So #libertarian #skeptics are persecuted?

I mean, it's not as if Michael Shermer, Penn & Teller and Brian Dunning are running around the skepticsphere already, is it? (Well, Dunning will be running around for another month or two, until he gets jail time, in my prediction, for his Internet cookie-stuffing scheme.)

Noooo, noooo. Even though Barry Fagin concedes, or claims, that, by a show of hands at a recent con, libertarians make up about 25 percent of the  Professional Skeptics™ world, they're still being marginalized or worse.

There's plenty of howlers in this piece, and we're going to target several of them:

Libertarians understand economics, externalities, and market failure perfectly well.

Really? Libertarians are more likely than anybody else to believe in the thoroughly discredited legend (it's about humans, therefore it's legend; it's only myth if it's about a divine critter) of a hyper-rational Homo economicus and all the trappings that accompany said legend.

The real nut grafs are in the rest of that graf and the next one, addressing how libertarians who accept global warming should discuss what to do about that:

However, we also understand that all institutions are subject to failure, including government. In fact, we believe as skeptics that the evidence shows that even though politics and governmental approach to problems do not work particularly well, they nonetheless expand far beyond their original intent, making things worse and far more difficult to repair. We wish to break that cycle. 

Thus we worry, I think with good cause, that any approaches to combat global warming will not be restricted to affecting global climate but will be used to advance a political agenda that we oppose. 

First, Mr. Fagin, let's list a number of government programs that work well and that libertarians like you oppose:
1. Social Security (better than private pensions in 2008, eh?)
2. Medicare (which actually works better on cost controls than private insurers)
3. Medicaid
4. Environmental protection (libertarian lawsuits are useless after the trees or endangered species are all dead)
5. Civil rights protections.

(I'm sure you can fill in many, many more, folks. This, and the reasons WHY they work better, are numerous.)

There's more pablum for the libertarian masses that follows:

When it comes to politics, I like to think of libertarians as consistent skeptics. We want to know how everything actually works in practice, not how it is merely supposed to work or assumed to work. This includes government.  

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Libertarianism in general starts with the presupposition, the assumption, that government in general doesn't work.

See, this illustrates a core problem with libertarianism, not just as a philosophy of government, but a broader socio-political philosophy: It's reactive, totally reactive, and nothing but reactive.

And, where government issues impinge upon science, especially, the only way libertarians can deal with science's precautionary principle is either by flatly standing it on its head, or citing the rare instances where the precautionary principle was way off course.

As for your last sentence? Speaking of head-standing, I can say this:

As a non-libertarian non- Professional Skeptic™, I worry with very good cause that your libertarian opposition to government action on anthropogenic climate change is being used to advance a political philosophy that people like me oppose.

No wonder Fagin wants to go beyond Shermer, beyond Penn/Teller, and get “positive protection” for libertarianism being part of skepticism? And, yes, as a good student of history, of Civil War and pre-Civil War years, I deliberately use "positive protection" for a reason.

But, like those Southern slaveholders wanting to move to Kansas or Nebraska, Fagin says he and his fellow libertarian skeptics just aren't respected!

He ties this back to his "we're so clear-eyed about government" legend, and the fight against Bigger Government from global warming:

This would be easier for conservative and libertarian skeptics to do, I think, if we felt more welcome in the skeptical community. ...

Were our views proportionally represented in skeptical writings, on skeptical websites, and at skeptical conferences, I suspect the discussion on policy issues would be more civil, more dispassionate, and healthier for the skeptical movement as a whole. 

 Good fucking doorknob. Libertarian skeptic Michael Shermer RUNS one of the two main skeptical mags. But, no, you couldn't write this piece there, or on his blog. You had to carry this elsewhere.

Unrepresented, my ass. Beyond the above, Penn and Teller regularly do much more than just perform their magic tricks at skeptics' conferences. Penn actively evangelizes for libertarianism while both Penn and Teller are official "fellows" of Cato. Yes, per your next paragraph, your perception is quite wrong.

Including the part about lack of tolerance, since somebody on Shermer's blog blocked me from commenting under my original user name and email for too-vigorously pointing out things like this. Later on, my second one was blocked.

If anything, people like you, all the above, and the quasi-libertarian Elizabeth Loftus are overtolerated in the world of Professional Skeptics™.

And, I swear, at least at times, libertarians strike me as being like Jehovah's Witnesses, living to have doors metaphorically, if not literally, slammed in their faces.

Finally, methinks y'all doth overrate yourselves too much. Touting the Drudge Report on the Libertarian Skepticism's Facebook page? Haahhhh. Oh, you meant that seriously. That said, Mr. Fagin, the proprietor of said page says he's never felt persecuted, so I suggest, after buying a reality check, you buy some thicker skin next.

(That said, Mr. Facebook page proprietor, you know nothing of me, so your judgment that I have no training in philosophy is simply your judgment, and wrong, for whatever reason you formed it. And, if it's trollery to point out the errors of the likes of Shermer conflating libertarian belief systems with skepticism, I gladly plead guilty.)

As for the pleas that libertarians and liberals have a lot in common? Mr. Fagin, et al, none of those social issues are what you mentioned in this piece, and drug legalization, gay rights, etc., have nothing to do with the sciency focus of Professional Skeptics™. Ditto for whether or not to militarily intervene in places like Syria.

The issue you focused on, anthropogenic global warming, though, does. I can't quite call you a denier, but I will call you .... a magic man? That's because, solely due to your fear of Big Gummint, while you can't quite deny AGW, you wish it would just magically disappear. Heck, you couldn't even mention the classic "market based solutions" to fight it. You just mentioned it might be a problem, but ... Big Gummint!

And, that's why, even to the degree I share common cause with libertarians on issues like drug legalization, even there, I do so warily, because the issue for you folks in general is always "Big Gummint!" There's no nuance, and every problem is a nail for your hammer.

Meanwhile, "Murray Rothbard" has added me to his/her Google Plus circles. I don't know the gender because the real Rothbard died nearly 20 years ago. Also, unlike the Murray place-holder, he didn't live in Britain.

But, given his importance in libertarian circles, I don't know whether to be flattered or what.

Syria ... the more Obamiacs sounds like Bushies ...

Update, Sept. 18: The UN investigation seems to tie the attacks to senior officers of President Bashar Assad. Whether they were following orders or not may still not be final, but the linked New York Times story indicates the answer is yes.

That said, per the oft-cited piece by William Polk at the Atlantic? His "cui bono" was, and still is, a good question. And, if part of why he wrote that piece was pushback, given America's generally poor history of regime change in the Middle East, the neocons leading the charge again on this one and Obama not having a Syria exit plan, the shoot-first warmongers can still look themselves in the mirror.

Now, back to the original blog post.

The scarier any "limited intervention" gets.

First, it's a civil war. Even the best of today's cruise missiles and smart bombs aren't that accurate, especially in distinguishing between sides in urban fighting. Drones may be, but they're for surgical strikes on individuals; Obama already knows that by how many people he's killed with them.

If he doesn't know, this map makes that hugely clear. Details behind it here.

Second, contra Team Obama's blathering, we don't actually know who the hell did this. (More on that below.)

So, is Dear Leader going to be semi-indiscriminate with cruise missiles, or semi-ineffectual with drones? And, what does he plan after that.

Meanwhile, after the egg-on-face embarassment of British Prime Minister David Cameron (and various lies coming from various mouths about whether or not this was a three-line whip vote), Debbie Wasserman Schultz, an Obamiac if there ever was one, pops up about how many allies the US has. This follows on Team Obama's reference, from Secretary of State John Kerry on down, to "our oldest ally" France.

But, Kerry probably should shut up, then put down the shovel before he digs his holes any deeper.

Kind of like Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, we have Kerry having dinner with Bashir Assad, the man he now calls Hitler. So, calling this a "Munich moment" is laughable, the farce of history made to repeat itself.

Finally, who actually did what with the sarin gas in the Damascus suburbs?

This excellent analysis by an "old Syria hand" formerly of the State Department says:

1. We don't know whether Assad or some part of the opposition planted the sarin;
2. The US deliberately tried to stall the UN investigation;
3. There's a lot of conflicting information involved;
4. Israel's doing a lot of "spinning";
5. Assad had relatively little to gain by the attack. Indeed, Polk notes that the government has been gaining ground against the rebels in recent weeks and months.

Let's also not forget, which Polk didn't mention, that, as Aum Shinrikyo showed in Tokyo, sarin is  relatively easy to produce and weaponize/distribute. This ignores other possibilities, such as rebel theft of government supplies, help from Iran or Hezbollah, etc. And, yes, such possibilities are many, if rebels did this, depending on which group of rebels. Kurd nationalists could have gotten help from their brethren in Turkey. Shi'ites, from Iran directly, or via Hezbollah. Al-Qaeda wannabes? The network in Iraq seems strong enough.


Beyond that, contra the first commenter below, even the death count is disputed.

Neither Kerry’s remarks nor the unclassified version of the U.S. intelligence he referenced explained how the U.S. reached a tally of 1,429, including 426 children. The only attribution was “a preliminary government assessment.”

Anthony Cordesman, a former senior defense official who’s now with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, took aim at the death toll discrepancies in an essay published Sunday.

He criticized Kerry as being “sandbagged into using an absurdly over-precise number” of 1,429, and noted that the number didn’t agree with either the British assessment of “at least 350 fatalities” or other Syrian opposition sources, namely the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has confirmed 502 dead, including about 100 children and "tens" of rebel fighters, and has demanded that Kerry provide the names of the victims included in the U.S. tally.

“President Obama was then forced to round off the number at ‘well over 1,000 people’ – creating a mix of contradictions over the most basic facts,” Cordesman wrote. He added that the blunder was reminiscent of “the mistakes the U.S. made in preparing Secretary (Colin) Powell’s speech to the U.N. on Iraq in 2003.”

As usual, McClatchy, far more than other mainstream media, cuts through the bullshit of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment. That said, the link provided by said first commenter below is from the Center for a New American Security, a leading bipartisan foreign policy establishment think tank.

Add all of this up, and even if Dear Leader isn't talking about land troops, you and I can talk about red lines. We have even more "red lines" for not doing anything vis-a-vis Syria right now than we did with Iraq 13 years ago.

Also add this up, and we have a Team Obama wanting to destabilize Assad further before he can restabilize himself more. And, a Dear Leader who, assuming Polk is right, is willing to act outside the bounds of facts.

That gets me back to Polk's Point 5.

What if the rebels did do it? Even if all we are doing is launching a few cruise missiles, then Obama's drone strike murders have reached a whole new level if we're using fabricated information to deliberately target the wrong people.

And, even philosophers and humanists who are talking about whether there's a just case for intervention (that's people like you, Massimo Pigliucci and Michael DeDora) need to address THAT issue first. Or go back and address it, if you've already written something that didn't. If not, you're addressing the wrong problem, possibly.

If that's not enough, there's the fact that we created the clusterfuck that led to the rise of the Assad dynasty last time we intervened in Syria. Not to mention our Reagan-era intervention failure in Syrian-controlled Lebanon.

Meanwhile, a Team Obama that now says it needs a Congressional vote after seeking none in Libya, where Dear Leader had imposed no red lines, leads to head-scratching at the least. That said, said Congressional vote now seems anticlimatic. Agent Orange, Speaker John Boehner, says he's down with it. But it's still head-scratching. Maybe even for an American public thrilled with techno-war on the cheap, especially against Mooslims, or other pejoratives, Syria is a bridge too far.

I'm sorry, it's not Dear Leader's red line after all. According to him, it's the world's red line. I guess that, like Poppy Bush, we're supposed to read his hips instead of reading his lips. And, speaking of Bushes, Dear Leader may be surpassing Shrub in his chutzpah.

I mean, this is Bushian lying in its blatancy level:

“I didn’t set a red line,” Mr. Obama said during a news conference here in Stockholm. “The world set a red line.”

He added, “My credibility’s not on the line. The international community’s credibility’s on the line. And America and Congress’s credibility’s on the line.”

Wow.

Polk concludes that "mission creep" is likely, whether accidental or planned, and that solving the perceived problem is not. Syria's Alawites have plenty to lose if we boot Assad; they're not going quietly into the night. The civil war in general has been going on longer, and in more depth, than the anti-Gaddhafi effort in Libya before our action. And, the opposition is even less unified — but with a stronger Islamist component — than there. 

That said, per the Boehner link, the first group of CIA-trained "freedom fighters" (Dear Leader didn't use that phrase, but I am, to put the Bushie yoke tighter around his neck) is set to sneak into Syria. Wunderbar! What could possibly go wrong here?

Finally, to be blunt, given who's driving this — why should we be doing Israel's bidding? Especially when there's no definition yet of what would constitute "success" and nothing close to a guarantee of how to get there, meaning the Likud/Zionist bloc would leave us holding the bag on any failure. An "American orphan" it would be. And, as far as orphaned failures, it's also been, besides our intervention in Lebanon, 30 years since Arik Sharon's clusterfuck in Lebanon, culminating in the Sabra and Shatila camps massacre.

There's no "broad brush painting" with this. Rather, a thick accretion of historical fact.

And, back to fact No. 1: Since there's no firm proof Assad's behind the chemical weapons, and circumstantial evidence to indicate he has no need to be behind it, Team Obama's claims, while not as bad as Condoleezza Rice's "smoking mushroom cloud," may eventually wind up being in the same category.

That said, unlike the magazine Counterpunch, there's no need to engage in reflexive anti-Americanism as part of opposing us taking any military action in Syria. 

===

Meanwhile, let's look at this all from Team Obama's point of view.

For most of the past two years, an ungainly coalition of rebels, linked by little but their dislike of the Assad regime, had been slowly and semi-surely rolling it back. Because no one rebel group had risen head-and-shoulders above the rest, Team Obama didn't have to worry about picking winners and losers. It could merrily train bands of "freedom fighters" to do that dirty work for it.

And, now, the rebels are faltering. Even losing ground in spots.

My theory is the chemical weapons story, especially if it's being falsely attributed to the Assad regime, makes an easy "handle" for war, a war that's desired because Assad is starting to get the upper hand on the rebels again. 

As for why he's seeking the Congressional vote, when he didn't on Libya? Several reasons.

First, Dear Leader is, in his own way, quite the politician. And, yes, he's trying to fracture the GOP on this particular foreign policy issue, at least.

Second, the more Syria gets publicized, the more that NSA snooping gets UN-publicized. Damage control, wag the dog, whatever you want to call it.

Third is another political angle. That's keeping neocons in the Democratic Party happy. And donors who often support them. To spell out what some people are guessing at, at risk of getting tarred with the anti-Semitic brush, this means keeping a certain stream of Jewish politicians and Jewish donors with similar political philosophy happy. Please note what I highlighted.

===

As for the idealism claims? Take them all with a grain of salt.

If we wanted to be that idealistic, we've got spare Tomahawks to fire around the world, and with as good of reason, if we're talking morality, and against countries more defenseless.

Burmese military junta, take this! Robert Mugabe, for starving your own people, take that!

Bahrain, for ... 

Oops. They're one of our allies, no matter the amount of Shi'ite repression.

Syria? You just have the unlucky constellation of factors of never really having been our ally, having been a Soviet ally in the past, being hated by Israel (often with good reason, though), being hated by a number of Arab neighbor states, and being in the middle of the oil world without having enough oil to play a bigger game of geopolitics. 

===

That all said, Obama's better than Massachusetts' newest addition to the Senate. Ed Markey, on the Foreign Relations Committee, wins the chickenshit award by voting "present" on attacking Syria.  

Unfortunately, the usually reliable Charles Pierce seems to cut Markey too much slack on this.

Based on I Tweeted to him, edited for full English reading, and expanded, here's my counterthought.

I don't buy it on Markey. First, he was in the House before the Senate. Second, Obama's "red line" was 1 year ago. If Markey was unsure of intelligence info, he should have voted "no," since, as McClatchy and Wm. Polk at Atlantic have shown, the intelligence is being manipulated. Only a "no" vote challenges the run-up to war.

Update, Sept. 13: Here's more on Obamiacs sounding like Bushies. Per this Truth-Out piece, not just John Kerry, but Vice President Joe Biden, when also in the Senate, were among Democrats who made false claims about Iraqi weapons in the run-up to the Gulf War. So did Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House, now Minority Leader.

A new example of why I call myself a #skeptical left-liberal

I do, in terms of US politics at least, consider myself a left-liberal. But, along the likes of Doug Henwood of Left Business Observer, I maintain a healthy skepticism about more wild-eyed economic ideas of some left-liberals. (Henwood was good at shooting down sillier ideas from Occupy Wall Street a year or two ago.)

In the foreign-policy side of things, we have this: Counterpunch Magazine, nuttier than anything that comes from Alternet, Truthout, or similar.

For example, in light of possible intervention in Syria (which I oppose) Jeffrey St. Clair has updated an old piece about Bosnia and Serbia that he co-wrote with the now-deceased founder of Counterpunch, Alexander Cockburn.

And, it's over-the-top indeed.

Even if Clinton did oversell some things about Serbian asshattery, nonetheless, having just read an excellent book on the run-up to WWI, "The Sleepwalkers," and another, "Kosovo: A Short History" about 2 years ago, about the history of Serbia/Serbian identity from the famed battle of Kosovo on, I can say bluntly, as I Tweeted St. Clair, that Serbs have been thugs for at least a full century, since the two Balkan Wars of 1912-13. Maybe they didn't resort to (too much? as much?) murder then, but, ethnic cleansing by thuggery short of murder was a regular practice in the new lands they acquired after those two wars.

Noel Malcolm, in his "Short History" of 500 pages, documents that Serbia was doing ethnic cleansing a century ago.  Christopher Clarke, in "Sleepwalkers," ties this in with general Serbian expansionism in the two wars, including refusal to let go of disputed territory when directly confronted by a combination of other Balkan states PLUS Austria-Hungary.

I normally reject the idea of "cultural DNA," but with the people and land of Serbia, I am more than willing to make an exception.

And, if I use "cultural DNA" more loosely, I'm willing to use it about Counterpunch, too.

St. Clair's been wrong in the past on some environmental issues, his putative specialty, because of ax-grinding. Cockburn more than once stuck at least one toe over the line of anti-Zionism into anti-Semitism. Paul Craig Roberts is less of a left-liberal than a non-socialist left-libertarian of some sort with one foot back in David Stockman's world.

At times, while not being anti-American overall, the St. Clair-Cockburn duo do, though, seem to be opposed to any major action of whatever American president/polity is in power "just because." And, the Bosnia story, based on what I've actually read about Serbia, is a tipping point.

Beyond that, the Bosnia-Serbia situation was much more "clear" as far as bad and not-so-bad actors than Syria is. Either St. Clair and Cockburn knew that 20 years ago, or their duplicity is matched by their stupidity.

So, for now, Counterpunch is unlinked from my link list.

Yes, animals are conscious. And?

The "and" is meant to be first a rhetorical question, not a bit of snark. But, with further reflect, there is snark, too.

What raised it?

This declaration on issues of animal consciousness from Cambridge, which seems rather "loose" on detailed, nuanced discussion on issues of consciousness, but rather heavy on being a PR event. I'll discuss both in what follows.

First, brief thoughts on io9's take on it.

For people who follow evolutionary biology enough, or theory of mind issues in philosophy, it's not that big a deal to note that a variety of animals have some degree of consciousness. Evolutionary biology points at expanding brain complexity, even without getting bogged down in the world of evolutionary psychology. Theory of mind points at things like embodied cognition, hinting that animals with suitable appendages and/or use of items as tools will develop some sort of consciousness. 

It's almost like io9's writer was engaged in some version of speciesism.

Second, some points specific to the declaration, focusing on this graf:

 "The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states," they write, "Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors."

Here's a few points to note, in light of that, though.

This is important in informing us on animals rights issues. That said, before we all become Peter Singer, there's points to note:

1. Consciousness is not a black-white, on-off issue. It's an emergent property of some sort.

2. Related to that, there are degrees of consciousness, reflected in things like "levels of thought." For example, a dog, or an octopus, has no idea that I know it's thinking about something. A chimpanzee does, whether about me or a fellow member of Pan troglodytes. However, it probably doesn't reach third-order thinking; that is, a chimp probably doesn't know that **I know it knows** I'm thinking about it. And, certainly, no critter outside of H. sapiens reaches fourth-level thinking/awareness.

Closely tied to this are communications skills, and levels thereof. It's pretty clear that dolphins talk to each other. It's certain that octopi don't. And, while pheromones, etc., are a form of communication, beyond that, it's pretty clear that dogs don't communicate in depth with each other, and most of what they do vis-a-vis their two-legged masters is imitation, not communication.

3. Points 1 and 2 apply to emotional awareness and complexity, too. An octopus doesn't have as deep an emotional life as a dog, surely. It, in turn, while deep enough, isn't as deep as a chimp or, say, an elephant or dolphin, which in turn aren't as deep as us.

4. The "problem of other minds," or heterophenomenology, means that we'll never likely pin down No. 2 and 3, on a per-species basis, to an exact level of precision. I don't care how much more precise fMRIs get as far as either brain space focusing or real-time brain action measurement, they wont' get that precise, and, even if everything seems analogous to human brain actions, we won't know exactly what they're thinking, or emoting. This is especially true with more primitive emotions, or actions like whether a certain animal feels pain or not. Is that an emotion from some degree of quasi-conscious cognition, or is it a purely reflex action.

5. Related to that is the issue of "projection." Sure, those chimps might look oh-so-conscious, but it that because they look so much like us, from hairless faces and forward facing eyes down to opposing thumbs? Or, does a dog look oh-so-conscious precisely because he or she is "mirroring" us and we don't stop to think about that?

Contra what a Singer might say, none of this is "speciesism." Hopefully, our species is smart enough that, should sufficiently advanced aliens ever visit us, we'd admit they're on at least one level higher yet.

Back to other animal species here on earth, and riffing again on the Singer angle.

The above notes about levels of consciousness, combined with pain perception, say that we should be more enlightened in animal ethics in general. But, we don't need quite the same level of concern in our laboratory dealings with an octopus or other mollusk as with a dog, let alone as with a chimpanzee or dolphin. 

So, saying "animals are conscious" or "more animals are conscious than we thought before" is nice, or "nice," but it doesn't really tell us a lot.

The grunt work is in identifying levels of consciousness (after all, we H. sapiens are sometimes less conscious than at other times), followed by discussing what this means for how we should act toward animals.

That (as Singer shows, regardless of what one things of his particular  views and program) is where science leaves off and philosophy begins. What do these levels of conscious mean? What does our reaction to trying to sort out and assign levels of consciousness mean? Beyond faulty brain examination tools and maze-type tests, what do the particular tools that we use to try to determine consciousness mean?

All these things are important because, although the Cambridge Declaration is a statement by a small group of scientists, it's going to be one that's repeatedly used by scientific activitists. And, given that a signatory like Christof Koch works on issues of consciousness, the failure to note that consciousness is a nuanced issue, and that, as many people have pointed out in discussion of consciousness as a phenomenological issue, that people still don't see one "universal X" as a keystone of consciousness, is part of why this declaration, while "nice," and while interesting, even as a scientific document, is less than perfect.

As a document of philosophy, or philosophy of science, for that matter, it lacks more yet. 

Add in that these aren't "junior varsity" scientists, and that 60 Minutes was there, presumably at their invitation, to "memorialize" the event, and from where I stand the public relations angle of the thing only rises. Why else would you have Stephen Hawking, who has done zero scientific work on issues of consciousness, present?

To me, this document is as much pop science as it is science.

Also, by having Hawking involved, it's a false appeal to authority, a fundamental error of logic.

Let's duly note it as a news event and move on, but not while filing this, as a PR event, in our collective memory banks for times in the future when its signatories make statements about consciousness.

It's sad that Koch et al decided to exploit Hawking to, I presume, make this a capital-S "Science" event. That too, will be duly filed away in my memory banks. So, too, will Hawking playing along.

So, too, will the old "follow the money" adage. With Obama announcing the "decade of the brain" research idea here in the US, and similar things abroad, I think it has to be asked.

I'm kind of doing a slow burn at myself, as much as anything, as I finish updating this, for not picking up on the PR and logical fallacy angles earlier.

#Cardinals fans and Kozma-ic cluelessness

Dear fellow Redbirds aficionados:

I understand that the St. Louis Cardinals are in the middle of trying to not only make the playoffs, but win the Central Division and avoid the wild-card play-in game.

I understand that you are worried about the performance of particular players.

And, I of course understand, and know, that shortstop Pete Kozma is at the top of this list.

But please, especially if you're linking to Baseball-Reference for blogging, actually check the stats of the players you're linking to before writing drivelous nonsense?

Like nonsense about how Ryan Jackson is "the answer." Or how Daniel Descalso is "the answer."

Let's have a bit of a reality check, shall we?

First, Pete Kozma is what he is. But, Jackson  is not the answer; if he were, he wouldn't be in Memphis now, would he? He's the same age as Kozma, and had a cup of coffee with the big club himself. If he were the answer, Kozma would be further down the river, not Jackson.

If anything's the answer out of Memphis, it's Greg Garcia, anyway, since he's pretty much supplanted Jackson at SS and also is a couple years younger and with a touch more speed, perhaps.  For the year-to-date in Memphis, Jackson's handled more chances, etc., at SS than Jackson has. Jackson's now in the OF, if you'll check his minor-league page on B-R.

Descalso? Puhleeze. He'ss not enough better than Kozma as a hitter to offset his stone glove. He's a utility player backup, period, and on the glove side, SS is the worst of his three infield positions. Cards fans who think he's the answer need to think again.

Doesn't .941 fielding percentage, and below-league-average range, say a thing to you? 

The real answer is "accepting" Kozma (and other band-aids as necessary) for this year, while looking ahead to the offseason.

Now that Kolten Wong has been called up by the St. Louis Cardinals, if he makes the grade enough, from what he shows this year, or maybe this year plus spring training next year, then 3B  David Freese, of course, becomes trade bait, since current 2B starter Matt Carpenter is better at third than second.

Jon Heyman at CBS has issued an initial ranking of the top 50 MLB free agents for the upcoming year. There's only one third baseman on the list, and that's perhaps using the term loosely. Michael Young is tied for No. 50 on Heyman's list. 

Freese is six years younger, and even with a bit of a slip this year, is still a better power hitter and better overall.

And, of course, we all know what to look for out of that trade — a shortstop!

Yes, the Angels likely were overcharging in the midseason for Erick Aybar. Maybe their price comes down in the offseason. And, with Chris Nelson now at third, the Haloes could stand an upgrade.

If the ChiSox are in a mood to let go of Alexei Ramirez, Freese is an upgrade over Conor Gillaspie!

Or, maybe Freese becomes part of a trade for pitching, and Garcia makes the big squad. Or maybe we find out Wong isn't ready yet, and so, the Cards give Freese another one-year deal in arbitration.

But, Descalso and Jackson aren't the answer. Period. Not as a starting SS. (That said, because he's OK at 2B and 3B, and passable at short, Descalso IS the answer as a utility infielder to keep around.)

And, Cards fans, by blog posts, who need to "think again" about either Jackson, Descalso, or both, include this and this among others. And, if I need to post more links, I will.

Again, if you're going to link to a site like Baseball-Reference, actually look at the stats before making  comments like these. I understand the frustration with Kozma, but as Lincoln said about replacing Gen. McClellan, you can't replace Kozma with "anybody," you have to replace him with "somebody."

Update, Sept. 3: Yes, I'm aware that Jackson has now been called up. Big deal, it's September and time for a few more 40-man call-ups to come up from Memphis. Don't read too much into that.

#ESPN spinelessness bites it in the a** on #NFL #concussions

We all know that The Worldwide Leader is all about the sports dollars at bottom line.

That's why its chickenshit withdrawal from working with PBS' Frontline on an extended documentary about concussions was not surprising. Nor was its ombudsman's weaselly attempt to justify that move.

Well, now, news that the NFL has agreed to settle a lawsuit by retired players, for the handsome amount of $765 million, puts ESPN's cowardice in a whole new light. So too does past touting of all it's done to cover the issue.

So does the fact that ESPN's story and blog about the settlement fail to mention the WWL's withdrawal from the Frontline piece. It's arguable that the Frontline issue didn't need to be in the story, even if ESPN's doing fairly serious overwrite of the AP piece. But, for Seifert to leave it out of the blog? Nope. Not good.

That's even more the case when either Seifert himself, or whoever writes his heads, trumpets how this "saved the game."

Nooo ... with no admission of guilt, and for relatively low cost — likely due to most the plaintiffs not having the money to stand up to Daddy Warbucks, personified by the Commish, Roger Goodell, in a trial and appeals — it saved the NFL. Not "the game," if by that we mean football in general.

Now, for about a third of (estimated possible damages), the league has settled the case before its dirty laundry was aired in court, and without admitting any guilt.

But, that's the NFL, not "the game." Seifert admits as much in the last graf:

 The NFL can go forth with certainty and continued vigilance, but for now at least, with no fear about its future in American culture.

Bingo. I'm sure there's dirty laundry. But, barring another suit, we won't know. (See below for that.)

In fact, in the AP's story used as the base for ESPN's write-up, player lawyer David Frederick explicitly accused the NFL of covering up studies linking concussions and neurological problems.

But both story and blog hint that the NFL had "done all it could" on this issue.

More bollocks. Daddy Warbucks' continued push for an 18-game season, also not mentioned by the WWL, is proof beyond Frederick's claims that it had not. (I'm assuming this is the final nail in the coffin for Daddy Warbucks' push for that 18-game season.)

Let's also take note that the $765 million settlement is only 40 percent of the cost of the NFL's annual contract with ESPN.

Meanwhile, the No Fun League could be on the hook for some bucks over this:

The N.F.L., legal experts said, still must clarify how much of any settlement its insurance companies will cover. Several of them have argued in court that they do not have to indemnify the N.F.L. because of the policies they wrote. A lawyer representing Alterra America Insurance, which wrote one policy for one year for the N.F.L., told the judge that a settlement could cost $2.5 billion, a figure some legal experts considered conservative. The league and the plaintiffs had to consider their mounting legal bills. 

This ought to be fun.

And, maybe we will get a lawsuit that goes to discovery on this. A group of retired players may not have deep pockets vis-a-vis Daddy Warbucks. A major insurance company does.

===

That all said, what's actually in it for players?

Barring a rush of last-minute retirements, the players who sued, plus all other eligible retirees, will get $150K per person, roughly. Players can opt out, but it's doubtful they'll do better against Daddy Warbucks in a future suit.

That doesn't count the money going to the baseline medical fund.

As for the money going to research, assuming Frederick is right, a key question is going to be: who monitors that fund, including how its money is spent and how its findings are reported?

Other notes include the observation