I think Jeremy Crasnick has a good idea - with one omitted exception.
Expand to 26 in exchange for killing the DH.
That said, Crasnick gets Whitey Herzog-era St. Louis Cardinals history plain wrong.
Right-handed reliever Todd Worrell did NOT play the OF "in emergencies." Rather, lefty Ken Dayley came in as an early equivalent of today's LOOGY, or left-handed one-out guys, relievers, and Whitey kept Todd in the game by moving him to the OF for one batter.
And, getting the facts correct slightly undercuts his argument.
That said, 26 on a roster would be great. But, let's kill the DH in exchange and speed games up a bit.
June 22, 2011
NYT blindly loves Chinese high-speed rail
After a brief acknowledgement that some Chinese are talking about its shoddy construction, the old gray lady jumps into a lovefest for Chinese high-speed rail.
What it either overlooks or deliberately misstates?
1. Those soaring property costs area construction bubble very similar to the one the U.S. had just a few years ago; they have little to do with high speed rail, and they exist in places outside of high0-speed rail corridors,
2. Just how shoddy the rail construction is — shoddy enough that trains aren't allowed to run at close to max speeds. Those trains will NEVER get up to 350 km/hour without the entire track system being relaid.
Beyond that, the story is of little relevance for the U.S. until enough mindsets change to make high-speed rail economically viable. And that won't happen without carbon taxes.
What it either overlooks or deliberately misstates?
1. Those soaring property costs area construction bubble very similar to the one the U.S. had just a few years ago; they have little to do with high speed rail, and they exist in places outside of high0-speed rail corridors,
2. Just how shoddy the rail construction is — shoddy enough that trains aren't allowed to run at close to max speeds. Those trains will NEVER get up to 350 km/hour without the entire track system being relaid.
Beyond that, the story is of little relevance for the U.S. until enough mindsets change to make high-speed rail economically viable. And that won't happen without carbon taxes.
Another nail in coffin of global-warming denialists
For some time now, deniers of anthropogenic global warming have had a "Plan B" at hand.
Just in case there's a partial reality to that, that they'll admit, they say that we shouldn't spend a bunch of prevention money anyway.
Why?
And, that has been the claim that ... cold spells kill more than heat waves.
Mark "paid" to that one.
In the Europe of the future, though, that won't be the case. And, in the U.S., that "switchover point" will likely come even earlier.
Just in case there's a partial reality to that, that they'll admit, they say that we shouldn't spend a bunch of prevention money anyway.
Why?
And, that has been the claim that ... cold spells kill more than heat waves.
Mark "paid" to that one.
In the Europe of the future, though, that won't be the case. And, in the U.S., that "switchover point" will likely come even earlier.
June 21, 2011
SCOTUS: WallyWorld, dirty air win
Shock me that 1.5 million Wallmart worers do not constitute a "class action." Shock me that the Supreme Curt ruling on this split on predictable 5-4 lines.
'
So, as I see it retailers are best self-served by never looking at hiring complaints at individual stores, to thereby "insulate" themselves from legal liability. It's just like Alcoholics Anonymous, a past master at this, never looking at individual AA meetings and "13th stepping" complaints. Or the Southern Baptist Convention.
However, Walmart is neither of those; and that's why this ruling is simply wrong.
Wronger yet in some was, but on a unanimous basis, was the Court's dismissal of a suit by several states against electric utilities relying heavily on coal-fired power.
By the court's logic in this case, in any new area of pollution, the EPA just need announce that it plans to adopt some standards but never do so, and private entites remain precluded from pursuing nuisance suits.
That said, it's "nice" to know that business-kowtowing idiots on the court aren't always just conservatives.
Wrongest of all? Last week, SCOUTS' 5-4 ruling that basically eliminated the possibility of suing mutual funds for fraud. The tea partiers never bitch about the Court except when it comes to abortion, though.
But, contra many semi-liberal pundits, the "fivers" don't care that their actions expand income inequality or even that "originalism" never envisioned massive amounts of capital, and wealth disparities. They don't care.
And, by and large neither major political party cares, at least at the national level. Period.
'
So, as I see it retailers are best self-served by never looking at hiring complaints at individual stores, to thereby "insulate" themselves from legal liability. It's just like Alcoholics Anonymous, a past master at this, never looking at individual AA meetings and "13th stepping" complaints. Or the Southern Baptist Convention.
However, Walmart is neither of those; and that's why this ruling is simply wrong.
Wronger yet in some was, but on a unanimous basis, was the Court's dismissal of a suit by several states against electric utilities relying heavily on coal-fired power.
By the court's logic in this case, in any new area of pollution, the EPA just need announce that it plans to adopt some standards but never do so, and private entites remain precluded from pursuing nuisance suits.
That said, it's "nice" to know that business-kowtowing idiots on the court aren't always just conservatives.
Wrongest of all? Last week, SCOUTS' 5-4 ruling that basically eliminated the possibility of suing mutual funds for fraud. The tea partiers never bitch about the Court except when it comes to abortion, though.
But, contra many semi-liberal pundits, the "fivers" don't care that their actions expand income inequality or even that "originalism" never envisioned massive amounts of capital, and wealth disparities. They don't care.
And, by and large neither major political party cares, at least at the national level. Period.
June 20, 2011
Michael Polan is h alfway full of shit
Yes, we need to eat healthier. And yes, we need to reform corporatized agriculture so as to make it cheaper to eat healthier.
We DON'T need to write books that bullshit us about the reality of what farm life was like in the past, and often still is today.
The reality? Not Pollan's gauzy "bourgeois nostaligia," but this essay on going back to the farm ... and going back to farm-labor cooking.
First, the Polanesque nostalgia:
That's why the essay notes that "family" farming a century ago was already looking at ways for farming to become easier and more convenient. That's why people loved canning. And the railroads(when they weren't getting ripped off on rates), and especially refrigerated railroad cars. That's why they bought mechanical tractors. They wanted convenience.
And, if convenience, in terms of mechanization, was too hard to come by, or too expensive, there was always good old "Plan B":
Beyond that, per my friend Leo Lincourt, I have now expanded a great stereotyping phrase:
We DON'T need to write books that bullshit us about the reality of what farm life was like in the past, and often still is today.
The reality? Not Pollan's gauzy "bourgeois nostaligia," but this essay on going back to the farm ... and going back to farm-labor cooking.
First, the Polanesque nostalgia:
Listening to the conversation about food reform that has unspooled in this country over the last decade, it’s hard to avoid the idea that in terms of food production and consumption, we once had it right—before industrialization and then globalization sullied our Eden. Nostalgia glistens on that conversation like dew on an heirloom tomato: the belief that in a not-so-distant past, families routinely sat down to happy meals whipped up from scratch by mom or grandma.The reality? Farming involves WORK. And 19th-century, pre-mechanized agriculture on smaller farms involved a lot of it.
That's why the essay notes that "family" farming a century ago was already looking at ways for farming to become easier and more convenient. That's why people loved canning. And the railroads(when they weren't getting ripped off on rates), and especially refrigerated railroad cars. That's why they bought mechanical tractors. They wanted convenience.
And, if convenience, in terms of mechanization, was too hard to come by, or too expensive, there was always good old "Plan B":
There is an even more fundamental concern about our nostalgia: America’s food system has always depended on the exploitation of someone, whether it was indentured servants, slaves, tenant farmers, braceros and other guest workers, or, now, immigrants. ... We have no history of a food system that does not depend on oppression of some sort, and it seems unlikely that we will be able to create a future system that avoids this fate.It was easy for Thomas Jefferson to laud "yeoman farmers"; after all, all of them in the South had slaves!
Beyond that, per my friend Leo Lincourt, I have now expanded a great stereotyping phrase:
Dear white, Volvo-drinking, latte-sipping, Meyer-lemon-marmalade making (that one is going in my phrase stereotype book!) pseudoliberals: "Michael Pollan is a big poopy head."Beyond that, Pollan's bourgeois nostalgia type farming is expensive. Obamiac Volvo-drivers can afford it, but not most of us. Pollan doesn't tell us that one, either, though.
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