- All I want for Christmas is a ditch-witch and a cornhole
- Milton Bradley: bad tipper?
Also rips Chicago waiters for “bad-mouthing” him.
- Needs moar FREE KRAUT!
- Neyer: as confused as we are
All I want for Christmas: RCDS 122309 204
204 thoughts on “All I want for Christmas: RCDS 122309”
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Cornholin’s huge here in the south. It’s one of the reasons I’m leaving.
But what about cornballing?
es muy loco!
Top baby names of 2009
The only thing crazier than the fact that both Addison and Madison are in the girls top 10 is the fact that Aidan, Jaden, and Caden are all in the top 10 for boys (with Brayden at 13!).
I’m happy that we’re ethnic enough that we could pick non-American names and not sound totally pretentious.
What did you name yours again?
Moonunit and Dweezil
Monopoly and Parcheesi
You’ve forgotten Ahmet and Diva Thin Muffin.
Voltaggio and Posnanski
big volt, little volt runnin’ through the forest,
Oodelally, oodelally, golly what a day.
Selection bias.
Yeah, I hear that the SSA version is far more accurate.
Gavin?!?
Peyton?!?
McCloud? Manning?
Re the Selig Game-Improvement Panel, the two most commonly suggested improvements seem to be speeding up the game and adding more tape review of close calls. But…but…more reviews would slow the game down, not to mention taking away local control and putting authority in the hands of bureaucratic fair-or-foul panels who are unlikely to reflect true East Bay Values. So i’m going back to watch more futbol, where the only thing interrupting the flow of the game is the occasional sportsmanlike pause to let a player shake off the agony of a high-speed knee-to-nuts collision.
Don’t forget the fake fish flopping. That’s always lots of fun.
Yeah, I think his last sentence should be “the occasional ‘sportsmanlike’ pause as a player writhes around in simulated agony any times he comes within three feet of an opponent.”
This is a baseball blog. They’re much more manlier (if less athletic) than those soccer panzies.
Dead-ball panels!
Troy Glaus at 2.5 million for one year…
But it’s cool. We got Jake Fox!
Fox CHONE: .257/.316/.452 (not sure if this in the Coli or Wrigley)
Glaus CHONE: 0.242/.348/.431 (neutral park, I think)
Both grade out to about 7-8 runs per 150 games. Glaus is a major injury risk. I’m happier with Fox than Glaus.
They also got Glaus to play 1B, not 3B.
I’m very pessimistic that Fox would even meet those numbers. Too many warning signs: swings at a ridiculous amount of pitches, doesn’t walk, can’t hit anything but a fastball. The last one is fine if you’re Jack Cust and you have excellent plate discipline and a distinguishing eye. But that’s not Jake Fox. I just fail to see how Fox can hit for power (or hit anything at all) with so many holes in his game, and with more exposure to the league. 09 may have been his best year.
Also, how accurate are CHONE projections if the player in question has less than one season’s worth of at bats?
I am not sure, but I think that CHONE uses minor league numbers, so the sample of previous PAs shouldn’t be a problem. Lord knows Fox has a ton of minor league PAs.
But does it account for ARL, repeating levels, etc?
I don’t see why it wouldn’t, nor do I fully understand why repeating levels/ARL isn’t compensated for by an appropriate MLE conversion and aging curve.
yes.
It’s ugh-fficial
I still don’t see anything awful about this move.
At the very least, shouldn’t they have gotten him for … I dunno, half of what they paid?
CHONE seems to think we got a pretty good deal. His actual value will depend a lot on his health, and also on how good he really is defensively.
And to be fair, the same projections say it would have been slightly better just to keep Cust. In that case, the question is whether his skills are really starting to deteriorate, or whether he’s likely to bounce back.
Well, if the reports are true and we’re still talking to Cust and we get him cheaper…having both is better than just one, right?
All that, plus it seems to me that Beane was essentially bidding against himself here — why not let Crisp dangle for a couple more weeks/months? He may be a relative bargain according to certain valuation schemes, but it seems to me that the teams still in need of a CF wouldn’t have valued him highly at all.
I don’t know what other interest there was, but I would imagine there was some.
< / Minaya >
But why should we care whether they pay him $4.5M or $2M or $3M or $5M?
Maybe it’s true that $3M is more value-appropriate than $4.5M, but you’d be hard pressed to make the case that an (arguable) overpayment of $1-2M limits the organization’s flexibility in any way. It’s a one year deal for not much money, and therefore inherently unproblematic from a payroll perspective.
As with Giambi last year, the salary commitment is simply not an issue. Reasonable objections (to that, and to this) center around roster considerations (the PAs ought to be allocated to other players, etc.).
Well, that’s the argument they used to nontender Cust.
Is it? All I remember reading is the usual “moving forward with other options” humdrum.
I think they just decided Crisp was more valuable than Cust.
4.5 MM is not nothing, and could be spent more productively, especially at this stage of the offseason.
I guess. You really think the money (not the roster slot, the money) they spent on Crisp precludes signing Glaus or whoever?
Sure. It precludes them from spending in the neighborhood of the amount of money they signed him for on someone else. Lots of guys are left unsigned, and maybe they could have offered 3-4 million more to Scutaro.
Are you talking about 2010 stopgaps, or guys that will help some theoretically competitive team post-2010? Because 2010, to me, is moot. Given positional need, four million bucks spent on one year of Tejada/Crede/Whoever probably helps the team more than one year of Crisp, but that a) seems like a quibble, since next year will be non-competitive no matter what, and b) assumes they won’t still sign one of those guys.
I agree Crisp is pointless, because I’d rather see them play Cunningham, et al. But hell, that preference makes Cust expendable as well, and doesn’t have anything to do with money.
I guess you’re saying they could have tacked on the Coco cash to a multi-year deal for a 3B/SS type, but who? Scutaro turned them down, didn’t he? Beltre? I thought you were against that.
1. If I’m reading Cot’s right, the current roster will cost roughly $35 million in 2010. They can’t be anywhere near their budget ceiling.
2. I just spent ten minutes tallying contract totals on Christmas Eve morning. WTF. I need to check into a clinic or something.
Here is his zips, to compare with CHONE: .248/.320/.370. 85 OPS+. Of course neither projection knows he had surgery on both shoulders…
It’s a bad move because it is completely pointless. So he’s probably worth the 4.5 MM in a vacuum… It’s not clear that he’s one of the best 3 OFs on the team. He doesn’t really have upside. Say there are injuries/trades: he’s not really even much of an upgrade on Buck/Patterson/Cunningham. If they traded Rajai or Sweeney, the other could handle CF. Meanwhile, there is no 3B or backup SS (or average starting SS) on the team.
err, 5.25MM… ugh.
err, 4.75.
I don’t really disagree with any of that, but it’s only your personal dislike for Crisp that turns it into an “ugh” instead of a “hmm.”
While looking through a collection of your traitorous cocophile comments over the years, I found this quite interesting nugget:
http://www.athleticsnation.com/2008/1/3/12252/23415#789420
Beane always gets his man, albeit often several years too late.
AFAICT, my only other comment about Crisp was here. The logic for acquiring him was much clearer then than now.
Our neighbors, bless their hearts, offered to do our laundry to help us out what with the new baby and everything. We took them up on the offer. She came home from work in the middle of the day, picked up our laundry, washed, dried, and folded the clothes and delivered back to our place.
Thing is…she used scented laundry detergent and fabric softener. I really don’t care for that smell. It gives mrs salb918 a headache. So she re-did the laundry (surreptitiously, as we share a laundry room with our neighbors) with some vinegar to get the smell out.
Yet another example that turning good deeds is a pain in the ass for everybody involved.
What if your neighbors read this?! What if I’m your neighbor?!
My neighbors are Barack and Michelle Obama; I doubt they have the time to read FK between running the free world and doing my laundry.
I’m opposed to the scented detergent and fabric-softener mandate.
don’t let the fragrant be the enemy of the smell-free.
OBAMA URGES SOFTNESS
I want you to photoshop Obama and the Snuggle Bear.
I rub a mixture of iron filings and vomit into my clothes because Dick Cheney assures me that that makes them more comfortable.
Too bad for you that you weren’t staying with us the previous 3 days.
new sigline.
Just as long as you don’t change your ** one.
I’m not sure I ever will.
… and apparently Mrs. John Lackey also takes Mr. Cheney’s advice.
Too bad he didn’t go all Huddy on the puker.
Seems to me if one’s erotic tastes involve Lackey, adding a little puke to the mix would not be entirely unwelcome.
Govmment takeover of laundromats!!!!! Soshulizm!!!!
Angels sign Fernando Rodney. Throwing bad money after the bad.
didn’t he used to be good?
And reportedly talking to Vicente Padilla. Please let it be true.
Too bad they have 2 catchers. Wouldn’t Kendall be the ultimate Sciosca favorite?
“No thank you, I’ve already got one.”
No, no, if they talk to him, they’ll probably decide not to sign him.
Well, I’d rather have Crisp than that…
Giants versus Angels on MLB Network right now.
And you’re cursing being at work…
Do you suppose Giants fans cackle like an evil school child when that crippled gay-porn-‘stached fuckhead hits against Eck in ’88?
If not they should. I certainly would if I were them.
I think most of them hate the Dodgers more than the A’s. And I would probably root for the Giants over the Angels now, though I didn’t in 2002.
it’s the bottom of the eighth, Giants up by two. What could happe…Giants up by one, what could happen?
Rob Nenn meets Troy Glaus
Interesting fact, FK: Robb Nen apparently retired after this season here.
I wonder if he still has nightmares.
He actually retired a season or two later, when he couldn’t come back from a shoulder injury. IIRC, he was pitching on a shredded shoulder in the WS and essentially sacrificed the rest of his career for a chance at a wring.
ring, even.
I sacrificed $10 at a raffle at a local brothel for a chance at a wring.
I once paid $25 in a dark alley for…okay, I’m not even gonna finish that.
TWSS
Twyttyr update:
If we can sign another twenty 1-2 WAR outfielders we might win the division.
If I’m a member of the San Diego County Credit Union, I’m wondering how much of my fees and subsequent reduced service levels went into sponsoring a bowl game watched by basically no one who will ever put their money into my bank.
I was just thinking the exact same thing when I saw it come across the chyron on the WV-Ole Miss game.
And speaking of WV — you can rant all you like about the Knightly tyrants, but Bob Huggins (a) seems like a grade-A a-hole, and (b) year-in, year-out has the most atrociously coached collections of playground showoffs with no team play whatsoever.
Associating with Cal in any way—->$$$$$$ from general goodwill.
Not for football players.
Shane the Machine Vereen!
Re #2–I’m pretty sure that in every one of my ~25 Chicago restaurant visits the wait staff badmouthed me too. So it may not be about skin hue.
You clearly need to pick better places.
I know he’s a junior, but I am very ready for Kevin Riley to “turn pro in something other than sports.”
So, I know I’m always linking to my blog, but I think this is appropriate.
Now I heard that in Japan
Everyone just lives in sin
They pray to several gods
And put needles in their skin.
On December 25th
All they do is eat a cake
And that is why I go to Japan
And walk around and say…
Hey there Mr. Shintoist
Merry fucking Christmas
God is going to kick your ass
You infidelic pagan scum.
In case you haven’t noticed
There’s festive things to do
So lets all rejoice for Jesus
And Merry fucking Christmas to you.
Sing it, Mr. Garrison!
Now here’s the holiday matchup we’ve been waiting for: The Chan v Chad legal smackdown!
Chan Ho Park loaned $460K to his “personal catcher” Chad Kreuter when both were with the Rangers a few years back, and Kreuter allegedly refuses to pay it all back. So I know you’re all waiting attentively, bankrolls in hand, for the FSU handicap to help guide your betting on this matchup. Consider it my Christmas present to you:
* Summary judgement for Park; judge garnishes Kreuter’s USC coaching wages: 4:1
* Pre-trial settlement installs Park as USC pitching coach; other Pac 10 teams rejoice: 5-1
* Trial reveals sordid details of Chan-Chad “pitcher/catcher” relationship; everyone wins! 10-1
I’ll go $25 across the board.
Beane: Yeah, Sweeney’s not really healthy, either
I think that’s actually the most immediately sensible explanation for signing Crisp (well, for signing a healthy OF): the club doesn’t feel Sweeney and/or Hairston can stand up to an entire season (and Rajai may be a mirage).
Not quite how I read that…
Nor I.
I think Rajai’s a mirage.
When he visited Florida last year, I wanted to burn him in effigy.
I’m calling it right now: Taylor will lead the A’s in OF starts in ’10. Cust will be 4th.
Mirajai Davis?
Nice.
He shoots, he scores!
Lew should move the team to SoCal: Ojai Davis.
Christ, what a sloth photo
Rock on Yglesias. Rock on.
Ah, I think MY and the reporter unfairly truncated the quote:
I liked this one
No. I think that one is inane (one should not criticize the RNC for being non-crazy, one should criticize them for being crazy). Criticisms like that push the RNC towards the war-on-christmas brigade, making everyone worse off.
Does Yglesias really have qualms with someone being quoted as saying that the mass murder of 270-plus people would have been “devastating”? Do you?
Honestly, yes. For all the same reasons I think the “KSM should not stand trial” stuff was wrong.
First, it was an amateurish, failed attempt.
Second, the most structually damaging part of a successful attack would have been our response. Although, obviously, the people surviving the passengers/crew would be worst off.
Third, reacting with fear is exactly what the bad guys want.
In short, my dream reaction would be “a crazy and ineffective murderer was apprehended today before he could hurt anyone.” Or, as Yglesias has it, “It’s attempted murder, it’s wrong, we should try to stop it, but it’s really not much more than that.”
Sorry, but this I’m seriously sick of hearing this such argument. Who gives a damn if we give them what they want or not? The fact of the matter is, they strike fear in us. We know it, and they know it, whether we want to admit it or not.
We should obviously be smart about how we react, but we shouldn’t lie to ourselves and act like it’s not a problem.
Put another way, which do you think the “terrorists” would prefer:
1. That we are afraid of them
2. That we are okay with them killing 270 of our people
The increase in airport security in response to 9/11 is an example of smart choices guided by fear of an attack.
Let me (post?)face my comments by saying that I didn’t read the actual article, so I could be way off base as to what you are talking about.
Put another way, I’m a moron.
For the record, (most) airport security in response to 9/11 is an example of stupid choices guided by fear of an attack. Examples: 1, 2, 3.
I believe that if we checked the hysteria at the door, we could have had a smarter, more effective, less intrusive set of changes that would avoid creating the TSA and avoid the stupid security theater that doesn’t do any good anyway.
Fair enough. I think many of the security procedures are ridiculous. I disagree that the TSA doesn’t do any good (I realize that you technically said that the theater doesn’t help). If we could find a better, less intrusive way to do it, I’d be fine with it. But I’d gladly give up some convenience for safety.
Today’s shining example.
Holy crap … that would be *really* bad news for me.
Really, what they ought to do is strip everyone naked, administer ether, and put all the passengers in the cargo hold for the duration of every flight.
That I could live with.
What if they went through your pockets while you were out cold?
If they promised to rummage, I’d pay extra.
They’re only equipped to rifle through your pockets.
They don’t do that to you already? Maybe it’s just us brown people…
More bad news for you: you will likely no longer be able to bring Charlie Sheen or Ivana Trump onboard with you as you’ve been accustomed to doing.
I think the British and their “stiff upper lip” cliche have a much better approach. I think even if we were faced with real danger (say Chinese bombings or something) we should STILL not give in to fear and irrationality. Doing it for a failed attempt to cause an explosion in an airplane seems silly.
Incidentally, I think our reaction to 9/11 (if you include Iraq and Afghanistan) has done a LOT more damage to the country than 9/11 did, and it was the worst terrorist attack in our history.
Fair enough point. I just feel that we’re wasting time when we talk about being afraid, since it’s pretty clear that we are. Let’s just be smart about planning. For the record, I think they’d rather see us dead than afraid.
1. they’d rather see us dead than afraid
nevermoor’s point, though, is that “they” (I guess we’re talking about al-Qaeda, loosely defined – please let’s not fall into the lazy 24 trap of conflating anyone who ever set off a bomb anywhere into a conveniently homogenous group called “the terrorists”) have no capacity to kill “us” on any kind of strategically meaningful scale. Sane policy is constructed according to your foes’ actual capabilities, not their dreamy aspirations.
Organizations/movements blow up civilians precisely because they are powerless. The entire point of terrorism is to provoke the superior power into debilitating overreaction, to gain leverage through fear and unpredictability. Osama bin laden would like to do lots of things, but he’s not Dr. Doom (or the USSR, for that matter). I’d like to have sex with Alyssa Milano, but something tells me I’ll be stuck renting Charmed DVDs for the foreseeable future.
2. I just feel that we’re wasting time when we talk about being afraid, since it’s pretty clear that we are.
Perhaps. It is important to note, though, that this fear has been deliberately manipulated/exacerbated to achieve political ends. The Virginia Tech murders did not make college students afraid to return to campus. Timothy McVeigh did not render government employees across the land forever skittish about going to work. It is more difficult, post-9/11, to blow yourself up on an airplane, but quite a simple matter on any train or subway car in America. Why is no one afraid to take Amtrak or BART?
Persistent, organized government doomsaying, amplified in the media, was the central force in shaping public conception of al-Qaeda as an existential threat, when they were never any such thing. This is not an organic phenomenon, it is profoundly irrational, and it has given license to disastrous policymaking. Once it ceases to be a useful political cudgel, we will find – like magic! – that the focus of our fears will drift elsewhere.
But don’t you see — Alyssa Milano wants you to rent Charmed videos.
Speak for yourself about the fear.
This.
I think that what you are attributing to a cliched stereotype (it’s not just the upper lip) is more to do with history. From WW1 bombs dropped from Zeppelins, to the WW2 blitz and V1/V2 rocket attacks, to the (largely US-funded) IRA campaigns, bloody and unpredictable attacks on civilians have been relatively common experience in the UK – and much of the rest of the world – in a way in which is in stark contrast with the two-fold US experience of Pearl Harbour and 9/11.
That means…if we allow more terrorist attacks in the US, people won’t be as afraid! The rare triple reverse “let-the-terrorists-win-so-they-actually-lose” maneuver FTW!
It’s simple mathematics: the more people killed by terrorists, the fewer people left to be afraid of being killed by terrorists.
Sure, but if we’re this scared about an idiot with an ineffective incendiary device how would we deal with a real risk. Isn’t this the problem?
Those bombing campaigns (specifically the Blitz) were exactly what I had in mind.* England (as a whole) reacted with resolve rather than fear. We react to FAR less serious threats with fear rather than resolve. I think that’s bad.
*When you say US-funded you mean funded-by-people-who-live-in-the-US right? The US government, to my knowledge, did not fund the IRA.
*Little-known fact: Us weekly magazine was the major funder of the IRA.
What exactly do you mean by “resolve”? How do we/what specific actions should we take in order to react with something that resembles “resolve” rather than fear?
For starters, unwind the expensive and useless airport security measures (while keeping the effective ones and expanding them – for example, making sure boarding passes are valid WHILE checking ID), rebuild the damn WTC (it looks like we’re finally making headway there), stop acting the fool in Iraq, stop acting like putting terrorists in US prisons is somehow a security risk (and just move ’em all).
I’m sure there are more.
about those security measures
Sounds right to me.
As far as I can tell, *I’m* the only one funding *my* IRA.
Me too, salb, me too.
Yes, I meant funded by US residents rather than the US government – although it was pretty open and obvious, and was not hindered by the government in any way that I know of.
I also think there’s a big difference between events during a declared war between nation states and terrorist attacks, the latter being much more shadowy and prone to fear-mongering. Both the US and UK governments used terrorism for their political ends; in the UK’s case, Northern Ireland was long used as the proving ground for the tactics and technology that were used to suppress serious civil dissent on the mainland.
The other key point to me though is history teaches us that today’s terrorist are tomorrow’s political leaders (and even Nobel Peace Prize winners), and that at some point, through some channels, governments eventually have to start a dialogue.
I think you just called Obama a terrorist!
The current terror threat is some kind of loose association of religious whackjobs, and it’s hard for me to imagine them wielding any legitimate political power in the future. Although maybe you’re right — the Palestinians did elect Hamas.
Hamas has just and intelligible grievances whatever else one may think of them.
hey, I got grievances, too, but I use appropriate venues like Festivus to air them.
Just saying I wouldn’t necessarily lump them in with al qaeda/random troubled youth…
Fine, but I still find their methods deplorable.
< / robandranyontheroyals >
What is your view on Israeli methods?
I might use a similar adjective.
… and the Israelis Begin (of King David Hotel fame). Although the bigger point associating terrorism in the name of nationalism with that transition is valid.
And I think that Obama and Shrub are the two presidents I didn’t implicate!
See, your Eric Martin link about the airline’s overreaction is a much more appropriate example of the overreaction you fear than a guy saying, “Man, that would have been devastating.” That’s actually a pretty appropriate word to describe the untimely death of hundreds of people, and arguing otherwise makes little sense–I think it’s just an instinctual partisan reaction that adds fuel to the ongoing politicization of everything. And it’s an argument that I don’t think you or Yglesias would be making if there wasn’t an “R” after the name of the guy who said it.
Devestating to whom, though?
To those 270 people, and their friends and family? Of course. To the United States? Of course not.
Maybe we should clarify what you mean by “devastating”. Sad? Tragic? If so, that is uncontroversial, though I’m not sure why it is more sad or tragic than any number of other ways people die, like not being able to seek treatment for a disease because they don’t
fuckinghave health insurance.Or: calamitous? Debilitating to the nation?
That is unambiguously stupid, and I promise you it is what King meant to imply.
[mk edit]: “Fucking” stricken from the record. Trying to get a head start on my New Year’s resolution to swear less frequently. I think if I say it, then retract it, it only counts as half a curse.
This (which I did not see) is what I read into it too. mj is almost certainly right that partisanship is part of the reason I (and MY and mk) read it. That, of course, doesn’t make us wrong (King is partisan too), but it might well make us part of the problem.
I was going to scold you for your lack of sensitivity for the friends and family of the 270 fallen passengers, but then I remembered that nobody had died. Congrats on your New Years’ resolution.
That could be right, and your point is well taken about the partisanship. I think, for better or worse, I read more into the statement than you do.
Part of the reason I reacted the way I did.
Bush term: 9/11 happens
Obama term: guy fails to set off something in an airplane
GOP reaction:
Apparently the GOP philosophy is to avoid stopping terrorists.
Terrorist attacks have drawn out planning, even if the execution is sudden. Your Bush term/Obama term oversimplifies to the point of misleading. Here is another interpretation which is potentially as valid as what you said:
Bush: inherits an intelligence mess from Clinton, 9/11 happens less than a year into his first term despite warnings from Operation Bojinka.
Obama: inherits beefed up terrorist-thwarting-intelligence-agencies; closest we come to a terrorist attack is some guy trying to set his underwear on fire.
I’m not saying that’s right either, but your rationale for your reaction is, well, partisan.
Oh I know. I’m just venting because that blockquote happened.
Your first sentence is also why we should be giving money to the CIA instead of the TSA.
we should be giving money to the CIA
Mphff.
Hey, at least they stop terrorist attacks.
So is almost any other rationale.
We need to understand that our first (or second, or fiftieth) reaction to anything like this should not be “Who is at fault and why?” We can try to figure out how to deter further similar events from happening. We can debate whether it’s cost effective or morally prudent or worth the trade-off of civil liberties, but it does no one any good at all to try to assess and assign blame. It is full of assumptions, conjectures and bipartisanship, all of which do none of us any good.
Bottom line, some shit happened. What now?
Step one: assign blame.
No, step one’s underwear.
1. Obama: inherits beefed up terrorist-thwarting-intelligence-agencies; closest we come to a terrorist attack is some guy trying to set his underwear on fire.
Just to be precise: that should read “domestic terrorist attack”. Incidences of American-victimizing terrorism around the world have increased since 9/11. Not to mention the non-American victims. Lots of bombs have gone off in Iraq and Afghanistan during the past eight years.
2. I disagree that if I call Hoekstra’s comment partisan, that automatically means our (mine and his) opinions have equal value. Is it not possible that one is right and one is wrong? What if he said the moon was made of green cheese and I said no it’s not?
What, exactly, is he getting at? What “clear philosophical difference” is he referring to, and in what way have those differences engendered a spike in terrorism activity? How does this spike differ from prior years? Are we now casually lumping in the Ft Hood guy with the rest of “the terrorists”? No difference there? Why are thwarted attacks now a terrifying danger sign rather than triumphant proof that those beefed up terrorist-thwarting-intelligence-agencies are doing a crackerjack job?
His comment is hyperventilating nonsense. It shares the same aim as King’s remark, which is to remove proportion and context (and sanity) from our collective understanding of these events. If you sift through the history of those two gentlemen’s public statements regarding terrorism and national security, you will recognize aspects of all ten rules outlined here.
Listen, you may not think the moon is made of green cheese, but that statement is colored by your own particular politics. Personally, I don’t think we have enough data to say.
Look, I’m not trying to defend Hoekstra’s comment on its own merit, but neither do I agree with nevermoor’s initial reaction about “devastation.” Without focusing too much on the nuances of the word itself, it would have been devastating for several reason:
a. The murder of 270 people in a terrorist plane explosion (people are not often murdered on that scale)
b. The fear that people would feel. Maybe I’m not particularly enlightened or rational, but being murdered on a plane sounds like a terrifying way to die, and plays into lots of deeply-ingrained fears about flying and bad guys and falling and whatnot.
c. The potential reaction to the act as outlined by previous posts.
So, I think nm’s reaction was colored not only by his own perception of The Way Things Ought To Be and not The Way Things Are but also incorrect.
b. STRICKOUTZ!!!111111!!!
incorrect! the appropriate snark would have included the adjective “Rice-ian”
1. Your take on (b) and (c) depends on how prominent a role you feel propaganda/alarmism plays in fueling that fear. If I’m discerning your position properly, you believe that people will react how they will react, regardless of the government/media narrative. I strongly disagree.
2. For the record, I initially typed “… the history of those two fuckhead’s public statements …” above, but, remembering my New Year’s vow, changed it to the more courtly final version. This is progress any way you slice it. Before you know it, FK arguments will take on the character of drawing room dramas whenever I am involved.
1. I think you’ve got my position basically correct, with the addendum that the government and media narrative are told by people, who will react how they react. In that sense, I side with JL’s post above.
It’s also a chicken-and-egg problem, right? I mean, no matter how much you try to study the numbers and divorce yourself from emotion, but you never know how you will truly react until it personally effects you. Is your reaction governed by the narrative, or does your reaction also help drive the narrative?
I had family in Pakistan when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. I remember waiting for the phone call to make sure my aunt was ok and that she’d be able to make it home, despite the fact that the incident happened clear across the country. Some of my more religious uncles have made the trek to Karbala on Ashoura, which freaks me the fuck out. And relatives at Hajj is an ulcer-inducer for sure, despite the fact that stampede deaths are so uncommon.
I’ve walked through both Israeli and Palestinian quarters of Jerusalem, nervously wondering if the guy around the bend was a whackjob or not, no matter how unlikely and no matter how tourist-insulated I was (which was, to say the least, quite a bit). I was detained and questioned at the Israeli border, and even though they asked me about three softball questions and let me go after less than fifteen minutes, I was still afraid.
Was I afraid only because of the media narrative? Partially, I’m sure that’s true. But fear is a human emotion, and it would be great if we were all fearless, but very, very few people are. So I understand when decisions are driven by visceral fears of terrorism, even when those decisions are misguided.
I would just say that if you live in Gaza or Peshawar, fear of that kind is entirely understandable. If you live in Walnut Creek, not so much.
But, fair enough.
I’d like to see the numbers, though: if you live in Gaza, what are the chances you will die in a terrorist attack?
Depends on how you classify tanks and fighter jets leveling buildings with civilians inside. I guess that’s not terrorism, strictly speaking. But the fear – of being killed via violent means – is analogous, and perfectly rational.
I’d be interested too. My sense is a whole lot less safe than Walnut Creek. Of course, I also assume that there are safer and less safe places to live (although Gaza may be small enough that this assumption is wrong).
The other difference from my perspective is that I do not experience “safe Gaza” in any way (news, personal experience, etc.) but experience safe flights entirely too often. I read about violent death in Gaza a lot.
Population: ~1,500,000
Civilian casualties during last large-scale Israeli incursion: ~1,200 (disputed figure, obviously)
So, at least during that period a year ago or so, 1 in 1250? Ish? (disregarding deaths caused by the blockade, or subsequent “precision” operations by the Israeli military)
Much more sobering odds than Walnut Creek residents have faced, in any event, and a much more reasonable exepctation that sustained, devastating (there’s that word again) violence may break out at any point.
I guess my reaction is that you’re right that “devastation” independent of the context that I associated with it (and that, for the record, was almost immediately supplied by the same group) is an ok descriptor. When I heard it, I reacted the way I did because I believed that “this proves Obama is weak and we should take away more civil liberties to stop really scary arab guys” was coming. And I was right.
I also think that when someone uses the 10-step playbook MK linked to, the result is to support (rather than undermine) the goals of AQ and other terrorist groups. Indeed, I think that the reaction to this recent “failed” attack has made it a success to the extent that terrorists are guided by the rational goal of inflicting terror rather than the irrational goal of being psychopaths.
As for your (b), I can’t really argue with fears that are admittedly irrational. I would hate to have lots of things happen to me (pick your example: struck by lightning, killed by drunk driver, kidnapped, etc.) but they’re vanishingly unlikely. They’re also dramatically more likely than being on a flight with even an attempted terrorist incident (per the Nate Silver link, 1 in 16.5 million). I think that rather than talking about how scary it would be to draw that number, we should talk about how minor a threat terrorist attacks actually are.
If that doesn’t work for you because it’s my perception of “The Way Things Ought To Be” that’s fine, but I think society should strive in the direction of that way rather than playing down to its least rational impulses.
Also, a quick google search for 270 deaths yields tasers and NYC traffic. It’s always bad for 270 people to die, but it isn’t going to cripple the USA.
This is silly. At least with traffic, people implicitly assume the risk of vehicular collisions. Nobody should have to fly with the assumed risk of being murdered.
My point is only that it’s not that many people, as a small but not (in my view) useless point in support of what mk said above.
Hold on there, Nanny McPhee.
OK, please list for me the social/transportation activities which we should all, as members of an allegedly free society, expect to undertake with zero assumed risk of being attacked by someone.
??
1. It’s hard to understand the relevance of “implicitly assuming the risk.” Aren’t you implicitly assuming the risk of being murdered if you fly? And anyway, so what?
2. what mb said. you could be murdered in lots of situations…
3. “Nobody should have to” tends to be an inauspicious way to start a sentence.
3. general point (not to sal): people like to trot out “you’re more likely to be killed in a car accident than by x,” with the conclusion that x isn’t so bad really. But all the people killed/maimed in car accidents is really bad, so these arguments never really impress me.
3. I don’t think the point of those comparative cites is to say, “Eh, hundreds of people being killed by a mid-air explosion would be no biggie” so much as it is “Yep, like mikeA, I think that there are too many car accidents and we ought to do something about that in proportion to our concern with murderous in-air dingbats.”
For example: while being struck dead by a Muni Juggernaut Of Death sucks, is not the cheap and easy reliance by African-American youth on affordable yet not at all nutritious agribiz snacks also a preventable — and more broad-scale — tragedy?
Re 3: sure, but it’s a prioritizing. And I linked to taser (i.e. “non-lethal”) deaths and pedestrians getting hit by a car in one year in NYC
More evidence for my theory that a couple of well-timed nooners could prevent 90% of terrorist attacks.
I find stories like these especially scary, since I don’t know of any way to fix angst in well-off teens. The shattering of the terrorism-as-poverty-induced-desperation story makes one wonder how we can possibly hope to make this country as safe as we’d like it to be.
blowjobs, for starters
Has the “terrorism-as-poverty-induced-desperation story” been shattered? The underwear bomber isn’t a counterexample so much as another class of person drawn to terrorism.
Well, how do you arrange blowjobs for disaffected youth?
Also, by shattering I meant the story that that’s the root cause of all of it and if we could improve minimum world conditions (an admittedly hard/impossible task) people wouldn’t blow themselves up.
Well, how do you arrange blowjobs for disaffected youth?
If you figure out, I’ve got a time machine you can use.
Okay, I checked: http://www.blowjobsfordisaffectedyouth.com is available.
This is a golden opportunity for all of us here at FK to stop our cynical bitching, get off our asses, and actually do some tangible good in the world.
I’ll donate $5 every time Zito makes a quality start.
Maybe we could get Kevin Jennings as our spokesperson.
Sweet. I always wanted to do this:
monkeyball:
1. Audio interview with Gilliam here, if you’re interested. The first 20-25 minutes relate to his prior films, so you probably know all the anecdotes already (the story about the test screening for Time Bandits is particularly amusing), but the final section focuses on Parnassus.
2. You gotta renounce FDL now, right?
FDL is a travashamockery. To the extent they were agitating from the left to influence the deal, that’s fine. But we are past that. Nelson, Lieberman, and Landrieu have made their deals. They won’t move on anything controversial (which is why it might be best to ping-pong the bill to passage). There is no longer a strategic benefit towards agitating from the left.
Now, they’re just being counterproductive assholes.
I have been studiously ignoring all of FDL except emptywheel … oh, since about Nov ’08. What nm said.
1. Thanks. Will listen to that later. I’m seriously bummed that Parnassus only went limited-release for xmas.
grover was on Fox & Friends?