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Blue Jays hate Pythagoras. August 23, 2008

Posted by tomflesher in Baseball.
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The Toronto Blue Jays won another big one today, 11-0 over the visiting Boston Red Sox. It seemed to me that between that, the 14-3 destruction of the Yankees on Thursday, and last Sunday’s 15-4 route of Boston (again), the 11-run games might have been messing with the team’s statistical expectations. Sure enough, the big run totals are increasing the Blue Jays’ pythagorean expectation, with the difference between expected win percentage and actual win percentage being higher after the all-star break than before.

Numbers are behind the cut.

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Secession again? Really? August 21, 2008

Posted by tomflesher in Canada.
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William Johnson this morning in the online Globe and Mail:

Ten years ago today, the court delivered its response to the reference on whether Quebec had the right to secede unilaterally. The court’s advisory opinion was complex but clear. Why, then, has it been constantly misrepresented across Canada and ignored in Quebec?

Johnson’s article makes the case that politicians have “misrepresented” the court’s opinion, [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217,  which lays out four criteria on which a secession must be judged: democracy (do citizens of Quebec want to secede?), rule of law (do they have the power to do so?), federalism (would secession be to the detriment of the other provinces?), and the protection of minorities (would secession harm language and ethnic minorities?). Johnson’s argument is that politicians and media ignore the last three criteria and treat the democratic criterion as the only valid one. (more…)

Canada as a post-Monroe kingmaker August 4, 2008

Posted by tomflesher in Canada.
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This editorial by Carlo Dade in Monday morning’s Globe and Mail is an interesting survey of the development of the Monroe Doctrine with respect to the United States’ self-declared role as the West’s big brother. The Doctrine developed out of the US’s feeling that Latin America was its sandbox, with the US declaring itself the brute squad of the western hemisphere and no one having the military power or the inkling to argue. As Mr. Dade writes, “While no one in the hemisphere endorsed the Monroe Doctrine, it was begrudgingly accepted as an unavoidable reality.”

Mr. Dade, however, notes that the US is currently occupied (ha!) militarily in the Middle East, and points to Brazil’s rise to leadership in the United Nations’ mission to keep stability in Haiti as evidence that Latin America and Brazil are developing politically into able world powers. Canada has a unique role to play in the post-Monroe era. (more…)

Who's more lovable, a dancing dinosaur or a self-absorbed salmon? August 3, 2008

Posted by tomflesher in Canada.
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I’m an aficionado of good children’s television. I’m especially fond of shows which purport to be about mysteries but are actually about teaching pre-scientific method thinking. My current favorite in that category is, of course, Busytown Mysteries, starring Huckle Cat. Huckle lopes through Busytown watching everything go pear-shaped, and when he finally puts together the obvious solution to the problem that afflicted someone in the first minute of the show, everyone congratulates him and sings a song.

The show is part of the Kids’ CBC block, which features one of the most flagrant examples of a language minority getting the shaft that I’ve ever seen. The interstitial scenes feature hosts Sid and Patty, along with a bunch of token characters representing the regions of Canada:

  • Captain Claw, a crab pirate who represents the maritime provinces and sings to his larva, Liza.
  • Drumheller Dinosaur, a singing and dancing dinosaur skeleton representing Alberta.
  • Mamma Yamma, a maternal yam who cooks for the hosts and sings to them when she feeds them, and who represents Kensington Market in Toronto.
  • Saumon de Champlain, an egotistical salmon who switches languages without regard for his audience, forcing Sid and Patty to have to translate for him. He’s convinced he’s beautiful. He once asked Patty to tuck him in and ashamedly asked her to bring him his teddy bear.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Sesame Street had a stereotypical cocky, macho Spanish cockroach muppet in the regular rotation….

Things I spend a lot of time thinking about August 3, 2008

Posted by tomflesher in Uncategorized.
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Baseball generally, the New York teams specifically, applied economics, sabermetrics (wait, those two are the same thing), Canada, Canadian politics, rational choice theory in professional sports, homebrewing, the hop shortage, torbie cats named Samantha, US politics, Brewery Ommegang.