Happy Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in the US; families will come together, some who have not seen each other for some time.  A lot of turkey will be eaten.  Even some tofurkey (it's the 21st century, after all). Some will watch football.  Hopefully, we will all give thanks, which is the point.

I'm not one who wears religion on his sleeve, and tend to recoil or regard with suspicion those who are ostentatiously religious.  However, in these days for giving thanks, and the coming time of reflection that the Advent of the coming of our Lord provoke, well, reflective thoughts about what gratitude and good will towards men means.

In Church this past Sunday the Gospel reading was the famous parable of the sheep and the goats of Matthew's Gospel.  In it, the righteous are thanked by Jesus for feeding the hungry, providing drink for the thirsty, kindness to the stranger, and ministry to the sick.

Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.

Likewise, the wicked are reminded that they failed in similar regard

Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.

Both of course question how this could be, for neither remembers having tended to (or, contrarily, ignored) the needs of their fellow man.  And to each, Jesus answers

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

It's one of my favourite readings, and to me reminds me of one of the central commandments of our faith.  Basically, before almost everything else, we are to see, truly and clearly, the needs of those weaker and less fortunate than ourselves, and to help where we can.

It's my hope that in the season of thanks and celebration, I will do the best I can to see when a hand in need of help is reaching out, and that I will extend my own open hand to do so.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Ah, Sweet Semantics.

My sister-in-law has jumped into the blogging pool with both feet this month; her writing is more of a personal nature than mine, discussing life events rather than complaining about the state of the world.

Today, she has posted some observations about accountability that I think are particularly useful and timely, given what's going on around us.  I won't steal her thunder, of course, but her comments provoked me to consider what "accountability" really means, and how it plays out in the modern world.

Every day, we hear all sorts of people talking about "accountability."  The President talks about accountability for the financial mess we're in.  Executives speak of how they pledge to be "accountable" to their shareholders, workers, and customers for decisions.  Janet Reno, the former AG, spoke to much acclaim from the press about how she accepted "full responsibility" for the disastrous raid on the Waco compound of religious fanatics (of course, "responsibility" and "accountability" are not precisely the same, but close enough to be useful here).  The Occupy Wall Street protesters are demanding that "The One Per Cent" be held to account for the myriad ills they perceive.

One can, of course, flip open a dictionary (or even more conveniently, look it up on-line, which carries far less risk of a paper cut) to see what the word "accountability" means.

It's one man's observation, of course, but I find that none of these people who claim to accept "accountability" actually do so.  Accountability means more than just insincere (or even sincere) mea culpas on "60 Minutes." Part of the deal is that there be parallel consequences.  People are willing to do the former, but precious few are really prepared for the latter.

In the operetta "The Mikado," the eponymous character at the beginning of the second act sings of his goal to make the punishment fit the crime, and then proceeds to list precisely how he plans to carry this out. It's parody of course, but I highly recommend a listen.

The head of a bank that twisted the rules to the limit of breaking so he could fatten his bonus is not really accepting "accountability" by saying "Sorry.  I won't do it again."  Sure; his firm may pay some fines (the source of which is more than likely to be recovered in fees passed on to some of the customers he defrauded).  He's ain't giving up his home in the Hamptons.  He may toss a few low-level employees to the wolves, of course.  SOMEONE has to be accountable, I guess.

Janet Reno said she would take responsibility for incinerating dozens of people, including small children.  She continued on for many years as AG, and even ran for governor of Florida and currently tours the country making lucrative speeches about the criminal justice system.

Is that "responsibility" in any real way?

Has anyone on Wall Street really been held to accounts in any tangible way?  Any CEO or other executive appeared in the dock to answer for what they did?

The Occupy Wall Street people are right to demand that those responsible for facilitating our economic meltdown should be made accountable for what they've done.

But are even they willing to be responsible?  Responsible for borrowing money to buy a house that they could not afford?  For running up massive debts to buy gadgets that they did not need or to spend six years partying in college, ultimately, in many cases, failing to obtain a degree of dubious value to begin with?

When I was child, it was understood that if I broke the rules, my parents would hold me to account - and they largely did.  I don't know if that's still universally true (a few years back, some wealthy parents in Saratoga, California actually threatened to take their school to court if it disciplined their children who had admitted cheating on the AP exams), but most kids do get that if they get caught breaking the rules, they will be punished.

And that punishment will not likely include being allowed to keep millions of dollars in bonuses that were gained as a result of their misdeeds.

Accountability must include real contrition, and also must include consequences that, more often than not, will at least discomfit the person "accepting" accountability.

The Day the Music Died, ca. 2011

An era of sorts came to an end today.  More truthfully, it was yesterday - the event itself occurred yesterday, but I read the news today, oh boy.

Of course, I am talking about the passing of Apple co-founder and tech icon Steve Jobs, who died at the age of 56.  A lot has already been written about Mr Jobs, most of it glowing comments on how much he and his ingenuity changed the world.  I've never been a big fan of Steve Jobs, and I have long thought of Apple as a sort of cult for gadget-worshiping acolytes.

There's a centuries old admonition not to speak ill of the deceased, and I am absolutely sure that Mr Jobs's passing, particularly at such a relatively young age (56) will leave a tremendous scar on his family and friends.  I lost my own father when he was 53 a decade and a half ago, and indeed, it leaves a hole that is never really filled or covered-over.

That said, I would tend to point to the observation that Senator Edward Kennedy made of his brother Robert F Kennedy during his famous eulogy in 1968 - one should not make more of (Jobs) in death than he was in life.

Was Steve Jobs a "visionary?"  Did he really make the world a better place, as some would have you believe?

To the former, I would have to say a qualified "yes."  He certainly had a vision - of user-friendly, slickly packaged products.  The fact that Apple is now the most valuable tech company in the world, and the second most valuable company (behind only Exxon Mobil) speaks to the consequence of that.

Did he make the world a better place?  I would say that the latter conjecture is somewhat of a mixed bag.

Mr Jobs did not actually invent any of the technologies or products that had so profound an impact on the world.  The smart phone; the mp3 player.  The GUI.  The mouse interface.  None of these was pioneered by Jobs or even Apple, for that matter.

But what Steve Jobs's real genius was was taking someone else's great ideas and packaging them in such a way that they appealed to more than just a handful of tech geeks in San Jose, California.  He was able not to see a need, but to create one, almost out of whole cloth.  No one, of course, needs to have a $400 telephone with a slick interface and the ability to "tweet" 140-character esoterica 24/7.  But when Mr Jobs, the Prophet in the Black Turtleneck pitched the latest gadget from a stage in the Moscone Centre in San Francisco, that item immediately became a totem.  Either you had the newest geegaw, or you didn't.

And the Macnostic cultists responded.  Queues, days in advance at times, formed outside the Apple Store to hand over money.

Are we better off?  In many ways, yes we are.  We can now stay in touch, get information, and run our lives from virtually anywhere in the world.  An array of music, entertainment, and connection is now at our fingertips, virtually wherever and whenever we want.

THAT has real value.

The cost, of course, is the stoking of desire for expensive toys that not all can afford (perhaps most cannot).  More to the point, as our linkages grow, our ability to disconnect shrinks.  We are now virtually never "free."  And of course, with the proliferation of iPads and iPods, our real, personal connections are replaced by virtual ones.  Music, once a shared experience, is now increasingly a solitary one.  We speak to each other face to face less, and with "twitter" more.

That's not necessarily a good thing.  Technological advance is not without price.

Ultimately, in assessing the impact of Steve Jobs, I return to the idea that he, more than anything, was perhaps the greatest marketeer who has ever lived.  This is perfectly, if indirectly, summed up today reading the encomia about his life.

In one obit circulating, ironically, Mr Jobs is spoken of as a co-founder of Apple with "a friend from high school."  The fact that Steve Wozniak - the actual creator of the Apple computer is not mentioned by name until about 90% of way through, and then as a sort of aside, is perfect testimony to how great Steve Jobs's ability to package the world as he saw it really was.

Steve Jobs in my estimation was the PT Barnum for the 21st century.  He did not really discover "Dumbo," but brought the beast to the masses.  He less fulfilled needs than created desires.

His life represents a triumph of will, really, and the ability to convince the world that his vision of how things could or should be needed to prevail. He's now gone, and it will be interesting to see how Apple carries on in his absence.  I suspect for the Macnostics, this is somewhat akin to the death of Peter in the early days of the Church.  I reckon the search is going on for a new Pope to shepherd  the faithful.

RIP.

You Lie! (AGAIN)

Remember when SC Congressman Joe Wilson yelled "You lie!" at President Obama?  How scandalous it was?  Why, you'd think he farted in Nancy Pelosi's personal elevator.

Well, it turns out Mr Wilson was more or less correct, which perhaps explains the phony outrage.

You see, this weekend President Obama proposed to control our spiraling deficits with a "Buffett Tax."

It's a big lie, of course.

First, even most optimistic projections are the proposal will raise $1.5 trillion OVER 10 YEARS.  Our current deficit for the current fiscal year is $1.6 trillion for 2011.  Alone.

Second, the "Buffet Tax" will get most of its revenues from taxes on families earning between $250,000 and $1 MM.  It's not even a millionaire's tax, let alone a tax on a hypocritical plutocrat like Buffett.

Are the Democrats simply incapable of telling the truth because they no longer know what it actually is, or do they just reckon we can't handle it?

Blowin in the Wind

Hurricane Irene blew through town this weekend, leaving in its angry wake downed trees and no power - PG&E say it may not be restored until Sunday, giving us a full eight days without power.

The Toronto Blue Jays have all but wrapped up a dismal homestand against Kansas City and Tampa Bay.  The Royals came to town having not won a series since June, and not having taken a series in Toronto in nine years - and the Blue Jays were lucky to take one of the games.  Tampa has thus far made the Jays look like little leaguers, winning the first three easily.  Sunday afternoon's game was an embarrassing 12-0 loss, with Rays' starter David Price combining with two relievers to whiff a Toronto team record 18 batters.

Now I know why the winds were so strong at the weekend - it had nothing to do with Irene.  It was all that fanning going on by Toronto bats.

Kelly Johnson, the newest Jay acquired from Arizona collected the Golden Sombrero, with four Ks in four ABs.

It's an odd stat, but if one combines the final week Johnson played in Arizona (a team in contention for the playoffs) with his first four games as a Jay, Johnson has not played for the winning team since August 16th, a 3-2 win in Philadelphia.

Johnson has participated in 10 straight losing efforts, and has not walked on the field to shake hands in a victory in two weeks.

Yeah - that trade is working out brilliantly.

Mike Flanagan, RIP

Read today of the passing of former left-hand pitcher Mike Flanagan, a guy who got as much out of a batting practice fastball as anyone.

Flanagan was 60 years old, and best remembered as the guy who won the 1979 Cy Young award; he went 23-9 for the Baltimore Orioles team that lost to the disco-themed "We Are Family" Pittsburgh Pirates.

Just thinking about those two items (that Pittsburgh AND Baltimore made the World Series, and that disco was sufficiently main stream that it was featured in a non-ironic way) makes me feel old.

My best recollection of Flanagan was his remarkable performance, as a fading former star, in the penultimate game of the ultimately doomed Toronto season of 1987.  Flanagan faced off on the final Saturday of that season against Jack Morris and the Detroit Tigers at Tiger Stadium.  The teams entered the game tied for first, but heading in opposite directions.

At 36, Flanagan pitched 11 innings, giving up one earned run; the Tigers ended up winning in the 12th on a double-play ball off the bat of Alan Trammell that rolled under the glove of Jays' rookie shortstop Manny Lee (Lee was playing in place of All Star Tony Fernandez, who had had his elbow broken the week before, in a game also against the Tigers).

Toronto went on the lose the final game of the season, and the pennant, the next day, in a 1-0 game - interestingly, pitched by another very soft-tossing lefty: Frank Tanana.  The loss capped an epic collapse - Toronto lost its final seven games of the season, squandering what had been a five game lead with seven to play.

Interestingly, and I was unawares of this fact - Flanagan had been a teammate of Julius Erving on the UMass basketball team.  He quipped in an interview that, after guarding "Dr J" in practice, he realised he ought to pay more attention to his pitching mechanics.

Flanagan was a quick wit, apparently, in addition to being a class act.

RIP.

Is "Crazy" Rick Perry Pinky or the Brain?

Although it's only August of the year before the 2012 presidential elections, the air is, as they say, heating up.  I fear from the rhetoric it's going to be a particularly nasty campaign, which given the way 2010 went, is saying a lot.

The governor of Texas, the unctuous Rick Perry, has apparently tossed his ten-gallon hat into the ring, and I have to say, I am shocked by the reaction of the Democratic party noise machine to the announcement.

Perry is behind at least a couple of other candidates in the GoP (most notably, the ideologically pliant Mitt Romney), so it's odd that the mouthpieces are focusing on him; more to the point, not so much that they are focusing on Perry, but how they are focusing.

In reading political blogs, editorials in mainstream newspapers, and listening to broadcast and cable news, the apparent meme that is going to be deployed against Rick Perry is not that he's done a bad job in Texas, or that his performance is somehow disqualifying, or that he lacks experience.  Or even, for that matter, that the current president deserves to be re-elected because he's done such a bang-up job.

No; what has been said, over and over again, is that Perry is not wrong in his thinking, but that he is "crazy."

Several friends and peers on social media have picked this up and run with it.  One friend actually wrote that Rick Perry is "bat shit crazy."

"Bat shit crazy?"  That's not something I've ever seen in the DSM-IV manual, a book that I use in my job in neuroscience research frequently.

What exactly has Rick Perry done to provoke this diagnosis?  Well, among other things, he proposes to repeal the 16th and 17th amendments.  The former, of course, empowered the federal government to levy income taxes; the latter took the election of senators from the hands of state legislatures and provided for direct elections by the people. In the words of the writer, Perry is crazy because he wants to "bake his personal opinions and bias into the Constitution."

Now, setting aside the absolute and frank irony that "baking his opinions" into the constitution here is in fact overturning amendments that themselves were the result of a previous person's "baking his opinions" into the Constitution, I don't see how a person, seeing an obvious problem, proposing to follow the laws set out by the framers to alter the Constitution as it was meant to be amended is "crazy."

Perry may be wrong; but it apparently is no longer enough to argue that the opposition is simply wrong.  They are insane.  They are wild-eyed, bigoted lunatics sort of like cartoon characters Pinky and the Brain.

Governor Rick Perry, Wild and Crazy Guy

This particular line is being used not just on Rick Perry, but other Republicans (Michelle Bachmann recently appeared on the cover of Newsweek magazine in a particular example of extreme yellow journalism, in a photo plainly chosen to fit the theme that she, like Perry, is simply as mad as a March hare.)

I expect we're going to be treated to this for the next 15 months - the GoP candidates and their solutions are not wrong per se, but just too nutty to even consider.  We're going to hear over and over how they are "anti-science" (whatever that means), irrational, crazy, raving lunatics.  We'll hear about how they are climate-change "deniers" (a very carefully chosen and market-researched term to parallel the lunatic fringe who deny the Holocaust).  That they believe in "intelligent design," and reject "evolution," which is a truly bizarre attack, given that a President's belief in the origin of the species seems to me to have nothing to do with the powers he or she has as the chief executive.

To those who have studied history, it is worthwhile to recollect that, during the Soviet era, "enemies of the state" were often put away based upon phony charges of insanity.  Rather than sending political dissidents off to prison, they were "diagnosed" as crazy (not sure how you translate "bat shit crazy" into Russian) and put into mental hospitals.

You see - if you "denied" that the status quo wisdom being offered by The Party was the right course, well, that was ipso facto evidence that you must be out of your tree.

I reckon in the 2012, the Democrats will rely on this line not because they are communists (itself a laughable attack one hears from the right), but because they frankly have nothing else to say.

President Obama can hardly run for re-election based on how well he has handled the country.  He cannot point to Texas, which according to an analysis of the data here show the state to have stood apart from the employment collapse of the rest of the country and argue how that disqualifies Governor Perry.  He could try to argue that the governor doesn't really affect job creation, but then the whole argument propping up his tax and spend agenda of never-ending stimulus collapses.

So what's left then is to smear Perry with a lot of emotional, if dubious, attacks of the sort we are now seeing.

Swing and a Miss

The Philadelphia Phillies seem well on their way to another NL East title, largely due to an incredible pitching staff.  (Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, Roy Oswalt).  Their number four starter in his career averages a 16-9 record, with a 3.21 ERA.

That is damned impressive.  One could debate whether there has been a better staff in the past to years (Atlanta, 1995? Maddux, Smoltz, Glavine, Avery.  The 1971 Orioles boasted four twenty-game winners, though not sure Pat Dobson is the equal of Oswalt.)

What I find most interesting though, is the Phils' set-up man and lefty specialist, Antonio Bastardo.  Aside from the obvious intrigue of his unfortunate sur-name, Bastardo has quietly racked up some unbelievable stats this year.

To wit: in his 50 appearances, covering 46 innings, Bastardo has allowed 18 hits.

That's not a mis-print.  18 hits in 46 innings.

That figure works out to 3.5 hits per nine innings.  The league is hitting .118 this season against him.

To put it into context, Nolan Ryan, the owner of six career no-hitters, in his best season (1972) allowed 166 hits in 284 innings, a rate of 5.26.  Ryan allowed fifty per cent more hits per nine innings.  Oh, and he also tossed in 157 bases on balls, so Ryan - in a great season - allowed 323 baserunners in his 284 innings.

Bastardo has walked 16, so he has allowed 34 baserunners in 48 innings.

Tom Henke was another guy who could come in and simply blow hitters away.  In his best season (1987), The Terminator gave up 62 hits in 94 innings, or 5.94 per nine innings.  Henke walked 25, so his runners per nine innings was better than Ryan's (87 runners in 94 innings), but again, not close to the numbers Bastardo has put up.

And Henke, as a relief pitcher for a team that collapsed, in an epic fashion, received MVP support for his efforts.


It's a relatively small sample size, of course, but the almost complete failure of National League hitters to hit Bastardo is truly remarkable; it's sufficiently low that I wonder, has there ever been a guy who put up seasonal figures like that, tossing a minimum number of innings.

Paul Meier, RIP

Chances are pretty good you've never heard of Paul Meier.  But if you've taken an FDA-approved medication, or purchased life insurance, your life has been affected in a profound way by his work.

This weekend, read the announcement of the passing Dr Meier, who was one of the true giants of mathematical statistics.  In my opinion, his work with Edward L Kaplan (put the two names together, and perhaps if you've trained in stats or clinical research, you may be closer to recognition) has had more impact on clinical research than any other statistician, and perhaps more than any clinician of any other scientific discipline.

In 1958, Drs Kaplan and Meier submitted to the Journal of the American Statistical Association a manuscript titled "Nonparametric estimation from incomplete observations," in which a method for estimating life expectancy and mortality from data including missing or censored observations was outlined.

It's safe to say that there is almost no pharamacological research programme today that does not involve Kaplan-Meier curves.  From cancer survival to outcomes of heart surgery, this single paper is pretty close to fundamental in clinical trial design.

That same year, Dr Meier also authored a paper called "Clinical evaluation of new drugs," which was published in the journal Annual Review of Medicine, in which he argued that randomised controlled trials (RCTs) were essential in establishing the safety and efficacy of new medicines.

It's hard to fathom nowadays that there actually was an argument for assigning to random placebo and treatment arms patients to assess the effectiveness of a potential treatment, but it was quite controversial at the time.

Modern medical research is based upon the RCT, and countless lives have been saved/improved as a result.

RIP.

Skin in the Game

In the recent roiling of the nation over the ludicrous deficits we face, I came across the following commentary by John Derbyshire at National Review.

The notion that we should all have some “skin in the game” by paying federal income taxes strikes me as profoundly un-conservative, and to be resisted. We have “skin in the game” by virtue of being U.S. citizens. The nation’s misfortunes are our misfortunes. I have never heard that being American requires payment of an annual fee, like a golf club membership.

Mr Derbyshire's post is, as usual, provocative.  He's got a mathematical background, so I am reminded of one of the controversies of the 20th century in mathematics - the so-called "axiom of choice."  To make a long story somewhat less boring, arguments in mathematics are more or less soluble once one accepts a set of axioms from which to begin.

Here, the problem inherent is that Mr Derbyshire assumes as an axiom that the income tax need not exist.  In fact, the income tax is, I would think, a permanent element of our society.  If we could do away with the income tax, I think his argument makes sense.

But given that the income tax exists, and will continue to exist, his argument I think collapses.  A system where 50% plus one of the population do not pay any visible income tax,  where a sizeable chunk get government "services," and where we swim in waters where the message of tax-funded assistance is "compassionate" is ambient - well, such a system is fundamentally ultimately unsustainable.

In economic terms, the perceived demand for something without a perceptible cost is unbounded.  Unlimited.  The comments of the Georgia governor on his state's ratification of the 16th Amendment are instructive:

When asked why his state legislature had ratified, he replied that it was a matter of no importance to Georgians, since nobody in the state made enough to qualify for the income tax.

Thus the real question barking around the edges of Mr Derbyshire's column are, "What limit is there to the tax rates on the minority of citizens who pay them for ever more government freebies?  What do I care if someone else has to pay 35, or 50, or even 90 per cent of his income in taxes if some "essential" programme is at stake."

It's really the root of the divide and rule messages we hear constantly from Mr Obama and his enablers at MSNBC and the New York Times that he ought to let the tax breaks "for the rich" expire to help reduce the deficit, when their own data show that the relative share of the deficit that tax cuts for the $250,000+/$250,000- segments represent are $700BB and $3,100BB.

Those numbers were printed in the Sunday Times this past week in an editorial.  The "middle class" share of the hated "Bush Tax cuts" is more than 80%

It's not about "deficit reduction" at all.  It's about pure power politics.  Period.

Mr Derbyshire is right philosophically that citizenship should not be measured by whether one has economic "skin in the game."  But unfortunately, reality intrudes, and thus precisely that is necessary to keep the nation sustainable.