Political Cartoon: Job Creators

LOVE this cartoon, and it's rooted in fact: http://m.nber.org//papers/w16606

The link above is to a study from Stanford University in 2011 that focused on the economic impact effective teachers have on lifetime earnings for students, and found that an increase of .25 in overall test scores (a standard deviation) would increase GDP by 44 trillion (yes, trillion). Finland is .58 ahead of the United States, and the study showed that 112 trillion would be added to GDP if we simply raised student achievement to Finland's level. It also found that in order to pay a teacher in alignment with their measurably postive lifetime economic impact on students (400k per 20 student class), we'd have to raise starting salaries to more than $200,000. Think of the property taxes...

Forbes Writer LOVES Sam Zell

WARNING: Read this article at least one hour removed from your last meal.

"Most importantly, we can learn that the rich got there, in the vast majority of cases, through their dedication, effort, and ingenuity. Begrudging them their success will not make our success any more likely. And whatever you may think, pushing for more income redistribution by the government is definitely begrudging the rich their success. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, we should all spend less time condemning the rich and more time flattering them by copying their habits."

One of his other points is that in 2013, 273 of the Forbes 400 richest people were "self-made". Not sure what Horatio Alger fantasy world he lives in, but not a single individual on that list (or any list) made it on their own. Even if we accept that those 273 people lived in a vacuum, attended private schools, never benefitted from government interference through economic redistribution, affirmative action, taxes, etc., that still means 127, or 31%, of those individuals aren't "self-made", according to this writer. Not exactly the strongest argument there Ragged Dick. He also mentions the number of workers per household, TV habits and marriage rates for the quintiles he presents in the article, with no acknowledgement of the environmental and economic circumstances that create conditions that lead to work, more creative leisure activities, and marriage. Why not mention that 40% of American men born in the bottom quintile will die in the bottom quintile, and less than 10% of them make it to the top quintile? Or that 35% of American men born into the top quintile will die in the top quintile, and less than 10% will fall down to the bottom quintile? I'll stop saying quintile now, but it's clear why he avoids such statistics. They make him look ridiculous for focusing on TV habits when there's more important stories to be told with that data.

Privatization: Profit > People

Privatization is a hideous monster that cannot be effectively regulated. Where is the national media on private prisons, probations, etc? It's ready made for TV- investor meetings talking about growth models for the future (more arrests), widespread sexual abuse, indicted judges involved in prisoner for pay schemes, people being jailed because they can't afford to pay fines...is there something I'm missing? What could it be about this demoralized population of people that the national media isn't cutting up into slick advertisements for local news media tragedy porn outlets?

Oh yeah. They're mostly black and Hispanic.

"Soft bigotry of low expectations"

Question for all the genetic lottery winners out there, like myself (tall, white, male, upper middle class and above)- do you ever feel cheated out of achievement, like you succeeded because others weren't allowed to try, or were just simply unlucky where you were fortunate?

I always regarded the "soft bigotry of low expectations" to be ridiculous because it ignored the actual circumstances minorities lived in, and how difficult it is to overcome one's environment through hard work alone. But I think it works if you flip it to look at how white privilege insulates millions of us from true competition, and an accurate measure of self-worth.

A Federal Reserve economist determined that 60% of one's income is based on one's parents income- it's a stronger predictor than genetically inherited traits such as height. White families have an average of 99k in wealth, black families have an average of 4k in wealth, according to Peter Edelman in So Rich, So Poor.

How are we supposed to be proud about not being born a poor minority in America?

The answer is we can't. But we can recognize our own privilege, and the history of how it became entrenched and defended in our society. And then we can change it.

Climate Change Science- Show Me The Money

Can someone tell me what the supposed nefarious end game is for climate change scientists? What shadowy interest group/pair of evil brothers is bankrolling 98% of the scientific community to declare fossil fuels a threat to humanity?

We know that climate change denials in both the media and academia are rooted in the monetary rewards doled out by interested parties, namely the oil, gas & coal industries. That these industries funded anti-academic research and sought sympathetic allies in the media establishment isn't a wild conspiracy bandied about in the online forums of people dedicated to saving the environment. It's public record.

So, I ask again, what is the equivalent of this in the climate change community? Are the CEOs of wind turbine companies hiring scientists and lobbyists to muddy the waters on the science of how fossil fuels interact with the environment and humans? Was the solar panel industry donating tens of millions of dollars to climate scientists working at East Anglia University to create data that supports a preconceived notion desperately tied to protecting private profit?

I have a difficult time finding questionable motives behind climate change scientists. In my opinion, the only thing climate scientists seem interested in is securing a healthy environment for future generations living on the only habitable planet for humans discovered in the known universe thus far.

Am I wrong? Am I missing the billion dollar payday somewhere? 

The Great Recession Reading List (expanded)

Paul Krugman's learning material for his class on the Great Recession has been released online, and you can check it out in the link below.

http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-krugmans-recession-reading-list-2013-12?utm_source=Pulse&utm_medium=App&utm_campaign=partner

This got me thinking about what I would include as a professor for this class. I've read a staggering amount of books on the GR (humblebrag alert!), including some of Krugman's own work. The following is a list of books I personally read and recommend for everyone looking to understand what happened, and how the forces of the political arena in Washington fostered an environment where systemic fraud can masquerade as legitimate, albeit risky, business:

1. Austerity by Mark Blyth

2. Bad Samaritans by Ha-Joon Chang

3. Bailout by Neil Barofsky

4. The Betrayal of the American Dream by Donald Barlett & James Steele

5. The Big Short by Michael Lewis

6. Boomerang by Michael Lewis

7. The Bubble and Beyond by Michael Hudson

8. Debtor's Prison by Robert Kuttner

9. EConned by Yves Smith

10. End This Depression Now by Paul Krugman

11. The Great Divergence by Timothy Noah

12. Griftopia by Matt Taibbi

13. The Myth of the Rational Market by Justin Fox

14. Pity the Billionaire by Thomas Frank

15. Plutocrats by Chrystia Freeland

16. Predator Nation by Charles Ferguson

17. The Price of Inequality by Joseph Stiglitz

18. So Rich, So Poor by Peter Edelman

19. The Unwinding by George Packer

20. White House Burning by Simon Johnson & James Kwak

21. Winner-Taker-All Politics by Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson

There are a few other books, like Free Lunch The Fine Print by David Cay Johnson, not listed here but are essential reads for progressives looking to grasp the larger economic forces at work here.

Would you add any books to this list? Am I a douche for making a blog post about a list of books I read? Sound off in the comment section!

Will The Centrists Ever Go Away?

Addressing inequality in a society with rampant unemployment, crumbling infrastructure, low wages, record child homelessness, etc. won't resonate with voters. Not at all.

Voters don't want certainty in their lives- they want competition. Voters don't want living wages- they want corporations to feel loved. Voters don't care about the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few- they just want a chance to be one of the few.

All voters really want is the opportunity to swim after the carrot dangling from the stick attached to the back of a speeding yacht just christened with a $1,000 bottle of champagne.

Potential Democratic voters ignore buzzwords like "inequality" and campaigns that focus on the 1% vs 99%, or "us vs them" politics. What voters really crave is reconciliation for the financial industry, and bipartisan proposals that ask everyone to sacrifice equally.

Those centrists sure know their politics.

Poveritis Defined For Use In Courtroom Defense

noun: poveritis (pov-er-i-tis)

A psychological and physical terror, affecting individuals residing within impoverished communities. Symptoms include, but are not limited to:

-diminished economic opportunities
-below grade level comprehension skills
-lack of self worth
-violence
-self loathing
-dilapidated public schools

Nurture vs Nature: Affluenza Edition (Updated February 7th 2014)

Have you ever wondered why society rarely considers environmental effects when doling out sentences in our criminal justice system? Ever since the days of Horatio Alger's Ragged Dick, Americans have been enthralled with stories of enterprising individuals who rise up from their wretched beginnings, through sheer determination and hard work, to live a life of luxury. The pit isn't inescapable, you just have to work hard to climb out. Bootstraps, young fella, are there to pull yourself up. No childhood excuses are allowed for deviant and wasteful behavior in adults.

Nowhere is this philosophy on clearer display than in the courtroom. You name a crime, and I'll show you how the environment had no impact on the developmental process of the criminal who commits the act. Rape, abuse, generational poverty...they're just hurdles that are expected to cleared. In other words, no matter what base you're born on, we can all reach home plate. The factors inside the house just aren't part of the equation. If the instances of physical abuse can be represented by X, and forced sexual encounters can be represented by Y...ah, who cares. You're a fucking murderer.

Of course, anyone with a sense of decency knows the above is bullshit, and in Texas, we FINALLY have case that recognizes the lasting damage a difficult upbringing can have. Here are the facts, devoid of the horrific context in which the killer was raised:

-16 years old
-Stole cases of beer
-Drank to 3x legal limit
-Killed four people with car

Sounds like a reckless teenage asshole who deserves the maximum juvenile sentence allowable, right? His punishment must fit his crime. Otherwise, we risk losing the deterrent factor. Right? Wrong. This poor boy is the victim of what is called "affluenza."

From the Huffington Post: "A psychologist called as an expert defense witness said the boy suffered from "affluenza," growing up in a house where the parents were preoccupied with arguments that led to a divorce. The father "does not have relationships, he takes hostages," psychologist Gary Miller said, and the mother was indulgent. "Her mantra was that if it feels good, do it," he said.

It's exquisitely refreshing to hear that this young man will not be placed in the Texas juvenile system, where his emotional needs wouldn't be adequately addressed. His monstrous, litigious parents are paying $450,000 per year for a rehab center in California. It's the least they could do, after pushing the child to murder with their cruel alternate weekend vists, and separate holidays feasts.

Affluenza has claimed the lives of too many in this country. It's a pernicious disease acquired at birth, and it never relents. Here's hoping the criminal justice continues to recognize the devastation caused by wealth, privilege, and divorced parents.

UPDATE

The affluenza argument worked. Ethan Couch will spend time in a wealthy drug rehab center that his wealthy parents will pay for. At least the taxpayers save on the prison costs right?

This is an outrage, a travesty of justice, and a fistful of salt into the open wounds of every black and brown mother and father who lost their child/children to the system for non-violent crimes.

In America, a white suburban child living under the constant threat of intramarriage squabbles suffers more internal environmental damage than black or brown kids living in Camden or Detroit. Makes you wonder if that has to do with the backgrounds and experiences of our nation's judges, lawyers, and academics. What were they more likely to be afraid of at night? Daddy using the "c" word, or grandma getting a stray bullet in her gut sitting on the porch?

Shantytown, USA

In America today, there are millions of black children living in communities that have been ignored by the government, and preyed upon and abused by criminals of all collars. They are effectively shantytowns. How else to describe the communities in and around a system like the Chicago Public Schools? If government action/inaction has led us to a place where 80% of students are black, UE is over 20% for their parents, 1 in 3 of their fathers have criminal records, and the only avenue out is littered with potholes, how are we any different than the Apartheid government? Because a few of them successfully navigated a street lined with craters? Because our laws don't contain explicitly racist language? Nonsense. We condemn particular ethnic citizens to a mathematically assured fate before any of them are born. Where are the international divestment movements against us?

A day after Nelson Mandela's death, we should take note of the lessons learned by his enemies more than those of which his supporters will cherish forever. His enemies, and the enemies of racial progress in general, have convinced enough people that institutional racism doesn't exist unless someone says the n-word while writing up legislation. In other words, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it must scream "I'm a fucking duck" before anyone can possibly consider it being a duck.

As an ode to Mandela and countless others, be on the look out for 21st Century racism, and call it out wherever you find it. It won't be wearing a hood, riding a horse, but it will be in favor of cutting food stamps, and giving public buildings to charter schools rent free.

Some Words on Peeping Toms

I don't get Peeping Toms. Is there no internet access where these people live? I'm sure there's enough Peeping Tom inspired porn videos to get them through the day. Is masturbating a part of it, or is this just field level reconnaissance for later? I'm leaning towards the latter because it seems pointless to masturbate when you're exerting so much energy and focus at peering through a small hole. Did glory holes start out as Peeping Tom holes that the victims saw and encouraged? What tools does a Peeping Tom need with him to make the perfect eye sized hole from which to stare at naked women? Didn't this happen in Corkys? What a shit movie that was.

Just Curse

Life is full of unimaginably insane ideas, customs and rules. We all know what they are and they are tolerated. It would take many lifetimes to list them all, so instead, I will focus on one particular grievance of mine:

Cursing.

Not the abundance of cursing, but rather the lack thereof. 

First, let's deal with the obvious- there are no "bad" words. There are only what you consider to be "bad" words. "Fuck", "shit", "motherfucker", "cocksucker", etc. are not bad words. They are the appropriate, natural, non-contrived words to use in a variety of situations. Network TV shows have acknowledged this by inserting the phrase "son of a bitch" into all categories of character interactions in which the "bad" words would normally appear. The Irish & English have their own versions of catch-all-curse word: "bollux" & "sodding". 

This brings us to my second issue with cursing- the emotion behind the words is what matters most. For example, let's say me and you go into a business partnership and after a short period of time, it's clear that I have fucked you over. And you have decided to confront me, which leads to a passionate argument about what happened. You are disgusted with my business practices and walk out, but not before telling me, in an angry tone- "Screw you John." The phrase "Screw you" is just a cookie-cutter, fake version of "Fuck you". You might have said "Screw you", but you really meant "Fuck you." You gain absolutely nothing doing this.

Few things bother me more than adults using the word "poop" as a substitute for what they really meant to say: "shit." It happens all the time, in life and in entertainment. It's an unacceptable comedic crutch for people over 13 years-old (teenagers graduate from using the word "poop" to "crap"). Yet, in both low-brow and high-brow comedies, the word is consistently used. Even revered shows like "30 Rock" and "The Office" have used the word as the basis for a joke. Puncuating a joke with or centering a joke around the word "poop" is so fucking lazy. Instead of trying to dress up toilet humor in a suit of well-written dialogue, a lot of TV shows, movies and comedians take the opposite approach that Seinfeld did and use the childish term "poop." What do I mean by that, you ask? Here's a classic example: In comedic laymen's terms, George is telling Jerry how he had to stop fooling around with his girlfriend because he had to "poop":

George: "Well, it's this little place with this little bathroom. It's like right there, you know, it's not even down a little hall or off in an alcove. You understand? There's no... buffer zone. So, we start to fool around, and it's the first time, and it's early in the going. And I begin to perceive this impending... intestinal requirement, whose needs are going to surpass by great lengths anything in the sexual realm. So I know I'm gonna have to stop. And as this is happening I'm thinking, even if I can somehow manage to momentarily...extricate myself from the proceedings and relieve this unstoppable force, I know that that bathroom is not gonna provide me with the privacy that I know I'm going to need..."

That's how you tell a shit joke as an intelligent adult. Seinfeld properly weaves toilet humor into a quality show, without resorting to using the word "poop". It's easy to imagine how writers with less ability would have written that scene...

In the end, in terms of comedy and life itself, it's best to remember this one rule:

Children poop, teenagers crap and adults shit.

Scattered Thoughts & Observations Vol. 1

Despite some above-moderate success in life, I've never really had a feeling of accomplishment- just a wave of relief that the task was over. That's my definition of laziness.

Best Drunken Puke Session: My freshman year of college, some of the upper classmen had a suite in the main dorm room building. If it was an awesome suite, it would be spelled "sweet". So, take that into consideration. I don't know what time it was, but it was definitely late- already told a few of my best stories. That usually happened after 2am. A wise senior suggested that drinking beer from the can wasn't the most efficient way to get drunk. He was an Economics major. Funnels were introduced, which weren't, aren't and will never be fun. A freshman girl funnelled three beers- consider three beers via funnel as the women's tee. The men's tee was a few yards back, somewhere near way the fuck more than what she drank. Like most great ideas at 3am, the end result was not what one would have hoped for. Best case scenarios quickly dissipated, but left behind a series of symptoms associated with an alcohol related disaster: soaked shirts, suds burps, Leaning Tower of Pisa positioning, lone rally cry to drink some more, chorus of moans disapproving such an idea, etc. Knowing that puking was inevitable, I made my way to the bathroom, thankful that it was no more than a few feet away. Upon entering one of the two community stalls (for 20+ people), I sat down and locked myself in. Using the elbow on my right arm, I bashed open the toilet paper dispenser and leaned my head against it in order to fall asleep. An hour later, my eyes open and people are banging on the door trying to wake me up. Success. Turns out, some other people were still conscious in the suite and grew worried when I didn't return after 20 minutes. The river of slush like puke seeping from underneath the stall door was a possible starting point. One of the least popular players on the team had to crawl through my V8-esque textured puke to unlock the door from the inside. I was unresponsive. Last thing I remember is being dragged by four or five guys down a flight of stairs and into my bed. I wake up at 9 am the next day refreshed.

When I encourage you to cross the street, while I'm driving, please take note of the physical gesture that is made. Two casually strolling fingers weren't placed on the dashboard, letting you know it's ok to cross at a snail's pace. It was a quick gesture- more of a, "yes, you can cross, but let's do this reasonably". At least give me the fake, 1/8th normal speed Heisman-pose jog.

Naturally sweetened in a plastic bottle.

The homeless should keep an eye out for discarded keyboards in the trash. There's food under them keys.

What Do I Do: Hitting Someone With Your Car Driving Drunk On A Dark Rural Back Road

Personally, I will do anything in my power to stay out of prison, including ratting out my family and friends. While I do love them dearly, I love my ass more. Having watched every episode of Oz twice, I'm well aware of what prison can be like.  I made a vow to never become Tobias Beecher (but I did name podcast after him):

You're at a bar with your friends and you were supposed to be the designated driver, but of course, you had more beers than allowed (given that the average bar excursion lasts three or more hours, DD's can typically have up to and including a third beer. On a side note, designated drivers are my least favorite double Ds). It's still your responsibility to drive everyone home, despite the fact that you are now drunkish. If you're less drunk than your friends, then you're the DD- it's all relative. 

In rural places, the roads aren't as brightly lit as they are in urban areas. "I Want it That Way" just came on the radio and everyone in the car is putting on their own individual acapella concert, which distracts you from driving. Suddenly, after looking back to see two of your friends hilariously collaborating on an air mic, you hit something in the road.  Whatever you hit rolls along the roof of your car and falls onto the road behind you. Now, we have a situation to deal with: Hitting Someone With Your Car While Driving Drunk On A Dark Rural Back Road.

Your first instinct is to drive away. This is a HUGE mistake.  Once you leave the scence, you lose the opportunity to be the first one to discover the body. This is key to understanding how to handle this situation- be the first person to check the body. Exit the car at warp speed and make your way to the lump of flesh in the road. Checking for signs of life.....oh shit, he's dead. Now what?

Run back to the car and pop the trunk. Ask everyone in the car to help you move the body into the trunk. Do this without hesitating- start dragging the body towards the car, while screaming for help. Once each of the people in your car touch the dead body en route to it entering your trunk, they are now responsible for being part of a criminal act. Make sure you maintain a frantic disposition, so that nobody has the time to question whether this is a good idea. If they do, make a note of that and keep going. After getting the body off the road and into your trunk, it's time to drive away. Be prepared for someone to break the silence in the car with a question regarding the legality and/or morality of what just happened. Your friends are hardly Goodfellas and this is more than expected. 

First, reassure them that I Know What You Did Last Summer was just a movie. Try to inject some humor into the situation by bringing up how stupid the title for the sequel was- if it took place a year after the original incident, it's more like I Still Know What You Did Two Summers Ago. There's a 99.9% chance this won't work. At some point, someone is going to say that the cops must be called. This poses a huge problem.  Since it's the 21st Century and more than 4.1 billion cell phones are in use today, odds are the person who is talking about calling the authorities has the means to do so at anytime. Bring up the fact that this person helped move a dead body from the road into the trunk of you car for the purpose of hiding the accident and that calling now will still get them in trouble. Protests will be voiced, but it's your obligation to drown that out with wave after wave of criminal liability. 

It doesn't work. One of your drunk idiot friends is going to call the police. We are now entering the most challenging phase of our journey- silencing this person by any means necessary. Stop the car in the most awkwardly deserted area you can find- use the rouse of trying to find the best cell phone reception to make the call. Once this person gets out, you have to kill them. This is not negotiable.  This person has proven to be completely untrustworthy and appealing to their better nature will result in no positive outcome for you. The preferred method of murder is up to your discretion, but make it quick- you will have a second body to put in the trunk. Call out to your friends still in the car, but keep in mind they are not likely to appreciate their friend's lifeless body lying at your feet. 

Nobody will help you. There are screams and someone vomits. This is a major issue. What to do?  First, remind them that they are already knee-deep in criminal mischief.  They helped you move a dead body into your trunk and they let their friend die at your hands. What are they going to do now? Risk their freedom? Go to prison? Make sure to reference something horrific from Oz, like the ex-Nazi who got a spoon shoved up his ass. Hopefully, they get the point, but in case one of them don't, you have to rinse and repeat what you just did until either everyone that was a witness to the crime is dead or has gotten the point that you will kill them if they say anything.  Leave a fisherman's hook on the front door of your friends who weren't really buying your explanation of I Know What You Did Last Summer being fictional if you have to.

So, on a night that started with drinks and laughter, you could end up burying a stranger and two or three of your friends to hide a crime. Just call a cab and avoid all the bloodshed.

Three Years Old Sarah Palin Jokes? You Betcha!

1- Sarah Palin thinks the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers" was about the Jonas Brothers.

2- The Civil War, according to Sarah Palin, was fought over manners.

3- Sarah Palin told a group of third graders that the Cold War was fought between Tylenol and Advil.

4- Sarah Palin doesn't believe that waterboarding constitutues "torture" because she thinks it's the technical name for surfing.

5- Sarah Palin thinks the Bush Doctrine was a guide for lesbians.

6- Sarah Palin told Glenn Beck that Alexander Hamilton was a "great place to invest your money."

7- Sarah Palin was disappointed when she showed up at the Ritz Hotel and it wasn't made of crackers.

8- Before the VP debates, Steve Schmidt wanted to have Sarah Palin change her shirt because it was "too loud" for TV. She said she couldn't hear it at all.

9- When Sarah Palin hears someone yell, "Duck!!", she pulls out a gun.

10- Sarah Palin thinks Amnesty International is a phone card company.

11- Sarah Palin wouldn't allow her daughter Bristol to open an account with Bank of America because, "it was one of the banks that Obama nationalized."

12- Sarah Palin thinks the Red Cross is a pagan religious symbol.

13- During the 2008 campaign, Sarah Palin agreed with an audience member that then candidate Obama was a "terrorist" because, "after all, even he says he's an agent of C.H.A.N.G.E."

14- Sarah Palin doesn't believe that "Real Americans" live on the coasts because, "they harbor our enemies."

15- Sarah Palin is so passionately in favor of the free market because she thinks there's a 100% discount.

16- Sarah Palin on climate change: "How can we address it if we don't know where it lives?"

17- Sarah Palin showed up to an interview with Chris Matthews on his MSNBC show "Hardball" in a Yankees jersey, with a bat and glove.

18- Sarah Palin opposes the "public option" because, "the option only works in college."

19- Sarah Palin feels that the Minority Whip in Congress should have went away with the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

20- Sarah Palin thought the Lincoln Memorial was a BCS bowl game.

21- Sarah Palin favors the Democrats using reconciliation for Health Care Reform because she thinks they need to apologize to God for pushing the public option.

MLB Hall of Fame Ramblings: 2014 Edition

Ever since the 2014 MLB Hall of Fame ballot was released, the world of SABR nerds, both professional and non, has been in constant chatter. I'd like to add to that.

Over the summer, I did a podcast with my friend Justin Senno on last year's HOF class and how difficult the voting process would be in subsequent years because of a few things:

1- Old, automatic HOF markers no longer apply.

2- Known or suspected PED use has tarnished a generation of hitters, leading to a gluttony of should be HOFers receiving middling levels of votes.

3- Voters only have 10 selections and in order to reach the HOF threshold, one needs 75% of the ballot. With a figure that high, only one or two players per year are selected, further compounding the gluttony problem in future years when more should be HOFers become eligible.

We know from last year that 3,000 hits is no longer an automatic HOF qualifying stat. Craig Biggio was the first guy with 3,000 hits not to make it on the first ballot in over 50 years. The knock on Biggio was that he was a compiler and that other members of the 3K hit club got in because they had other automatic qualifying stats, like a .300 career BA, or 500 HRs. Of course, this ignores Paul Molitor and Dave Winfield, both of whom are in the HOF solely because they reached 3,000 hits. Furthermore, would someone like Fred McGriff, who doesn't measure as a HOFer on any number of metrics, be a first ballot recipient if he hit a few more home runs?

There was also the issue of PED use in the players eligible last year, some of which is documented, most of which is entirely circumstantial. I've written before about Curt Schilling's miraculous transformation from a borderline All Star into a statistical HOFer in his mid-to-late 30s. But there's no evidence other than his ridiculous, history defying stat line and the documented use among many of his teammates. The Mitchell Report reported on a handful of ex-teammates of Schilling abusing PEDs. He played with Daulton & Dykstra in Philadelphia. Luis Gonzalez and Steve Finley, two Diamondbacks teammates that also had questionably productive seasons in their mid-to-late 30s, played in Houston and San Diego with Ken Caminiti. That's a lot of circumstantial evidence. Mike Piazza has suffered from a similar, if not somewhat more unfounded judgment. Piazza admitted to methamphetamine use prior to its league wide ban and a Mets trainer's testimony served as the basis for a sizable portion of the Mitchell Report. He also hit balls 425 feet to right center field with a flick of his wrists. Schilling, Piazza and other assumed users will have this mark on their on-field accomplishments the way known users have it on theirs.

Lastly, ten total selections is not enough to make up for the high threshold of support needed to make the HOF, especially considering how many currently eligible players should be in today.

The 2014 Ballot

Here are the players returning from last year with their 2013 voting percentage received in parenthesis and the five new nominees with the highest JAWS score (if you've read this far, I'm assuming you know JAWS, JPOS, and WAR. If not, stop reading, go to baseball-reference.com and learn to love them):

Craig Biggio (68%)
Jack Morris (67%)
Jeff Bagwell (59%)
Mike Piazza (57%)
Tim Raines (52%)
Lee Smith (47%)
Curt Schilling (38%)
Roger Clemens (37%)
Barry Bonds (36%)
Edgar Martinez (35%)
Alan Trammel (33%)
Larry Walker (21%)
Fred McGriff (20%)
Mark McGwire (16%)
Don Mattingly (13%)*
Sammy Sosa (12.5%)
Rafael Palmerio (8.8%)
Greg Maddux
Frank Thomas
Mike Mussina
Tim Glavine
Jeff Kent

As you can see, it's a crowded field, especially considering those names on the bottom. Even if Jack Morris, Lee Smith and Tim Raines are removed, seeing as if they've been on the list the longest, it's still congested.

In terms of JAWS, there are only 14 players that outperform their HOF positional counterparts (a higher JAWS than JPOS, meaning they scored higher than the average JAWS score for a HOFer at their position):

Bonds
Clemens
Maddux
Schilling
Bagwell
Mussina
Glavine
Thomas
Walker
Trammel
E-Mart
Raines
Raffy
Piazza

In order of whose JAWS score is highest relative to JPOS:

Bonds +63
Clemens +42
Maddux + 20
Bagwell + 9
Piazza + 8
Thomas +5
Trammel +3
Raines +3
Schilling +2
Mussina +2
(everyone else +1 and under)

What's the takeaway here, besides the fact that Bonds and Clemens were really fucking good? It's an example of how skewed the perception of exellence is. Biggio, Morris, and Smith finished in the top 6 of voting in 2013. Not one of them scores higher than their respective JPOS, nor do either of them finish in the top 14 in JAWS (although Biggio is hurt more at 2B because of his three full seasons catching and three full seasons in the outfield). Morris is a highly sentimental pick, his 1991 Game 7 10-inning CG masterpiece looms large in 40 year-old plus voters. In terms of WAR, David Wells had a stronger case and he didn't even receive enough votes last year to stay on the ballot. The less said about Lee Smith finishing with more votes than someone like Alan Trammel, who played an invaluable position (SS) to Smith's valueless position (RP), the better.

If I Were Voting

Personally, I don't care about PED use. In many different eras of baseball history, asterisks abound. I played college baseball and I know people involved with the game today. Everyone is enhanced, be it through medications, or Tommy John surgery. But nobody hit 73 home runs in a single season except for one guy, which legitimizes that record within the context of the era when it was set. If I were voting, my ten would look like this:

Biggio
Bonds
Piazza
Maddux
Bagwell
Thomas
Clemens
Trammel
Raffy
Walker

What do you think? Aminuts? Amiright? Weigh in below.

Other notes:

-Larry Walker has the highest BA of any eligible player at .313 in just under 2,000 games. His career OPS is higher than Jeff Bagwell.

-Edgar Martinez is considered a 3B for baseball-reference.com's JAWS rating system and he barely eclipses that mark, arguably making him a HOFer. I have some issues with that. He only played 564 games at 3B (78 errors & pulled early for defense 48 times) and rarely after 1992. Baseball-reference.com doesn't seem to be calculating dWAR into Martinez's DH years, when he should be penalized at -1 per year. So taking away 9 WAR from his career total should put him off the radar. There's also another issue- suspected PED use. From '90-'92, Edgar averaged .313/.402/.477 with 6 WAR, 36 doubles, and 14-58 HR-RBI. In '93 & '94, he was injured. From '95-'01, which places him in his mid-to-late 30s, he averaged .329/.446/.574, with 42 doubles, 5.8 WAR, and 28-110 HR-RBI. A doubling of production for an aging player in the mid-to-late 90s is quite suspicious.

-Jeff Kent will be eligible in 2014 and he's an interesting case because of the position he played and the numbers he put up. Let's compare him to Craig Biggio:

KENT

'97-'08:

.295/.365/.516
25-100, 37 doubles
3.7 WAR, 44.9 total

BIGGIO

'92-'02:

.293/.387/.450
16-65, 28 SB
36 doubles, 4 triples
4.6 WAR, 50.7 total

Taking Kent's 11 best years versus Biggio's best 10 yields a clear victory for Biggio. And that's not including his time in the OF, or behind the plate. In fact, he was a valuable backstop:

C ('89-'91):

.277/.346/.372
7-49, 22 SBs
23 doubles
3.3 WAR, 9.9 total

Jeff Kent was a good baseball player who set offensive standards at 2B, and in some circles, would be considered more HOF worthy than Biggio. His 2000 MVP award and record setting RBI numbers are good points. But if you look at the numbers, Biggio was a better at the position.

-Two other eligible guys, Mike Timlin and Armando Benitez, have no chance of receiving enough votes to stay on the ballot for next year. However, their JAWS scores were similar, so I got to wondering whose career I'd rather have.

BENITEZ

-Pitched 7 years in AL
-Best run from '97-'03: 2 WAR per, 191 SVs, 2.81 ERA, 11.8 K/9
-Memorable blown SV vs Yankees in 2000 WS

TIMLIN

-Pitched 15 years in AL
-4 WS rings ('92 & '93 Jays, '04 & '07 Red Sox)
-Best run from '03-'07: 1.5 WAR per, 26 SVs, 347 GP, 93 GF, 3.50 ERA, 26 IP in ALCS w/ 3.42 ERA

I'm going with Timlin. He almost has a full hand of WS rings.

That's all for now, look for more HOF ramblings in the future.

*What the fuck is this about? Mattingly is laughably overrated and I'll be posting a blog tomorrow showing why that's true.

RIP Racism: 3000 B.C. - 11/04/2008

In 2010, the Biloxi Public School District in Mississippi voted to shut down Nichols Elementary School, due to "budget concerns." The board, which is overwhelmingly white, cited a 400,000$ loss each year for the district as the reason, despite that fact that it later turned out to have a 10$ million surplus. Even when the Kellogg Foundation stepped in with a 1.5$ million grant, the board said their decision was final. The school was closed.

Nichols was the top performing elementary school in Biloxi that year; it ranked 16th out of 432 public elementary schools in the state; it was the only school in Biloxi to earn the state's GreatSchools designation, and produced the state's 2009 Teacher of the Year. The school has been around since 1886, and the student population was 90% black (surprise!). (Note: you can find this story, and others like it in Chuck Thompson's Better Off Without 'Em)

Racism doesn't ride a horse, with a sheet drapped over its head, and a noose swinging from its hands in the 21st Century. It comes in the form of local school boards citing fictitious budget concerns so they can close the black school that was outperforming the white schools. Abstract things, like Mr. Lee Atwater once counseled the Republican party to focus on. Here's that quote, and make sure to remember it:

" You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

So remember this- when you hear a politician say, "cut, cut, cut", you know what he really means.



First, They Spied: A Surveillance State Supporter's Process of Change

First, they spied on the radicals, but I wasn't a Muslim, an environmentalist, or an anti-war advocate. I'm a Christian damn it, and I'm not about to have these Quran (Coo-ran) reading heathens destroy this great Judeo-Christian nation. And as for the environmentalists and anti-war supporters, I didn't support either movement. To be honest, I thought everyone involved was gay, and hated our troops.

Then they spied on our email, but I didn't use it. Today, my years unopened email account still ends in aol.com. If the NSA wanted to dig through chain emails and advertisements for extinct companies, they were more than welcome. I had nothing to hide.

Then they spied on our text messages and phone calls, which was admittedly troubling, but I'm wasn't a terrorist, so what was there to hide? Nothing. There's nothing I did in private that I would be uncomfortable with the NSA picking up in their global fight against the scourge of terrorism. Ben Franklin said those who would give up liberty for security deserve neither. Yeah, well, he's dead, and I didn't want to join him. This was the price of safety, and I eagerly purchased it.

Then they spied on our porn browsing history, and that's where I drew the line, but there was nobody left to support me. If only I had spoken up before, but I never imagined that the single most delicate piece of private information, porn browsing history, would be collected by the NSA. If I can't search Google at 3am for any number of questionable things, what's this whole American experiment been for? Just blow the damn thing up then.

So, after careful consideration, I want to change my mind on the surveillance state, and support privacy in all areas of life as more important than intruding into the lives of citizens to find terrorists.

My Biggest Fear

My biggest fear isn't dying- it's dying in a manner that my family and friends will secretly laugh about and that makes for awkward funeral speeches. Think about the show on Spike TV 1,000 Ways To Die. There are so many humiliating ways to die, especially if you're into weird shit. One guy, some mother's son, perished after he electrocuted himself by attaching car battery cables to his nipples. There's no doubt in my mind that after an initial mourning period, someone who loved him found themselves grinning at the thought of his demise. Could this be what the Barenaked Ladies were talking about in their hit song "One Week"? (#5 on the internal feedback loop for over 15 years)

"I'm the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral, can't understand what I mean? You soon will."

Do we all have a guy like this in our lives, who needs only the faintest of pushes to start howling in laughter at a funeral? I believe we do and that's why I hope that if I die (yes- "if", considering medical advances), it happens after a long, bitter fight with a debilitating disease. Nobody will start a Giggle Loop over that (if you don't know what that is, get off G+ immediately and watch Coupling on Netflix). But you know what will? Choking to death on bug body parts after participating in bug eating contests in order to win a python, which is exactly how an asshole in Florida died last year.

Back to my original point- I'm scared to die comically because I don't want my family and friends to one day regard my death as any shade of humor, AND I want my funeral speeches to be heartfelt and full of love. How could that happen for a guy who choked on cockroaches? If I were his dad, my life's obsession would be to ensure that everyone in the world knows I actively discouraged that kind of behavior in a 32 year-old man...Here's how I think that would go at the funeral:

"I loved my son. He was a good man, curious about the world around him, and sometimes moved to the beat of his own......ah fuck it. He was an idiot. Do you know how many times his mother begged him to stop eating bugs? How many times I tried to dissuade him? His death isn't a reflection on how little we cared about his well being. Short of imprisonment, what more could we do? I even called in a bomb threat to the Catepillars, Centipedes and Craisins contest last year so he couldn't attend."

In conclusion, I want to die honorably. Falling on one's sword is no laughing manner. Unless you tripped. Then it's hilarious. 

Ray Kelly, Ghetto Superstar

Ray Kelly would have you believe that black men trade knuckle handshakes (terrorist fist jabs, for you Fox News fans) with him in the streets of Harlem. After the NYPD stopped a higher number of black men than are black men in NYC, it's understandable why they love Ray Kelly. It's just like that scene in Ali, when he's jogging through the village and comes across the mural of him on the wall. The feeling of admiration must be as overwhelming for Ray Kelly in Harlem as it was for Ali in Africa. I can hear the community members now:

"Thank you so much for violating my civil liberties!"

"Mr. Kelly, when the NYPD officer stopped and frisked me because I was walking with a practiced swagger, I learned a valuable lesson in personal freedoms- they're theoretical. Thanks so much."

"YOOOO. What's good Ray-Ray? Can I get a picture with the guy who overseas a police force that systemically targets people of color, using laws written with race neutral language that hide the true agenda of caging and branding poor minorities?"

Mr. Commish, I hope the impact of the door hitting your ass on the way out is loud enough that Harlem can hear it.