Homer Simpson’s Top Ten List
Reply
Monthly Archives: January 2010
John Oliver visits Las Vegas
The Daily Show‘s crack British correspondent, John Oliver, tells Jimmy Fallon about his first visit to Las Vegas and his first time shooting a rifle. And below that is an hilarious and surprisingly insightful recent report by Oliver from The Daily Show. Enjoy.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Even Better Than the Real Thing | ||||
|
||||
A better kind of security theater
The Reason.tv video below puts the Transportation Security Administration’s silly security theater policies in perspective, while Bruce Schneier provides another excellent post on the kind of security (including some security theater) that makes much more sense.
Is anyone in Washington, D.C. even listening?
What killed F.D.R.?
This interesting Lawrence Altman/NY Times article examines the theory that that an undiagnosed melanoma contributed to the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevent in 1945.
Of course, regular readers of this blog know that another killer disease — the dire implications of which were not well-known in 1945 — was probably the main cause of FDR’s death.
But despite the historical curiosity, the most important point to glean from FDR’s demise is the importance of continued investment in clinical and scientific research.
We sometimes forget that it was the generation of doctors and researchers who came of age after World War II who embraced the optimistic view of therapeutic intervention in the practice of medicine, which was a fundamental change from the sense of therapeutic powerlessness that was taught to these men by their pre-WWII professors. In short, it has not been that long since medical science has understood that it could cure disease and prolong life.
For example, if FDR’s doctors had known in 1945 what specialists in hypertension discovered in the two following decades, then those doctors would never have allowed FDR to be subjected to the stress of the Yalta Conference that doomed Eastern Europe to almost 50 years of totalitarianism and economic deprivation.
Stated simply, earlier discovery of the research into the implications of hypertension could well have changed the course of human history.
In fact, we all tend to under-appreciate the advancements in medicine since World War II. For male babies born in the U.S. in 1960, the life expectancy was about 66.5 years and for female babies a tad over 73 years. By 2005, the live expectancies had increased to over 75 and 80 years respectively. Although medical advances don’t account for all of those gains, newly-discovered drugs and medical devices — as well as enhanced understanding of disease — have had an enormous impact on improving the quality of life of most Americans.
Thus, as Congress considers reforming the U.S. health care finance system, it is important for citizens to understand that American medical care and research remains the hope of the world. The current health care finance system has generated enormous investment in that medical innovation, which has been a crucial and treasured export of America to the rest of the world.
Let’s think hard before radically changing a system that generated the investment that produced those benefits for us and the rest of the world.
Why do these guys write about football?
As if on cue, Houston Chronicle sportswriters Richard Justice and John McClain are all jolly about the Texans first winning season and Texans owner Bob McNair’s decision to retain head coach Gary Kubiak for at least another season.
Of course, Justice is utterly oblivious to the fact that he was calling for McNair to fire Kubiak a little over a month ago. Does he not read his own posts?
Both Justice and McClain change their view of the Texans based on the vagaries of each game rather than any meaningful analysis of the team’s personnel and management relative to their competition. Apparently, that latter task takes to much work.
Just another of the increasing number of reasons to ignore the Chronicle and rely on the far superior analysis on the Texans that bloggers such as such as Stepanie Stradley, Lance Zerlein and Alan Burge provide.
Understanding Adoption
One of the most discouraging aspects of the societal tide of resentment and scapegoating that has permeated the corporate criminal prosecutions since the demise of Enron has been the utter lack of perspective regarding the horrendous human cost of those prosecutions.
Even the horrendous financial cost of those prosecutions seems easier to confront.
A stark example of the human cost is what happened to Ken Lay’s family, who endured the decline of a loving father and grandfather as he defended himself against dubious charges that in a less-heated climate would likely never have been pursued.
Equally barbaric is the reprehensible 24-year prison sentence assessed to former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling, whose family has been deprived of their father for over three years now and is threatened to be without him for most of the rest of his life.
But the family that arguably paid the steepest cost from the wave of unjust corporate prosecutions was the family of Jamie Olis, the former mid-level Dynegy executive who was thrown to the prosecutorial wolves by his employer and then sentenced to a ludicrously excessive 24 plus-year prison term for his involvement in a structured finance transaction for which he profited not one dime.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ultimately threw out that sentence, which resulted in a still-too-harsh six-year re-sentencing. Olis was finally paroled last year and reunited with his wife and young daughter, who literally grew up visiting her father in prison.
But even in the face of such inhumanity, the human spirit perseveres.
Throughout the Olis family’s ordeal, Jamie’s father — Bill Olis — stood out as a rock of stability and common sense.
Whether it was attending the myriad of hearings in Jamie’s case in Houston, or escorting Jamie’s wife and daughter the hundreds of miles to visit Jamie in far-off prisons, or lending moral support to other families who were enduring similar injustices, Bill Olis projected a sense of calm perspective that was contagious to all who came in contact with him.
He had much to be bitter about in regard to what the federal government did to his son and family, but Bill Olis never gave in to bitterness. He was a quintessential Christian gentleman and nothing that the government did to his family could change that.
Throughout his son’s darkest times, Bill remained confident that he and his family would ultimately be reunited with Jamie. Yeah, the government is powerful, but no earthly force was going to destroy Bill Olis’ family.
As a result, Ellen Podgor of the White Collar Crime Prof Blog re-named her “Collar for the Best Parent Award” to the “Bill Olis Best Parent Award” because — in the category of a parent supporting an imprisoned child — “no one comes close to Bill Olis.”
What was not well known through all of this was that Bill Olis was slowly fading away physically during his son’s imprisonment. Bill had an oxygen unit with him almost constantly as he tended to his family’s needs throughout their ordeal.
No big deal for Bill. Mere failing health was not going to stop Bill Olis from being present when his son was released from prison last year. He was there embracing Jamie with the rest of the family, oxygen tank and all.
With the work of reuniting his son with his family done, Bill Olis died over this past weekend. I understand from a family friend that Jamie was able to spend most of Bill’s final two weeks with him, which I know Bill enjoyed immensely. He adored his son.
The Olis family story is a remarkable one and frankly far more interesting than the government’s dishonest case against Jamie.
Years ago, Bill Olis married a single Korean mother and adopted her young son. He provided his wife and son a stable and loving home, and the family flourished. His son excelled in school, obtained advanced degrees in both business and law, and embarked upon a successful career in corporate finance.
And when the government targeted the son as a sacrificial lamb for the anti-business mob, Bill Olis spent his last days in this world supporting his son every step of the way and making sure that he returned to his wife and daughter.
Then he passed away.
A Christian minister friend once observed to me that a good way to embrace what is good about the Christian spirit is through understanding the nature of adoption.
Bill Olis was living proof of the truth of that observation.
2009 Weekly local football review
(AP Photo/Dave Einsel; previous weekly reviews for this season are here).
The Texans (9-7) finished off their eighth season in grand style by beating the mostly-trying Patriots (10-6) with an impressive 21 point 4th quarter comeback.
The win wasn’t enough to propel the Texans into the playoffs, but it was enough to give the franchise it’s first winning record. In Texansland, that’s a major accomplishment.
There was much to like about the Texans’ performance in this game. WR Jacoby Jones showed heretofore unexhibited resilience by making several key plays down the stretch after muffing a pass that was returned by the Patriots for a TD. The Texans’ defense forced the interception that set up the go ahead TD by applying pressure on Brady and scored another TD on a Patriots’ fumble in the end zone after the Texans offense failed to score in close. The Texans’ nascent rushing attack again looked good as previously fourth-team RB Arian Foster reeled off 120 yds on 20 carries and 2 TD’s. And QB Matt Schaub completed his first injury-free season in three seasons with the Texans by emerging as one of the most productive passers in the NFL.
Texans’ owner Bob McNair will almost certainly retain head coach Gary Kubiak, although he is the only coach in the NFL who has not made the playoffs or been fired during the four seasons he has served as head coach of the Texans. Nevertheless, the Texans have steadily improved under Kubiak and the players clearly play hard for him, as Sunday’s 21-point comeback reflected.
Moreover, McNair is unlikely to break the bank to hire one of the "free agent" coaches in waiting, particularly given the uncertain nature of the stalled collective bargaining negotiations between the NFL owners and the NFL Players Association.
So, expect more of the same from the Texans. Although major improvement is unlikely in 2010, improvement on the level of what occurred between last season and this one would likely propel the Texans into the AFC playoffs. At this juncture, that seems reasonably likely to occur.
But a suggestion for Coach Kubiak — bring in a few more placekickers for training camp next season.
Air Force 47 Houston Cougars 20
The Air Force (8-5) version of Paul Johnson’s triple-option offense ground Houston (10-4) into the turf at the Bell Helicopter Armed Services Bowl at Ft. Worth on New Year’s Eve afternoon, while the Falcons’ defense harassed Cougars QB Case Keenum into an uncharacteristic 6 interceptions (Keenum only had 9 interceptions against 42 TD’s in 450 attempts coming into the game).
That, plus the damp mid-30’s temperature and windy weather, was enough to make this bowl experience a particularly forgettable one for the Cougars.
However, I can’t really blame the Cougars for their uninspired play. They were at a psychological disadvantage playing in the same bowl game against the same team that it had beaten in last year’s game. That Houston had to do so is a travesty of the current bowl system and the inequitable current demarcation between the BCS and non-BCS conferences in big-time college football.
The Cougars were one of the best non-BCS conference teams in the country this past season. They beat three BCS conference teams, two of which (Texas Tech and Oklahoma State) went on to play in more prestigious bowls than the Cougars despite not having as good a record. Given Conference USA’s anemic bowl alliances, even had the Cougars won the conference championship game, the best they could have hoped for was a trip to Memphis to play in the Liberty Bowl.
No offense to either Memphis or Ft. Worth, but no one ever mistook them for Pasadena, Miami, New Orleans, Phoenix or even San Antonio during college football bowl season.
So, UH is clearly at a crossroads. Head Coach Kevin Sumlin, his coaching staff, Keenum, and most of the offensive and defensive personnel return next season. Moreover, another solid recruiting class is on deck that emphasizes the defensive players that the previous coaching staff ignored. Accordingly, the Cougars appear on course for another stellar season in 2010.
But Houston clearly aspires for success in a BCS Conference membership, not the outback of a non-BCS conference such as Conference USA. Such a membership will require a major financial investment in upgrading or rebuilding the UH football stadium, plus securing Sumlin and his coaching staff with BCS conference-level compensation.
The University of Houston has received the lowest amount of financial subsidy from the state of any major university in Texas, so UH cannot expect much funding help from the state in its effort to move into a BCS conference. Will the Houston community and UH alumni pitch in what it will take to make the Cougars an attractive candidate for a BCS conference membership?
We will soon find out.
The Bulldogs (8-5) broke open a close game early in the fourth quarter and cruised to an easy victory over the Aggies (6-7) in Shreveport’s Independence Bowl last week.
The game was basically a replay of many of the Aggies’ losses this past season. The offense was generally productive, but was forced into taking too many risks by the Aggies’ porous defense and poor special teams play. Thus, even though the Aggies had a sizable advantage in total offense, Georgia controlled the ball and the second half with over a hundred more yards rushing than the Aggies.
As with UH, the Aggies find themselves at a crossroads leading into next season. The potent offensive personnel returns virtually intact next season, but young and mostly horrible defense loses both its best player (DE Von Miller) and its coordinator, the retiring Joe Kines. The Aggies are lining up another solid recruiting class, but it will mean very little unless head coach Mike Sherman hires a new defensive coordinator who can generate rapid improvement in the defensive unit.
As a result, Sherman’s decision on a new defensive coordinator is very likely to make or break his tenure as head coach of the Aggies.
I have no idea who Sherman is considering as candidates for the Aggies defensive coordinator position. But if I were in his shoes, I’d take a look at hard look at Air Force’s Tim DeRuyter, whose Air Force unit was one of the top defenses in the nation this past season and was magnificent in the Falcons’ bowl victory over Houston.
Is it time for hoops yet?
After all the mediocre bowl games over the past several days, it’s time to turn to the basketball season. A good way to start is with one of the best hoops scenes in the history of cinema, Jimmy’s winning shot from Hoosiers. Enjoy.
The Duke
A good way to start the new year — Duke Ellington and Take the "A" Train.
The Dude abides in academia
Somehow, it’s comforting to know as we move into 2010 that analysis of The Big Lebowski has moved into academic circles.
Of course, these emerging academic treatments have a ways to go before they can rival Rob Ager’s work on the film, the first installment of which can be viewed here.
Meanwhile, if you don’t mind some pretty salty language, enjoy the clip below of the Dude and his friends discussing what to do about his rug.
Happy New Year!