Lieberman falls in primary

So, the Democrats managed to do it. They have essentially shunned one of their own, Sen. Joe Lieberman, and for one reason only: he has expressed support for the war in Iraq. This is a man who in nearly every other situation supports his party, but on one issue decided to go against the party grain. He is still ideologically a Democrat, just a Democrat who happens to support an ongoing war.

This was apparently too great a sin for the Democratic party and the Democratic voters in Connecticut, and it appears to me that they are not satisfied with the already prevalent divisiveness of the war. They are still working hard to undermine the war effort.

NFL Passer Rating

The game of football as it is played in the NFL has evolved, and no aspect has evolved more so than the passing game. Simply put, they are far more efficient now. The result is that the quarterbacks who fill the list of top career passer ratings have disproportionately recent careers.

Fortunately, I found a site called databaseFootball.com, which you can find here. For each and every quarterback, they have two ratings, labelled RAT and RAT+. RAT is the quarterback's passer rating for a season. RAT+ is the quarterback's passer rating for a season compared to the league average. Because the league average changes from year to year, there is no career number given for RAT+. However, it can be calculated.

First off, there are two ways to calculate a quarterback's career RAT. The easy way is to use the formula using his career stats. The other, harder, and much longer way goes as follows: look at a quarterback's RAT and attempts for every season, multiply the two for each year and sum them together, then divide by career attempts.

Example

We'll use a hypothetical two year career, which goes as follows.
First season: 57 completions on 100 attempts for 626 yards with 4 touchdowns and 4 interceptions. The resulting RAT is 72.3.
Second season: 59 completions on 111 attempts for 650 yards with 4 touchdowns and 5 interceptions. The resulting RAT is 64.0.
Career: 116 completions on 211 attempts for 1,276 yards with 8 touchdowns and 9 interceptions. The resulting RAT is 68.0, when you plug in his career statistics.

You will also get 68.0 when you use the long way: 72.3 times 100 (which is 7230) plus 64.0 times 111 (which is 7104). Sum 7230 and 7104 to get 14334, then divide by 211 career attempts. The resulting number: 67.9. The difference is just 0.02646. So both methods work to produce almost identical numbers.

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Unfortunately, there is only one way to calculate RAT+: the long way. For each season, multiply the quarterback's RAT+ and attempts. Then sum these products together, and divide by career attempts. Using the numbers found on databaseFootball.com, here is the list for top 10 career RAT+

1. Sid Luckman, 158
2. Sammy Baugh, 153
3. Otto Graham, 140
4. Len Dawson, 132
5. Roger Staubach, 128
6. Norm Van Brocklin, 126
7. Steve Young, 126
8. Joe Montana, 123
9. Sonny Jurgensen, 120
10. Ken Anderson/Bob Griese/Peyton Manning/Fran Tarkenton 119

Compare that to the top 10 for RAT, via the Pro Football Hall of Fame website.

1. Steve Young, 96.8
2. Kurt Warner, 94.1
3. Peyton Manning, 93.5
4. Joe Montana, 92.3
5. Daunte Culpepper, 91.5
6. Marc Bulger, 90.6
7. Tom Brady, 88.5
8. Trent Green, 88.3
9. Matt Hasselbeck, 86.6
10. Dan Marino, 86.4

This list is completely infested with current players. Meanwhile, the list of top career RAT+ spans all eras, and by comparing each quarterback's passer rating to those of his contemporaries, is a fairer list in my opinion.

Colbert II

I found something tonight that confirmed my thoughts in an earlier entry.

Of the 221 comments placed on this YouTube video, easily 200+ either regarded Colbert's performance with awe and admiration or insulted Tucker Carlson for daring to consider Colbert's act unfunny. This is just additional proof to me regarding Mr. Gnade's key statement that Colbert "did not speak truth to power; he spoke satirically solely to secure his fan base." It's a shame that many of Colbert's fans have had the joke played on them.

Affirmative Action

Do you support affirmative action? Have you ever thought that it sends a message that minorities need the help of white people to succeed?

The Colbert Flak

Many people, especially my fellow bloggers, know what Stephen Colbert did at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. What a lot don't realize is that it really was not anything spectacular.

This man here has it exactly right.

I am not going to go over what he said; you can read the article, as it's right there. I just want it to be known that I agree with this person completely.

Oh, C'mon, Wikipedia

Just a couple recent things I noticed about the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

Number one, look up a body part, and you will get an image of it, no matter what the part is. Yes, all of them.

Number two, can't they figure out better subjects to feature on their front page than this?

I like Wikipedia as a quick way to get information, so long as I am not relying on that information for anything important. But as of late a couple things have soured me on it.

Halo 2

Perhaps the funniest game in the annals of Halo 2 just now occurred. The players were Phormio, Tennille, Heimdall, and myself. Well I kind of played. He spent most of the time goofing off. All he did until the very last few minutes was drive around in vehicles, occasionally ragging on teammates. The game was Juggernaut. If you have experience with Halo 2, it is highly likely that you know the rules. Basically there's a juggernaut that you need to be to get points. The other players are supposed to kill the jauggernaut, and whoever does becomes the juggernaut. Yes, you are only teammates until someone else becomes the juggernaut.

So all I did was drive vehicles, honking the horn on the Warthog, and occasionally ramming into other vehicles that were, you know, actually trying to play. In fact, this pissed off Phormio so much he quit in the middle of the game. I had a great time, but it was upsetting everybody, until the end.

I randomly decided to pick up a rocket launcher. I locked on and knocked Tennille out of the Banshee, becoming the juggernaut for the first time all game. This was all well and good with the other guys. Until they remembered an added twist. The conversation went as such:

Spectator (doing something else): Doesn't this thing run out of bullets?
Heimdall: I hope it does.
Myself (laughing): Oh wait, it doesn't.

Because the juggernaut is camoflouged, has unlimited ammunition, and in this case, had a rocket launcher, the situation seemed hopeless. Starting from -3 (yes, negative), I got up to 2 before Heimdall and Tennille came up with an ingenious plan. They each took a Banshee and brought it to the other side of the map. So the scenario was as such: me with a rocket launcher and two Banshees coming straight at me. The scene in my window was hilarious, as two Banshees hung around ominously in the distance. They evaded all my rockets, and eventually Tennille killed me and immediately ran over Heimdall for the victory.

I guess you had to be there, but it was a great time.

Jon Stewart Newsflash

The guy actually made a funny joke yesterday! Odd, when he deviates from his usual standard fare (Bush), the jokes become better.

Anyway, the joke was about the illegal immigration demonstrators singing the United States national anthem in Spanish. Stewart continued to point out that in fact there are 3 more verses that are not sung, and then began to quote from them.

In the middle, he suddenly stopped, and said that it would sound better in Spanish.

Then the funny line came,

"Because the immigrants are willing to sing the verses that other Americans are not willing to sing," which was a nice satire.

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Surprised that I put in a new entry? Sorry about the lack of updates. Exams are going on right now (I've got one in 2-1/2 hours) and it's been a busy time. Come summer (tomorrow perhaps!), I'll have more time to write more substantial entries.

So in sum: No, I have not fallen off the face of the earth.

So, I was looking through the channels

Last night, ABC was airing a show, that I had never heard of, called American Inventor. I was stunned and asked the following question: Will they ever run out of ideas for "reality" television?

Well, since apparently, network execs won't shy away from any idea for a "reality" TV show, even one as crappy as American Inventor, I have some ideas for them.

Survivor: Inner City Detroit

Normal People, Abnormal Jobs

Behind the Counter at McDonalds

American Hooker

To any TV network employee reading this, I don't mind if you take an idea, just as long as I get money out of it. And both you and I know you like them.

Sorry for lack of activity

I have been having trouble trying to come up with things to talk about. Please check back often, as there is bound to be more to come.

I just discovered a funny show.

Yesterday, for the first time ever, I watched The Colbert Report (pronounce reh-pore). That show is funny.

It comes on at 11:30 PM on weekdays here, immediately following The Daily Show. When you compare Stephen Colbert to Jon Stewart, you get, in my opinion, a far funnier person. Stewart is quite predictable nowadays--take a couple shots at Bush, interview someone (usually incorporating a shot at Bush), have someone else do a segment, and then hand it off to Colbert. You can throw in a 3rd shot at Bush for good measure.

According to Wikipedia, Colbert's show was pitched in the following manner: "Stephen Colbert parodies The O'Reilly Factor." This manifests itself most clearly in "The Word" which is clearly based on O'Reilly's "Talking Points." This is by far the funniest segment of the show, as Colbert makes ridiculous (and ridiculously funny) statements with even funnier statements shown at the side.

As it may be clear to you if you look at the bottom of the screen, I am conservative. Both Colbert and Stewart mock conservatives far more often than liberals, and both are Democrats. But I like Colbert; I don't like Stewart. Colbert's mockery comes mostly with his style. Stewart's comes with what he is actually saying. Thus it is far easier to swallow Colbert's humor. Plus I have no problem with someone mocking Bill O'Reilly.

If it came on a bit earlier, I might become a devoted follower of The Colbert Report. As it is, I'll catch it when I can.

The Election of 1860, the Constitution, and Southern Secession

I attend a small university deep in the south of Virginia. That means that my friends down here who read this may villify me. But as I tell them, I can't help it.

The election of 1860 indirectly triggered one of the biggest disasters in United States history. Out of four major candidates, Abraham Lincoln was elected president with 39% of the popular vote in the nation, and 0% of the popular vote in the South. Realizing that they no longer had power to elect a president, and fearing that, because he was a Republican, Lincoln would try to end slavery, the South seceded. James Buchanan's indifference did not help either.

I will now digress for a moment. The Electoral College was created to form a buffer between the voters and the most powerful office in the nation. Since votes were counted by states, not by individual, the main result is that states elect the president, not the people. It is my impression that because, as states, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Lousiana, and Texas, would be ruled by a president they did not elect, they seceded.

Well, guess what. The other states did elect the president, and thus the states as a whole elected the president. Lincoln got a majority of the electoral vote, after all. Just because the Southern ones did not vote for the winner does not mean they could secede. Secession was, in part, the South throwing a fit that they could not have a say in the election of the president. If Lincoln had not been elected, but, say, Breckenridge had, the South would not have seceded.

I derived this analysis one day last month, because I thought I needed a good reason why secession was ridiculous. I still wanted to share it because I had never seen it before.

However, I found a better explanation today, while researching for this piece, and it needs to be mentioned. The Constitution explicitly prevents secession.

In full, here is Article VI of the Constitution of the United States:

All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

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What is important here? It is the third paragraph. Read that and try to tell me that secession is provided for in the Constitution. Basically, all members of all 3 branches of the government - legislative, executive, and judicial - "shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution." By seceding, the Southern states were clearly removing their support for the Constitution that their elected and appointed officials had promised to support.

It would be easier if I just showed you where I found this reasoning. The logic in this piece here is crystal clear, makes perfect sense, and can not be denied. It was part of a research project by secondary school students in Wisconsin, but that does not take away its reasoning - after all, they got it straight from our Constitution.

The only way to support secession is through the Declaration of Independence, but guess what - that's not the law of the land.

Reagan, the Soviets, and the End of the Cold War

Many conservatives regard Ronald Wilson Reagan as a hero for bringing about the end of the Cold War. Many liberals believe that the U.S.S.R. would have fallen without any aggressive action by the United States, and that Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev's admission of this was the reason why the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended.

The truth is probably somewhere in between.

Communism as it was practiced by the Soviets was untenable. They could not endlessly support both their military prowess and their impoverished people, and at some point the collapse would be inevitable. Many think that by recognizing this, Gorbachev, and his policies of glasnost and perestroika, brought about the end of the Soviet Union.

So what was Reagan's role, then, if it was Gorbachev who initiated the reforms inside his own country and brought about the window needed to bring down the Soviet Union?

Reagan became president of the United States on January 20, 1981. Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party on March 11, 1985. For over four years, Reagan battled not Gorbachev, but Konstantin Chernenko, Yuri Andropov, and Leonid Brezhnev.

Upon entering office, Reagan decided that the best way to end the Soviet Union was to build up an "arms race" to the point where the Soviets could not carry on without starving their own people. This was a new approach, as beforehand emphasis had been on controlling the buildup of nuclear weaponry with a series of Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties. This policy, however, could not guarantee that the American and Soviet governments would limit their weaponry, and provided room for one side to take advantage of the other. Reagan changed U.S. policy to a buildup which would hopefully bankrupt the U.S.S.R.

The likes of Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko perceived Reagan's build up as a threat, and in response, they built up their arms. This was exactly the plan: before long, the Soviets would be compromising the well being of their people merely to keep up with the United States.

Reagan's other idea, the Strategic Defense Initiative (dubbed "Star Wars" by critics), would ideally protect the United States from a nuclear strike if the Soviets sent one. The Soviets regarded this, too, as a threat - the U.S. could stop a Soviet strike and then send a devastating one over to the U.S.S.R. in response to the initial strike.

The Soviets were at their breaking point when Gorbachev took over, and began looking to negotiate with Reagan, as well as initiate reforms within his country. Reagan decided that now was the time to negotiate.

So if the Soviet Union would have ended anyway because the system did not work, and because eventually a Soviet leader would realize this, why does Reagan deserve any praise?

The answer: Reagan accelerated the end of the Cold War. He recognized that the Soviet leaders in the first term of his presidency would not easily allow the United States an upper hand in military arms, even if it meant abandoning the people of the U.S.S.R. Had Reagan continued the policies of the presidents before him, it would have taken much longer for the Soviets to reach that point where they could not maintain their military and their people. In that case, who knows how much longer the Soviet Union would have lasted? Who knows how many more people the Soviet regime would eliminate? Who knows how much longer the people of both the United States and the Soviet Union would have lived in uncertainty?

Reagan most definitely deserves praise for accelerating the demise of the Soviet Union. It is absurd to disregard his role in the end of the Cold War when looking back at, and analyzing, his presidency.

Additional Reading:

Wallace, Chris. Character: Profiles in Presidential Courage. New York: Rugged Land, 2004.

Chapter 11, "The Zero Option: Ronald Reagan and the Soviet Union," pp. 206-232 is about this topic.

Failure: Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, and the Great Depression

Many history textbooks condemn Herbert Hoover for twiddling his thumbs while the United States suffered from a Great Depression. Then, a hero emerges: suddenly, behind the strong leadership, active approach, and brilliance of Franklin Roosevelt, the United States began to slowly but surely bring itself out of the depression. Some books will admit that the depression did not end until World War II, but almost always he is given credit for alleviating it with his new approach.

History textbooks will not tell you the truth. Both Hoover and FDR took an active approach to ending the depression, and both of them failed.

It's a well known story. On October 24, 1929, people began to sell their stocks in large numbers. On October 29, 1929, the bottom fell out: people were only interested in selling stock, not buying, and prices tumbled. The Great Depression was under way.

Most people realize that Hoover did not start the depression. It's a misconception, however, that he did nothing to try and help it. Rather, he signed a lot of legislation in an attempt to alleviate the situation. He signed the first Federal unemployment assistance in history into law with the Emergency Relief and Construction Act. According to Wikipedia, he "[established] the Federal Home Loan Bank system to assist citizens in obtaining financing to purchase a home." Wikipedia also states that he "increased public works spending." He signed the Agricultural Marketing Act and the Reconstruction Finance Act. This all occurred over the course of four years. Unfortunately for Hoover, the depression continued to worsen. By 1933, about one out of four Americans were without a job. This can probably be attributed to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, a bill signed ("reluctantly" says Wikipedia) by Hoover in 1930. This was Hoover's huge mistake, one not made by Roosevelt. Clearly, however, it is absurd to suggest that Hoover sat by idly during his presidency while the nation suffered.

In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt was elected to replace Hoover. During the campaign he had promised a very vague "new deal." It became clear soon after the election what he meant. It is pointless to go through every act FDR created: everyone knows he was active in trying out his plan to help the economy. What is important is the details. (For Hoover, it was important to state the multitude of legislation he passed; for FDR, it's well known he signed a multitude of legislation.)

Between 1933 and 1940, Franklin Roosevelt tripled taxes - all types of taxes - when people needed money. He also demanded that crops and farm animals destroyed and killed - when people needed products to sell. The Cato Institute, a libertarian organization, asks ten "Tough Questions for Defenders of the New Deal" in this article. And in this article, the New Deal is revealed to have harmed the poorest Americans. A few things here are quite amusing. FDR raised taxes on almost everything, among them tires ("including tires on wheelchairs"), electricity, and radios. FDR had polio, which confined him to a wheelchair, yet he taxed tires on wheelchairs. And those famed Fireside Chats? As the article points out, "Yes, to hear FDR's 'Fireside Chats,' one had to pay FDR excise taxes for a radio and electricity!"

Read the two articles above carefully. FDR's economic policies did far more harm than good.

Why then, you might ask, is FDR renowned for his responses to the Depression, while Hoover is condemned? The answer is simple: political skill. Herbert Hoover was best known as a Stanford engineer. He was not a politician. The only political office that he ever held prior to being president was Secretary of Commerce, a position to which one gets appointed. Franklin Roosevelt, however, served as Governor of New York prior to becoming president. His political skill was recognized as early as 1920, when he was the Democratic vice president nominee. He never won a presidential election by less than 333 electoral votes. Roosevelt was also a far better speaker. Fireside Chats, inaugural speeches, "the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself," "a day that will live in infamy." Hoover has, well, nothing. FDR skillfully used his abilities to make people think that his programs were working. Hoover was not able to do so. But if you read the work and numbers provided by Cato, it's clear that FDR harmed more people than he helped. But they thought they were doing better thanks to FDR.

Many people admire FDR today for the same reasons. They learn from their parents and grandparents. Students learn from history textbooks, written by professors who, for the most part, are liberal and admire another legacy FDR left: that of a government that tries to use its power to help its citizens. Of course, this legacy would not have been possible without his political skill. They use FDR and his high status to support their liberal views of today.

Hoover and FDR both took an active approach to government in order to get the U.S. out of the depression, and both failed.

Who are the Most Famous Athletes in American Pro Sports?

Introduction

Well, I did a study to find out the answer. I posted a survey on surveymonkey.com and provided a link to it on numerous message boards on ESPN. I got the 100 responses I was looking for within 24 hours, on the dates 4/3/2006 and 4/4/2006.

Most Popular Sports

I first asked people to pick as many out of 4 professional sports they paid most attention to, between: NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL. I found that 69.7% of the people who responded to this question were NFL fans. 16.2% were NBA fans. 20.2% were MLB fans. 8.1% were NHL fans. These figures do not add up to 100.0% because of the participant's ability to pick more than one sport.

The Questions

The next four questions were each about a different sports league. The basic wording for all of them was: "Give the first and last name of the first player that comes to mind when you think of the [insert league here], active or retired." I will post these findings at the end of the article.

Age Distribution

A final important question was posed. It was about age. Participants fit into one of 5 options: Under 18, 18-25, 26-40, 41-55, and 56+. 99 people responded. 22.2% were under 18, 50.5% were between 18 and 25, 20.2% were between 26 and 40, 5.1% were between 41 and 55, and 2.0% were above 56.

Below are the findings for each of the 4 major professional sports in the U.S.

Football

NFL players were by far the most spread out in terms of fame. Two players tied for first: active quarterback Brett Favre and retired quarterback Joe Montana were each named by 12 participants (12.0% each). Two more players were tied in the third spot: active quarterback Tom Brady and retired running back Barry Sanders each received 10 mentions (10.0% each). Long retired running back Jim Brown received 7 mentions (7.0%) and thus was the fifth most famous NFL player. In the end, 11 players received at least 3 mentions.

Of note here are the presence of only quarterbacks and running backs, which are often considered "glamor positions:" positions that receive great amounts of fame. That is certainly reflected here.

Basketball

Retired guard Michael Jordan was by far the most famous NBA player. He was the person named by 72 of 100 respondents (72.0%). A distant second was active guard Kobe Bryant, who received 9 mentions (9.0%). Another distant finisher, retired guard Magic Johnson, was third with 3 mentions (3.0%). These were the three to receive at least 3 mentions.

The only consideration that could be conceived is that in the NBA, retired players draw more fame than active players. However, taking Jordan out of the equation would show active players as more famous. Jordan skews the results and makes any filtering difficult.

Baseball

Retired and deceased MLB outfielder Babe Ruth was mentioned most often: 23 (23.0%) times. A close second was active outfielder Barry Bonds, who was named by 20 (20.0%) of participants. Active shortstop Derek Jeter finished third: he was named by 11 participants (11.0%). Active designated hitter David Ortiz, with 4 mentions (4.0%), and active outfielder Ken Griffey, Jr., with 3 mentions (3.0%) rounded out both the top five and the list of players with over 3 votes.

What are the two most noticeable trends? 1) Active players appear far more famous, and 2) position players, rather than pitchers, appear more famous.

Hockey

NHL is similar to basketball in its disparity between its most prominent player and the rest. This one icon, if you will, is retired winger Wayne Gretzky. He received a majority of the mentions: 57 out of 95 (60.0%). Retired defenseman Bobby Orr was a distant second receiving 10 (10.5%). Other players with at least three mentions were active winger Jaromir Jagr (6 mentions, 6.3%) and retired winger Gordy Howe (3 mentions, 3.2%).

Retired players again seem far more famous, but this is skewed by the retired Gretzky's widespread fame. However, unlike basketball, when you take the icon out of the question, in hockey the retired still retain the majority of fame. Perhaps this is a commentary on how hockey has fallen out of favor with the general public, which could explain why older players are better known.

Final Analysis

One way to decipher these findings is to say that Michael Jordan is the most famous American professional athlete of all time, as of today, with Wayne Gretzky as a relatively close second.

However, this may not be the most accurate analysis, because the athletes were divided by sport. Perhaps if 100 people were surveyed merely to name one athlete from these 4 sports, the results would be different.

What we can determine is that Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky are the biggest icons in their individual sports. Such figures are lacking in football and baseball.

There are a few ways of looking at this. They are not all mutually exclusive. This breakdown will serve as my absolute final analysis.

1. Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky are the most famous athletes in sports (see above).

2. Football and baseball are more popular because the fame of individual players is more spread out.

3. The fame of individual players is more spread out in football and baseball because these are the two most popular sports.

4. On a note similar to point 2, basketball and hockey are less popular, and therefore people only know of a handful of basketball and hockey players, and the first one they think of will almost always be the most famous person in that sport.

5. The fame of Jordan and Gretzky is simply too immense for other athletes in their sports to compete with.

6. When you consider that nearly seven-tenths of the participants followed the NFL closely, you might say the following.

6A. More people who follow the NFL means a wider variety of NFL athletes are known.

6B. Fewer people who follow other sports means a smaller variety of NBA, MLB, and NHL athletes are known.

7. Mostly younger people responded: 72.7% of participants were 25 or younger. This could explain the fact that, in general, fame of more recent athletes was higher than that of less recent athletes.

7A. When looking exclusively at hockey: the fact that 1) mostly younger people participated, and 2) very few NHL fans participated also explains, perhaps, the falling out of hockey from the national scene, leaving only it's older fans remaining.

Your Turn

What do you think of the way the study was done? The results? Do you have any more analysis that I may have missed? Please comment!

My Politics

I have taken a multitude of political quizzes recently. The results follow.

The first is from politicalbrew.com. I rated as a strong conservative (91 of 100) on fiscal issues and a moderate conservative (71 of 100) on non-fiscal issues. This was a very comprehensive test and I feel the results were accurate.

The second is from theadvocates.org. I rated as a libertarian: 90% on personal issues and 100% on economic issues. I think this test is inaccurate because it is too small, and its questions are too specific with too few possible answers.

The third is from 3pc.net. I matched up most with the Libertarian Party (78% agreement), followed by the Constitution Party (70% agreement) followed by the Republican Party (61% agreement). These were the 3 parties I agreed with on over half the issues. This is a comprehensive quiz, but again, only being able to select 1 of 3 answers impacts this quiz negatively.

The fourth was first seen in USA Weekend but is provided by madrabbit.net. I scored a 36 of 40 - just to the right of Bob Dole, but left of Ronald Reagan. This quiz allows you to contradict yourself, but if you know what you are doing, it can be accurate. We begin to see a pattern with this quiz, however: limited options when answering the questions posed.

The fifth was interesting, courtesy of politopia.com. I "live" in Centerville, but lean towards more personal freedoms and free markets. Your options in answering questions are good (you get 5 answers for most questions) and it is fairly comphrensive.

The sixth is derived from http://www.politicalcompass.org/. A positive number means right-leaning and a negative number means left-leaning: I finished 3.25 economically and 2.97 socially. This test was very comprehensive but also quite unfair. I felt there were too many leading questions.

The seventh comes from idealog.org. I fell into the conservative quadrant, having departed from freedom 7 times in the name of order and once in the name of equality. Only two options per question here, but this was very solid, regarding pressing issues of today.

The lesson is that there are many types of tests out there. They can't all be right, because they all have a different nature that will lead to variations in the final results. They merely serve as ways to guide you to your views.

Go ahead and take a few, and comment about your results! Where you stand, how it varies by test, if you were surprised . . .

What a Nuisance!

Well, Daylight Saving Time (DST) started early this morning. What a useless invention.

Basically all it does is confuse us. How many times have you had plans to go somewhere the first Sunday of DST and realize you were an hour late because you had forgotten about moving the clocks forward?

In this article from 1998, the author explains that losing an hour of sleep is similar to losing three hours to jet lag. You might as well have flown from New York to Los Angeles.

According to Wikipedia, "the disruption in sleep patterns . . . correlates with a spike in the number of severe auto accidents."

And if you're a farmer, you probably despise it. As Wikipedia states, animals do not change their behavior to correspond to DST (although you probably could have figured that out), so changing the time twice a year only serves as a major inconvenience in agriculture.

This was all Benjamin Franklin's idea. For a brilliant man, this was sure a lame one.

Response to a Comment

The following is a response to a comment made about the earlier article, "The Government Perpetrated 9/11 Attacks? BS". My inability to edit comments has led me to creating a separate post regarding the issue.

The pages provided to support my claims comes from the site of the magazine Popular Mechanics. This is a magazine owned by the privately owned Hearst Corporation, and thus has no ostensible connections to the U.S. government.

In addition, a look at the sources used by the magazine shows that the government was indeed rarely asked for explanations--thus issues of whether or not the government can be trusted are not really appropriate to use when trying to argue with this site. For example, issues such as the manner of the collapse of the Twin Towers and the question of what hit the Pentagon were not resolved by the article through the government, but rather independent organizations.

There is plenty of other arguments countering conspiracies ignored by the still overwhelming information provided in the article: if indeed there was a massive cover-up, it's almost ridiculous to believe that every one of thousands of people would cooperate and not say a word. Someone's conscience would have been activated by now. But the article uses evidence, not conjecture, and thus still overwhelms any conspiracy theorist's ideas.

And again, personal insults against those who may be sympathetic to conspiracy theorists, or may be such theorists themselves, were driven by those who expressed obvious ignorance on an Internet forum. These were people who merely posted a link to someone else's reasoning and then insulted those who disagreed.

The Following People Live in my Basement

• Amelia Earhart came to my house on December 11, 1996
• Elvis Presley came to my house on March 8, 1999
• Tupac came to my house on July 4, 2002
• John Wilkes Booth came to my house on October 13, 2004
• The crew of Flight 19 came to my house on December 12, 2004
• Anastasia, daughter of Czar Nicholas II, came to my house on January 3, 2005
• Rasputin came to my house on May 22, 2005
• Kurt Cobain came to my house on March 30, 2005
• Cain came to my house on August 6, 2005

These people all currently reside, in secret, in my basement. Don't worry about them escaping: they all are locked in titanium cages.

They are fed twice a day for sustenance. Since they have lived this long, there is no reason to think they will ever die, so long as they are fed.

I have left no way to track me, so you will never see them. You just have to trust me.

*Disclaimer: Not actually true

You're Not Listening To Me Even For Just A Second

My blog is titled "Just Listen to Me for a Second." But you're not listening to me, not even for a second.

I know this because I'm getting no comments. So if I'm wrong, and you are listening to me, you're not letting me know. I want to know. I want to know what you think, if you agree with me in an opinion piece, if you were interested in a factual piece. Leaving me in the dark is not fun and makes me feel like I'm wasting my time.

And if I know you personally, and you have a blog as well, you don't count. I know you're reading it and you don't need to tell me by commenting.

But if you are listening and don't have a clue as to who I am, I want you to let me know.

I say you're not listening to me precisely because there is no proof that you are listening to me.

So, especially for this post: just listen to me for a second.

2006 MLB Season Predictions

I am a big sports fan, as you might have assumed from my post about the ESPN forums. With baseball season just 4 days away, I have decided to predict what will happen this season.

AL East winner: New York Yankees
AL Central winner: Cleveland Indians
AL West winner: Anaheim Angels
AL Wild Card: Toronto Blue Jays

NL East winner: Atlanta Braves
NL Central winner: St. Louis Cardinals
NL West winner: San Francisco Giants
NL Wild Card: Houston Astros

World Series: Yankees over Cardinals in 7 games

AL MVP: Alex Rodriguez, Yankees
NL MVP: Albert Pujols, Cardinals

AL Cy Young: Roy Halladay, Blue Jays
NL Cy Young: Carlos Zambrano, Cubs

RIP Paul Dana

I have never understood the appeal of driving cars in circles while at unsafe speeds. Nor have I understood why people flock to tracks to watch it.

Well, I do understand, sort of. There is an awe in power, and power it what you get when you see a car flying at 200 mph. This is almost three times the highest legal speed on any road in the United States--which gives you an idea as to how dangerous it is to drive at even 100 mph.

My confusion in this subject only increased at the news of the death of Paul Dana. I don't follow racing, which you could probably tell. But it is still big news when a 30 year old person dies. NASCAR has the same problem with death as the Indy series does, as became evident in the Dale Earnhardt tragedy. There have been other deaths while racing cars.

Only one person has ever died as a direct result of playing Major League Baseball, and that was in 1920. Nobody has died from an injury resulting directly from an NFL game (although one person came close) or as a direct result from an NBA game.

However, there is no way to assure safety when the object of the game is to operate dangerous machinery recklessly.

Government Perpetrated 9/11 Attacks? BS

Lots of people who think they are important, but really aren't (see, I don't think I'm important, so I don't apply), seem to think that the attacks on September 11, 2001, were caused by the government.

That's bull shit and there's no reason to buy into it unless you specialize in paranoia.

So why do I bring up a supposedly worthless viewpoint that should not be recognized? Well, I have noticed many people believe this, and I discovered (through a message board) a great webpage which, if you read all 9 pages, thoroughly proves that anyone in the crazed anti-government camp is wrong. Any possible claim to "prove" that the government committed the crimes on 9/11 is debunked.

So if you're a conspiracy theorist, consider this one dead.

Harry Truman on His Predecessors

If you read my other blog, you know that I have a great interest in studying the American presidents. Apparently one of these men, Harry S. Truman, was either asked or chose to talk about his opinions on his predecessors.

I make this assumption based on a site I found via another blog. As you look through each of the presidents on this page, all of them who preceded Truman (except for Garfield), as well as Truman's successor Eisenhower, have a quote about them by Truman.

His favorites were Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Polk, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt. He disliked almost everybody else, and most of his dislike was put on William Harrison, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan, Grant, Coolidge, and Eisenhower.

I find this tidbit appropriate in light of my study to analyze the presidents.

Song in Advertising

It needs to stop.

You've probably seen the ad for Applebee's with the "Gilligan's Island" ripoff. You've probably seen the ad for Doublemint.

Don't they just piss you off? They piss me off.

When's the last time you've seen a good commercial that focused on singing a song? I can't point to one. Good commercials are funny; songs are not funny. They are annoying.

Advertisers need to learn from Geico's old routine in which the punch line was always "I just saved a bunch of money on car insurance by switching to Geico." They need to learn from Burger King's trick of randomly showing the King make a play in the NFL.

The best ads are unexpected jokes. The worst are songs.... and McDonald's.

Mr. Rogers in a Blood Stained Sweater

Internet Phenomena: Chances are damn good you know of at least one.

You know the name Gary Brolsma? He's the guy who made the crappy lip sync of the Romanian pop song "Dragostea Din Tei."

How about Ghyslain Raza? You know, the Star Wars kid.

Homestar Runner. Badger Badger Badger.

They're everywhere.

One of them caught my mind recently, and it's where you will hear the line in the title: "The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny," in which countless popular figures, from the historical (Abraham Lincoln) to the current (Jackie Chan) to the fictional (Batman) to the non-human (Godzilla), appear. As you might have guessed, Mr. Rogers wins.

Why do I write about this? Well, it just might be the most original of these phenomena. Look at the Wikipedia article at the top of the page, you'll find categorizations of such phenomena. Obviously jokes about celebrities are none too original - Chuck Norris jokes in particular get quite tiresome. (And in a related note, Chuck Norris appears but does not win in "Ultimate Showdown.") The list of non celebrities rely on other people's work.

Well, I won't actually go through it. You can read it yourself. But the ability exhibited by Lemon Demon and AltF4 to create a song, incorporate tons of popular figures in a catchy tune, and make it funny is quite an accomplishment.

At least, it's more of an accomplishment than dancing wildly to a song you didn't even write.

V for Vendetta

Spoiler Warning: Some events in the film are given away here.

On its opening night, I viewed the blockbuster film "V for Vendetta" starring Hugo Weaving (insomuch as you can have a star whose face is never seen) and Natalie Portman.

It's plot was good. It's acting was pretty good. It's message was . . .

That depends. Those who criticized the film cried out that it could lead to another McVeigh by promoting terrorism. And surely seeing Big Ben blow up while Tchaikovsky is blasting might seem like a promotion of terrorism. Many of these critics seemed to believe that the movie overplayed the foul deeds of the facist British government in order to create sentiment for Weaving and his cause.

I personally liked the movie, for its developed plot and solid acting. And, in a not so small detail, I disagreed with the critics who saw the film as portraying Weaving's character, V, as a good guy. There are no good guys in this film. You could argue that V is more evil than High Chancellor Sutler, the facist dictator of Britain. V has no problem whatsoever in the murder of people, a characteristic we assume (but are never directly shown) he shares with the British government. There's a kicker. The part of the movie that leads me to my conclusion about the nature of V. Evil.

Natalie Portman plays V's ally, Evey. As a fugitive, she hangs out in her Uncle Gordon's home. The government comes to kill Gordon, who had mocked Sutler on his TV show. Evey is captured. She is tortured. They ask her for information about V. She won't give it. She is tortured some more. Finally, they give her one last chance to give information and get off free. She doesn't.

And she gets off anyway.

It wasn't the government who captured her. It wasn't the government who tortured her.

It was V.

V is a bad guy.

V decides it's up to him to kill the top government officials before he blows up Parliament with a train filled with explosives. In a gruesomely violent scene, he kills the guys, but in the process, is fatally wounded himself. He allows Evey to make the decision whether or not to blow up Parliament. She does.

Evey is a bad guy. (Or naive, as she buys rather easily into the opinion of a person who tortured her.)

Chief Investigator Finch (portrayed very well by Irishman Stephen Rea) allows Evey to blow up Parliament instead of arresting her.

His nature is more ambiguous, as he never completely trusts another major character in the story.

The government is filled with bad guys.

Damn it, everybody's a bad guy.

And maybe that's the message.

What do politics and football have in common?

Not Condoleeza Rice. Maybe soon, but not now.

Oddly enough, the most popular topic on certain sports Internet forums may be politics. This is certainly true in a certain board in this forum, specifically, the Arena Football board.

Arena Football? It's not NFL in a dome, it's its own kind of game. Too bad no one cares. The only posts on this ESPN forum that deal with Arena Football are questions. "Where's the Arena Football talk? Does anybody care about Arena Football?" The answers are: there is none, and no. Any topic found here will be political. As I'm looking at it now, topics on the front page include "Any news on the "so called" wire tapping investigation?" and "My Holocaust Problems." You can very often find politics on the NFL Board as well, although currently activity on politics is lacking.

What does it say about people that some have turned a sports forum into a political forum? They are idiots who think they are cool for posting on a sports board, even when their real motive is political argument? Forums designed for politics just aren't popular, or well known, enough? There are no politics forums? ESPN is just that popular? There is a conspiracy to make me waste my time talking about pointless things that nobody cares about? You tell me.

Hello

Welcome to one of my two blogs, History of the World Part III.