Study group intermission

Yeah, I've been studying property and torts for over three hours. There is no end in sight. Thank god we're taking a break now. It gave me the chance to bang furiously at a keyboard, venting all sorts of Rule Against Perpetuity frustration. Seriously, how do you determine which is the validating life?

Anyway, earlier this week Yahoo sports put out lists of both the best and worst sportscasters. Two different authors each penned their own list, one handling the best, the other handling the worst of the profession. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that they didn’t communicate with each other all that much when building these lists. Why? Because eleven people ended up on both lists. More than twenty percent of the best broadcasters are considered among the worst. How is that even possible?

I understand that compiling a list like this is pretty subjective, and if there were maybe two or three names in common I probably wouldn’t have even noticed. But eleven names is just absurd. And I’m pretty sure that the person who came up with the “best” list is to blame.
Looking at the common names, the first two to be addressed appear on the “worst” list only with conditions. Bob Costas after 2000 is one of the worst, as is John Madden when he’s worshipping Brett Favre. Otherwise, each is on the “best” list. This reasoning doesn’t bother me at all; I couldn’t agree more with that take on Madden.

Some names that appear on both lists are just baffling though. For the most part, I can’t understand why anyone would think that these people are good broadcasters. Topping the “worst” list is Billy Packer. And yeah, before he thankfully got fired this past spring, he was terrible, really just an angry old man, especially with how he would shit all over mid majors, like St. Joes in the Nelson and West year. He was an asshole, and didn’t add anything to a broadcast.

Chris Berman is second on the list of worst broadcasters, and he too is listed among the best as well. He’s sucked for years. Joe Morgan, number three on the worst list, has been beaten into the ground at this point. Dick Vitale makes both lists, leading me to conclude that the best list was written by a Duke fan, and the worst list was written by someone with a triple digit IQ.

Tim McCarver and Joe Buck, both show up on each list. Sometimes Tim McCarver doesn’t bother me, I feel like there’s occasionally a pro-Phillies undertone to him. But then he goes and says something absurd like a team is more likely to have a multi-run inning when there is a leadoff walk than a leadoff home run, and I just have to shake my head. As for Joe Buck, he pretty much just sucks the life and enthusiasm out of everything. He hates fun, wouldn’t have this job without his dad, and needs to fade into the oblivion of calling arena football and college softball. I can’t stand him. How anyone could put him on a best list is just mind blowing.

Jim Gray, Dick Enberg, and Dick Stockton round out the list of people who are considered both the best and the worst. I’ve thought that Jim Gray was an asshole ever since he confronted Pete Rose, and nothing is going to change that. I’m completely ambivalent towards both Enberg and Stockton.

I just don’t understand how these people ended up being on both lists. How is there a middle ground here? Like, I understand that when Joe Morgan is talking about the mechanics of hitting he is bearable. But at any other point he makes me like baseball a little bit less. Seriously, Yahoo did just a flat out terrible job.

Zombie Attack?

I don’t know what’s going on in Austin, Texas, but for the sake of humanity I need to get to the bottom of it. First, the facts: people in Austin have changed some traffic signs to say things like “Zombies in area! Run” and “zombies ahead.” Austin officials have dismissed this as just the actions of vandals and hackers, people playing a joke on commuters. But what if there is more to this than mere immaturity?

What if Austin is experiencing the very beginning of a zombie outbreak? People tried to warn us about this, and most likely ended up having their brains eaten by zombies. They probably gave up their lives to save countless others during morning rush hour in Austin.

These people, vandals and hackers, as the government is calling them, are heroes. Their self-sacrifice has bought us time. We need to be ready to fight off hordes of zombies that will doubtless reduce Texas (and hopefully Oklahoma) to something of an undead breeding ground; Texas citizens will be the first to be turned, and their numbers will swell as Mexicans continue pouring over the border. Once Mexico puts up a fence to keep American zombies out, and they will, these zombies will move north. And we need to be ready for this. I urge everyone to start preparing for this: stock up on canned goods, sharpen your machetes, and if possible, prepare an island hideaway. Construction companies and the city of Austin are trying to keep this under wraps. It may be too late for Texas, but there is still hope for the rest of the country. We just need to get ready.

Gambling Underground

From time to time spanning the college basketball landscape you catch a special night, as crappy teams channeling their inner Jimmy Chitwood give the world a gem.  Only because I'm a degenerate gambler do I run a college basketball fantasy league for money, but thanks to that I got to focus in on one for the ages.  With two fantasy players going head to head in the Utah Valley - Chicago State game last night an epic show was put on.  Chicago State's David Holston went for 41 helping his team to 4 OTs, before Utah Valley's Ryan Toolson hit the game winner with 2.3 left.  Toolson threw in 63 fucking points.  On the same night in the same fantasy matchup his opponent's SG hit a game winner of his own to put the icing on a 33 point performance as Cal State Fullerton won 64-63.  Someday I want to make a tee-shirt simply with the names of random players like these, and final scores of epic gambling moments.  

Donovan "already looking for a profession I'm better at" McNabb

So McNabb is a commentator for Super Bowl week. I guess he just really wanted to be near another Super Bowl without all that puke-inducing anxiety.

Back to work

Sorry I haven't been posting, but as alluded to by Gimpy I was busy wasting time during my first weekend of this week (which happened on Tuesday and Wednesday thanks to the wonder of snow and the absence of anything resembling a snow plow in the Lou). However, I was forced back to work today (the humanity!) and had to relay one of the greatest things I have ever seen on Wikipedia.

One of my students told me to google something called a Hypercane. He didn't know how to spell it, he didn't really know what it was. All he could say was I saw something about it on the Discovery channel and you have to see it.

Here's essentially what it is: simultaneously the last thing you ever want to witness first hand and the coolest fuckin' thing you have ever seen.

As the name suggests, it's a gigantic hurricane, in theory at least. It would result from the superheating of the ocean (it would have to be 122 degrees Fahrenheit or 59 degrees hotter than the highest recorded ocean temp ever recorded). This could really only happen from a massive meteor of asteroid crashing into the ocean (in fact, there's a theory that it was hypercanes that resulted from an asteroid that really did in the dinosaurs).

I know precious little about the science of hurricanes, but here are the basic specs on a theoretical hypercane (all of which make me want to curl up in the fetal position and suck on my thumb):

-Wind speeds of over 500 mph (the strongest recorded reading is 195 mph)

-"A tremendous lifespan"

-One hypercane could likely be the size of North America

-It would create storm surges washing immeasureable gallons of water onto the shore from the ocean, absolutely drowning the coastline

-It would decimate the ozone layer resulting in lethal levels of UV rays reaching the Earth's surface

-And just in case one Hypercane doesn't do it for you...the oceans would stay hot for weeks allowing for many more hypercanes to form!

Now, to be fair, this is only some people's belief. Other scientists think those ocean conditions would merely create a storm 10 miles in diameter. The only problem is that that storm would be much more like a tornado, and the biggest tornado ever seen is only 2.5 miles wide. Gulp.

So, that was pretty pointless, but writing about the end of the world can't be all bad...

Lunch break thoughts

I don’t know what’s wrong with the internet, but it’s a lot less interesting today than it is on most days. Drudge is on some crusade against STD prevention, probably because he has herpes (I think this qualifies as breaking a news story. Suck it, Matt), the Democrats are passing around a petition trying to get Rush Limbaugh to admit to being an asshole, or something like that, the Flyers lost last night and I don’t want to hear about the Superbowl, so sports are out, and no one has published anything about dinosaurs. And of course this happens on the day where I have like an hour and a half between classes, and no assignment to read.

Right now insanity is swirling around me; I’m surrounded by some of the weirdest conversations imaginable: the composition of fruit roll ups, jumping out of moving cars (evidently today is a bad day to be driving without a license), the timelessness of the Macarena, which Word automatically capitalizes, and the merits of being an idiot savant.

There’s a ton of snow and ice and slush on the ground, public and parochial schools in the city are closed, and I’m sitting in a classroom. Even schools in fucking St. Louis are closed. (Fuck you, Dick) I’m really struggling to understand why I have to be here today. Hell, we have a guest speaker coming in anyway, and he’s going to be talking about arbitration. Unless he brings up Ryan Howard in the first couple sentences, my attention span will be tested.

Henrik Zetterberg signed a 12 year, 72 million dollar contract extension today. He could have gotten a hell of a lot more money if he had waited until the summer, but he’s pretty much guaranteed a handful of Stanley Cups before he retires. But he’s already got a bunch, so it’s doubtful they’re worth the $25 million dollars he probably left on the table. That’s like 125 flights on Virgin Galactic, he’s missing out.

So you know what makes law school suck? I’ll start a day thinking that if I can get al my reading done early I’ll have time to work on outlines for finals. This is terrible. No one should ever be excited by the prospect of finishing work early to do more work. I feel like law school sucks the humanity out of people. But yeah, I’ll be working on an outline for torts tonight. Fuck.

Sportscenter really sucks. I mean, it was groundbreaking and all that years ago, but now they’re all about stories and shit like that. Brett Favre, TO, Radomski, Torre, all that crap, and I don’t care. Why can’t they show more highlights. They’ll show basketball, and like ten minutes of hockey, and if there’s a major they’ll throw in tennis or golf. But what about other cool stuff? Maybe show more soccer; Beckham scored for Milan, maybe they could show some Serie A. What about like Rugby, or lacrosse, or ping-pong? Chinese people are crazy at ping-pong, and I would like to see more of that. They could even get really weird, like have some Jai Alai footage. What about Eddie Feigner? Yeah, he’s dead now, but he could throw a softball triple digits, underhand. In his prime he struck out Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Willie McCovey, Harmon Killebrew, all of whom are hall of famers. Hell, he threw 238 perfect games. That’s insane. And I doubt he was ever mentioned on ESPN. But TO is getting a reality show. Fuck him.

Ahmadinejad is saying that the US must apologize to Iran. I know that Hillary Clinton won’t do it, but I’m pretty sure she would lock up presidential successor if she goes to a joint news conference with Ahmadinejad and says, “The United States would like to sincerely apologize to Iran… for you all being a bunch of dickheads.” Then we let Israel bomb the hell out of them, enabling the US to win the game of Middle Eastern tic-tac-toe that we’ve evidently been playing for the past eight years.

I’m pretty sure that the other day was the first time that I wrote “President Obama.” That’s cool and all, but I think I may be more excited for Bush’s post-Presidency years. I really hope that he can just be a cool guy. Now that he’s out of office, I want Bush to be the guy that headbutted David Tyree, dodged shoes, and threw a strike while wearing a bulletproof vest. I want him to say outrageous things, and just not care about it. Most of all, in light of Fred Wilpon losing a ton of money to Bernie Madoff, I really want Bush to buy the Mets. Not only would he be in a public spotlight, but he would probably deport Santana and Reyes, and Wright would somehow end up in Iraq. Someone needs to make this happen.

Class starts in eight minutes, and it’s looking like a lot of people are going to be skipping. I think there’s a pretty good chance that the guest speaker doesn’t show up, and because no one has done the reading for Friday the real teacher just lets us go. Actually, I know that there’s no way that happens, but it would be cool if it did. Probably going to have to roll out the pistratica to get through this class.

I really wish that someone would invent like an eye implant that lets you transmit what you’re seeing to someone else instantaneously. Like, I understand that there are camera phones and crap, but some of the really absurd things that I’ve seen would need to be passed along less obtrusively that they allow. I just think it would be cool, and practical.

Ugh, the speaker is here, I might as well post this and get ready for what is sure to be a riveting hour and a half.

We're gonna have to work on our communication

The RAF just locked up the 2009 award for ballsiest decision ever, and it’s only January. But seriously, what could possibly beat this? For the link-opposed, the story says that dating back to the 1980s RAF pilots have on several occasions have been given orders to shoot down UFOs. While you pick your jaw up, I’ll repeat that. RAF pilots have tried to shoot down UFOs.

So far, the RAF has been unsuccessful in its attempts. However, recent weapons developments have given some guy named Mr. Pope, who spent 21 years in the Ministry of Defense, hope that eventually humans will be able to blow those aliens sons of bitches out of the sky.

While the public stance of the MoD is that UFOs don’t pose any danger to the public, that’s obviously garbage. They’re aliens! They’re probably trying to kill us and steal our planet. Plus, if we shoot one down we can probably steal all the alien technology. I would go to outerspace in a rebuilt UFO, doesn’t matter to me. Anyway, in closing, I support the RAF’s efforts to shoot down UFOs; we should show them that we won’t go down easily before we fall into a situation like this:

Ten Iconic Songs?

Over at his website (via Keith Law’s) Joe Posnanski is trying to reshape the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, by inducting individual songs instead of artists. Towards this end he has put up a list of 50 songs which he is trying to narrow down to the ten most iconic. He isn’t limiting this by only having rock songs; to be eligible for consideration, a song only has to have come out during the Rock era.

So I figured I would put up my ballot. It’s far from perfect, and is heavily influenced by what I actually listen to. Also, I’ve never been a fan of things other than Rock going into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; that never really made sense to me, so I put an additional limit on myself. So yeah, here are the ten songs that I voted for:

American Pie, Don McLean
Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen
Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen
Freebird, Lynyrd Skynyrd
I Want To Hold Your Hand, The Beatles
Imagine, John Lennon
Like a Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan
My Generation, The Who
Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana
Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin

Vatican City Exports: Coins, Stamps, Stupidity

So this has been a pretty big weekend for the Holy See to say and do dumb things. More than most weekends, I swear.

First, a senior Vatican official predictably criticized President Obama for once again permitting government funding for family planning groups that operate outside of the United States. That’s fine, that’s their belief and everything, but, well, he said some dumb things, calling this “the arrogance of someone who believes they (sic) are right.” I guess this is somehow different from the arrogance of the Church in telling people not to vote for pro-choice politicians because the Church believes it is right. Or maybe not? Whatever, fuck them.

The Pope must have decided that he couldn’t let any of his subordinates steal the dumbass spotlight from him, though, so he did stuff too. Most notably, he reinstated four bishops who had been excommunicated by John Paul II. The bishops, members of the Society of St. Pius X, an utterly forgettable Pope who’s notable only because he chose the same name as Pius IX and rejected any form of modernization, were excommunicated because some French guy made them Bishops, not the Pope. Whatever, if Benedict is cool with that, fine, I’d have no problem with papal primacy being slightly diminished. I don’t even care that they oppose the Second Vatican Council, which is one of the only things the Church has done right in a really long time. But one of the guys refutes the Holocaust. Despite pretty much everything pointing the other way, this dumbass is siding with people like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in saying that Hitler didn’t have a deliberate policy to kill Jews. And now he’s a Bishop again. What the hell, how is this ok? Shouldn’t this guy be in a Pius XII society instead? And does Benedict really think that this guy is going to shepherd souls into Heaven? Ugh, I guess this is what happens when the Pope was a member of the Hitler Youth. How close are we to opening Mass with "In nomine Patris, et Fuhrer, et Spiritus Sancti?"

Irony 2, People 0

So this is a pretty sad story, but once again the awfulness is in danger of being eclipsed by the irony. A monster truck show promoter, George Eisenhart, was killed this weekend at one of his shows after he stepped in front of a moving truck, and the driver wasn’t able to stop in time.

Normally this wouldn’t really be worth mentioning, but it comes right on the heels of a kid being killed by flying debris at a different monster truck show a week or so earlier. After this death, Eisenhart was interviewed on local television in Madison, WI, touting the safety of his shows, saying, “we have not had an incident besides a gal slipping in the aisleway.” Yeah, he may have jinxed himself there.

Also, here’s something I’ve been wondering about: was Alanis Morissette being ironic by not having any ironic situations in her song Ironic, or was she just dumb?

Another Response

Since evidently I need to say it to satisfy you, fine: I’m not a Mets fan. Now that we’ve put that behind us, hopefully we can move on. Connie Mack was a great manager (and yeah, I’ve read Macht’s biography of him that came out a couple years ago), but I think that Rickey did more for the game, and was better at putting together teams. John Heidenry’s book on the Gashouse Gang is a great book too, though short.

As for Comiskey, I’m clearly not going to argue that he was a good person, because he obviously wasn’t, but I’m trying to keep that from influencing my view on his importance to the game. His importance in founding the American League can’t be overstated, and it turned out that the AL has been a pretty big deal. Honestly, if he hadn’t been such an asshole I probably would have had him up a level.

And Landis, well, he pretty much single-handedly shaped the role of Commissioner. Yeah, he let Cobb and Speaker off the hook for betting on baseball, but that surfaced seven years after the incident, when both were winding down their careers. Beyond that, though, he absolutely cleaned up the sport. There had been pretty much no gambling scandals between the Black Sox (Cobb and Speaker bet in 1919, even though it came out later) and Pete Rose. He shepherded baseball from a rough, haphazardly organized game into America’s Pastime.

Regarding Mel Ott, Harmon Killebrew is a great comparison; both played 22 seasons without missing significant time during the middle of their careers (Kiner only played ten seasons, so I’m going to leave him out of this). I know you criticized me for using statistics, but they’re really the best way to compare players across eras. Killebrew was a career .256 hitter, with a career OBP of .376. Ott hit .304 for his career, with an OBP of .414. Ott also has an advantage in slugging, .533 to .509. Ott scored and knocked in more runs, which admittedly doesn’t say much about the player, but I suppose it’s worth noting. The only statistical category in which Killebrew holds an advantage over Ott is in home runs, 573 to 511. I don’t see how you can make any argument that Ott wasn’t better than Killebrew.

You say that Feller was the best pitcher in the AL for almost two decades, and that I’m wrong, but you don’t back it up with anything. Yeah, he lost years to WWII, and that sucks, but even if he was the best pitcher in the AL during the 40s and the first half of the 50s, so what, there are so few pitchers during that era who are comparable. He wasn’t as good as Warren Spahn, who pitched in the NL during Feller’s career and also lost years to the war. Beyond the purely subjective “Feller is better than you have him” there is nothing that makes me feel like I should move him up.

Finally, Gehrig. Yeah, Frank Robinson and Joe DiMaggio were both great players. But neither one of them was better than Lou Gehrig. Robinson holds a pretty significant edge in HRs, 586 to 495, but in every other meaningful category he falls behind Gehrig. In my eyes, the biggest difference between the two is on base percentage: for his career Gehrig put up an OBP of .447, almost 60 points better than Robinson’s .389. They aren’t close in slugging percentage either, with Gehrig leading .632 to .537. As for DiMaggio, Gehrig played four more seasons, and accordingly beats him in pretty much every counting stat. But he also has a higher batting average, on base percentage, and slugging percentage, and leads him in OPS+ 179 to 155. I don’t see how anyone can argue that Gehrig isn’t better than either of those two. I haven’t read any biographies of DiMaggio, but I don’t see how anything could vault him past Gehrig.

And one last note about Wagner: he was the last person I cut from the top level. It was between him and Gibson, and in the end I decided to give the Negro Leagues more representation there. He was probably the best middle infielder of all time (I have Robinson ahead of him for obvious reasons), and I consider him number 15.

Response to HOF comment

Wow, so much of what you said was wrong I don’t even know where to start. Branch Rickey was the most innovative, and probably the best, general manager in history. He put together the World Series winning Gashouse Gang in St. Louis, built the Boys of Summer World Champion team in Brooklyn, and laid the foundation for the Pirates’ 1960 title run. Not only that, but yeah, he built minor league baseball, broke the color barrier by playing Robinson, and drafted Roberto Clemente.

You criticize Rickey for being cheap, while failing to mention Mack’s reaction to the Federal League, which was basically him saying, “fuck it, I know I’ve been competing for World Series the last five years, but I don’t want to deal with this or pay any more for my players, they can all leave.” So his team sucked for a decade. Then they got good again in the late 20s, early 30s, and his ’30 team is one of the best ever, but after ’32 he stopped spending money and the A’s sucked until the left Philadelphia. I know he played a huge role in founding the American League, , and I tried to reflect the importance of that by ranking Ban Johnson and Charles Comiskey (especially Comiskey) higher than I otherwise would have.

As for having Landis ranked as high as I do, come on, he was the first commissioner of baseball. He pretty much created the office, and really brought the American and National Leagues together. Plus, he was able to guide the game through several huge challenges, like anti-trust lawsuits from the Federal League and gambling controversies involving some of the biggest players in the game, including Ty Cobb.

As for the catchers, there’s no way that Campanella should be higher than Gary Carter. Campanella may have been a better player, but he only played in 1200 games; he didn’t have the longevity to be put any higher. I know it’s not his fault, considering time spent in the Negro Leagues and time towards the end of his career he lost in the accident, but because of that I can’t put him any higher. You’re probably right about Dickey, though, he’s always been overshadowed by teammates like Gehrig and Dimaggio.

I’m comfortable with where I put Gibson, Seaver, and Feller. Gibson and Feller pitched about the same number of innings over their careers, 3884 and 3827. But Feller had a career ERA+ of 122, while Gibson’s was 127. They had a pretty substantial difference in WHIPs too, with Gibson putting up a 1.188 for his career, compared to the 1.316 for Feller. Also, and I understand that it’s a pretty small sample, but Feller’s postseason ERA was over 5, while Gibson’s was under 2. Seaver also had a great career, with an ERA+ of 127, WHIP of 1.121, and more than 3600 strikeouts. They all belong where I put them.

As for Mel Ott, come one, he’s easily one of the best outfielders of all time. He led the league in HRs six times, and was the first player in the NL to reach 500 career HRs. You say that he was helped out by playing in the Polo Grounds, but his career OPS+, a park adjusted stat, is 155, higher than Frank Robinson, and equal to Hank Aaron. He was great.

As for saying that Lou Gehrig doesn’t belong in the top tier, come on, he’s the best first baseman of all time. Two MVP awards, two second place finishes, and Offensive Win Percentage of .803, OPS+ of 179, he put up ridiculous numbers. He’s where he should be.

Hall of Fame

Bill Simmons had a podcast earlier this week where he mentioned that he wouldn't mind having the Hall of Fame being like a pyramid, with the most deserving players in the top level, and the more questionable inductions on the bottom. So I figured I would give it a shot, sorting the players into five levels. I chose to have 40% of the inductees in the bottom level, 25% in the fourth level, 20% in the third level, 10% in the second, and 5% in the top level. There are 289 people in the Hall of Fame, so the levels have 116, 72, 58, 29, and 14 people.

Some of this got pretty subjective, Rube Waddell is higher than he probably should be because he was the coolest person to ever play baseball, but I tried to be as objective as I could. Some of the Negro League players were tough, especially the group that was inducted in 2006, so I heavily weighed how cool the first handful of sentences on their Wikipedia page were. Builders and executives were tough too, so the more I knew about someone, the higher they got ranked. Anyway, if you disagree with any placements here, you're probably wrong. Well, here it is:

First Level - 14
Hank Aaron, Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig, Josh Gibson NL, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Satchel Paige NL, Branch Rickey, Jackie Robinson, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Cy Young

Second Level - 29
Grover Cleveland Alexander, Cool Papa Bell NL, Johnny Bench, Yogi Berra, Steve Carlton, Oscar Charleston NL, Eddie Collins, Joe DiMaggio, Jimmie Foxx, Bob Gibson, Lefty Gomez, Rickey Henderson, Rogers Hornsby, Monte Irvin NL, Ban Johnson, Sandy Koufax, Nap Lajoie, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Connie Mack, Mickey Mantle, John McGraw, Mel Ott, Frank Robinson, Mike Schmidt, Tom Seaver, Ozzie Smith, Warren Spahn, Tris Speaker, Honus Wagner

Third Level - 58
Cap Anson, Frank "Home Run" Baker, Ernie Banks, Wade Boggs, George Brett, Dan Brouthers, Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown, Jim Bunning Rod Carew, Gary Carter, Alexander Cartwright, John Clarkson, Roberto Clemente, Mickey Cochrane, Charles Comiskey, Roger Connor, Joe Cronin, George Davis, Dizzy Dean, Ed Delahanty, Martín Dihigo NL, Bobby Doerr, Carlton Fisk, Whitey Ford, Rube Foster NL, Frankie Frisch, Hank Greenberg, Lefty Grove, Tony Gwynn, Gabby Hartnett, Harry Heilmann, Cal Hubbard, Carl Hubbell, Reggie Jackson, Judy Johnson NL, Al Kaline, Chuck Klein, Buck Leonard NL, John Henry "Pop" Lloyd, NL, Eddie Mathews, Willie McCovey, Johnny Mize, Joe Morgan, Eddie Murray, Kid Nichols, Cal Ripken, Jr, Brooks Robinson, Nolan Ryan, George Sisler, Willie Stargell, Casey Stengel, Arky Vaughan, Rube Waddell, Ed Walsh, Paul Waner, Smokey Joe Williams NL, Hack Wilson, Carl Yastrzemski,

Fourth Level - 72
Sparky Anderson, Luke Appling, Dave Bancroft, Chief Bender, Lou Boudreau, Willard Brown NL, Roy Campanella, Henry Chadwick, Fred Clarke, Andy Cooper NL, Stan Coveleski, Sam Crawford, Ray Dandridge NL, Leon Day, Bill Dickey, Don Drysdale, Leo Durocher, Dennis Eckersley, Bob Feller, Rollie Fingers,Elmer Flick, Bill Foster NL, Ford Frick, Pud Galvin, Charlie Gehringer, Warren Giles, Clark Griffith, Billy Hamilton, Pete Hill NL, Ferguson Jenkins, Tim Keefe, Willie Keeler, King Kelly, Harmon Killebrew, Tommy Lasorda, Bob Lemon, Ted Lyons, Biz Mackey NL, Juan Marichal, Joe McCarthy, Bid McPhee, José Méndez NL, Paul Molitor, Hal Newhouser, Phil Niekro, Jim Palmer, Gaylord Perry, Eddie Plank, Cumberland Posey NL, Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn, Pee Wee Reese, Robin Roberts, Bullet Rogan NL, Red Ruffing, Amos Rusie, Frank Selee, Joe Sewell, Duke Snider, Albert Spalding, Turkey Stearnes NL, Bill Terry, Sam Thompson, Dazzy Vance, Bobby Wallace, Earl Weaver, Willie Wells NL, Sol White NL, Hoyt Wilhelm, J.L. Wilkinson NL, Dave Winfield, George Wright, Robin Yount

Fifth Level - 116

Walter Alston, Luis Aparicio, Richie Ashburn, Earl Averill, Al Barlick, Ed Barrow, Jake Beckley, Jim Bottomley, Roger Bresnahan, Lou Brock, Ray Brown NL, Morgan Bulkeley, Jesse Burkett, Max Carey, Orlando Cepeda, Frank Chance, Albert "Happy" Chandler, Jack Chesbro, Nestor Chylak, Jimmy Collins, Earle Combs, Jocko Conlan, Tommy Connolly, Candy Cummings, Kiki Cuyler, Larry Doby, Barney Dreyfuss, Hugh Duffy, Billy Evans, Johnny Evers, Buck Ewing, Red Faber, Rick Ferrell, Nellie Fox, Joe Gordon, Goose Goslin, Rich "Goose" Gossage, Frank Grant NL, Burleigh Grimes, Chick Hafey, Jesse Haines, Ned Hanlon, Will Harridge, Bucky Harris, Billy Herman, Harry Hooper, Waite Hoyt, William Hulbert, Catfish Hunter, Miller Huggins, Travis Jackson, Hughie Jennings, Addie Joss, George Kell, Joe Kelley, George Kelly, Bill Klem, Ralph Kiner, Bowie Kuhn, Tony Lazzeri, Freddie Lindstrom, Ernie Lombardi, Al Lopez, Larry MacPhail, Lee MacPhail, Effa Manley NL, Heinie Manush, Rabbit Maranville, Rube Marquard, Bill Mazeroski, Tommy McCarthy, Joe McGinnity, Bill McGowan, Bill McKechnie, Joe Medwick, Walter O'Malley, Jim O'Rourke, Herb Pennock, Tony Perez, Alex Pompez NL, Kirby Puckett, Jim Rice, Sam Rice, Eppa Rixey, Phil Rizzuto, Wilbert Robinson, Edd Roush, Ryne Sandberg, Louis Santop NL, Ray Schalk, Red Schoendienst, Al Simmons, Enos Slaughter, Hilton Smith NL, Billy Southworth, Bruce Sutter, Mule Suttles, NL, Don Sutton, Ben Taylor, NL, Joe Tinker, Cristóbal Torriente NL, Pie Traynor, Bill Veeck, Lloyd Waner, John Montgomery Ward, George Weiss, Mickey Welch, Zack Wheat, Billy Williams, Dick Williams, Vic Willis, Jud Wilson NL, Harry Wright, Early Wynn, Tom Yawkey, Ross Youngs

McGwire

Ok I'm not a baseball fanatic.  I think the regular season is too long, but the rest of the game is pretty darn good.  Cut off about 6 teams and I could really appreciate it.  Anyway, Mark McGwire.  Purists argue no way does he get the nod for the hall of fame.  It bothers me, because he brought the game back.  I don't care about the home run records.  And to be fair Babe Ruth didn't play against any black people or players south of florida.  So I give him the nod due to his impact on bringing baseball back.  If Sosa makes it in, because he "couldn't" speak english at the hearings I think I may be done giving a shit about the hall.  McGwire made baseball relevant, so baseball should reward him drugs or no drugs.   

Notes from the gambling underground

1)

The eagles need to hire a private investigator to find out if David Akers was point shaving. He misses a 45 yard kick, ok that's fine.  He misses an extra point without slipping, hmmm.  He boots his first kick off of the year out of bounds.  Kickers have a major say in over/unders and point spreads.  Now the final score may indicate that his blunders did not cost the eagles the game nor effect the total in any significant direction, but it needs to be discussed.  In addition after kicking the ball out of bounds he walked to the sideline, not angry, just head down, with andy reid yelling at him.  He didn't look up or at Reid, just straight to the bench.  Raised a red flag for me. 

2)

Ohio State - Illinois.  All I can say is this is why the casual bettor should never engage in over/unders.  It will cause you pain and suffering.  Needing just 5 points in the final 3 minutes of the game the buckeyes and Illini managed zero, to keep the game under last night.  That's right they scored zero points in the final 2:47.  Do yourself a favor and keep that in mind for every game you'll ever watch again and see if that repeats itself.

3)

Willis McGahee gets nailed.  Big hit, lights out, cart on the field.  Nobody brought up the fact it was an illegal helmet-to-helmet hit?  That's 15 yards.  Baltimore should have kept the ball and had a chance to score and cover.  Let's put it this way, if it had been Ben Roethlisburger scrambling around like a harley davidson riding a-hole and got popped by ed reed, the pittsburgh fans would have gotten their flag.  The referring in the playoffs has been awful.

A plea on behalf of humanity

Ok, so, zombies. I would be lying if I said that I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about a zombie attack. I have a plan for what to do and where to go if an outbreak happens. I’m looking forward to destroying staircases to thwart the undead. I even have a competition going with Dick to see who can kill more zombies. But there is one aspect I had never fully considered.

What if the zombies win? What if the outbreak happens too quickly, and spreads uncontrollably, and humanity can’t come back from it. In World War Z it gets close to that, but people are able to survive, with winter in the Rockies protecting them from zombies. Eventually, humans are able to push back across the continent, killing all the zombies in a well-coordinated, methodical approach.

But let’s say that nothing saves humans, and zombies bring about our extinction. The zombie race would then die off too, as zombies decompose and go unreplaced. The world would essentially be preserved, almost like a Pompeii without the ashes, as zombies have neither need nor desire for human contraptions.

Imagine if the world remains essentially untouched for centuries; sure, some things would break down, but so much of what we created isn’t biodegradable that the world would still essentially be a giant diorama of human life. So, being preserved in that state, what if an alien race lands on earth.

Seriously, what would alien historians think when they came to earth? Presumably, because in my mind aliens are all-powerful, they would be able to figure out what happened to all the people. But what would they think when they started studying human culture. Like, imagine if these aliens found the DVDs (and they would have the technology to play them, just go with this, please) for movies like 28 Weeks Later and Zombies vs. Vampires. They would have to think humans were the dumbest creatures ever. Like, we saw all this coming, we knew how to stop it, and still the zombies killed us all. Aliens would just laugh at us.

Humanity deserves better than that. So I’m pleading with everyone that reads this, both of you, prepare for a zombie uprising, not only so you survive, but so that aliens don’t think we’re really stupid. Thank you.

Back to Blogging

Here are a couple thoughts that I’ve had over what turned into a four-day weekend:

The big event, clearly, was the inauguration, and there are a couple things that have stuck with me about it.

First, is it just me, or have all the white talking heads pretty much decided that racism is over now? Um, that’s not their call. I guess it’s cool having a black President, but I’m more excited about having a smart President. Seriously, he even says “nuclear” correctly, this is thrilling.

Can we not call Obama the 44th President? He’s not, he’s the 43rd President, serving the 44th Presidency. Just because Grover Cleveland served nonconsecutive terms doesn’t make him the 22nd and 24th President. He’s just the 22nd President, and he also had the 24th Presidency. He’s not nearly an important enough President to have screwed up this numbering system so badly, let’s stop double counting him.

The worst thing about this inauguration is that it’s been completely dominating the news. It’s like nothing else is happening. Last week there were stories about methane-spewing organisms on Mars. This week, nothing fun. Well, Obama is in office now, let’s shift our focus back towards outer space. Thanks.

I watched SportsCenter this morning, and have been regretting it ever since. I don’t know who the anchor was, but she was terrible. She managed to screw up the pronunciation of Daniel Carcillo’s last name. Just say what’s there. And I don’t even want to get into how badly she and the other anchor were butchering “Luongo.”

Claude Lemieux played last night, and had a handful of hits and shots in about seven minutes of ice time. Whatever, I don’t think anyone is really expecting much from him in the regular season, but he’s a monster in April and May. Seriously, he scored more goals in the playoffs than he scored in the regular season three times. February 25th should be a good time though, Sharks at Redwings.

Ryan Howard wants $18 million, the Phillies are offering $14 million, and this arbitration hearing could get ugly. He’s going to talk about the ridiculous RBI totals he put up, which is dumb, but it will sway the arbiter. He isn’t worth more than Chase Utley; if San Francisco would give us Matt Cain and Buster Posey for him, I would make that trade in a heartbeat. I’d probably do it just for Cain. I wish I had a baseball team to run.

The kid that sits in the row in front of me has been wearing Ravens stuff pretty consistently this year. Today? Orioles hat. I can’t wait for opening day.

I still have trouble wrapping my head around contracts being represented by the letter K. Why not C? Or even some Greek letter? K is a bad choice.

I want to have solar systems named after me. Lots of them, like how a ton of cities were named after Alexander the Great. I have a plan for that too, and I think it’s going to work. Once it gets further along I’ll disclose more details. It’s brilliant, trust me.

Finally, if you find yourself bored for like ten minutes, look up the text for Daniel Webster’s Second Reply to Hayne, it’s a great speech.

When nursery rhymes get racist

I don't consider myself to be a racist. I teach 130 inner-city students on a daily basis, so even if I am a racist I'll have a serious race card to throw back at your accusation.

That being said, what the fuck was that at the end of Rev. Lowry's Benediction today during the Inaugural Ceremony? I've italicized the part I found particularly distasteful:

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around ... when yellow will be mellow ... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.

So, first and foremost - - what's with the rhyming? This is the inauguration of the President of the United States of America and you're reciting sing-songy rhymes?

Furthermore, this is the inauguration of the first black president (in case you haven't heard) and the benediction is being read by a Civil Rights leader who worked with Dr. Martin Luther King. This is the best you have? MLK had a dream and you have thinly-veiled, racially charged nursery rhymes?

And finally, let's paraphrase the part in italics to really drive this point home.

When black will not be asked to get in the back - - absolutely. Great point. I'll be bold and tell you that I think separate but equal is just plain wrong. But I think we dealt with this from a legal standpoint decades ago. Not saying everything's cool now, but I don't think we still ask black to get in the back do we?

When brown can stick around - - I'm not really sure I get this. I'm guessing this might mean let's stop deporting illegal Mexican immigrants? Either way, that sounds like a bad idea and you hurt your meaning by forcing the rhyme.

When yellow will be mellow - - are we somehow forcing Asian people to stress out? Are they forcing themselves? Why do they need to mellow out? Have they gotten too worried about bird flu? Does global warming seem all too menacing? Are they worried Jack Bauer is coming back for them? What's wrong with the Asians?!

When the red man can get ahead man - - not a bad point. We probably still owe the "red men" (please don't tell the NCAA I just said that). But I still owe Mohegan Sun. Let's call it even.

And when white will embrace what is right - - Oh of course! It's alright guys, we're gonna pin this one of the white people, continue to go about your business. Nothing to see here! And what's with the phrasing? How come every other color is getting a leg up here from the Almighty and whites get stuck with another boring responsibility?

This seems like rhymey bullshit to me.

Commemorate This

Who decided that plates and coins were the way to shamefully profit from, er, excuse me, I mean 'commemorate' historical events? With the inauguration at hand, the National Historical Society has been advertising its Obama flatware. I have to wonder, why a plate? It's never going to be used as a plate. Food will never be served on it and it will never be stacked in a cabinet or tossed in the dishwasher. It's an awkwardly shaped, three dimensional picture, one that can't be hung on a wall without a special mount.

Money makes even less sense to me. Especially when it's ugly, over sized, "official Liberian currency" that celebrates the eighth anniversary of the September 11th tragedy. Seriously? Who the hell wants Liberian currency? Do Liberians even want Liberian currency? I bet they'd rather have Euros. And why would anyone want to buy what is essentially a 9/11 trading card? Honor the date and remember those that were affected by its events, but don't buy a World Trade Center flattened penny. It was a national tragedy, not a family vacation to Cape Cod.

So here is a short list of emblazoned and etched items I would like to see people hawking on day time TV instead of plates that aren't plates and money that isn't money. You know, things that people might actually want.

1. Plaques. Plaques just make more sense than plates and look a lot better when placed on shelves.

2 Beer Steins/Mugs. I guarantee these would see more use than Liberian currency and would definitely come in handy when toasting the new president.

3. Busts. Nothing says class like a bust on a book shelf. Why limit yourself to choosing between Ludwig Von Beethoven and Homer?

4. Cigars. Sure, the cigars are one-time-use only, but they would come in a kick ass presidential humidor.

5. Ceremonial Swords. On a day to day basis, probably about as useful as a plate or a coin, but a hell of a lot cooler to hang on your office wall. Also, you have the option of repelling ninja invaders.

Wow

I've never seen 3 movies in a day before, but yesterday I did just that.  1 all-timer, 1 great, 1 awful. The Wrestler.  Gran Torino. Paul Blart : Mall Cop.   I can't remember seeing a limited cast perform so well in all my life.  And I hate wrestling, shit was perfect.  Also if you want to see a movie that lives up to Jack Bauer, see Taken.  Also what's the rule on guys crying during movies, is it totally ruled out, only ok if we say later it was something in our eyes, or can you just cry and say fuck off or I'll drown you in my emotions bitch?  

I'll shoot your eye out

To start, let’s make one thing very clear: I’m all for ridiculing stupid children. People do dumb things all the time, and I usually end up thinking less of them for it. I’ve never really differentiated between children and adults, because most adults are just as dumb as children. But there’s a line between ridiculing a kid for doing something dumb and writing an article about it for some news channel’s website. That’s unnecessary.

Here’s the story, which I found at Keith Law's site: to summarize, a ten-year-old boy, on a dare, licked a frozen light pole. His tongue got stuck, and ambulance came, and the boy pulled his tongue off with a little bleeding. And, unfortunately, this all happened in the town that the town in A Christmas Story was based on.

Yeah, that this kid did this was pretty stupid. But seriously, why did someone decide that this was worthy of being reported as real news? Israelis are Palestinians are blowing each other up, a new President is being inaugurated in less than a week, Russia is probably doing something badass right now, and WKYC is reporting on a kid licking a light pole. Fuck them, that’s like the most base, common denominator garbage imaginable.

Of course, this article is listed in the Watercooler section of the site. Are they suggesting that working adults should stand around making fun of a ten year old? Is that what working people do, like is that regular practice? I mean, not to be a dick, but maybe if people in Cleveland focused more on their jobs and less on dumb kids licking light poles I wouldn’t have had to hear for months about how shitty Ohio’s economy is.

Also, here’s a unrelated bit of stupidity from between Contracts and Civil Procedure. Speaking about a kid who’s been absent all week, a dumbass, completely seriously, said, “What if Chavez was never here? What if he’s just a figment of our imagination?” Yeah, that’s more likely than him being sick.

EDIT: The Chicago Tribune has picked up this story now. I'm pretty sure it's decisions like this that have forced them to file for bankruptcy.

Questions being answered

So the other day I was wondering about what Kevin Pittsnogle is doing now. And, because the universe invariably bends to my will, the New York Times answered me. If you're curious, here's the story.

Also, completely unrelated, but is there a more clear harbinger of a bad day when you turn on Saved by the Bell before leaving for class and get stuck with The College Years?

Hail to the Chief, he's the Chief and he needs hailing...

I didn't watch President Bush's speech last night, Dick Gerber the striker was too busy taking an MLS team into the Championship in FIFA '09. But I did read it this morning.

I don't really want to talk about the speech. I'm sick of it all, and it's far too early in the morning for partisanship - - but something needs to be said about this line:

You may not agree with some tough decisions I have made. But I hope you can agree that I was willing to make the tough decisions.

This is fantastic! Let's paraphrase: I may have messed up when I did things, but I definitely didn't stop doing things. I wish this logic worked for me in my life.

Principal: Mr. Gerber every single one of your students failed!
Me: Why yes, yes they did. But you can't say I wasn't willing to have kids fail.

Girlfriend: Dick, you can't get your dick up.
Me: Well would you look at that! You're right! But you can't say I wasn't willing to lie here flaccid.

Stranger: Excuse me sir, did you just kick that homeless woman?
Me: You got me! But you can't say that I wasn't willing to kick the homeless for the betterment of the American people.

Gary Sheffield, Coopertown, Slidepiece

Keith Law chat on ESPN.com today, and it's been pretty good so far, albeit with not that much about literature. Some assholes had to get argumentative about how RBI was a great stat (it's not), and how some players are better than others at hitting with RISP (they're not; hitting w/ RISP isn't a special skill). Anyway, someone sent this in, and it was objectively awesome, and I had to throw it up here:

JM (Cincy): You make no sense. A guy who is able to concetrate in big spots will have more RBI's consistently. Guys like Eckstein and Erstad come to mind. Not great stats but come up big in the clutch.

That's just perfect; he pretty much captured 2/3rds of everything Joe Morgan has ever said about baseball in four sentences. Unless, of course, this is actually Joe Morgan, but I can't imagine him reading KLAW chats. JoeChats are going to be pretty saddening next season.

Triple-stranded DNA

Between classes today I was talking with some people about what I had just written, mostly zombies, and we started talking about other ways the world might end. Joe brought up triple-stranded DNA, and how that could be pretty crazy.

Triple-stranded DNA has a wikipedia page, but there were very few words there that I understood. And anyway, it’s more fun to speculate about it without being constrained by what is actually scientifically possible.

So if scientists figure out how this all works, what could they do? I have nothing to back this up, but I’m pretty sure they could make some pretty crazy animals. With an extra strand of DNA, they could probably give these alien animals like superpowers or something. They could probably figure out how to throw like telekinesis or something weird like that onto the third strand. I don’t know if they would have to make entirely new animals to take advantage of this, or if they could take a current animal’s DNA, add another helix full of special powers, and create like a super giraffe. That would be sweet.

But I think that the greatest potential here is if scientists start giving a third helix to human DNA. If they start doing this, I would volunteer to have my DNA amplified. I’m sure there would be risks all over the place, but the rewards would totally balance it out. Like, what if a third DNA strand gives me superpowers like the Force? That would be incredible, even if I didn’t get a lightsaber too. Though if it were available, I would want a lightsaber as well.

I think the key here, and, again, no science supports this belief, is nanotechnology. We need to make these little robots, because that’s probably the best way to graft a third strand onto all of my DNA. Imagine if it were that simple. Like, you just swallow a couple of nanobot pills, and they go through your body like a molecular black ops team amplifying your DNA. And then like twenty minutes later you can move things with your mind and baffle stormtroopers. Who wouldn’t want to do this?

Seriously, science is pretty much the coolest; there are so many possibilities for weird shit that they can do, and I really want to see something crazy happen.

Apocalypse when?

I just finished reading Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road, and it was one of the best books I’ve ever read, probably on a level with Confederacy of Dunces, even though those books couldn’t be more dissimilar. Anyway, allusions are made to the event that devastated the world, and the whole plot flows from it, but McCarthy never says exactly what happened. So for the past couple days this has gotten me to think about the apocalypse, probably more than I should, and I’ve put together a list of the top five cataclysms that, if they ended the world, probably wouldn’t upset me too much.

5. Yellowstone Volcano
Yeah, so evidently there’s a huge volcano sitting underneath Yellowstone National Park. Who knew? It doesn’t look like a typical volcano, like Vesuvius or anything, but apparently it’s really powerful. Recent earthquakes have started to make scientists a little nervous that it might be getting ready to erupt. You wouldn’t think that a single volcano could end all life on earth, but since some scientists believe that volcanic eruptions killed off the dinosaurs, I wouldn’t call it impossible. I don’t know why, but this just seems cool to me. I’m weird.

4. Rapture/Tribulation
I’m ok with this happening because I won’t be around to have to deal with it; God is going to bring me up to Heaven with Him, and all you suckers are going to be left behind. Then, as if that’s not bad enough, you’ll have to deal with the tribulation: seven years during which the Anti-Christ rules on earth. So I’ll be learning how to play the harp while you suckers are dealing with the combined wrath of God and the Anti-Christ. So there’s that.

3. Ice Age
Climatically, we’re apparently in an interglacial period, ten or twelve thousand years that sort of serve as a respite from the unrelenting cold of an ice age. Worst of all, we’re towards the end of that period. So pretty much at any time, we really have no way of pinpointing when, it’s going to get really cold. As temperatures plummet, crops will die, and animals too. Glaciers will come south as mountains of snow accumulate; it may get so bad that life could only exist in the oceans. That would suck, but the global warming irony might make it worthwhile.

2. Mayans
So the Mayans think the world is going to end on December 21, 2012, or something like that. I actually changed my mind about this, it’s about as dumb as Nostradamus. The Mayans are all dead now, so they clearly weren’t that smart.

1. Zombies
This is clearly the most likely manner by which humanity will cease to exist on Earth. For years the government has been covering up zombie uprisings, and so far they have done a good job. This can’t go on forever though; eventually an outbreak is going to happen too fast, and become too widespread too quickly, that the government will be powerless. Things will spiral out of control, as the number of zombies increases exponentially, and humans decrease in turn. It’s going to get ugly, but at least I’ll be ready. I really want to kill zombies. And if I have to die, I want to be killed by a zombie. Just remember, when this happens, destroy the brain, it’s the only way to kill a zombie.

Great moments from the gambling underground

I'll try and jump back into this blog with a weekly installment.  Much like "successful" people who stand in front of their flat screens at 7am with a cup of coffee watching the Nikkei close and the commodities fluctuate, I spend my late nights watching WCC and Pac-10 basketball and take notes.  Not notes in a book more like angry notes stored inside me.  So here are my big 3 from the past week.

1)

Undoubtedly the 15-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct has become a game changer.  And without going into a racial diatribe the fact is this; During the national title game numerous black players were flagged for unsportsmanlike, while Tim Tebow was allowed to yell, scream, jump up and down and taunt opposing players.  This goes beyond my dislike for him, this is truly unfair.

2)

Do not, I repeat do not put Notre Dame past your elite eight.  Great power forward, point guard, and three point shooters, but an awful coach.  My pet peeve?   When a team has the ball with a chance to win the game with the shot clock unplugged and do not get a shot off.  Notre Dame did just that last night against Louisville.  Literally a fan in the crowd could have drawn up a better play then stall for 15 seconds and dive into the lane and turn it over.  

3)

The NFL playoffs.  This is the second consecutive year I'm in a position to lose money on the playoffs, because the wildcard teams are killing.  So a friendly reminder to everyone who disagreed with me that Tennessee and New York were the worst 1-2 teams in the history of the NFL.  If you can't score you can't win, I don't give a shit who you have on defense.  With that being said I like a turnpike super bowl Pittsburgh-Philadelphia.  If you have any friends who are fans of either of these teams I suggest offering them a large sum of money to not talk about their teams over the next two weeks or just end the friendship with a cheap shot to the back of the head with a skillet.  

Competition for my first $200k

For a while now I’ve been pretty adamant that as soon as I had a free two hundred thousand dollars I would send it all to Richard Branson for a ticket on his Virgin Galactic spaceship. I’ve been almost as certain that my next 200k would go the same way; if I go to space once, I’m pretty certain I would like to go back. This plan was pretty much unshakable, until yesterday I read this article.

Yeah, that’s a flying car. And yeah, it is that cool. Alright, so it doesn’t hover or anything like that, but still, it’s a car, until you flip a switch and some wings come down, making it an airplane.

I don’t know how much space it needs to take off or land, and it’s not legal to do that on roads, but I don’t care. If I had a flying car, I would figure something out, there’s no doubt in my mind.

There is so much that you could do if you owned a flying car. I suppose to some avoiding traffic would be a nice benefit, but that’s not thinking big enough. If I had a flying car I would want to drive and fly across Siberia. I don’t really know why, it actually is probably a terrible idea, but it just seems like something I would have to do if I owned a flying car. It’d be a pretty impressive accomplishment, I suppose. And seriously, I would have a flying car, so why not?

So this thing isn’t for sale yet, and I don’t have $200k, and I may still choose to go to space instead, but this is still pretty sweet.

Blagging

My colleagues here at Suffering Idiots have recently brought to my attention the fact that I have been lagging in my blogging as of late... blagging if you will. This got me to wondering: what exactly would I have to do to be fired from a job where I don't clock in, don't get paid, and don't even have to bathe regularly? Allow me to hypothesize.

1. I could use this forum as a platform to launch my own personal agenda counter to the agenda of Suffering Idiots.

Now, since just about anything goes here (as our two and a half regular readers must know), it would have to be something beyond 'Jesus is the bee's knees.' Beyond 'Country music is vastly superior to all other forms of music for these one hundred and fifty-two surprisingly specific reasons.' Beyond even 'Jews are controlling the media by trading foreskin snippets to their alien overlords in exchange for access to secret government satellites that Beyonce built with the prototype of that robotic hand she had built for 'Single Ladies.''

2. I could personally insult each and every contributing member of Suffering Idiots.

Sure, I could tell everyone that Gimpy beats off to 'Walker: Texas Ranger' fan fiction. I could mention in one of my posts that Dick Gerber is some strange combination of chocoholic and megalomaniac who is compelled to eat his own likeness constructed from Cadbury Eggs every night and then purge on the garden beds of those who have slighted him, but I value this little corner of the internet too damn much. And, quite frankly, it would just be below me to claim that Quip and Bernard have an off and on relationship of a Biblical, Websterian, Necronomical, Encyclopedic, and Craigslistonian nature.

3. I could neglect my duties to Suffering Idiots to the extent that it has become detrimental to the blog.

This is a tricky one because I can't simply not post. I have to not post to the point where my name on the side of the web page becomes simultaneously confusing and enraging to our readers. "How dare that Winston Driftwood keep his name on the masthead without posting anything since the week of Suffering Idiots' inception? I've been a loyal reader of this fine site for the past 32 years, damnit!" (Self-fulfilling prophecy anyone? hmm?) I would have to become a vacuum of creative non-existence, funneling attention away from my more diligent co-contributors through inaction. I think I just might be up to this non-task if I didn't put my mind to it and double-negatived my way out of this heading with no discernible segue or ending...

Believe it or not, this is my apology post. Not to my fellow Idiots (they're a bunch of Jew-alien kotowing chronic masturbators) but to you, the reader, who has no doubt been pining for my literary presence. I resolve to be a better Idiot in 2009.

Things I passed driving through Illinois this weekend

My sincerest apologies to, well most likely no one, for not posting for sometime and therein not providing you with things to not read what I haven't posted, which thereby failed to pique your interest. I just made myself dizzy.

A quick bulleted list of things I past by, through, and around whilst I romped across the land of Lincoln:

-Speaking of Lincoln, I stopped in Vandalia the home of the former Illinois State Capitol, where I was emancipated from my hunger by one of the more delicious Sonics I've visited

-Mattoon, IL: home to famed writer and Suffering Idiot's hero Will Leitch (I can only assume my existence as a talisman of the New York Giants was compromised by this locale and its saturation in all things Buzzsaw)

-A vanity plate: GSUSNME (it might help you decipher that if you know that the bumper of the accompanying vehicle was peppered with eight biblical bumper stickers)

-Effingham, Illinois. Apparently named after Edward Effingham from England. I think it was named after the first newlywed bride to honeymoon there. "Oh yeah, the honeymoon is going great! I'm crazy about effing him!"

-Effingham also has a giant cross made out of aluminum siding at the intersection of 3 major highways. Read that again. If that doesn't inspire you to be saved while you're trucking across country, then your ass was destined to burn.

-A man. And not like passed a man who was standing on the side of the road, or I passed a giant picture of a car salesman on a billboard. No, I passed a man while I was in the fast lane. And I passed him by less than 3 feet. He was sprinting across the highway and he was not leaving himself much room for error. Guesses as to what the fuck was going on abound.

-I passed (or rather did not pass for 5 fucking miles!) two identical trucks traveling at exactly the same speed directly next to each other on a two lane highway. After I confirmed that I was not in the Matrix, I screamed like a kamikaze pilot until a blood vessel popped and the truck in the "fast" lane finally passed the other.

-And finally my favorite: all along I-57N there are sing-songy rhymes on the side of the road with each of the lines spaced out about 100 feet from the one before and after it. Creates a pretty nice cadence really. The topic of the nursery rhymes? Our beloved 2nd amendment, of course! Unfortunately, their website is down so their rhymes are currently inaccessible, but you can find their latest print issues in .pdf format there. It's soul-shakingly scary.

Check out the lead story in December 2008 detailing how there's a run on gun shops due to a democratic government and the imminent imposition of the government on the rights of good, hard-working Americans to cause accidental and purposeful deaths. Cheers!

Probably the first of many

So I'm reading Jon Meachem's new autobiography/hagiography of Andrew Jackson, and it's really good. I wish I were further into it, but it takes a while to absorb so much awesomeness. Also, torts. A lot of stories about Jackson are fairly well known: his duels, attacking a would-be assassin, and the Battle of New Orleans. Some of them, however, are interesting and pretty unknown, at least to me, so I figured I would share some of them. Maybe turn it into a recurring feature, because Andrew Jackson is just that cool. If you disagre, you're wrong.

This first one, the one that prompted this whole idea, isn't actually about Jackson, but a member of Congress from while he was President, and Martin Van Buren's VP, Colonel Richard M. Johnson. For one, Johnson claimed that he personally killed Tecumseh during the War of 1812, making him either a badass or delusional. Either would be cool. He was also kind of a dick.

At various times in his life, Johnson had common law marriages with three different slaves of his. The first died in a cholera epidemic, not an especially uncommon occurence in the first half of the nineteenth century. The second, however, was a pretty hilarious case. This wife/slave was unfaithful to Johnson. Rather than handle this maturely, Johnson took an alternative route: he sold her and got with her sister.

It's stories like this that make me wonder how anyone can say that they don't like history. There's so much crazy stuff going on that it's impossible to find something you don't like.

Fred Barnes: Mildly Retarded?

He sure is making the case that he is, in this, er, defense of Bush's presidency. Yeah, I read an article from the Weekly Standard. I knew it was a bad idea, and I did it anyway. Consider this my penance:

The postmortems on the presidency of George W. Bush are all wrong. The liberal line is that Bush dangerously weakened America's position in the world and rushed to the aid of the rich and powerful as income inequality worsened.

Meh, sounds about right to me.

That is twaddle.

So’s your face!

Conservatives--okay, not all of them--have only been a little bit kinder. They give Bush credit for the surge that saved Iraq, but not for much else.

Wow, I guess Bush was finally able to forge a consensus between the left and right. They agree he sucked.

He deserves better. His presidency was far more successful than not. And there's an aspect of his decision-making that merits special recognition: his courage.

Well, I guess he’s agile. That’s pretty cool. Does that count as a success?

Time and time again, Bush did what other presidents, even Ronald Reagan, would not have done and for which he was vilified and abused. That--defiantly doing the right thing--is what distinguished his presidency.

Doing things that other Presidents wouldn’t have done does not make him a good President. It probably makes him a bad President. If Presidents like Jackson or Washington or FDR or (fine) even Reagan wouldn’t do something, it probably isn’t a good idea.

Bush had ten great achievements (and maybe more) in his eight years in the White House, starting with his decision in 2001 to jettison the Kyoto global warming treaty so loved by Al Gore, the environmental lobby, elite opinion, and Europeans. The treaty was a disaster, with India and China exempted and economic decline the certain result. Everyone knew it. But only Bush said so and acted accordingly.

Well, I can’t argue with this one, agreeing to the Kyoto Accords would have been a terrible idea, it was pretty much just a bunch of countries coming together and saying “fuck you, America.” But he didn’t go far enough; yeah, he didn’t join Kyoto, but he didn’t do anything else. For rejecting Kyoto to be ruled a success, he would have needed to follow it up with something else, some other, better, environmental agreement. But he didn’t.

He stood athwart mounting global warming hysteria and yelled, "Stop!" He slowed the movement toward a policy blunder of worldwide impact, providing time for facts to catch up with the dubious claims of alarmists. Thanks in part to Bush, the supposed consensus of scientists on global warming has now collapsed. The skeptics, who point to global cooling over the past decade, are now heard loud and clear. And a rational approach to the theory of manmade global warming is possible.

And I guess this is why: he still doesn’t believe in global warming. You know who else doesn’t believe in global warming? The Russians. Some Russian scientists are claiming that we’re actually about to enter another ice age, pointing to how cyclical that has been. But, um, Russian scientists tried to make a human-ape chimera, so, well, fuck them.

Second, enhanced interrogation of terrorists. Along with use of secret prisons and wireless eavesdropping, this saved American lives. How many thousands of lives? We'll never know. But, as Charles Krauthammer said recently, "Those are precisely the elements which kept us safe and which have prevented a second attack."

I’m pretty much ok with the secret prisons and the humiliation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Seriously, fuck those guys. But domestic wiretapping? That’s such a ridiculous violation of civil liberties I can’t imagine anyone calling it a success. We can’t just ignore things like the Bill of Rights; the Taliban didn’t have a Bill of Rights either, and they’re not the best government role model.

Crucial intelligence was obtained from captured al Qaeda leaders, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, with the help of waterboarding. Whether this tactic--it creates a drowning sensation--is torture is a matter of debate. John McCain and many Democrats say it is. Bush and Vice President Cheney insist it isn't.

I don’t really care about whether waterboarding is torture or not, but just looking at who believes it is, and who says it isn’t, I’m inclined to say that it just might be. Seriously, I think you could be a pretty good person if you lived your entire life doing the opposite of what Dick Cheney would do, almost like the Costanza Method.

In any case, it was necessary. Lincoln once made a similar point in defending his suspension of habeas corpus in direct defiance of Chief Justice Roger Taney. "Are all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?" Lincoln asked. Bush understood the answer in wartime had to be no.

I think the biggest difference between the two was that Lincoln regretted the suspension, while Bush reveled in it.

Bush's third achievement was the rebuilding of presidential authority, badly degraded in the era of Vietnam, Watergate, and Bill Clinton. He didn't hesitate to conduct wireless surveillance of terrorists without getting a federal judge's okay. He decided on his own how to treat terrorists and where they should be imprisoned. Those were legitimate decisions for which the president, as commander in chief, should feel no need to apologize.

Where Bush didn’t do enough with Kyoto, here he went too far. A strong executive branch is important, but Bush crippled the other two branches, destroying the system of checks and balances that is so important to this form of government. And that was shown to be a terrible thing with the wiretapping. Bush didn’t only decide how to treat terrorists, he also decided who was a terrorist, and that was overstepping his authority.

Defending, all the way to the Supreme Court, Cheney's refusal to disclose to Congress the names of people he'd consulted on energy policy was also enormously important. Democratic congressman Henry Waxman demanded the names, but the Court upheld Cheney, 7-2. Last week, Cheney defended his refusal, waspishly noting that Waxman "doesn't call me up and tell me who he's meeting with."

Seriously, are there more than like five people in the country that don’t think Dick Cheney is an asshole?

Achievement number four was Bush's unswerving support for Israel. Reagan was once deemed Israel's best friend in the White House. Now Bush can claim the title. He ostracized Yasser Arafat as an impediment to peace in the Middle East. This infuriated the anti-Israel forces in Europe, the Third World, and the United Nations, and was criticized by champions of the "peace process" here at home. Bush was right.

I have no problem with supporting Israel, and they’re really in a shitty situation, but unswerving? I don’t think it’s a good thing to turn a blind eye to whatever Israel does; if we’re going to support them, there should be some accountability.

He was clever in his support. Bush announced that Ariel Sharon should withdraw the tanks he'd sent into the West Bank in 2002, then exerted zero pressure on Sharon to do so. And he backed the wall along Israel's eastern border without endorsing it as an official boundary, while knowing full well that it might eventually become exactly that. He was a loyal friend.

How is this good? It seems like Sharon just did whatever the hell he felt like. That sure makes the US look good.

His fifth success was No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the education reform bill cosponsored by America's most prominent liberal Democratic senator Edward Kennedy. The teachers' unions, school boards, the education establishment, conservatives adamant about local control of schools--they all loathed the measure and still do. It requires two things they ardently oppose, mandatory testing and accountability.

If all these groups are against it, groups that are often opposed, maybe it’s not the best measure.

Kennedy later turned against NCLB, saying Bush is shortchanging the program. In truth, federal education spending is at record levels. Another complaint is that it forces teachers to "teach to the test." The tests are on math and reading. They are tests worth teaching to.

Seriously, as an idea, it’s fine, but you can’t say that it hasn’t been underfunded. We may be spending more on education at a federal level than ever before, but what about local levels? This is just misdirection on the part of some neocon dipshit trying to rescue Bush’s legacy. NCLB clearly isn’t working; yeah, we’re testing math and reading, but kids aren’t exactly doing well on those tests. Seriously, kids are pretty stupid. This isn’t working.

Sixth, Bush declared in his second inaugural address in 2005 that American foreign policy (at least his) would henceforth focus on promoting democracy around the world. This put him squarely in the Reagan camp, but he was lambasted as unrealistic, impractical, and a tool of wily neoconservatives. The new policy gave Bush credibility in pressing for democracy in the former Soviet republics and Middle East and in zinging various dictators and kleptocrats. It will do the same for President Obama, if he's wise enough to hang onto it.

I’m sure this would be great if it weren’t a lie. While on the one hand Bush is supporting democracy in Georgia, he seems pretty content in dealing with a regressive monarchy in Saudi Arabia. It’s all about money, government type is irrelevant.

The seventh achievement is the Medicare prescription drug benefit, enacted in 2003. It's not only wildly popular; it has cost less than expected by triggering competition among drug companies. Conservatives have deep reservations about the program. But they shouldn't have been surprised. Bush advocated the drug benefit in the 2000 campaign. And if he hadn't acted, Democrats would have, with a much less attractive result.

I’m not gonna lie, I don’t know anything about this. But you have to love the partisan hackery of assuming that Democrats would do a worse job.

Then there were John Roberts and Sam Alito. In putting them on the Supreme Court and naming Roberts chief justice, Bush achieved what had eluded Richard Nixon, Reagan, and his own father. Roberts and Alito made the Court indisputably more conservative. And the good news is Roberts, 53, and Alito, 58, should be justices for decades to come.

Ugh, I guess Bush and his acolytes would view this as a success. I think it’s more nauseating, especially Alito.

Bush's ninth achievement has been widely ignored. He strengthened relations with east Asian democracies (Japan, South Korea, Australia) without causing a rift with China. On top of that, he forged strong ties with India. An important factor was their common enemy, Islamic jihadists. After 9/11, Bush made the most of this, and Indian leaders were receptive. His state dinner for Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh in 2006 was a lovefest.

Um, the US already had strong ties with all those countries. And Bush made things a hell of a lot worse with North Korea, and made Pakistan dangerously unstable. But I’m sure that was a hell of a dinner.

Finally, a no-brainer: the surge. Bush prompted nearly unanimous disapproval in January 2007 when he announced he was sending more troops to Iraq and adopting a new counterinsurgency strategy. His opponents initially included the State Department, the Pentagon, most of Congress, the media, the foreign policy establishment, indeed the whole world. This makes his decision a profile in courage. Best of all, the surge worked. Iraq is now a fragile but functioning democracy.

Um, the surge wouldn’t have even been necessary if he hadn’t fabricated reasons for going to war, and then completely botched everything that came after steamrolling the Iraqi army. Basically, Bush fucked up hardcore, repeatedly, and then did something well that brought us back to where we would have been if he had only fucked up hardcore a few times, and this guy is congratulating him for it.

How does Bush rank as a president? We won't know until he's judged from the perspective of two or three decades. Hindsight forced a sharp upgrading of the presidencies of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. Given his achievements, it may have the same effect for Bush.

Um, yeah, I guess hindsight is important, but if I were to guess, I would say he’s going to find himself in the company of Buchanan and Hoover, regardless of how many apologies Fred Barnes writes.

Gimmick says something dumb

Joe the Plumber is currently in Gaza reporting on the nonsense going on over there for some website, if you care enough you can look it up, I'm afraid it will make me dumber. Anyway, Joe decided that he would be fun to show how little self-awareness he has by saying, “I think media should be abolished from, you know, reporting,” Not in general, just about war. So yeah, Joe, who someone managed to join the media and report about a war in Israel, thinks that the media shouldn't report on war. Somehow I doubt, however, that he's going to do as he says, go home, and just fade into the background. Fuck him.

The Weekly Standard has an article up now about Bush's ten greatest achievements; that will be up FJMed later.

Bring on the Buzzsaw

I don't really have all that much to say, I'm happy that the Eagles won, but terribly disappointed that Tebow is going back for his senior season. Anyway, here's part of a conversation I had this weekend:

- What do you think Kevin Pittsnogle is up to now?
- He's probably wasted.

Yeah, he probably is.

Viva la Moa

You severely underestimated how much those bad boys need to be brought back.

They are essentially wingless ostriches the size of giraffes, and if that doesn't sound cool enough to you already, then you, my friend, are a philistine.

But I think the coolest part about Moa are how they became extinct.  They were no indigenous mammals to New Zealand before the Maori showed up, and since the Moa were the BMOCs of the island, they never had any predators.  The Maori soon learned that Moa meat was about the most delicious thing this earthly side of ambrosia and ate their fill of it.  So much so, that when the Moa would herd in low valleys, the entire flock would be exterminated before any of them had the good sense to run away.  More often than not, most of the meat would spoil before the Maori could eat all of it.

Why have I lectured you for so long on the history of the Moa?  Think about it this way - - assume that we now have an infinite supply of Moa.  Remember then, that we currently have places where you can shoot flightless pheasant for a small fee (see also: Dick Cheney shooting a man in the face).

Make the logical jump here...

Pay-per shot Moa hunting!  No one out there can tell me that this isn't a great idea.  Have you ever taken down an 8 foot tall creature before with an elephant gun?  No, you haven't - - stop lying.

Perhaps this is antithetical to the purpose behind bringing back extinct creatures, but I'm a sucker for a cash cow.

Don't Hate the Player...

I just watched the Tuck Rule game from the 2002 AFC divisional round on NFL Films Greatest Games.  I imagine I don't need to say much about the game; it's pretty infamous.  I hate the Pats and am indifferent to Jon Gruden, but it's a hell of a game to watch.

Right up until the end.  In this particular rehashing of the game, NFL films spent a lot of time getting reaction comments from the players involved, and one of them made me fly off the handle.

Eric Allen, then Raiders cornerback, argued something like (and I'm paraphrasing here) when you battle the game out for four corners in the cold and snow, and then you send an important, game-changing decision like that upstairs, to people who've ever played the game, sitting in their air-conditioned booth, away from the field that's just wrong.  It makes me so angry I could puke right on your head, sir!

This is moronic.  You decided to play the game!  This ruling about the tuck being an incomplete pass was not a new rule!  In fact, it cost that same Patriots team a win earlier in the year when Vinny Testaverde did the exact same thing Brady did.

And don't argue against instant replay: that wasn't new either.  Instant replay was instituted prior to the start of the 1999 season.  No surprises that in the AFC Divisional Round a very close call would automatically go to the booth with less than 2 minutes remaining.

Arguing that going to replay was imprudent is fucking pathetic.  It's the exact same thing the Gore camp pathetically argued about the Electoral College when they lost.  It's tantamount to complaining your controller is broken when you clearly just suck at Madden or FIFA.

Am I going too far to equate this to the Dred Scott ruling?  "Not only are you not not free right now, D-Scott, you don't even have a right to be in this court right now, homeslice.  You lose.  Twice."

Grow up, Eric Allen.  Don't hate the player, hate the game.

My Hall of Fame ballot

Through some clerical oversight, I have not yet been made a member of the BBWAA. However, if I had been admitted fifteen years ago, as I contend I should have been, I would be voting on Hall of Fame admittance this year. So here’s how I would vote, if I could.

Ricky Henderson

This one is obvious enough that no explanation is necessary.

Bert Blyleven

Honestly, I have no idea how he isn’t in already. If 300 wins are automatic for admittance, you would think that his 287 would certainly be enough. If not that, then the fact that he is fifth all time in career strikeouts should certainly be enough to get him in. But so far, no such luck. Still, he would get my vote.

Tim Raines

If not for Rickey Henderson, Tim Raines would be getting a lot of consideration for best lead off hitter of all time. He should absolutely be a no-brainer selection here, but it looks like he’s going to fall significantly short. But his numbers without a doubt merit enshrinement in Cooperstown. Raines is fourth all time in stolen bases, behind only Henderson, Lou Brock, and Ty Cobb. He had a career OBP of .385, better than Hall of Famers like Mike Schmidt, Carl Yastrzemski, Duke Snider, Honus Wagner, and only .001 behind Willie Mays. During his peak years, before he started losing time to injuries and owner collusion, he was as good as anyone in the game.

I’m on the fence about both Alan Trammell and Mark McGwire; if either of them get in, which doesn’t seem likely in the near future, I won’t be upset about it at all.

There are, however, some players on the ballot who absolutely should not be in. Jack Morris, and his startlingly average career ERA+ (105) will probably fall short, as he should. Similarly, Andre Dawson will likely fail to enter Cooperstown this year, though in the future he may make a push, despite is awful career on base percentage (.323). Finally, the “most feared hitter for twelve seasons,” Jim Rice. He had six seasons that were possibly HOF worthy, but they rest of his career fell way short. He has a ton of RBI, because he had a ton of RBI opportunities, but RBI is a terrible stat by which to judge a player’s worth. If he hadn’t played his entire career in Boston, he probably would have fallen off the ballot years ago, both because he wouldn’t have the Boston media behind him, and because he was helped out by playing in such a hitter-friendly park. He’s going to get in this year, without a doubt, and he will probably be one of the five worst players in the Hall.

Animal Stuff

New Scientist has a pretty sweet article, but at the same time absolutely heartbreaking, about recreating extinct animals through their DNA, and ten species that they think could be brought back.

First, it’s best to get the bad news out of the way: they’re not going to be able to bring back dinosaurs. For it to even be conceivable to bring back extinct animals, you need to be able to completely reconstruct their DNA, like scientists are currently doing with the woolly mammoth. Unfortunately, sunlight and bacteria alter DNA over time, so anything more than 100,000 years old, let alone 60 million years old, like dinosaurs, isn’t possible.

But even though dinosaurs are out, there are still some pretty cool things that can be brought back. Some of these have found their way onto New Scientist’s list, and some pretty questionable choices have too. Anyway, here’s what New Scientist could envision being resurrected, and my comments:

Sabre-toothed Tigers

This is the first animal listed by New Scientist, and definitely one of the coolest. Sabre-toothed tigers are pretty well entrenched in our culture, through shows like the Flintsones and terrible movies like 10,000 BC, and I would love to see them brought back. They’re closely enough related to lions for surrogacy purposes, and they’re similar enough that I would love to watch those two species fight. While scientists estimate that Sabre-toothed tigers could only bite with about a third the force of modern lions, those enormous teeth would be pretty close to an equalizer. But most importantly, sabre-toothed tigers just look really cool, and I want to see one.

Neanderthals

This seems like a terrible idea. Other than satisfying the curiosity of how humans are different from Neanderthals, I can’t think of a good reason to bring them back. We’re only two or three years away from having a decent copy of their genome, but I don’t see any good that could come out of it; there’s way too much room for abuse. For instance, I could absolutely see some country, like China or Russia, trying to create a slave-race of Neanderthals. Would owning a Neanderthal be any different than owning a dog? It’s just such a moral quagmire I think we should leave the whole thing alone.

Short-faced Bear

I have to part ways with Stephen Colbert here, and say that I think it would be awesome to bring back the Short-faced Bear. I recognize that it is an enormous killing machine, and bringing it back would make it the largest carnivore on land, but I think that this is too cool of an opportunity to pass up. Unfortunately, it seems like it would be difficult to bring this animal back, because it’s so much larger than any potential surrogate animal. While I would like to see this animal brought back, I think we would be better served making sure polar bears don’t become extinct.

Tasmanian Tiger

This is an animal that I had never heard of before reading this article, but after reading about it briefly I am all for bringing it back. First of all, it went extinct in 1936, making its extinction probably our fault, so I would say we owe it to them. Second, it seems easy enough, so why not? Even though this isn’t really a tiger, which would be awesome, having more big, carnivorous marsupials wandering around would be pretty sweet.

Glyptodon

Glyptodons, enormous armadillos that were basically the mammalian version of an ankylosaurus, look so cool I can’t think of a single reason not to bring them back. Seriously, they just look hilarious, though probably pretty intimidating in person, despite being herbivores. Again, this is a species that humans probably hunted to extinction, albeit more than 10,000 years ago, but still, if we have the technology to bring them back, I would again say that we owe them. Unfortunately, this might be tricky; because glyptodons are so massively huge, much bigger than modern armadillos, surrogacy would be a pretty difficult hurdle to overcome. Still though, why not give it a shot?

Woolly Rhinoceros

Meh. Honestly, I’ve never been all that big a fan of rhinos, and actually never even knew that woolly rhinos ever existed. However, they do look pretty cool, and bringing them back seems simple enough, compared to most of these other animals, so why not? I wouldn’t have a problem if they resurrected these animals, provided, of course, that we bring regular rhinoceroses back from the brink of extinction.

Dodo

Even though they went extinct as recently as the seventeenth century, there are very few specimens available, making it difficult to pull enough dodo DNA to put together the full sequence. This doesn’t really bother me all that much; I recognize that humans were responsible for their extinction, but for some reason that doesn’t really bother me. The only reason I can think of for bringing back the dodo is that I wouldn’t mind eating one.

Giant Ground Sloth

Much like the glyptodon, this is a pretty cool, huge animal. I mean, who wouldn’t want to see a sloth as big as an elephant? Unfortunately, its size, which makes it seem so cool, also makes it one of the most difficult to bring back. While its DNA is readily available, the sloths that are around now are way too small to carry a giant ground sloth to term. Hopefully scientists would be able to figure out a way around this, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Moa

This is another animal that I have never heard of, a wingless bird originally native to New Zealand, and hunted to extinction by the Maori. When I went to wikipedia to read about it, though, I saw a picture that made up my mind about whether we should bring this back. We definitely should resurrect the moa, not because I especially want to see one, but so that it can be prey for Haast’s Eagle, which we should also bring back, and which was fucking awesome.

Irish Elk & Giant Beaver

I’m lumping these two animals together, because I basically feel the same way about each of them. They’re basically bigger versions of animals we already have, but those animals aren’t interesting enough for me to want to see a bigger version of it. So while if some scientist decided he wanted to bring one back I wouldn’t be upset, there are others that I would rather see geneticists focus on.

Gorilla

Yeah, gorillas are still alive, but New Scientist makes an interesting point in saying that the first animal to be resurrected is probably still alive today. Gorillas are threatened by extinction, a threat so real that scientists are saving tissue samples now just in case. This is a great idea, and I think that we should be doing this with all species on the verge of extinction.