Poor Kazmir. October 17, 2008
Posted by tomflesher in Baseball.Tags: ALCS, Baseball, Cy Young, John Smoltz, Mike Mussina, Rays, Red Sox, Scott Kazmir, weird lines
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Last night, Scott Kazmir pitched 6 scoreless innings in ALCS game 5, giving up 2 hits and 3 walks but striking out 7 batters. He totalled up to a game score of 72 points. His bullpen then proceeded to give up 8 runs, allowing the Red Sox to come back and win the game (thus extending the series to game 5).
Has Scotty suffered the greatest postseason indignity ever? Nope. Not even close. That honor belongs to Mike Mussina of the 1997 Orioles.
Election Day! October 14, 2008
Posted by tomflesher in Canada.Tags: Canada, elections, minority government, NoDice.ca, politics
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Polls open in Newfoundland and Labrador in less than an hour. The big thing on the blogs? Strategic left voting.
- The Gazetteer has a stop-the-conservative Ivins Rule list up for the West Coast. Looks like a lot of work went into it.
- Cyberwanderer links to AnyoneButHarper.ca, which allows you to input your postal code to find out who the correct strategic vote is.
- AOL News quotes Robert Bothwell, director of the international relations program at the University of Toronto. “I think the absolute best result for Harper is a stalemate.” (Bothwell is suggesting that the economic crisis will cause Harper trouble.)
- Finally, according to the Hill and Knowlton seat predictor, using the numbers from the latest polls at Nodice, the Conservatives lose one seat, the Liberals lose 14, and the Bloc gains 4. This may be thrown off by the fact that the Nanos polls are consistently a few percentage points higher for the NDP than anyone else’s polls. We’ll see.
Stever Robbins on Allocating Blame October 10, 2008
Posted by tomflesher in Uncategorized.Tags: economics, mortgage meltdown, personal finance, Stever Robbins
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I love Stever Robbins. He’s undoubtedly one of the smartest guys around, and he helps me stay motivated and Get It Done on a regular basis in his Quick & Dirty Tip-giving persona. Today, he wrote up a blog post that I’m not sure I agree with entirely. I’d like to make an attempt to tackle this one and share some thoughts.
I’m sure he’ll be gentle.
Friday Quickie: Bullet Points October 10, 2008
Posted by tomflesher in Canada.Tags: editorials, Globe and Mail, Jack Layton, Liberal brand, Stephane Dion, Stephen Harper
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- Noted Green Party Activist Stephane Dion attempts to change the Liberal brand at the eleventh hour. He’s competing with Stephen Harper to see who has more empathy, for Pete’s sake. (Dion is accused of lacking substance, but the election is Tuesday, so there might not be time for that idea to percolate.)
- Holy cow, someone says that parties are fragmented. This is shocking to all of us.
- William Johnson claims that Stephen Harper’s majority will be destroyed by the US economic crisis, rather than merely being nonviable in the first place. (Opposing view.)
- Globe and Mail endorsements: Harper is moderate and competent. Dion is inflexible. Jack Layton is not a serious challenge.
- The Tories won’t get a majority. The question is whether a left coalition will congeal into a government.
Leftist long-division October 8, 2008
Posted by tomflesher in Canada.Tags: Canada, divided left, editorials, elections, Globe and Mail, NoDice.ca, politics, Research
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Professor Judy Rebick of Ryerson University looks at the polling numbers and points out that a coalition government of the three left-wing parties (the Liberals, the New Democratic Party, and the Green Party) with the Bloc Quebecois would undoubtedly defeat the Conservatives in the upcoming October 14 election. Would it really require all four parties?
Natural government need not be shifted October 7, 2008
Posted by tomflesher in Canada.Tags: Canada, conservatism, EdiToryals, election predictions, elections, politics, research project ideas, Stephen Harper, Tory Tuesdays
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It’s Tory Tuesday!
A number of commentators have discussed Stephen Harper’s attempt to move the government of Canada rightward as well as fill a niche as the “natural governing party” of Canada. That seems at odds to me – I would think that the natural government is a party of the radical centre, and that attempting to fill that niche would require a step centreward by a given party rather than an attempt to move the country.
My conjecture: Harper’s ideal of Canadian government does not match that of the average Canadian citizen. I’ll take a look at an editorial and a specific case, then make a prediction, after the jump.
EdiToryal roundup, 26 september September 26, 2008
Posted by tomflesher in Canada.Tags: Canada, editorials, EdiToryals, elections, Globe and Mail, minority government, politics, Tories
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This week, despite all of noted Green Party activist Stephane Dion’s attempts to kill the Liberal brand, Stephen Harper managed to show up and exist. After the jump, I’ll take a look at the methods he used to do so.
Bailouts! September 25, 2008
Posted by tomflesher in Baseball.Tags: Andy Pettitte, Baseball, John Garland, Nate Robertson, Research, Reverse quality starts, Sean Bergman, Sidney Ponson, weird lines
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That’s right… in the interest of keeping up with this week’s news about the $700b bailout of the financial sector, I’m going to take a look at key instances of bailouts by the bullpen.
These Grits are a little watery. September 23, 2008
Posted by tomflesher in Canada.Tags: Canada, editorials, elections, Globe and Mail, Liberal brand, politics, Stephane Dion
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Two editorials from the Globe and Mail discuss the perception of Liberal Party leader Stéphane Dion and the Liberal Party itself as weak.
Pitchers with 4+ RBIs (Sorry, Mets fans) September 23, 2008
Posted by tomflesher in Academia, Baseball.Tags: Baseball, Cubs, Diamondbacks, economics, Felix Hernandez, Jason Marquis, Larry Christenson, Mets, Micah Owings, Pitchers batting, Research
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Last night, the Cubs’ Jason Marquis hit a rare grand slam. Even rarer is that Marquis was the starting pitcher and got the win. Still rarer: Marquis had one hit and 5 RBIs.
That raises the question: just how common an event is Jason’s productivity?
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