Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Next: OJ calls off search for The Real Killers
In case anyone missed it (like if you get your news from Fox and Rush), the search for WMD in Iraq was officially called off in late December. **
Translation for the thick-headed: There are no WMD. There never were. The government has given up all pretense of even looking for them any more. They are not just hidden really really well. They. Do. Not. Exist.
You were lied to.
Many people knew there were no WMD. Intelligence reports to that effect were buried and ignored, and any flimsy reports indicating their presence were hyped mercilessly. All to scare you into backing a US attack on a country that the administration KNEW posed us no credible threat.
Those who thought some of us naive for suspecting this two years ago: you were wrong, we were right. Try to be smarter in the future. People are dying for no reason over this. Your ignorant views affect everyone else's world.
** Link may require free registration, or you can use mine: Login=joesblog, password=joesblog.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
God: Needs Improvement
At my company we do annual employee reviews where everyone is assigned a performance rating as follows:
1) Unacceptable
2) Needs Improvement
3) Meets Expectations
4) Exceeds Expectations
5) Exceptional
I have to give reviews, which is not my favorite part of the job. Every year it makes me a bit crazy, and Mrs. Joesblog has to endure a few weeks of me classifying everything I encounter in life as one of the above. So, the meatloaf Exceeds Expectations, the service at Sol's Cocina Needs Improvement, this morning's traffic and the cat's behavior are both Unacceptable, etc.
Here at my company we're coming up on annual review time again, which is perfect timing for this Slate piece on Jehovah's recent performance. Seems the author thinks God Needs Improvement :
Centuries of uncritical worship have clearly produced a monster. God knows that he can sit passively by while human life is wantonly mowed down, and the next day, churches, synagogues, and mosques will be filled with believers thanking him for allowing the survivors to survive.
[...]
It is a sad fact of human relations that unqualified adulation often produces from the adored one contempt and a kick in the chops, rather than gratitude and kindness. Apparently, the same applies to human-divine relations.
Hopefully God will take the hint after his review, because the next step after a bad review is, of course, a Performance Improvement Plan. God Almighty, you don't want to be put on a PIP, trust me.
(God's negative review should dispel the widely-held belief around here that you have to walk on water to get an Exceptional rating. Even if you do walk on water, you may still Need Improvement...)
Free Throw Science
Props to eagle-eyed Mrs. Joesblog for spotting this article in Slate, which makes a very interesting proposal. Rather than waving wildly -- and randomly -- at opposing free throw shooters, NBA fans should try waving left and right more slowly and in unison. This should have the effect of disorienting the shooter a bit, possibly just enough to alter the shot.
The article contends that with everyone waving randomly, the background blends together and is perceived as visual white noise, which is easily disregarded. But if everyone leans left together, then leans right, it just might have a more noticeable effect. When the visual background relative to the shooter appears to be tilting left, then right, the shooter may unconsciously compensate, resulting in -- viola! -- a resounding clang off the rim for the opposition.
The Slate guy got Mavs owner Mark Cuban (of course) to try this for a few games, with promising but still ambiguous results. The article says Cuban dropped the idea, but Mrs. Joesblog and I attended Saturday's game vs. the Indiana Pacers, where we noticed one of the Mavs promotions people was still directing behind-the-basket fans in waving left and right together.
Fans being how they are, and it being Saturday night with beer on tap, some fans got with the program better than others. Still, they did sync up sometimes, and it seemed to us that the Pacers bricked a few free throws when that happened. (The Mavs sank a higher percentage of their free throws than the Pacers for the night, but they usually outshoot opponents from the line. The Pacers shot about the league average for the game overall.)
Will the NBA think this is legal and kosher? The Slate guy thinks legal, yes, kosher, maybe. He cites college basketball, where fans do stuff like this and much more.
My opinion is that if the idea caught on and appeared to work, the NBA would ban it. They allow the frantic waving only because it does not work, while at the same time it makes the fans feel involved (and a bit naughty).
Either way, it's nice to see reason and logic being applied to something this important...
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Google Yourself
Every now and then it can be amusing to Google yourself. I usually don't get much of interest, other than a Joe from Alabama who's a big wheel in the American Bonsai Society. Obviously not me; my only experience with Bonsai was getting a tree for my mom one Christmas, which my cat Opie used as a litter box until the poor little tree died. Bonsai Joe probably would not be amused.
(I still don't see this blog come up, although I registered with Google and Blogspot is operated by Google. Sigh... I suppose if I put more effort into it I might get more hits, and that might get me on Google's radar... Eh. Never mind.)
This time something new popped up though. A bay in South Dakota (a bay in South Dakota?) has been named after me. And not just any bay either; amenities at JoesBay include a fish cleaning station and a "vault toilet".
I of course am deeply honored, and wish to thank all the little people. My new goal in life is to someday see my bay.
Sunday, January 02, 2005
Kind of a shame
James Wolcott hits the high points of a chilling report in the Economist:
There's a Peter Cook-Dudley Moore routine, one of their woolgathering dialogues, where Dud asks Pete, "So would you say you've learned from your mistakes?" and Pete replies: "Oh yes, I'm certain I could repeat them exactly."
That seems to have been the Bush administration's approach to Iraq. Take the mistakes of Vietnam and repeat them exactly.
And at that you can't say they haven't succeeded.
