Re: Explanation
In a message dated 11/14/2003 4:47:07 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: well, I *do* toss out the baseball/football posts frequently :\ No no say it isn't so. I have been engaged in these mostly for your entertainment ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: On trolling
In a message dated 11/14/2003 5:01:20 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Are you trying to insinuate that some of us are obsessed with SPORTS??? I was thinking more about Sports Wear. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Philosophical question
In a message dated 11/10/2003 10:34:02 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: 42 for a woman, 39 for a man. But much more importantly what is the median of life? What is the mean of life? Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: On trolling
In a message dated 11/10/2003 11:17:06 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I wonder if this person would consider trolling to include posting multiple articles every day, with insult-laden subject lines, propogate a single peculiar agenda?It seems to me that that situation would consitute trolling while violating the first rule above. Good no one around here does that. Because none of us has a single agenda or point of view which we consistently hold to no matter what the circumstance ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Dogmatism
In a message dated 11/2/2003 1:30:10 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Marx _certainly_ would have approved of Lenin's and Stalin's anti-semitism. On the Jewish Question is so viciously anti-semitic that the historical affinity of some Jewish intellectuals for Marxism has always confused the hell out of me. Well, one can like a philosophy without liking the philosopher or at least all of his views. Of course Marx was the grandson of one the important Rabbi's in his section of Germany. His father rejected his religion like many other jews of that period. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: It's a boy!
Congratulations ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: McNabb and Limbaugh Re: Raceism
In a message dated 10/23/2003 9:51:37 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I dunno. it seems very weird to me that in wondering if somebody is a racist that the second question one would ask is does he give money to black colleges? Just an example. I'm still waiting for evidence that would counter his public utterannces. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: McNabb and Limbaugh Re: Raceism
In a message dated 10/23/2003 9:54:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: This is one of the most infuriating comments that I have heard from many sources regarding this whole thing what is the point of appealing in code to somebody in this instance? i.e. for what reason would Rush decide to appeal in code in his fourth appearance on an ESPN Pregame show? To stir up controversy. To push his agenda that the media is favoring blacks. To subtly reinforce beliefs that blacks are inferior intellectually. To suggest that racism is not a real problem in need of remedy but simply an invention of the liberal media. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Pedro...
: ...sure doesn't look very impressive to me. His post season ERA has to be up around 5 somewhere, he's too whimpy to pitch on 3 days rest, and his sportsmanship is questionable to boot. I was a Red Sox fan and a Yankee hater for most of my youth and into my adulthood, but I'm rooting for these jerkoffs to loose. Go Cubs... So I was in Scottsdale speaking at a Radiology meeting for game 7 and have not had a chance to talk about the game. Almost had a heart attack of course but in the end it worked out so well. Pedro coming through in the end (oh wait he blew for his team). Pedro telling his manager that he had given his all and that being a great team player he knew it was time for the bullpen to mop up (oh wait Pedro let his ego get the best of him; how out of character). I don't want to get into this arguement again (well sure I do) but Sandy Kofax won those games. He went nine (or 10 or 11) sometimes on two days rest. And he won. The greatest pitcher ever has to win or take himself out when he can't. Pedro, Pedro, Pedro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Pedro...
: ...sure doesn't look very impressive to me. His post season ERA has to be up around 5 somewhere, he's too whimpy to pitch on 3 days rest, and his sportsmanship is questionable to boot. I was a Red Sox fan and a Yankee hater for most of my youth and into my adulthood, but I'm rooting for these jerkoffs to loose. Go Cubs... So I was in Scottsdale speaking at a Radiology meeting for game 7 and have not had a chance to talk about the game. Almost had a heart attack of course but in the end it worked out so well. Pedro coming through in the end (oh wait he blew for his team). Pedro telling his manager that he had given his all and that being a great team player he knew it was time for the bullpen to mop up (oh wait Pedro let his ego get the best of him; how out of character). I don't want to get into this arguement again (well sure I do) but Sandy Kofax won those games. He went nine (or 10 or 11) sometimes on two days rest. And he won. The greatest pitcher ever has to win or take himself out when he can't. Pedro, Pedro, Pedro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Earth is here
Did anyone see the Week In Review in the NYT today? An article on people using photo phones to take pictures of strangers doing odd/embarrasssing things in public and posting same on the Web. The beginning of what Brin talked about in his novel. Excellent forseeing ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Earth is here
Did anyone see the Week In Review in the NYT today? An article on people using photo phones to take pictures of strangers doing odd/embarrasssing things in public and posting same on the Web. The beginning of what Brin talked about in his novel. Excellent forseeing ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: McNabb and Limbaugh Re: Raceism
In a message dated 10/11/2003 1:21:41 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Indeed. In fact, if ESPN had fired Limbaugh because his comments showed an utter lack of knowledge about football and the media hyping of all mobile QB's, be they Doug Flutie or Donovan McNabb, I probably wouldn't have cared.To fire him, however, because the Democratic Political Establishment in this country engaged in a coordinated assault designed to categorize all criticisms of reverse racism as racism really sits badly with me. It is good to see you back John. With all the bad news for the GOP I was wondering when you would weigh in. The thing about Rush is that he was hired to be provocotive and he was. But based on his history it cannot be argued that his anti-media attack came out with regard to a black quaterback. As you have documented, McNabb is very good and as your ranking shows many black quaterbacks are in the upper teir. Any fan with unbiased knowledge of the game would have to acknowledge this so it seems that there must be bias in Rush to come up with this analysis. I have seen others suggest a double standard because Howard Cossel did not get fired for his monkey remark. But I think it is personnel history rather than politics. Both men were egoists with a desire to create controversy. The difference is that Cossell was a legitimate champion of black athletes while Rush (or at least a large part of his audience) are, to be kind, not overly sympathetic to the plight of blacks. So when Cossel says he did not mean the statement as a racial slur he is believed while when Rush says it is not a slur it is not because it falls into his general pattern of demogogery. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Pedro...
In a message dated 10/14/2003 4:15:43 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I was a Red Sox fan and a Yankee hater for most of my youth and into my adulthood, but I'm rooting for these jerkoffs to loose. Go Cubs... Which jerkoff. the ny jerkoffs (my team) or the boston jerkoff. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: McNabb and Limbaugh Re: Raceism
In a message dated 10/14/2003 5:51:25 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: but his argument was not, on its face, entirely unreasonable. It certainly wasn't racist. Calling him a racist is nothing more than the usual tactic of arguing that anybody who disagrees with the PC line is a bigot. It happens to most conservatives in college, for goodness sake, so Rush should have been a little better prepared for it. How are we so certain that Rush is not racist? Does he have a personal history of supporting racial equality? Does he give money to black colleges? speak out for racial equality? I'm not saying he is a racist but it is glib to say he is not. What he did was play the race card if you will. He knew he would provoke this response. At best this was cynical at worst it was racist. The PC remark is as much a knee jerk conservative response as the PC crowd. One can criticize Rush or anyone else without being PC. By the way welcome back. I think you are right about Pedro. He is the greatest pitcher in the history of the game. He has such good control that he can hit Garcia on the back at will. He can pitch so well in a key game without losing his cool and his sign language skills are outstanding. He was so nice to point out that Jorge Posada had a fleck of dirt on his head in the 4th inning. No need to apologize for his actions. The Yankees would be fortunate to face him in game 7 given his success against the team in the past few years ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Welcome to the Thompson Twins!
congratulations congratulations ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Greatest Story Ever Sold
In a message dated 9/22/2003 9:52:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The Fool quoted: I never called the movie anti-Semitic (...) Which is stupid, because the Gospels _are_ anti-Semitic, and a movie that pretends to be faithful to them [AFAIK, if Gibson wants to do it in Aramaic, he has this intention] should be anti-Semitic.It's like making a movie about Charlemagne's Cavaliers: it must be anti-islamic. [OTOH, Gibson _has_ slaughtered History in his two anti-British pieces, the Scottish and the USA independent movies, so maybe he can ignore the Gospels and make a movie that shows the Jews in a much more favourable way than the Gospels did] Gibson has apparently based his gospel on the work of an 18th century nun noted for her antisemitic writings. The draft seen by some individuals is said (by a religion professor who is a catholic nun) to be very anti-semitic. Gibson showed the movie to several highly conservative religous/political leaders in washington dc a while ago and refused to allow anyone remotely part of the mainstream (let alone liberal) press see it. He has attacked those who have questioned his motives (like Frank Rich). He began these attacks (against Jews liberals etc) on O'Reily last January before anyone had commented on the movie. O'Reily by the way has a deal with Gibsons's production company so you can imagine how aggressively he questioned Gibson. Gibson's father has at various times been a holocaust denier (in some writings he uses holocaust in quotes and he has said that the Germans simply wanted to encourage jews to migrate to Jeruselum to stabalize the political situation in the Middle East. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Greatest Story Ever Sold
In a message dated 9/22/2003 9:52:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The Fool quoted: I never called the movie anti-Semitic (...) Which is stupid, because the Gospels _are_ anti-Semitic, and a movie that pretends to be faithful to them [AFAIK, if Gibson wants to do it in Aramaic, he has this intention] should be anti-Semitic.It's like making a movie about Charlemagne's Cavaliers: it must be anti-islamic. [OTOH, Gibson _has_ slaughtered History in his two anti-British pieces, the Scottish and the USA independent movies, so maybe he can ignore the Gospels and make a movie that shows the Jews in a much more favourable way than the Gospels did] Gibson has apparently based his gospel on the work of an 18th century nun noted for her antisemitic writings. The draft seen by some individuals is said (by a religion professor who is a catholic nun) to be very anti-semitic. Gibson showed the movie to several highly conservative religous/political leaders in washington dc a while ago and refused to allow anyone remotely part of the mainstream (let alone liberal) press see it. He has attacked those who have questioned his motives (like Frank Rich). He began these attacks (against Jews liberals etc) on O'Reily last January before anyone had commented on the movie. O'Reily by the way has a deal with Gibsons's production company so you can imagine how aggressively he questioned Gibson. Gibson's father has at various times been a holocaust denier (in some writings he uses holocaust in quotes and he has said that the Germans simply wanted to encourage jews to migrate to Jeruselum to stabalize the political situation in the Middle East. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: br!n: feudalism meme in america
In a message dated 9/6/2003 7:45:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Of course I could go on to say that feudalism was an agreement between two men in which one did service for the other in exchange for land, and has nothing to do with rulership. But then, I don't think anyone really cares about history anymore, or getting it right... :( Was this a freely made agreement between equals or was it a situation where one man owned the land through inheritance and the other had no option other than to work in the service of the lord. Where there the lord got to decide the terms of the agreement and if the peasent did not agree the power of the state would come down upon him. Feudalism was not a free market state. It was in fact just the opposite. The rise of trade unions helped to destroy feudalism ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: blackout image from space...
In a message dated 8/29/2003 6:48:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Interesting image of the blackout from a geosynchronous satellite Actually this photo is apparently a hoax or at least a composite of a series of photos. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: unconstitutional House vote sanctifies religion
In a message dated 8/27/2003 5:01:57 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On the flip side, many are claiming that to forcibly remove the Ten Commandments monument would violate _their_ First Amendment rights of freedom of religion. (I'm not arguing one way or the other here, but simply reporting that both sides are using the same Constitutional argument to support their positions.) Removal of the monument does not violate anyone's freedom of religion. They can still believe in the 10 commandments, they can carry a personal copy, they can have the commandments prominantly displayed in their homes and places of worship. It cannot be displayed in a public place. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The immorality of the Ten Commandments
In a message dated 8/28/2003 1:59:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Moore's Law The immorality of the Ten Commandments. By Christopher Hitchens Posted Wednesday, August 27, 2003, at 2:04 PM PT George Carlin did this first and it was funnier ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: ADMIN: More blasted testing
In a message dated 8/25/2003 9:38:35 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I've upgraded Mailman from 2.1 to 2.1.2 and hope that now it'll behave. But there's also a patch I think I need to apply... Let's just see if this message gets out. Got it -- Nick Arnett Phone/fax: (408) 904-7198 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Hyperion - The Motion Picture
I can see Endymion as a stand-alone movie. But I agree, Hyperion and Fall would be nearly impossible to transfer properly to the big screen. That is what they said about LOR. Just get Peter Jackson to devote a few years to the project ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Politics, was [L3] Re: fight the evil of price discrimination
In a message dated 8/10/2003 3:55:10 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: This very concept is now being chalanged. Not the spoken ability, but the assumption made by chomsky et. al. that writen ability is also inate is now under an increasing amount of attack. I am no linguist but I don't think Chomsky has suggested that writing is inate. Certainly Steven Pinker the major populizer of the idea that the ability to learn language is instinctual would not agree. Written language is so new (less than 5000 years that it could not an instinct at all. It is a cultural invention that to be sure requires certain inate ability but it is not an instinct. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: I've done it again!
Reproduced, that is. Alexander Norman Lipscomb (Alec) was born at 7:46 AM on Monday, August 11th. He weighed 9 lbs, 8 oz, and his mother is incredibly happy that someone else will be carrying him for the next while. Congratulations. Woohoo Congratulations to you both!!! :-) ...and a very, very Happy Birthday and Welcome! to little Alec Jon Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com _ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Hyperion - The Motion Picture - Illium the book
Just finished Simmons newest. Liked it quite alot. Like Hyperion it is part 1 of a 2 parter. The first uses the Illiad the second the Oddysea (probably speled both of these classics). Nice mix of fiction and mythology. Three apparently seperate stories that come together at the end. Still have no idea where it will end. Does not in my opinion measure up to Hyperion but that is not a knock really. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Most Dangerous States
In a message dated 8/11/2003 1:14:19 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: That would only hold true if the criminals were aware of who did and who did not own guns ahead of time. I think the gist of the argument is that legal gun ownership deters crime in general and there are stats that support this. But nothing is ever going to grind crime to a halt. I think this type of discussion tends to get people thinking about the extremes as opposed to the general tenor of the realities of life. There are many many millions of guns in the US, yet only a few thousand or so deaths in a given year. A small percentage of deaths by any cause. Its a mountain made out of a molehill. Except the mountain is usually not fatal and the molehill is fatal. Detering crime is good but the cost may overwhelm the benefit if even a statistically small number of innocent individuals (in particular the owner or a family member is killed). After all the death rate in the mole hill is %100. If we had effective gun control then the death rate would go down for both the criminals and the victims. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 8/2/2003 12:46:19 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Which of course is what this all about.So many Democrats turned a blind eye to Clinton's perjury But this is where you are precisely wrong John. No democrat defended Clinton this. Not one said he was right Au contraire a great many noted that any man would lie about adultery. Name a few then. And by the way be precise. I want the names of democrats who said it was ok to commit perjury. Not whether men lie about adultary. If memory serves me right several republicans had to fess up about previous affairs. Unless I am living under a ton of alzheimers and spending too much time looking at Gnewts of course. Here it is John. This is a perfect example of your republicans can do no wrong and democrats can do no right approach. Do you actually believe that democrats as a group approved of either Clinton's immoral behavior or his testimony? If yes than all is lost and by the way you might as well assume that since I have been a democrat in the past that I approve of such things. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot defend Bush by saying that it is just politics and then attack Clinton because he lies. In personal life an politics lying occurs all the time. It knows no party affiliation. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Dubya with Kung Fu Grip
In a message dated 8/10/2003 12:26:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time, TomFODW writes: Interestingly, in his novel Snow in August, set in Brooklyn in the late 1940s, Pete Hammill has a rabbi who is a refugee from Nazi Germany teach a Catholic teenager he befriends how to create the Golem. Good book. Made into a pretty good movie as well. Has been on cable for about a year. Steven Rhea plays the rabbi ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Politics, was [L3] Re: fight the evil of price discrimination
In a message dated 8/3/2003 12:54:16 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Now, I think both of them are very important figures, because they are extremely influential. One is the single most cited living intellectual. The other edits the most important magazine of th Left. They influence opinion. But they are also indicators of opinion - and the fact that people who believe what they believe are so adulated by a fragment of the political spectrum - and so completely immune from criticism from _their own side_, as opposed to from the other side, tells us something really important Chomsky is one of the most important thinkers of our time but it his contributions to linguistics not his political views that have influence. Ironically his contribution (that humans are born with an inate ablilty to create and use language - a language learning module if you will) has been used more by what would superficically be considered part of the right wing approach to human existance. It it is one of the pillars of the nature side of the nature versus nurture debate. Now the characterization of nature advocates (see Steven Pinker,s The Blank Slate and Matt Ridley's Nature Via Nuture for a more nuanced discussion of this topic) as conservatives is actually unfair but Chomsky's work has not translated into a political agenda. As far as I can tell it is viewed as something seperate from his work and it is his work not his politics that are influential. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: ADMIN: Julia and Jose are running the show, mostly
My best friend, business partner and often the backup admin for Brin-L, had a seizure this morning at 3 a.m., went to a nearby hospital, where a CT scan showed a 2x3 cm mass in his left parietal node. He was transferred to Stanford, where he's finally getting some rest now, I think. I am sorry to hear this. Brain tumors are usually nasty but at least he is at an excellent place. I have friends in Neuroradilogy there so I know it is top notch ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
I'm on vacation
I will be off to the Canadian Rockies for about 10 days. I expect to have about 2000 emails by the time I get back and so don't expect much from me even then. Now children play nice until I get back ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/30/2003 10:20:41 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: As is usual in the intelligence business, the British said that they can't reveal their sources so as to preserve their leads. Now what? Don't use it in the SOU. You don't insult the british by not using the information. But by the way why is it as is usual? It would seem to me in something this important the british could share their specific information. I would suspect that more often than not in situations like this the info would be shared. I would very upset to learn that we and our allies shared only conclusions not evidence. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/29/2003 10:57:56 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Actually, Bush *did* do that, and Britain said that they completely stand by their intelligence with the highest degree of confidence. Oh I get it; it went like this. Bush- Do you guys have information about uraniums sales to Sadaam in Africa? British - Yes we have evidence of that. Bush - Well this is really important because this is the SOU address afterall and my intelligence folks are dubious about this information British - Oh, I see you want proof Bush - Yes British - No problem. We are really really really sure that Sadaam did this Bush - Wow! three reallies. That is amazing. I can go to the american public in total confidence. Wait till I tell our intelligence guys that you are really really really sure. What he needed was evidence not assurances. (Really) There is my shot. Where is the British evidence? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Who Are the US's Allies? Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/28/2003 9:16:02 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Ahem. You have forgotten Austalia, who was very much a true ally. You have also forgotten Japan, the leader of which essentially got his country's constitution ammended so that Japan could help us out in Iraq, and is a major player by any measure. You have also forgotten Poland, which is the second-largest country in Europe - which I guess you could argue is anxious to please us, but given that Poland is already in NATO and on the fast-track to the EU, is certainly in a different category than Bulgaria and Romania. You have also forgotten the Czech Republic, which is in a similar situation to Poland, with the exception of being a major player. Nevertheless, you have also forgotten Spain - the fourth-largest country in continental Europe, and is certainly a major player in the European Union. Yes of course I have forgotten these countries our traditional allies and stalwart military powers all. Poland is already an economic powerhouse in no need of political and economic support from us. I am not by the way denegating their support. I think some of it just real politik but some of it is legitimate graditude. Spain was with us as a country but its people were none too thrilled. Scandanavia was behind us of course. Now my point is not that these countries were right and we were wrong; I have already said that I support the war. My point is that we turned off many of our traditional allies and way to many people in Europe with our high handed arrogant actions before and after 911. Bush senior did not do this. He sent Baker around the world for months to build a coalition. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Who Are the US's Allies? Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/28/2003 9:16:02 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Ahem. You have forgotten Austalia, who was very much a true ally. You have also forgotten Japan, the leader of which essentially got his country's constitution ammended so that Japan could help us out in Iraq, and is a major player by any measure. You have also forgotten Poland, which is the second-largest country in Europe - which I guess you could argue is anxious to please us, but given that Poland is already in NATO and on the fast-track to the EU, is certainly in a different category than Bulgaria and Romania. You have also forgotten the Czech Republic, which is in a similar situation to Poland, with the exception of being a major player. Nevertheless, you have also forgotten Spain - the fourth-largest country in continental Europe, and is certainly a major player in the European Union. Yes of course I have forgotten these countries our traditional allies and stalwart military powers all. Poland is already an economic powerhouse in no need of political and economic support from us. I am not by the way denegating their support. I think some of it just real politik but some of it is legitimate graditude. Spain was with us as a country but its people were none too thrilled. Scandanavia was behind us of course. Now my point is not that these countries were right and we were wrong; I have already said that I support the war. My point is that we turned off many of our traditional allies and way to many people in Europe with our high handed arrogant actions before and after 911. Bush senior did not do this. He sent Baker around the world for months to build a coalition. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/27/2003 6:43:54 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: And its unclear that arrest is even the proper word to describe what the Chairman tried to do - since I don't think that even if the Chairman's request had been carried out that the Democratic Representatives would have been detained, placed in jail, or had charges filed against them. At any rate, caning another Congreesman, literally nearly to death, on the floor of Congress is far worse. Can we get real here. Once again this is not the 19th century. We are talking about a congressman of one party trying to have congressmen of the other party arrested. This is outragous behavior. It is not some little prank ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/27/2003 6:41:06 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Lastly, if Al Gore had won the 2000 election, would you be bitterly complaining that he did so thanks to his partisans on the Florida Supreme Court? If a full recount of the florida vote had been ordered it would have been a reasonable thing to do. In close elections recounts are often performed and in some cases even mandated. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/27/2003 7:07:34 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: At 06:49 PM 7/27/2003 -0400 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: QUESTION 1) The British inform us that they have learned that Iraq has recently tried to acquire significant quantities of intelligence in Africa. The Bush Administration naturally tries to verify this claim, but cannot do so. They tell the British that we can't verify their claim. The British respond that they cannot reveal their intelligence sources on this, but they assure us that the intelligence is of the highest quality. At this point, do you; a) Call the British liars since our intelligece services have such strong reservations about it? b) Call the British incompetent for giving us intelligence that our own intelligence services has not verified, and indeed has strong doubts about? c) Ignore the British intelligence as questionable? d) Accept that the British intelligence services may have access to sources our own do not, particularly in Africa, and that the British intelligence services are generally considered among the best and most reliable in the world, and BELIEVE the British intelligence report? Your choice. What do you do? I look forward to your, Nick's, and Ritu's answers to this question. YOU LEAVE OUT OF THE STATE OF THE UNION MESSAGE. YOU DO NOT USE IT TO TRY TO CONVINCE AMERICANS THAT WE MUST GO TO WAR UNTIL YOU CAN AT LEAST CONVINCE YOUR OWN INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY THAT THE STATEMENT IS TRUE The State of the Union is irrelevant to this example. But it is not irrelevant because this is THE major policy speech that the president makes every year. This speech is worked on with the most care and intensity by the president's staff. It is givin to a joint session of congress. It is unique and important. Statements in this speech must or should be above speculation. In short it is not just another speech. Leaving it out of the State of the Union is an action that is consistent with actions a, b, c, and d above. So, which is it, Bob?Before you decide whether or not to include it in the State of the Union, you have to make the more fundamental determination of a, b, c, or d. Actually I don't have to do any of those things. In fact it is my point that the president should have not used this data until it could be verified or disproved by our intelligence services. You don't have to call them (a)liers or (b) incompetent. You don't have to (c) ignore it. Not using it in the SOU address is not the same as ignoring it. You don't have (d) accept it on faith. You (e) ask the British to provide documenation of their claim. If they do so you can include it in the SOU. JDG - Tough Decisions, Maru - but he is the POTUS after all ___ John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity. - George W. Bush 1/29/03 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/27/2003 9:21:05 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Do you seriously believe that if any person other than Bush were President we would have taken out Saddam by now? Really? I think there was some sentiment to do this amoung Clinton's advisors. I am not saying we would have but it is not impossible. Also, the goal of international relations is not _popularity_. The world is not a high school. That is correct. In high school one can be a bully but in the world it is better to be cooperative, to compromise on some issues. Bush _used_ the sympathy 9/11 generated to make possible something that would not have been possible without it - the removal of Saddam Hussein, something that was clearly not in the interest of anyone in the region or in Europe (save England). His ability to do that was diplomatic skill of the highest order. You are kidding about this. We had one true ally in this Britain. The other are either not major players or are anxious to please us (not a bad thing; it is refreshing that countries that owe their freedom to us feel gratitude but they would probably have agreed if we said we wanted to invade the moon). There was so much ill will towards us that Schroeder got elected because he pledged to oppose the war. When the french went crazy he was stuck. It may be true that we didn't need any help but you don't have to rub the noses of the rest of the world in that fact. Especially if you need the rest of the world to manage the reconstruction of iraq ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/24/2003 11:43:18 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Didn't they used to duel on the floors of Congress? Sounds like classic ingomious political chicanery to me. Sounds more like republican arrogance to me. Now the perpetrator (chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee) has since apologized but this does reveal the thinking of the republican leadership. Might makes right. Anything we do is ok because we are god's party. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/24/2003 11:47:13 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: If your criticism is that Bush said learned instead of informed us that they believe, then who is being pedantic and mincing words here? The criticsm is that this is a weasally way of saying something that our own intelligence community could not confirm and had in fact serious doubts about. The criticsm is that this was a cleaver deception (aka a lie) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/25/2003 1:08:42 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Uh, didja forget? Gore *did* win -- the vote, anyway. Just not the office that usually goes with it. I am not one who thinks that Gore won. The popular vote does not determine the final result and therefore candidates do not attempt to win it. We do not know the result of a popular vote in which every vote would count. Under those outlandish circumstances (each individual's vote counts the same regardless of where it was cast) Bush might have gone after votes in populous states like NY and Cal where he had no chance of gaining the electoral votes. Bush won (Not fair and square but he won with the help of his friends on the court). ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/25/2003 8:54:11 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Eh, probably not. I have an almost reflexive need to point out the truth - and ultimately I consider this growing urban legend that the USSC somehow changed the outcome of the 2000 election to be most damaging to our country. I wonder if the republicans in congress would have really elected bush if a recount of the vote in florida showed that Gore had won by a few thousand votes. I think some would have correctly viewed this act as an abrobation of their resonsibilities to americans. I doubt that Bush could have governed effectively under these circumstances. He would have gotten no cross over dem votes. He would have been viewed by Americans as illegtimate. It might have seriously damaged the republican party in the future (I think it still may). ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/25/2003 9:09:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The fact that a Committee Chairman in the House is making that tradeoff in a way that the minority disagrees with is hardly new. Thus, I know that I am not a hypocrite, as you accuse, because Democratic Committee Charimen in the House most certainly have rammed bills through Committee in the past - and I know that I have never complained terribly loudly about it. Unless I missed the point, the problem was that the republican sent the capital police to arrest (or do something else nasty) to the dems who were trying to meet about the bill. In addition, the dems had not actually seen the changes they were being asked to vote on. So it is a bit more than trying to ram something through. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/25/2003 9:28:26 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I think that's Gautam's point. If, as you seem to agree, the Left is simply incapable of coming up with a coherent war plan against terrorism, then the Left is inherently unqualified and unworthy to hold high political office in the United States for the future as far as we can see. So it really depends on who the left is. If you are talking about moderate democrats and liberals, their plan would have been much the same as Bush's sans the alienation of the rest of the world and the war on Iraq this year (maybe not; Some in Clinton's white house wanted to take Sadaam out so with a changed political climate this might have happened anyway). If you are talking about the real left (not just the left of center liberals), who cares? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When does it end? (RE: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words)
In a message dated 7/25/2003 10:22:08 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: 1) The establishment of a secure, viable and independent Palestine alongside Israel. 2) Regime change in Iran, Syria, Lybia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the DPRK We would then be at war for at least a decade. Does that mean we can't criticize bush or the gop for that long? Golly ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
QUESTION 1) The British inform us that they have learned that Iraq has recently tried to acquire significant quantities of intelligence in Africa. The Bush Administration naturally tries to verify this claim, but cannot do so. They tell the British that we can't verify their claim. The British respond that they cannot reveal their intelligence sources on this, but they assure us that the intelligence is of the highest quality. At this point, do you; a) Call the British liars since our intelligece services have such strong reservations about it? b) Call the British incompetent for giving us intelligence that our own intelligence services has not verified, and indeed has strong doubts about? c) Ignore the British intelligence as questionable? d) Accept that the British intelligence services may have access to sources our own do not, particularly in Africa, and that the British intelligence services are generally considered among the best and most reliable in the world, and BELIEVE the British intelligence report? Your choice. What do you do? I look forward to your, Nick's, and Ritu's answers to this question. YOU LEAVE OUT OF THE STATE OF THE UNION MESSAGE. YOU DO NOT USE IT TO TRY TO CONVINCE AMERICANS THAT WE MUST GO TO WAR UNTIL YOU CAN AT LEAST CONVINCE YOUR OWN INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY THAT THE STATEMENT IS TRUE ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
QUESTION 1) The British inform us that they have learned that Iraq has recently tried to acquire significant quantities of intelligence in Africa. The Bush Administration naturally tries to verify this claim, but cannot do so. They tell the British that we can't verify their claim. The British respond that they cannot reveal their intelligence sources on this, but they assure us that the intelligence is of the highest quality. At this point, do you; a) Call the British liars since our intelligece services have such strong reservations about it? b) Call the British incompetent for giving us intelligence that our own intelligence services has not verified, and indeed has strong doubts about? c) Ignore the British intelligence as questionable? d) Accept that the British intelligence services may have access to sources our own do not, particularly in Africa, and that the British intelligence services are generally considered among the best and most reliable in the world, and BELIEVE the British intelligence report? Your choice. What do you do? I look forward to your, Nick's, and Ritu's answers to this question. YOU LEAVE OUT OF THE STATE OF THE UNION MESSAGE. YOU DO NOT USE IT TO TRY TO CONVINCE AMERICANS THAT WE MUST GO TO WAR UNTIL YOU CAN AT LEAST CONVINCE YOUR OWN INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY THAT THE STATEMENT IS TRUE ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/27/2003 5:48:11 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Not to say that the Republicans look all that good in this, but it could have been worse. (And then the backlash would have been that much more, as well.) Worse in what way in 21st Century USA? Had them beaten? Had them lead from the Capitol in chains and sent to Quantanamo with the rest of the enemies of the US? The 19th century was, well the 19th century. Has anything remotely like this happened in the 20th or 21st century except in Texas (hey that was another republican adventure wasn't it?) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
I think statements indicating that the administration is obviously telling the truth and that anyone not agreeing this is either what? stupid? venal? totally naive? totally cynical? Taken advantage of by people more interested in political power than the national interest. Sol in other words I am naive and stupid. I do not believe I am either. I do in fact hate Bush. But that does not make me a leftist. It has to do with the sense of entitlement he exudes. He is the son of wealth. He went to Yale because of his family and their money. He screwed around for many years. He became a successful business man when he was essentially handed a major league baseball franchise. But even that is besides the point. I and many others have serious reservations (I have great fear actually) about what he is doing to the country. I think his domestic policies are horrendous and his economic policies even worse. As to things changing after 911 and the left having no response. Well most americans responded the same way regardless of their political beliefs. I would contend that had Gore won the post 911 stuff would have gone the same. We would have gone into Afghanastan with the same outcome. I would argue that Gore would have been much better at using the good will towards the US that exists after 911 to accomplish the goal of fighting terrorism. Think about how the administration has squandered that good will? The high handed arogance of the Bush team has unnecesarily alientated much of the world. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/24/2003 8:34:27 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: What's carefully crafted about The British have learned The White House wanted a stronger statement but the CIA experts would not appove it. They tried several iterations before this was chosen (see the NY Times about a week ago). ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/24/2003 5:26:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: If John Ashcroft were anyone _but_ an evangelical Christian (speaking as a non-evangelical non-Christian) the way he is treated by the Left would be recognized by everyone for what it is - sheer religious bigotry of the most unvarnished sort. And your proof for this is exactly what? Ashcroft comes across as yet another member of the administration with narrow and rigid views of the world. A man so convinced of his moral rectitude that a little thing like the constitution can't get in his way. But why is this important? Are you saying that the actions of the Justice Department were ok ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/21/2003 12:06:30 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: This, of course, was a totally unreasonable presumpion regarding intelligence from our British allies, which they had strongly vouched for in response to US questions. But of course this statement was carefully crafted. The CIA could not confirm the allegation so the speech writers found language that the CIA could live with. So this was not simply a statement of fact. The speech writer came up with a phrase that would shield the administration from accusations of lying. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Cementing the Republican Majority Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16words
In a message dated 7/20/2003 11:29:37 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Illegal?Insuring its control of the US? What are you referring to? Loading the courts with right wing ideologes who will restrict the rigths of citizens to gain justice Ensuring that government by the highest bidder is the law of the land. Eliminating due process and the rule of law in the name of security (thats the illegal part) Infusing public policy with fundamentalist christian theology and breaking down the barriers between church and state. (that is also illegal) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
Actually, a large part of the justification for te war was based on the fact that Iraq was continuing to pursue the acquisition of WMD's - particularly nuclear weapons - and not that it necessarily already had nuclear weapons. Moreover, I also recall Colin Powell mentioning mobile biological weapons *production* facilities in his speech to the UN - again reference to a program, rather than the acual weapons themselves, during the justification period. But this is such a difficult thing to judge. We think that he may develop weapons and we think that if he has them he will use them. That is not the impression that the government gave us. It presented its case of a threat that was much more imminent. Once again I am not personally arguing against the war. Its timing could have been better but that is a quibble. We had two very good reasons to go there. To get rid of a monster and to demonstrate to the arab world that we were serious and that our power could and would be turned on them if they supported terror. So what is my complaint? They did not do this the right way. Seems pretty trivial that I would complain about the style rather than the substance. The problem for me is that this is perhaps the only thing that the administration has done that find acceptable. All of the other stuff; taxes, environment, social justice, religous freedom, scientific research unfettered by religous ideology. The administration uses the same deception (read lying) to present its cases for these policies. Let me give just one well known example: The benefit of the tax cut to average citizens. The government used the mean tax cut (the average of all tax cuts) rather than the median tax cut (the tax cut for the average american). This simple statistics. It is such and egregous error that it must count as the most cynical manipulation of the truth. As I have said before it is the same technique that Clinton used to much more harmful effect. The stem cell compromise is another example. The administration vastly overestimated the number of viable cell lines available for research despite good information to the contrary. But it is more than the fact that the administration practices deception on a massive scale. It is that it believes its own lies. The administration has a narrow view of the world (e.g tax cuts are always good, any tampering with human fetuses is bad)and a belief that this view is the only correct view. Therefore only those facts fit the world view are allowed and any and all exagerations are excused since it all leads to the ultimate final good, a country and a world with one ideology. We already have one smoking gun that indicated that Iraq merely buried its nuclear program, not dismantled it as required. More like a smoking swiss army knife. Look I don't think there is any sense amoung Bush's critics that Iraq wanted a nuclear arsenal. But the critics said that the 91 war and the sanctions had so degraded Sadaam's nuclear program that even under the best of circumstances (best for Sadaam) he was years away from doing anything. The buried components of the nuclear program are sign of how moribund that program had become. 10 year old stuff buried in someone's backyard does not constitute and imminent threat to the world. Moreover, given the past record of our intelligence on predicting the acquisition of nuclear weapons by a country accurately, this fear was certainly very real. So let me get this straight. The government doesn't trust our intelligence services (it trusts the brits a bit more than our own guys) so we go to war? Seems that CIA was pretty accurate about what it knew and did not know. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
At 05:37 PM 7/17/2003 -0700 Gautam Mukunda wrote: Furthermore, Bob, you're much too smart to believe something as dumb as that the world of intelligence is quite as clear as whether Bill Clinton had sex with Monica Lewinsky. Since I never got around to answering Gautam on this issue (sorry I was busy for a few nights and this was one post I did not have time to respond to. I've saved it and will try by the end of the week) let me answer it now). The issue isn't complexity. It is how that complex information is used and presented. The administration did not present its case based on complex data that could be interpretted in a number of ways. It did not say to the american people that even though our intelligence is limited we must do this because it is too dangerous to leave him in power. It said Iraq had WMD and could soon have a nuclear capacity. It said it had proof. Now what we learn is that it had hunches. One thing I do when reviewing a paper for a scientific journal is make sure I know where my own opinions lie. I am very careful about interpretting ambiguous data when I want that data to show something that I wish to be true or false. The administration did not do this. It did the opposite. Which of course is what this all about.So many Democrats turned a blind eye to Clinton's perjury But this is where you are precisely wrong John. No democrat defended Clinton this. Not one said he was right and none as far as I know said his interpretation was alright. What they said was that his actions did not warrent impeachment. There is a difference between believing something is wrong and believing that a punishment is inappropriate. I do not favor the death penalty for armed robbery. That does not mean I approve of armed robbery. Once again I find it facinating that Clinton's personal prevaracations are considered more important than this adminsitrations public pravaracations. Well, sorry it just doesn't fly. the British are standing by their report - and if the same people who argued so strongly for the necessity of iternational cooperation with our allies on Iraq now state that we shouldn't have made use of British intelligence - well, everyone has their own right to be a hypocrite. I just wish the british would come up with a few specifics. Like where else did he try to but uranium. By the way it would be amazing if the British did not stick to their story. They would be more damaged than us if this particular piece of evidence turned out to be as pattenly false as the Niger incident. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
Maybe you think so. I lived two blocks north of the World Trade Center site for a year. Let's just say that I have less than no sympathy for any such view. Let's see how many New Yorkers think we're not at war. How many of the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. How many diplomats dealing with daily security threats. How many people in Homeland Security seeing the threats we face every week. I would say most New Yorkers do not consider themselves to be at war at least not with Iraq. I think many people do not see any direct connection between the war on terror and our invasion. The notion that the response to terrorism is a war is at best a weak analogy sort of the war on cancer. I am not saying that the war has increased the chances of another attack in the US. I think our actions in Iraq and the success of the international community have had an effect on terrorist attacks. No one can claim anymore that we are paper targets. But the question is how long will this effect last. .com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/19/2003 9:35:58 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Frankly, Ray, I think that I'm showing a lot more respect for people on the list who disagree with me than most of the people on this list are showing to me. The difference is that I'm in the minority, so it just looks different I think statements indicating that the administration is obviously telling the truth and that anyone not agreeing this is either what? stupid? venal? totally naive? totally cynical? As to the charges about Africa. In all reports I have seen the Niger incident is the thing people are talking about. The notion that the British have other evidence has not been mentioned. If this evidence exists why hasn't it been revealed? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
nd becouse of that you are mixing facts as if they were related when they are not. It is an old boys club writ on a global scale. No backing for this. just becouse the above is true (if it is) does not mean that they are not doing what is right when it comes to forign policy. I am arguing that Bush and his cronies are trying to make it so that they will be in control of the country. They view this as their god given right. They view the constitution and the rule of law as inconvienances. So focus on that. See there you go again. the American people are willing to pay. They are willing to fight this war because they believe it to be just and the right thing to do. I am not arguing that we should not do the right and necessary thing and pay the money. But you can't do this and still have a huge tax cut. you have to show how out -expenses- make a tax cut unresponsible. It's a hard sell though. trickle down seems to work, poular opiioin is for the war, and for tax cuts. People have been sold a bill of goods. When they begin to see what is happening to services on a state or local level they may change their minds. Think about it. We cannot spend 400 billion dollars a year without paying for it. = _ Jan William Coffey _ __ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Science and knowledge
The purpose of science is not to help us understand reality; it is not about the truth. Indeed, one of my favorite statements about science is the most important development in the history of science is when it was decided that it wasn't about the truth. I would argue that most scientists believe that their models are about reality. Truth is a somewhat trickier notion. It implies finality while science is always more tentative. Indeed, you find in a working group of scientists, a wide variety of metaphysical positions. To first order, they are all perfectly consistant with science. I've noticed that it is very easy for scientists to happily argue metaphysics over coffee and then drop their differences when they actually work. My own experience is that scientists do not worry much about metaphysics. They believe or assume that the world that they study is real. The notion of modelling and predicting of what scientists do but most would find it difficult to work if they did not believe in the reality of the things they were studying The reason for this is that there is a general acceptance of the proposition that science is not about knowing what is real and true. I would argue that most scientists (not philosophers) would disagree with this. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/19/2003 7:13:04 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: what would you have istead, state capitalism? How about a rationale tax policy? One that stimulates the economy by putting money in the hands that those who will spend it. How about a rationale understanding of how much we have to spend to do the things we have to do. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/20/2003 11:34:44 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: At 11:10 PM 7/18/2003 -0400 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This actually a JDG style arguement. The things that conservatives and replubicans do are right and moral because republicans are right and moral which of course means that anything they do is right and moral. Actually, this is a Bob Z. style argument.Conservatives and Pro-Lifers are wrong, and their positions are inherently without justification, and therefore all of their attempts to justify their position are based on fiat, rather than careful reasoning and consideration. Well that has never been my arguement on this issue. I believe it a complex moral issue with no clear correct answer. The issue of when we assign human rights to a fetus is very complex. I in fact respect but do not agree with your view. Bob Z., I don't know what I did to deserve that kind of nasty insult from you - which indeed, strikes me as uncharacteristic for you, but I want to be clear that I object totally to this specious insult of yours. I was being flip and for this I apologize but Gautam's arguement struck me as similar to ones you have made in which you see political actions of republicans as motivated by only moral and ethical concerns and every political action of democrats as being cynical and/or immoral. So accept my apology; I was pissed at Gautam and should not have dragged your name into this. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/18/2003 3:28:58 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Perhaps Bob should post a rant where he whines about how the conservatives on the list are intolerant of liberals. I have not the time or energy to answer Gautam rant. I will. In a preview, I dare him to find one credible central left or even center writer or politician who made the claims that Gautam attributes to my side. Certainly not the great satan the NYT. The editorial position was luke warm and cautious in support. Some of their writers like Friedman and Keller supported the war. But I will deal with that when I have a bit more energy. I would like to state for the record that I am not much of a liberal anymore. Just ask my wife. I voted for Guiliani and Dole. I think government has limited ability to solve social problems. I believe strongly in personal responsibility. But it does seem that anyone who disagrees with the conservative line is instantly branded as a liberal. I frankly find it offensive to find that crtiicsm of this administration is taken as lack of patriotism. This is the new definition of Chutzpah (old definition - Man who has murdered his parents asks the court for mercy because he is an orphan). New definition. Government enters war without being attacked based on claim that the opponent has WMD. Information comes to light that these claims are false. Those who point this out are criticized for not supporting the war whose rationale may be false and worse possibily a lie. This actually a JDG style arguement. The things that conservatives and replubicans do are right and moral because republicans are right and moral which of course means that anything they do is right and moral. Democrats and liberals know that republicans are right and moral and therefore when they disagree they are wrong and immoral and only acting to cynically gain political gain. With regard to this issue. You are right. the dems and liberals are playing politics. Now I would submit that a president who lands on an aircraft carrier and is posed at Mount Rushmore to make it look like one of the sculptures and raises 200,000,000 for his presidential campaign is in fact acting like a politician and that in our system that requires that his political opponent due likewise. Well have I whined enough? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/18/2003 11:00:23 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: There is a pervasive dishonesty that has crept into this issue where we have people actively crippling American war efforts for short-term partisan advantage - and a bunch of very bright people on the list who buy that wholesale How does criticsm cripple the war effort? No one is saying that we should walk away now. No one is claiming that we should not protect our troops. Do you actually maintain that the republicans are not acting for short term benefit. That the all spin all the time white house does anything without weighing its political impact. Gautam, I am actually quite fearful for our country at the moment. The current government is doing all that it can to insure its control of the US for years and decades to come. It is using means that I find at least objectionable if not illegal. I believe that both parties behave in their own self interest. The republicans are doing a much better job. The democrats are as far as I am concerned bankrupt. I am offended that you consider me a dupe of the liberal press or that my concerns (and those of many others)are false. To be blunt about the 16 words: I am shocked by your word splitting. The British have learned is a way of getting something into a speech that your own intelligence community cannot verify. To the extent it refers to the Niger incident it is clear that the administration knew this was not credible. As to WMD. There is no question that Sadaam wanted to have them. He probably had some but the evidence that you site for his nuclear threat is actually the greatest enditement of Bush's claims. Dismantled components that were many years old were buried in a scientists backyard. So how close was Sadaam to unleashing a bomb on the world? He wanted to have the weapons but he no active program. If we were told that would the american public have been so eager for us to go to war? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
for all I know the US would have seized on some other pretext to attack.) Even if this were true, would that have been such a bad thing? It would not be a bad thing if the administration was honest about its intentions and motives. It seems clear that the WMD arguement was used since it was thought to be the one that would most easy to sell to the american public (Wolfowitz or Pearl as much as said so a few months ago). We also know that his judgment is not . ---David Well, he _did_ have them in 1998, according to the inspectors. If it's not clear that he did have them, what happened to them in the interveing period? He was under sanctions that degraded his ability to continue this program in an effective way. If it takes you great forbearance to display that minimal amount of respect to the President in wartime, then I'm not the one who needs to get some perspective, David. Cut the war time crap! We are not under active attack. We are under no threat from this war except for the terrorism threat. We are occupying Iraq. This is not WWII Korea or even Vietnam. We instigated this war (that is not to say it was wrong). We are at war because this president put us into this war. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/18/2003 11:55:47 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: It is unpatriotic to falsely attack the rationale for the war when it is obvious to anyone who looks at the facts that the Administration was telling the truth. Period But clearly not every one agrees with this assessment. I have looked at some of the facts and I disagree. Tom Friedman has looked at the facts and he disagrees (not with the war but the administrations rationalization for the war). So what is obvious to you is not obvious to others. We are not stupid. Some of us have less partisan attitudes than you do about this issue (I may not be one of them; I hate Bush and his people. They are people with enormous privledge who view their privledge and proof of their moral superioty instead of luck and influence. They are willing to sell the interests of the people they are supposed to represent secure in the knowledge that when they leave government service they can personally reap the rewards of their actions. It is an old boys club writ on a global scale. Their moral values have begun to stifle research in this county. Stem cell scientists are leaving to go where they can do their work unfettered by moralistic crap. They are infringing on personal liberty in ways that are both unnecessary and dangerous. They are wrecking our economy. Even if you accept the war you must accept that it will cost a huge amount of money. And yet we have a huge tax cut. This is unbelievably irresponsible. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
In a message dated 7/18/2003 1:09:43 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I would say that it already has told plenty, actually. The nuclear weapons plans _by themselves_ were a gross violation of the UN sanctions. The plans were a violations but the administration did not claim there were plans; they claimed there were weapons or something pretty close to weapons. Ask your self. If the country were told that Sadaam had plans we would have been so quick to go in? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
Of course, there's _also_ the fact that what he said was true. Â He claimed that the British told us that Iraq was seeking Uranium in Africa. Â A true statement. The British do, in fact, _still_ claim that Iraq was seeking Uranium in Africa - they stand by the claim. A doubly true statement. Â Finally, the WSJ (on www.opinionjournal.com) has just printed excerpts from the National Intelligence Estimate used to prepare the claim - and it too is quite convincing. Â A triply true statement. Â The Bush Administration is not always perfectly truthful, but in this instance they were exactly that - Sort of like I did not have sex with that woman. The administration had very good evidence that this story was bogus; from the horse's mouth. the guy who did the report. So the key is not whether you can hide behind the fact that the british thought it was true. That is just playing with words. This was a very important accusation. They knew or should have known it was not true (based on their own investigation). Either they ignored it or created a climate where the CIA would downplay it. Most benign explanation. Tbey made an honest mistake. But wait, if I make the honest mistake of going the wrong way on a superhighway and cause a major accident I am not excused from responsibility by the fact that I had no malicious intent. I am held accountable. And the more important the mistake the more accountable I am held. yet the mass media and Democratic partisans have managed to convince almost everyone that the Administration was lying, when it was, in fact, telling the truth. That is so twisted. It was telling the truth; it said the british said the story was true but the administration knew it was not true. That in my book is worse than a lie. And people wonder why conservatives talk about media bias. Â Many analysts think the media has given bush a very free ride in the coverage of this war. Watching BBC versus CNN or heaven forbid FOX was like watching two different events. It is time for conservatives to stop this BS of media bias. Bush controls the media not the other way around. Let alone the selfish partisanship of lying to discredit the President during wartime on the very issue of going to war, knowing that your lies will be picked up and believed by a gullible world all too eager to believe the worst of the United States. Â Wait; we are at war because this administration unilaterally committed the country to this course of action. We were told it was necessary because of WMD. Now we find out that some of the proof for these weapons, the rationale for the war was false and that the government either knew or should have known it to be false. How is it unpatriotic to question this? We are putting no one at risk by doing this analysis. Do you really think that more soldiers are dying because of this? Sadam's loyalists and/or their terrorist allies would have come up with another excuse to fan resentment against that. But this was the risk going in. If we did not secure the peace with minimal loss, get Sadamm and restore order quickly we were going to have these problems. So we did what we did quickly but have done poorly on the catching Sadamm and restoring order. Those who were against the war for tactical (not moral reasons) were concerned about these problems and those concerns have turned out to be true. Shame on everyone involved. Â Shame on the Adminstration for notdefending itself better, and even more on those who slander it for their own partisan advantage or sheer malice. It can't defend itself better. To claim your narrow version of truth (I didn't say A was true, I said the British said A was true) is a transparent attempt to shift blame. The speech in which Bush made this claim was important. The claim was important. They put it in the speech to prove that we were in danger. If they just had hear say evidence or more accurately they had reason to believe that the evidence was false it should not have been in the speech. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Sandy Kofax
In a message dated 7/6/2003 10:08:51 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: --- Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I remember seeing Ryan in his later Houston years. IIRC, he had one losing season (well maybe it was a 15-14 season) when he led the league in ERA. He would lose a number of 2-1 and 1-0 ballgames. It was amazing. Those were the games Koufax won. .mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Sandy Kofax
I did. I think that was ridiculous. If you think Sandy Koufax was the best pitcher of all time, you're simply wrong. There is no serious argument for this. If you think he was the most dominant pitcher on a per-game basis you're also wrong, but at least you have a case and we can talk about it. Arguing that he was better than Seaver or Clemens is foolish. He didn't pitch for long enough. He did not have their longevity. He did not have the benefit of modern techniques and attitudes for protecting a pitcher's arm Note that Pedro is clearly not the best pitcher ever either. The most dominant on a per-game basis? Probably yes. But not the best ever. Too many injuries, too short a career. But as for all your post season arm waving, Bob. Tell me - how many pitches per game did Koufax throw? In a very tough game, probably 120. Are you sure about this? Koufax threw lots of complete games. In 61 he had a 200 pitch game. He pitched more than 9 innings on many occaisons. Even granting that he may have made fewer pitches per inning (but that would mean he simply got batters out more quickly - and this is somehow a bad thing?). He pitched over 250 innings in 61 and 184 in 62 (the year he almost lost a finger to gangrene after injury an artery in his left hand while batting early in the year). After that he pitched over 300 innings per year from 63-66. Now maybe Pedro has more pitches per batter but he still only throw about 200 innings per year. So clearly Koufax threw more pitches. So if Pedro were throwing off a 20 mound, in Dodger Stadium, with a strike zone twice the size of todays, against batters who couldn't hit the ball out of the park if you let them use golf balls - what do you think he would do? Who can tell. You have to put him back in that era. He won't have the same arsenal of pitches as he does now. He won't have the benefit of modern atttitudes towards pitches. You assume that ther relative futility of hitters in that era was a reflection of both pitchers advantage and lower skill level. Let me offer another reason. It wasn't that the pitchers were better. It was that all of the pitchers were good. After all there were only 16 teams and each team had a 4 man rototation. So hitters had to bat against only 64 pitchers. There were no patsies on the mound. No guys who could get no one out. Now there are 30 teams and each team has a 5 man rotation. That means there are 150 pitchers in rotations. The dilution of pitching talent is an important cause of the improved hitting in the current era. Great pitchers always have the advantage. That is why pitching trumps hitting in the World Series. Koufax and Pedro would have very similar stats if they were contemporaries. The difference would have been who won the important games. Koufax won them, Pedro and Maddux and until recently Clemens have not. Your argument, Bob, boils down to Koufax was better because those old time players played the exact same game players do today. That pitching in Dodger Stadium off a 20 mound and pitching in Fenway Park off a 10 mound are identical. That pitching to little guys who don't lift weights and think a double is a career highlight is the same as pitching to Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds. Teams hit 200 HRs per season routinely nowadays. How many teams Koufax pitched to could do that? There is no doubt that the game has changed and that pitchers face different challenges. Current hitters can be fooled on pitches and still muscle them out of the park. But this only goes so far. A strike out is still a strike out whether the hitter is Barry Bonds or Bobby Richardson. Frankly, if this argument were about anyone except Koufax, _you_ wouldn't take you seriously. Particularly since by _your_ standards, Gibson was better than Koufax, so where's your argument? Uh - Gibson admitted (grudgingly) that Koufax was the best pitcher ever from 62-66. So who am I (or you) to disagree. __ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Sandy Kofax
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well Koufax, Bob, a pretty knowledgeable baseball guy, said that Pedro was better than he was. That's worth something too, don't you think? He's just being modest. But yes I would take that very seriously. Bob, I have some idea of what a phenomenally accomplished doctor you are. Don't believe everything you hear from impressionable young men. It is all smoke and mirrors. I'm just asking that you to apply the same sort of rigorous thinking to something that is much easier to analyze - if you put your emotions aside. Let's say I was a pharma rep for GSK trying to sell you on Zocor. If I came to you and told you how great Zocor was, I'm guessing that you would demand the clinical data. If I hemmed and hawed for a while, and then finally admitted that, well, the clinical data says that Lipitor is stronger, what would you say? If I told you about how these great doctors (from before Penicillin was invented, or the role of cholesterol in heart disease was discovered) all thought Zocor was stronger, that might impress you a little bit, I guess. And I could tell you stories about that time Lipitor didn't do anything for my friend's cholesterol problem, but Zocor cleared it right up. But if the MM data said that Lipitor has better life-extending results (which I think it does) and the clinical data said that it was stronger at lowering LDL and raising HDL (which I'm pretty sure it is) then would you prescribe Zocor to your patients just because I told you it was wonderful? I hope not. You raise an interesting point; one that goes beyond the fun of two bull headed people arguing for its own sake. What is the nature of proof? Now clearly anecdotal evidence is not as good as quantitative measure but the difficulty is in determining what you are trying to quantify. The drug analogy is edifying. It is the best case scenario for this sort of comparison. it is relatively easy to set up an experiment where the effects of a drug can be measured objectively. In your example we would use cholesterol level as our primary outcome. But this would actually be just a surrogate for our real outcome, reduction of heart attacks and strokes. Since measuring the true outcome is trickier more expensive and too time consuming we use surrogates. That is fine but this requires a judgement on what that surrogate should be. In this case in addition to primary outcome measure we would need to have secondary measures (e.g side effects). We would need to make some subjective judgements about which outcome is most important. Things are even more complex in my field where it is difficult if not impossilbe to measure some outcomes. Diagnostic efficacy sensitivity specificity positive and negative predictive value are all used to assess the value of diagnostic imaging tests. But I remain deeply skeptical that these tools tell us much that we don't know from daily clinical experience. Most of the science I have done might best be described as the art of medicine. I use statistics in my work but I know that sometimes they fail to provide clear information. Several years ago I reviewed a very complex paper on imaging of Multiple Sclerosis submitted to the New England Journal of Medicine. It concluded that MR was not all that useful in detecting and characerizing MS when compared to clinical evaluation. They had the stats to prove it. But my own experience told me this was simply wrong. I understood the data and knew why the authors had come to an erroneous conclusion but the fact of the matter was that the paper did not reflect clinical reality and subsequent experience showed this to be correct. I am no genius nor am I someone who automatically trusts my judgement above others but I knew that the conclusions of the paper were wrong because of my direct experience in interpretting studies and dealing with neurologists. You said that Pedro and Koufax both had the best ERA possible. But that's not really true, is it? Gibson had a better ERA than Koufax at least once - much better. Gibson had the single greatest season a pitcher can have (68). Is ERA was about one run difference from Koufax. So my point is I think correct. 1.5-2.0 is about the best you can do. Rarely you can do a bit better. Since I may time out on gd aol I'll continue in the next post There's one yardstick for you right there. No pitcher has put up numbers that even vaguely resemble Pedro's at his peak during the last few years. But there were pitchers who put up numbers that were comparable to (or better than) those of Koufax. Gibson, IIRC, won 26 games in 1968. Now, W-L for pitchers aren't particularly informative, but, well, how often did Koufax do that? Now, here is the player page for Koufax at the Baseball Prospectus Web Site: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/cards/koufasa01.shtml And here is the player page for Pedro:
Re: Sandy Kofax
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well Koufax, Bob, a pretty knowledgeable baseball guy, said that Pedro was better than he was. That's worth something too, don't you think? He's just being modest. But yes I would take that very seriously. Bob, I have some idea of what a phenomenally accomplished doctor you are. Don't believe everything you hear from impressionable young men. It is all smoke and mirrors. I'm just asking that you to apply the same sort of rigorous thinking to something that is much easier to analyze - if you put your emotions aside. Let's say I was a pharma rep for GSK trying to sell you on Zocor. If I came to you and told you how great Zocor was, I'm guessing that you would demand the clinical data. If I hemmed and hawed for a while, and then finally admitted that, well, the clinical data says that Lipitor is stronger, what would you say? If I told you about how these great doctors (from before Penicillin was invented, or the role of cholesterol in heart disease was discovered) all thought Zocor was stronger, that might impress you a little bit, I guess. And I could tell you stories about that time Lipitor didn't do anything for my friend's cholesterol problem, but Zocor cleared it right up. But if the MM data said that Lipitor has better life-extending results (which I think it does) and the clinical data said that it was stronger at lowering LDL and raising HDL (which I'm pretty sure it is) then would you prescribe Zocor to your patients just because I told you it was wonderful? I hope not. You raise an interesting point; one that goes beyond the fun of two bull headed people arguing for its own sake. What is the nature of proof? Now clearly anecdotal evidence is not as good as quantitative measure but the difficulty is in determining what you are trying to quantify. The drug analogy is edifying. It is the best case scenario for this sort of comparison. it is relatively easy to set up an experiment where the effects of a drug can be measured objectively. In your example we would use cholesterol level as our primary outcome. But this would actually be just a surrogate for our real outcome, reduction of heart attacks and strokes. Since measuring the true outcome is trickier more expensive and too time consuming we use surrogates. That is fine but this requires a judgement on what that surrogate should be. In this case in addition to primary outcome measure we would need to have secondary measures (e.g side effects). We would need to make some subjective judgements about which outcome is most important. Things are even more complex in my field where it is difficult if not impossilbe to measure some outcomes. Diagnostic efficacy sensitivity specificity positive and negative predictive value are all used to assess the value of diagnostic imaging tests. But I remain deeply skeptical that these tools tell us much that we don't know from daily clinical experience. Most of the science I have done might best be described as the art of medicine. I use statistics in my work but I know that sometimes they fail to provide clear information. Several years ago I reviewed a very complex paper on imaging of Multiple Sclerosis submitted to the New England Journal of Medicine. It concluded that MR was not all that useful in detecting and characerizing MS when compared to clinical evaluation. They had the stats to prove it. But my own experience told me this was simply wrong. I understood the data and knew why the authors had come to an erroneous conclusion but the fact of the matter was that the paper did not reflect clinical reality and subsequent experience showed this to be correct. I am no genius nor am I someone who automatically trusts my judgement above others but I knew that the conclusions of the paper were wrong because of my direct experience in interpretting studies and dealing with neurologists. You said that Pedro and Koufax both had the best ERA possible. But that's not really true, is it? Gibson had a better ERA than Koufax at least once - much better. Gibson had the single greatest season a pitcher can have (68). Is ERA was about one run difference from Koufax. So my point is I think correct. 1.5-2.0 is about the best you can do. Rarely you can do a bit better. Since I may time out on gd aol I'll continue in the next post There's one yardstick for you right there. No pitcher has put up numbers that even vaguely resemble Pedro's at his peak during the last few years. But there were pitchers who put up numbers that were comparable to (or better than) those of Koufax. Gibson, IIRC, won 26 games in 1968. Now, W-L for pitchers aren't particularly informative, but, well, how often did Koufax do that? Now, here is the player page for Koufax at the Baseball Prospectus Web Site: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/cards/koufasa01.shtml And here is the player page for Pedro:
Re: Sandy Kofax
If we use your metrics - that is, just against the other players of his time, ignoring park effects, difficulty, everything - then why isn't Gibson the best ever? His 1968 season was better than anything Koufax ever did, phenomenal though Koufax was. It was the best season ever in my opinion If Koufax had five seasons so much better than everyone else that they automatically qualify him as the most dominant pitcher ever - why didn't he win five Cy Youngs? Randy Johnson has five. Clemens has six. Maddux won _four in a row_. Pedro won three in a row, and probably deserved more. You mentioned postseason performance. The first question, of course, is how many Division Series did Koufax have to pitch his team through? How many League Championship Series? So yes, he did very well in the World Series. But in terms of pure postseason performance, did he do anything as impressive as Randy Johnson last year? Well I would consider the post season record of each pitcher not just world series record. Koufax might have benefitted from more opportunities to pitch. Would have had more wins. Lots of people claimed that Barry Bonds couldn't hit in the clutch because of his poor postseason performance. Do you still think so after last year? Willy Mays, I would point out, _sucked_ in the postseason. Does anyone blame him for it? No, of course not. Players who people like are clutch players, and players who people don't like aren't, and that's as far as it goes. I would never blame a great player for not coming through in the clutch but I do credit those that do. I think it useful in comparing the very best with each other. In the end the goal is to win important games and those who achieve this deserve more credit than those that do not. I am not suggesting that the success of an athletes career is determined by championships. I think that is silly. I don't like Patrick Ewing but he had a phenominally successful career as a Knick. The same thing with injuries. It's true that Maddux has much better medical care available to him than Koufax did - not that he's ever needed it, but certainly it's true. But Koufax had better medical care than Walter Johnson. Which one was more durable? Koufax was legendarily fragile during his own era. He was fragile and not fragile. He was in pain and had all these odd treatments (the oil and the ice baths) that have only added to his legend but he almost never missed a turn. The guy pitched over 300 innings his last 3 years in the league. He would have been better taken care of now. Furthermore, Koufax had what Maddux and Pedro don't - a high pitching mound, and the chance to take it easy against at least half the batters in the other teams lineup. Don't you think that decreased his chance of injury? I don't think he ever took it easy. He threw a lot of pitches; however you slice it way more than guys do now. If statistics only told us what we know to be true, then they would be useless anyways. It's only when they tell us something that is contrary to our perceptions that they are useful. In this case, the statistics are saying something that you don't like, Bob, but that doesn't mean they're wrong. Now, if they declared that Andy Pettite was the greatest pitcher ever, then clearly we'd have to cook up some new statistics. He is definitely second to Koufax. But by the way, I love Andy and would certainly over value him but I did not love Koufax. I hated him. That would be absurd. But it's certainly reasonable to say that Pedro's 1999 season was the most dominant ever. It's also reasonable to say that Gibson's 1968 season was. Or one of Koufax's great ones. It just so happens that Koufax's don't seem to quite make the grade against Pedro's best, and Koufax's career clearly doesn't quite make it against, say, Seaver or Clemens. That doesn't make him anything less than a phenomenal pitcher - one of the best of all time. Just not _the_ best. My judgement remains that one must add in performance in the post season. When this is added in I think Koufax is right there. But of course you have listed many ways that one can judge a player. All are valid and none has priority. One last thing: In one post you talked about how Koufax would have been rated had he not been Jewish. I answered this but could not send the message. I agree that this has affected people's judgement of him. Many sports writers (especially in NY are or were jewish and this increased their admiration and affection for Koufax. But you must realize that being a jewish hurt rather than helped in his career. It was the 50s and anti-semitism was more open. He faced resentment from many of his team mates and opponents. Alston missed used Koufax horribly throughout his career almost certainly slowing his progress. Many think that he was an antisemite. At the very least he did not know how to deal with a
Re: Sandy Kofax
If we use your metrics - that is, just against the other players of his time, ignoring park effects, difficulty, everything - then why isn't Gibson the best ever? His 1968 season was better than anything Koufax ever did, phenomenal though Koufax was. It was the best season ever in my opinion If Koufax had five seasons so much better than everyone else that they automatically qualify him as the most dominant pitcher ever - why didn't he win five Cy Youngs? Randy Johnson has five. Clemens has six. Maddux won _four in a row_. Pedro won three in a row, and probably deserved more. You mentioned postseason performance. The first question, of course, is how many Division Series did Koufax have to pitch his team through? How many League Championship Series? So yes, he did very well in the World Series. But in terms of pure postseason performance, did he do anything as impressive as Randy Johnson last year? Well I would consider the post season record of each pitcher not just world series record. Koufax might have benefitted from more opportunities to pitch. Would have had more wins. Lots of people claimed that Barry Bonds couldn't hit in the clutch because of his poor postseason performance. Do you still think so after last year? Willy Mays, I would point out, _sucked_ in the postseason. Does anyone blame him for it? No, of course not. Players who people like are clutch players, and players who people don't like aren't, and that's as far as it goes. I would never blame a great player for not coming through in the clutch but I do credit those that do. I think it useful in comparing the very best with each other. In the end the goal is to win important games and those who achieve this deserve more credit than those that do not. I am not suggesting that the success of an athletes career is determined by championships. I think that is silly. I don't like Patrick Ewing but he had a phenominally successful career as a Knick. The same thing with injuries. It's true that Maddux has much better medical care available to him than Koufax did - not that he's ever needed it, but certainly it's true. But Koufax had better medical care than Walter Johnson. Which one was more durable? Koufax was legendarily fragile during his own era. He was fragile and not fragile. He was in pain and had all these odd treatments (the oil and the ice baths) that have only added to his legend but he almost never missed a turn. The guy pitched over 300 innings his last 3 years in the league. He would have been better taken care of now. Furthermore, Koufax had what Maddux and Pedro don't - a high pitching mound, and the chance to take it easy against at least half the batters in the other teams lineup. Don't you think that decreased his chance of injury? I don't think he ever took it easy. He threw a lot of pitches; however you slice it way more than guys do now. If statistics only told us what we know to be true, then they would be useless anyways. It's only when they tell us something that is contrary to our perceptions that they are useful. In this case, the statistics are saying something that you don't like, Bob, but that doesn't mean they're wrong. Now, if they declared that Andy Pettite was the greatest pitcher ever, then clearly we'd have to cook up some new statistics. He is definitely second to Koufax. But by the way, I love Andy and would certainly over value him but I did not love Koufax. I hated him. That would be absurd. But it's certainly reasonable to say that Pedro's 1999 season was the most dominant ever. It's also reasonable to say that Gibson's 1968 season was. Or one of Koufax's great ones. It just so happens that Koufax's don't seem to quite make the grade against Pedro's best, and Koufax's career clearly doesn't quite make it against, say, Seaver or Clemens. That doesn't make him anything less than a phenomenal pitcher - one of the best of all time. Just not _the_ best. My judgement remains that one must add in performance in the post season. When this is added in I think Koufax is right there. But of course you have listed many ways that one can judge a player. All are valid and none has priority. One last thing: In one post you talked about how Koufax would have been rated had he not been Jewish. I answered this but could not send the message. I agree that this has affected people's judgement of him. Many sports writers (especially in NY are or were jewish and this increased their admiration and affection for Koufax. But you must realize that being a jewish hurt rather than helped in his career. It was the 50s and anti-semitism was more open. He faced resentment from many of his team mates and opponents. Alston missed used Koufax horribly throughout his career almost certainly slowing his progress. Many think that he was an antisemite. At the very least he did not know how to deal with a
Re: Sandy Kofax
In a message dated 7/12/2003 2:27:07 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Adjusted for era, Pedro's numbers at his peak are just flat-out better. A modern's bias would be if the two were roughly equal, and I was saying _that_ showed that Pedro was better. But that is not, in fact, my argument The key is how the adjusted for era is made. Here is where subjective judgement mascarades as objective fact. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Sandy Kofax
In a message dated 7/11/2003 4:34:12 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: If you think he was the most dominant pitcher on a per-game basis you're also wrong, but at least you have a case and we can talk about it. Arguing that he was better than Seaver or Clemens is foolish. He didn't pitch for long enough. He didn't pitch long enough because he pitched in a different era. He was every bit the physical specimen that Clemens is. For 5 years consecutive years he was the best in the game. No one else can make that claim. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Sandy Kofax
In a message dated 7/11/2003 9:19:09 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: John, that's my point. What is the purpose of a pitcher? It's to keep runs off the board. That's it. A pitcher has only one function on a team. No-hitters, strikeouts, stuff, they're all meaningless. The only thing that counts is keeping runs off the board. Bob was telling me about strikeouts and stuff and no-hitters. The first two of those are things that get you to a good pitcher. The third is just a fun statistic. It's impressive, but a no-hitter does no more for a team than a one-hitter. That's why we talk about ERA. Even more it's why we talk about ERA+ (that is, ERA adjusted for league and park context). As you get more sophisticated we can talk about Win Shares (Bill James's new invention) or VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) - all these wonderful tools that people have invented to measure exactly how good a pitcher is. They are designed to take into account all these varying factors that go into what makes a great pitcher. Bob, so far as I can tell, is arguing that we should just abandon all of these ideas in favor of I remember that guy, he was really great. Well its not that I remember him. I do of course he drove me crazy beating my beloved invincible Yankees. It is what others have said about him. Experts who have played with him or against him or who have broad experience. They all say he was the best for that 5 year period. As to the other stuff the key is not in fact keeping runs off the board. The key is winning games. Now it is true that it is often hard to measure the value of an individual in a team game so all sorts of statisitical surogates are devised. But that is all they are. Koufax's reputation is based on his performances in big games over that 5 year period. No comes close. Pedro and Maddux have had chances but they could not win on their own. Roger self destructed several times before his success in New York. Koufax won those games with very little support from his team. He did not need it. As to things like no hitters shutouts and complete games. They are indicators of dominance. They tell us that he was so good that he could put himself in position to have a sufficient number of times to have 4 in 5 years. Think about it this way. Suppose a pitcher has the stuff to pitch a no hitter on a given day. What are the odds he will succeed? 1 in 3, 1 in 6? So to get 4 in 5 years you have to pitch well enough to get the no hitter 15-25 times. I don't have the stats in frount of me but I remember that he had whole bunches of 1 and 2 hitters (almost no-hitters) in there. Back to ERA: My contention is that based on all that is know about Koufax; his skill his strength and his mental toughness he would have had the same ERA now as he did then. That he and Pedro both have the best ERA possible for pitchers. What the rest of the league did against each other was irrelevant. They were all overmatched. By the way I thing Tom Seaver a pretty knowledgable baseball guy who had some knowledge of Koufax growing up in California has said he thinks Koufax was the best pitcher ever. = ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Sandy Kofax
In a message dated 7/11/2003 9:28:04 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Furthermore, injuries aren't a random or infrequent factor for pitchers. They are a non-random, frequent factor. Power pitchers are less likely to get injured that soft-tossers (Koufax, of course, was the quintessential power pitcher). Furthermore, pitchers get injured all the time (unless they play for the Oakland A's right now). The odds of a pitcher having a major injury in a season are (IIRC) over 10%. Being able to avoid getting injured is a talent just as surely as striking someone out - because if you're on the bench, you can't contribute to your team. Surely one part of Greg Maddux's remarkable ability is the fact that he is never, ever injured. That's not random - it's because he has flawless mechanics and is the most efficient pitcher in the history of the modern game But here you are being grossly unfair to compare Koufax to Maddux. The way pitchers are used and or allow themselves to be used today is completely different than it was then. Koufax's used an ice bucket and a rub they use on horses to protect his arm. He went out on 3 days rest regardless of how he felt. He played through major injuries that would have put pitchers on the DL for months. One year he damaged an artery in his pitching hand. Without modern tests who knew. What people did know was that his finger turned blue when he pitched, that it was cold as ice and numb. But he pitched through most of the year and almost lost the finger to gangrene. Now he was no fool. But it was a different era and pitchers did not sit out. Can you imagine management or the player allowing something like that to happen now? Guys go on the DL if their finger is blue from nail polish rather than ischemia. Koufax's career was short but during his five year reign he virtually never missed a turn to pitch. He was durable but did not have longevity. Things would have been different now. As to the value of a long career this is a tough one. Longevity is not enough. Don Sutton won over 300 games and pitched for ever; so did Phil Neikro. Are they in the same league with these guys? Clemens has done both and that makes him one of the greatest pitchers ever. Same with Maddux. But how long is long enough? Koufax did his stuff in 5 years. Not a flash in the pan. He went out on top (although not without pain). He could have pitched longer but he felt he would not be able to maintain his skill and would certainly damage his arm. He walked away. Now this choice certainly means that if one wants to measure longevity (certainly a reasonable thing to do) that he will lose points. But we value things other than longevity (or in addition to them). Cal Ripkin's consecutive game record is an example of a feet of longevity. In and of itself does this mean he was a great player? Including the record does than make him the greatest short stop of all time? By the way, sometimes when statistical tools fail to produce an answer that is obviously correct it becomes necessary to devise new tools. So have James go back to the drawing board. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Sandy Kofax
In a message dated 7/11/2003 11:07:15 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Yeah, that's my entire point. He's a fine running back. But it takes more than that to be the best ever. Well how about Jim Brown. Walked away from football still in his prime after several dominant years. Some people say he was the best ever. Played in a different era so hard to compare to current players. But he was just that much better than everyone else. I think that is my point. In comparing eras lots of things change. But there will still be a mean of skill and a distribution. It seems to me that Koufax was several standard deviations above the mean, a few more than Pedro or anyone else. By the way by your criteria of greatness Newton and Einstein could not be considered amoung the greates physicist ever. Each had one breakout year and a few years of major productivity. Both kind of faded after that. It is accomplishment not longevity that makes one great (although longevity is in itself an accomplishment). ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Sandy Kofax
In a message dated 7/11/2003 11:07:15 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Yeah, that's my entire point. He's a fine running back. But it takes more than that to be the best ever. Well how about Jim Brown. Walked away from football still in his prime after several dominant years. Some people say he was the best ever. Played in a different era so hard to compare to current players. But he was just that much better than everyone else. I think that is my point. In comparing eras lots of things change. But there will still be a mean of skill and a distribution. It seems to me that Koufax was several standard deviations above the mean, a few more than Pedro or anyone else. By the way by your criteria of greatness Newton and Einstein could not be considered amoung the greates physicist ever. Each had one breakout year and a few years of major productivity. Both kind of faded after that. It is accomplishment not longevity that makes one great (although longevity is in itself an accomplishment). ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Sandy Kofax
Except that Koufax pitched in Dodger Stadium, off a 20 mound (the mound in Dodger Stadium was illegally high) in an era when the _batting title winner_ hit .301 in the American League, and the HR high was in the low 30s, IIRC. Pedro puts up ERAs similar to Koufax's when the batting title winner hits in the .370s, the HR champion hits 70 HRs, the mound is 10 high, and he does it in _Fenway Park_ (which favors hitters), not Dodger Stadium (then and now the best pitcher's park in MLB). In fact, until Koufax moved to Dodger Stadium, he wasn't an overwhelming pitcher. He was very good, but if I had to pick one pitcher of the post-war era to win a game for me, the list would go something like: 1. Pedro 2. Pedro 3. Tom Seaver 4. Roger Clemens 5. Greg Maddux 6. Koufax And I'm not even sure I'd put him that high. Sorry it has taken me so long to respond but I have been busy and twice a composed responses only to have aol log me out before I can send the response. Gautam - I would have thought you could have come up with something better than this response. Sure Koufax pitched in an era when pitchers had an advantage. The mound was a bit high at Dodgers Stadium (although it actually height is not known; had it been measured and found to be high the team would have had to lower it). But Koufax pitched half his games at other parks. Hitters weren't as successful but using a single league leading batting average which was anomalously low is unfair. There were a few people who could hit then. Mantle Mays Maris Museil (and I still in the M's). Yes Dodger Stadium was a pitcher's park but to attribute Koufaz's success to this is absurd. After all, other people pitched in Dodger stadium but they did not do what Koufax did. Before 61 Koufax was a disappointing pitcher. Leavy argues that it was Dodger mismanagement that messed Koufax up. Alston did not trust or like Koufax and stiffled him for the first 6 years of his career. Koufax started coming on in 61 and was the best pitcher ever from 62 to 66. In those 5 years he won 111 games (22 per year) had an ERA 1.97. He threw 33 shut outs and had 4 no hitters. 4 no hitters in 5 years. No one has approached this sort of dominance. He had 1444 strikeouts (290 per year for god's sake). (to insure that I will be able to continue to rant I am sending this now and will continue in the next post). ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Sandy Kofax
Koufax continued. Koufax pitched 397 games; he completed 137 and had 40 shut outs (11 in 63 got that 11 shutouts in one year, 7 in 64 and 8 in 65). Koufax pitched 7 ws games. He was 4 and 3 (4 and 2 from 63 on). His ERA was .97. In 63 the Dodgers swept the Yankess a team that won the AL by over 10 games. Kofax won two complete games. He gave up three runs. In 65 he was 2 and 1; his ERA was .37. These numbers demonstate absolute dominance. The counter arguement that he did this in a week hitting era does not prove that he would not have done it in any era. After all ERA is a statistic that has a lower theoretical limit (it cannot be less than 0) and a low practical limit (given the fact that this is a game played by at least 18 humans with a ball that can do peculiar things it seems reasonable to argue that an ERA of 1.00 is essentially perfect (remember WS ERA .97). So With truely outstanding pitchers (ERA around 2.0) ERA cannot be a good metric. So in comparing pitchers of different eras one has to rely on other tools. How about the opinion of other players (pitchers and hitters)? Koufax is almost unanimously rated as the best by players and baseball folks who saw him pitch. People like Bob Feller and Bob Gibson who do not give complements to other pitchers often both had stated he was the best. Hank Aaron another weak hitter from the era sadi the same. See next post ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Sandy Kofax
part 3 Koufax was big and strong. He had enormous powerful hands. He could hold 6 balls in one hand. He threw two pitches and never varied his release point. He threw fast ball that batters swore sped up. This is of course impossible but what it did not do is slow down (all others do). His speed was 95-100 miles per hour. He threw his curve with the motion but it just dropped at the plate. Gautam would take Pedro in a game against Sandy but would this be a reasonable choice based on actual success in big games. Pedro has won lets see no WS games. Of course that isn't his fault because the Sox didn't get to the Series. They might have. The made the playoffs but Pedro couldn't drag his team over the Yankess to get to the series. Sandy did that for his Dodgers. Pedro pitched against the Yankees on Monday and he was brilliant but not quite brilliant enough. He left the game with score tied 1-1 and the sox lost the game in the 9th. In fact in 20 games against the dreaded Yankees he has won 8 lost 7 and no decisioned 5. So he won 8 in 20. ERA was great but won only 8. Now surely you are saying how unfair this is. It wasn't Pedro's fault that his team failed to score for him that his relief failed. Uh except Koufax's team didn't score for him either. His relief wasn't so great but of course he did not need relief. He completed those games, always in pain often on fumes (in some of the 65 games against the twins he had no curve ball. He won on his fast ball). He won those games. Now based on past performance who would one choose in a game between the current Red Sox and the 65 Dodgers. Remember if the game goes 7 or 8 innings Pedro is out while Koufax is going to keep pitching (he and Gibson once went 12 innnings against each other - guess who won). The arguement about players from different eras usually goes like this. Athletes in the current era are in so much better shape and have so much better coaching that players from prior eras could not compete. Dave Debusscher heard this arguement about the Knicks. They couldn't win because current players were so much stronger. When asked what he and his team mates would have done, he sighed and said We would have worked out. We would have been just as strong and we would be better passers, better long range shooters and better defenders than current players. He was a bit wrong about the last part. People are always the products of their time and culture. So maybe that Knick team would not have been good at fundamental skills. So in comparing Koufax to Pedro it may not be fair to look at complete games. It may not be fair to point out that Koufax rarely missed a start despite serious elbow arthritis that has left him unable to straighten his left arm. Pitchers did that then. Now pitchers and the teams they work for protect their arms. They have MRI scans at the drop of a hat. They go on the DL. Pedro has been shut down for parts of the last few seasons. So Koufax pitching now would not have all those complete games. Like everyone else he would be pitching every 5th day not every 4th day (or on occaison on two days rest as he did in the WS in 65, you know the one where he had and era of .37). He would have lasted longer and almost certainly had more wins. But he might not have been so dominant for any 5 year period. As to Gautam's list. He lists Pedro, Maddux (who has really done well in post season) Clemons and Seaver. Thus the 4 greatest picthers have all pitched in the past 20 years and three are active simultaneously. What are the odds of that? Baseball has been around for over 100 years and its 3 greatest pitchers are active at the same time. Maybe we have a bit of selection bias here? Others have had lists. SI had a list of greatest athletes of the 20th century. There was one pitcher Koufax. No one seriously argued about this. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 28 Days Later
In a message dated 7/5/2003 6:21:39 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I thought the stupid tunnel trip and the expedition into the gas-station house were awfully cheap. Maybe the gas station but I thought the tunnel was cool; after all it is horror sci fi movie and characters in such movies must behave stupidly. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 28 Days Later
In a message dated 7/5/2003 6:21:39 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I thought the stupid tunnel trip and the expedition into the gas-station house were awfully cheap. Maybe the gas station but I thought the tunnel was cool; after all it is horror sci fi movie and characters in such movies must behave stupidly. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 28 Days Later
In a message dated 7/5/2003 6:21:39 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I thought the stupid tunnel trip and the expedition into the gas-station house were awfully cheap. Maybe the gas station but I thought the tunnel was cool; after all it is horror sci fi movie and characters in such movies must behave stupidly. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 28 Days Later
In a message dated 7/5/2003 6:21:39 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I thought the stupid tunnel trip and the expedition into the gas-station house were awfully cheap. Maybe the gas station but I thought the tunnel was cool; after all it is horror sci fi movie and characters in such movies must behave stupidly. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 28 Days Later
In a message dated 7/5/2003 6:21:39 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I thought the stupid tunnel trip and the expedition into the gas-station house were awfully cheap. Maybe the gas station but I thought the tunnel was cool; after all it is horror sci fi movie and characters in such movies must behave stupidly. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Sandy Kofax
In a message dated 7/5/2003 6:31:10 PM Eastern Standard Time, TomFODW writes: There is an unfortunate tendency among some of Koufax's admirers, especially those who have known him, to elevate him into some kind of human paragon. Granted that he appears to be a highly decent, respectful, dignified person, the fact remains that he is, basically, someone who had an astounding God-given ability that he got the absolute most out of. He was a great baseball player; there's nothing wrong with being a great baseball player, but let's not make him out to be anything more than that. He's not Albert Schweitzer, he's not Martin King But your description of him is precisely one he would agree to. That is the person that comes through in the book. He disavows anything more. When he did not pitch on Yom Kippur this was not a political act and not really a religous one (Kofax is the prototypical non-observant Jew. And yet his act was in the modern parlance empowering to Jews. He accepted this and tried to be a role model ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Sandy Kofax
In a message dated 7/6/2003 8:15:42 PM Eastern Standard Time, TomFODW writes: I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that Koufax himself would not go along with others' overestimation of him? I certainly agree with you on that, since that was my unstated point: that it was his admirers and not him who have the unfortunate tendency I noted. Koufax himself has been an extremely private person. An admirable one, but there are lots of admirable people who don't have their friends trying to glorify them. My point is that the biography does not idolize him as a person. The author idolizes him as an athlete and appreciates him as a man. But I would make the point that Kofax seems unique in his maintaining his dignity and his refusal to cash in on his celebrity. But rather then argue this I would suggest that you read the book to learn of his small kindnesses and his interactions with others. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 28 Days Later
In a message dated 7/4/2003 10:01:23 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: More than a bit of night of the dead as well. Just saw this today. Despite or in spite of its wholly unoriginal plot this is a terrific movie. See it Are there any explosions? I like explosions Yes there are explosions and fires and lead characters who grow or at least grow on you as the movie progresses. There is lots of tension not the cheap stuff the real deal. The cinematography is complex but in this case it serves the movie rather than being pretentous. I was incredibly surprised by the film. A true original within the context of a very pedestrian horror/sci-fi film. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Sandy Kofax
No baseball for a while so I thought I might stir the pot. Just finished Jane Leavy's excellent if reverential bio. It provides some insight into this extrarordinarly private man. She dispells notions that he did not really like baseball, or that he was aloof from teamates. But the main thing about him is his absolute dominance from 1961 through 1966. The statistics are daunting, 4 no hitters, an ERA of less than two, wining crutial games for the Dodgers at the end of the season and then in the world series often on 2 days rest. Other players of that era insist that he was the best. I know Gautam has argued in favor of Pedro Martinez but it seems to me that Pedro is not in the same league. As good as he Pedro has not been able to drag his team along with him. As good as he is he does not seem to have the ability to dominate the way Kofax could. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 28 Days Later
In a message dated 6/29/2003 11:43:33 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Sounds like _Lifeforce_ without Mathilda May. Bah Or that Richard Matheson novel that got made into The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price, Omega Man with Charlton Heston, and yet another planned remake I've heard plans for... ;-) More than a bit of night of the dead as well. Just saw this today. Despite or in spite of its wholly unoriginal plot this is a terrific movie. See it ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 28 Days Later
In a message dated 6/29/2003 11:43:33 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Sounds like _Lifeforce_ without Mathilda May. Bah Or that Richard Matheson novel that got made into The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price, Omega Man with Charlton Heston, and yet another planned remake I've heard plans for... ;-) More than a bit of night of the dead as well. Just saw this today. Despite or in spite of its wholly unoriginal plot this is a terrific movie. See it ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Constantine's cross may have been mushroom cloud from meteorimpact
That's the thing about empires. They squeeze out competitive forces and it's those competitive forces that keep innovation and progress alive. For example there was one point when china was all set to conquer Europe, they had a massive fleet the likes never seen up to that time, and their ships were decidedly better than the ones of European nations at the time. The fleet was on it's way, rounding the horn of Africa, ready to descend upon Europe like locusts. But then the emperor died. The new emperor thought that having a big fleet was not such a good idea. The fleet was eventually scuttled and china is a third world country today. Likewise once upon a time the Japanese made the best guns, but by the mid eighteen hundreds there were no guns in Japan. Japan lost it's guns because the rulers ever so slowly restricted the making of / repair of guns. First they restricted how many guns could be made per year. Slowly they reduced this number eventually to zero. Then they restricted the repair of guns per year. So by the mid 1800's Japan no longer had any guns. The Idea is very simple and very sound. When you have large empires, popes, etc. they are able to restrict 'taboo' ideas / technology, etc. The other part is that usually no two emperors or popes have the same definition of what is 'taboo', so you get a whittling effect, one whittling this away, another whittling that away. It's not a quick process. But this effect ends when you add in the right amount of competitive forces. Jared Diamond in Guns Germs and Steel goes into this arguement in some depth. He points out that the geography of china and europe were important in the differences between the two cultures. China was and is essentially a single plain betweeen two great rivers with free movement across most of the land. This promoted the developement of a large complex civilization. Technology flourished in this environment but the same features that promoted early civilization and technology also made it prone to stagnation and loss of technology that occurred when the Ming Dynasty turned inward. They controlled the entire country and had no rivals. There was no initial negative effects of this decision but other civilizations were not turning away from technology. In Europe the geography was not conducive to this sort of consolidation. Mountain ranges broke the continent up into small pockets of civilization which competed with each other. A society that gave up technology would be defeated by a society that used and advanced technology. We are of course in danger of making the Ming mistake, the soviet union mistake. When we impede research in things like stem cell research this research is done elsewhere and the the elsewheres reap the benefit. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Constantine's cross may have been mushroom cloud from meteorimpact
That's the thing about empires. They squeeze out competitive forces and it's those competitive forces that keep innovation and progress alive. For example there was one point when china was all set to conquer Europe, they had a massive fleet the likes never seen up to that time, and their ships were decidedly better than the ones of European nations at the time. The fleet was on it's way, rounding the horn of Africa, ready to descend upon Europe like locusts. But then the emperor died. The new emperor thought that having a big fleet was not such a good idea. The fleet was eventually scuttled and china is a third world country today. Likewise once upon a time the Japanese made the best guns, but by the mid eighteen hundreds there were no guns in Japan. Japan lost it's guns because the rulers ever so slowly restricted the making of / repair of guns. First they restricted how many guns could be made per year. Slowly they reduced this number eventually to zero. Then they restricted the repair of guns per year. So by the mid 1800's Japan no longer had any guns. The Idea is very simple and very sound. When you have large empires, popes, etc. they are able to restrict 'taboo' ideas / technology, etc. The other part is that usually no two emperors or popes have the same definition of what is 'taboo', so you get a whittling effect, one whittling this away, another whittling that away. It's not a quick process. But this effect ends when you add in the right amount of competitive forces. Jared Diamond in Guns Germs and Steel goes into this arguement in some depth. He points out that the geography of china and europe were important in the differences between the two cultures. China was and is essentially a single plain betweeen two great rivers with free movement across most of the land. This promoted the developement of a large complex civilization. Technology flourished in this environment but the same features that promoted early civilization and technology also made it prone to stagnation and loss of technology that occurred when the Ming Dynasty turned inward. They controlled the entire country and had no rivals. There was no initial negative effects of this decision but other civilizations were not turning away from technology. In Europe the geography was not conducive to this sort of consolidation. Mountain ranges broke the continent up into small pockets of civilization which competed with each other. A society that gave up technology would be defeated by a society that used and advanced technology. We are of course in danger of making the Ming mistake, the soviet union mistake. When we impede research in things like stem cell research this research is done elsewhere and the the elsewheres reap the benefit. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Where are the European hypocrites?
In a message dated 6/13/2003 12:46:07 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: What right did the UN have to tell Arabs how they would be governed, or to take away their homes? For whatever its worth; Palestine was part of the british empire after the breakup of the Otomen Empire. The Zionest movement began in ernest in the late 19th century in response to increasing virulent anti-sematism throughout Europe (with the notable exception of England which was very pro-jewish at the time). Theodore Herzel the father of modern zionism became a zionist because of the Dreyfus affair. Jews began to buy up as much land in Palestine as they could often with the financial support of wealthy Jews such as the English branch of the Rothschild family. The Jews bought as much land as they could. When the Britain promished the Jews a state they were not dividing a previously existent state they were giving the Jews part of the Land they controlled. Now you can argue that the British and then the allies had no right to do this but it was certainly not same as giving away part of a pre-existent country. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Where are the European hypocrites?
In a message dated 6/13/2003 3:25:44 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Well, I'm not Steve, but you're getting into what might be the single most contentious issue in all of historical research right now. I think one of Leon Uris's novels actually does a really good job of telling the story - unfortunately I can't remember which one. Exodus ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
