On Hiatus

Going to somewhere with no high speed connection which blocks blogspot.

Sleeping With The Enemy

Firefox interacts with Blogger lots better than Internet Explorer. But Firefox is increasingly locking up in many applications, notably Blogger. When the Dodger(s) finally gives up and goes to the old reliable control-alt-delete, and puts the unresponsive Firefox out of its misery, Microsoft asks if the Dodger(s) want to send an error message.

The Dodger(s) doesn't. Figuring, it's only Microsoft figuring how to create expect errors rather than unexpeceted errors.

GM Commentary from the Right Wing

A Detroit News Column:

GM should define how its cutbacks will add to its value

Daniel Howes /

February 19, 2006

An old business adage holds that companies can't cut their way to prosperity. Nowhere is that more true today than at General Motors Corp., where a culture of cutbacks reigns with little countervailing force.

That's not good if Chairman Rick Wagoner and GM's directors expect their employees and the consuming public to rally behind a cause that is affecting their futures and will determine the future of the independent American-owned auto industry.

......

When GM's financial engineering is over, its work force is reduced, its manufacturing empire is smaller, its dealer body is winnowed -- when all the "problems" are "solved" -- how will the new GM be different from the old one whose culture of bureaucratic denial, misreading its home market and complicity with labor brought GM to its current crossroads?

What, in short, is the vision for a "new" GM that will be as dynamic and competitive at home as it is in places like China, Poland, Russia and South Korea? A credible answer to that fair question is the positive side of the negative and long-running exercise shaking Michigan to its foundations and forcing the proud United Auto Workers to face compromises it probably never thought its members would be forced to contemplate.

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BrooklynDodger(s) was going along with this pretty good, until "complicity with labor." The Dodger(s) assume this complicity was giving hourly employees job security, decent retirement benefits and reasonable health care. How is that a problem? When the history of this period is written, the Dodger(s) hopes it will consider how treatment of the salaried employees wounded the companies.

The Dodger(s) think the problem was decades of disinvestment, in order to keep the cash flowing in order to keep the stock price up. The same as Ford and Chrysler. The strategy was to make only enough cars to meet the CAFE requirements, and sell luxury trucks [SUV's] which generated profit while isolating the companies into a segment of the market vulnerable to gas prices.

"Restructuring" is closing plants and shedding workers, reducing production capacity and, selling off assets.

Democrats trying another wounded war veteran as candidate

After War Injury, an Iraq Vet Takes on Politics

By Peter Slevin

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 19, 2006; Page A01

CHICAGO, Feb. 18 The smiling candidate in rimless eyeglasses and a long woolen skirt maneuvers carefully among tables and chairs as she works a crowded Starbucks. She is taking small steps, and the reason for the slight awkwardness in her gait is not instantly clear.

Reaching to shake hands with a voter, she says: "You may have heard of me. I'm the Iraq war vet who's running. I was injured over there." Talking with another, she says: "I actually lost both my legs. I can walk because I got really good health care."

The daughter of a retired Marine, Duckworth was born in Bangkok, where her father, Franklin Duckworth, did U.N. refugee work and married Lamai Sompornpairin, an ethnic Chinese. She spent much of her youth in Southeast Asia. She joined the ROTC while earning a master's degree in international affairs at George Washington University.

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BrooklynDodger(s) comments: BrooklynDodger(s) was pleased to see some graduate training in this candidate's resume. As well as some possibly progressive tendencies in her dad. Certainly a military officer has had to have some podium skills as well.

But the Democrats are playing a dangerous game. They just ran a wounded war veteran against a draft dodger, and got trashed over the issue of national security. Iraq war veterans remind the electorate of the war, and it's probably an electorate that still believes Iraq caused 9/11. As Tom Friedman said, when he was campaigning for the Iraq war, and implicitly for W, "These people know how to pull the trigger." People who want a war will vote Republican.

Also, you have the problem of inexperienced people, like Paul Hackett. Whether he was right or wrong, or the party was wrong or right, his outburst has damaged the Democrats chances of taking an Ohio Senate seat. Asking him to run again in that district, against an incumbent [although one that shows she's a jerk] was definitely not a second prize offering by the party.

The other concern is why these people joined up in the first place. There have to be some attitudes there which are suspect.

Tribe Goeth Before the Fall

Now that Michelle Kwan is out of the way, is the entire US women's figure skating team Jewish?

This should have been a slam dunk for internet research, but the Dodger(s) came up with confusing results.

Emily Hughes' mother is Jewish. She's likely the Times' favorite, coming from Great Neck. Sasha Cohen's parents are both Jewish. She's from LA, it appears. These are heavily reported on Jews-in-sports web sites.

The web, including the Jews-in-sports sites, is (are? is the web a collective noun?) silent about the religion of Maryland suburban raised Kimberly Meissner. Incidentally, there's a Meissner effect in physics, a German physiologist Georg Meissner who has a corpuscle named after him, and a Zep Meissner who played with Spike Jones' City Slickers. There's also a University of Delaware Ice Skating Science Center.

The best the Dodger(s) could do on Kimberly is find that her father is a doctor, she has three older brothers, including a brother Nathan, and among her dogs one is named Misha. And, cousins from Buffalo named Roth.

Torino and MoTown

Misery loves company. Fiat goes the way of General Motors, actually, went that way somewhat earlier. So, these stories are about how Fiat has cut to 1/4 of its workforce, has increased earnings [over whatever time period] and is seeking more cuts.

It's not that union contracts have bankrupted the car companies. It's that car companies are going bankrupt to get out of their union contracts.

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http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006602110344

Olympics

MICHAEL ROSENBERG: Similarities abound between Torino and our Motown

February 11, 2006

...

Fiat Auto is down to 12,000 employees in this city, less than a quarter of the total in the 1980s. A few years ago, Fiat was bleeding money. The company formed an alliance with General Motors, which failed. (Fiat received approximately $2 billion in the divorce, breaking a record set by Ivana Trump.)

Now Fiat is on the rebound. Fiat earned $46 million last quarter, according to Bloomberg News

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From other sources:

Squid and Whale - Motown to Park Slope

The Dodger(s) neither confirm or deny connections with Michigan or Brooklyn.

There's nothing in the record to connect the Dodger(s) identity with an interest in writing about the premier Michigan actor, Jeff Daniels, appearing in a movie about growing up in Brooklyn.

[The Dodger(s) note that Laura Linney's father was first named Romulus [some say the founders of Rome were brothers, Romulus and Metro Airport], and that New Zealander Anna Paquin attended Columbia, which would place her in New York city, if not Brooklyn. Jeff Daniels apparently grew up in Chelsea (which is just west of Ann Arbor, and well within its gravitational field). Laura Linney went to Brown.]

That said, the Dodger(s) is prompted to blog on the movie, having seen it. The Dodger(s) wonders if critics see a movie twice, just to make sure they get all the details, or whether critics just let it rip.

The problem with "true to life" is that life doesn't usually contain the intensity to justify paying attention to the art. Where the characters are realistic - and appear as real people - then something has to happen in the story to transcend looking at surveillance tapes. This movie is so true, and the actors are so not made up to look as extraordinary as they must be in real life, and there's no tragedy or melodrama, no blood or guts, that the Dodger(s) left the theatre with just an image of Brooklyn.

The most poignant of cultural issues is that Park Slope is portrayed as upscale, and Flatbush is downscale in the movie, set in 1980's. The Jeff Bridges character moves from the brownstone in Park Slope out to Stratford Road, out by Newkirk Avenue [based on subway shots.] Back in the day, 1962, that was the border of Midwood and Erasmus, way upscale compared to where Park Slope kds would have gone. Would they go to John Jay [a rename for Manual Training]?

What school are these kids going to from Park Slope? There's some dialogue suggesting a public school. But the interactions suggest a private school.

Finally, the Jeff Bridges character suffers an apparent heart attack in late afternnon in Park Slope. Probably for production reasons, they didn't get the shot done until after dark, when the ambulance takes him away. That's a continuity problem. There are some hospital shots, but then an exterior shot of the Klingenstien Pavilion, which is at Mount Sinai, east side, 100th street. Then, the older kid ducks out on the JB character, and shows at the Museum of Natural History, which is west side in the '90's.

Basically, a movie to see, but not to tear your heart out.

Cheney Echo

This post is largely to support the downloaded avatar.

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CHENEY'S ERRANT SHOT

Lawyers: VP can be held liable for shot

BY JOHN RILEY
STAFF WRITER

February 16, 2006

Vice President Dick Cheney's admission yesterday that he was at fault in the shooting of lawyer Harry Whittington during a weekend Texas quail hunt, after days of silence and White House attempts to blame Whittington, reflected the consensus of hunting safety experts.

"It's always incumbent on the shooter to make sure that he's shooting into a safe area," said Mark Birkhauser, a New Mexico hunting safety official and head of the International Hunter Education Association.

Auto Disinvestment Not Just in USA

Volkswagen May Cut 20,000 Jobs as Net Almost Doubles (Update4)

Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Volkswagen AG, Europe's largest carmaker, may eliminate as many as 20,000 jobs, extending a cost-cutting program that helped profit jump last quarter. The shares rose the most in three years.

Some workers may be offered jobs at other plants under the three-year reorganization plan, the Wolfsburg, Germany-based company said today. Net income climbed to 435 million euros ($521 million) in the fourth quarter, from 234 million euros a year earlier, based on the company's annual profit report today.

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"Cost cutting" means disinvestment and cutting capacity to make product in the future. Here, VW has doubled its net, but proposes to dump 5.8% of its people, and presumably 5.8% of its future gross output.

Schadenfreud

When blogspot doesn't respond for a long time, must mean there's a lot of traffic. Anyway, the Dodger(s) remorses over the joking about this incident, which threatens a person's life. Nevertheless, it's hard not to think they are lying about something, tried to cover it up. The long wait most likely covers up some drinking. It sure seems unlikely that Whittington was 30 yards away. Which makes Cheney look worse.

Maureen Dowd seems the only reporter to get the details on the weapon.

........................................................

Feb. 15, 2006, 12:38AM
Whittington likely won't need surgery or long-term drugs for heart problem
It's safer to let pellet 'touching or imbedded' in his heart stay there, doctor says

By LEIGH HOPPER and MARK BABINECK
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

The irregular heartbeat suffered Tuesday by the 78-year-old lawyer shot by Vice President Dick Cheney — apparently caused by a birdshot pellet lodged in or next to his heart — likely will not require surgery or long-term medication, a Ben Taub trauma surgeon said.

"We see a shotgun wound almost once a week here," said Dr. Kenneth Mattox, chief of staff at Ben Taub General Hospital, one of Houston's leading trauma centers. "For a bullet the size of a birdshot pellet to create atrial fibrillation would be a little unusual. I'm not saying it didn't happen. Theoretically, it could happen."

Local pathologist Dr. Paul Radelat said several factors determine how much damage birdshot can do. Those include whether the shell's load was standard or high-powered Magnum, the size of the pellets, how much clothing the victim wore and whether the barrel was "choked full" for a narrow spray or allowed to emit a wider, more dispersed cloud of metal.

"All those kinds of things are relevant," said Radelat, who said he was surprised to hear of Whittington's medical problems Tuesday based on what has been reported about the wounds. "If they all add up — small shot, full choke, Magnum load — then maybe that could have happened."

New Yorker on Executive Compensation

BrooklynDodger(s) has questioned whether Surowiecki is really qualified to opine on the matters he opines about. But this article, available in full text, really states the case about corporate management looting corporations like Delphi and UAL.

In deference to excessively quoting this column, the Dodger(s) respectfully request that the reader [are hopefully reader(s)] click through the link. The New Yorker actually puts a lot of content on their website. The Dodger(s) aren't sure how that makes money, but it's certainly a pleasant service.

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THE FINANCIAL PAGE

OVERCOMPENSATING

Issue of 2006-02-13
Posted 2006-02-06

... the Securities and Exchange Commission recently proposed a new set of rules requiring companies to disclose more information about exactly how much (and in exactly what ways) they pay their top executives, i... The S.E.C.’s proposed rules will require companies to disclose more about executives’ perks and stock-option grants and about their future pension benefits. ... they’ve already come under fire. ... As Fred Smith, Jr., the head of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, put it, “This is playing to the simple egalitarian concern that a world where everybody gets paid the same amount would be a better world.” Only crypto-Marxists and softhearted liberals, in other words, worry about how much C.E.O.s make. In part, executive compensation matters to investors because executives now take so much money out of corporations every year. According to the economists Lucian Bebchuk and Yaniv Grinstein, between 1993 and 2003 the top five executives at fifteen hundred companies in the U.S. were paid three hundred and fifty billion dollars. from a shareholder’s perspective, overpaid C.E.O.s aren’t just expensive; they’re downright destructive. One recent study of the market between 1992 and 2001 by economists at Rutgers and Penn State found that the more a C.E.O. was paid, relative to his peers, the more likely his company was to underperform in the stock market. more and more, big investors are treating excess compensation as a reliable index that something serious may be wrong. In particular, it’s often a sign that a company’s board of directors is catering to the C.E.O.’s whims rather than supervising him.

— James

Mixing Religion and Religion

Reform Jews Hope to Unmix Mixed Marriages

By MICHAEL LUO

Published: February 12, 2006

LARCHMONT, N.Y. — In this age of potpourri spirituality, Anique Olivier-Mason, 25, classifies herself generally as a Christian: she grew up Catholic and often attends a Presbyterian church near her home. But on a recent Friday night, she was attending Sabbath services at Larchmont Temple.

Mrs. Olivier-Mason's husband, Joshua, is Jewish, and the couple became members of the synagogue, in Westchester County, last summer, committing to immersing themselves in the 800-family congregation. On this night, she stood by gamely as her husband, 25, bobbed, swayed and sang in enthusiastic Hebrew with others in the temple.

With intermarriage so common, Reform synagogues like Larchmont Temple embrace interfaith couples. For the most part, concerted efforts to encourage non-Jewish spouses to convert have been frowned upon. Now, however, in what would be a major shift of outlook for Reform Judaism — the largest and most liberal of the three major streams of American Judaism, with some 1.5 million members — that may be changing.

[lots more in the article]

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BrooklynDodger(s) finds this so New York. The Dodger(s) were going to opine on Jewish rules about who is a jew and conversion and all that, but the idea was tiresome. So, here are some questions. Is Mrs. Olivier-Mason origininally Olivier (more likely), Mason, or did she marry Olivier-Mason and give up some other name and apparent ethnicity? Did a rabbi marry them? The article notes that Mrs. Olivier-Mason seems to have drifted from Catholic to Presbyterian, what's that all about? And what's up with Mrs. anyway, isn't that over? or, could you be Mrs. and use your maiden name?


[The joke is that a rabbi charges $5 if both in the couple are jewish, $10 if one is Jewish, and $25 if neither are Jewish. Another notes that many reform rabbis will do same sex weddings, but only if both are Jewish.]

The article ends:

At the end, the congregation closed with a lyrical, "Aaaa-meeennn." She looked to her husband: "Done, right?"

"Done," he said.

A sure sign the service went on to long, and frequently the Dodger(s) sentiment.

End of Separation of Church and Bomb

Air Force Eases Rules on Religion

New Guidelines Reflect Evangelicals' Criticism, General Says

By Alan Cooperman

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 10, 2006; Page A05

The Air Force, under pressure from evangelical Christian groups and members of Congress, softened its guidelines on religious expression yesterday to emphasize that superior officers may discuss their faith with subordinates and that chaplains will not be required to offer nonsectarian prayers.

"This does affirm every airman's right, even the commanders' right, to free exercise of religion, and that means sharing your faith," said Maj. Gen. Charles C. Baldwin, the Air Force's chief of chaplains.

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BrooklynDodger(s) even more afraid. We've seen a series of articles about how the Air Force Academy is over run by fundamentalist whacko's, who try to convert those who come to the Academy. These are the officers with the actual finger on the thermonuclear trigger. You would have thought that the Air Force Academy might be more modern than West Point, where the triggerperson is within miles of the target on which death will rain down. But, apparently not.

Now, the new rules imply that preventing superior officers from trying to impose their beliefs on their commandees affronts the rights of the superiors !! Actually, this is all about fundamentalism, which not about how they live their lives, but about how they control your right to live your life.

For those too young to know, the figure on the right is General Jack D. Ripper, the whacko Air Force general who launches the attack in Dr. Strangelove. He'd fit right in today.

Pew Trust Opinion Survey

Beyond Red vs. Blue Republicans Divided About Role of Government - Democrats by Social and Personal Values

A year ago there was some press play on a Pew Trust survey about attitudes. The Dodger(s) never got around to posting, but retained the addresses of the original sites.

The Dodger(s) was interested in mapping attitudes to demographics. The core of the Republican coalition is white married people with some college but no graduate degrees making better than median money living outside of cities. Being white and married helps with the money, the only confusion is why graduate degrees predict Democratic.

http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=242

http://people-press.org/reports/tables/242.pdf


The attitude sumarry is too complicated to summarize and write something insightful in a blogging environment.

The political typology summary is that Democratic groups substantially outnumber Republican groups, but the middle groups lean heavily to Republican.

The most important advantage of the Republicans is support for going to war.

Categories of attitudes were:


Foreign Policy Assertiveness. Opinions on the efficacy of military strength vs. diplomacy, use of force to defeat terrorism, and Americans' duty to serve in the military.

Religion and Morality. Attitudes concerning the importance of religion in people's lives, the government's role in protecting morality, and social issues such as homosexuality.

Environmentalism and Regulation. Beliefs about the costs and benefits of government regulation of business to protect the environment or the public interest.

Social Welfare. Beliefs about the role of government in providing for the poor and needy.

Immigration. Views concerning the impact of immigrants on American culture and the U.S. economy.

Business Sentiment. Attitudes about the influence of business in American society.

Financial Security. Level of satisfaction with current economic status and feelings of financial security.

Anti-Government Sentiment. Beliefs about the responsiveness of elected officials, and views about government performance.

Individualism. Beliefs about whether all individuals have it within their power to succeed, or whether success is beyond a person's control.

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Bad Sports Analysis

The solution to the bang Ben strategy is for Ben to make some free throws. Actually, the strategy worked as well as it could have been expected to, Saunders was forced to sit Ben and put in McDyess. It's not an unusual college deal to put in the better free throw shooters at the end of a game where you're ahead, although sitting an all star quality defensive genius is maybe not the first option.

Dodger(s) watched this game on a new 32 inch HDTV ready set, not yet having paid the HDTV tariff. The screen still cuts off the point guard yo-yoing up top.




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Pistons end losing streak at 2

Clippers' Hack-A-Ben strategy fails -- again

February 9, 2006

FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER BY KRISTA LATHAM

Chauncey Billups drives to the basket against the Clippers on Wednesday. He scored 18 points. (KIRTHMON F. DOZIER/Detroit Free Press

After two meetings with the revived Los Angeles Clippers this season, one thing is certain.

Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy isn't too proud to use a Hack-A-Ben strategy if the game is on the line in the fourth quarter.

It didn't work the first time, back in December. And it didn't work on Wednesday night at the Palace, either.

"They're oh-for-two with that with us," said Pistons guard Chauncey Billups, who scored 18 points

Isn't This Bribery and Self-Dealing - Martha Reeves on the Council

With Swartznegger winning governor in California, and Jesse Ventura and Fred Thompson past winners statewide in Minnesota and Tennessee, there's no particular shame on Detroiters electing Martha Reeves to City Council. There weren't many names to recognize on the ballot to replace Mahaffey and McPhail anyway. Nevertheless, the DFP account of her contribution so far reflects a show business orientation of scamming the venue:

So far, her contributions have included making the point that council members should get free tickets to events or activities that require their approval, such as the Super Bowl, and introducing a resolution to rename West Grand Boulevard after Berry Gordy Jr., the famed record mogul who founded the Motown label.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060203/NEWS01/602030419

Detroit

Council job gives Reeves' singing a lift

She's also busy learning how to govern

February 3, 2006

BY MARISOL BELLO

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Motown legend and Detroit City Councilwoman Martha Reeves was among the people at "A Detroit Salute," a pre-Super Bowl program Monday. Reeves and the Vandellas will perform at other Super Bowl shows. (AMY LEANG/Detroit Free Press)

Super Bowl Ads

The superbowl is a crushing dull game, the ads are showcase efforts, so the conclusion is that the ads are better than the game. Last Sunday did not disappoint, although the Dodger(s) was disappointed in the absence of boner pills, and the substitution of wizened old guys in the half time [actually, the Dodger(s) missed half time last year and this year.]

The Dodger(s) liked the Pterodactyl ad, although the effects seemed cribbed or borrowed from King Kong. The Bud ads with the horses were really cute, but the "men are such beasts" bud light ads sucked, no matter what the vote.

Which of the ads that aired during the Super Bowl was your favorite? You can view the commercials here.

	Bud Light: Hidden Bud or Magic 'Fridge	22.50%
	Burger King: Whopperettes	4.38%
	Fed Ex: Pterodactyl	34.38%
	Aleve: Leonard Nimoy	1.88%
	Ameriquest: Hospital bug zap	6.25%
	Diet Pepsi: Jackie Chan	0.00%
	Careerbuilder.com: Chimps at work	6.88%
	Hummer H3: Little monster	3.75%
	Disney World: NFL players practice their line	0.63%
	Other	19.38%

Super Bowl and the Homeless

Where's all this money coming from? Help for the homeless? So, here's a really long, and pretty well done story on espn.com about the homeless. ESPN actually wrote a decent human interest story only distantly connected to sport. If you are homeless in Detroit in the winter, you are in for serious cold weather. A Super Bowl route for Detroit's down and out By Wayne Drehs ESPN.com DETROIT -- Just a mile up the road from this city's primary entertainment district -- where Ford Field, Comerica Park, and the Fox Theatre all converge; and where 12 hours earlier, super stretch limos lined the streets waiting for their celebrity passengers -- 36-year-old Gilbert Coles walks outside of his homeless shelter, in a panic. "Gotta get outside, gotta get outside," the jumpy, bald-headed Coles says. "I need me a smoke. Need a smoke now." Coles is having a nicotine attack. He walks outside, pulls a cigarette from his pocket and, within seconds, two strangers offer him a pair of quarters for any extras. He has none. Ross Dettman/for ESPN.com A simple bowl of chili goes a long way at this Super Bowl party. "A lot of these people, they're pretty desperate," Coles says. "They'll do anything for a cigarette, a piece of candy, anything. I know just how they feel." ... On this day, the clean-shaven Coles is already giving back, by serving chili to a couple hundred of his peers as part of a three-day Super Bowl party for the homeless put on by DRMM. The idea, says Chad Audi, the Chief Operating Officer of DRMM, is to lure people into the activity center with food, clothing, activities and a pair of 45-inch big screen televisions so that, once they're there, Audi and his staff can counsel them, help them and encourage them to become residents in one of the centers. That way, they can begin the process of putting their lives back on track, like Coles is trying to do. "We want a permanent, long-term solution to their problems," Audi says. "This isn't some quick fix. If they have a problem, we're using the Super Bowl as a platform to get them in here and help them address it." Ross Dettman/for ESPN.com Super Bowl party favors: a hot meal and plenty of hospitality. Wayne Drehs is a staff writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at wayne.drehs@espn3.com.

Maxim at the Max

Apparently, major Super Bowl parties are a significant commercial enterprise, something you wouldn't know unless you were in town.

Maxim's party was at the Max, home of Detroit's highest culture, the Symphony. Based on the picture, the crowd was a lot younger than at the DSO intermission, but, just as white.

The Dodger(s) has some difficulty in picturing a high end party at Detroit City Airport - although there'd likely be a lot of room in a near abandoned terminal and a lot of parking available. If you were from out of town, you might have a problem finding the way in.

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Playboy or Maxim -- which super party was best?

BY KELLEY L. CARTER

Free Press Staff Writer

So which party outdid itself on Super Bowl's biggest party night?

The scene inside the Maxim party at the Max M. Fisher Music Center on Saturday night. (KIMBERLY MITCHELL/Detroit Free Press
So which party outdid itself on Super Bowl's biggest party night?

The truth? It depends.

Both Playboy and Maxim, both racy men's magazines who for the last several years have thrown some of the hottest events timed to celebrate the world's biggest sporting event, hosted affairs in Detroit on Saturday night -- Playboy happened at the Coleman A. Young International Airport, which is on Detroit's east side

Pistons Experimenting

82games.com mostly tells you why teams are winning, rather than helps so much predict why teams will win. The stats are heavily weighted to how important a player is to his team, rather than how he rates against others.

That said, over the last 30 days, Billups was up 193, Nowitzki up 106, and James up 106 while on the court. While we are at it, every member of the Pistons starting five plussed Nowitzki, while the only significant player at Detroit in negative points was Arroyo. But you have to expect that if Pistons are up, the other guys are going to leave their first unit in while the Detroit second unit goes on the floor.

Part of the Flip Saunders, Chauncey Billups laboratory test of how badly the Pistons can play and still win [loss to NJ showed there were limits] has been limiting starters playing time. So the raw plusses for Billups also reflect reduced time on court.

The experiment in reduced play continued in Philadelphia Friday night. With no Iverson, this should have been a romp rather than a competitive game. In the first quarter, Chauncy continued the experiment of not shooting at all, in the last quarter he experimented with not hitting any of the shots he took. Hamilton also experimented with not making any 3's. Still, they killed Philadelphia off the boards, not something Iverson would have much to do about, and won by holding Philadelphia to 80.

All said, the Dodger would have been just as happy if these guys stayed home rather than played the all-star game. The other day, sports talk radio asked what was a better honor, all star game or national team. Many callers missed the no-brainer - on the National team, they actually play to win.

Rich Man, Poor City

BrooklynDodger(s), on various drives through Detroit in the fall, saw the pickets at the Chicago Beef Company, featured in this article. They were out a long time, and there was no news about either the strike or the settlement. The Dodger(s) has a bad feeling.

The other point about this somewhat breathless coverage, is that there are a lot of rich people in the Detroit metroplitan area. They aren't living downtown, but even today there are a few nickles to be made in the car business, the advertising agencies supporting the car business, the medical car providers for the car and advertising executives, their decorators, and so on.

Of course the Champagne and beef are trucked in. We don't grow the grapes or cut up the cows here.

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February 02, 2006

Caviar and Cristal for tony crowd

Max Ortiz / The Detroit News

An orgy of excess

Local merchants report that party planners and consumers are snapping up deluxe food and drink, while event organizers brace for the onslaught of thousands of fans and visitors. Here's a look at some of the provisions being made around town:

20,000 extra pounds of New York strip and tenderloin ordered shipped by Chicago Beef Co. to area hotels and eateries

Tulips jetted in from Holland. Chickens stuffed into ducks stuffed into turkeys. King crabs with 3-foot leg spans. Case upon case of Cristal champagne.

The challenge to show off Detroit as a world-class city brimming with luxury and high-class amenities has vendors and party planners trucking in the finest champagnes, the choicest cuts of beef, the freshest and largest seafood.

Actual Data Trumps Ideology in Privatising Education

Charter schools are ideologically designed to undermine and detroy the public school system. There's a "charter school industry" in which universities give cover to private companies to take public monies, skim executive compensation, then pay sub union salaries to teachers who couldn't get public school jobs. [PS: BrooklynDodger is not a public school teacher.]

School vouchers are a similar weapon.

The Dodger concedes that some private schools, at grievous expense, provide smaller classes, less hostile bureaucracies, teachers who sought a quieter environment than public schools, and maybe teachers with good academic backgrounds who didn't get licenses.

It should be a no-brainer that enrollment in charter schools, and private schools, would bias results to better scores, because of confounding with parental involvement in their children's studies.

Testing and punishment of schools and students also cornerstone this movement.

That is, until the tests contradict the conservative ideology, then tests only provide a "snapshot."

That said, the Dodger wonders a bit about the publication of this study. Going to google, and google scholar, the investigators are findable, although it appears somewhat thinly published.

Notably, Sara Lubienski has published on math education frequently, including a study which says that elementary school teachers who know more math are more effective than those who know less [even though we've all passed through elementary school math.]

Since the Dodger doesn't know this literature at all, maybe there are other sources than the websites below.

http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k_v86/k0505lub.htm#aid1

http://www.ncspe.org/publications_files/OP102.pdf

In addition, these reports go back to 2004, echoed on the AFT and NEA websites then, and now in 2006 it's news for the first time. Maybe these results were echoed somewhere else with authority?

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/28/education/28tests.html

Public-School Students Score Well in Math in Large-Scale Government Study

By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO

Published: January 28, 2006

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 — A large-scale government-financed study has concluded that when it comes to math, students in regular public schools do as well as or significantly better than comparable students in private schools.

The study, by Christopher Lubienski and Sarah Theule Lubienski, of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, compared fourth- and eighth-grade math scores of more than 340,000 students in 13,000 regular public, charter and private schools on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress. The 2003 test was given to 10 times more students than any previous test, giving researchers a trove of new data.

Though private school students have long scored higher on the national assessment, commonly referred to as "the nation's report card," the new study used advanced statistical techniques to adjust for the effects of income, school and home circumstances. ...

The study found that while the raw scores of fourth graders in Roman Catholic schools, for example, were 14.3 points higher than those in public schools, when adjustments were made for student backgrounds, those in Catholic schools scored 3.4 points lower than those in public schools. A spokeswoman for the National Catholic Education Association did not respond to requests for comment.

The exam is scored on a 0-to-500-point scale, with 235 being the average score at fourth grade, and 278 being the average score at eighth grade. A 10-to-11-point difference in test scores is roughly equivalent to one grade level.

The study also found that charter schools, privately operated and publicly financed, did significantly worse than public schools in the fourth grade, once student populations were taken into account. In the eighth grade, it found, students in charters did slightly better than those in public schools, though the sample size was small and the difference was not statistically significant.

...

The study was financed with a grant from the Institute of Education Sciences at the Education Department, but was independent. The federal government is expected to issue two more studies looking at the same data and using similar techniques. Those studies are still undergoing peer review, but are expected to be released in early spring.

The current study found that self-described conservative Christian schools, the fastest-growing sector of private schools, fared poorest, with their students falling as much as one year behind their counterparts in public schools, once socioeconomic factors like income, ethnicity and access to books and computers at home were considered.

...

Theology in the Free Press

The article notes "10% of Americans who don't believe in the afterlife" which would not be the same as athiests, necessarily. In America, there's really no right to be an athiest, no freedom from religion...Several show courage in writing in identified by name.

All that's a lead in for the Prarie Home Companion joke, a Unitarian funeral is "All Dressed Up and No Place to Go."
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http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060131/FEATURES01/601310306/1122

SUSAN AGER: Without an afterlife, atheists live for today

January 31, 2006

Pistons Figure It Out

For the last weeks, the Pistons have been experimenting with how little effort, and how poorly they can play, and still get by with a win.

Last night against the Nets, they found out. As Blake teaches us, "Only Too Much Is Ever Enough."

So, they shot 37%, 30% from 3 point, were outrebounded, equal in turnovers and foul shots. And yet, it came down to a couple of missed 3's at the finish.