Monthly Archives: April 2005

Baseball

Tonight

Tonight I have three pitchers starting, should be interesting to see.

As I commented on previously, just because a pitcher is projected to start doesn’t mean he will. Looks like Lohse’s start will be cancelled this weekend to bring back a pitcher from DL without disrupting the rotation of the other starters. Don’t know what this means yet. Silva, the pitcher coming back, was the initial #4 pitcher of the Twins staff, Lohse the #3 starter.

Lohse hasn’t been too hot so far, with a 6.62 ERA and a 1.358 WHIP. (He’s actually the worst pitcher on the Twin’s roster, at present.) The major difference between Silva and Lohse is that Lohse will get more stikeouts. But Lohse is way above his expected ERA and WHIP. Silva went on DL with a hurt knee, so it will be interestnig to see how he does when he comes back this weekend.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Lohse sent down for a few months in order to get his act back in gear. He did make the Opening Day roster as a starter, so he has potential. He just doesn’t seem to have found it yet this year.

Baseball

Yahoo! Sports – MLB – Box Score

Yahoo! Sports – MLB – Box Score

I got a save! Looks like the White Sox’s ace closer didn’t quite work out and they brought in my guy for the last 2 outs to get the save. Remarkable!

On a sadder note, it looks like I have to start shopping one of the best pitchers in the majors for the past ten-fifteen years, Randy Johnson. What made Johnson such a worthwhile pitcher is that, in addition to the strikeouts, he also provided Wins, ERA and Ratio. The Wins and ERA have flown out the window. He gave up 6 runs (5 earned) in 7 1/3 innnings yesterday (6.14 ERA) against Tampa Bay! He was very economical about it, doing it all on 6 hits. His ERA for the year is 5.13. He won Opening Day and that was it. Alas, alas.

Randy’s ERA for the previous 18 seasons is 3.06. This is a good number. (I think anything under 4.00 is a very good ERA number.) Along with 4076 strikeouts. But, maybe, he has held on too long and it is time to let him go.

Baseball

First Place

After a truly outstanding performance from the Hitting side of the team (.360 BA, 13 R, 20 RBI, 4 HR, 2 SB), the Rocky Coloradans are in first place in the UBL, with 69 points. Of course, on April 19th, this means squat. But they did it, even with the typical lackluster performance of the pitching staff (6.43 ERA, why are these guys even in the majors?).

Baseball

Week 2 in Review

A satisfying week all around. The Hitters got their average up while the pitcher’s ERA stayed level. A look at the numbers, for the week:

    HR 7; League Average; 7.4 Points 3: My guys should be hitting more HR than this.
    Runs 43; LA 36; Pts 8.5: Made a good move up the charts, I expect to only improve the run totals when they start hitting more HR

    RBI 42; LA 34.6; Pts 8: Another good move up the charts, many of my hitters are in a position to drive in runs.

    AVG .283; LA (an average of averages?) .2567 ; Pts 4: Well, they got me above the Mendoza line. I am lucky that some other teams fell back quickly, so I was able to pick up the points.

    SB 7; LA 3.6; Pts 10: I am starting to run away with this category (pun intended), but best not to get too cocky too early.

    W 5; LA 3.6; Pts 10: The Win category is still tight. I overtook the Indians because they only had 2 wins for the week. Next week it could be me.

    S 0; LA 2; Pts 1.5: The only reason I’m not at 1 point is because someone else didn’t get any closers either. Between the two of us we have 0 saves and the league leader has 8 in just 2 weeks.
    K 50; LA 34.8; Pts 9: One advantage of having a lot of starters is that they face a more battters and have more chances to get a strikeout.
    ERA 3.80; LAA 3.73; Pts 5: The drawback to having a lot of starters is that the batters have more opportunities to earn runs from them.
    WHIP 1.113; LAA 1.2614; Pts 6: The Walks plus Hits per Inning Pitched is a normalized ratio which should be standardized for all pitchers. Typically, closers have the best WHIP; starters are next best and the set-up pitchers have the worst WHIP.

I have nine starts projected this week between 7 starters. One start every day; with three starts on Thursday. Two pitchers will pitch twice this week. Let’s see how many wins they eke out this week.

Of course, projections are based on standard pitcher rotation patterns. (Starters usually start every 4 or 5 days. Different managers have different rotations.) It doesn’t mean that I will actually have 9 starts to work with. Last week I had a pitcher originally projected for a Friday start who got pushed back to Sunday because of a sore elbow.

And there’s always the joy of having 2 starters starting against each other. Had that happen last week. Not projected for this week.

General

Stickers

Saw a couple of stickers on the rear window of a car I drove by. The first was a Bush-Cheney ’04 sticker. Lots of them in this neighborhood. And next to it was a “Partnership for an Idiot Free America”

That one really boggled the mind.

Geek Stuff

More Problems

Before I was interupted with the Texas Trip, I had built a computer. I built a rather elaborate Mulitmedia PC that was intended to run Linux.

AMD64 3200+ CPU
Foxconn motherboard with PCI express
Nvidia 6600 PCI Express Graphics card
DVD RW
2-160 GB SATA drives
PCHDTV Card
Twinhan Sateliite Receiver Card
WinTVGo TV receiver
old TV receiver card that I am trying to figure out what to do with.

So, I bought a static strap and put it all together. Took a while, but I wasn’t rushing things.

Then I loaded a Fedora Core 3 image disk and started it up. No sparks, buzzes or smoke. The drive started up, the monitor lit up and something was happening. Then everything hung and I had a ‘kernel panic’. This is not good and I need to start tracking things down.

Evidently my configuration is cutting edge.

When I got back from Texas I tried to use the Hoary Ubuntu Live release and there was still a ‘kernel panic’

Onward to find out why I have a bad RIP value.

Liberating Thoughts, Politics

What is a Representative Democracy?

It would appear that people have forgotten the principles of representative government and why we elect representatives to the Congress every two years.

The holders of those offices certainly don’t want the people to think about how they are not doing their jobs. They would prefer to distract ‘The People’ and point to irrelvant issues to consider.

Taken in the light of ‘The People’ governing themselves, I don’t see very many liberals on the National Political Scene. And it may be that you have to sell your soul to get to that level. ‘The People’ don’t seem to have much to say about critical federal items like debt-ceiling and deficits. Everything seems to be pork barrel politics; get the goods for your district and keep the voters happy, even if you have to compromise your principles by supporting someone else’s bill that doesn’t really impact your district anyway.

And it may be that people just aren’t paying attention to what the idiots in DC are doing this term, because at the Federal level there aren’t that many items that have a direct daily impact on people. How your representative voted regarding salmon fishing farms of the coast of Washington State probably doesn’t have much impact on the average citizen not on the coast of Washington State. But what sort of deals were cut to get that vote?

Maybe, in the global scheme of things, Salmon Fish Farming has a role. I think that is part of why representatives are in Washington. To get the information together that will alow them to make an informed vote and not a bought vote. Their vote should be for their constituents first, and for the US second, if they do’t see their constituency as being a primary player.

We don’t have a very representative democracy anymore, here in the USA. There is 1 person representing almost 1 million citizens in Montana. That doesn’t sound very representative to me. On average, each representative represents 650,000 citizens. That doesn’t sound very representive to me. I think one representative for every 100,000 citizens is a fair goal. It may get a bit chaotic on the Hill trying to get 50% of 3000 representatives to agree on something, but democracy isn’t pretty.

I would actually suggest that a 2/3 majority is needed to pass a federal law, but that might be going to far. I’m willing to compromise on 50%+. If you can’t get 67% of the representatives to agree on a budget, maybe there are some things in it that don’t belong there.

General, Politics

Estate Taxes

I heard the the House has passed a bill that will do away with the Estate Tax in 2010, so it doesn’t come back as currently allowed.

What I don’t understand is why the Republicans think that the estate tax is ‘unfair’. The person who earned the estate, built it up penny by penny, is dead. They don’t need it anymore. Once you leave the playing table, your chips revert to the bank.

All right, so they want to pass their ill-gotten gains onto others. How is this fair? One measure of success in our society is your net worth. So these inheritors are suddenly swimming in money without lifting a finger. How is that fair?

Not having an Estate Tax is inherently unfair. It promotes the growth of an aristocracy that claims great material wealth based on the activities of their ancestors. I think the British have already demonstrated the usefulness of these twits.

Another argument made about the Estae Tax is that it causes family businesses to break up because they have to sell the business assets to pay the tax.

My solution is simple. Property that is inherited is not taxed at the time of inheritence. It is only taxed when it is sold. If someone passes on the family farm, worth 10’s of millions of dollars, to three children, along with 10 million dollars, the Estate Tax would be figured on the dollars and not the farm (unless the children want to sell it). When one or all of the children decide to sell part or whole of the farm, then they pay the Estate Tax on it. The same can be done for paintings, artwork, jewelry, family heirlooms. No tax until they are sold. Stocks, bonds, money instruments, basically anything the SEC might oversee, are taxed when inherited, if the total value of the Estate at time of death exceeds some set value. (We don’t count property appreciation after death.)

What would be a good set value to start Estate Taxes? How about 10 times the anual salary of the President of the United States? or 5 times? That allows the value to change with the times and not squeeze everyone once inflation pushes the poverty level up to $1,000,000.