Red Sox Hot Stove

Sox have apparently signed Marco Scutaro, SS from Toronto. Sigh, SS for the Red Sox under Theo is Defense Against the Dark Arts, just one train wreck after another. It is apparently a two year deal with an option for a third year. First, the guy is 34, and second, he is coming off a career year. And that career year he had last year? A whopping 12 HRs with an OPS of 0.789. In '07 and '08, his OPS didn't break 0.700. His defense is apparently okay but nothing stellar.

They needed to fill the position with, well, someone. And Marco Scutaro is someone, but nothing more. He's a #8 or #9 hitter, not a leadoff guy, even though a lot of casual fans think that scrappy players (i.e. middle infielders with no power) make for good leadoff hitters. His strengths at the plate are that he walks a decent amount, and in the past three years has more BBs than Ks, which I guess is good.

Whatever.

Constitution

First, Judge Smails passes along the good news that the aforementioned pay-for-prayer silliness, while in the HELP version of the bill, did NOT make it into either the House bill nor the merged Senate bill that is currently under consideration. So that's good.

Over at 538.com, Tom Schaller has a really nice summary of arguments centered on the Constitution. Check it out. Two of my favorites:

First, there is the fallacy that anything not specifically prescribed by the Constitution is unconstitutional. True, the Constitution doesn’t mention health care; but neither does it mention air traffic control. Is the FAA’s safeguarding of our skies from commercial crashes therefore unconstitutional? Of course not. First, there is the matter of the “necessary and proper” clause. And second, just because the Founders clearly meant to avoid the whole business of constitutionalizing specifically policies--see point #3, below--doesn't mean they didn't want the government to have any policies. If they did, why create a legislature?

Fifth, if you want to be a strict constructionist, fine, but be one even when it’s inconvenient. Imagine if the Second Amendment read as follows: “A woman’s ability to survive childbearing being necessary to a free state, the right to abort a fetus shall not be infringed.” Now, do you think the anti-choice movement would simply ignore the leading clause and resign themselves to the idea that a woman has an unconditional right to abortion? Not a chance, and they'd be right to fight because the language clearly implies a conditional right. And yet we almost never hear gun rights advocates mention the actual Second Amendment’s leading clause, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state….,” which at least suggests a collective right—indeed, obligation—to an armed defense of the state, rather than an individual’s right to use arms to protect himself and his property. For the record, I support gun rights with some restrictions, but that’s besides my point, which is that you can’t be so selective in citing the language in the Constitution that you chop off inconveniently ambiguous parts of the same sentence upon which you base a categorical claim.

Where to begin?

The always-observant Ms. McGee passes along this article, about an odd part of the Senate's health care bill, sponsored by John Kerry, Ted Kennedy (um, he's dead, right?) & Orrin Hatch:

The three senators have quietly inserted a provision into the Democrats' healthcare overhaul that would allow the Christian Science church to receive remuneration from the federal government for prayer treatments as medical expenses.

According to Hamburger and Geiger, the proposal would have a negligible overall cost on the bill, as the Church has fewer than 1,800 branches worldwide and continues to see membership declines. Prayer treatments cost from $20 to $40 a day -- which the church describes as competitive with medical care.

Leaving aside the nonsense that praying for someone is medically useful, what aspect of prayer costs $20 to $40 a day? Are we buying indulgences? Don't get me wrong, I do believe that thinking you'll get better helps -- the placebo effect is strong and real -- but the idea that you could pay for prayer and that would somehow make you get better? I don't get it.

Answers

Two stabs at my grammar question, plus a bit more on Belichick. First up:

I think adding "might" puts it in the subjunctive mood, which (confirmed by some half-assed googling, turning up several ESL sites, interestingly) takes the infinitive (i.e. "to apply") in the present tense. In the "probably" version, the verb isn't plural, it's just the 3rd person singular form of "to apply" (i.e. I apply, you apply, he/she/it applies). (Actually, come to think of it, most regular verbs lack the "s" in the plural conjugation, but have it in the 3rd person singular. English is funny, eh?) Also, while I too was initially surprised, almost horrified, that Belichick went for that 4th and 2 last week, I've come around to thinking that is certainly wasn't a bad decision, and probably even was indeed the smart play. What's annoying is that no sports announcer seems to get this. For example, in the Cal-Stanford game yesterday, Stanford faced 4th and EIGHT deep in their own territory, down by four points with under 4 minutes left. (Despite my support of Belichick's call, I think Stanford has to punt here, as the circumstances are quite different than those the Pats faced.) The announcer of the game asks whether the Stanford coach is going to "pull a Belichick," which is now apparently synonymous with "go for an ill-advised fourth down attempt." Jerks. (Stanford went on to lose the game.)

And Judge Smails:

Might is a helping verb; probably is an adverb. I assume therein lies the difference. The counter-argument to Nate/Your thesis is that legislatures are built over time by evolutionary elections. The fact that all the Senators are arguably blowhards is decent, although by no means dispositive, proof that talking alot is perhaps a positive quality if your goal is to stay in office.

Hmmm, subjunctive mood... I'm having flashbacks of Sister Gloria Jean yelling at us 7th graders about the subjunctive mood... so that might probably be right.

Grammar Q

In my previous post, I originally wrote:
...it probably applies to....

Which I then changed to:
...it might apply to...

The verb goes from plural to singular, and while I know that is correct, I have no idea why. Any ideas?

Oh, he's a horse's ass

Apparently that was a favorite expression of my grandmother, usually in response to some suitor for one of her several daughters. And at least according to Nate Silver, it might apply to Senators, too -- the notion that you should just shut up, because the more you talk, the less people like you. He looks at the varying fates of Max Baucus and Jon Tester -- both Democratic Senators from Wyoming, but one of whom (Baucus) decided to make himself front and center during the health care debate and has seen his approval ratings drop 20 points, while Tester simply shut up and still has very high approval ratings. Now, to be fair, there are a lot of other mitigating factors, most notably that Baucus was chair of the committee that needed to pass health care, but still, he didn't exactly shun the spotlight.

In general, I think politicans over-estimate how much the public cares about their particular positions. Rather, a lot of the time, the public just gets tired of hearing about a given politician, and thus sours on him or her. In other words, just stop being a horse's ass and do your job without me having to hear about it.

In an attempt at consolation, Paul Hogan writes in:

Not writing to rub salt in the wound. Just thought the "controversy" over Belichick's decision to go for it on 4th and 2 from the Colts' 30 could be a good topic for your blog post. From what I'm hearing so far, the vast majority of pundits and talking heads are saying the decision is terrible. I haven't done the math myself, but it's fairly straightforward calculation: Probability of converting the 4th down + [(1 - Probability of converting the 4th down) * (Probability of stopping the Colts' from the Pats 30 with 2 minutes left)] You could also take into account probabilities of stuff like the Colts scoring right after a failed conversion, and then the Pats scoring again after that, but I think that would only be a very minor factor. Anyway, I don't have the raw data to calculate whether or not Belichick's decision was mathematically correct according to the equation above, but I suspect it's close. What really bothers me is that 99% of analysts, including former football coaches, don't even bother to think about the math and just say automatically say that the correct decision is to punt. I think most analysts and coaches automatically choose the "playing not to lose" strategy without actually doing a full analysis of the situation. I think Belichick's decision may have been an example of an instance where there is incentive for an NFL coach to make uncontroversial, yet mathematically incorrect, decision because most GMs and fans (i.e. the people with hiring and firing capacity) are too ignorant to actually evaluate the merits of many coaching decisions. Fortunately for Belichick, he is pretty untouchable at this point.

Well, one calculation I know for sure is that the Pats Super Bowl chances just decreased by about a factor of 10.

I forget where I read it, but apparently going for it on fourth down is worth it a much larger chunk of the time than conventional wisdom suggests.

This story in today's Washington Post details how China hacked into both the Obama and McCain campaigns during the summer of 2008 to gather sensitive data.

If one is of the mindset to view the 21st century as an impending conflict between China and the USA (and I'm not) this news would be pretty frightening. But it also would make you question military strategy. The US spends billions of dollars annually, even in peacetime, on things that blow up other things. This sort of technology has its limits, as we've painfully seen over the last decade. Emphasizing intelligence is not only cheaper, but it is more, well, intelligent.

Bill Clinton was on Capitol Hill today, to give a pep talk to Senate Democrats and presumably to warn them about the dangers of not passing a health care bill, I guess in case none of them have aides or a functioning internet connection. But really, good for him. And it reminded me that I should analogize Hilary Clinton to a good third base coach in baseball -- the less you hear about her, the better a job she's likely doing. As evidence for this, I still remember the names of Wendell Kim and Dale Sveum as 3B coaches for the Red Sox, because they were terrible. Secretary of States should aim to be like good third base coaches. Or something like that.

House vote

Health care passed the house on Saturday night -- and yes, I spent my Saturday night watching CSPAN -- and I'm a bit puzzled by the logic of Democratic House members voting no, if there is any logic to it. I suppose some are actually against the bill, but the cynical side of me says that their actual feelings have little to do with their vote, but rather political calculation dictated their vote. Most of these folks are from red areas, so perhaps they are thinking that voting no will give them cover come 2010. But if voters in that area want a Republican, won't they just vote for one? Put another way, what argument do they make to voters -- reelect me because I'll vote like my opponent?

Certainly there are a multitude of votes where it makes sense to buck the party. But on the whole, Democrats' fates will rise and fall together in 2010. And folks in red areas, should conditions still suck in a year, will be the most vulnerable. So what good is the argument that I tried but failed to obstruct the signature legislation of this Congress?

Okay, I'm hooked again, having been in front (and not "on" as I kinda wrote earlier) of the TV for the past few hours. Deeds losing in VA is a non-issue is he, apparently, sucked from the outset. Corzine losing is not a total shocker, but according to my local source (i.e. my mom) is disappointing. I don't know why Corzine left his cushy Senate gig to run for governor anyway, especially to be replaced by almost-90-year-old Lautenburg. In other words, Corzine gave up a pretty much guaranteed Senate seat to have a shot at first doing something noteworthy as NJ gov to then run for President. But since that failed, NJ now has a Repub gov. and a potential GOP pickup when Lautenburg runs for re-election.

Anyways, we also have Maine voting on gay marriage. Now, I'm just reacting to the recent spate of anti-gay referenda in various states, but when was the last time the referendum was actually useful?

There's also the special election in upstate NY. I'd really hate to see the pundit interpretation if the Repubs sweep the three elections tonight, so I guess I want Owens, even though I have no idea what Owens like. But I know that Palin likes Hoffman, so that's pretty much enough.

On a side note, since I like Philip Seymour Hoffman and Pirates and the Who, I really want to see Pirate Radio.

Vote '09

Plopped my butt on the TV to watch election coverage, as there are a few vaguely interesting races going on. Of course, in 2008 this was a pretty frequent occurrence, so I guess I built up some sort of tolerance for the screaming pundits, but wow, after a year's withdrawal, it is really hard to watch.

Poison

Seeing as how I'm employed by Harvard Medical School, I feel like I should comment on the recent poisoning case (I don't work in the New Research Building, although that is where my gym is located). First, it is downright appalling how long it took HMS to tell anyone about this -- it happened two months ago. Second, there is no frickin' way it is accidental. Sodium azide just doesn't float into a coffee machine. It is also worth pointing out that this is very easy to do. Most labs have grams of sodium azide just lying around, along with all sorts of other poisons, so if you're interested in doing something like this, there's not much of a barrier to entry. And no offense to the Harvard Police Department, but shouldn't the Boston Police Department get involved, since this is, you know, attempted murder?

F = ma

Force equals mass x acceleration. This explains why, all other things being equal, it behooves you to use a heavier bat when hitting a baseball or to weight 350 pounds if you're a nose tackle.

It also means that if you get hit by a Chevy Suburban at 30 mph you'll be in much worse shape than if you were hit by a mini Cooper. Yet someone caught speeding in either of those vehicles receives exactly the same fine. Now, one aspect of setting a speed limit has to do with sight lines, reaction times, etc. But not always -- there are plenty of streets where the speed limit could be much higher, but since it is a residential neighborhood with children, a commercial area with a lot of pedestrians, etc., the speed limit is much lower, meaning that one aspect of the speed limit is the recognition of limiting damage when the inevitable does occur. So maybe instead of speed limits we should have force limits.

No, I don't think this is actually do-able, but just as a thought experiment. And actually, now that we're on the topic, if the point of traffic tickets is to discourage behavior, shouldn't the ticket amount be normalized to income?

Duuuuh

What does it say about this country that the best sources of news are Jon Stewart and the Onion?
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nations_morons_march_on_washington

Will work for EZ moneez

I'd like to say, just from a keeping-it-real perspective, that my blogging absence of late has been due to depression over the Red Sox, but that is not true. Rather, Real World events have intervened, namely, me starting to think about leaving the postdoc world.

I had an interview yesterday, and started off the day by meeting with someone from human resources. Towards the end of that (and I swear, I knew more about his work place than he did) he asked what I was thinking about in terms of salary. What the f? I mean, if I answer a bijillion kajillion dollars, will they offer me that? As far as I can tell, there is no upside on my part to actually answering that question -- if I say a number lower than their standard offer, then I've just screwed myself. But I cannot imagine a higher number altering their original offer. Just extreme silliness, really.

Obama visits MIT on Friday. No tickets for alums, unfortunately.

Nobel Peace Prize

Really? In less than 365 days Obama won both election as US President and a Nobel Peace Prize?

The reaction from conservatives will be totally ridiculous, and telling. Some will say, look, some bad people have won the Prize in the past (Arafat, e.g.), ergo, Obama is a bad guy. Of course, so has Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, MLK, etc. Others will say it is pointless prize anyway and does nothing for America, somewhat implying that this makes us weak.

I'm wondering if Andrew Sullivan took his Abilify today -- will he post that composite image of Obama that he does when he's feeling good about the guy, or will be spend the whole day sniping that Obama didn't make repeal of DADT and DOMA his top priority.

Playoff Baseball

Sox come into the postseason after 95 wins in the regular season -- the same number of wins they had in '03, '05, and '08. As a friend commented, I don't like the way any of those postseasons turned out. Interestingly, the top 4 offenses by runs scored in the American League made the playoffs, but only 1 of the top 4 pitching staffs made it, the wild-card-winning Boston Red Sox, ranking 3rd in runs allowed (Yankees are 6, Twins are 8, Angels are 10).

Game 1 is tonight, starting at the bleary-eye-inducing 9:37pm. I don't want to know who the announcers are, nor does it matter, because they will inevitably suck. At least they sent Craig Sager to New York, he's probably the worst of the bunch, and that is saying a lot.

Wait, praise Jesus, here's a good sign: TBS is letting Don Orsillo (teamed up with Buck Martinez, he of the David OR-tiz pronunciation) call the Sox series! I guess I couldn't wait to find out. Anyway, that's good news.

Seems like an awful lot of postseasons of late have had the Yankees beating the Twins and/or the Red Sox beating the Angels. I don't really see that changing this year.

Google creep

This morning, I logged onto Google Reader and there was a note saying that Person X is now following me on Google Reader -- essentially, when I read something that I think others would be interested in, I click the 'share' button and that blog posts pops up in Google Reader for everyone else who's following me.

Anyway, in addition to the note saying Person X is now following me, there's a note asking if I want to follow Person X, so I click yes. I then send Person X an email saying ha ha, you sure you want to know what I read on the internet. It then became clear that Person X is only following me because I was following Person X -- the same reason that I'm following Person X, because Person X was following me!

Essentially, it seems like Google just decided to link us together even though neither of us initiated the following. I dunno, maybe we had exchanged enough emails or something to pass some threshold. But that's kinda creepy.

Crystal ball

Via Andrew Sullivan, this brought a smile to my face. Baseball is a fun sport:

Can we return it?

My academic alma mater, the MIT Cancer Center, has been re-christened the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Too bad David Koch and his brother Charles are conniving conservative douchebags, as detailed in this Rolling Stone article.

Stat of the day

With Ortiz' 26th home run, [the Red Sox] improved to 23-2 in games in which he goes deep

Isn't the simplest interpretation of this datum that Ortiz only goes deep against truly horrible pitching, which is why the Red Sox have such a good record in those games?

Health Care Q&A

The invaluable Judge Smails passes this along this primer:

Question #1: What the hell is a "markup"? It's a formal meeting of the committee to consider a bill, operating much like the House or Senate floor, except only Members of the committee participate. Legislation (in this case the Baucus plan) is introduced, Members can offer amendments, and ultimately the committee will take a vote whether to report the bill out of committee or not. It's the basic formal mechanims of committee work. Question #2: What is "the Chairman's mark"? It's the first draft of the bill, and the version which the committee starts with in the markup. In this case, Baucus' staff will have prepared the mark. It is a massive advantage to be the chairman and introduce the mark, since there are enormous first-mover advantages in legislation drafting --- since you get to structurally arrange the bill, and any changes to the bill (in or out) will be subject to filibuster on the floor (and psuedo-filibuster in committee). Question #3: How do amendments work in committee? I heard there are 500+ amendments for the Baucus bill? Much the same as on the floor of the Senate. Without unanimous consent, it is relatively wide-open (with exceptions, see below). Anyone can offer any amendment at any time. Amendments are allowed in two degrees. The Finance committee does not have any specific rule requiring first-degree amendments to be pre-printed; the 500+ printed amendments were either given priority (to encourage pre-printing) or the subject of a UC agreement (I haven't been able to figure out which). In general, however, you can write an amendment on a napkin during the markup and get it considered. And that is always true of second-degree amendments. Question #4: Are the amendments debatable like on the Senate floor? Does this mean that you can have a committee filibuster? Yes and no. The basic rules of the Senate apply in committee, so all amendments are debatable. However, the Senate also empowers committees to make further rules governing their procedures. In the case of the Finance committee, there is a committee rule that the Chairman can make an non-debatable motion to end debate on any amendment, with an up/down vote on the amendment afterward. So effectively, the chairman and a majority can shut off debate on any amendment. As with the Senate floor, unanimous consent agreements can also be struck in committee, allowing for House-style structure to debate (with time limits, etc.). And, as always, motions to table amendments are also in order, allowing amendments to be killed without debate. Question #5: So should we expect filibusters or other bad-faith action? Not really. A straight up amendment filibuster in committee has to be conducted the old-fashioned way, by standing there and talking. It's not possible to dual-track a markup like you can on the floor, so there isn't an informal "hold" system available. Of course, you can still filibuster-by-amendment if you offer a gazillion amendments, but that's somewhat rare too. Most amendments are sincere. It is likely that the 500+ amendments are almost all genuine. Of course, some may be strategic --- putting in poision pills, etc. --- but even those are in the realm of "things the sponsor hopes are actually adopted," rather than simply debating devices. Watching something get filibustered in committee is not the best image to be showing the world, so it's tough politically --- it shuts-out the other 76 Senators who would like to bloviate, and it reminds too many people in the press of the bottling up of civil rights bills. And a markup of this size takes long enough as is. Question #6: So how long will the markup take? Probably a long time, but there are no guarantees either way. The Senators could come to a UC agreement 5 minutes into the markup to table all amendments and report the bill to the floor, but that is unlikely. Assuming they don't actually have debate on 500+ amendments (by coming to some sort of UC time agreement or tabling amendments en masse), it probably will go somewhere between days and weeks. Question #7: Is it guaranteed that a bill gets reported out? No. But it's highly likely. When bills die in committee, they almost always die from inaction, not from failed markups. It's possible that the Baucus bill could be maneuvered in such a way as to have the GOP and the progressives defeat Baucus and some conservatie dems in a committee vote, but very unlikely, since the progressives would almost certainly see the politics of that as bad, and choose to just hold their nose and report the bill out. It's also not nearly as important to get the bill out of committee in the Senate as compared to the House. A lost markup in the House would almost certainly destroy the bill's possibility on the floor. In the Seante, there are plenty of ways around a committee, although the politics of bypassing one can get very dicey.

Awesome clip

In case you didn't catch it on SportsCenter, check out this recap of the Phillies game, go to about 1:20 in. Hilarious:

http://philadelphia.phillies.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?content_id=6670859

Money saving?

Much has been made in the past 48 hours about the Baucus plan, which has finally emerged. Not surprisingly, even after months of negotiating with Republicans, none of them support it. And multiple high-profile Democrats have attacked various aspects of it as well. A real highlight of the bill is that it is quite fiscally attractive, the CBO scoring it as deficit reducing over a 10 and 20 year window.

But what I don't understand is the mechanism by which it achieves some of these cost-savings, namely an (increasing) tax on generous insurance policies. I have no idea how the CBO scores such things, but wouldn't a higher and higher tax eventually produce diminishing returns, as in, employers and their employees will switch to cheaper plans?