outpaced his league by basically the same number as Dynamic Dan, can we maybe give the guy a little bit of credit for passing for 400 more yards than anyone ever?

Rodgers may not have amassed the same yardage (in part because he sat Week 16 while Matt Flynn shredded the Detroit defense for over 500 yards), but his season also compares favorably to Marino's epic '84 campaign. Again, the whole Marino case rests on differences between eras, on how much better his numbers were than his peers', and his advantage of 35.5 Passer Rating points over the NFL average is indeed remarkable. Well, Rodgers' edge was 40, and his yardage disadvantage with respect to Brees and Marino probably has something to do with the Packers firebombing teams week in and week out and running late to seal wins.

The point of this piece isn't to knock Marino - I've liked Marino since I sported a #13 Dolphins jersey as a kid. In fact, I basically feel the same way about Brees now as I did Marino in the '80's. I don't have a horse in this race, other than gaining proper understanding. I actually think Marino's combination of yardage and efficiency, relative to the competition, actually gives his season a slight edge over the NFC's top two gunslingers. The point I'm making is that Brees' accomplishment is impressive after one actually accounts numerically for the differences between 1984 and 2011, instead of simply citing those differences and declaring Marino the unimpeachable best.

Year-End Best-of Spectacular 2011!

2012-01-04T12:00:00.000-05:00

Alright, kids, let's gather around for my 7th Annual Year-End Best-Of Spectacular! As usual, we'll be reviewing the year in funness, naming winners in the categories of Best Record, Best Song, Best Movie, Best TV Show, a Wildcard category, and all the other things that made 2011 slightly dissimilar from preceding years. Let's do this!

Records
Last year I said I'd reconsider my selection of Them Crooked Vultures' self-titled debut as 2010's best, pending listens to the new LCD Soundsystem and Arcade Fire discs. The LCD disc, This Is Happening, was a major disappointment for me - I could barely listen through it straight through even once. Arcade Fire, however, pulled through, and as I wrote in a quickie post earlier this year, I'm going back and retroactively awarding the 2010 championship to their third record, The Suburbs, even though it's not as good as Funeral, an album with the misfortune of coming out the same year as the White Stripes' Elephant.

In other news, I'm old.

I just looked at the Top Albums of the Year according to Spin magazine, which used to be my #1 bellwether for what was going on in music and culture. This year, out of the top 20 records for 2011, I've heard of...four. That's heard of, not heard, and none of the four I recognized is their selection at #1, which is an album by an artist called Fucked Up. The four I have heard of are:

- Das Racist, who I only know because of that Pizza Hut / Taco Bell novelty song from like 5 years ago and now have stuck in my head.

- Bon Iver, who I saw once on Conan or something and who sucked, and who isn't even a dude named Bon Iver.

- Stephen Malkmus, who, let's face it, his best days are decades behind him.

- The chronically and outrageously overrated PJ Harvey.

ANYWAY, it seems that my days of being on the pulse of modern music might be behind me - I spent more time in 2011 listening to classics from decades before I got in the game. The music I did pick up was from artists mostly already established in my collection:

- A couple of returns to form turned in by Foo Fighters (Wasting Light) and newly minted Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Beastie Boys (Hot Sauce Committee Part Two). Both earned solid marks from me - Dave Grohl and company put out their rockingest disc in quite some time while the Beasties proved that there's really no one else like them around. Good stuff.

- The Deluxe Edition 20th anniversary reissue of my all-time favorite album, Nirvana's Nevermind. I've already bought this album like different three times and had most of the outtakes and B-sides thanks to Napster and various compilations, but it was still fun to get back into Nirvanamania, and the Smart Studios sessions and BBC Sessions tracks made it worth my while.

- My winner of Best Record for 2011 is El Camino by Akron's own Black Keys. As has been the trend for the past three couple of years, this award ends up being a bit of a Lifetime Achievement Award, as the duo of Dan Auerbach and Pat Carney have quickly ascended my list since mid-2010, but the driving El Camino is their best record and a deserving winner. Big it up for the Black Keys!

Songs
As per tradition, I'll gleefully award Worst Song before getting to anything I actually liked. I took a Sporcle where the goal was to name all the Top 10 hits of 2011, and I knocked out six of them.

I really wanted to give Worst Song to Taio Cruz's "Dynamite," because holy mackerel do I ever hate hearing that fucking song, but it turns out it was released in May 2010, which doesn't explain why I still hear it five times every time I go to the gym.

Adele's aggressively oversung "Someone Like You" made a run for the title as well, but my eardrums don't appear to have literally shattered, so I'll spare Adele the ignominy.

The "winner" is Maroon 5 featuring Christina Aguilera with "Moves Like Jagger," a song so vapid and inane I can't believe it's the work of what was once apparently an actual rock band. Apparently this song has sold over 5 million copies and also inexplicably garnered a Grammy nod. It also gets Worst Song here on TFB. Congrats!

As far as novelty hits go, Rebecca Black's "Friday" and Weird Al's "Party in the CIA" took care of business. So did, for that matter, Lonely Island's "Jack Sparrow." Now back to the good part!

Beastie Boys' collaboration with NaS, "Too Many Rappers," was a hell of a good song and the obvious highlight of their most recent disc. The Foo Fighters record didn't necessarily have an ace track, just consistent quality. Leadoff track "Lonely Boy" from the Black Keys record was killer - trust me, you've already heard it on about 500 TV and movie promos.

My pick for 2011 Best Song was LCD Soundsystem's "Dance Yrself Clean," a remarkably inventive and slamming track on an otherwise disappointing disc. Congratulations to LCD Soundsystem!

Films
It's really a shame that The Room came out in 2003, because the two times I saw Tommy Wiseau's comically bad melodrama were among the most enjoyable theatergoing experiences I had in 2011..

The only one of the Top 10 grossing films of the year that I saw was the last Pirates movie, which was almost impossibly awful. I saw it on an aeroplane for free, by the way. There were a couple of other movies from the year I wanted to check out but haven't gotten to yet, most notably David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

I did see:

- The Adjustment Bureau, which was lame.

- 30 Minutes or Less, which was funny but didn't play up the comedy angle enough.

- Super 8, which was well-made and charming, but the whole vanity angle with JJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg reliving their filmmaking youths didn't really resonate fully with me.

- Horrible Bosses, the funniest movie I saw this year, with great performances from the three protagonists (Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, and Jason Bateman), even better ones from the three villains (Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Spacey, and Colin Farrell), and

Interruption: I have the Cavaliers game on in the background and that goddamn Taio Cruz song is playing over the loudspeaker in the Q. GO AWAY.

a hilarious script.

The TFB award for Best Movie in 2011 goes to Steven Soderbergh's Contagion, a tense, tightly-scripted medical epidemic thriller that made Outbreak look like amateur hour. Contagion was simply one of those movies where you never even think to look at your watch. Plus, I read that the scientific accuracy was high, which is always a big plus with me. Well done, Contagion!

Television
Three shows for me this year:
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Breaking Bad, and Parks and Recreation. I just started in on Breaking Bad, and I have high hopes for it, but it doesn't have enough at-bats to qualify, just five episodes in.

I also checked out a few episodes of Community and Modern Family upon the recommendations of TFB'ers whose opinions I value, and...hey, guys, at least I tried.

So...we choose between two very dissimilar comedies for the coveted prize. Parks and Rec has taken the mockumentary style pioneered by The Office and beaten Michael Scott (well, not anymore) and the Dunder Mifflin crew at their own game. In fact, when I do watch Parks and Rec on Thursdays, I just turn off the TV once it's over and The Office comes on. It's clearly the highlight of the networks' comedy schedule (no matter how many Emmys 30 Rock wins because the voters identify with a show about TV), has the deepest bench of any show (Community also has a lot of characters, but I don't like even one of them), and the greatest comedic character on TV in the incomparable Ron Swanson. A banner year for Parks and Rec, a show with no signs of waning.

But the winner for Best TV Show for 2011 here on TFB is It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I watched every single episode from the first six seasons and absolutely never got tired of it. For some reason, this show absolutely slays me - I feel like even friends who are enthusiastic proponents aren't quite as into it as I am. It's my favorite show going, and cognizant of being swept up in the moment by a program, I'm trying not to overstate its place in history. But I must say, it has a legitimate chance to settle in behind Seinfeld as my second-favorite comedy ever. Nice work, Sunny!

Wild Card: Traveling
We all know I'm generally not real fond of traveling, but that was the story of me in 2011. I spent 81 nights away from my apartment this year, counting only work and not personal trips. I went to San Francisco, Milwaukee, Ft. Myers, Chicago, France, Germany, Norway, Tennessee, and West Virginia like 1000 times. I had an apartment in West Virginia. I learned how to play the banjo. Lots of miles for Francis this year, hopefully a few more nights at home in 2012.

Athletics
2011 marked another strong entry into my perpetual adolescence, as a surprising durability has kept me in the game for two years straight. Yeah, I had a broken wrist for a while, but I logged almost 800 miles running, participated in nine races (including a marathon), and played on softball and basketball teams. I also learned how to play Dance Dance Revolution, and even though any 14-year-old with a pulse can crush me at it, I got at least a little better.

Here's to a great 2012 for everyone!

A trivial matter

2012-01-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

Once a week, when my schedule allows, I stop by the local BW3 (I don't care that they've rebranded as "Buffalo Wild Wings") and participate in the weekly live trivia game. I've enjoyed playing knowledge games for as long as I've known things, from the NTN trivia at Damon's, to leading the Academic Challenge team at New Phila (yes, I appeared on the TV show Academic Challenge, and yes, Don Webster chastised me for reading the monitors), to a couple of years in College Bowl, and now to "National Trivia Night," a live game hosted at the bar each week. The game is generally well-constructed, and my team usually wins, but I still find it a bit lacking, and it's prompted me to list some of my thoughts on the best and worst practices for producing trivia games.

Let me first say that the National Trivia game is very well-laid out; I even copied their model for a Cleveland Indians-themed game I held at my apartment this year and it worked out great. Each week, in under two hours, they get through seven rounds of ten questions each, in the following categories:

1) General
2) Photo (they pass out a themed sheet of celebs and you name them)
3) Sports
4) Music (name that tune, basically)
5) History/Geography
6) Entertainment
7) Final (nine more general questions, plus a 10-point final question)

You also elect to "Joker" one of the first six rounds, doubling your score. Obviously the strategy is to pick one where you feel confident in that group of answers.

There are a lot of things to like about this format. For one, the volume of questions ensures that the best teams and players will tend to win the most often. For two, they cover a wide variety of subjects and interests - you need a balanced group of minds to win. And for three, they've avoided the Jeopardy!-style trap where everything comes down to the final question and you can bet it all.

I can't overstress how important this final point is - it's by far the worst part of Jeopardy! from a competitive fairness standpoint, though I understand why it's structured that way on television to provide the most drama for viewers. But it's a terrible way to run a competition, and the individuals behind National Trivia are wise to steer clear of that trap. Why should one question carry the same weight as the other 69 combined? It's like making the final shot of an NBA game worth 30 points. Clearly it shouldn't be this way; it reduces the vast majority of the questions in game to a glorified tiebreaker. I don't mind having a weighted question at the end the way it's set up in this game, a multi-part question accounting for roughly 11% of the available points, but the whole notion of betting all the hard work you've put into those categories goes completely against any sense of fairness I have.

The game we played prior to moving to BW3 was far worse in terms of concept and execution. It had only 20 questions, spread across random areas of knowledge (including, I'm not making this up, solving anagrams), where you bet point values on each answer (for example, in one round of three you assigned 1 point, 3 points, and 5 points to your three answers), and then it all came down to an artificially-weighted final question where you could wager amounts up to and including all of your points. It really sucks answering most of the questions right in an evening and leaving with a total of zero points because of weak game design. Even the times we won I hated this setup. Like I said, this isn't a TV show like Jeopardy where the audience needs a dramatic finish; in this sort of setting, it's much more fair to award the prizes to the teams who answer questions the most consistently throughout the game rather than who guesses the final one right.

Let me say here that, as much as I enjoy how smartphones have basically eliminated the feeling people used to occasionally have of not knowing something, they're a drag on trivia games because it's so easy to cheat now. This is regrettable. Even with people keeping an eye out, in a big game it's not hard for a player on one of the teams to sneak answers from Wikipedia mobile. Naturally, anyone that does that is a complete idiot and a loser deserving of the utmost comntempt and scorn, but that's apparently not enough of a deterrent.

The new game we play is also superior because it hews much more closely to my two central pillars of good question writing, which is that trivia questions should be specific and knowable. A few simple examples:

- What is the least populous state in the United States? (Wyoming)
- What won the most recent Oscar for Best Picture? (The King's Speech)
- What NBA team plays its home games in the Rose Garden? (Portland Trail Blazers)

These are all well-constructed questions with specific, correct factual answers that can actually be known by players. Here are similar questions, written badly:

- How many people live in Wyoming?
- How many movies have won the Oscar for Best Picture?
- In what year was the Rose Garden built?

Poorly-constructed questions like these usually involve guesstimating, or factoids. Here are two major tip-offs to bad questions:

"True or false"
You're basically penalizing actual knowledge here, giving someone with literally no information on a topic a 50% chance of getting the question right. That octopus that picked World Cup games has a 50/50 shot at one of these. Plus, T/F questions also tend to be factoid-based, so you end up playing mental rock-paper-scissors with the question writer, trying to figure out what they're trying to get you to guess rather than the actual information. T/F are terrible trivia questions.

"Within [number] of [units]..."
Phrasing like this usually means players will be tested on how well they can estimate rather than any particular knowledge. Often these are year-based, like "within 20 years, when did the War of the Roses end?" Knowing years is generally not important, and people don't bother to memorize specific years; events, people, and general time frames are more important. "In what decade was Ronald Reagan born?" Who cares? These questions are not specific and often not something anyone will or should know.

A more savvy writer sees that such vagaries can be easily rearranged into a more fair question. For example, instead of asking in what year the Beatles' White Album was released (which is relatively unimportant), you could ask which album has "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Happiness Is a Warm Gun." Most bad questions can easily be rearranged into good ones.

Knowability also factors into good question writing. We were once asked what Ted Williams' career batting average is, a fact that almost literally no one will know, while asking what Ted Williams' average was the last time he topped .400, (it was .406) is still challenging but is also a fact that some will know. I also strongly prefer questions that minimize the guessing one has to do; no one knows what the top 10 grossing films of 2004 were, so you end up trying to assemble movies that might have come out that year instead of knowing facts.

Fortunately, the authors of the new game we play are quite good at staying within those guidelines, with only occasional exceptions. They're not so good, however, at fact-checking, a unfortunate circumstance that puts us in near-constant conflict with the trivia host, a fellow who does not write the questions, proudly doesn't know the answers, and refuses to look up any disputed answers. This flusters me to no end. For example, last week, he asked:

What George Bernard Shaw play gave us the phrase, "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain"?

The answer is Pygmalion. It is not My Fair Lady - that is a musical based on Shaw's play, which is not what the question asked. Even as I wrote Pygmalion, I was very concerned that the trivia author might have failed to fact-check this, as indeed he did. The protests of my table and others upon not receiving a point for our correct answers fell on deaf ears, as they pretty much always do. The lone exception was once when he announced smugly that the name of the Oscar-nominated film starring James Franco as hiker Aron Ralston, "Is 127 Days, NOT 127 Hours," which is of course flatly wrong. The cacophony of disagreement in the bar on that instance compelled him to accept the correct response.

Usually, though, factual accuracy of an answer is no guarantee of scoring a point. During a recent music round, one of the tunes was "Mary Jane's Last Dance" by Tom Petty. Yes, I know in the refrain he sings, "Last dance with Mary Jane...one more time to kill the pain," but the stated objective of the round is not to write down the first line of the chorus - it is to write the name of the song, and the name of that song is most definitely Mary Jane's Last Dance.

I knew this, and was pleased at the thought that many of our competitors might not, and would write the chorus and lose the point. I also thought this about C+C Music Factory's "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)", because what kind of weirdo besides me knows the parenthetical? But, given his track record of casual inaccuracy (like naming the winningest active NHL coach as Lindy Ruff, who is in fact 6th , over 200 games behind Ron Wilson, and no he did not say "with one team"), I also had to wonder whether the question writer knew this (he didn't apparently know or care that the German Chancellor is Head of Government but not Head of State while the US President is both). This creates a frustrating game-within-a-game where you have to not only know the right answer, but divine whether the author does as well. It's like the old SNL with the Jeopardy!-style quiz show where the right answer is not the factually correct one, but rather the answer given by a poll of high school students, e.g. the capital of New York is "New York City" and the capital of Washington is "Washington DC." Hilarious sketch.

Naturally, the question writer mixed up the Petty title. With the existence of Wikipedia and the Internet, there's simply no excuse for this. When the host came around, I asked if he had counted my answer and he said no, because I had the words mixed up. I told him, no, actually I had the words in the correct order and the answer you gave was wrong. I said, hey, I'd be happy to show you on the jukebox over there or on my Droid. He thoughtfully threatened to disqualify us if we showed evidence of our correct answer - very mature of him. I'm surprised he didn't just put his fingers in his ears and say "la-la-la." So annoying.

But, we press on, because on balance it's a solid game, with a high volume of specific and knowable questions with only occasional lapses in accuracy. Just know that if I was in charge, garbage answers and true/false questions wouldn't pass muster. Even though we only got second on Academic Challenge in '97.

My Favorite Movies: The Dark Knight

2011-12-29T08:00:00.000-05:00

The Batman film franchise has had an uneven but largely successful run over the past two decades, starting with Tim Burton's splashy 1989 version starring Michael Keaton as the Caped Crusader and Jack Nicholson as the Joker. That Batman, successful in its own right, was the jumping-off point for the deluge of superhero movies that has come to dominate Hollywood, at least financially, ever since. A series of increasingly lame sequels kept the franchise afloat at least through 1997's poorly-received Batman and Robin, and the franchise lay dormant for some years after that.

The saga got new life in 2005, when Christopher Nolan took over for a reboot of the franchise, kicking off with Batman Begins. The film, featuring a grittier, realer Gotham City and Christian Bale in the title role, was a critical and commercial success, paving the way for 2008's brilliant sequel, The Dark Knight. This complex thriller sets the bar high for the superhero genre, not least because it features Heath Ledger in a remarkable, Oscar-winning performance as Batman's best enemy: The Joker. Much more on that later.

I won't waste too much time recapping the plot, but briefly: the nefarious Joker is wreaking havoc in Gotham by robbing mob banks, while Batman (aka Bruce Wayne), new DA Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), and police Lieutenant Gordon (Gary Oldman) join forces to take down the mob. Batman, dealing with copycats and public distrust, travels to Hong Kong to bring to justice one of the mob's accountants, putting more pressure on the mob and the Joker.

At that point the Joker puts all sorts of crazy plans in effect: murdering public servants, kidnapping Dent and lawyer Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhall), blowing up a hospital, and conducting a "social experiment" on passenger boats rigged with explosives. Obviously, Batman gets him in the end, but not before the Joker inflicts serious damage on the city's psyche, infrastructure, and leadership.

Let's be honest: this movie is all about Ledger's Joker, one of the most compelling villains in cinema. He's so clever and strange, but what drives his intrigue is how difficult it is to pin down any sort of motive. He describes himself as "an agent of chaos," which makes him virtually impossible to fight. As the butler Alfred (Michael Caine, using basically the same voice as Del the Roadie from Wayne's World) puts it, "some men just want to watch the world burn." He has absolutely no morals or apparent objectives, killing wantonly (he orchestrates the thrilling bank job that opens the film with the intention of none of his accomplices surviving), setting up impossible scenarios, burning millions of dollars, dressing hostages as killers - you name it.

At times, the Joker's impeccable planning seems a little bit impossible. Clearly he's a very clever man who always thinks several steps ahead, but come on, the timing of a lot of the stuff he pulls off is impossible. Still, it's fun to watch his plans unfold, especially his contrived plan to get caught by the police only so that he can wreak even more havoc from inside the police station and escape quickly. Any time you think you have him pinned down or figured out, he's got a twist: switching clowns and doctors in a hostage standoff, reversing the locations of the kidnapped Dent and Dawes, hiding in plain sight as a policeman or a nurse to carry out his plans. I'm looking forward to Bane in the next installment, but the Joker is a tough act to follow.

It doesn't hurt that Ledger's performance was hilarious as well - showing the mob thug his "magic trick," throwing a stack of money at Lau for no reason, dressing as a nurse, making ridiculous comments all through the movie - it's not easy to wring humor out of a character so evil and a setting so dark, but the writers and Ledger pulled it off magnificently.

Aside from Ledger, the cast is stellar here. Oldman is an excellent actor in pretty much anything he does, and this is no exception. Caine is a pro as well, but he seems like Michael Caine playing Alfred, where the original 1989 Batman guy seemed like Alfred himself. Maggie Gyllenhall and Katie Holmes' portrayals of Dawes are frankly, fairly interchangeable. Morgan Freeman takes a break from narrating various things to serve as Lucius Fox, Batman/Wayne's technology guy. Bale is solid as Batman, but there's no excuse for that ridiculous gruff voice he adopts in character. How did no one say, hey, Christian, let's ease up on the voice a bit, eh? I can't take him seriously with that ridiculous rasp.

The Dark Knight is #10 of all time in worldwide box-office gross, largely because those figures never bother to account for inflation. All of the top 36 of all time were released in 1993 or later. That having said, it's still weird to look at some of the movies that have topped The Dark Knight, like Alice in Wonderland, the horrible third and fourth Pirates of the Caribbean and third Transformers movies. James Cameron claims the top two slots, by the way, with Avatar and Titanic.

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to make of Lucius Fox's technological innovations and Bruce Wayne's upgrades. Are we supposed to regard this as advanced technology or science fiction?

The entire mobile scene where the Gotham Police transfer Dent to custody and eventually capture the Joker is a great sequence, as is his subsequent escape. I cannot believe Batman doesn't just run over the Joker when he has the chance though. Yeah, he's got his "one rule," but how about: break your ill-conceived rule and kill this man who's responsible for dozens of deaths and will undoubtedly kill more if you don't stop him here? It's a shame Batman puts his own curious ideals before pragmatism.

When the Joker is captured, Gordon remarks that the villain's "Clothing is custom, no labels." So what? Would it help matters if he bought a suit from JC Penney?

Director Christopher Nolan has crafted a very impressive filmography, with the two Batman installments, Memento, The Prestige, and Inception, among others. That's a near Hall of Fame career right there, and no, I don't know if there is a film directing Hall of Fame.

It's hard not to watch the Joker's "Social experiment" at end, where he rigs a boat filled with civilians and a boat filled with prisoners both with explosives and gives each the detonator to the other's boat, and not speculate as to what the real life outcome would be. One hopes real citizens would be so noble.

There is really only one major problem with The Dark Knight, and it bothered me even more upon my most recent viewing than it had in the past. That is, of course, the transformation of Harvey Dent into Two-Face after his disfiguration and the death of Rachel. It just doesn't work for me. You're trying to tell me that this guy, a paragon of justice, a crusader for right and wrong, is all of a sudden going to turn heel and start murdering police officers and threatening to kill innocent children for no good reason? Please. If anything, you'd think the tragedy would have steeled Dent's commitment, that he would have battled harder for fairness and justice. Nope, just flipping coins, threatening innocent people, and blaming the wrong people for Rachel's tragedy. You just want to shake him and say, dude, the Joker did it.

That aside, The Dark Knight is a dazzling film, a perfect blend of action, adventure, and mystery. See you all at The Dark Knight Rises.

T. and me

2011-12-28T19:10:00.000-05:00

Fearsome predators on the loose at the Natural History Museum! The Devil must have spent a lot of time burying this fellow's bones.

The War on Xmas 2011 Ends

2011-12-26T07:00:00.000-05:00

But I'll get in the final shot, courtesy of this ridiculous tweet whose author I won't mention:

Yet to say "Have a happy holiday" to one person this year. "Merry Christmas" only. #rebel #oldschool #screwtheeasilyoffended

There's a lot to unpack here, most notably why someone would be so proud of this non-achievement and would bother to gloat over it, but let's stick to the hashtags.

#rebel
This might be written partially tongue-in-cheek, but I imagine there's some actual sentiment behind it. And yes sir, you're a real rebel for saying "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays." Nothing says "rebel" like telling someone they hope they enjoy the most widely-celebrated holiday in the nation, one that has its more recent roots in a faith professed by 80% of the residents of the nation in which you live. Yep, you're a regular Che Guevara, boldly aligning yourself with that underdog movement. Saying "Merry Christmas" takes some real courage - I can only imagine what Darth Vader would think of such rebellion.

#oldschool
As I've written before on TFB but can't seem to find, I believe that pretty much anyone (other than a pre-1992 rapper) calling themselves "old school" is using one word too many. Self-description as "old school" basically means that you're simply "old," unwilling to change your ways and views no matter how outdated. It's a label worn proudly that usually shouldn't be. In this case, the twitterer is basically saying, hey, no matter how secular the celebration has become, no matter how many other faiths/nonfaiths celebrate the winter season, and no matter how tremendously unoriginal the Christmas holiday is in the first place, I'm sticking with "Merry Christmas." Awesome!

#screwtheeasilyoffended
I am offended, not by anyone saying Merry Christmas, but by being unfairly characterized as being easily offended, and being told to "screw."

Let me make perfectly clear about something that the people who have fabricated the imaginary "War on Christmas" don't seem to grasp: I'm not offended by Merry Christmas. Most atheists aren't. Honestly. I think it's a nice sentiment, even though I find the religious basis for the holiday comically absurd. I usually say "Happy Holidays" myself in an effort to be inclusive, not to make a point. As with the #rebel tag, here we see the Christian penchant for imagining persecution where none exists. The only people who get offended by the greetings offered by another during the Solstice season are...Christians who take it personally when governments, retailers, and individuals offer wishes that don't pay homage to their specific faith.

Happy Birthday!

2011-12-25T07:00:00.000-05:00

I wanted to send out warm birthday wishes to some of my favorite mythological figures born throughout history on Dec. 25. Sorry, Hanford Dixon - you're close but not quite.

Horus (c. 3000 BCE)
Osiris (c. 3000 BCE)
Attis of Phrygia (c.1400 BCE)
Krishna (c. 1400 BCE)
Zoroaster/Zarathustra (c. 1000 BCE)
Mithra of Persia (c. 600 BCE)
Heracles (c. 800 BCE)
Dionysus (c. 186 BCE)
Tammuz (c. 400 BCE)
Adonis (c. 200 BCE)
Jesus (c. 4 BCE)
Hermes
Bacchus
Prometheus

Out of all of these fine fellows, just remember the real Reason for the Season: Axial Tilt

Album Review: Black Keys' El Camino

2011-12-24T07:00:00.000-05:00

Quick: name the best rock band(s) to ever come out of Cleveland.

What'd you come up with? Pere Ubu? The Dead Boys? Michael Stanley? My guess is none of those because you've never heard of them. Cleveland may not, in fact, have a major rock act to its credit. Oddly, though, its smaller neighbor to the south has at least three: Devo, The Pretenders, and the band Rolling Stone calls "the best young classic rock band in America": The Black Keys.

I arrived late to the Black Keys party, but I'm glad I finally showed up, because the duo of Dan Auerbach (guitar, vocals) and Patrick Carney (drums) is one of the best things going in rock. Comparisons to the recently-defunct White Stripes are inevitable and not entirely unwarranted: both are two-piece bands, named after colors, hailing from Midwestern cities, playing rootsy hard rock. The Stripes took their cues from a variety of traditional styles, while the Keys have an even bluesier sense than Jack White's outfit. Frankly, I still think the White Stripes had a significantly better career, but the Black Keys are really hitting their stride, seven records into their career, with the excellent El Camino

This effort comes on the heels of last year's Brothers, the Grammy-winning breakthrough disc featuring "Next Girl" and "Tighten Up." I liked the disc and particularly those singles, but I thought it was too long and muddled in stretches. I preferred the directness of earlier outings like thickfreakness and Rubber Factory. On El Camino, the Keys throw out most of what made Brothers a success, uniting with producer (and now co-songwriter) Danger Mouse for a compact, straight-ahead rocking set. It's fantastic. The group wastes absolutely no time, kicking it off with lead single "Lonely Boy," which you've already probably heard on a dozen commercials and promos. Auerbach's dirty guitar riff opens up, Carney's drums jump in, and Danger Mouse adds organ and bass to fill out what quickly becomes a sugar rush of a song. I haven't heard a better track this year.

The rest of the disc shows a band that's expanded beyond their roots as a blues outfit, moving more into classic rock and garage rock sounds, and it suits them well. The stomp of "Gold on the Ceiling" is a career highlight, as is the Zeppelinesque "Little Black Submarine." Danger Mouse's influence shines throughout, filling out the group's trademark raw sound with complementary flourishes. It's amazing how a bassline can pump up the sound of a song like "Run Right Back," and with all due respect to Carney's patented "medium-fi" production, the group hasn't sounded better than they do here.

El Camino is one of the best and most enjoyable rock records I've bought in some time - the only flaw I can see is the duo's failure to put, you know, an actual El Camino on the front cover.

4.5 stars

Nobo

2011-12-23T07:00:00.000-05:00

It's always a relief to learn that the US Congress has time, in between not accomplishing anything of merit, to pass stupid laws that no one likes. This time: HR 3035, a measure that allows automated callers ("robocallers," a term that does a tremendous disservice to Robocop) to ping your cell phone at will.

Really.

The bill, named the "Mobile Informational Call Act of 2011" in typically Orwellian euphemistic fashion, is being sponsored by one Congressman Lee "Scratch" Perry (R-NE). I have to ask Rep. Perry: how in hock to corporate interests can you possibly be? My goodness, are you ever a sellout. No one wants to receive unsolicited calls on their wireless devices, and we certainly don't like the idea that they will have to pay for them. If we disregard Citizens United for a minute and only count actual people as people, roughly 0% of your constituents in Nebraska and across the nation support this measure.

Of course, the toady business groups supporting the bill had some hilarious comments in support of it. Supporters, including the US Chamber of Commerce, the Air Transport Association, and other groups that represent bankers, mortgage lenders, college loan programs and debt collectors, sent a letter to Congress claiming that the measure would enact “limited common-sense revisions to facilitate the delivery of time-sensitive consumer information to mobile devices, while continuing to protect wireless consumers from unwanted telemarketing calls.”

They also have a bridge they'd like to sell you.

Proponents claim that "robo-calls to cell phones would be used to alert you to food and drug recalls, data breaches, flight delays and appointment cancellations," according to the news reports.

Nonsense. Any organization that needs to contact you regarding any of those things (btw, has anyone ever been called about a food recall?) has your number because you already voluntarily gave it to them, making the law therefore unnecessary. Your bank, airline, and whoever you have this mystery appointment with already have your number and can call you freely because you OK'd it. This bill has nothing to do with them. It's a front for telemarketers and debt collectors.

An attorney representing the group says, "We have no interest in seeing this bill permit telemarketing calls. We would be perfectly fine with any clarification necessary to ensure that it doesn’t.”

I didn't believe you before, and having a lawyer say it most definitely is not helping. Fortunately, lawyers come out on balance as the good guys here, since every state's AG opposes it. Hard to imagine this rubbish getting through Congress, but weirder things have happened.

So this guy writes an article about how a military coup of Obama is realistic

2011-12-22T07:00:00.001-05:00

And here it is, even though "Newsmax" took it down shortly after publication.

Sometimes I wonder what it's like to live inside my head and completely divorced from reality.

I'll fit right in with this beard

2011-12-18T07:00:00.000-05:00

I recently realized that pretty much anywhere I travel, I have a stereotype about the local population that absolves me from the responsibility to shave. It's possible that I was doing this subconsciously as a way to avoid having to bother with shaving (or packing a shaver for that matter), but I feel like my reasons for each geographic location are sound.

Just this year, I've traveled to Tennessee, West Virginia, San Francisco, Norway, France, and Germany. Every one has a convenient reason why I should go with a more stubbly look.

Tennessee, West Virginia
This is mountain country, with hardworking country folk - obviously I'll fit in better with a beard, right? I find myself falling back on this one for basically any destination south of Cleveland.

Norway
Vikings, right? When you're in Viking country, you want to look like a Viking. Case closed. Vikings.

France, Germany
I feel like stubbly is the typical European dude look - skinny jeans, scarves, and a few days' growth.

San Francisco
Not that one needs any justification to adopt any particular look in the freewheeling Bay Area, but it seems fully appropriate to sport a potentially (but not necessarily) ironic beard in Hipster Mecca.

You'll find that this is easy to do for basically anywhere you might travel - China (home of the Fu Manchu), the Middle East (duh), Texas (goes well with a cowboy hat). Still, don't take this as my endorsement to wear a mustache anywhere...ever.

Why, among other reasons, Afghanistan sucks

2011-12-15T07:00:00.002-05:00

Even by the pathetic standards of Afghan justice, this is truly a sad story. Read the article and shake your head at the shocking travesty of what this horrible society has decided constitutes justice for this poor girl.

Did you read it? If not, here's the summary: this woman, who has been imprisoned for two years for getting raped (not a typo), has been "granted" her release...under the condition that she marries the rapist.

How do things in a society get to that point? How do minds get so twisted and fucked-up that this insanity constitutes fairness and morality? Certainly the heavy-handed partiarchy of Islam plays a role, but even that seems insufficient to explain these cockamamie notions of "honor" and "morality."

As the poor woman Gulnaz says regarding her situation, "I am obliged to marry him, even though I can’t look at him." How can anyone think that is right? How can this be justified? I simply can't wrap my head around someone who would impose such a fate on another in the name of "dignity." Undoubtedly, one defending this rubbish would couch it in terms of the woman's "morality," as if one could construct a logically coherent argument that she had done anything even vaguely immoral, and ignoring that the man (who will of course not be punished) has done something unquestionably immoral.

Read about the awesome Afghan court system:

The man was Gulnaz’s cousin’s husband, and the humiliation continued a few months after the attack, when Gulnaz finally got the courage to tell Afghan police what had happened. Instead of getting justice, she was accused of adultery and sent to prison.

Her daughter, Moskan, a result of the rape, lay sleeping on a bed nearby – she was born on the floor of Gulnaz’s prison cell.

According to Gulnaz, she was initially given a two-year prison sentence, so she appealed. The court of appeals refused to accept her accusation of rape, she said, and raised her sentence to 12 years. They didn’t believe she was raped because they told her that a woman couldn’t get pregnant after her first sexual encounter, so therefore she must have had a consensual sexual relationship with her accuser, they told her.

Fucking idiots. If this was really about fairness and justice, the rapist would be jailed for life, the "police" who booked her for "adultery" would be thrown in the slammer, and the "judges" who sentenced her and lied to her would join them in prison and be forced to read a fucking biology textbook.

I suppose it's better that she and her daughter can leave prison even if she has to become this dickhead's "wife" (Afghanistan's interpretation allows men up to four "wives"), but it's far from a satisfying resolution for her.

There are billions of reasons why the US should get out of Afghanistan, not least that our actions there are contributing nothing to national security, but stories like these suggest a yet-ungovernable, irrational populace with Dark Age views that is not ready to participate in the modern world. Tragic.

I like Tim Tebow

2011-12-14T07:00:00.004-05:00

With the possible exception of the undefeated Green Bay Packers and about ten quarterbacks threatening to break the single-season passing yards record, no story in pro football has captured the sporting public's imagination quite like Tim Tebow. To recap for non-sports fans: Tebow was a wildly successful college and quite overtly evangelical Christian quarterback at Florida who few thought could succeed at QB in the pros. Since being installed as the starting QB of Denver (1-4 at the time) in his second pro season, he's gone 7-1 and led a host of improbable fourth-quarter comebacks.

The combination of his unorthodox playing style and his being almost certainly the league's most high-profile and outspoken Jebus fan has made Tebow an almost singular focus of the league's media and fan outlets. ESPN recently did 20 minutes of Tebow coverage during a recent Sunday NFL Countdown; an ESPN blog article about Tebow inspired the comical "Occupy Tebow" movement, and, of course...Tebowing.

Naturally, there's been a lot of backlash to all the spotlight Tebow has enjoyed, and a lot of anti-Tebow invective has sprung up. Some of it is quite plainly a reaction to his plaintive and vocal Christianity (Tebow sported bible verses on his eye black while at Florida), but even allowing for the passions religion can inspire, I'm surprised at how much some people seem to hate Tebow.

Personally, I really like the guy.

You might be surprised by that, given how directly our perspectives on the supernatural collide, but to that I say: so what? Yes, I find his religious delusions silly and quaint, but he also seems like one of the most genuinely nice guys in sports, is a truly inspirational leader to his teammates, and a really exciting player to watch. Other than him not playing on my favorite team, why wouldn't I want to get on the Tebow bandwagon? I imagine most atheists take this view - a person's worth isn't defined by what they believe, and Tebow has used his platform in an overwhelmingly positive manner. He's still wrong, but that shouldn't in any way hinder one's ability to admire his success as a person and a football player. Look across the landscape of unsavory characters populating the rosters of the nation's professional sports teams, and decide if it's worth "hating" (realizing that sports hate and actual hate are different entities) a guy like Timmy Tee. It's not, trust me.

Plus, I think a lot of the backlash is secondary, by which I mean aimed at outlets covering or commenting on Tebow, rather than the player himself. It's not his fault ESPN devotes so much screen time to covering him, or that his moronic pastor credits god with Bronco wins (something Tebow has been smart enough to avoid). It's not fair to hate Tebow because of Tebow the Phenomenon, and I won't fall into that trap. I will, however, spend the rest of this article tearing apart writers who have made stupid comments about the Tebow situation, reminding you once again that these are not to be taken as criticisms of #15 himself.

Washington (CNN) – Tim Tebow led his team to another come-from-behind victory Sunday, this time against the Chicago Bears. He has now won seven out of eight games as the Denver Broncos’ starting quarterback, all the while unabashedly preaching his devout faith in God.

"If you were not a believer coming into this game,” said Fox's Daryl Johnston after the Broncos win, “you have to be now.”
Believer of what? Denver's offense hasn't exactly been explosive since Tebow took over, just timely. They're averaging 20.5 ppg since he took over (21.0 before), and it's still not unreasonable to question his long-term viability as a pro QB while still enjoying the ride. Sorry, Moose.

While Tebow’s unexpected success on the field has perplexed football commentators and fans alike, his faith and on-field success have led people to talk about belief, miracles and their impact on the sports world.
Too bad, because such discussions are a total waste.

Tebow has even convinced some nonbelievers that more is going on than just football.
Not this one.

Les Carpenter of Yahoo Sports, after ensuring readers that he believes in evolution, dinosaurs and the big bang, writes this:
But I also believe in Tim Tebow because there is no scientific explanation for what is happening to the Denver Broncos. There is no other plausible way to make sense of these games and the amazing, miraculous way with which they win week after week. … It just happened.
There is absolutely a scientific explanation for every single thing that has happened to the Denver Broncos, and there is a plausible way to make sense of their success. Not one thing Carpenter says here is correct except the final three words. It did happen, as have countless more improbable things.

The question is this: Does Tim Tebow’s unexpected success, with his awkward scrambling style and his shotput-esque throwing motion, have something to do with a higher power?
Nope.

Does Tebow really have God on his side?
Nope. Just made some remarkable plays late in games. Tremendous athlete.

The answers to that question run the gamut, and while the general consensus is that something special is happening in Denver, there are just as many who believe Tebow is benefiting from a good team as those who believe God sports the blue and orange on Sunday.
He certainly doesn't sport the brown and orange.

Bronco fans are not shy about discussing faith and their team.
In an article titled “Tim Tebow has the Broncos believing they can’t lose,” Mark Kiszla exhibits an overt belief that Tebow is getting help from upstairs. He writes:

The magic of Tim Tebow is bigger than football and grows larger with each late-game miracle by the Broncos. Logic fails to explain this no-way-in-heaven, overtime victory against Chicago, unless you consider: Denver played as if victory were preordained.
Logic explains the Chicago victory fairly easily. It mostly has to do with Marion Barber playing poorly and Matt Prater making some crazy-long kicks in the thin Denver air. And Tebow shaking off a horrible three quarters to play well down the stretch. Go logic!

Looking for religion in that paragraph (between the uses of miracle, heaven and preordained) doesn’t take reading between the lines. And that wasn’t even as blatant as when Rick Telander of the Chicago (the town Tebow just defeated) Sun-Times appealed to God directly.

And God, if you’re reading, doing some Monday-morning quarterbacking, would you mind telling the rest of us what’s up with this proselytizing young minister who did nearly a full minute of his famed “Tebow-ing” on the goal line, balancing motionless on one knee, chin on fist like Rodin’s “The Thinker,” while the rest of his team lined up for the opening kickoff?
What do you mean, what's up with him? He's a really good runner, generally inaccurate passer, and very religious quarterback. What more can I help you with?

But not everyone is a believer.

In post-game interviews, Bears players told the Chicago Sun-Times that “It’s not really what he is doing” and that no one was panicked because it was “Tebow Time.”
It's part what he's doing and part the Broncos' strong defense. This article could have been like one paragraph.

People online were equally skeptical.
A fake Jesus Christ account, @Jesus_M_Christ, tweeted: "I think Dad loves @TimTebow more than me
Too bad this guy didn't snap up @Jesus_H_Christ

With all of this talk on Twitter, including from the Tebow doubters, four topics relating to Tebow, including #tebow and #themilehighmessiah, were trending worldwide on Twitter.
"Mile High Messiah" is an awesome nickname.

But not all football fans are ready to ordain Tebow. The New York Times’ Frank Bruni, who did acknowledge that he was a believer in Tebow, writes about this disbelief:
Tebow performs a sort of self-righteous bait-and-switch — you come for scrimmages and he subjects you to scriptures — and the displeasure with that is also writ colorfully on the Web, in Tebow-ridiculing Twitter feeds and Facebook pages, one devoted entirely to snapshots through time of Tebow in tears.
Seems a little mean-spirited. I'm sure if you asked him to set aside the bible stuff he would oblige.

“We’re a team that keeps the faith,” Tebow told Fox sideline reporter Tony Siragusa after Sunday’s game. “We just kept believing.”
That's cool - even an atheist QB could say that. A lot of success in sports is confidence and self-belief, and the Broncos are clearly brimming with it. As cliche as it is, really thinking you can win absolutely makes a difference. Has nothing to do with Jesus, and Tebow isn't necessarily bringing that into the argument here.

And maybe that is Tebow’s biggest accomplishment. In a year when the sports world has been rocked by scandals both on and off the field, Tebow has people interested in a positive sports story.
Good point.

So whether they are watching because they believe in miracles or because they just like football, does it really matter?
I guess not, though the latter is a better reason. As Douglas Adams wrote, isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

The Penn State scandal

2011-12-05T07:00:00.000-05:00

I wanted to try my hand at writing about the Penn State football scandal for a while, and ended up with a scaled-back version of what I wanted to communicate. It's been such a major story and offers a lot of angles to take on it that I thought it'd be a good way to get some ideas out there. But I realize that the nature of the charges in the case make writing about it fraught with peril, so decided to tread carefully. I shouldn't have to say this, but obviously the things that former coach Jerry Sandusky is accused of are absolutely, unequivocally, terrible. The only reason I am saying it is that so much of the response to the situation from pundits and bloggers has been so hardline and severe that any attempt to actually reflect on the situation and take a balanced view seems to be construed as support for child sexual abuse. So just so you know, if you interpret anything here as me being even vaguely supportive of such actions, then you're reading wrongly.

Thus, the first comment I'll make is that people who keep harping on who "the real victims" are and over-expressing sympathy for them aren't really contributing much to the discussion. EVERYONE thinks that the alleged misdeeds are horrible. They're universally reviled. There is no opposite view against which to argue. There are few things you can build such a complete conesnsus upon as the fact that child abuse is a terrible thing. So by writing one of these harshly critical polemics, you're not claiming the moral high ground or adding anything useful or constructive to the discussion. There have been too many self-serving pieces written about this scandal, and more than a few pundits have gone so far that any attempt to understand the situation and discuss the best way forward is somehow seen as insensitive. This I don't like.

I also don't like how wide a net a lot of people have cast with regard to the scandal. Yes, the NCAA has some issues it needs to fix. But people who are suggesting that we need to totally scrap college athletics and implicating anyone who enjoys watching college athletics in this situation have gone way too far. The actions of one weirdo aren't justification to blow up an entire sporting tradition, and those suggesting this are taking things way out of proportion. Unfortunately, there are criminals and abusers like Sandusky in our schools, military, government, homes, Catholic churches - any institution you can think of. Should we get rid of all of those things just because of the cowardly actions of a few disturbed individuals? Should we completely disregard all of the young men and women who have benefitted from their experiences in college athletics? Of course not. The right thing to do in this case isn't to write high-and-mighty articles about how opposed one is to child abuse (remember: everyone is, and rightfully so) or harangue and guilt-trip anyone who likes to watch sports. It's to have a conversation about the best way forward to ensure that things like this don't happen in the future.

Having said all that, I feel like it's really easy to write something harshly critical of Penn State and of the whole NCAA, which is probably why Buzz Bissinger has done it. An article like his takes no thought, no analysis, no critical thinking or problem solving, no anything - just fire some shots at the NCAA's lax regulations, cloak yourself in righteous condemnation of child abuse, and turn in your column. But Bissinger's column has so many preposterous overstatements that I had to call out a couple.

College sports have nothing to do with academics
Oh, Buzz. Didn't you even consider rewriting this sentence? This is factually inaccurate, ridiculous hyperbole trying to make a point. At a bare minimum, college sports have something to do with athletics. Granted, there are some exceptionally poor students playing football at major colleges, but to suggest that the two are completely independent is moronic. How can someone write something like this?

Too many universities are sports factories posing as academic institutions. The overemphasis on sports is a leading cause of America losing its competitive edge.
Penn State has over 95000 students, of which about 100 play football. Can we dismiss this first comment already? The second one is just a completely baseless assertion - as Wolfgang Pauli might say, "it isn't even wrong."

This would require a change in rules by the most feckless organization in America, the National Collegiate Athletic Association
As measured by the Buzz Bissinger Fecklessness Index (BBFI), the NCAA comes out as the #1-rated organization in all of America. So, if you were wondering whether or not Buzz Bissinger thinks that the NCAA is less feck than, for example, the Westboro Baptist Church, the Ku Klux Klan, or the Church of Scientology, the answer is: yes.

In case you were wondering, it's not that hard to find content online linking Jerry Sandusky and Joe Paterno to Hitler, again demonstrating that Godwin's Law is utterly immutable. The point I want to emphasize in this article is simply that too many people have gotten caught up in righteous condemnation to try to actually understand the situation and approach it constructively.

YouTube essentials Part 2

2011-12-01T07:00:00.001-05:00

I had quite a few new hilarious frivolities to add to this list.

Phil Davison
Simply the best. The greatest political communication in history.

How Is Babby Formed?
Probably the Internet video I've seen the most total times. Addictive.

Friday
Fun fun fun fun.

Dramatic Owl

Jack Sparrow
Now back to the good part!

Antoine Dodson
Hide ya kids, hide ya wife...'cause they rapin' errybody out here.

Badgers
A snake a snake! Snaaake snaaaaake! Ooh, it's a snake!

Hastily Made Cleveland Tourism Video
We're not Detroit! Check out Part 2 as well.

The Red House
Still cannot tell if this is a parody.

Leprechaun in Mobile, Alabama
I Wanna Know Where da Gold At!

Ali G interviewing Posh Spice and David Beckham
Booyakasha!

Read a Book
A little deeper social commentary than you're used to from Lil Jon.

More Cowbell
I got a fever!

More Cowbell! - watch more funny videos

Words words words

2011-11-30T07:00:00.001-05:00

Can I interest anybody in Pakistan's telecom commission's super-douchebaggy list of words forbidden in text messages?. As with any government attempt at censoring the private communications of its citizens, this one is clumsy, misguided, and pathetic, but this one also has funny words. While not glossing over how reprehensible it is the way governments like this treat their citizens, there is some comedy here. I like to imagine the meeting where these idiots constructed the list. I like to imagine the list hitting the desks of the top executives in the telecommunications authority, with senior managers poring over a list and deciding whether or not "wuutang" should be banned (yes, was their decision).

There's an unverified copy of their letter online if you're interested. The opening paragraphs are a really sad and weak effort to justify implementing unnecessary controls on its citizens; after making a bunch of bullshit points in the first seven sections, they declare in the eighth that they can basically do whatever they want and include some unrelated spam commentary.

And since I know you want to see the list, here's some excerpts, courtesy of the Pakistan Tribune.

Athletes foot (really?)
Breast (not "boob" or "tit"?)
Condom
Flatulence
Intercourse
Period
Premature
Tongue
Herpes
Deeper
Fairy
Fingerfood (Fingerfood! this one cracked me up)
Hole (Courtney Love can't be happy about this)
Hostage
Harder
Devil
Jesus Christ
Gay
Homosexual
Queer
Wuutang
Taxi (Taxi???)
Bewakoof (yes, I said it: bewakoof)
Gonorrehea (sic)
Budweiser

And possibly my favorite thing about that article is in the comments, where one person notices:

The banned list includes every conceivable incorrectly spelled version of “masturbation”. “Masturbation”, spelt correctly, is not banned.

Thanks to the Pakistan Telecommunications Agency for proving once again how funny it is when bad ideas are executed even more badly.

Glucosamania

2011-11-29T07:00:00.002-05:00

I find myself conflicted in a matter of health - fortunately it's a trivial matter, and thus good blog fodder.

As regular readers know, I am an avid runner and sportsman - not a man who shoots animals and calls himself a sportsman, but a man who plays sports. What's perhaps unusual about me is that I had significant knee joint issues before I was a runner and now they're actually fairly trivial. Take that, running naysayers! But the vestiges of the juvenile arthritis I had when I was a teenager still do linger and bother me on occasion, plus I lost that nickel-sized piece of cartilage in my left knee two and a half years ago.

Here's where glucosamine enters the story.

Glucosamine is a dietary supplement (not a drug) that is taken widely to treat arthritis and improve joint health. Now, as a scientist and skeptic, I pretty much universally scoff at supplements and "natural" and "herbal" remedies and other such quackery. Let's face it: we'd all love for there to be a miracle nature cure for everything that ails us, but there isn't. I don't even think analgesics work. As such, when several people suggested to me in the past that I start taking glucosamine, I pretty much shrugged off the suggestion because, guess what: stuff like that doesn't work. I just now looked it up online and studies regarding its efficacy are mostly inconclusive. What a surprise.

Nevertheless, one well-meaning individual actually purchased a bottle of it for me, and since it doesn't appear unsafe or harmful in any way, there was no reason for me not to take it. A few weeks after taking it regularly, I noticed that my knee joints (the only ones that bug me) were starting to feel better. What I didn't do at first was connect it to the supplement - I have it so ingrained in my mind that glucosamine and other supplements are bunk that I didn't consider it as a possible cause of the improvement. In that respect, I think I'm somewhat immune to a placebo effect. Maybe not entirely, but largely.

Most people, having established this potential connection, would continue to take the supplement, but that's a weak excuse for a science experiment, no? There's more at stake here than some possible knee pain. For proper experimentation, I needed a control of sorts, and since I can't live two identical lives in parallel universes that differ only in my glucosamine intake (and possibly people wearing cowboy hats), I went off the supplement. And then I quickly forgot having done so.

Wouldn't you know it, my knees started acting up again. Hmm. Eventually, like before, my mind wandered to the supplement. Let me remind you that once again, I don't really think this stuff works. But a second round of it seemed to help once again. Let me say here that I really have nothing to gain from inaccurate self-reporting; in fact, I kinda resent that this stuff is poking a small hole in my anti-supplement policy, though I STILL am not convinced it does anything.

And yes, I just started trial three. Perhaps I should be documenting this better.

I'll be back

2011-11-27T18:23:00.002-05:00

Don't worry, TFB isn't abandoned or anything, just work and travel and holidays have squeezed out any time I'd have for writing. I should be able to get a few things out this week.

More GOP Comedy

2011-11-19T08:00:00.003-05:00

They just won't stop with the silliness...

Cain
Nothing says integrity and innocence rather than hiring a lawyer bully, like Herman Cain has now done. I can't get enough of this attorney's laughable naked threats. He's an oustanding role model for any of America's youth wondering if they can maybe, someday, work as a professional asshole. Oops, I guess I just libeled him myself, though isn't there some rule where it's not libel if it's true?

I also liked Cain's now-infamous "I got all this stuff twirling around in my head" remark at the end of a muddled non-answer about Libya. I mean, even if you have stuff twirling around in your head, don't say it out loud.

And, of course, his classic "I’m ready for the ‘gotcha’ questions and they’re already starting to come. And when they ask me who is the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan I’m going to say, you know, I don’t know. Do you know?"

This is flatly moronic. You're running for fucking President of the USA - is it so unreasonable that we might hold you to higher standards of knowledge regarding world affairs than ourselves? Than any other person, in fact? If a journalist asked me what was element #18 on the periodic table, I wouldn't indignantly respond "do you know?" because it's not a journalist's job to know that, and it is mine. This sort of anti-intellectualism on Cain's part bizarrely plays well to the base, but it's the exact opposite of what I want from a leader. It's Argon, by the way.

I actually share some of Cain's feelings on "gotcha" questions, but my reasoning is that I'd much rather see Cain fail on the merits of his terrible ideas than on some trivial (though, to be fair, tremendously dumb) misstatements he makes in interviews.

Perry
Speaking of misstatements, I'm starting to get a real kick out of Perry's campaign these days, with all the goofy stuff he throws out there. But as with Cain, the occasional memory lapse in a debate means less to me than the things he actually says properly about what he thinks, which are frightening.

Unique to the Republican field, I have never been an establishment figure, have never served in Congress or part of an Administration, and have never been a paid lobbyist. My career has been that of a Washington Outsider.
So you're saying that one of your best qualifications to be the head of the entire national government is that you've never been involved in national government? Got it. What kind of person views this as a positive? Most of the modern presidency is being able to negotiate and navigate the corridors of power - why would you be excited about electing someone who's never dealt with that?

Romney
All he has to do is sit back and let his opponents set themselves on fire, which both he and they are doing splendidly. Can't remember the last time I saw one thing this dude said.

Bachmann
Is she still around? I think that story she told about the girl getting the Gardasil injection and becoming mentally retarded was so ridiculous, so stupid, and so blatantly and obviously false, that it was hard to even be amused by her anymore, so the media moved the spotlight away, and not a moment too soon.

Santorum
This guy is unbelievable. We all know about his hilarious Google Bomb - turns out now he's asked Google to remove the links to his name that he doesn't like. This is pathetic - as far as I'm concerned, attempts like this at suppression and censorship only make the candidate look worse. This doesn't strike me as the kind of man who would be interested in protecting unpopular forms of legal speech as a chief executive. In the story I linked he also threw out some whiny babble about how Google'd fix it if it were Joe Biden or some other Democratic politician, which is an amazingly stupid thing to say, even by Santorum's standards.

The Santorum Google thing for me puts on display one of the signature characteristics of successful politicians, which is to never, ever to admit that you might have done something wrong or might be in some way responsible for your actions and the things that happen to you. Consider his comments on the matter:

The Internet allows for this type of vulgarity to circulate. It’s unfortunate that we have someone who obviously has some issues. But [Dan Savage] has an opportunity to speak.
This is actually a more measured and sensible response than his quixotic attempt to censor Google, but it still betrays a lack of self-awareness. The only reason this situation started in the first place was because Santorum himself said such idiotic, bigoted things about gays. You can't compare a group of humans' sexual preferences to bestiality and not expect some sort of response. He can go on and on about the “gay jihad” against him but hey, you reap what you sow. It is indeed unfortunate that we have someone who obviously has some issues - it's too bad Santorum can't realize it's him.

Seinfeld

2011-11-18T07:00:00.004-05:00

I made the point in a post a while back that the four biggest popular culture influences on me represent one each from the four major entertainment media: movies, music, books, and TV. They are, of course:

Movies: Star Wars
Music: Nirvana
Books: Isaac Asimov
TV: Seinfeld

I've written at length about each of the first three, but for whatever reason have as yet said little about Seinfeld. Time to change that with a typically overblown TFB post.

Let's first get the historical scope out of the way: Seinfeld is the greatest comedy in the history of television. There have been other fantastic television comedies throughout the decades - Cheers, The Office, even South Park - but Seinfeld crushes them all. In terms of pop cultural influence, the impact it had on the style of modern comedy, and sheer laughs, nothing else even comes close. It's certainly in the best running for Best TV Show Ever, but it's notoriously difficult to compare comedy to drama, and I'm not going to bother doing so here. Incidentally, I like the way the Golden Globes award two Best Picture awards, avoiding the comedy/drama apples/oranges situation the Academy is stuck with (and almost always resolves in favor of drama).

The show has three key ingredients: Jerry Seinfeld's observational comedic stylings, the four principal characters, and the show's kintetic, interlocking multi-tracked plots. More on the first of those later.

The show is driven by its four memorable leads: Jerry Seinfeld (himself); Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards), Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and George Louis Costanza (Jason Alexander). Seinfeld kind of lords over the show, often above the fray, setting the tone while poking fun at the mishaps of his buddies, though he frequently seems to end up on the short end of the stick financially. Elaine brings a female perspective to the group, but she's far from a token female - she adds a vibrant, essential personality to the show with her feistiness. Kramer's goofiness is a key element, though I'm not a huge fan of the physical comedy. The absurdist comedy, though (his business career, his battle with Kenny Rogers Roasters - almost literally everything he does on the show) is gold.

And George...George Costanza is the definitive character on the show. He captures co-creator David's misanthropic tendencies, perfectly encapsulates the show's New York/Jewish sensibility, and is probably the single funniest comedic character in TV history. I know I once declared Basil Fawlty as such, but I think he's currently in third for me, behind Costanza and Eric Cartman. George's dumb schemes, his inability to let anything go, his insecurities and foibles with women, his cheapness, lack of work ethic...the show bears Seinfeld's name and stylistic stamp, but Jason Alexander's brilliant portrayal of this short, stocky, bald, slow-witted man makes him the real key to the show.

Beyond the four main players, Seinfeld had an amazingly deep roster of supporting characters - Newman, the Seinfelds, the Costanzas, Kenny Bania, Lloyd Braun...the list goes on and on. The only one that didn't work for me at all were the painfully unfunny Mandelbaums - pretty much every recurring character or guest star on the show killed it.

Nick made a very relevant point in a discussion we had the other day regarding Arrested Development, which was that AD arrived fully formed from episode one, while even the other all-time great TV comedies (and Arrested Development is one, make no mistake) took a while to really find their voice. Yes, even Seinfeld - the early seasons are funny and promising, but George is too much of a Woody Allen rip-off, Kramer hasn't really developed, and Jerry is a bad actor who's yet to embrace his inability to act (as he memorably does in "The Pilot" episode, declaring "I can't act!").

Bill Simmons once made a great point about the allure of Elaine Benes, which I can't find or remember verbatim, but it went something like, "You know how women have all those improbable men in romantic comedies who say the right things and do all the things women want? Well, we had Elaine."

I'm not going to get too into specific episodes - there's 163 of them and most are memorable, and you either 1) know them by heart already or 2) good god, you need to go watch every Seinfeld right now (and so do I). However, I go back to one Kramer quote over and over again for at times unclear reasons, and I am going to quote it out of context:

You know Darren, if you would have told me twenty-five years ago that some day I’d be standing here about to solve the world's energy problems, I would’ve said you’re crazy… Now let’s push this giant ball of oil out the window.

OK, one more quote. There's an episode where George tries to combine his passions for food and sex with a woman, ending with ultimately disastrous results. Explaining the breakup to Jerry and making a mythological allusion, he says, "I flew too close to the Sun on wings of pastrami." Jerry considers George's ridiculous statement for a second, and calmly and sarcastically says, "yeah, that's what you did." I love that second line and use it all the time - so much in fact, that my trivia team is now named Wings of Pastrami.

Wow did Seinfeld ever get jobbed at the Emmys. The best comedy TV show ever won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series exactly: once, in 1993. Interested in seeing which shows bested it?

1992: Murphy Brown
1994-1998: Frasier

Seriously, Frasier? Is there one person on the entire planet who legitimately thinks that Frasier was the best comedy on television, better than the mighty Seinfeld, every year for five straight seasons? What, because they use big words sometimes? Ridiculous. This infuriates me. It almost retroactively makes me not like Cheers. OK, that's not true.

While I'm here, Seinfeld also picked up two Emmys for writing, three for editing, three for Best Supporting Actor for Michael Richards, and one Best Actress for Julia Louis-Dreyfus. But somehow Jason Alexander never won for George, probably the show's definitive character? Robbery.

So...the final episode. Seinfeld, unlike most shows, went out on top - it was still creatively vibrant and sitting atop the Nielsens, and expectations ran high for the finale. The last episode was widely panned, and frankly, it's not one of their best efforts. Part of it was the inescapable nature of not being able to meet impossible expectations, but part of it was the surprisingly dour tone it took, with the foursome sentenced to a year in jail. But hey, I loved Jerry's bit over the final credits.

The sort-of de facto sequel to Seinfeld was Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm, a long-running HBO show focusing on David's life and misanthropic adventures with a far less scripted feel to it. Personally, I like Curb but don't love it, though I know some viewers hold it in nearly as high of esteem as Seinfeld. Eh. I read that they did an episode where they got the four principals from Seinfeld together and made a reunion episode, and frankly, that has absolutely zero appeal to me. I'm not saying it isn't funny, because I admit not having seen it...but I will never watch that episode.

For sheer quotability, it's impossible for me to imagine another program even coming close to this one. Consider the impact this show has had on popular culture just by taking this classic Sporcle quiz (don't scroll down yet if you want to try your hand at it).

I mean, it's amazing how many of those are things that everyone in my generation knows by heart: yada yada yada, no soup for you, shrinkage, not that there's anything wrong with that, and on and on and on. Its impact on the American cultural lexicon is completely without parallel. Sometimes I say that I can interpret almost anything with a reference to The Onion, Star Wars, or Seinfeld - truth is, I could do it without the first two. Everything in life reminds me of an episode of that show.

More specifically, has anything impacted the way people laugh about things more than this show? Before Jerry Seinfeld and his TV show came along, sitcoms were premised on wacky situations and funny characters; Seinfeld had many strengths, but its roots are in Seinfeld's observational-style comedy. I know for me personally, the bulk of my comedy follows the model that Seinfeld pioneered and perfected - taking notice of something and comically pointing out its absurdities. Yes, it's thus responsible for Whitney, but you can't win 'em all. Part of the brilliance of Seinfeld was how expertly the show and its characters wrought such humor out of such normal situations, hence the standard line about Seinfeld being a "show about nothing." If you don't believe that Seinfeld's style still looms large in our comedy consciousness, flip around your dial some evening and see if you see another show's reruns from 15-20 years ago filling up evening or prime time lineups on any channel other than TV Land.

And the reason for that, even stripping away the seismic impact it's had on the sitcom, American comedy, and society in general, Seinfeld is the best comedy of all time simply because it is the funniest. For cleverness, memorable lines, and sheer laughs per minute, it comes out on top. It's been correctly pointed out that the show's style took a turn towards the sillier after Larry David's departure following the seventh season, but seasons 8 and 9 are still top-notch. Seinfeld never stopped breaking ground or spawning catchphrases, but its most enduring quality is that it is still absolutely hilarious.

Gary the Numbers Guy

2011-11-10T19:00:00.003-05:00

I haven't seen anything quite as dumb as this site since, oh, I found TimeCube. It's pretty hilarious - he just finds a bunch of numerical coincidences and tries to fit them into these ridiculous theories about arbitrary numbers. What a kook! It's worth checking out if you're one of those people, like me, who enjoys things that completely blur the line between sincerity and parody. This could easily be a satirical site poking fun at numerology, but I heard him shrieking on the radio for a few minutes and he seems genuine.

Here's a sample of his genius, explaining in a dazzling post about how "The Elite" are somehow planning the world around the number 11, because: why wouldn't they do that?

Words with Eleven Letters in 9-11
# New York City
# Afghanistan
# The Pentagon
# Air Force One
# Shakesville”

I'm pretty sure "New York City" isn't one word. I also like how he misspelled "Shanksville" - but wait, the actual city name does have eleven letters too! He must be right! The random quote marks after the misspelled city name are his, not mine - not sure how those factor into his calculus. Here's what I'm going to do for fun:

Words with Ten Letters in 9-11
# Washington
# World Trade
# Twin Towers
# Ground Zero
# White House
# Nine Eleven
# Guantanamo

See what we learned? Words have finite lengths! I could have done the same thing with nine letters too - know why? Because numerology is fucking stupid, that's why.

Life

2011-11-08T07:00:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted much this past week, busy as I was with the beginnings of various lives, hence the title of this post. First up on Monday was the arrival of my new nephew, who I trust will become interesting and amusing in roughly two years just like his big sister has. The arrival of a newborn always reminds me of the Onion classic, "Miracle of Birth Occurs for 83 Billionth Time", and this time a milestone of sorts was indeed reached; on his birthday this Oct 31st (same as Vanilla Ice!) the UN marked the world's population topping 7 billion. He's got as legit a claim to being human #7,000,000,000 as anyone else.

Later in the week was, of course, the celebration of me appearing somewhere around human #4.4 billion (my goodness do people around the world need to slow down) many years ago. Improbably, three different people I know all welcomed children into the world that same day, which is both a pretty remarkable coincidence and reflective of the fact that baby, it's cold outside in late January.

Obviously I can't give life in the "how is babby formed?" sense, but I can help prolong it for various anonymous people and get some free juice and cookies out of the bargain. Tonight's platelet donation marked my 100th career contribution to a blood bank, so I commemorated it with the photo below. I will anticipate your questions by saying yes, I prepared that sign and yes, there are two guys here in Cleveland with over five hundred career platelet gifts. Hopefully the next 100 will take me fewer than 14 years!

YouTube essentials

2011-11-03T07:00:00.000-04:00

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted this list, but most of the links were in my former link color of red and were broken, so I thought my 32nd birthday was an opportune time for an update. Enjoy!

I've got a whole new batch ready - expect them early next month.

Dennis Green press conference
Go ahead and crown them if you want. But they are who we thought they were!

SNL "Lazy Sunday"
Dork-rap elevated to its highest form.

Apache video
Just remember: this was made in the '70's and there's a good chance that it isn't meant to be funnny in an ironic way at all.

RBI baseball 1986 World Series Game 6
Even with the game code hacked, this must have taken forever to make. I think there's one baserunning mistake (I could be wrong) but this is very clever and well-executed.

OK Go "Here It Goes Again"
Music videos still exist? Well, this one does anyway. I wonder how many takes this took? The Rube Goldberg video is impressive as well.

Clive Clemmons
A classic bit of Conan nonsense from the Andy Richter era, where the two of them would "channel surf" across the most ridiculous fake stations they could imagine. I've been telling people about this for year even though I only ever saw it once. Inappropriate!

Boom goes the dynamite
As many times as I watch this, I can't figure out just how this guy falls apart so badly. I've noticed that men tend to find this much funnier than women, who typically feel sorry for the dude.

Justin Timberlake on SNL
JT's finest hour.

Mini-mall rap
A local furniture store owner raps about his place, proudly naming it a "Flea Market" and relentlessly comparing it to a "mini-mall," even though it isn't in any way either of those things.

Grape lady
A local newscaster doing a remote segment at a winery takes an unfortunate fall while stomping grapes and makes some unfathomable noises.

Super Mario Bros. Frustration
Good thing I got like fuckin' crown, blue sky lives.

Bo Jackson in Tecmo Super Bowl
Video Game Bo Jackson is the greatest athlete that ever lived, and this video neatly sums up why. Big ups to the poster for saving me the trouble of also embedding Benny Hill.

Unforgivable
Get me a chicken sandwich. And some waffle fries!

This blog post is confidential and is intended only for readers

2011-11-02T18:49:00.002-04:00

So...these things:

Disclaimer: This message (and any attachments) is confidential and is intended only for the addressee(s). This message may contain information that is protected by one or more legally recognized privileges. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, I did not intend to waive, and I do not waive, any legal privilege or the confidentiality of the message. If you receive this message in error, please notify me immediately by return e-mail and delete this message from your computer and network without saving it in any manner. The unauthorized use, dissemination, distribution, or reproduction of this message, including attachments, is prohibited and may be unlawful.

Stupid lawyers. Can't we just all assume from now on that if you get an email from someone that it's supposed to be intended for you and save this unnecessary e-mail clutter? Has this ever, once, changed anyone's behavior in even the slightest way? Do you think the douchebags stealing emails to discredit OWS care about this lame warning?

Look, I'm not dumb, I know it's for legal cover, but it's fucking stupid. The whole part about e-mailing the person back and deleting it without saving it in any manner - that's going in my new book, Things That Never Happen. I'm tired getting in big email chains with people where over 50% of their text is these goddamn things just because of legal paranoia.

Also, I just reproduced and distributed the shit out of that disclaimer.

Understatement

2011-11-01T07:00:00.001-04:00

I found this report about the British royal family giving first-born daughters the right to ascend to the throne extremely comical. According to the piece, "The Commonwealth countries agreed Friday to change centuries-old rules of succession that put sons on the throne ahead of any older sisters."

My favorite part is that Cameron said the rules are "outdated and need to change." You know what's outdated? Having a king and queen, that's what. This new rule isn't going to suddenly make the monarchy anything that makes any sense in the year 2011 - it's still comically outdated no matter who wields the scepter. The idea that this somehow modernizes such a silly institution is laughable.

Halloween

2011-10-30T12:00:00.000-04:00

This was probably my favorite Halloween costume of the night - this guy looked so much like Iron Mike that I had to get a photo with him. He even drew on the face tat and spoke in a Tyson-esque high voice. And yes, my bloody nipples are fake. This costume would be funnier if you could see my short shorts.

Payback

2011-10-30T07:00:00.001-04:00

I'm a bit torn.

On one hand, I empathize with those in the Occupy movement who are clamoring for student loan debt forgiveness and feel like I should support Obama's plan for student debt relief. I honestly can see the merits of such policies.

On the other, less objective and broad-thinking hand, I can't help but feel annoyed. I had student debt too, and I paid all of it off way early and with pride. Now you're telling me I didn't have to? If I'd slacked off and made minimum payments I would have had my loans canceled? Do I get a rebate or something? I already know the answer is no, but still. I guess I sort of don't like the idea of debt forgiveness because I feel a personal sense of duty to pay back anything I borrow, but I can also recognize the circumstances going on right now with recent graduates.

Most government policies don't seem to impact me very much, and when they do it's pretty much always mildly negatively, so I can usually evaluate a political or economic proposal on what I think is best for the prosperity of the nation and/or world without my own narrow self-interest weighing too heavily on my views. Not always, but usually, and this is one of those times where it's a bit challenging for me to divorce my own situation from that of people facing the same challenges I did a few short years ago. I'll need to think about this more.

But that doesn't mean I've granted myself a license to feel as self-important as this guy, who seems to think his modest lifestyle and financial management gives him absolute moral superiority. I'm glad you've made sound monetary choices, dude - so does that then make the systematic destruction of our economy by Wall Street OK? Everything's fine because you are debt-free? Nothing to complain about? I'm glad for you, but thankfully many people are still able to speak out against injustice even if they've got their own personal situation squared away.

And it you're interested more in the "systematic destruction" I referenced in my previous paragraph, please take the time to read Matt Taibbi's masterful essay, Wall Street Isn't Winning, It's Cheating. Very well done by Taibbi, who's only getting better at this.

A guy who doesn't want to be president saying stupid things

2011-10-29T07:00:00.001-04:00

Ladies and gentlemen, Apostle Claver Kamau-Imani!

If anybody is racist it is the Democratic Party. They’re the racists, the party of the Ku Klux Klan, the party of Jim Crow, the party of Bull Conner, the party of segregation.”
Race card! Was Bull Conner the bailiff on Night Court?

It's amazing how many commentators conveniently forget that the two major parties have flipped positions over the 20th century; Republicans can claim to be the party of Lincoln all they want, but their current version has nothing to go with Abe's GOP, nor even the one prior to the Civil Rights movement. Plus, is he seriously suggesting a connection between today's Democratic Party and the KKK and Jim Crow Laws? It's fair if you want to oppose their policies, of course, but this pathetic racist bullshit has no place in honest political debate. This guy is an idiot.

Apostle (is that his name or a title? I honestly don't know what to call him) doesn't seem particularly interested in history, though - he'd rather go after a fellow black politician:

"Somebody needs to get in front of Jesse 'Castration' Jackson and call him a liar."
"Castration"? That's the nickname you came up with? Wow. Just: wow.

People who want to be president saying stupid things

2011-10-28T07:00:00.002-04:00

The members of the menagerie running for the Republican nomination for President keep saying so many ridiculous things that I thought I'd take a few minutes and call them out. Hey, I can't only post badger videos, right?

Herman Cain
I wrote last week about the rampant math errors in Cain's moronic 9-9-9 tax plan and thought about one clarification I should add. Cain claimed that a family of four making $50k a year currently pays $10k in Federal tax, and I ran through that scenario with standard deductions and showed that it's actually $766, lower by a factor of 13. Not 1.3; 13. One thing I omitted was Social Security and Medicare taxes, currently 5.65% of gross wages. Include those, and that family owes an additional $2825 in taxes, bringing them to $3591. This is still unbelievably far away from the $10k he claims they would pay, almost a factor of three, plus the fact of: no more Medicare or Social Security. I stand by my analysis. So what does Cain have to say about Social Security?

"It took our nation nearly 250 years to end slavery and live up to the self-evident truth that all men are created equal. It should not take us another 250 years to cease the involuntary negative return most working people receive from Social Security, or the involuntary servitude imposed by the oppressive income tax code."

Slavery card! There's hardly a surer sign that you have no legitimate point to make than casually comparing something you don't like to slavery. Pathetic.

Michele Bachmann
"The Devil's in the details."

Bachmann made this amazingly clever remark regarding Cain's comically horrific 9-9-9 plan, flipping the 9's upside down into 6's and referencing the biblical Sign of the Beast. What are you, 12? That's the best analysis you could come up with, inverting the numbers because of their completely unrelated meaning in your superstitious mythology? Seriously, someone get this woman out of here if she can't think of any more intelligent things to say than this. We're not running for Assistant Deacon here.

Rick Perry
"It's time to just hand it over to god and say 'God, you're just going to have to fix this.'"

Leadership. That's what this remark says to me: bold, confident, logical leadership. How could you not want a guy leading your country who, when faced with difficult problems, simply gives up and makes appeals to imaginary sky-gods? Sometimes I wonder if these people realize how absurd they sound.

Rick Santorum
"Now, the most troubling news of all is Herman Cain’s newly discovered pro-choice decision on abortion."

I actually hadn't heard much from this dummy, but given his history (remember: this is the dude who equated homosexuality and bestiality), I figured a quick Google search should give me something to mock, and I was right, at least after I got past the still-funny and richly-deserved Google Bomb firmly attached to his surname.

Anyway, without getting much into the issue he touches on, I'll point out that a recent Newsweek profile of Cain says that Cain "is against abortion even in cases of rape or incest." I mean, I know Santorum is pretty far right on issues of this sort, but what exactly does it take to earn "pro-life" (quotes intentional) status in this cat's book? It's not clear to me how a position farther that direction than Cain's is even hypothetically possible. Also, there are literally hundreds of things that "trouble" me more than this particular plank of Cain's platform.

Also: why the hell is this guy still around? Can someone tell him that the last time he ran for office he lost, and for a lesser position than this? Thanks.

Herman Cain
Hey, he's the frontrunner, so he gets it twice, plus he had that whole Newsweek story I read:

"Cain repeats something he recalls his grandfather often saying: 'I does not care what they call me—just call me Mr. Cain. And in 2013, they can call me Mr. President.'"

Does this make any sense? Why does he repeat this quote from his grandfather when it kinda doesn't make any sense (and isn't grammatically correct)? It seems highly self-contradictory; the first clause says that he doesn't care what people call him, then the second clause issues a directive to call him a specific name. Which is it? Either way, I have no idea what point he's trying to communicate.

Ron Paul
I'm giving Paul a pass here, for one because I took him to task a while back and for two because he's one candidate here with some actual fresh ideas. Some crazy ones too, of course, but still.

Jon Huntsman, Mitt Romney
I'm giving these fellows a break too, Huntsman because he's made the only pro-science statement I've heard anyone on that side of the fence make, and Romney because he's a robot.

Newt Gingrich
"Does faith matter? Absolutely. How can you have judgment if you have no faith? How can I trust you with power if you don’t pray? The notion that you are endowed by your creator sets a certain boundary of what we mean by America....Americans should value religion first, above morality and knowledge."
What a fucking idiot. Go fuck a staffer or something.

Badger badger badger badger

2011-10-24T12:00:00.001-04:00

h/t to Kim

Go Veggie!

2011-10-24T08:00:00.002-04:00

Interesting piece here from Stewart Patrick (not to be confused with the oppositely-named portrayor of Jean-Luc Picard), who offers some suggestions for saving the planet, including eating less meat.

While I'm here, Patrick (who works on the Council on Foreign Relations) writes a lot of interesting things on world affairs over at hig blog, The Internationalist.

In which I advance anti-canine sentiments

2011-10-18T07:00:00.001-04:00

I don't like dogs.

I don't like them at all. I actively dislike them. As Newman on Seinfeld once fumed, "if you ask me, they have no business living among us!"

I'm completely cognizant that this is a seriously minority position, that dogs enjoy near-universal popularity, and that some readers are bound to object viscerally to my position. It's for that reason that I feel compelled to explain myself.

I can offer some very tangible, solid reasons why I don't like dogs. I think this is in contrast to a typical dog-lover, whose reasons are a little more emotional and personal. That's fine, but I think I should get a credit for having some logical basis behind my stance. Dogs smell bad. Dogs bark, and that sound is extremely unpleasant to me. Dogs never leave you alone when you have food, or anytime for that matter. Dogs lick people, and I like to keep tight restrictions on who licks me. Dogs poop on trails that I run on. (I realize this is the owner's fault, but the dog enables it). Dogs are constantly antagonizing each other. Dogs are a drain on one's lifestyle, requiring near-constant care. From my vantage, dogs take a lot off the table, and contribute very little if anything that is positive.

As an aside, I simply can't understand people who love dogs but hate cats. Why? Kitties keep out of your way, are quiet, and are largely self-sufficient. They're 100 times less obtrusive than dogs. Maybe they're not as fun, if you think dog stuff is fun, but I see them as doing very little to earn people's enmity. At worst, it seems to me that you should be cat-neutral.

Admittedly, my anti-canine stance is amplified by being in such a tiny minority in a very pro-dog society. Everyone thinks it's so weird that I don't like dogs, no matter how specific or logical my objections to them may be, and that can be a tad bit frustrating. I can think of some other views that I hold where it makes perfect sense for me to be in a minority, but I have to say that this isn't one of them, and the general populace's affinity for the beasties is curious to me. If nothing else, I hope this article convinces you that mine is in no way an unreasonable stance to take.

I've been pretty diplomatic thus far, but we're going to loosen the reins a little bit here, because I have some grievances to air.

First of all, and I can't stress this enough, your dog is not smart. It is incredibly stupid. Until I meet one that can read, I'm going to balk at any claims to canine intelligence.

Aside #2 - yeah, I know a few dogs serve useful functions like seeing-eye dogs and bomb-sniffing dogs. Obviously, this is a good thing. But let's not hide behind this 0.0001% of dogs that are useful as a defense of the vast majority of moronic mutts roaming around.

Of course, typical statements of dog smarts focus on the pets' emotional intelligence, in particular their legendary abilities to understand and respond to humans' moods. This is nonsense. Dogs don't know how people are feeling. They think maybe the person has food - anything else you're picking up from them is a combination of your anthropomorphization of the animal and projection of your own feelings onto it. Honestly, don't waste your breath in the comments on this.

Curiously, dog owners frequently seem to think their pets' magical telepathic powers extend to me as well. I can't tell you how many times I've had a dog hovering around me nonstop, entirely against my wishes, and had the owner insist that their pet knows that I don't really like it or want it to be around me, (or even better, tell it in English that I'd prefer to be left alone). The logical inconsistency of this never ceases to amaze me. If your dog is so amazingly smart and can read my feelings, then why doesn't it just get the fuck away from me? When I raise this point (usually more politely), the owner says that the dog just wants me to pet it, show it some affection, and it will move along. I generally refuse to give in to the dog's wishes, not least because I harbor strong suspicions that the dog will not, in fact, move away.

Final point. Some of you have probably read this all the way through and thought that your dog, about which you undoubtedly care deeply and I understand that, is an exception. It isn't. I don't like your dog either. It's nothing personal, but please do realize that your dog is very much included in my view on this topic, just like everyone else's. Are there degrees? Sure. A small, mute, shy dog is far better for my business than a big, loud, licky one, but frankly I don't care for the small one much either.

The other day I was standing outside a restaurant and Kim and I were talking to a couple with a dog. I don't know breeds - it was white, maybe two feet long, short hair, and ugly. As usual, I pretty much ignored the dog and kept a few feet away without making a big deal about it. Still, it was apparent that I wasn't a dog guy, and the woman who owned the dog told me that her dog had "turned many" anti-dog people. I couldn't mentally roll my eyes back far enough, though I settled for a politely noncommittal nod. Your dog isn't special, lady. I refrained from suggsting she work herself free of that particular delusion, as her dog proceeded to knock over its water dish and feud loudly nonstop with a nearby dog for absolutely no reason. Consider me unturned.

So yeah, I don't like dogs, but it really doesn't have to be a big deal. I just wanted to make the point that my stance is actually quite logical and that things will be cool if I can just keep away a few feet from any dog and not have to hear it bark. I'll respect a person's affinity for his or her dog and his or her relationship with it, as long as that person can recognize my right to not in any way, shape, or form, share even the slightest bit of that feeling.

And yes, that goes for your dog too.

Great Success!

2011-10-17T07:00:00.003-04:00

Before 2006, most people probably hadn't heard of Borat Sagdiyev, the fictitious alter ego of actor/comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. But after Cohen unleased his buffoonish Kazakh TV reporter on American audiences with Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, that all changed. With Borat, Cohen delivered a legendarily funny film that also manages to make some insightful commentary about modern American life.

Borat started as a character on Cohen's British-then-American TV show Da Ali G Show, hosted by Cohen's ridiculous wannabe character Ali G. The same show spawned Bruno, Cohen's gay Austrian fashion reporter character. All three ended up with their own feature films, of which Borat's is by far the best. Ali G Indahouse had its moments but was uneven and a bit amateurish, and Bruno is a little too over-the-top and mean-spirited, but Borat is pitch perfect. Directed by Seinfeld vet Larry Charles, the film paces its loose road movie plot perfectly, giving Cohen's character plenty of space to make jokes and improvise while keeping a loose narrative going.

Quick note - if you haven't ever seen Ali G, you should watch this interview with David Beckham and Posh Spice

The basic structure of the movie is that Borat, a TV reporter in Kazakhstan, undertakes a voyage to the United States ("the US&A") to learn and report all he can about the USA in order to better his own downtrodden nation. He travels with his chubby producer, Azamat Bagatov, with the idea that they'll make the documentary in New York City. Enamored with a late-night viewing of Baywatch (after scoffing at Jingle All the Way and laughing at Al Bundy), Borat elects to undertake a cross-country journey to Los Angeles to find Pamela Anderson. Most of the movie documents Borat's hapless adventures traveling across the US and inadvertently causing all sorts of trouble.

I read that the police were called over 90 times during the filming of this movie, which sounds about right.

A number of the subjects in the film were less than happy about their portrayal in Borat - in fact, a few tried to sue the producers, including members the Southern dinner club and the fraternity guys who picked him up in the RV. The suits were, of course, dismissed, not just because they were stupid and baseless but because the participants all signed forms allowing use of the footage. Tough luck.

In the case of the fraternity guys, I understand them being upset, because they look like moronic racist douchebags. What I don't understand is why this warrants a lawsuit - their behavior isn't anyone else's fault. I also don't understand why the southerners were upset - they actually came across as very tolerant, open-minded people. In fact, a lot of people Borat encounters over the course of the film come across as very open-minded, like the humor coach, the driving instructor ("fine, I'll be your boyfriend"), and the newspeople. It's actually a testament to a lot of their characters that they remain so kind and professional even in the face of Borat's antics. Yeah, the feminists take his bait, the southern frat guys are embarrassing, and the people in the religious revival look dumb (big surprise), but anyone who treats people with basic respect comes off pretty well in Borat.

Not surprisingly, the Kazakh government hated the movie and "strongly urged that the film not be distributed." Nothing dispels the image of a backwards nation quite as effectively as censoring movies - great work, Kazakhstan.

There are many absolutely hilarious moments throughout Borat, almost too many to list. So let's try to list them.

- The Running of the Jew ("Go kids! Crush that Jew chick before it hatches"). In fact, Borat's pointless anti-Semitism is a running joke in the movie, with Borat cluelessly declaring that Kazakhstan has problems "economic, social and Jew"), Azamat refusing to fly "in case the Jews repeat their attack of 9/11," and later declaring they shouldn't have left NYC because "at least there's no Jews there." Solid satire.

- "You will never get this...you will never get this...but then one time, Bilo break free of his cage and he...get this." Possibly the most ridiculous story he tells in the whole movie, right before his hilariously failed attempt to learn a "not" joke.

- "I could not listen to what this old man was saying," losing focus during his interview with the feminist group. Gets me every time, right after he laughs at their suggestion that men and women should be equal and advances a scientific finding that women have smaller brains. Cohen absolutely knows how to push people's buttons.

- Borat breaking out liquor during his driving lesson, then suggesting a race.

- "...and her vagine hang like sleeve of wizard..."

- "Washington DC, home of mighty warlord, Premier Bush."

- Borat's nonsensical hate for Uzbekistan cracks me up - I love when he drives by their embassy in Washington DC and heckles them for no apparent reason.

- The guy riding a pony and his horse crashing during Borat's preposterous mashup of the American and (fake) Kazakh national anthems. What a stroke of luck for the filmmakers. Borat sets the whole thing up with his absurd speech before singing ("may George Bush drink the blood of every man, woman, and child in Iraq") that goes distressingly unchallenged. The anthem itself is pricelessly ridiculous:

Kazakhstan is the greatest country in the world
All other countries/are run by little girls.
Kazakhstan is #1 exporter of potassium
All other Central Asian countries have inferior potassium

- Lost late at night in St Louis, Borat meets a group of young African-American males. Pressed as to his musical interests by one of the fellows, Borat offers, "I very much like Kokibuchuk" and sings this ridiculous made-up song. If he did that on the spot, color me impressed.

- Borat and Azamat throwing dollar bills at cockroaches in the bed and breakfast, because they believe the bugs to be shape-shifted Jews. The whole scene in the bed and breakfast is terrific - I hope most viewers realize that Borat is poking holes in anti-Semitism instead of supporting it. The ominous music, Borat's terror, their refusal to eat the sandwich, even when faced the the most innocuous Jewish people - all quality satire. Naturally, the Anti-Defamation League didn't think most people could figure that out and released a statement about it.

- The scene where he invites a prostitute, Luenell, to a Southern dinner party is funny and boundary-pushing, but I have to admit I feel for the hosts a little bit. They really get pressed into a tough situation there. This hints at why I didn't like Bruno nearly as much - it was more "gotcha," more over-the-top, and more antagonistic towards it subjects. For the most part, Borat lets the characters he encounters dig their own graves instead of pushing them in.

Eventually, midway through his journey, Borat and Azamat get in a fight that turns into an epic naked brawl, after which Azamat leaves Borat stranded in Texas. I know some people thought the naked fight scene was really funny, and others really hated it - I'm pretty much indifferent to it. I suppose I'd slightly prefer for it not to be there, but I'm fine with it either way. In general, though, like with pretty much any comedy I've ever seen with bathroom humor, the gross-out jokes are easily the weakest part of this movie. I mean, with as much clever humor as he puts into this, why bother with poop jokes?

- A destitute Borat's hilarious performance at a religious revival is a clear highlight of the film; you can just see in Cohen's eyes during the whole scene how much he wants to get his hands on the mic. ("Do Jesus love my neighbor Nursultan Tulyakby?"...'Yes'..."No one love my neighbor Nursultan Tulyakby."). They could have made a whole movie of him speaking in tongues at crazy religious revivals as far as I'm concerned.

The Pentecostals in this part are wacky people. It's more than a little disturbing to see the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Mississippi spit out a bunch of "Christian Nation" nonsense at the meeting, just as it's funny to hear the preacher declare that he "didn't evolve out of a monkey...[he] didn't used to be a tadpole," both of which are correct statements from an evolutionary standpoint and neither of which suggest the speaker has any idea what common ancestors are. Borat's bemusement at the whole thing is classic.

- I love how when religion comes up Borat nonsensically says that he "follows the Hawk."

- Yes, Pamela Anderson was paid as an actress in the film and knew that the wedding sack was coming. Fortunately, the audience doesn't (unless you just now read this), and it's one of the most shockingly hilarious parts of the movie. In fact, Anderson, Borat, Azamat, and Luenell were the only professional actors in the movie. Supposedly, Pam's involvement in the movie led to her divorce from Kid Rock.

- "I had not come to Hollywood to fight a man dressed as Hitler," referring to Azamat dressed as Oliver Hardy on a Hollywood set.

The film's quality depends pretty heavily on Cohen's ability to say pretty much anything without laughing and stay in control of pretty much any interaction. Cohen is a remarkable performer - it's one thing to pull off Borat in the format of his fake talk show, but to explore the US, stay within this ridiculous character, and stay as comedically sharp as he does in a largely unscripted film is impressive. Supposedly, he didn't break character until after all the press for the film was done. Even the DVD is in character - it looks like a burned disc ("Demorez. Is life? No. Demorez.") and the menus look cheap and poorly recorded. I wonder what his next act will be - he's used up his principal characters, and you'd think he's well-known enough by now that he can't slip by unrecognized anymore. We'll see.

Borat is a modern comedy classic, likely the highlight of Cohen's career, and one of the funniest and most inventive movies of the decade.

I Love I Love Charts

2011-10-16T07:00:00.000-04:00

Check out I Love Charts, frequently brilliant and entertaining graphical analysis.

9-9-9? More like nein-nein-nein

2011-10-15T09:11:00.003-04:00

Republican presidential hopeful and pizza man Herman Cain has shot to the polls recently, in part on the strength of his "9-9-9" tax plan, a scheme that represents a major tax cut for the rich (the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center's words, not mine), is revenue-negative and has zero chance of ever passing a legislature. Other than that, it's terrific.

Setting politics aside, Cain's math is the most troubling thing about his plan. Defending himself against the fairly obvious point that a flat tax of 9% on income (and ZERO on capital gains), 9% on corporations, and 9% on sales is going to slam working- and middle-class people, Cain has this to say:

Today under the current system, [a family of four with a household income of $50,000] will pay over $10,000 in taxes assuming standard deductions and standard exemptions. I’ve gone through the math - $10,000. Now, with 9-9-9, they’re going to pay that 9% personal tax on their income, so that’s only $4,500. They still have $5,500 left over to apply to the sales tax piece, and if you go and look at how much of it they would probably spend on sales taxes for new goods, not used, used goods they don’t pay a sales tax. They are still going to have money left over."

If Cain has indeed gone through the math, he should immediately be disqualified as a candidate, because he can't do math. Fortunately, I've done hundreds of 1040's and can do math. If that family is pulling in $50k, they can knock off $26k of that via the standard deduction of $11400 (probably more if they own a home) and exemptions ($3650 a pop for four people), so their taxable income is only $24k. It's almost as if Cain doesn't understand the difference between taxable and household income, possibly because they are equal in his plan. Tax owed on that $24k is $2766, less the $2000 this four-person unit can subtract in child tax credit, and they're paying...$766.

That's more than an order of magnitude off of Cain's claim of $10k. This isn't a rounding error - it's a factor of thirteen. I wonder if he's shown his work? Even before getting hit with the national sales tax, this family's bill to the US Treasury has gone up by more than a factor of five. Meanwhile, a wealthy individual who cleared $1 million in interest that same year sees his obligations lowered by $150k thanks to the elimination of the capital gains tax. You can argue whether this clear shift in tax burden to people with less money is a good or bad thing ("job creators!") but you can't argue that Cain's tax mathematics are even close to being correct. If he can't get a very basic 1040 right, I'm not sure I trust him to understand the nation's complex finances.

While we're here, I feel the need to dispel a common myth about taxes, the old canard that 40-50% (depending on who you ask) of the nation's earners "pay no taxes." It's not true, and in many cases is deliberately misleading. After deductions, exemptions, and credits, it is indeed correct that a percentage of Americans in that range pay no Federal income tax. That is far, far different than paying "no taxes," and I think the casually incorrect shorthand skews people's understanding of who is paying what. Even if your 1040 is zeroed out, if you made money, you're still paying:

Social Security tax
Medicare tax
State income tax
Local income tax
Local and state sales tax

Not only that, but the structure of these taxes is not progressive like Federal income tax, so lower-income people are actually paying more in these realative to their disposable earnings. Consider especially the Social Security tax, which only applies to the first $106.8k of income. Again, we can debate separately the merits of different taxation schemes, but it is a fact that the claim that 40% or 50% or whatever of American pay no tax is simply false.

No sleep til...later

2011-10-14T07:00:00.001-04:00

I probably don't sleep enough.

Those of you who know me might understandably be a bit puzzled by that statement, because I'm well-known for my ability to fall asleep at pretty much any time, often when I don't want to. I'm rarely kept up at night, which is good, but it's a double-edged sword because sometimes I struggle to stay awake even in situations where it's important to do so.

But frequent dips to unconsciousness are different than getting the recommended volume of sleep. I've got no trouble nodding off, but often require only a very short period of time to get back to normal, 5-10 minutes in some cases. Sometimes on an international flight, I'll fall asleep three times. Consciousness is very fluid for me.

But overall, like so many of us, in terms of total sleep, I'm not getting as much as I should. I realize at this point in the article the temptation to correlate the two facts I've advanced so far - of course you're tired during the day, a reader might say - you don't get enough sleep at night! Opposing that admittedly logical view is my experience that the previous night's bedtime really makes no difference to my tiredness the next day. 6 hours, 8 hours, 10 hours - it doesn't matter. It really doesn't. Compounding things is my apparent immunity to caffeine. I could slam two of those Five Hour Energy things right now and go right to bed for the evening.

The thought that prompted this post was a realization that, when you think about it, there are a lot worse problems you can have with your lifestyle than being a bit sleep deprived. Yes, we've all heard the research about how lack of sleep causes stress and whatever else, and I'm not disputing that, but...so what?

Here's one thing I've never heard of: someone late in their life lamenting that they simply didn't take the time when they were younger to be not-awake more. I'm pretty sure this doesn't happen. Even right now, fully aware that it's probably taking some hidden toll on me physically, I'm not in any hurry to really bear down, refocus my life, and sleep more. Like I said, I'm highly doubtful that 70-year-old Francis is going to be shaking his head in regret that he didn't grab more pillow time. Sorry, but there's just too much to do.

Bionic Commando

2011-10-11T07:00:00.001-04:00

For some reason, in discussions of favorite NES classics, Bionic Commando doesn't seem to come up all that often, at least not as much as other Video Game Classics I've heralded in this series, like Super Mario Bros. 3 or Tecmo Bowl.

Well, it should, because it's an awesome game.

The main feature of Bionic Commando, the one that sets it apart from every other platform action game and is its real raison d'être, is your character (apparently named "Ladd Spencer")'s bionic arm with grappling hook. It's such a clever innovation, one that adds layers of complexity and possibility to the gameplay, that any quibble about how Bionic Commando can't jump seems shortsighted. The arm is super versatile, disabling enemies, grabbing items, pulling you up to higher levels, and most importantly, allowing you to swing around through the levels like a madman. I want one.

I recently reacquired Bionic Commando for the princely sum of $8, and discovered that I had basically the exact same dexterity and comfortability with the arm as I did however many years ago I played this game before dumbly selling it at a garage sale. It's kind of fun to hang around Level 1 and see what sorts of crazy grabs, swings, and lifesaving maneuvers you can pull, bouncing off of enemy helmets and grabbing rocks at the last moment. Eventually, though, it's time to actually consider advancing in the game.

Might as well get this out of the way: at the end of the game you kill Hitler (arbitrarily renamed "Master-D") by shooting him in the face with a bazooka and watching his head subsequently explode. It's a fairly pressure-packed thermal-exhaust-port kind of do-or-die shot - miss the window of his plane and you're toast. Unbeknownst to me all these years, the original Japanese game was called The Resurrection of Hitler: Top Secret and NES changed some of the names and replaced swastikas with eagles for the US version. Probably the right move, though are we still so sensitive over WWII that we can't even make Hitler the antagonist?

After slaying Fake Hitler, you have to make an escape from the building, just like in Metroid. Both games came out at the same time, so let's assume they developed the escape concept independently (this is a Capcom game - Metroid is a Nintendo original).

I like the neutral zones in these games, areas where your character picks up weapons, communicators, and other items, and where no violence is allowed. You do have to listen to some nonsensical ramblings from the occupants (and Bionic Commando is filled with some of the finest Engrish in NES history), but you gotta get that loot. In one of these areas, if you fire your weapon (the bionic arm is permitted), a bunch of enemies come and shoot at you, which always struck me as extremely hypocritical. In one of these stages, there's just this random wall halfway through the board, and to advance you have to shoot it and then all the enemy troops come after you. Entrapment!

Gameplay is via an overhead map, where you direct your chopper to various combat and neutral zone stages. It's cool that you control your own path through, although of course they won't let you go too far to the later stages unless you've polished off the early ones. If your chopper bumps into an enemy transport truck while you navigate the map, you have to descend and fight them. This always seemed weird to me - can't we just fly over the truck? But, you can pick up valuable continues in this stage, which are actually fairly easy to acquire once you get the rocket launcher and can blow away the dude with the shield.

Each stage at the end has a computer you need to blow up, typically requiring you to fight through some enemies to do so. My favorite is the guy who brags about his batallion and then claims:

You have no...
...chance.

He and his team are among the easiest bosses to dispatch, btw. The guy with the shield and bionic arm; not so much. You'd be well advised to stay the hell away from that fellow and blast the mainframe.

One of the key stages requires you to save colleague Super Joe, the first guy sent in to take down the Empire and its diabolical Albatros (sic) Project. Ha, "Super" at getting himself captured, anyway.

Sometimes during the game you need to get on the horn in a communications room to get in touch with your team and, if you feel like it, to wiretap the enemy. The former requires you to select the right communicator before starting the level (there are four) and there's no way to know which is the right one. Nice. The enemy occasionally catches you wiretapping and sends enemies to the room. No matter how much I mentally prepare for this, it catches me off guard every time.

In addition to the innovation in gameplay enabled by the bionic arm, the unique approach to platform action enables all sorts of fun level designs The diversity of levels in this game, and the applications of the bionic arm it entails, is remarkable. From underwater caverns to aerial tightropes, the game offers challenges to both the dexterity and intellect throughout. Sometimes you're scaling upwards with the arm, sometimes navigating tight indoor spaces, and seemingly always dangling perilously above bottomless pits or killer spikes. In addition to the arm, Spencer apparently has nerves of steel as well.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some ~~Nazis~~ Imperials to take down.

Hank Williams Jr: Freedom Warrior

2011-10-09T17:00:00.003-04:00

You've probably already seen the story about Hank Williams Jr's iconic Monday Night Football opening song being pulled by ESPN in the wake of some boneheaded (and somewhat unclear) comments comparing a golf foursome pairing President Barack Obama and Speaker John Boehner to Adolf Hitler playing with Benjamin Netanyahu (???). Weird metaphysics aside, ESPN is free to do what they want here - if they don't want someone who makes such stupid remarks headlining their flagship show, then that's well within their business.

Williams naturally doesn't see it that way. His first response, posted on his website, was:

I have always been very passionate about Politics and Sports and this time it got the Best or Worst of me. The thought of the Leaders of both Parties Jukin and High Fiven on a Golf course, while so many Families are Struggling to get by simply made me Boil over and make a Dumb statement and I am very Sorry if it Offended anyone. I would like to Thank all my supporters. This was Not written by some Publicist.

I love that closing line - I would hope no publicist would capitalize that many common nouns and verbs! Plus, I guess I don't see what he's so opposed to - the rancor between the two parties is a major roadblock to any solution to the problems of Families Struggling, and you've gotta think they discussed the matter out on the links, no? It's not like they went out and screwed around and drank beer for three hours - I'm certain there was some underlying business purpose to this outing.

A later statement from HWJ included the line:

Working class people are hurting – and it doesn’t seem like anybody cares.

I don't disagree with this, but if that's your concern, then why the strong support of the ardently pro-rich Republican Party? And how on Earth to you get from that legitimate concern to a gratuitous fulfillment of Godwin's Law?

My favorite Williams missive was this one:

By pulling my opening Oct 3rd, You (ESPN) stepped on the Toes of The First Amendment Freedom of Speech, so therefore Me, My Song, and 'All My Rowdy Friends' are OUT OF HERE. It's been a great run.

Just for fun, since he brought it up, let's have a look at the First Amendment to the United States Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It's not clear to me in this particular instance where Congress has made any law abridging Williams' freedom of speech, probably because Congress has absolutely nothing to do with this case. ESPN is not the Federal Government, and they can fire people for saying dumb shit anytime they please. It's unbelievable that Williams can be this daft, though I suppose less so in light of the Hitler comment and the fact that he wrote a song called "If the South Woulda Won."

He is, of course, not the first person to make this mistake publicly (the 1st Amendment thing, not the Civil War thing). People are almost constantly invoking the First Amendment anytime they feel their voices have been silenced unfairly, somehow not grasping the fact that it applies only to the government placing restrictions on free speech. Individuals and companies are simply not bound by the First Amendment. If you don't believe me, go to work and spend a few minutes lobbing insults at your boss and see what happens. The First Amendment is a set of freedoms for which overstating its importance is difficult, but its scope all too easy.

Escape from France

2011-10-08T17:00:00.000-04:00

We all know by now that I'm not much of a traveler. I do it for work because we're an international company and it's important for my job, but I do it a bit reluctantly. Last week, I was in northern France for work, and getting back yesterday proved to be quite a nerve-wracking experience.

My itinerary for the day was this:

8:40-10 train from Calais (where I was working) to Lille
10:30-11:30 high-speed train from Lille to CDG aeroport
2:30 pm fly to the US and A

Aside #1 - high-speed trains are fucking great. I'm so jealous of European nations that have them. Any of those dumbass politicians who blast high-speed rail and criticize the European model should go there and ride one of those things and see how fantastic they are.

Aside #2 - I also enjoy the Cleveland train from Downtown to CLE airport (aka "The Rapid.") I take it every time I fly both for convenience and cost savings. It costs all of $2.25 one-way, and I can keep my car safely ensconced in my apartment complex garage instead of airport parking. It's a win-win for my and my company. I can go green with public transportation, and instead of the $37.50 my employer would have paid FastPark for the week, they get off only reimbursing me the $4.50. I know I'll never get any credit for this (our travel people manage by exception), so I'm patting myself on the back here.

ANYWAY, I get to the Calais station (a short walk frrm my hotel) at about 8:10 am, and notice that the train before mine is "supprime." I don't know any French (though I can read Spanish pretty well, and cognates get you reasonably far in Romance languages), so I used that and some context to assume it had been cancelled. Hmm. No one was getting on any trains, and there were three armed police guards by the door to the platforms. At risk of sounding like an Ugly American, none of the PA announcements were in English, which didn't help me much. My own train was 10 minutes delayed, and there was a paragraph-long notice on the electronic message board in French. I could make out that train service had been interrupted because a train employee had been attacked, but it seemed to have been straightened out. I got on my train and headed to Lille.

I switched stations (from a normal train station to the "very-high-speed" one) and the big board of departures is littered with "Retard" and "Supprime." Not good. My own 10:30 ride to Paris: Suprime. Uh oh. Now I'm nervous. I have no phone service to call our travel agent or my airline, I don't know if and when the trains are going to go back online, I've got nowhere to stay in Lille, my flight is in 3 hours, and the French train stations can't be bothered to translate a goddamn thing into English. (Sorry, got a bit salty there.) Eventually a nice bilingual woman filled me in - the French train employees had gone on strike in response to a ticket checker being stabbed multiple times the day before. Yikes.

I purchased some wi-fi time at the station (not a trivial matter to accomplish entirely en francais) and got more details on the situation. It was kind of difficult to get timely info, not because of any lack of reportage, but because the French apparently strike almost constantly. Go ahead, google "French train strike." You'll get one from late August, April, September 2010, April 2010, and March 2010. My goodness. Maybe those politicians shouldn't visit France after all.

Apparently, the victim (poor guy, I'm glad he's in stable condition) was stabbed by this lunatic who had already been convicted of four violent offenses. Four. Hey, I've got an idea - lock that fucker up. The workers responded with a "wildcat strike," which I learned is a strike taken without Union approval. Traveling is educational! But seriously, what a dumb idea. How does striking there accomplish anything except ruin thousands of travelers' days? I guess they're concerned for their safety, but if some crazy violent dude is floating around, how does this help solve the problem? Aside #3: service seems to be back to normal today.

Announcements are flying around the intercom at the station about the strike and delays, and SNCF (the national train company) is suggesting passengers find other accomodations. Awesome. Like what? There's no other way to get to Paris in the time I need to catch my plane. At this point, I'm resigned to a wasted day in France, probably catching a late train back to Calais (local service was still mostly regular) and rebooking a flight, maybe taking the ferry to England and flying out of London (pretty much the same total travel time as Paris). I'm also: not happy. Man, just think, right now I'd be an hour away from landing at JFK if I'd done that instead of sitting comfortably in my living room as I am now.

I was checking the big board constantly, and after almost giving up hope of getting out that day, I saw two 12:05 trains (on 30 minute delays) with stops at CDG. Let's see...12:35...that puts me at the airport at 1:25 for a 2:30 flight...maybe I'll make it! I rebooked thanks to an agent who didn't know English but was clever enough to understand what I wanted when I handed him my original ticket. (Aside #4: I really wanted the French to be ruder than they were, to keep up stereotypes and such, but I actually found them quite pleasant.)

I've got me a train, but I'm still a bit nervous. I know a lot of people wouldn't care at this point, and would love to have an extra 24 hours to hang in Paris (especially since hotel and food would be on my employer's dime). I am, of course, not one of these people. I have things to do in Ohio.

I board the TGV train at 11:55 and the train departs...at 12:50. Come on, go! Thanks to the delay, I get to CDG at 1:45 for a 2:30 international flight. You'll recall that airlines recommend you arrive two hours early for such a flight. Even converting the time out of metric units, I'm still cutting it close. I sprinted through the airport dragging all my stuff behind me, breezed through security (thankfully there was almost no one there), and got on board the jumbo jet with maybe 5 minutes to spare. Whew!

And now I'm back, and it's a gloriously sunny day in Cleveland.

Religion and Politics: A Savage Hypocrisy

2011-10-07T07:00:00.001-04:00

Those of you familiar with South Park will recognize the reference in the title - others of you probably saw my headline and skipped right over this whole piece. I did have a few points to make about the confluence of these two spheres of activity, and I actually think I can (for once) do it in a rather concise fashion. What spurred my thinking on the topic was the video of Ron Paul shown below. As an aside, Paul is a fascinating character - sometimes he takes tough positions that I really admire, and other times (like today when he said the US was on its way to targeting journalists and professors because they killed an Islamic militant) he's just off-the-charts crazy. He packs a lot of foolishness into this video below, so let's start there.

My first point is this: politicians can't have it both ways. They consistently want to tout their bona fides of belief to their base, particularly those on the right wing of the political spectrum. Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, for instance, can't go five seconds without bringing up their personal convictions. But when their beliefs or thinking are exposed as flawed, they quickly retreat defensively, claiming that their personal religious views should have no impact on their candidacy and implying some impropriety on the part of any voter who would allow those views to inspire negative perceptions. Come on - it's one or the other. Either you score points with christian voters and lose those same points with me, or the other way around, but let's stop this nonsense of espousing views and then declaring them off limits.

My second point is, wow is Paul's answer dumb. I wanted to use it just as a lead-in to more general points, but I can't move on yet. Let's grab a few quotes. I'm sorry, I can't let this go. Skip this part if you want a broader take, though this may plant some seeds.

A very inappropriate question, you know, for the Presidency to be decided on a scientific matter
Whatever forum this is, I guarantee you it did not decide the Presidency. Easy on the hyperbole.

It's a theory. The Theory of Evolution, and I don't accept it...as a theory
[Shakes head]
I twittered a while back that I wish we could use the occasion of the next Republican debate to explain to these dummies what the word "theory" means in scientific context so that they can stop doing this. It's not some hunch or guess - it's a synthesis of a large body of scientific facts into a consistent, testable explanation. The best ones, like evolutionary theory, germ theory, and the theories of gravity stand up to rigorous testing and adapt over time to accomodate new discovery. And please, please, please stop pretending like there's some scientific hierarchy that goes Law > Theory > Hypothesis, because there is not.

Also, Ron Paul is wrong here.

The creator that I know...created us, every one of us, and created the Universe.
Way off topic. Also: wrong.

I don't think we're at the point where anybody has absolute proof on either side.
Classic false equivalence. Evolutionary theory has decades of solid proof backing it while Creationism has absolutely none, but neither meet Paul's standards of "absolute" so we declare it a wash. Don't think I didn't notice that!

I think it's a theological discussion...
Nope. Let's move on...

Let's return to the discussion of whether a candidate's religious beliefs affect the viability of his or her candidacy, and I say they can and do in two distinct ways: direct and indirect.

The direct route is easy to identify: consider Rick Perry declaring that, "I also, as a Christian, have a clear directive to support Israel." This is a Bad Thing - not the policy itself necessarily (though it's not especially nuanced or fact-based), but the fact that Perry's faith and beliefs so strongly guide his opinions on this matter. Any candidate claiming that their personal religious belief should not be viewed as a negative (while relentlessly promoting it as a positive) needs to clear this hurdle that Perry's statement (and countless others by GW Bush, Bachmann, and, yes, Rick Santorum) have set up. There's enough evidence that politicians' religious beliefs affect their actions in office (consider "conservative" pols' views on gay marriage and the like) that we can't just overlook a candidate's faith simply because he or she says it won't be a big deal.

The indirect one is a bit trickier, and here I will have to resort to some inference and supposition, and I'll admit that right here. I also think I'm right.

To a deeply secular voter like me, religious faith has to be viewed as a specific failure to think critically and rationally. Consider the definition of faith from dictionary.com most appplicable here - "belief that is not based on proof." That is a failure to think critically and/or rationally about a topic. Many people are comfortable doing this, but that doesn't change its fundamental nature. What expression of religious belief does, then, is make clear by example that an individual is quite capable of suspending rational belief. Obviously, we're all capable of this to some degree, but this particular evidence shows that the person in question actively does so in a fairly important sphere of thought. That's not a positive sign.

Paul's description of the evolution question as "inappropriate" is somewhat telling because it betrays a (deserved) lack of confidence in his response. I don't find the question at all inappropriate, because I think it provides insight into his methods of thinking - in this case, demonstrating a capacity to form positions based on weak reasoning and then promoting those positions. This, I believe, gives indirect insight into how candidates will process other information sets.

The first question to resolve for the indirect influence of religious belief on politics is then: how well does the candidate compartmentalize his or her demonstrated irrationality? After all, just because someone has the capacity to form positions using sub-optimal decision-making processes does not mean that he or she necessarily will. It may well be that a person applies standards of critical thinking to every aspect of his or her life except this one, and functions as a devout faith-head without that lack of need for evidence spilling over into the choices they make about, say, foreign policy, or climate change. But how many people do you know whose brains work in that manner? Not many, I suspect.

The second question to answer then, once the degree of (or lack of) compartmentalization is evaluated, is how the beliefs directly and indirectly affect one's views and policies. After all, I've been concerned here chiefly with the process of thought, and working somewhat under the premise that an irrational approach to decision-making will lead to undesirable answers. But the end goal is the policies themselves, no matter how they're arrived at. Consider this:

I like orange fanta,
Therefore 47,
Thus all citizens should enjoy equal rights.

Tremendously stupid logic, but a pretty good result from my thought process. Unfortunately, for the case of religion, these happy accidents virtually never happen outside of the brain of Jimmy Carter. Whether through the direct means of application of religious thought to policy matters, or the indirect route of allowing that same irrational logic to spill over into guiding one's decision-making on items of public importance, religion plays a large, easily identifiable role in politicians' words and actions. And, I might add from my vantage, almost always a pernicious one.

And that's why, the next time a candidate tries to brush his or her personal superstitions aside for political expediency, you should consider the broader impact those beliefs can and do have on his or her merits as a prospective office-holder.

1200 words, not too bad

Coffee machine fail

2011-10-06T07:00:00.002-04:00

I'm not a linguistics expert, but something seems amiss here on this French coffee vending machine (they have about as many of these as we do pop machines in the US). I'm not bad at Spanish, and I'm pretty sure "por favor" means "please." I remember enough German from high school to know that "bitte" means "please." I've gathered enough French from being here to know that "s'il vous plaît" is...wait for it..."please." And I did a little Google Translate research on "prego" and discovered that it's Italian for, you'll never guess, "please."

So why "enjoy" in English?

Sign your life away

2011-10-02T07:00:00.002-04:00

How many times a month do you have to sign a waiver or release form, one of those cheesy documents saying that you won't sue some individual, group, or entity if something goes awry at some event they're holding? For me, I feel like it's near-constant, and even if I understand fully the reason why they exist, I can't help but resent them a bit. Thinking about it further, I've decided the waiver represents simultaneously the success and failure of modern society.

Why success? Because it means we live in a place where the rule of law is firmly established, and that is a Good Thing. Yes, people abuse the shit out of it with frivolous lawsuits all the time, but in the big picture view it's important that people are able to hold those responsible who wrong them, and that fairness under the law is upheld by our civil government. So next time you sign one of these stupid things, you can comfort yourself that you could be living in some other far-off land where you're totally screwed if someone cheats or injures you.

Why failure? Because it's a tacit admission that, without the waiver, people would be filing all sorts of ridiculous lawsuits instead of taking repsonsibility for their actions. They're necessary, but they're necessary chiefly because of the stupidity and greed inherent in many humans' nature. Pretty much every one of these I sign, I think to myself that anyone who filed suit if anything happened to them during the event would have to be an absolute and total moron. For example, every road race I run requires me to sign a waiver indemnifying them in the event of...I don't know what. I've been thinking about this off and on since lunch today (it's late at night), and I can't think of one thing that could happen during a race that would inspire me to go after the race organizers. Even if the Race Director shived me right as I was crossing the finish line, I don't think I'd sue the city, or the race, or whatever. Obviously that person would be in a bit of legal trouble, but still.

I guess I'll keep mindlessly signing these things so I can participate in the things I want to do, trying to keep the positive implications of their existence in the front of my mind while pushing their disdainful implied commentary on the human condition to the rear.

No

2011-09-30T07:00:00.002-04:00

You've probably heard some variant of the following strategy for chasing women, usually in jest but not always: simply go around asking women if they will have sex with you. The thinking goes, pretty much all of them will quickly say no, but if even one in a hundred says yes, then hey, sex. The premise underlying this approach is that the act of rejection has, for our lothario, either zero negative utility, or so little downside that it's easily outweighed by having sex with the kind of woman who agrees to have sex with strangers.

For some people, I suspect this is true - there are people with very thick skin, almost no aversion to loss, and no fear of rejection for whom this would be a successful method. For most, though, I would think the negative feelings of being turned down repeatedly would easily outweigh the occasional success, either taking the 1 in 100 as a reasonable hit rate or even something higher.

This approach also ignores a certain negative side effect, that being that pretty much everyone would think that anyone who goes about things in this fashion was a total douchebag. Again, there are those who care so little about what others think that this would not be a concern (and this group likely overlaps considerably with the thick-skinned fellows in the previous paragraph), and also some who could deal with the rejection but not with the blow to their integrity and reputation that this entails. Thus, you don't see a whole lot of guys trying this out, one in a hundred shot or no.

The same logic could be applied to the more traditional way of approaching women, that being ~~conversation and Hennessey~~ talking with one and asking her for a date. You'd hope that your odds here would exceed one in a hundred, or else it's going to be a long night at the bar, but the potential negative impact of a rejection still factors into this equation. Without doubt, there are those for whom that outweighs the potential benefits of success, even as the chances of success approach 100%.

What spurred my thinking on this topic wasn't this actual scenario, but hearing a financial advisor on a radio show talking about asking one's boss for a raise, suggesting that "the worst thing he or she can say is no." I don't think this is correct. The supervisor can indeed say no, and can at the same time develop a negative perception of the employee (whether warranted or not) as greedy or demanding. This could very well affect the boss-employee relationship. Additionally, the guy I heard on the radio made the same implicit assumption as in the sex-bombing scenario I presented first, which is that a "no" answer doesn't carry any adverse weight with it.

Again, maybe for some people it's not a big deal, but that's by no means universal - a "no" answer here could have consequences on a person's psyche beyond just the stagnation in pay. Each person puts a certain positive utility on the additional money they think they can get from a raise, the chances they have of successfully lobbying for one, and the negative utility of their request being declined. It's certainly a lot more complicated than "the worst thing they can say is no."

Damnit, Rick Reilly

2011-09-29T07:00:00.000-04:00

I'm actually kind of a busy guy, and I really don't have time to execute a thorough trashing of Rick Reilly's article about jersey fashion.

But I read it. And I have to do this. Sigh.

The three fastest-growing diseases in America today are diabetes, Lyme disease, and sports jerseys.
I think the manatees from that one South Park lampooning Family Guy write a lot of Reilly's material.

Wearing a jersey used to be for kids. You be Tom Brady and I'll be Darrelle Revis. Now people with actual jobs are wearing them. At 6, it's adorable. At 36, deplorable.
How would the Brady/Revis game work? Does the Brady kid throw to the opposite side of the field as the Revis kid all day?

You can't swing your arms at an NFL game without hitting somebody in one. (A very good idea, by the way.)
Hilarious.

You say it's your way of expressing devotion to your team? I say try a hat. It doesn't make you look like an adult Trick-or-Treater.
Hats and jerseys: not mutually exclusive. Why so curmudgeonly?

What's your jersey dream? Someone shrieking, "Oh, my God! There's Brian Urlacher! Oh, wait. No, no. It's just Justin from purchasing."?
I don't have a "jersey dream." I just want to sport the team's colors on Sunday and the jersey looks cool

Women in jerseys? Fine. But dude, you're really going out with another man's name on your back? Do you have no male pride?
Easy, guy.

But like gluten-free beer, the jersey flood seems un-damn-able. But can we at least have some rules?
Gluten-free beer looks "un-damn-able"? I had literally never heard of it until just now. And this "dam" pun doesn't work. At all. Let's get to his ridiculous rules.

Jersey Rule No. 1: You may not wear a jersey past age 29.
Exceptions:
a) You are immediately related to the person whose name is on the back.
b) You are the person whose name is on the back. (Team photo required.)
One question: why? Why these arbitrary, hyper-specific rules? Why should a reasonably fit, youthful-looking 31-year-old not sport a jersey? What is the downside here? What's your deal? I'll grant you that as one ages, one should transition out of the jersey, but 29 is a capriciously nonsensical hard cap. He obviously wanted a round number and 40 was too high a threshold, so here we are.

Jersey Rule No. 2: You may not wear a jersey without a shirt underneath it, especially NBA jerseys. We do not want to see your rash. Or your spare tire. Or your nipples. My God, people.
This honestly doesn't happen that often. Plus, it only applies to replicas - authentics are solid enough that it's not a concern. Doubt Reilly knows this distinction.

Jersey Rule No. 3: You may not wear a jersey if somebody else in your group is already wearing one.
There is absolutely zero logic in this. You're saying that, when 100+ Pittsburgh Browns Backers gathered each week to support the club, that only one of us could have on a jersey? Reilly makes these rules with absolutely no reasoning or thought put into them. They seem mostly a framework to set up his embarrassing laugh lines.

This is also known as The Fedora Rule. No two guys in any group can be wearing a fedora. The second man's fedora must be trashed, crushed or sold. You never saw Sinatra and Dean Martin wearing one, right?
Um...I guess no, I didn't. I don't see why anyone in my group would wear a fedora.

Jersey Rule No. 4:
You may not, under any circumstances, wear a jersey AND a hat. Who are you, Tony Romo?
Under any circumstances? Not even, I don't know, sun? There's something amazingly daft about making such absolute, hard-line rules about something based on such flimsy opinions. Plus, I wear a jersey and hat and it looks just fine - so do a lot of people. And the Romo reference is pointless because pretty much every NFL QB wears a baseball hat on the sideline; Romo is famous only for wearing his backwards. Can't you put any effort into this?

Jersey Rule No. 5: You may not wear a jersey with your own name on it if you didn't wear it on a real team once. Please. Are you expecting Bill Belichick to look up in the stands and go, "Flanagan! Get in there at tailback!"?
Again, hilarious joke.

But consider my Ron Francis #10 jersey shirt. Is that permissible under Reilly's set of half-baked guidelines? Unclear on two fronts, as he's left jerts totally unaddressed, and not even considered the possibility of duplicate last names. Are kids named "McCoy" barred from sporting the #12 on gameday? Can the Rubin brothers of Mistake by the Lake Sporting Times not wear #71? Man, think these things through, because your laugh lines aren't funny.

Jersey Rule No. 6: You may not wear a jersey of a player who has been gone from your team for more than a year, unless that player is in the Hall of Fame or will be soon. I saw a guy Monday night at the New York Giants game wearing an Amani Toomer jersey. I believe Toomer is managing a Round Table pizza in Parsippany now. Buy another damn jersey, cheapskate.
Another total lack of thought. Hall of Fame is way too strict of a criterion. Does this mean Browns fans can't put on a Turner, Sipe, Kosar, or Metcalf? It does, and that makes no sense. I will say that Browns fans have a tendency to hang on too long, and often the statement you make is simply reminding fellow fans of a situation that didn't work out (Couch, Edwards, etc.) See, I actually have a logical point here - I oppose jerseys of washouts (unless they're intentionally comical, like a friend's #17 Gardocki I saw the other day) because they serve as reminders of the club's struggles.

Hilarious "Parsippany" joke, though.

Jersey Rule No. 7: If you have a nose tackle body, you must wear a nose tackle's jersey. We do not need to see your 385 pounds busting out of a DeSean Jackson jersey. It's unseamly.
Please, please stop with the puns. Eh, buy whatever jersey you want. None of us has an NFL body - if we applied this across the board we'd all be wearing kicker and punter jerseys.

Jersey Rule No. 8: Absolutely no cutesy wrong-color jerseys. No pink Yankees jerseys. No camouflage Cowboys jerseys. And no new University of Maryland jerseys. They look like an explosion at a Benjamin Moore store.
Only a Sith speaks in absolutes. I personally don't like the pink fashion because I think women look quite good flashing the team's actual colors and the pink is distracting. (Again, I've provided an actual reason). And camo is inherently ugly - I mean, it's a color scheme specifically designed not to be seen.

Jersey Rule No. 9: No wearing NBA shorts with your NBA jersey at any time. Horrible. It makes you look like Red Klotz. (Corollary: Do not wear all-white to watch a tennis match, either. Pathetic.)
Six people got that Red Klotz reference. And I can't remember seeing anyone over 14 do this. We're inventing problems here.

Jersey Rule No. 10: No wearing your jersey anywhere but a) to the stadium or b) home. Nobody at the urologist's office wants to talk about your Ray Lewis jersey.
How about (c) the bar? Seriously, re-read your column one time before publishing it.

I agree that jersey-wearing should be reserved for Gameday, but that's more personal preference than strict edict.

If you still qualify under all these edicts, then you must sign these waivers before donning a jersey:
Oh boy.

Jersey Waiver A: By wearing a jersey, you are waiving your rights to any sexual activity for the evening. No woman in history has ever said, "Oooh, that guy wearing the jersey of another man! That's hot!"
Speaking from experience, but without getting into great detail: this is not the case.

Jersey Waiver B: By wearing a jersey, you are waiving any semblance of coolness.
We're just declaring things by fiat now.

"It's like going to a concert in the T-shirt of the band that's playing that night," says Ari Pillar, 29, who was wearing a simple, cool retro Giants T-shirt Monday night. "It's cooler to wear another band's T-shirt. But wearing a jersey of somebody you're watching? That's way high up the Dork Scale."
This is a side note, but I've never agreed with Pillar's point here. Now, I oppose the wearing of a concert t-shirt that you just bought at the concert that night, because it smacks of poserdom and often creates an unfortunate t-shirt-over-collared-shirt fashion faux pas. But wearing the band's t-shirt? Why is that bad?

Consider this situation. It's the year 2000. I'm 20 years old. I've had a boss-looking NIN t-shirt for a few years, and I wear it to every show I go to. I'm going to see Nine Inch Nails. Why would I not wear this shirt? I think it's cool to show that you've been a fan for a few years. Cannot understand the downside here.

(A note on T-shirts: Enough cussing, especially those West F***in Virginia T-shirts that West Virginia fans are wearing. Your athletic director, Oliver Luck, was right. Show a little class. And Ohio State fans: No "Ann Arbor is a whore" T-shirts either. And, Wisconsin students, we've all seen 1,000 variations on "Huck the Fuskers" already. Try something original.)
Frankly, I agree. It's not necessary to be vulgar or overly negative, and doing so reflects negatively upon your fanbase. I rip on michigan as much as the next guy, but I wouldn't ever want a "fuck michigan" shirt. I prefer a more supportive, positive fandom. (Note that the guy in the photo is at a Penn State tailgate).

My corollary to this is: you shouldn't need an entire sentence to say something funny on a sports t-shirt. If it takes that much time, it has no chance of being funny. Brevity is the heart of wit. And "Got ______?" is never, ever, ever funny.

Jersey Waiver C: By wearing a jersey, you are waiving any contact with the very person you're worshipping.
Easy with the vocab choice, Rick. We're not "worshipping" them. And frankly, I'm just fine if I don't meet Josh Cribbs. I'm not one to get star-struck.

Jersey Waiver D: By wearing a jersey to a road game, you waive your right to a busted-free nose. Wearing a Lakers jersey to a Celtics game is like wearing an Obama T-shirt to a Dick Cheney book signing. Bring gauze.
Such a contrived simile, my goodness. And "a busted-free nose"? Did you even try to rephrase that so it made sense? "Busted" isn't a noun.

I'm begging you and all jerseyites out there: Rent, lease or purchase a life.
My hobby is your profession, friend. I've got a lot more going on than sports, but thanks for the condescending bullshit ending to this mess.

Arnold

2011-09-28T07:00:00.003-04:00

Regular commentor Dash expressed mild disappointment that my recent post about being a Running Man wasn't about movies at all, other than a photo of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the bad-ass 1987 movie The Running Man. So, since I only have five readers and I like to keep them happy, here's my ranking of all the Arnold Schwarzenegger movies I've seen. If it's not here, I haven't seen it. I've made no bones of my love for Schwarzenegger, so this seems like a natural fit for me. I've also decided to list Schwarzenegger's character's name in each movie because they're so uniformly fantastic. It's a shame I haven't seen Commando, in which he portrays John Matrix, but I still got the name out there.

Before I do, can I ask why people still reference F. Scott Fitzgerald's quote that "there are no second acts in American lives"? It's dumb. It's wrong. I bring this up here because Schwarzenegger has had three wildly successful acts in his American life, and countless polymaths have done the same. It's time to relegate this quote to the dustbin of history.

1) Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Name: T-800 Terminator
I wanted to be silly here and put Jingle All the Way at number one, but T2 is just too fucking good to leave out of the top spot. Either this is the greatest action film of all time, or Die Hard is - take your pick.

2) Jingle All the Way
Name: Howard Langston
But it's still my blog, so here we are at #2. I've probably spilled more digital ink over Arnie's SMASH HIT HOLILDAY CLASSIC than any other website you'll find, so there isn't much more to say. I'm already looking forward to the holidays just thinking about my annual viewing of this masterpiece.

3) Predator
Name: Dutch Schaefer
Kind of a Die Hard in reverse; instead of a stealth hero in a confined space picking off bad guys, here it's a mysterious evil monster taking down the protagonists one by one. A classic action movie, and one that doesn't get enough credit for the terror it elicits from the jungle.

4) The Terminator
Name: T-800 Terminator, we just went over this
Hard to imagine a better match of actor and character than this flick.

5) Total Recall
Name: Douglas Quaid, or Hauser, depending on your reality
Have you ever noticed how many cool movies were made from Phillip K. Dick stories, including this complex, absorbing action thriller? It's a lot. And no, I can't get through even this short review without mentioning the woman with three boobs.

6) Pumping Iron
Name: Arnold Schwarzenegger, itself a cool name
Almost without question the single most homoerotic movie I've ever seen, it's also one of the most unintentionally funny and a pretty engrossing "docu-drama" to boot. Plus it has this classic line, one of the greatest quotes in film history. If you're still reading this mess, I demand you watch that YouTube video - it's only 24 seconds.

7) True Lies
Name: Harry Tasker
Admit it: you didn't think Tom Arnold had this kind of performance in him, did you? It's tough to effectively blend action and comedy, but True Lies did so quite nicely.

8) The Running Man
Name: Ben Richards
How fucking awesome is it when Schwarzenegger flies Richard Dawson on a rocket sled into a giant billboard with a picture of Richard Dawson on it? Every movie should end with that scene.

9) Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Name: T-850 Terminator
It's natural to be skeptical about the third installment of any action franchise, but this is honestly a really solid movie. Not as groundbreaking as its predecessors, but still quality stuff.

10) Kindergarten Cop
Name: John Kimble
It's not a tumor!

11/12) Eraser/The 6th Day/Red Heat
John Kruger/Adam Gibson/Ivan Danko
I remember sort-of liking these but not loving them, so they get tossed here into the same bin.

13) Twins
Julius Benedict
Nobody's perfect.

Book review: The Omnivore's Dilemma

2011-09-26T07:00:00.000-04:00

Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma is a fascinating journey through the American food system, one that manages to tell a story and ask Big Questions about why we eat what we do, while simultaneously providing a wealth of information about the sources, costs, ethics, and politics that drive our decisions on what to have for dinner every night.

Pollan divides the book into three sections, each about a different sector of our food supply (Industrial, Organic, Hunter/Gatherer), condluding each with a meal representing his adventures within that particular food chain (two in the case of Organic). It's a clever way to structure the book, one that allows him to put such a far-ranging topic ("Food") under one roof and draw parallels and contrasts as he goes.

First up is Industrial, certainly the most enlightening and unnerving section of the book. I suspect that anyone who reads this portion of The Omnivore's Dilemmawill take a serious look at where their own food supply comes from, because the hidden nutritional and environmental costs of processed food are so great. As Pollan writes, you either change your mind because you know the dark nature of the system, or you choose to ignore it. Most Americans choose the latter, of course, and what they're choosing in Pollan's telling is a system of poor health, driven by our increasing reliance on petroleum and corn to produce food that appears inexpensive on the surface but actually comes with a wide variety of unadvertised externalities. Among the characters he follows in this section is 534, a corn-fed steer he purchases and follows from birth through fattening and eventually death (though he's obviously not allowed in the slaughterhouse). If I wasn't already a vegetarian, this part of the book would have me leaning that way. Pollan concludes the section with a fast-food drive through McDonald's, which he somewhat predictably disdains. I agree with him totally on the drawbacks of the Industrial food chain epitomized by McDonald's, but he could have at least acknowledged that McDonald's actually tastes pretty good at times.

Even if you don't read this entire book, this section is well worth your time - Pollan's command of facts and ability to marshal them into a narrative is remarkable, and this is a subject about which people should be far better educated. In his follow-up book, In Defense of Food, he adopts the mantra: "Eat food. Mostly Plants. Not a lot." - this work lays the foundation for that view quite nicely.

Second is Organic, which actually consists of two segments: Big Organic and Local Organic. Pollan talks about the origins of the organic food movement as a counterculture hippie thing and how today a lot of it has adopted the economic logic of conventional Industrial farming while there are still those who practice it in its more idealized, local, environment-friendly state. It's a distinction worth drawing, though I think he's a bit too dismissive of the positives that even Big Organic brings to the table. In some sense, it reminded me a bit of Saturn, a company that was supposed to change the mentality and culture of GM but instead the reverse happened. Yes, the major Organic companies can be loose with their definitions of "free-range" (with the USDA's complicity), and have indeed strayed from the original spirit of organic, but they've also taken a shitload of pesticides and chemicals out of the food supply, which seems to me an unalloyed positive.

Pollan spends considerable time at Polyface Farms, a remarkable self-sufficient organic farm in Virginia led by a feisty "christian libertarian" fellow named Joel Salatin. The chief difference Pollan outlines here, and something I hadn't really thought about before, is what the real driving forces are (and should be) in a food production system. In our modern Industrial farming supply, it's largely petroleum energy (through both fertilizer production and transportation) growing mountains of federally-subsidized surplus corn that basically supports everything else we eat. In the organic model as practiced by Polyface, it's solar energy harnessed by grass and other vegetables, turned into protein by animals. It's certainly a more logical way to produce food - the question Pollan doesn't spend enough time on is: on how large of a scale it can be done? There are seven billion people on Earth, and as fascinating and innovative as Salatin and Polyface Farms are, one has to wonder how practical it is for everybody.

Salatin himself gets a bit tiresome with his anti-government haranguing and god-loving, and even Pollan seems exhausted with him at times (even though he keeps quoting Salatin), but his farm seems really neat and inventive. Pollan clearly sees Salatin's products as the best possible answer to his question "what should we eat for dinner?," perhaps one of the reasons he isn't more on the Big Organic bandwagon. You can tell as you're reading where he's going to fall on the organic debate, but I suppose that's OK. Either way, his presentation of the biological science (he keeps trying to contrast "science" and "biology" as if they were opposites) is really interesting, particularly his treatment of the easily-overlooked natural staple that is Grass.

The author spends a couple of chapters here experimenting with vegetarianism, though this venture is clouded by his openly stated desire not to be a vegetarian. In scientific terms, he's biasing the experiment, and instead of highlighting the positives of the lifestyle he seems more interested in evaluating it vis-a-vis the ethical arguments of Peter Singer. I think this section would have been more interesting had Pollan actually approached it with an open mind.

Pollan closes the Organic section with meals from store-bought Organic and from (at, in fact) Polyface Farms, giving the former much higher marks than Industrial and the latter higher still. Predictable, though undoubtedly well-argued.

The final section finds Pollan preparing a meal consisting entirely of food he grew, found, or hunted. Here I must make an admission: I skimmed this section rather quickly because I had to get the book back to the library. I think I still owe the CPL $0.10. I did read his conclusions and the meal he prepared at the end with mushrooms he picked, veggies he grew (and sometimes grabbed off of neighbors' trees), and some animal (a lamb?) he killed. He calls this "The Perfect Meal," and I just can't go there. He admits himself that it's wholly impractical and that it wasn't even necessarily the best food, so why still call it that? He sees it as perfect in the connection he makes with nature and his fellow man through this most direct of food production systems, and I guess I just didn't connect with that.

The most revealing thing that Pollan presents in this book is that the three food systems he outlines can be characterized best by the length of the food chain supporting each one. The Industrial food chain is comically (tragically?) long and complex, with numerous "value-added" steps and inputs, leading to disastrous consequences everywhere. It kind of makes me annoyed that Fritos are as good as they are.

The Organic chain, particularly the one epitomized by Polyface's intensively farmed model, is far shorter and logical. Sun powers vegetables and particularly grass, which powers ruminant animals like cows, and...that's it. Sun, grass, cow, food. I'll be the first to admit that my advocacy of vegetarianism rests considerably on the environmental unsustainability of meat production and that this abbreviated food chain removes quite a bit of that motivation. A grass-fed arrangement also alleviates some of the herbivore's concern over the health aspects of carnivorosity, a word I just made up, and animal rights as well, given the considerably better treatment a cow gets at Polyface than at a "confined animal feeding operation," which is an actual thing.

The Hunter/Gatherer chain is less a chain than a link: you pick something up and eat it. Sadly, I don't see much food lying around the streets of Cleveland.

Overall, I highly recommend The Omnivore's Dilemma. Pollan is a masterful writer, and the subject matter is something that should be of deep importance and interest for all of us. I might question his advocacy and angles on certain topics a bit, but tht doesn't changed the fact that this book is painstakingly researched, expertly written, and comprises numerous examples of nonfiction storytelling at its finest.

20 years of Nevermind

2011-09-24T14:36:00.001-04:00

Happy anniversary!

Power Balance

2011-09-24T14:00:00.002-04:00

I noticed today yet another athlete wearing one of those Power Balance Bracelets that are supposed to use "holographic technology" to positively impact the wearer's "natural energy field". They have an impressive roster of major athlete andorsers, including Shaq, Matt Kemp, Dustin Pedroia, Matthew Stafford, and, of course, Mardy Fish. (When you click the "Baseball" subgroup, Stafford inexplicably shows up).

My question: how fucking credulous do you have to believe that "hologram technology," as if that was an important thing, actually affects your athletic performance? Seriously, how stupid are you? Either you're completely unwilling to do any critical thinking whatsoever, or you just very, very badly want a performance edge without putting any work in to it. Either way, it's pathetic. Why get up and run or lift weights when you can put a shiny rubber thing on your arm? I always wear two silicon wristbands on my left wrist, and those do exactly as much to enhance my athletic abilities as these ridiculous Power Balance things, which is zero.

The amazing part is that their patently false claims have been debunked numerous times, even to the point where they had to publicly recant a bunch of their lies in Australia, but business still keeps on trucking. I almost don't want to know how much loot this company has made preying on people's stupidity.

And that last statement makes me think about the circumstances of the founding of the company. Are the people who hatched this dumb idea themselves so credulous that they believe in this rubbish, or were they just very shrewd, very cynical businessmen who figured they could take advantage of millions of morons and their desire to live better effort-free? Either way, it's pretty lame.

A Running Man

2011-09-23T07:00:00.000-04:00

If I set aside for a moment all the milliliters and parts per millions of the medical screenings I lampooned in my earlier post this week, and instead focus on a macro view of health, I'm very fortunate to be where I'm at.

It's something I take for granted, as I'm sure others do except for those times when they're sick and promise never to take health for granted again. Yet Sam Harris made the point in an article of his I read recently (not his masterful essay commemorating 9/11, but do please read that) that we should really be more thankful for our well-being than we are, given the role chance plays in our physical state. I'll quote it at length:

[Many people] seem to feel responsible for their intellectual gifts, for their freedom from injury and disease, and for the fact that they were born at a specific moment in history. Many appear to have absolutely no awareness of how lucky one must be to succeed at anything in life, no matter how hard one works. One must be lucky to be able to work. One must be lucky to be intelligent, to not have cerebral palsy, or to not have been bankrupted in middle age by the mortal illness of a spouse.

Many of us have been extraordinarily lucky—and we did not earn it. Many good people have been extraordinarily unlucky—and they did not deserve it. And yet I get the distinct sense that if I asked some of my readers why they weren’t born with club feet, or orphaned before the age of five, they would not hesitate to take credit for these accomplishments.

It's a great point, though Harris would likely admit that we do have considerable power over what direction our health takes, up to a point. Nature can put one in a position where it is possible to succeed, but the individual still needs to follow through. Even though I might complain about a nagging foot injury here and there, or whatnot, I am indeed extraordinarily lucky to be able to run even as well as I can, and I feel a strong impulse to make the absolute most out of it that I can. This past Saturday I had an excellent 12.5-mile run on the Ohio and Erie Canal Towpath and was struck both with the beauty of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and of my fortune to be able to experience it on two feet. I ran far enough south from the city to hit a stretch with no nearby roads or industry - the only sound not made by nature was my running shoes striking the dirt and gravel of the Towpath. Is it ironic that I was the only one disturbing the tranquil scene I alone was enjoying? Perhaps, but it's not like the pulse of my footstrikes dulled the experience in any way, and I cannot fly (yet).

There have been times in my life that I was unable to run, and there will certainly again be at least one time in the future that I will not be able to, and that's why I'm starting to feel like anytime I can be running, I should be running. That morning I thought, forget going out and partying - it's not worth it if it means I can't be out here taking long runs and connecting with the outdoors.

That was almost certainly an overreaction - there will be times for partying, and not every Saturday is like this most recent one, a September day so perfect out that my imagination couldn't conjure an even hypothetical improvement upon the ambient conditions. But something about being out in Ohio's lone National Park made me want to take greater advantage both of that natural resource and of the 160-lb natural resource currently typing this article and increasing the 70% or so of it currently comprising water. I feel an obligation - not one of dread and unwanted responsibility, but rather of duty and opportunity.

I also realize that there are people who don't feel this way at all about running, people who have no interest in spending any amount of time without at least one of their feet on the ground. And that's fine - I feel the same way about skiing, for example, or golf, and there are people every bit as enthusiastic about the activities as I am about running. Even given my personal zeal for running, you should recognize that there are people way more into running than I am. I've never been one to dedicate myself full-on into any one pursuit, but there are people who do just that with running - if you don't believe me, you can volunteer or spectate at any local 5k.

The kind of people with that keen of an interest in running would probably be interested in something I recently discovered, an handy tool called an Age Grade Calculator. It takes your age, gender, and race time for a given distance, and gives you a number on a scale of 100 for that race, compared to world record times. Although it's a bit of a black box to me in terms of calculation, I think roughly it divides the world-record time by the time you post (and multiplies by one hundred). According to Runner's World, the breakdown of your Age Grade score is:

100% = Approximate World Record Level
Over 90% = World Class
Over 80% = National Class
Over 70% = Regional Class
Over 60% = Local Class

I don't exactly buy this, since I've cracked 60 in a few races and I don't place even at a local level, and as we'll see it's not a consistent guide across distances. Still, it's neat because it allows you to compare performance across races, through your own career, and against friends in different demographics. I entered my career-best times in and here's what I got:

5k: 64.5
10k: 62.8 (this was the Great Race, which gives lower times, so this is artificially high, but not by that much since I've come close to this time elsewhere)
10m: 61.7
Half-marathon: 60.6
Marathon: 53.2

The interesting thing to me is that by this metric, I appear to be more competitive at more modest distances, which would not have been my suspicion. I
thought the half-marathon I did in '09 was my best race ever, but not compared to the world's top competitors it wasn't. And I'd have to hammer out a 3:28 in the marathon to crack the 60 barrier, which is unreal because that's only a 1:44 split and 1:40 is not trivial for me to break in a half marathon even when I'm not doubling it up.

I think this decline in my Age Grades as the races get longer have more to do with my world-class peers than with my own work. After all, I'd have to put up a 3:15 marathon this year to match the Age Grade of my best 5k, and no one could possibly argue that those achievements are at the same level. The longer distances simply afford elite athletes more time to increase their advantage over Weekend Warriors like me. In a 5k, the best runners basically sprint the whole time, but I'm pretty close to full speed as well. In a marathon, of course, I back off my pace quite a lot, but those cats running 2:05's are still sprinting. Hence my 53.2.

I think it'd be neat if someone developed a way to normalize this calculation, divorcing it somewhat from world-record times and producing a metric that allows for more accurate comparison across races. Sure, some people are geared naturally more to shorter distances and others longer ones, but there's surely enough race data out there to smooth those out. I'd be interested in a corrected version of the Age Grade (already by itself a great concept), that really demonstrates to a runner what his or her prime event is.

Robocalls

2011-09-22T07:00:00.000-04:00

An easy pick for my "Things That Shouldn't Exist" series is robo-calls, which I define as any telephone call I receive where the first voice I hear on the other end is something other than a live human voice. I always take the exact same action when I get one of these: hang up immediately.

Are there people who actually listen to these calls? I know they're widespread in political campaigns, and have in fact received them myself near election season. I don't see how they can be effective, because I and presumably everyone else end the calls the second we hear the recorded voice, whether it's a politician we support or not.

There's something I find insulting about these calls, and I think it's that whoever's responsible clearly views my time as less valuable as theirs. No, they can't get someone to take the time to make the call, but I clearly have time to talk to their machines. Hmmm. One recent call that I've gotten several times now starts off with a guy saying "We're sorry we can't talk to you in person." Me too. Bye. I did hear a few more words of this one during one of the times they called, and they try to couch it in terms of trying to accommodate my busy schedule, but come on, let's drop the pretenses, can we?

I must admit, the fourth time I got this call, curiosity got the best of me and I listened to find out who it was, and it was Citi Cards. I have an old card that I keep as a backup and never use, though apparently a couple of iTunes songs I bought were charged to it even though I changed the card on that account. Either way, I owe them all of $7, $1 of which is from two 50-cent penalties for not using it in a month. Might be time to drop that one.

And it's not that I don't understand the economics of robocalls - obviously it's a lot cheaper than having a live person. Companies devise increasingly elaborate recorded greetings on their "customer service" lines solely because the costs (to them) are so much lower if the issue can be resolved without the customer dealing with an actual person. This I get, but it's different when I make the call and when I'm called by a robot.

My only regret is that the robo-caller can't feel my contempt when I hang up on him.

Blood, sweat, and chemicals

2011-09-21T07:00:00.000-04:00

Got me some physical examinations done last week, not because I'm ill or particularly have any interest in medical evaulation whatsoever, but because the friendly nurse here at work scheduled it for me and I didn't have a compelling reason to say no. I actually found the results rather amusing on a number of fronts, so I thought I'd hit a few of the highlights.

- I'm apparently down six pounds from when I started a little less than four years ago. I must have been wearing my lead jacket when I got that test done back in '07 or something. I'm also an inch shorter, though I suspect that had a little to do with measurement technique. I don't think I was moving at relativistic speeds while aboard the scale.

- The eye tests they give you involve you looking into a stereoscopic device and answering questions regarding the images. Like in '07, my right eye beat out my left for eye dominance; however, I believe the test to have a strong right eye bias. The reason is: it gets to go first.

While righty is spotting dimes and reading tiny letters, the left eye is closed and pressed up against the lens. Once lefty is up, everything is bound to look blurry. Even after a minute to straighten out, it was still tougher to see. I'm not entirely discounting the idea that one of my eyes is better, but I should have insisted that the second time around, the left one got to go first to correct for this potential bias.

- The hearing test is fun, mostly because it's a bit of a mind game between you and the nurse. You know she's switching up the patterns and frequencies, otherwise you'd just get in a groove and push the little button at regular intervals and it would look like you had super-hearing. The hardest part of this exam is that the room is so quiet that you have to hold your breath to be able to hear the quietest sounds.

- And then we have the fluids tests. Sweet Fancy Moses do they ever check for a lot of chemicals. Sixty-two, to be exact, which in my considered medical opinion strikes me as possibly a few too many. Honestly, what would really happen if my Absolute Basophils count ended up too high? Don't answer that. A few highlights from the panel:

- By far the greatest thing to show up on the entire list of results, including the two random blank pages at the end, was my iron level. It is higher than normal, which I am regarding as an unalloyed positive. It means that I am totally Metal. I may indeed be Iron Man. Even better, because Steel is iron and carbon, I am a Man of Steel. This is only true, of course, if you don't understand alloying.

- With such a broad palette of substances evaluated during the exam, a few are bound to pop out of range. For me, one was something comically named "bilirubin." If I've told my body once, I've told it a million times - stop making so much goddamn bilirubin. Honestly, what am I supposed to do with this knowledge? Wikipedia helpfully offers that, "There are no normal levels of bilirubin." Glad we cleared that up.

- My cholesterol was totally diesel, another data point in favor of vegetarianism. And my protein was on the high side of the normal range, so seriously, you can stop worrying about whether vegetarians get enough protein.

- My "EGFR African American" was 18 points higher than my "EGFR Non-Afr. American." So...there's that.

- With as many pretzels as I eat, my sodium should be so high that the test method simply cannot calibrate for it. This was not the case, fortunately.

- My pH is 5.5, towards the low end of the 5.5-8 range they specify. Thus you should feel justified in praising me for my acidic wit. Science joke!

- The "Bacteria" field says: "None Seen." Frankly, this means you didn't look hard enough, because like every other one of the bacteria farms we call animals, I've got millions of them camping out.

- The rest of the blood values are just straight gibberish. Who the hell sets these Reference Ranges anyway? How on Earth does a medical standards group arrive at 1500-7800 cells/mcl as the acceptable range for Neutrophils? Do you think there's some faction of the AMA that is absolutely incensed that it isn't 2000-8000 cells/mcl instead? I'd like to be a fly on the wall during those discussions.

I wonder if medical testing information like this isn't a reflection of the "too much data" syndrome that characterizes life in the Information Age. Thanks to these diagnostics, I know a lot about my body chemistry - way, way more than I need to know or can safely parse. Tests like these are inherently alarmist as well, because it seems highly unlikely that even the healthiest individuals won't fall out of bounds on at least a few measurements. Measurement precision alone ensures that. I know a lot more about myself, but I also feel like I know a lot less.

And I know that I'm Metal, but we already knew that.

IOU

2011-09-20T12:00:00.003-04:00

There's probably no easier political stance one can take in contemporary American politics than decrying the fiscal irresponsibility of the Federal government. It's comically easy. It's so easy, a caveman could do it, or perhaps a zombie, though the latter probably favors increased Federal spending on BRAINS research. And it's not entirely inaccurate - the government probably does spend too much, though those who criticize it most harshly routinely ignore everything positive it contributes to society.

They also, in many cases, don't have a lot of room to talk. Consider this snapshot of the average American family's finances, or the fact that according to this report in CNN Money, "the average American household with at least one credit card has nearly $10,700 in credit-card debt." How many of the same people that rail about the excesses of "Big Government" do you think have seriously mismanaged their own personal finances? I'm going to go out on a limb and say: a lot of them.

Of course, such a skewed perspective on finance is consistent of the American people, who in poll after poll demonstrate a strong demand for more government services and a strong aversion to actually paying for those services. Some might argue that the statistics presented above are a consequence of being overtaxed, which is, as Fareed Zakaria points out, not even kind-of true.

I'm not arguing that government can't or shouldn't spend its revenues more responsibly, nor am I making a statement about tax policy. I'm just saying that many of the people who castigate our leaders for their use of the public purse probably aren't particularly adept at administrating their own personal finances.

Christgau

2011-09-20T07:00:00.001-04:00

I can't remember if I've written before about Robert Christgau, the self-styled "Dean of American Rock Critics," but it might be time to back off that ridiculous title, given the html stylings of his website.

Somehow this guy's writing merits his inclusion in the little reviews box on Wikipedia, which makes no sense to me. Just for one example, check out his opinions on influential '90's stoner-rock pioneers Kyuss. Yep, we've got only one of their albums listed (no mention of their two best, Blues for the Red Sky and Welcome to Sky Valley), with no comment, and a little bomb icon next to it. I've learned so much!

Even his takes on major acts aren't particularly coherent. Writing about Pearl Jam, he offers a rating of ** (that's two asterisks) for Ten, the bomb for Vs (presumably the bomb is bad, though he offers no clarifying text and Vs is a classic), and an A- for Yield. How am I supposed to parse this?

Might be time for a new Dean. I nominate my man Stephen Thomas Erlewine of allmusic.

Flowchart

2011-09-19T08:30:00.000-04:00

PZ Myers at Pharyngula offers this helpful flowchart for religious belief:

The Single Most Important Holiday of the Year

2011-09-19T07:30:00.000-04:00

That's right, everyone...it's INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY! Yeargh!

Rhetoric

2011-09-15T07:00:00.005-04:00

The title of this post is a phrase that runs through my head with, I have noticed, increased frequency, and has even found its way, in various permutations, into my speech. Let me explain.

You see, in my younger, wilder days (which were not particularly wild), I was a bit more argumentative than I am now. To a certain extent, I imagine the history of TFB will reflect that. I'll still argue my points every bit as clearly and forcefully as I can, because I feel that I've reasoned my worldview very carefully by now, but I'm less prone to firing back quickly and having disagreements escalate. Instead, I find that I'm more often initially taken aback by the complete wrongness of things people (particularly public figures) say, and instead of provoking a quick response, it gives me pause.

I collect my wits, and while frowning the first thing I think, still a bit incredulously, is, "wait, you know that's stupid, right?" I'm usually too diplomatic to say that, but my mind, perhaps in a fit of often-undeserved charity, takes the default position of believing the speaker is aware of the low truth value of his or her statement and is saying it not for purposes of accuracy, but to achieve some rhetorical aim. I find that this first instinct is, more often than not, wrong.

Not surprisingly, statements of religious conviction or religiously-inspired policy appear the most frequently in this context in my mind, though certainly not exclusively so. In particular, anytime I read or hear someone denying evolution or some other clear, well-established fact, my default reaction is simply, "wait, but you do know that you're wrong and that your position makes no sense and runs counter to scores of years of research - don't you?" They don't. How else to explain an individual who affirms the existence of a mythical sky god based on -6 evidence while denying climate change, a real phenomenon affirmed by 98% of climate scientists and every major scientific body in the world?

It's not an especially useful debate tool, I must say, impolite as it is, just my first reaction. I only use it in situations where I know there's some comedic value, where less-than-important matters like music and sports are being discussed among friends.

Another though I experience, which I typically vocalize, is "do you really not understand ______?" Allow me to explain.

A common technique people use for voicing frustration is opening with "I don't understand [thing they do not like]..." More often than not, unlike in the first scenario I discussed, the person here does in fact understand the thing they are criticizing; they just don't approve of it. Inasmuch as I find this approach to a discussion a bit uncentered, I like to redirect the conversation with "wait, do you really not understand [topic]?" In those cases where the person genuinely doesn't, I can at times help them to understand, if I have some expertise, or at least we can brainstorm possibilities, which I find more productive than just throwing up one's hands in complaint. In the cases where the person is merely using the "I don't understand" rhetorical device, I find that my remark helps focus their generic complaint to more specific discussion points. I'm aware that this approach can be slightly needlesome on my point, but I think it's a useful tactic.

Lastly, I'm reminded here of a classic song by L7, one of my favorite overlooked '90's hard rock acts (weird - "Wargasm" by them just came on iTunes' shuffle). The song is called "The Masses Are Asses" and, well, that generally speaks for itself (so does "Wargasm," for that matter). But there's a line there that gets me:

And I wonder
If I have anything to say anymore
Oh yeah I wonder
If I have anything to say
Except the masses...are asses

it cuts two ways - it's both a pretty harsh blanket statement about the level of the national discourse, but also sharp self-criticism in that the singer takes herself to task for not having anything more insightful or constructive to say than "the masses are asses." I like the caution there - it would be easy to lapse into a sort of generally unproductive "fuck everyone" kind of mindset both in conversation and in a forum like TFB - but the simple act of reflecting upon whether one actually has anything value-added to contribute keeps that at bay. I think I have more to say than that, so I'm going to keep writing.

Apropos of nothing, an image of PaRappa the Rapper

2011-09-14T07:00:00.001-04:00

Jedi

2011-09-13T07:00:00.001-04:00

I enjoyed the results of the 2001 England/Wales census, especially where respondents were asked their religion. The results:

Christian: 70.0%
No religion: 14.7%
Chose not to respond: 7.8%
Muslim: 3.1%
Hindu: 2.1%
Jedi: 0.7%

Jedi! I didn't get the US long form (do we even have one?) and wasn't asked this question, but I like the idea of writing down Jedi. Or Pastafarian, for that matter. I like that the Brits took this to the point where, awesomely,

"The Office of National Statistics revealed the total figure in a press release entitled '390,000 Jedis there are'".

One MP, Jamie Reed, even declared himself a Jedi on the floor of Parliament, making a point about a proposed bill about racial and religious tolerance. Naturally,

"The Conservative Member of Parliament for Beaconsfield, Dominic Grieve, sought to exclude Jedi Knights explicitly from the protection of the proposed act."

Congratulations, Dominic Grieve - you are the most humorless individual in the Realm!

Some atheists might contend that this sort of behavior is somewhat counterproductive to the atheist movement because the people answering "Jedi" instead of "atheist" or "no religion" lower the reported percentage of those often-marginalized groups and allow people to understate the population of the non-religious.

I have to disagree. For one, pretty much anyone who answers Jedi on a survey of this sort can safely be counted amonf the nonreligious. For two, sometimes a little satire goes farther than being straightforward. A gain of 0.7% on the "No religion" entry probably wouldn't change the way the UK government conducts this survey, but the "Jedi" piss-taking (British term!) puts a spotlight on the silliness of the census asking citizens' religion.

GrafTech

2011-09-12T08:00:00.000-04:00

Really nice video about my company here from WKYC.

German sexcapades

2011-09-10T17:00:00.000-04:00

While attending a conference last weekend in Hamburg, Germany, I stayed in a hostel/hotel (their sign literally said "A/O Hostel/Hotel") on a street called Reeperbahn, which I only later realized was one of Europe's most well-known red-light districts. I picked it because it was close to the convention center - because the decision to send me there was made relatively late, my options were few. Staying in this area of Hamburg was certainly a bit of a strange experience.

My joint was, as one might expect for a semi-hotel retailing for just € 52 a night, not exactly the Four Seasons. The room was a bit small and, in a first for me in my hotel career, didn't have a phone. This wouldn't normally be a problem, except that in Europe my DROID turns into a fancy watch and contacting my colleagues became a non-trivial enterprise. But as for the room, who cares? I don't need a nice room - I need a place with a bed, a bathroom, and Internet, and that's about it. Marginal dollars (or euros) spent on a hotel have seriously diminishing returns in my view. I'd be content with that place anytime.

Those of you who are big Beatles aficionados might recognize Hamburg and the Reeperbahn as the place the Fab Four spent some of their formative years. And...we're moving on.

The sheer volume of sex stores, strip clubs, and prostitutes on the small stretch of the street that I frequented on my way to my coworkers' hotels and the conference was simply staggering. One morning, I counted 17 sex shops and 6 casinos on the half-mile walk or so to the end of the street. And that's just on one side of the road! I wonder what the 17th operator was thinking when he decided to open up his place - "you know what would go great here? A porno theater!" You'd think they'd want to fan out and canvas the city a little better, but apparently not.

Walking down the street at night was interesting - much like Simon in Castlevania, I was faced with all sorts of additional creepy creatures once the sun went down, most notably the barkers advertising the strip clubs and the prostitutes advertising...well, themselves. I fended most of them off with "I don't speak German," though in retrospect I should have said it in Spanish because most Germans (even porno barkers) speak English pretty well. I thought of quite a few analogies for what it was like dodging weirdo traffic on my way down the sidewalk. Here are a couple of favorites.

- It was a lot like Paperboy. You're crusing down the street and all sorts of strange people and animals (in this case, the dog owned by pretty much every one of the homeless street punks) come out and interfere with your trip. The guys who physically walked out and blocked my path to tell me about the naked frauleins inside were the strangest of all. Yeah, I saw your place - now get the fuck out of my way. To finish the Paperboy analogy, you'd think I chucked a paper through the window of every place on the street.

Incidentally, I once played a perfect game of Paperboy, which is amazing (and a bit lucky), if I do say so myself.

- The part in Airplane where Robert Stack keeps getting accosted by religious zealots in the airport and has to fight them one by one to pass.

- The episode of Chappelle's Show where Dave is walking along in the Internet and encounters all sorts of strange salesmen along the way, most peddling sex.

Speaking of peddling sex, then there were the ladies of the Herbertstraße, an area where street prostitution is OK. Either that, or the little red walls (shown at right) are a completely insoluble mystery for the Hamburg Polizei. I elected to take a stroll down this street on my last evening there, mostly in the interest of cultural experience, and partially because Guinness tastes better in Europe than in the US.

It's a weird little street. They have all of these glass storefronts like any commercial-oriented street, except instead of clothes, furniture, or food in the front, each window has a whore sitting behind it. They all looked pretty relaxed, just sitting there, some of them chatting with co-whores, seemingly unconcerned with business. That is, until you walk past them, when most of them kick the glass to get your attention, as if you hadn't noticed them. "What's that noise? Hey look, a whore!" Needless to say, my walk down this block was for educational purposes only, and I quickly repaired back to my hotel.

So what lesson did we learn? Any time you head to Europe, run a quick Wikipedia search just to find out if the area you're staying is the porno district. And if it's not, book a room that is :)

The tipping point

2011-09-04T07:00:00.003-04:00

How much should I tip?

Most of us face this question fairly regularly in our lives, and I'm guessing most of us adhere more or less to the generally-accepted American guidelines for gratuities; $1 for a drink at the bar and 15-20% on top of a dinner tab. Yes, I know there are other factors, like whether you frequent a place, if the percentage is pre- or post-tax, if the service was actually good, but this is a typical starting point. Also, I need to make a few bullet points before we advance to the body of this argument:

- I hate the "gratuity included" for large groups. It's not a fucking gratuity if you're including it as part of my bill.

- I learned the other day that servers don't like it if you tip like $2.58 on a $12.42 bill so your amount works out to a round figure. Too bad.

- It always helps to have a tip calculator like Morty Seinfeld's.

- We won't be talking here about the merits of tipping in general or why certain professions receive tips and others don't. Reservoir Dogs already did that, and we're talking here only about food service.

Anyway, I've decide that a flatter approach to tip calculation is warranted. Consider these two scenarios:

Scenario A: You go to breakfast at a greasy spoon, each of you get the $2 breakfast and waters.

Scenario B: You go to a fancy restaurant, each order $20 entrees and split a $20 bottle of wine. I have no idea how much wine costs, sorry, that seems like a lot.

What sort of tips should Server A (Alice) and Server B (Becky) expect? Well, Alice probably has $2 coming her way, while Becky has $10 coming her way. This despite the fact that the two women have performed the exact same duties. Does that seem fair? And if not, what's the right value? Probably most would agree somewhere in the middle of these two examples; Alice clearly got shorted while Becky didn't provide $10 worth of value-add.

I would suggest that a more equitable way to determine gratuity is for each diner assign values to various acts of service, and tip the server that amount, regardless of the price of the food and drink you receive. For example, a round of drinks is $1, each entree brought is $2, etc. Obviously you should feel free to adjust your final amount based on the server's competence and disposition, though the idea of reducing a waitress' bonus for subpar food never struck me as a well-targeted application of justice.

What do you think - is this a more fair compensation structure?

Time Cube

2011-09-02T07:00:00.001-04:00

This actually exists.

Cleveland Challenge!

2011-09-01T07:00:00.010-04:00

This Sunday, Kim and I had the distinct pleasure of participating in the 1st Cleveland Challenge, presented by Challenge Nation. It was basically a scavenger hunt around Downtown Cleveland, which seemed right up our alley because it involved running, figuring out puzzles, and navigating my home neighborhood. Let's do this.

It was a fairly unique concept for a competition. You assemble your crew of at least two people. Each team is given a sheet consisting of 12 clues of locations and tasks to do throughout the downtown area. Smartphones are allowed, and in fact recommended. You have to complete 11 of the 12 tasks (in any order) and bring back photographic evidence of everyone on the team completing all of the tasks. This means no splitting up, which means bigger teams generally face a handicap because you can only complete the course as quickly as your slowest participant. No cars, bikes, rollerskates, etc (the rules also jokingly specify: no camels, helicopters, or hoverboards) - just your own two feet, plus two for each additional team member.

I was a bit worried before about how we'd do - I saw that 112 teams comprising 465 people had signed up, and wondered how many of them would be hardcore fit athletes with topographic maps and sextants who would orienteer the shit out of us. Our team, Vaquero and His Vaquitas (Cowboy and His Little Cows - me and the girls Kim and Vaca) might struggle to compete a bit.

Then I saw a team walk in dressed as pirates and ordered myself a pre-race PBR. Check out the photo gallery if you're interested.

You can follow our adventure using this Google map I constructed. I listed our tasks in order of completion (not the order on the sheet) at the left sidebar. Kim got the envelope at 2 pm and...we're off!

1) Within 30 yards of OHP's cannon and a likeness of a Clevelander that got Hitler's goat in '36...
Home-course advantage for me here, a benefit of running over 1000 miles downtown - I knew immediately that we should hurry to the Jesse Owens statue just a few blocks away. I thought we could get a photo quickly there to beat the rush, then sit for a minute and plan a route.

It took me until after the race to figure out that OHP was Oliver Hazard Perry, even though I wrote an authoritative report on the man in 8th grade. Let's have the rest of the clue:

you'll find a tribute to an unlikely figure in public life: a prosecutor. When you find it, look down at a familiar outline. In this photo, have your team put one foot per teammate in a circle around your single favorite spot in the county
I stomped on Downtown and Kim staked out Ohio City, and a nice fellow in a Packers shirt grabbed our photo - you can see our friend, Prosecutor...never actually got his name...in the background. I was a bit worried that the official would be overly technical about the photo requirements, but he wisely went with the spirit of his rules instead of the strict letter. I mean, you can't see our feet, but we are clearly standing in the right spot. I dunno, big ups to the organizer for being smart about this. I can't say enough about how well-run this race was.

We were fortunate to get this photo when we did. A security lady told us that we couldn't be there as we were taking the picture, something related to the ongoing Francis-soul-destroying filming of The Avengers, I think. We told her that about 450 more people were going to be rolling her way and she said, "that's going to be a problem." I though, "for you, maybe," and left with my photo. We sat on a nearby bench to plan strategy and saw two Grade A asshole security guards start to brusquely clear out other race participants. kbye!

2) I am one of just 10 out of 32 that don't have a corporate name.
Browns Stadium. Fuck strategy, let's run on down the hill!

And speaking of names, outside me you'll find approximately 200 pavers that have been named - why else would they carve names into them? Once you find them, search for a name that matches a first or last name among your team OR and US President, Governor, Representative, or Senator
I located a "Kimberly" and had some people snap a photo (we reciprocated, of course). Boom!

3) Find ANY of these random (and we do mean random) items: a time capsule, a person wearing overalls, or an out of state license plate with the letters D, X, B, or N.

I think the word you want is "arbitrary," but that's OK. The first two seemed like real longshots - I haven't seen a time capsule since that episode of Parks and Recreation - so we checked all the license plates near CBS, the Rock Hall, and the Science Center, until Kim spotted a Kansas plate with "X." By the way, you haven't really lived until you've strafed streets with a partner scouring license plates while carrying a small stuffed cow, mini-backpack, and two smartphones.

At this point I decided in favor of self-photographing whenever possible, in order to conserve time, avoid troubling other people, and save myself the aggravation of teaching everyone how to use a DROID phone.

4) Everyone knows the biggest stamp in town can't be found at the post office, so we won't make that clue
The lame Free Stamp. Wouldn't have changed our route at all.

but instead, find the most appropriate spot to rock out with your team nearby. We're looking for your best 80's hair band impression in this photo.
The perils of self-photography - I cut off myself giving the Ronnie James Dio metal devil horns. Damnit. Cool view of the Hall behind us, though. I made us climb up on this stone platform for the shot - it just seemed like a metal thing to do.

Looking through the Challenge Nation wrap-up, it appears that he meant the big guitar near the free stamp, but the Rock Hall is also nearby and seems an appropriate spot to rock out, no? He wisely counted the Hall as well, given the ambiguity of the question.

5) We promise you'll interact with a few folks for this one - find a friendly stranger who hails from a state that starts with the letter L, M, G, S, V, or P. Have them prove it by taking the picture with them and the top of their drivers license and then all of you should approximately form the shape of their home state with your (and their) arms.
Thank goodness Kim is more of an extrovert than me and didn't mind harassing people for this one. The first group we found were from California - when we declined, the lady said, "what's wrong with Calfornia?" We explained the letter thing and moved on. We headed up the hill - Indiana, Russia, Germany...wait, I thought, Germany has states! Markus here hails from Saxony, which indeed starts with an S. It's a bingo! Turns out he was staying in the hotel co-located with my apartment. Thanks, dude! We totally forgot the state-shape thing, but whatever, Saxony kinda looks like us, or else it doesn't - it's not like you know.

6) Like most Americans, we're amused that professional athletes and wealthy team owners in several pro sports have found it tough lately to agree just how many gazillions of dollars they'll make from the average fan. But for this clue, find any stranger (non-Challenger, that is) wearing any professional sports gear from any team in any league EXCEPT Cleveland teams. BUT: you can't throw a hat on someone in a sports store, and this person cannot fulfill any other clue's goal. Snap a photo with them mimicking a play from the sport they're rocking
I'm very sharply attuned to and much-experienced in noticing (and typically expressing disdain for) out-of-town sports gear. In fact, my first thought was, "ugh, the Bulls." But wait! We need this guy!

So we stopped, and I said, "hey Bulls Hat Guy!" and explained the rules, and got easily our best picture of the contest. I think he's acting out Shaq's post-alley-oop celebration from one of the Lakers' Finals, or maybe Jordan's famous tongue-out thing, appropriate given his choice of team. I still hate the Bulls, but well done, Bulls Hat Guy.

7) We looked up and down all five levels of this place - we couldn't find Pac-Man, Asteroid, or Space Invaders anywhere - frankly we think it's false advertising! Once there, have your team pose on the bridge connecting the sides of the first level. Capture as much of the huge American flag in the photo as you can.
What, no Contra or RC Pro-Am? Never mind - to the Arcade! I'm not going to lie to you - I never saw the American Flag that was supposed to be in this shot even though presumably it's right in front of me as I snap this shot. Oh well. "As much as you can" was apparently none for Vaquero and His Vaquitas. Count it!

8) Unscramble this POTUS anagram to find a famous person's name: HAIRBALL CONMAN. Once you've got it figured out, find the statue of him standing over a famous address. Once there, take a photo with your team and a number visible that's one less than the number of runs the Indians scored last night.
I figured only wonky types like me would know the acronyms "POTUS" (President of the United States) and "SCOTUS" (Supreme Court of the United States).

This anagram had me thinking (while running) for longer than I'd like to admit - I kept trying to think of Ohio presidents until I got Lincoln and remembered that he's pretty much a demigod in the whole United States. OK, maybe not the South. Hell, I even saw a statue of the guy in Oslo, Norway. And yes, the "famous address" thing should have been a giveaway, but the tacked-on Indians-themed part of this exercise had me thinking of places near Progressive Field. Classic overthink. The race organizers used the very first Lincoln anagram from The Internet Anagram Server, whose name awesomely rearranges to "I, Rearrangement Servant." I guess HAIRBALL CONMAN was better than ANAL RANCH LIMBO, according to me, FANCY DRAINS, author of CHAFING LOBSTER.

I did finally solve it (sans anagram machine), and then realized I'd never seen an Abraham Lincoln statue downtown. Fortunately, Kim happened to see a bunch of people standing right by one, so there you go. That was a freebie. The Indians won 8-7 the night before, thus I'm displaying the "7" on my race number to fulfill the photo requirement.

Did I mention I was number 187? Snoop would have been so proud.

9) They sort of dug up all the green space for the convention center construction project, so for this clue we've chosen Lake Erie as our natural backdrop instead. Find any railing that overlooks the lake but includes a windmill in view - the more picturesque, the better. Spell O-H-I-O with your team in the photo. Two person team? We accept creativity for this one.
We actually should have had this one finished back when we saw Markus, but I had forgotten the part where you need to spell O-H-I-O. This time we got it (on a different railing, spotted alertly by Kim), with Kim and I providing the O's and Vaca approximating H-I. Fortunately, we had a three-person team and didn't need to get creative. Only two more to go!

We only semi-planned the route we took, but even with full hindsight I wouldn't change very much about the path we traveled. I'd get the lake/windmill/O-H-I-O shot on the first try and then head more directly towards Honest Abe (and hope we spotted another out-of-town sports fan, but it wouldn't have made a huge difference in our time. As it stood, both of our final remaining destinations were right by Public Square.

10) Like a wedding superstition, this clue involves something old and something new: find either a a building that predates 1900 OR was finished and occupied during 2010 or 2011. This clue's objective cannot overlap with any other clue.
So much for double-counting the Arcade, built in 1890.

So... is 1820 old enough for you? Kim was dead on with the Old Stone Church. There were surprisingly few pre-1900 buildings Downtown, as I noticed while looking on the walk back after the race. A lot of Cleveland's construction was from the 1910's and 1920's, back when we were a major metropolis and such.

11) The Bard says "All the world's a stage" in As You Like It, but instead, it looks like in this case Cleveland has become the world stage, literally
Figuratively.

Find the corner of this important civic space that's been turned into Stuttgart, Germany for the filming of The Avengers. Once there, get as close as possible to one of the "German" elements and then act out any recognizable movie scene with your team and at least one stranger.
In case you didn't know, they're filming The Avengers in Downtown Cleveland, as they have been for most of August. No, not the British '60's spy show - the superhero team movie with Thor, Iron Man, the Hulk, Captain America, and whatever else. This might be a good time to interrupt this adventure race for a vicious tirade. I'll wait.

And...we're back! But what movie scene to act out? I first thought of several scenes from Star Wars, none of which I could think how to act out in a single frame without an X-wing or taun-taun handy, so I settled on the Mexican Standoff from Reservoir Dogs. This guy was a good sport about participating. None of us know who shot Nice Guy Eddie.

11/12 complete! We zipped on over to the finish and discovered that we'd placed...second, in just over 52 minutes. Out of 112 teams. Don't believe me? Check out the results. It says that something called "Team CLEVEage" tied us at 52:18, which is simply not true at all. There was no one near us at all when we finished, until about a minute later when the Not-Girlfriend Club showed up. No idea what "Team CLEVEage" is, and trust me, it sounds like something I'd remember. Plus they didn't get announced dring the prizes. I wonder if maybe they got 1:52:18 or something and got bumped to second place via typo. Who knows. And who cares? We have the $100.

Not a bad showing at all from the dynamic duo, considering Kim hammered out a 15-mile run the day before and I was still recovering from several unpleasant days of an ugly summer cold. The first-place guys, a couple of dudes from Akron who we talked with for a while, had beaten us by seven minutes, so I didn't mind our little detours since it didn't cost us a place.

And yes, I voted for the Pirates in the costume contest. What can I say, I love pirates. Sorry, team dressed as three knights and a dragon, maybe next time. Thanks again to the Challenge Nation staff (basically one friendly fellow who was extremely patient at answering questions about his business model) for putting on such a quality event.

Blistering, unfiltered hatred towards The Avengers

2011-09-01T06:59:00.000-04:00

The Avengers is filming in Downtown Cleveland. Here is how I feel about it.

Fuck the Avengers, fuck Nick Fury, fuck Thor, fuck Iron Man, fuck Captain America, and fuck the Hulk. All of you, get the hell out of my city and stop blocking all of the main routes downtown just so you can film your stupid, lame-ass movie based on comic books written for 13-year-olds. And speaking of 13-year-olds, I don't even know what to think of the adults who creep around the perimeter of the street hoping to catch a glimpse of Hollywood magic. You're pathetic. You're even worse than those nimrod man-children who stalk the player's lot four hours before Indians games.

Haven't we had enough superhero movies already? Isn't anyone else tired of these stupid things yet? Can we go back to making cool movies occasionally? Mark my words, I will NEVER see this movie or any movie involving any of its protagonists. I'm considering trashing my copy of Iron Man. I hate The Avengers with a white-hot, michigan/steelers/yankees level of passion. I hope this movie flops and destroys the career of everyone involved, especially whoever picked my neighborhood as a backdrop.

Things That Shouldn't Exist: Wedding Registries

2011-08-30T07:00:00.005-04:00

Now, hold on, a second. Surely I'm not against the time-honored tradition of a wedding registry, am I? Well, yes, actually.

I'm also against the idea of a wedding cake. Why a cake? Why is this a tradition? Who wants to eat cake after a few solid hours of drinking? Why isn't it the tradition a Wedding Pretzel, or Wedding Giant Block of Cheese? No one ever consults me on these important cultural decisions.

I'll grant that, at a certain time in history, this idea made a lot of sense (we're back to the registry - the cake never made sense). That time in history was many years ago, back when people typically got married in their late teens and early twenties, and after tying the knot, struck out on their own as independent adults for the first time as a newlywed couple. These people needed stuff with which to fill their new home, having up to that point lived with their families. I get this.

But now, people don't generally follow this timeline. Most people get married in their late twenties (or later), by which time they've already been on their own for a while and typically accumulated all the stuff they need - too much in many cases. When people get married, then, the process of fusing both individuals' belongings should produce a whole bunch of extra unneeded stuff, since both the bride and groom each have their own plates, towels, and copy of the Doors' Greatest Hits.

So why should they wish to have more stuff to mark the occasion of the wedding? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Aren't they already swimming in duplicates? It makes more sense to me to instead have a big auction (a Wedding Deregistry?) of all the redundant stuff you'll no longer need, and give the proceeds to some charity or else add to the Wedding Booze Fund. I'm pretty sure Bed, Bath, and Beyond just put out a bounty for me.

Obviously this is going to make me look cheap, and I've admitted as much on several occasions. But it's not really that - I'm happy to throw some cash into the wedding party/honeymoon fund - I just find it odd that newlyweds still rake in all this stuff when in the modern world they don't really need it.

Kidding!

2011-08-29T17:00:00.001-04:00

I definitely can't keep up with Michele Bachmann's record pace of idiotic statements, or else blogging would quickly become an all-consuming endeavor, but I think it's fair to highlight select ones. Her remarks post-Irene were stupid even by her amazing standards:

"I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?'...Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we've got to rein in the spending."

I don't know how much Michele Bachmann has to do to convince the electorate that she's undeserving of their vote. This is just batshit insane, and even got some blowback for its ridiculousness and insensitivity. What did the campaign have to say?

"Of course she was saying it in jest," Alice Stewart, spokeswoman for Bachmann's campaign, told Reuters.

Of course? This is a woman who is constantly saying crazy things, bizarre things about God, things very much like what she just said, and we're supposed to somehow know that of course it was a joke. Right. I bet all the people who lost property and the families of the 39 people who died in the Hurricane think that bit of jest was fucking hilarious.

Big 3

2011-08-27T07:00:00.003-04:00

What a crew of "candidates" the Republicans have come out with in the 2012 Presidential Race! They're currently down to three contenders, but let's first review the wider field.

Jon Huntsman
This guy can't seem to gain any traction, even though he clearly has his brain in far better order than at least two of the major contenders. I give Huntsman giant points for his recent tweet:

"To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy."

Jon, I will call you the best that side has to offer. It's kind of unbelievable that only one of the like 10 national GOP candidates is able to accept the basic, well-established body of scientific fact underlying all of biological science. Yeah, that's too much to ask for most national leaders.

As an aside, one of the issues I'm facing as my blog gets up there in years is that I've already taken a lot of my best ideas. For example, everytime I see one of those nitwits deny evolution, I want to scramble to TFB and point out that anyone who doesn't accept the fact of evolution is an idiot. But I already did that. It's still true, though - you are an idiot if you don't accept evolutionary theory. Sorry.

Herman Cain
Just kidding.

Tim Pawlenty
This guy's unjustified ambition always irked me a little bit - who are you, and why do you think this is how you should be spending your time? His late-stage attacks on Obama were almost comical, especially the "Experience Matters" ads he ran attacking Obama's "Zero Experience, Zero Ideas", apparently forgetting that he had to win the GOP primary first.

And "zero experience"? Pawlenty is fairly obsessed with his own work as governor of Minnesota, but among his other career highlights (like US Senator), Obama has actually been President of the United States for over two and a half years now. Isn't that, at minimum, non-zero experience? Isn't it somewhat relevant to the job of...President of the United States? Even leaving politics completely out of it here, this statement is bracing in its inaccuracy. Bye, Tim.

I don't feel like dealing with Ron Paul, though he should make an appearance here next week, nor Newt Gingrich and his army of ghost Twitter followers.. And that leaves us with the titular Big 3, or as The Onion more accurately puts it, Two Mentally Ill People, Person Who Lost Nomination Last Time.

Michele Bachmann
There isn't too much I can say that her op-ed in The Onion hasn't already. Seriously, there's no better source of election coverage than The Onion.

Fortunately, there are a few things Matt Taibbi can add.

It's just weird to me that someone this obviously and proudly ridiculous can be considered a major candidate for the world's most powerful office, though as Richard Dawkins notes in his brilliant Wahington Post essay, for major Republican candidates, "Ignorance and lack of education are positive qualifications, bordering on obligatory." The things she believes, the things she says - almost every individual I know personally is more intellectually competent than this woman, yet here she is front-running the GOP race. It just staggers me. I mean, almost literally every day, she says something so stupid that, if one of your friends said it, you would mock him or her mercilessly. Guaranteeing <$2 gasoline. Fretting about the rise of the Soviet Union. Conflating John Wayne and John Wayne Gacy. Unreal.

The crazy part is that her constant (and at times willful) inaccuracy only emboldens her, only seems to strengthen her drive and the support of her base. If you're a Michele Bachmann supporter, there is simply nothing she can say that is factually inaccurate enough for you to question her acumen. There is apparently no minimum intelligence you seek in a candidate, so long as that person supports your political views. I can kind of understand some of the support their other candidates get, but I simply can't make work in my mind the idea that people want to be led by a person with no apparent understanding of...anything. I want us to be better than this.

Rick Perry
is not what I had in mind when I said better. He brings almost the same idiocy quotient to the table as Bachmann, but with a special bonus of douchebag swagger. Where to begin? How about his ridiculous comments about the Federal Reserve?

Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous or treasonous in my opinion.
Well then your opinion is wrong and maybe you shouldn't be running for public office. Treacherous and treasonous aren't synonymous. Go hold another unconstitutional prayer rally - maybe that'll help.

But Perry also declined earlier to say whether or not he believes the current president loves America. "You need to ask him," he said.
First off, great fucking question. Get that reporter whatever the highest award is they give for investigative journalism. Second, why not just say, yes, of course he does, we just differ on how to best govern. Nah, that'd be too grown-up.

He went on to say that promoters of such an idea — hinting but not naming Fed chief Ben Bernanke specifically — would get an "ugly" treatment in his home state of Texas.
So you'd execute them like you do everyone else? Great idea. How is this guy a viable candidate? How can you desire to be led by a man who prays for rain and hyperbolically labels people who set monetary policy as treasonous and not-so-subtly hints at violence? Presidential!

I'm also quite impressed with Perry's advocacy of states' rights, especially the Federal bans he supports on abortion and gay marriage. If he wants those stupid things, fine, he can make his platform whatever he wants. But he can't have it both ways, parroting the 10th Amendment repeatedly (which he does even on matters like immigration that are clearly delegated to Washington) while using the national government to impose his social agenda. Consistency.

As you'd expect, Perry is really strong on science, evidenced by his recent charming discussion with a youth about evolution> Some highlights:

"Evolution is a theory that's out there"
"And I do not understand what the word 'theory' means in scientific parlance, nor do my supporters, so I use it as a perjorative."

"It's got some gaps in it,"
No it doesn't.

"but in Texas we teach both creationism and evolution.
Actually, despite your packing of the school board with morons...no, you don't. Nice try!

And the kicker, responding to the boy's mother's interjection to ask Perry 'why he doesn't believe in science', Perry offers:

"...because I figured you're smart enough to figure out which one is right."
Even though your state's governor isn't! This is so annoyingly condescending. Kids are indeed smart enough to grasp facts when they're taught them, but it's really, really hard when adults you trust (and elected officials) are constantly giving you mixed messages.

Damn, Perry is exhausting - I rounded up all of these links from only about two days of headlines. That's a lot of inane things to say in such a short period of time. These people must be really busy.

Thankfully, stories like Gov. Rick Perry mines Texas system to raise cash: Republican's administration has doled out grants, tax breaks, contracts and appointments to hundreds of his most generous supporters and their businesses don't need much extra commentary.

Fortunately, Perry staunchly refuses to back down from any of his comments, no matter how factually incorrect, inconsistent, or crazy. Should be a fun primary season!

Mitt Romney
I kind of feel bad for this guy, probably (with Huntsman) the only even vaguely reasonable candidates on the slate. Not only has he seen most of his lead as front-runner evaporate thanks to his two headline-grabbing competitors, but he's going to have to spend most of his time on the trail campaigning against one of his most significant and successful accomplishments, Massachusetts' health care reform, for no other reason than it was the model for the modest Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed at the Federal level. Have fun, Willard!

Bank of America, fighting for you!

2011-08-26T07:00:00.004-04:00

Got a fun call today from Bank of America, the financial wizards currently administering my company's Corporate Travel Cards, one of which I hold and use for, yes, travel. They discovered some potentially fraudulent charges and wanted to make sure that I'd actually made the purchases. Um...OK.

The charges in dispute were a train ticket ($135) between two European cities and several nights in a hotel in one of those cities, at a fairly economical $75 an evening. Couple of things here.

- Yes, I charged those. What the hell kind of anti-fraud algorithm does this bank use that flags low-cost travel purchases made on a Corporate Travel Credit Card? What, exactly, are you expecting me to be using this card for?

- Somehow, BoA seems to have not noticed the flight that I also charged this morning, a flight landing in one of the cities (not the one where I got the hotel, hence the train) that cost about eight times the other two expenses combined. Oops!

- I work for an international company - in fact, we have a facility in the city where I booked the lodging. This small detail seems to have escaped the geniuses in BoA's anti-fraud department.

I wasn't nearly this sarcastic with the lady on the phone because it's more fun to criticize faceless, anonymous incompetence than harangue the people dispatched to inform me of said incompetence. I told her, yes, I made those reservations, though in retrospect I should have inquired why on Earth they saw fit to red-flag what was, once again, and I cannot stress this enough, a routine travel expense on a corporate travel card.

The kicker? They shrewdly elected to put a hold on my card after my train expense showed up, so my hotel reservation no longer exists. I didn't even bother to ask if they would simply tell the hotel, "hey, it's OK, go ahead and ring it up" because of course they wouldn't.

Nope, Francis gets that task. Bonjour!

James Brown, Grammarian

2011-08-25T08:00:00.001-04:00

"How ya doin'?"
"I'm good."

"How ya doin'?"
"I'm well."

Which of these do you prefer? I'm going with the first, and not just because the second makes you seem like you're trying too hard.

Consider how "good" and "well" are used in American Language, the language we speak here in America. "Well" is an adverb, meaning it's a word that modifies verbs. I ran well, she speaks well, they play well. "Good" is an adjective, meaning it modifies nouns. Football is good. Pretzels are good. Kill Bill was good.

Did you notice something about each of those sentences I constructed? They all had, as their verb, a form of "to be," the state verb in English. In fact, any time you use "good" properly, it will be in a sentence where the main verb is "to be" or one of its many variants. In fact, a useful way to think about an adjective is as a special case of adverb that modifies just one verb: "to be." Frankly, I don't know if this is correct, but I can't think of a counterexample (where "good" does not modify "to be") outside of former Cleveland Indians manager Charlie Manuel. ("We hit good, pitched good, played good.")

Let's return now to our original question, "how ya doin'?" Seems to me that the correct response is, "I'm good." Of course, if you employ a different verb in your answer, you might instead go with "I'm doing well." Now we're not using "to be" anymore, even though you're not technically "doing" anything other than "being." So I'd still go with "good" because the "doing" here is more colloquial than action-oriented.

But alas, it's not so simple. "Well" can also be used as an adjective, describing the state ("to be" once again) of one's health. So saying "I am well" is using "well" adjectively (why not?) in the more health-specific sense of the word.

But wait! Can't we use "good" there once again, i.e "my health is good"? I say yes, we can. And besides, when someone inquires politely for your morning status update, they're not looking for a medical report. They just want to know if you're good or not. I sincerely hope this is the case.

At the very least, I think my semantic shell game has sown enough doubt that people who might otherwise fall hardline into one or the other camp would allow either one to slide, as would I with "well." But I'll keep the non-pretentious high ground by telling you that I'm good.