Retaking the moral high ground

Of all the disasters and embarrassments of the Dubya years, the worst will be rolled back within the year. With the sweep of a pen President Obama has ordered the Guantanamo Bay prison, as well as all of the CIA secret prisons, closed within that time.

And more importantly, all interrogations are now to conform with the US Army Field Manual, ending the use of torture of any kind. Thus we begin the long, slow climb back to the moral high ground.

I never thought it would happen

No, I'm not on the topic of Dubya finally leaving office next week (though it seemed that day would never come either), but rather a successful water landing of an airliner.

By successful I mean virtually everyone on board doesn't die. But yesterday it happened and not only were there zero deaths, but apparently only one serious injury.

Big kudos to that pilot.

Thoughts on my football thoughts

My last post looked at the NFL playoff teams in light of the strength of their schedule through the regular season. After posting the AFC chart I made up a similar one for the NFC teams out of curiosity. This weekend they both seem to have been more accurate than I initially expected.

The charts (stronger teams sit on "higher" lines):
AFC


NFC


That gives a nice visual representation of who should win, a bit of statistics can give us a level of confidence as well. Graphically, this model predicted for the four games of this past weekend:


It got it right in three out of four. No real surprise since only one game was an upset, but interesting. Note that the only prediction to fall short was the Indianapolis-San Diego game, but that was also the smallest confidence level (56% Colts vs. 44% Chargers).

Had I placed bets according to this model I would have won three and lost one (all point-lines were covered), for a payout of 190% after juice. Not bad, but again it was probably more luck than anything else.

Either way, that was too much fun, so I'm going to take a look at this week's games as well.


If we take a hint from last week we ignore the Giants-Eagles game since it is so close. It will be interesting to see if the other three games go as predicted, since they all seem very favorable at over 75% confidence (i.e. 3:1 odds or better).

This is particularly true for the Ravens' game since, along with having the highest confidence level, when the betting lines come out for this week it will probably be the only "upset" of the bunch.

Football thoughts

Anyone that has ever spent any football watching time with me has probably heard one of my lengthy, angry rants about the Patriots and all their evils. Near the top of this list of irritations is the "help" they seem to get every year from the league in various forms, from legal rulings to rulings on the field (tuck rule anyone?). Yes, I know this is a bit illogical, paranoid, and wholly cliche but it makes me feel better so I run with it.

One bit of perceived help the league seemingly offers up every year is a weak schedule. Not necessarily the weakest in the league, but enough to add up to a few more wins than the other guys. This year that help bit them in the ass and left them out of the playoffs even though they had 11 wins.

That got me to thinking about how much strength-of-schedule matters to the outcome of a team's season, so a little number crunching and we have a chart.

I've plotted the outcome of all 32 teams for this season comparing their winning percentage to the average winning percentage of their opponents, and a trend line was added. Those teams that come in above this line can be thought of as "stronger" and vice-verse for below the line.

The most difficult schedule in the league was the Cleveland Browns (4-12) followed by the Detroit Lions who laid a giant egg in their win column this year (the lonely dot off to the left). On the opposite side of the spectrum the easiest schedule went to the San Francisco 49ers (7-9) who did a good bit better than they have in the past few seasons.

So what does this tell us going forward? Using this trend I've compared the AFC playoff teams to see who falls where, adding lines above and below our trend line to better compare each team.

This method puts the Steelers at the top of the pack and the Dolphins at the bottom. The Ravens look good, they may have only secured a wildcard berth this year but they had the second hardest AFC schedule of those teams in the playoffs. On the other hand, the Dolphin's recovery from their 1-15 season last year to the playoffs this year now seems less dramatic with an opponent record that was the 6th weakest in the league.

I wouldn't head to Vegas with this chart just yet, the relationship is there but it's tenuous at best. Too many other variables are at stake that aren't accounted for, for instance more wins means your opponents will have less (since you are beating them) and some games are given away at the end of the season to protect players on teams that have already secured a playoff berth.

For that matter the Titans and Steelers are at opposite ends of this spectrum with the Steelers on top, but don't forget the former beat the latter rather soundly just two weeks ago.

Sarah Palin - a uniter, not a divider

The far right media group Human Events named Sarah Palin with this year's coveted Conservative of the Year award.

Not to be outdone, several far left groups are also considering Sarah Palin for their own Conservative of the Year awards.

Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.

When the Senate Dems. all started patting Lieberman on the back last month the common line was - things were said in the heat of the campaign, now we need to move on.

So everybody picked sides, dug-in, and generally acted like assholes to one another. Hey, that's politics, but now we're going to let bygones be bygones and all be friends again.

So why is Lieberman still writing Op-Eds with John McCain and Lindsey Graham? I understand the debacle in Iraq is still in full-swing, but it seems like mixed messages are being sent with that. As I've mentioned before, it's my opinion that politicians should pick their friends carefully as they will be judged by the actions of the whole caucus.

If this is not a case of keeping your friends close but keeping your enemies closer, I'd recommend the Dems tread carefully with this alliance.


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p.s. - for some good lulz, check out the first line of the article

it is clear that what was once unthinkable there is now taking place: A stable, safe and free Iraq is emerging.

I'm pretty sure none of those three ever admitted that the prospect of a "stable, safe and free Iraq" was unlikely, let alone unthinkable.

The tyrant is dead, long live the tyrant!

"Had you rather Caesar were living and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all free men?"
- Brutus, Julius Caesar

In 2003 we were told that it was of vital importance that we invade that tiny insignificant backwater of a country, Iraq. Though the population was all but starved after a decade of foreign embargo, they were apparently developing biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. We had to hurry.

Oops. There goes that argument.

Not to worry, Dubya had excuse number 2 at the ready, Saddam Hussein was a tyrant that kidnapped and brutalized his own people. Regardless of whatever WMD programs actually existed, it's a good thing that we saved the poor Iraqis from this sort of violence. Don't worry about those pesky civilian deaths (somewhere on the order of 90,000), I'm sure they are happier dead than living without democracy.

A funny thing about invading a country and decimating its infrastructure though, it tends to destabilize the country, leaving an environment very favorable to tyrannical rule. Ever notice that those little revolutions in third world countries always seem to end up with a government that even less people are happy with than the previous one? Violence rarely brings democracy, most often it just brings more violence.

The question that then must be asked is: how can you control an unstable country without resorting to the same sort of violence that you had sought to end?

Answer: you can't

It's not much of a surprise that an Iraqi journalist that has been kidnapped, detained, and arrested in the preceding years is a little angry at Dubya for causing all this instability in his home country. It's not so much of a surprise that he decided to toss a couple shoes at his antagonist. And it should not be much of a surprise that after being taken into custody he is beaten severely.

A broken arm, broken ribs, and internal bleeding, for throwing a shoe. For throwing a shoe that didn't even hit its target. So much for Dubya's argument number 2. We have killed Caesar, but now Brutus and Antony are fighting over the spoils with the same tactics as their predecessor.