Friday, January 17, 2003

Where've you gone, Bucky Dent? I don't know where he is at the moment, but I suspect a certain person's contract with Bucky &c@#'n Dent stipulates the final destination of Bucky's soul. --posted by Jim Furtado at 2:06 PM EDT / Discussion (3 Comments) [Clutch Hits] I'm too young to really hate Bucky. I wasn't even a full year old yet, in fact. But I'm not one of those nutcases who blames Buckner for '86 either - I blame Bob Stanley and Calvin Schiraldi. That was the first night I ever stayed up past midnight, and I've never really recovered. Today's a very baseball-centric day, isn't it? Hopefully it didn't bore the rest of you. I promise that I'll get back to political rants soon enough - I need to lay out my plans for the Republic of Greater New England for you all soon enough. Maybe during my meeting today...it's a wonderful plan, let me tell you...

3:39:16 PM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []

Giant squid 'attacks French boat' [BBC Science & Nature] ...retaliation for the Greenpeace incident, maybe?
11:55:07 AM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []

Is tech eating away at liberties?. Balancing civil liberties with national security has become a difficult juggling act following terrorist attacks, says technology consultant Bill Thompson. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition] Commentators like US journalist Declan McCullagh argue that the law cannot protect us and we should take up the electronic equivalent of arms and fight back against government. This is a typically American and typically wrong-headed response to the problem. The solution has to be political and has to involve better law. Here's the thing: the appropriate way to secure our rights is to follow legal routes, yes. But the problem is that the word 'privacy' isn't actually anywhere in the Constitution. And, in the aftermath of 9/11, I don't see a privacy amendment passing into law any time soon. Until then, we're only protected by favorable readings of the 4th Amendment, more or less. Surveillance issues are, of course, only one facet of the whole movement by the Bush administration towards something that, in a certain light, resembles a police state. I don't want the Feds reading my emails - I don't want them to listen in my phone conversations if I happen to share a phone with a suspected terrorist - I don't want them to track my purchases and viewing habits. But I could give some ground on these actions, if it weren't for my very rational fear of the Federal government going beyond them. Jose Padilla is being held unconstitutionally by the US government because they think he might know something useful. While it's highly unlikely that they'll decide I might know something, it's certainly not impossible. That's why we have to resist the attempts to push the limits of privacy back - there is a very, very real slippery slope. Oh, and I don't think I'd say that Declan advocates taking up "the electronic equivalent of arms". That's a far more radical message than Declan and other mainstream thinkers have been conveying. We're not planning to go to war with the government. Rather, we intend to use passive resistance agianst what we consider violations of our most integral constitutional rights. Crypto is not a weapon - it's a shield.

11:53:55 AM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []

You know what's fun? I mean, real, real fun? Writing your performance review. How am I supposed to do this? As best as I can tell, I'm supposed to come as close to lying as I can without actually crossing the line - make myself look as good as the facts can make me look, while ignoring any failures I've had in the last year. I had real problems with this last year - I was too self-deprecating, basically, and too informal in my writing style. That, and I really hadn't done much of anything in my first year on the job. I wasn't cut out for development, really. This year, at least, I've accomplished quite a bit, but I still feel awkward.

11:06:44 AM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []

I think the news aggregator in Radio is pissed at me for ignoring it for so long - it doesn't seem to want to be doing my hourly updates. Ungrateful son of a... =)
10:22:08 AM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []

In response to Frank Galassi's comment re: Dwight Evans' reasons for not being in the Baseball Hall of Fame - I sponsor his stats page at baseball-reference.com - Yeah, his offensive numbers are reasonably similar to Parker - Dawson's really a later era than him, but the point stands. But when you compare him to his most similar hitters (according to baseball-reference.com), you see that they're either Hall of Famers (Billy Williams, Tony Perez, Al Kaline), fielding non-entities (Chili Davis, Darrell Evans, Harold Baines, Joe Carter, Jim Rice), or Parker and Dawson. Evans and Dawson are reasonably comparable defensively - Evans won 8 Gold Gloves, as did Dawson. Parker won three GGs, but doesn't have the reputation Evans did in the field. Let's take a quick look at the offensive numbers: Now, you'd think Parker and Dawson would both have significantly better offensive numbers. After all, both of them won MVPs. And Dawson did have 438 homers to Evans' 385, but Parker only had 339. But take a look at their career OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage, the best simple stat for evaluating a hitter): in almost exactly overlapping careers, Parker put up an OPS of .810, while Evans put up an .840. Dawson, whose career started four years after Evans and ended five years after Evans (getting him into the beginning of the '90s offensive explosion) had a career OPS of .806. Even more noteworthy are their OPS+ - based on comparing their park-adjusted OPS to the park-adjusted league OPS for their careers. Dawson has an OPS+ of 119 (100 means league average), Parker 121, Evans 127. Parker's peak year was a 166, Dawson's 157, and Evans' 163. It's worth noting that Parker was erratic - putting together an excellent five year run from '75 through '79 (148, 132, 144, 166, 141), but only once more topping 120 (148 in '85). Dawson tailed off dramatically, posting sub-100 OPS+ for his last four seaons (in only one of which was he a full-time player, too). Evans, on the other hand, put up only one sub-100 OPS+ in his entire career - a part-time season in his rookie year, 1973. From that point on, he only dropped below 110 twice. Now I'm just babbling stats. Let's just put it this way - Evans, at the least, is offensively worthy of the Hall. He had a long career in which he consistently put up outstanding on base percentages to go with very good slugging. His counting stats aren't that impressive, but his overall performance, especially once his 8 Gold Gloves are thrown into the mix, is truly stellar. He should certainly make the Hall ahead of Parker, who had a great five year run and was never again a great player, and, in my opinion, ahead of Dawson. Of course, I'm a fanboy. =)

7:39:38 AM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []

Damn, I'm a bad, bad blogger, aren't I? That's, what, 11 days without anything? Well, I have no excuse...well, except for my excuses. A_____, even more work (I get to go to a two hour meeting with a bunch of managers at 4pm every day now! Joy!), general laziness...eh, you get it. But I'm gonna try! I'm gonna try again! I can CHANGE! Please don't leave me!
7:09:46 AM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []