Not as useful a reference work as one might hope

Signs, Omens, and Superstitions By Astra Cielo (1918)

Read it. Or don't.

Inequality, in charts

Here.

For my part, what leaps out is how clearly the new trend overlaps with Republican rule. That's what I call taking advantage of a crisis.

2001...

... is how many posts we've had on The Bellman since moving to Blogspot. That seems like a lot.

DR pointed out that we've just passed the 5-year anniversary of the creation of this humble blog of record. That seems like a lot of years of continuous, political-themed blogging.

In other news, I finally fixed our original domain, so if you want to you can point your browsers to

thebellman.org

.... and get right back here. For now.

Saves and other statistics

Nicholas Beaudrot is exactly right:

...managers have adjusted their in-game strategy to maximize their closer's save opportunities rather than maximize their team's chances of winning. Yesterday Frank Francisco and Jonathan Broxton were brought in to protect three run leads in the ninth inning. This is good for my fantasy team, but not for their respective teams; you actually do the more to help your team's chance of winning by bringing in your best reliever when you're one run behind—to minimize the chance of your opponent getting a bigger lead—than you do by having the relief ace close out a game when three runs ahead. |Donkeylicious|

Time was, they called the closer "the fireman" and the closers job was to shut down a rally and bring the game home. You can really see the change in the way elite closers have been used if you look at outs per game in relief and runners inherited.

Below is a chart to which I've added those categories, plus GDP, which is a batting-against stat for grounded into double-play. To get a historical comparison, I compared Bruce Sutter and Dan Quisenberry, the elite closers of a previous generation, to the top save-earners from each league from 2004-08.

Closers past and present

Player	GR	SV	Out/GR	IR	GDP
Sutter -77	62	31	5.2	50	5
Sutter - 78	64	27	4.6	58	3
Sutter - 79	62	37	4.9	55	5
Quisenberry -80	75	33	5.1	89	18
Sutter 80	60	28	5.1	38	12
Quisenberry -82	72	35	5.7	36	17
Sutter - 82	70	36	4.4	54	12
Quisenberry -83	69	45	6	40	19
Sutter - 83	60	21	4.5	43	8
Quisenberry - 84	72	44	5.4	35	12
Sutter -84	71	45	5.2	48	18
Quisenberry - 85	84	37	4.6	71	15
Benitez - 04	64	47	3.3	23	3
Isringhausen -04	74	47	3.1	23	1
Rivera - 05	74	53	3.2	17	11
Cordero -05	74	47	3	21	3
Rodriguez - 05	66	45	3.1	14	1
Wickman - 06	64	45	2.9	4	11
Hoffman - 06	65	46	2.9	1	5
Rodriguez - 06	69	47	3.2	20	4
Valverde 07	65	47	3	7	5
Borowski - 07	69	45	2.9	8	1
Rodriguez - 08	76	62	2.7	18	5
Valverde - 08	74	44	2.9	16	0

The ponies

Traditional norwegian street art

KNUDZICH

I think this one would make a cool poster. Re: Blame it on the rain, it looks like a B-24 Liberator to me, and I choose to believe that the story is true.

Friday awesomeness

I don’t want to trivialize the difficult complexities of the Tibetan diaspora by saying things like “this guy is cooler than we’ll ever be!” But - just this once, forgive me - this guy is cooler than we’ll ever be. I mean, look at him. He will hack your system, friends. With his mind.

via colihouse

This video creeps me out

But the good news is that means I'm not (very) schizophrenic.

The eyes of Texas ARE upon you; or, Doubleplusyee-haw!

So, that's my car, and if you look closely, my shadowy profile a'drivin' it. What am I doing? If you go here, plug in the correct information (see below), and pass the anti-spam word verification, you can see for yourself.


Actually, I was coming back from teaching in Hays County, and ran into a big traffic jam on I-35. So I stopped for a bowl of chicken lemongrass vermicelli. After, I ran into the same jam, so, frustrated, jammed my way up the access road. It's all on the video.

citation#: AUR0005592
plate #: 933LCD
city code: AUSTIN

I was in the wrong, sure. But this camera business still makes me feel uncomfortable.

Baseball!

Just saying.

Adding: I've heard a lot of talk that the World Baseball Classic should be moved to a different time of year because the Major League players aren't in shape, risk injury, and so forth. I can't say that I see much merit in that precise argument, but I would agree that spring training is not real baseball and that when you play the World Baseball Classic during spring training you thereby relegate it to the category of not real baseball.

I'm only waiting for my check to clear

Five percent of Americans wait and six percent of Canadians and Britons are priced out. The numbers mirror each other. The question, in other words, is not whether you ration care, but how you ration it. It also casts our smug attitude towards care access in a new light. If someone can't afford care, we record their waiting time as zero. You don't wait for what you can't have. But a more accurate accounting would record that wait as infinite, or it would record when the patient eventually ends up in the emergency room because the original ailment went untreated.

Research like this raises a simple question: Would you rather wait four months for an elective surgery or be unable to get it altogether? That -- and not whether we ration care -- is the choice between the Canadian and American models. Meanwhile, Germany, Japan, France, England, and other don't have a problem with care affordability, the uninsured, or waiting lines. We've managed to center the debate around two bad options and then trick ourselves into think we've got the better end of the deal. It's no way to conduct a debate. | Ezra K. |

What, you were watching basketball?

The ponies

What, you were watching basketball?

Note: Now not featuring Blogger's non-functional video upload function.

The crucial connection between the budget and freedom

Adding: Here's another video for when you've got more time.



Noting: Now with video!

Science FTW

This has promise:

The solution looks, smells and tastes like water, but carries an ion imbalance that makes short work of bacteria, viruses and even hard-to-kill spores.

Developed by Oculus Innovative Sciences in Petaluma, the super-oxygenated water is claimed to be as effective a disinfectant as chlorine bleach, but is harmless to people, animals and plants. If accidentally ingested by a child, the likely impact is a bad case of clean teeth.

Oculus said the solution, called Microcyn, may prove effective in the fight against superbugs, crossover viruses like bird flu and Ebola, and bioterrorism threats such as anthrax.
| Wired: "Super Water Kills Bugs Dead" |

Really hard to say how much of the news about Microcyn was authored by the Oculus marketing department, but I'll keep an eye out.

Of course Curt Schilling isn't a Hall of Fame pitcher

First, just so you don't think the HOF campaign sprang from my own fevered brow, here's Bob Ryan, who has a TV gig and everything:



Now, here's how Schilling looks compared to his contemporaries:

• Greg Maddux, 355-227, 3.16 ERA, 4 Cy Youngs, 18 Gold Gloves, 11-14 postseason, won WS, appeared in 3 WS
  
• Roger Clemens, 354-184, 3.12 ERA, 7 Cy Youngs, 12-8 postseason, Won 2 WS, appeared in 6 WS
  
• Tom Glavine, 305-203, 3.54 ERA, 2 Cy Youngs, 14-16 postseason, won WS, appeared in 5 WS
  
• Randy Johnson, 295-160, 3.26 ERA, 5 Cy Youngs, 7-9 postseason, won WS
  
• Mike Mussina, 270-153, 3.68 ERA, 2 WS appearances
  
• Jamie Moyer, 246-185, 4.19 ERA, 3-3 postseason, won WS
  
• Kenny Rogers, 219-156, 4.27 ERA, 3-3 postseason, won WS, appeared 2 WS
  
• Curt Schilling, 216-146, 3.46 ERA, Won 3 WS, appeared in 4 WS
  
• Andy Pettite, 215-127, 3.89 ERA, 14-9 postseason, won 4 WS, appeared in 7 WS
  
• Pedro Martinez, 214-99, 2.91 ERA, 3 Cy Youngs, 6-2 postseason, WS

Rise of botnet; or, January 1, 2000?

The choice of April Fool’s Day by the program’s authors, who are unknown, has led to speculation that the program might be a hoax. But a variety of computer security executives and law enforcement officials have pointed out that the program, which has spread to at least 12 million computers, could inflict genuine harm. Consensus among security specialists on Tuesday was that it was likely to take several days before the program’s intent could be determined.

A group of computer security specialists has tried to make it impossible for Conficker’s authors to download instructions to infected computers. While they were doing so, the authors began distributing the C version of the program. It was intended to begin contacting 50,000 Internet domains on Wednesday.

In response, the researchers have created a system that will allow them to trap all of the attempted botnet communications. That has involved a global effort, including monitoring the domains of 110 countries.

A spokeswoman for the Conficker Cabal, a security working group organized by Microsoft and other computer security companies, said on Tuesday that the group had no new information to report about the activity of the malicious program. |NY Times|