"Marge, you make it sound so seamy. All I did was spend the afternoon in her trailer watching her try on some outfits."

Simpsons Top 100 Countdown
#15 Colonel Homer
Season 3, Episode 20 (Guide from the Simpsons Archive)

Angry with Marge after being publicly embarrassed by her, Homer drives into the night and visits a bar far outside Springfield. In it, he finds a singing waitress whose song he can’t get out of his head. A few days later, he goes back to see her, and takes her to one of those make-your-own-cd places. The owner of that place has a brother in the radio business and gets her some playtime on the local station. Homer becomes her manager, and her career continues to grow. Marge is displeased that he’s spending so much time with another woman, and catches on to the attraction she has to Homer, to which he is oblivious. She makes her move on Homer, and he has to make his decision. Naturally, he chooses Marge. Memorable moments include parking, drinking soda and other annoying behavior by Homer, Marge yelling at Homer, Bart explaining Homer’s anger, forgetting Maggie, Flaming Pete’s, smells, fighting words, Yodeling Zeke, pig, back at home, surgery, bowling, Moe’s disappointment in Homer, getting a copy of the song, song titles, smacking around Sideshow Mel, prison riot, Marge’s anger and Homer’s complete lack of understanding, Homer’s full disclosure, another of Homer’s lifelong dreams, recording studio, theory of lying, packaging records, complimenting Homer, portrait of Homer in the trailer, Homer missing (and then getting) the “hidden message” of the song, Hee Haw parody, Homer’s first meeting with the record company representative, Homer’s romantic life flashing before his eyes, negotiations, reunion with Marge, Marge’s reaction to the television, and all the songs (I’m not a huge country music fan or anything, but they’re well written, better than the parodies of Mary Poppins and Evita, which were the only episodes that had roughly equivalent amounts of singing (not counting the one clip show)).

Links I've Had Sitting Around for Too Long

Some of these have been sitting on my computer for a few weeks, waiting for posting, but that's just the way these things go.

Who actually makes the federal minimum wage? Almost nobody, according to this study by the Heritage Foundation. Only 1.5% of wage earners fall into that category, and when you discount those, like waiters and waitresses, whose tips are not counted as part of their hourly wage, the number falls to about 1.1%. A disproportionate amount of those are teens or in their early twenties, people whose livelihood (generally) does not depend on the job.

There are some people who do make less than the minimum wage though -- many residents of American Samoa. However, that territory is curiously absent from the Minimum Wage Bill before Congress. The major industry there is the tuna business, with Starkist being one of the two major companies. Starkist does happen to be based in Nancy Pelosi's home district. Hmm.... Surprisingly for a politician, the delegate representing the territory is actually aware of the negative effect that raising the minimum wage to the level in the Democrats' bill would have on the local economy. The Dems had the defense that it would be amended in the Senate, but the amendment offered there (Reid Amendment #100) contains the Marianas, but no Samoa.

I know a few people who love the old pin-ups that our troops had in past wars. Well, one group decided to create new pinups.

Lake Superior State University released it's annual list of banished words (I told you these links have been sitting around for awhile).

I'm sure we've all heard the tales about someone duping people into signing a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide. Well, Penn & Teller stole the idea and made a nice video out of it.

I have a rather good memory, but nothing like this woman. Simple amazing.

No Whites Allowed in the Congressional Black Caucus. Wouldn't want any uppity blancos causing trouble.

Saturday Night Live did a hilarious pseudo-interview with Chris Matthews and Hillary Clinton. Funny stuff.

There was apparently a B-movie Fantastic Four made in the 1990's. It's funny-bad, definite fodder for MST3K or the like.

They now have "4D" images of the womb.

Not a link, but the Democrats' agenda for the first 100 hours of Congress passed the House in only 42 hours and 25 minutes, according to whatever time-counting method Nancy Pelosi was using, and in about 87 hours according to the amount of time it was actually in session. Either way, the new Congress took office January 3, and the House didn't finish this until January 18, for a real-time count closer to 360 hours. I've seen several articles talking about how the first 100 hours of Congress were a huge success for Democrats. However, I note that not a single bill has passed Congress as a whole. As these bills are likely to receive at least minor amendments in the Senate, it could be that even the House is not done with a single one of them. Will Nancy's clock start ticking again when the bills come back?

UPDATE: forgot a few ...

I hate unions and I do not intend to have surgery in Romania any time soon.

Apparently, under Nebraska law, a city can annex a town in the same county with a population under 10,000 without that town's consent. Elkhorn is fighting Omaha's action, but it's chances of success look poor.

A weatherman must go on the air, whether manly or not. (hahahahahahaha)

Charles Murray had a good three-part series on education in the Wll Street Journal here, here, and here. A few quibbles here and there, but I'm mostly in agreement with him.

Red Rabbit

I just finished reading Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy. That is to say, I finished reading it, rolled out of bed, and sat down at the computer to start typing this post. It's a fictionalized account of the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, filled in with characters from the Ryanverse (the universe of characters used in nearly all his novels, named for the main charcter, Jack Ryan). Interestingly, I don't believe John Paul II is mentioned specifically by name in the whole book (though it does refer to him as Karol several times), though he is on the dust jacket (as is customary with Clancy, he'll specifically name high-ranking Soviets, but will usually avoid doing so when he uses high-ranking historical political figures from other countries, unless they predate the story (for instance, in this book, not naming Reagan or Thatcher, but naming Carter, Brezhnev, Andropov, and a few others).

Oddly, Clancy mixes around the timing of some historical events for the book. No real spoilers here, so don't worry if you haven't read it yet, but plan to. Working off the top of my head here, John Paul II was shot in May of 1981, but the book clearly takes place during the fall (numerous mentions), and the latter part of the book (second half, give or take) during the Orioles-Phillies World Series (which took place in 1983). However, Brezhnev is still in charge of the Soviet Union, and he died in November 1982. There are several references to the new Baltimore shortstop (Cal Ripken, Jr.), who didn't play in the majors until August 1981, and the comments about him (rising star) seem most plausible for 1982, rather than 1981 (very little playing time, and quite unimpressive) or 1983 (a genuinely star season which he would only top in 1991). It also makes reference to the Falklands War (March-June 1982). There are also several mentions of Transformers (the television series), which debued in 1984. Now, I know that Tom Clancy isn't always perfect with such things, but the sheer number of errors in the historical timeline is surprising. He also seems to get his time zones reversed, saying the sun rises two hours earlier in Budapest than Moscow (I could see that possibly happening in winter, but the story occurs much closer to the autumnal equinox than the winter solstice, and the time zones have Moscow being two hours earlier, so a time zone mix-up seems most probable).

There's less action in this book, as well. All-in-all, it's one of the weaker books in the series.

Baseball Meanderings

Yankee Stadium was awarded the 2008 All-Star game. I find absolutely nothing wrong with this except that the site for the 2009 All-Star game was announced first. What's up with that?

Carlos Zambrano is poised to win the largest arbitration salary ever, even if he loses. He submitted a $15.5 million request and the Cubs offered $11.25 million. The previous record was the $10 million Alphonso Soriano got last year, although Derek Jeter was destined for a higher salary before withdrawing from arbitration to sign a ten-year contract in 2001 (see following link).

Speaking of arbitration, I discovered something odd the other day: previously, two players have submitted requests lower than what ownership offered. Mike Edwards (DH) requested $50,000 in 1980 and was faced with an Athletics' offer of $58,000, while Mike Flanagan (P) requested $485,000 in 1982 in the face of a $500,000 offer from the Baltimore Orioles. I'd be interested in knowing more about these cases, but am too lazy to research them at the moment. I couldn't find my original source for the information, but it can be found here.

It looks like Sammy Sosa will be returning to the Major Leagues. The Texas Rangers decided to gamble with a $500,000 minor-league contract (plus incentives). True, it's only a minor league deal, but I think he will perform well enough in spring training that the Rangers will take him into the season. He's going to be much more the Sosa of 2004-2005 than the one of 1998-2001, I'm sure. Unfortunately, I don't think his stay in the majors will last long enough for him to accumulate the 404 strikeouts he needs to take sole possession of first place alltime (he's currently second; Jim Thome should move into third barring missing half the season). It would take three seasons of fairly regular playing time, and, while I can see him sticking around for this year, possibly even next, I can't see him sticking around through 2009 and staying healthy and effective enough to get the necessary plate appearances.

Russ Ortiz managed to get a contract as well, from the Giants. I'd complain more about these last two contracts if they weren't for under $1 million each; they're practically free by baseball standards, so I'll stick to complaining about real wasted money, like the $7 million a season the Cubs thought a certain pitcher was worth after compiling an ERA of 6.02 last year, or the $18 million a year the Giants thought a certain overrated pitcher was worth for far too many years.

This Goes a Long Way Towards Explaining Our Border Problems

A couple of border patrol agents shot a drug runner carrying almost 750 lbs. of marijuana into the United States. Recognizing the problem immediately, our government decided to grant full immunity from prosecution to the drug runner in exchange for his testimony against the border patrol agents. Now, it would certainly appear that the border agents did not follow proper procedure in this case, but throwing them in jail for over a decade while granting immunity to the drug runner is, well, dumb. This reflects the federal government's lack of seriousness when it comes to border enforcement and the war on drugs. I read often about what a failure the war on drugs is, mostly from libertarians (or libertarian-leaning conservatives), but you can always point to cases like this to show what a joke this "war" really is. I mean, how many times have you heard about a pro athelete failing some drug test and not getting into any trouble with the law because of it? Opponents like to point to the relatively large portion of the prison population that was convicted on drug charges, but, really, do you hear more about people getting thrown in jail, or about people who do everything short of shooting up in front of an officer but don't face any legal penalties?

Irrational Defense

I finally opened my copy of season 9 of The Simpsons. I was listening to the audio commentary for The Principal and the Pauper, one of the worst Simpsons episodes ever (its awfulness all the more glaring given its location in a very good season, bordered by two of my top 100), mostly wanting to see what they had to say for themselves. Apparently, according to them, the fans who hated that episode are afraid of "new" thingsand want everything to stick to the status quo. The argument really doesn't wash -- the fans don't dislike "new" things -- they dislike bad things. The commentators undermine their own point when one observes that the fans didn't complain about the van Houtens getting divorced. Maude dying was not greeted with outrage, nor was Apu's marriage, progeny, or adultery. Lisa becoming a vegetarian was unenthusiastically greeted due to the preachiness of the episode, and Lisa becoming Buddhist was just a bad episode.

Why was it a bad episode? There are trhee reasons:

1. It wasn't funny. The jokes fell flat.
2. It had a poorly developed plot that was more over the top than most episodes (without clearly being a parody or some such) and smacked of desperation.
3. It ended with the mother of all cop-outs.

It had nothing to do with trying something new. El Viaje de Nuestro Homer was well received, as were the Simpsons-turned-crimesolvers episodes (that is, the Sideshow Bob episodes). Several innovations were tried in the Halloween episodes, and the various three-show episodes that tend to appear each spring, and they were generally well-received.

Another thing that bugs me is that they called it a "controversial" episode. Hardly. When ninety percent of fans think it's a bad episode, there's not really any controversy -- it's more of a consensus. If fifty percent thought it was excellent, and fifty percent thought it was horrible, then there would be controversy. Matt Groening, to my surprise, called it one of his least favorite episodes in his season introduction, but did not participate in the commentary to expound on that.

They also mention that the episode is a shot at their critics, especially those on the internet (then, not now, so I wouldn't have been included). Leaving aside the fact that doing this in an effort to upset those complaining about the show was also going to leave those who weren't complaining about it upset (and make them start complaining), they're still missing the point. Valid criticism (and some, though admittedly not all, of the criticism was valid) can help a show maintain a high quality. As they've previously demonstrated, however, these writers like to whine and moan that they should be exempt from all criticism. That's really unfortunately, as (I imagine not coincidentally) season 9, while still quite good, marked the beginning of the decline for the show, to the point where, about a couple years ago, I stopped caring whether I caught the new episode each week.

I'd have more to say on all this, but I have other matters to attend to.

Baseball Hall of Fame Voting

Today, the results of the BBWAA voting for the Hall of Fame are announced (announcement comes at 2pm EST (noon MST) and will be broadcast live on mlb.com). I did some looking for results from those who have already cast ballots, neatly compiled in a single place, but was not able to find such a thing. I did find results for mlb.com writers (13) and ESPN.com writers (12), which combine to form less than 5% of the electorate. From that subset, Gwynn and Ripken were unanimous, while Gossage and Dawson each received over 75% of the vote (curiosly, the baseball homepage on ESPN.com lists their writers as selecting Gwynn, Ripken, Gossage, and Rice, with no mention of Dawson). Other writers have announced their ballots, but I'm too lazy to compile all of them, especially this close to the actual announcement.

There was some talk about Tony Gwynn and/or Cal Ripken, Jr., being the first player(s) unanimously elected to the Hall. Well, I've heard that one writer announced he sent his ballot back blank, so this seems unlikely. Still, either could wind up with the highest percentage ever. As memory serves, that distinction currently belongs to Tom Seaver, who missed only five votes from a smaller pool of voters -- three were from blank ballots submitted to protest Pete Rose not being on the ballot, one was from a guy who was hospitalized around the time of balloting who said leaving Seaver off was a mistake, and one was a guy who just wouldn't vote for first-timers.

Anyways, here's my hypothetical ballot for the Hall:

Tony Gwynn -- Duh.
Cal, Ripken, Jr. -- Ditto.
Bert Blyleven -- One player who has gained major steam after the statheads took up his cause, it looks like Blyleven will get into the Hall, though I'm not optimistic about this year. He accumulated 287 career wins (26th alltime) playing mostly for mediocore teams (a game-by-game analysis showed that he "deserved" to reach the 300-win mark which is considered a lock for the Hall). He's fifth alltime in strikeouts, and ninth in shutouts. His ERA+ is 118 (18% better than league average). Really, there's no compelling reason not to put him in the Hall of Fame, but voters keep finding a way.
Tommy John -- I could talk about the 288 career wins, the ERA+ of 111 for a career that lasted from 1963 through 1989, or any number of othe stats, but, let's face it, he belongs in the Hall for having the surgery named after him, just like Lou Gehrig got into the Hall not for his 493 HR, 1995 RBI, .340 BA, or any other stats, but the fact that he had a disease named after him.
Andre Dawson -- I debated this one for a bit, as his .323 OBP is ... not exactly good. Certainly not Hall of Fame caliber. He was the third player to post 300 homers and 300 steals (a club whose size has since doubled to six). He had 438 homers, 1591 RBIs, 1373 Runs, 2774 hits, 4787 total bases, 314 steals, and slugged .482.

Players I would not be voting for, if I had a vote.
Rich Gossage (and, to a lesser extent, Lee Smith) -- basically, a reliever is someone who couldn't hack it as a starter (or could only get by as a mediocore one). See, e.g., Dennis Eckersley (later in his career), Mariano Rivera, Eric Gagne.
Jim Rice and Dale Murphy -- I spent a good amount of time thinking about these two and Dawson. What really sealed it for me was looking at the park effect these two enjoyed (go here and scroll down to "outfielders" to see it). On the road, they had similar OBPs to Dawson, but their slugging was worse. Dawson was also a better fielder and baserunner. So that's why he gets in but they don't. I will admit, however, that all three will be getting more thought from me in about a year.
Jack Morris -- I like him, but I'm skeptical of his Hall worthiness. This skepticism is mostly due to his career ERA of 3.90. His ERA+ of 105 indicates he was 5% better than league average over his career, and, while that's good, is it really Hall worthy? If nothing else, I'll always remember Game 7 of the 1991 World Series, the first World Series I ever watched (and quite possibly better than any of the ones since).
Mark McGwire -- I'm doing one of those protest votes (or non-votes, or would-be non-votes). Yeah, I'm getting a bit tired of some of the moralizing coming from this group, but it doesn't irritate me nearly as much as the moralizing against the moralizers from the likes of Bill Simmons (who is totally oblivious to the irony).
Bobby Witt -- how, exactly, did he get on the ballot? They screen the newly eligible players such that not all of them are placed on the ballot, and I'd argue for some of those newly left off over him. He was a below average pitcher (ERA+ of 90, for instance) and had a losing career record. I don't mean to be mean, but who's going to vote for the guy?
Bret Saberhagen -- I ended up giving him a lot more thought than I thought I would. His ERA+ was 126, which is rather impressive. He also won two Cy Young awards. However, he had various injury problems and a rather short career by Hall standards (Blyleven and John each pitched nearly twice as many innings, although they both had fairly long careers). He totaled 30 starts in a season only five times in his career, and only once after 1989. He pitched well enough to be in the Hall, but not often enough.

Recent Reading

As I was packing for my recent trip to Indiana, I noticed a $15 Borders gift card, and placed it in my pocket. To my surprise, the airport had a Borders. Deciding to augment my reading material, I eventually settled on The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. The sales clerk said that he had been wanting to read it as well, so we chatted briefly. I found it quite the interesting read. For those who don't know, the book is written as a series of letters from an older demon (Screwtape) to a younger demon, explaining the best ways to tempt a man away from God and towards sin. I love the way it's setup -- it seems to be a more approachable way of telling someone the error of their ways, and goes on to explain exactly why this or that thing is spiritually bad. I wish more Christians (or "Christians" -- it's good for both) would read it.

Also completed on my trip was Next by Michael Crichton. It's a story of technology gone bad. Well, okay, that describes half his novels. This one deals with genetic experimentation. It's like his last work, State of Fear, in that he's trying to convey a point, which is pretty obvious through the novel, and, if it weren't obvious enough, there's an "Author's Note" at the end which includes his suggestions for how we deal with the issue. Unlike State of Fear, there were no footnotes (which I found highly amsuing in a novel), but the book did have snippets of genuine news articles that reported bogus news which were amusnig (e.g., on the purported World Health Organization report in 2002 that blondes would be extinct in 200 years, which could ahve been easily confirmed a hoax had the reporters actually bothered to call WHO and discover that no such report existed; he also included follow-up "we've been had" articles). Overall, I did not find it his best work, nor did I agree with all of his conclusions, but it was quite readable, and his conclusions were not different enough from my own to grate on me throughout the reading process. He does highlight several problems in our legal approach to genetics, such as the patenting of genes. While reading the book, I decided to browse his bibliography, and was initially surprised to see a pair of books by G.K. Chesterton (who also happens to be on my to-read list). I reproduce the second of these entries here:

Chesterton, G.K. Eugenics and Other Evils: An Argument Against the Scientifically Ordered Society. Edited by Michael W. Perry. Seattle: Inkling Books, 2000. Originally published in 1922, this astonishingly prescient text has much to say about our understanding of genetics then (and now), and about the mass seduction of pseudosceince. Chesterton's was one of the few voices to oppose eugenics in the early twentieth century. He saw right through it as fraudlent on every level, and he saw where it would lead, with great accuracy. His critics were legion; they reviled him as reactionary, ridiculous, ignorant, hysterical, incoherent, and blindly prejudiced, noting with dismay that "his influence in leading people in the wrong direction is considerable." Yet Chesterton was right, and the consensus of the scientists, political leaders, and the intelligentsia was wrong. Chesterton lived to see the horrors of Nazi Germany. This book is worth reading because, in retrospect, it is clear that Chesterton's arguments were perfectly sensible and deserving of an answer, and yet he was simply shouted down. And because the most repellent ideas of eugenics are being promoted again in the twenty-first century, under various guises. The editor of this edition has included many quotes from eugenicists of the 1920s, which read astonishingly like the words of contemporary prophets of doom. Some things never change--including, unfortunately, the gullibility of the press and public. We human beings don't like to look back at our past mistakes. But we should.

I just found it interesting, that's all.

I've also been reading Baseball Between the Numbers -- a heavily stats-based book that challenges conventional baseball wisdom, occasionally confirming it, but more often working to debunk it. The book says that those who are not statistically-inclined need not be intimidated, but, even though they don't do much of the math in the pages of the book, I'd say it's probably better to have some familiarity with statistics (and here I mean more a college course on statistics, rather than baseball statistics, although yuo'd certainly want that, too -- if yuo don't understand much beyond HR, R, and RBI, the book is probably a bit much for you). The book favors several unconventional ideas that I was in favor of before reading it, such as returning to the four-man rotation, and using elite relievers in non-save situations (the save possibly being the single worst statistic in baseball). It also points out that accumulating 100 RBIs does not necessarily indicate a good season at the plate, and that Alex Rodriguez is overpaid. At the same time, I purchased Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Blunders. While I haven't done much reading in the book yet (I'm about to sit down to some more), Neyer is one of my favorite baseball columnists. Unfortunately, his columns (and online chat sessions) are now behind a subscriber-only wall, and I'm too cheap to pay for access. Also unfortunately, as he is an online writer, he's ineligible to be a Hall of Fame voter (many espn.com writers are eligible, but that comes from previous service with the print media).