Did Miami Win or the Pistons Lose?

Defense has a lot to do with poor shooting, maybe, but not with poor free throw shooting. The Pistons lost by 9, missed 15 FT, and gave up 2 technicals. Combined with awful shooting, cost the game. [Miami wasn't great on FT either].

FG: 43.9%
3PT: 30.8%
Ft: 65.1%

Chimp Redux

BrooklynDodger wonders why the Dodger is interested in this chimpanzee mauling story. It has returned after two months as a feature story carried by the Washington Post from the Los Angeles Times. The Dodger thinks the issue is the desire of owners and their allies to defent pets which maim and kill people - usually dogs, but in this case chimpanzees. The Dodger imagines a chimpanzee could be a fearsome fighter - 130 lbs, able to grasp with 4 hands, a big mouth full of teeth and more reasoning ability than a dog...Chimps are also not particularly peaceable in the wild.

Anyway, this couple had a chimp named Moe. After Moe bit the finger off one of their guests [for which they blamed the victim and excused Moe], and after Moe escaped into the neighborhood, and attacked some cops who were trying to capture him, the city forced Moe to be placed in a refuge. Moe's owners fought it in court.

Anyway, while visiting Moe, the couple were attacked by two other chimps, and the husband horribly mutiliated, apparently in critical condition in an induced coma months later. [The Dodger left out the description of the attack]

So now we read that the wife still wants Moe back in her home, having seen what chimps can do in general, what Moe himself is capable of.

According to the post, there are 15,000 + of these animals living in homes around the US. Keep an eye on your neighbors.

[As a literary aside, Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue features an orangutan as the murderer.]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/23/AR2005052301819.html

The Animal Within
By Amy Argetsinger
LOS ANGELES

"Oh . . . well . . ." says Davis, with well-practiced delicacy: "Moe . . . peed on a woman." All the excitement of the reception, maybe too much punch. DeVere and her daughter glow with the memories of the beautiful day and of the beautiful years that followed.
...
As Davis tells her story in the sleek conference room of a Los Angeles attorney's office, she gingerly moves her left hand, swaddled in the cotton gauze and tape that protect what remains of her thumb, a reminder that this train of sweet memories and funny stories is not going to end well.
...
City officials tried to evict Moe a few years after his arrival, but the judge ruled for the Davises. Moe, he proclaimed, "is somewhat better behaved than some people."
..
on Aug. 16, 1998, he escaped from his 10-by-12-foot outdoor enclosure and rampaged through the neighborhood.
The Davises said Moe had been frightened by an electrical shock when a worker tried to repair his cage. But it took several police officers and animal control workers to restrain him, city officials said, and they claimed Moe dented police cars and mauled an officer's hand.

A little more than a year later, on Sept. 2, 1999, a visitor came to the Davis home to see Moe. The Davises said they warned her not to go near his cage, but she put her hand inside. They say she had long red fingernails that looked like Moe's favorite licorice. He bit, and the Davises later settled a lawsuit with the woman.
The next day, West Covina officials descended on the Davis home and removed Moe to a wildlife refuge.
...
And Moe was no longer a child. He was in vigorous middle age, a roughly four-foot 130-pounder with the upper-body strength of three linebackers. West Covina officials maintained that they could no longer allow him to live within city limits.
A years-long legal battle ensued. In the end, all criminal charges were dropped and the Davises won a $100,000 judgment in their due-process suit against the city, but Moe was still not permitted to come home.
.........

[The article describes the attack on the couple while visiting Moe. It's too horrible to report here.]

...
USC's Stanford gets frustrated with this kind of talk. "If a tiger attacked these people, you wouldn't say, 'Why was this tiger angry?' " he says.
...
"Moe hasn't ever been around violence," Davis is saying.

Left Behind by No Child - Cooking the Books on High School Graduation in Michigan

In Michigan, we are 14 years into systematically starving the public schools for state aid to balance the state budget to pay for tax cuts, at least that long a time publically bashing teachers and public schools, disrupting instruction and wasting money on MEAP tests, and throwing money away on MEAP scholarships for kids who mostly had money to begin with, and then taking public money to pay for crypto for profit, parochial in disguise, union busting charter schools. We've had a democrat governor in Michigan for 2 years plus, but a conservative legislature and a budget straight jacket. Nationally, No Child Left Behind means wasting the same time and money on testing, and attacking public schools.

It's a hard contest about which is worse: cooking the [school] books, or the dropout rate itself.


http://www.detnews.com/2005/specialreport/0505/29/A01-196697.htm


In 2003, only an estimated 77 percent of the Michigan students who started high school four years earlier graduated, according to The News' analysis. The state's figure: 85 percent. ...The estimates compare enrollment numbers from grade to grade with the number of kids who graduate. They don't account for all of the students who move in and out of a school or those who take more than four years to graduate -- reasons why districts call them flawed.
But experts say the formulas are "vastly better" than the way states keep track of dropouts. ...
School officials in South Lyon, Van Dyke, Hazel Park and other districts stand by their numbers.
South Lyon officials, who report a 94 percent graduation rate, say they strictly follow the state's guidelines on whom to count as a dropout. The News' analysis pegs the district's graduation rate at 69 percent. It pegs Van Dyke's rate at 51 percent (the district reports 82 percent) and Hazel Park's at 59 percent (the district reports 91 percent).
...The News calculated the Detroit Public Schools' graduation rate at 48 percent. [Higher than the reported 44 percent]

Puck In the News

BrooklynDodger never knew of the Puck Building until January, was it 2004?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/26/nyregion/26bold.html?

Survival Tips
From the, Um, Famous?


FISHER STEVENS, who was roasted on Monday night at the Puck Building by MICHAEL MCKEAN, LIEV SCHREIBER, GRIFFIN DUNNE, GINA GERSHON, MARISA TOMEI, MATT DILLON, ROB MORROW and MARISKA HARGITAY, on how to survive a roast:
"I don't eat anything in case I throw up."

Cheap Eats

Before the Pistons' successful close out in Indianapolis, the Freep ran a "Pistons are a close knit group story." Off the court mirroring the team concept on the court. Somehow, the Pistons have been pretty invisible in all the national playoff coverage, even though they are a real contrast to most of the teams in the round of 8 and now the round of 4. Anyway, there was a heartwarming paragraph about Carlos Arroyo, just emerged from the doghouse in game 5:

"Because he's frequently joined on road trips by his wife and family, Arroyo said he never headed out to dinner with the team -- although he knew the invitation was always there. But last Saturday in Indianapolis, Arroyo made an exception -- and he was glad he did.
He joined eight members of the team, including Billups and Tayshaun Prince, at the Cheesecake Factory. Arroyo said he spent the whole dinner laughing so hard that "I told them to stop."
Arroyo had such a good time that he picked up the check. "

http://www.freep.com/sports/pistons/pistonsoff19e_20050519.htm

So BrooklynDodger thinks, is this where 9 millionaires go when they are on the road? Cheesecake factory restaurants generally have a liquor license, which puts them above Big Boy, which also prides itself on dessert. Maybe 9 guys could get to $300 there? Hope Carlos left a tip when he grabbed the check.

http://www.thecheesecakefactory.com/menu.htm

So I checked out the reviews for the Indianapolis CF, which is in a mall somewhere:

truely a spectical
by Renz from Fort Wayne, IN
10/27/04
Overall:
The Cheesecake Factory in Indianapolis is awesome. The service, surroundings, and the food! Not to mention the astounding menu of cheesecake! It is truely an experience that everyone should take.

You have got to taste it and see it to believe it!!!
by Crystal Hacker from St. John, IN
09/30/04
Overall:
The surrondings were awesome the food even better! Definantly will visit there again when I am in the area.

Yahoo! User found the following review helpful:
LoViN IT
by Katie from Fishers, Indiana
04/11/05
I thought that this resturaunt was phenomenol! They had the best variety

[The Dodger will have to check out spelling on some other restaurant review sites; maybe Yahoo should put a spell checker into this site.]

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Anyway, the special positive about game 5 was that Larry Brown let Carlos Arroyo play for a while, he picked up 4 assists and some points, and he kept the Pacers' point guard out of the lane, something which Billups had not been doing so well. The latter was important, since the knock on Arroyo is defense, but Lindsay Hunter has been stinking up the offence. Not that you really need offence when Ben scores 19.

Anyway, Arroyo got to play again in game 6, he got 3 assists in about 8 minutes, at time when no one was particularly making shots. Game 6 saw both Reggie Miller and Jermaine O'Neill draining a bunch of well defended jump shots, which left the game hanging until the end. In the future, the Pistons will need Hamilton to hit shots in the first half.

Jersey Sniffing

http://mgoblue.com/document_display.cfm?document_id=18402

Sports talk radio went berserk over the new University of Michigan jerseys, portrayed and explained on the U of M website. The uniform is the icon of the team; the players change somewhat every year, but a change in the uniform is a major event. Callers in were uniformly hostile. Oddly, no one complained of making the maize and blue a billboard for Nike. The Dodger wonders whether the uniforms were free to Michigan.

BrooklynDodger noted with interested that the unique Michigan helmet [not counting Delaware and Princeton (in another color) appeared in 1938.

While we are on uniforms, the Dodger wonders what the most frequent color is in college and pro schemes. The Dodger had thought that blue was most prominent. The Big 10 + 1 admitted a third blue team with Penn State, but the others are two blacks, three shades of red, a green, and a purple.

Artistic Athletic Criticism and Cathexis

So the Pistons are back from the brink and are postured in a dominant position vs. the Pacers. Sports talk was way too positive on the Piston's strengths and Pacers weaknesses; the swing in scores from game to game have been remarkable, one game close, four games romps. Last night the Pistons romped the Pacers, but it was at home. You could say many things to the Pacers, but most prominent is "When Ben Wallace thrown down 19 points, you just might be in trouble."

Let's skip for the moment thinking about why anyone would care about the home team, or any other team, winning in any sport, professional or college. The Dodger is positively cathected on a variety of sports entities, mostly losers, and negatively cathected on entities like the New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys.

Basketball, on TV, gives so much more of a personal vision of the players than anything but tennis, or gymnastics (or maybe boxing, which the Dodger doesn't watch.) Even the officials are personalized, not wearing hats. In regular season, you see the home team, night after night. In NBA playoff basketball, you see the same adversaries, night after night.

In basketball, the officials are almost like gymnastics judges, calling fouls and violations, except they present human gestures and, by convention, demonstrations of the call, instead of holding up numbers as in gymnastics, diving or ice skating. And, then you see the artists - the players - discussing with the critics whether the call was right. Basketball refs are much more of the show than umpires or football officials.

Basketball is a lot more of a statistical game than football, baseball and hockey - there are turning point plays, but there is not one or two encounters which build difficult to surmount leads. So the player to player interaction over long periods, seen in detail, becomes dominant.

Back to the game. If Ben Wallace could make foul shots, the Pistons would be awesome. He still isn't finishing near the basket all that well. He made up for Rip Hamilton, clearly off his game. Larry Brown finally let Carlos Arroyo play. Brown finally noticed that the Piston's problem is more scoring than defense, that neither Billups or Hunter were doing that great a job of keeping Iverson or Tinsley out of the lane, and actually Arroyo did ok with on-ball defense on Tinsley. The 4-5 rotation of R. Wallace, B. Wallace and McDyess seems to spread the fouls, and McDyess making mid range jumpers from the baseline or wing almost takes over the game for the second unit when he's making them.

The weakness remains the absence of a second unit 3.

If the Pistons get to Miami, we can have some optimism. It's hard to imagine Shaq showing on the high pick and roll, or maintaining contact so as to box out whatever 4-5 he's supposed to be guarding. So then it falls to Billups or Prince to defend Wayne Wade. Can be done.

Sports Money Talks in the Ivy League

FreeFloatingHostility http://freefloatinghostility.blogspot.com/ has turned BrooklynDodger on to a fantastic website for analysis of costs of college athletics:

http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/Search.asp

The Dodger looked up a certain ivy league institution with a relatively unsuccessful record, located on the upper west side of Manhattan. There was a decided imbalance in participation with greater numbers of male athletes than females in a majority female institution. Coaches of male athletes were decidedly better compensated than those coaching females [although the numbers were pretty meager for each. ]The Dodger gleaned the following numbers, which make no sense:

Men's Basketball, 16 participants, $142,376 total cost
Women's Basketball, 13 participants, $86,537 total cost
Football, 100 participants, $289,982 total cost

Football appears an impossible bargain: seeing 100 dudes in armor by the side of the field, a tuition paying parent must ask, who's paying for all of this? How in the world can 16 dudes in skivvies cost half as much as 100 in armor? And why do the 13 dudettes cost so much less than the 16 dudes?

The Dodger will compare other institutions on this website.

Science on Trial

A Gallup poll last year showed that only 28 percent of Americans accept the theory of evolution, while 48 percent adhere to creationism - the belief that an intelligent being is responsible for the creation of the earth and its inhabitants.

Those who "believe" the theory of evolution through natural selection are fighting from a minority position. Here is an actual example of an intellectual "elite" claiming authority to overturn the beliefs of the majority of the population, indeed to forbid these being taught in school.

Can you imagine having to prove in a court of law that the world is round? Or to go into a junior high school class and teach why the world is round.

The CBS news posting [reproduced below] lists questions which parallel a book by Jonathan Wells, a prominent creationist, without pointing to any rebuttal. Frankly, you would have had to study the textbook pretty good even to know what the Wells questions are about. To find the answers, you might need some research. One really good site is

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/wells/iconob.html

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/05/03/tech/main692524.shtml

What Some StudentsAre Asking TheirBiology Teachers
Critics of evolution are supplying students with prepared questions on such topics as:

· The origins of life. Why do textbooks claim that the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment shows how life's building blocks may have formed on Earth - when conditions on the early Earth were probably nothing like those used in the experiment, and the origin of life remains a mystery?

· Darwin's tree of life. Why don't textbooks discuss the "Cambrian explosion," in which all major animal groups appear together in the fossil record fully formed instead of branching from a common ancestor - thus contradicting the evolutionary tree of life?

· Vertebrate embryos. Why do textbooks use drawings of similarities in vertebrate embryos as evidence for common ancestry - even though biologists have known for over a century that vertebrate embryos are not most similar in their early stages, and the drawings are faked?

· The archaeopteryx. Why do textbooks portray this fossil as the missing link between dinosaurs and modern birds - even though modern birds are probably not descended from it, and its supposed ancestors do not appear until millions of years after it?

· Peppered moths. Why do textbooks use pictures of peppered moths camouflaged on tree trunks as evidence for natural selection - when biologists have known since the 1980s that the moths don't normally rest on tree trunks, and all the pictures have been staged?

· Darwin's finches. Why do textbooks claim that beak changes in Galapagos finches during a severe drought can explain the origin of species by natural selection - even though the changes were reversed after the drought ended, and no net evolution occurred?

· Mutant fruit flies. Why do textbooks use fruit flies with an extra pair of wings as evidence that DNA mutations can supply raw materials for evolution - even though the extra wings have no muscles and these disabled mutants cannot survive outside the laboratory?

· Human origins. Why are artists' drawings of apelike humans used to justify materialistic claims that we are just animals and our existence is a mere accident - when fossil experts cannot even agree on who our supposed ancestors were or what they looked like?

· Evolution as a fact. Why are students told that Darwin's theory of evolution is a scientific fact - even though many of its claims are based on misrepresentations of the facts?

Source: Discovery Institute

The Names the Thing

List Most Popular Baby Names In 2004

Here is the list of the most popular baby names for 2004, based on applications for Social Security cards. Position on the list in 2003 appears in parentheses:

Girls:
1. Emily (1)2. Emma (2)3. Madison (3)4. Olivia (5)5. Hannah (4)6. Abigail (6)7. Isabella (11)8. Ashley (8)9. Samantha (10)10. Elizabeth (9)

Boys:
1. Jacob (1)2. Michael (2)3. Joshua (3)4. Matthew (4)5. Ethan (7)6. Andrew (5)7. Daniel (8)8. William (11)9. Joseph (6)10. Christopher (9)

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

The Dodger's first question was why biblical names nominate the boys, while the girls names are what? What's up with "Madison," anyway. African names popular among african americans take this group out of any influence among the top 10.

Whatever happened to John, James and Mary?

Who are these masked men, Liars, Hypocrits or Incompentants?

BrooklynDodger has argued, in other contexts, that one should not assume malevolence where ignorance, incompetance or laziness could equally explain bad behavior. The front page of the Times notes that the Homeland Security Elite, having squandered 4.5 billion on useless [for the stated purpose] equipment, now wants more money without any prospect we aren't throwing good money after bad.

The Dodger suggests that the purpose of most HS BS was to constantly propagandize Americans about marginal to improbably threats to reinforce political support for the Bush Administration. We needn't invoke Lakoff framing of mommy and daddy parties to conclude which party is more likely to lock up all the [dark skinned] furriners here, and bomb them there, jail first and ask questions afterward. So, if you ignore the long term prospect of amplifying hostility, the short term impact says vote for Bush, every time you take off your shoes in the airport.

There is some science here, but the vast majority of the science trained community is walled off by secrecy from doing the simple calculations which would permit evaluating any of this stuff.

What are these biological detectors detecting and how? Can they possibly work, or are we better served by putting resources into surveillance which can detect an outbreak of any disease, a network which could respond to SARS or the Avian flu?

What are these radiation detectors detecting and how does that apply to a smuggled nuclear weapon? Can they possibly work outside a semi-trailer loaded with a cargo container? [The Dodger guesses these detectors measure gamma rays, which are incidentally released by fissionable material. Virtually no shielding will stop alpha particles, not much is needed to stop beta's [emitted by the nucleides which pose the largest internal radiation threat from a "dirty bomb."b How much enriched uranium do you need to get a detectable amount of gamma? Someone knows, but not the Dodger]


http://nytimes.com/2005/05/08/national/08screen.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5094&en=5cfdf0fee9e6ae67&hp&ex=1115611200&partner=homepage

U.S. to Spend Billions More to Alter Security Systems

Among the problems:
¶Radiation monitors at ports and borders that cannot differentiate between radiation emitted by a nuclear bomb and naturally occurring radiation from everyday material like cat litter or ceramic tile.
¶Air-monitoring equipment in major cities that is only marginally effective because not enough detectors were deployed and were sometimes not properly calibrated or installed. They also do not produce results for up to 36 hours - long after a biological attack would potentially infect thousands of people.
¶Passenger-screening equipment at airports that auditors have found is no more likely than before federal screeners took over to detect whether someone is trying to carry a weapon or a bomb aboard a plane.
¶Postal Service machines that test only a small percentage of mail and look for anthrax but no other biological agents.

More Polling

People sometimes ask the Dodger why the Dodger likes some answers from the Detroit News Cybersurvey - like the recent nuclear option poll - and not others.

It appears that survey answerers want to take from UAW members the benefits that the answerers don't themselves have. Incidentally, benefits are bought with pre-tax dollars, the cost shifted benefits with after-tax dollars, meaning for every $1 the employer saves the employee loses $1.3o.

Should UAW help?
Should UAW heed the advice of autos suppliers and give Ford, GM a break on benefits before their contract expires?
Yes
57.21%
No
42.79%

Instant Polling on Nuclear Option

Click on Detroit yielded the following votes early on in their poll:

Should Democrats be allowed to use the filibuster to block the president’s judicial nominees?
Choice
Votes
Percentage of 64 Votes
Yes.
33
52%
No.
29
45%
Only in some cases.
1
2%
I don't know.
1
2%

Recycled Linguistics

BrooklynDodger once took a scientific german course, and then later listened to some unscientific yiddish lessens. A posting on someone else's blog regarding the prefix "ver" applied to slang yiddish expressions, prompted some research on the internet on german, recycled here:

Simple Infinitives

The infinitive consists of the root and usually the suffix "-en". There are a few verbs having another ending, mostly "-ern" or "-eln". The ending "-n" is regarded to be the suffix of those.

"laufen" (to walk)
"lächeln" (to smile)
"meistern" (to master)

There are some verbs which have a permanent prefix at their beginning. The most common permanent prefixes found in German are "ver-", "ge-", "be-", "er-", "ent-" and "zer-".

"brauchen", to need - "verbrauchen", to consume or to use up
"raten", to advise - "verraten", to betray
"fallen", to fall - "gefallen" to be pleasing
"hören", to hear - "gehören" to belong to
"brennen", to burn (intransitive) - "verbrennen", to burn (transitive), "to burn completely"
"beginnen", to begin (no form without the prefix)

The meaning of the permanent prefixes does not have a real system; the alteration in meaning can be subtle or drastic. The prefixes "ver-", "be-" and "ge-" have several different meanings.

Verbs with "er-" tend to relate to creative processes, verbs with "ent-" usually describe processes of removing, and "zer-" is used for destructive actions.

Many verbs have a separable prefix that changes the meaning. The separable prefix is added at the beginning, before the permanent prefix.

"wegtragen" (to carry away)
"umverteilen" (to share around)

In some cases these separable prefixes merge together with the infinitive; therefore, they are actually permanent prefixes. Unfortunately for the learner, there are even verbs that have a version with a separable prefix and another version with same prefix, but permanent.
"umfahren"
=1. pronounced 'umfahren, with the stress on the first syllable
to run down (in one's car)
"Ich fahre den Baum um" (I crash into the tree)
=2. pronounced um'fahren, with the stress on the second syllable
to drive around
"Ich umfahre den Baum" (I drive around the tree)

More Reasons to Care About Federal Judges

BrooklynDodger apologizes for a hiatus in posting.

The current debate about the nuclear option refocuses on "activist judges."

On Friday, the United States Supreme Court was expected to meet in closed session to consider scores of petitions. One was by the high school athletic association, seeking to overturn lower-court rulings forcing the change in sports seasons of more than 100,000 athletes.
If the high court agrees to hear the association's appeal -- and that decision could be announced as soon as Monday morning -- no ruling would be forthcoming for several months, and the current seasons will remain in place for at least the next school year. If the high court refuses to accept the appeal, the season changes will go into effect in August.
Six sports -- girls basketball and volleyball, girls and boys golf and girls and boys tennis -- will flop seasons.


http://www.detnews.com/2005/highschools/0505/01/A01-167666.htm

Families await sports seasons' fate
Supreme Court may decide whether Michigan boys and girls play at new times this year.
By Fred Girard / The Detroit News

Sunday, May 1, 2005