Desipio Message Board

Quote from: Wheezer on August 11, 2009, 03:04:01 AM

Quote from: Gil Gunderson on August 11, 2009, 01:02:10 AM

Quote from: CubFaninHydePark on August 11, 2009, 12:13:11 AM
Health care is no different--that coercive power needs to come down on so many fronts: tort reform, limits on the amount of money that can be spent out of the collective pool on any one person, etc.  It's the only way we can reign in health care costs that have become insane and out of control.

I think it's been liberally estimated in most parts that tort reform would reign in approximately 2% of the total costs of health care.  I'll rustle up some sources for this, but I am pretty sure that the percentage is very small.

I was actually trying to make the point that "probability of contributing much to society" is a hopelessly age-neutral metric.  Tax the production of babies!

I think that there should be an open market for babies/pregnancy, regulated and taxed.  Sign me up.

Of course, as a liberal who actually believes in acting on the rhetoric of "abortion should be safe, legal and rare," I think that giving a woman a financial incentive to carry a baby for nine months and to go through childbirth is the best way to support that belief.

Quote from: Wheezer on August 10, 2009, 07:16:36 PM

Quote from: Gil Gunderson on August 10, 2009, 02:31:15 PM
I'd like to ask this question from a purely rational point of view, devoid of emotion that may be associated from asking it.

Is it wise for a country to spend money healing a person who, in their old age, probably won't contribute much to society versus not spending money on those, in their younger and middle ages, who would?

It's an old saw that mathematicians have until age 25 to complete their best work, physicists until age 30, and chemists until age 35.  This gets formulated and "measured" in different ways, but the upshot is that in the hard sciences, most people have turned into seat-warmers by their mid 40s, if they weren't to start with.  Is it wise for a research institution to spend more on these people than on those, younger types who, as a group, will "probably" be more productive?

Probably not--but it's a race to the bottom sort of thing.  If all institutions spend a ton on the seat-warmers, the irrationality is obvious.  But there's no incentive to defect, since young people will go where they'll get taken care of when they're, at best, a name on a door that teaches a course or three.

Of course, if nobody spends more on the seat-warmers, there's an obvious and huge incentive to be the first to defect, since you'll be able to get the best minds with the promise to pay them when they're not worth that much.

This illustration can be flipped back to demonstrate the need for state intervention in all sorts of markets where there are rational incentives for individual action, that when done by a large group of individually rational people is on the whole terribly irrational.  Only the coercive power of the state can overcome the market when its incentives waste everyone's money.

Health care is no different--that coercive power needs to come down on so many fronts: tort reform, limits on the amount of money that can be spent out of the collective pool on any one person, etc.  It's the only way we can reign in health care costs that have become insane and out of control.

Quote from: CBStew on August 09, 2009, 12:01:50 AM
I'm hiding under my bed.  Don't tell the DEATH PANEL where to find me.

No need to hide yet--the Nazi Death Panel has a lot of work to do...giant ovens don't build themselves, you know.

Quote from: Kermit, B. on August 03, 2009, 04:02:55 PM

Quote from: CubFaninHydePark on August 03, 2009, 03:38:55 PM
I just hope that it's the ballpark in Florida and nothing more...but the parallels to last season's meltdown are eerie.

Go on...

His numbers after he gave up the 3-run bomb to Ward were pretty bad.  That was pretty much a year ago.  I thought his poor numbers to end the season were talked about enough when we first signed him (I recall Andy mentioning this) that you guys would have known.

Gregg didn't pitch well in Aug/Sept last season.  Just sayin.

I just hope that it's the ballpark in Florida and nothing more...but the parallels to last season's meltdown are eerie.

Quote from: MAD on August 01, 2009, 10:01:22 PM

Quote from: CubFaninHydePark on August 01, 2009, 09:56:12 PM
I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

Fuck Kevin Gregg.

That's the first blown save Gregg's had since...well probably since the last time you went wee-wee on your computer and ranted and raved about the guy.  What's that--5 weeks ago?

The 4-run meltdown against Houston, the game in Detwat, letting Cincy somehow get back in the first game...they're all just spread out enough to not focus concern, but Gregg has looked vulnerable more than dominant this season.  3 runs after getting the first two outs is pretty inexcusable.

And wasn't it about this time last year that BK's favorite pinch-hitter took Gregg yard for a multi-run blown save in that park?  His ERA was 2.29 going into that game, and his season ended with it at 3.41.

The best could be yet to come.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

Fuck Kevin Gregg.

Quote from: Tank on July 27, 2009, 02:38:52 PM

Quote from: Brownie on July 27, 2009, 02:19:53 PM

Quote from: RV on July 27, 2009, 01:12:39 PM
What this guy said.

QuoteThe conversation we ought to be having in response to the July 16 incident and its heated aftermath isn't about race, it's about police arrest powers, and the right to criticize armed agents of the government.

QuoteThis deference to police at the expense of the policed is misplaced. Put a government worker behind a desk and give him the power to regulate, and conservatives will wax at length about public choice theory, bureaucratic pettiness, and the trappings of power. And rightly so. But put a government worker behind a badge, strap a gun to his waist, and give him the power to detain, use force, and kill, and those lessons somehow no longer apply.

QuoteWhat we owe law enforcement is vigilant oversight and accountability, not mindless deference and capitulation. Whether or not Henry Louis Gates was racially profiled last week doesn't change any of that.

Yes, what he said.

RV wanted to spark a CFiHP-MikeC rumble, but instead he just found agreement with TJ Brown.

Provocation FAIL.

Also: what Radley Balko said.

QuoteBy any account of what happened—Gates', Crowleys', or some version in between—Gates should never have been arrested. "Contempt of cop," as it's sometimes called, isn't a crime. Or at least it shouldn't be. It may be impolite, but mouthing off to police is protected speech, all the more so if your anger and insults are related to a perceived violation of your rights. The "disorderly conduct" charge for which Gates was arrested was intended to prevent riots, not to prevent cops from enduring insults. Crowley is owed an apology for being portrayed as a racist, but he ought to be disciplined for making a wrongful arrest.

He won't be, of course. And that's ultimately the scandal that will endure long after the political furor dies down. The power to forcibly detain a citizen is an extraordinary one. It's taken far too lightly, and is too often abused. And that abuse certainly occurs against black people, but not only against black people. American cops seem to have increasingly little tolerance for people who talk back, even merely to inquire about their rights.

I'm not gonna say race has nothing to do with it (read black conservative John McWhorter on the Gates arrest: "The relationship between black men and police forces is, in fact, the main thing keeping America from becoming "post-racial" in any sense"), but this issue is a lot broader than even that.

The Balko quote is in my Facebook profile now--it's basically a much more articulate statement of how I've been arguing the Gates' arrest.

Also, I'm *shocked* that the 911 call and the caller's attorney has exposed Crowley as a liar in his police report...The Cambridge police should fire his punk ass and hire her--she had the mystery figured out at (to paraphrase) 'they could live there and just have had a tough time with the front door.'

The Balko article was fascinating - it makes me want to quit my day job as soon as I get the loans paid down to a manageable level and join the "record police action" project.  Fuck Gitmo or drift net surveilance, the stuff reported in this article should be the shit that has Americans who are concerned about their rights up in arms.

Quote from: Weebs on July 26, 2009, 07:24:46 AM

Quote from: CubFaninHydePark on July 26, 2009, 01:43:47 AM

Quote from: Indolent Reader on July 17, 2009, 03:43:52 PM
Does anyone know of a good bar (or restaurant) in the loop that has a good collection of single malt?  Preference is for something west loop, by Ogilvie.  Thanks.

You gotta go a little further north, but Clark Street Ale House (just south of Chicago on Clark) has a solid scotch collection and a fair amount of good micros from across the country on tap.

I don't trust you know anything about Chicago north of 51st street.

Three words: The Long Room

Quote from: Indolent Reader on July 17, 2009, 03:43:52 PM
Does anyone know of a good bar (or restaurant) in the loop that has a good collection of single malt?  Preference is for something west loop, by Ogilvie.  Thanks.

You gotta go a little further north, but Clark Street Ale House (just south of Chicago on Clark) has a solid scotch collection and a fair amount of good micros from across the country on tap.

Did anyone enjoy watching Motte go all Turdthrow today as much as I did?  I haven't seen a meatball as bad as the one Motte threw to Rollins since Chad Fox was on the mound.

Can one of the statfags give us a graphical representation of FYC postings, with the X axis representing a constant linear progression?

I'm genuinely curious if the flat line and spikes could be construed to represent a human heartbeat.

Quote from: Dave B on July 17, 2009, 02:58:23 PM
A great quote (that I've heard in one form or another from hundreds of convicts):

"We shouldn't have been arrested," Dietzel said. "But that's just the way it goes."

Given what more "convicts" are in jail for than not, I think that the convicts have a pretty damn good point.  Police discretion is absurd and abused on a daily basis.

Being able to charge guys for being too drunk and stupid to provide cops with honest information--which the cops will get one way or another--is probably as excessive as things get.  Of course, cops lie every day to magistrates in warrant requests, in police reports alleging "probable cause" (e.g. whatever shit the cop decided to make up), and under oath at trial about their respect and adherence to constitutional standards in gathering evidence....and there are very few prosecutors or black robes in our judicial system that look to bust cops' balls rather than bending over backwards with a nod and a wink to their running roughshod over the constitution and individual rights/liberties.

But get really sloshed and lie to a cop with no real mens rea--you get charged for that.  Fuck the system, and fuck cops.

I'm with the drunk and retarded 21 year olds on this one...in good part because of my college experience in Pittsburgh.  You might have heard that I spent some time in that city.

Actually, no--my distrust of law enforcement comes from three years in Chicago and my criminal procedure classes.  Seriously, there are cops who are fucked enough to not rat on fellow officers that took live wires attached to a car battery and touched em to black dudes' nuts.  If it weren't for federal civil rights laws, the torturer that ran the show would've walked.  And it's like that everywhere when it comes to police misconduct.  There can be no good apples when none of the apples are willing to out the lemons to prosecutors.

For all the outrage over Guantanamo, the shit that has been--and continues to be--perpetrated by law enforcement in this city, is what should draw the ire, outrage, and protest of the anti-torture, pro-individual rights, fans of civil liberties (on the left and right).  And of our President, for that matter.

Quote from: MAD on July 13, 2009, 03:15:04 PM
If CFiHP rails against arbiters in the courtroom as habitually as he rails against arbiters on the playing fields, he'll have a shorter career than Moonlight Greenberg.

Eh, can't be fined for contempt here.   And I was just trying to make a tongue in cheek "statfag" type observation.

Quote from: ChuckD on July 13, 2009, 08:27:09 AM

Quote from: IrishYeti on July 13, 2009, 12:07:42 AM

Quote from: Kermit, B. on July 13, 2009, 12:04:58 AM

Quote from: Lance Dicksons Arm on July 12, 2009, 09:59:38 PM

Quote from: Weebs on July 12, 2009, 09:31:19 PM
This is the most bizarre inning of professional baseball I've ever seen in my life.

You figure if there's any such thing as baseball momentum...that getting out of that goofy ass situation allowing no runs would yield something in the bottom of the 9th inning.

...like three of the shittiest at-bats of the entire season.

Why?  Because 2 of the 3 batters were rung up on pitches out of the zone?  Reed trapped the ball, so it's hard to complain about the umping, but the strike zone in the bottom of the 9th was completely different from what it was the rest of the game.

Really? I seem to remember Wells getting those calls all night too. Maybe I'm wrong. Can a STATFAG back me up? Or prove me wrong? Either way is fine for me

Here's Wells' strikezone as plotted by Pitch F/X data:



Here's Franklin's:

So Wells got 12 calls outside the zone in 7IP, while Franklin got 5 in 1IP.