World's Only Rational Man

Please consider voting for the LFSA, the “Let’s Fix Sports!” Act.

Not “fix” as in, “sports are broken and need repair”.  Obviously sports are not broken.  They are world-wide billion-dollar industries with the most loyal customers, ever.

No, the LFSA “fix” means “picking the winners prior to the competitions”.  Think of all the savings!

• Less time!
• Less effort!
• Smaller carbon footprint!
• No more injuries!

Sports will be even more profitable if we eliminate costly expenses like stadiums, equipment and uniforms.  Cities will know exactly when to prepare for riots.  The benefits are endless!

You wish you’d thought of it, don’t you?  Well…to be honest, I kind of stole the idea myself.   After seeing governments pick corporate winners and losers I thought, “Heck yes!  That’s way more efficient!”

It’s genius.  Just look at players’ and fans’ hatred of sports officials.  “Blind as a bat!” is the nicest thing anyone ever says to one.  But when officials start choosing winners and losers they’ll get respect.  Okay, technically it will be deference, not respect…but it feels the same to the recipient.  Or so I’ve heard.

Anyway, things would get much better for umps and refs.  Much better.  Instead of boos and catcalls they’ll be getting cash, cars, money, pre-paid hookers, and moolah.  They’ll love it so much that they’ll never go back willingly.  If you try to make them, don’t expect your teams to ever win again.

But why would we go back?  The number of winners and losers stays the same, doesn’t it?  What the LFSA does is to eliminate all that vast effort.  No blood and sweat to shed, no bones to mend.  Better still, once the LFSA passes anyone can be a professional athlete.  Yes, even you!  What sport?  Any sport you like.  Can’t slam-dunk?  You can sure suck up.  Why practice free throws when you can always brown-nose?

“What’s the downside?” you ask?  There is no downside.  All we’re doing is giving referees and umpires and game officials total control over outcomes.  They are extremely well-trained and competent people, but they have no “skin in the game”.  So just imagine how much better they’d perform if they had a personal stake in the competition.

Just think about it. The “Let’s Fix Sports!” Act.

My payment for this awesome idea?  It’s quite modest.  I just want the Alabama Crimson Tide to go undefeated and win the college football championship.

Every year.

Edohiguma called a tentative “bs” on this story.

Edo, in this case your gut was almost certainly wrong.  Folks given rad materials are vastly more radioactive than their surroundings.  Assuming they’re “fresh out of the oven”, they are 1000x or more “hotter” than the surroundings.

When I was working at Brookhaven National Labs, we had a shipment of medical isotopes delayed because the driver was “caught” by NY state police.  (This was after 9-11).  The cop’s gamma detector alarmed when the delivery man drove by.

In fact, this really isn’t uncommon.  If someone’s had a medical radioisotope treatment, they will set off our local alarms.  The only reason cops are seeing it now is because they didn’t have rad instruments until after 9-11.

Michael Barone is as great an authority on American elections as there’s every been.

But instead of analysis, I’ll go with a gut prediction.  Here’s how I see the Prez election:

Obama wins big:         0%

Obama wins close:    45%

Romney wins close:  45%

Romney wins big:     10%

(Media bias and vote fraud can nudge Obama’s chances upward, maybe several percent)

I’m basing this on Obama “coming out” for gay marriage.  Sure, he’s shoring up part of his base and raking in cash.  But he’s depressing other Dem factions.  Some Hispanics and Catholics may now vote for Romney, though I doubt many black voters will go GOP.  Instead, quite a few just won’t vote.

But…look at all the progressive lurve Barack’s getting now!  You can bet he likes it.  So if Romney starts to pull away, Obama may just go all-out culture war.  If he thinks he’s going to lose anyway, why not as a Leftist champion?  Give those gun-crazy Bible-thumping homophobes the ol’ what-for!

In which case, Romney could win big.  A lot of voters don’t pay attention until fall.  If Mr. “Hope n’ Change” has gone rabid by then, quite a few new folks will see him for what he is:  the opposite of what he claimed in ’08.

Man, I wish Hatch would get knocked out of his primary.  Because even if Romney wins big he won’t be saving the country. America’s only hope is that the Tea Party philosophy seizes power.  I expect Romney to win the election (if cheating isn’t too widespread).  But I don’t see the Tea Partyers taking enough of Congress to reverse things in time.  Senate solons can use the filibuster to prevent a lot of reform.

I believe the House could zero budgets out of existence.  That may only require a majority Senate.  But would a mostly-not-Tea Party GOP dare to do such a thing?

Nope.

Pretty darn close, actually.

In the previous post I showed that no one on the Left is a complete idiot.  Does that seem like “damning with faint praise”?  It’s not; it’s an indictment.  Since no one is fully stupid, no one is fully good.  And morality trumps mind.

They are not complete idiots, but they are stupid beyond mortal comprehension.

Set aside what you already know.  Now consider this:  which is better, capitalism or communism?  “Better for what?” you ask, having set aside knowledge, not intellect.  Since they are both economic theories, I’ll go with “better at feeding and clothing and sheltering and educating and enriching human beings.”  If your definition is “eliminating the human cancer that infects Mother Gaia”, your answer will be different.

(This is why non-Leftists who interact with the Left need to insist on goals being defined prior to anything else.  Some of them honestly do wish to impoverish others.  A rare few even admit it.)

Anyway, let’s assume that “better economic theory” means “better at creating prosperity”.  Oh, if only we could test these two mutually exclusive theories in laboratory conditions!  Unfortunately, we can’t.  Economics is “social science”, which means “not really science”.  Every scientist agrees on the speed of light.  Every economist agrees on nothing.

So, we can’t prove one or the other like an equation.  But what we can do is seize post-WWII Germany and divide it in two.  Make one half capitalist, the other communist.  (Actually, the absolute best would be to carve the Deutschland into thirds, leaving Control Group Germany to its own devices.)

This test would be a beautiful thing.  Well, not necessarily for Germans.  But it’s a very simple and useful test and only a complete idiot could misunderstand it.  The divided Germans are genetically similar and have an identical language and history.  Best of all, their Lutheran/Protestant culture comes with a fierce work ethic!  That’s perfect for testing economic theories.

Now start the ex-Reich rat race!

(Oh, you’ll also need to put a wall up in about a decade.  Otherwise the experiment will fail because about half of your rats will try to escape their maze.)

Can we draw any economic conclusions from that 50-year experiment?

“What about the repeatability of phenomenon?” you ask?  Well, there are other peoples and cultures beside the Teutonic one.  So rather than dividing up another European country, let’s chop up an Asian one this time.  Let’s say, right across the 38^th parallel, northern hemisphere?

What conclusions can we draw?  That Leftists are either stupid beyond all comprehension, or evil tyrants who hate us beyond all comprehension.

The only truly intelligent Leftists are willfully evil.  They’re relatively rare, but without them the rest of the Left would flounder and sink.

At the opposite end of the Leftist spectrum, only complete idiots could be morally pure.  And these…probably don’t exist.  A morally pure moron is both honest and good.  Therefore one of the few things he would know is not to mess with anything he doesn’t understand.  He’s wise, not smart.  Think Forrest Gump.  Since the essence of Leftism is meddling, it seems impossible for a truly good person to be a Leftist.

Between the statistically insignificant poles are teeming hordes of…the willfully stupid.  They range the gamut, their intellect usually varying in inverse proportion to their morality.  But unless they sear the conscience, every one of these Leftists has a vague awareness of moral and ideological error.

This is what accounts for their universal bitterness and hatred.

As you’ve no doubt heard, Barack has come out of the chapel closet.  Yawn.  As someone brilliantly observed, “he was for it before he was against it before he was for it”.

For the first time, I regret that Romney is Mormon.  He won’t mention polygamy, will he?  Even though a smart Latter Day Saint could now destroy Obama on the subject of marriage.

(Well, assuming the LDS candidate isn’t in favor of polygamy.) 

“In 1857, President Buchanan sent an army into the state of Utah.  Why?  To force the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to give up polygamy.  It worked, and as a Mormon I’m grateful.  My one-and-only Ann is already more woman than I can handle.”

“I strongly believe that marriage should be between one man and one woman.  This is not because government should meddle in the affairs of consenting adults.  I defend traditional American marriage because it is what is best for America’s children.”

“The President wants the federal government out of the marriage business.  He’s fine with banning light bulbs, and shutting down energy production, and forcing Catholic organizations to provide contraceptives…but not with promoting the best households for innocent children.”   

“In conclusion:  gay marriage blows.”

(WTF, you ask?  Great speechwriters always let the speaker improve their work.  That doesn’t mean you let him decide what the improvement is.  Give an obvious edit.  It works on censors, too!)

What better way to celebrate a blog’s “Terrible Two” birthday than by provoking a bloodthirsty mob?  I ask because of the latest profile in journalistic courage, in response to this.

If ever there were a case for eliminating the discipline, the sidebar explaining some of the dissertations being offered…has made it.

Ms. Riley was right.  Though she could have added gender studies, women’s studies…hang on, where’s the list?

…whoa. 

(Oh, good lord, there is a “men’s studies”.  Dudes, you should be very ashamed.) 

That is a lot of academic fields.  Seriously, click the link.  And guess what?  In academia’s enormous dog’s breakfast, the least legitimate is “black studies” ( it’s tied with “latino” and “chicano” and et ceterao studies).  Even “Queer theory” and men’s and women’s studies deserve more respect than “racial” studies.     

Of course, none are legitimate in the first place.  This was determined using my totally awesome field, wormmology.  And as the Principia Wormmathica states, “shave only with Occam’s Razor”.  Do not multiply entities needlessly.

This is why it’s wrong to present “Queer Theory” as equal to biology or anthropology or sociology or psychology.  These mock fields are all specialties within existing academia, somewhere between “sub” and “sub-sub-sub” specialty.

(It’s also wrong to think of anthro-socio-psycho as peers to biology, of course.  “Academic field” and “science” are not synonymous.  As geeks and nerds we must never confuse anthro-socio-psychos with real scientists.  Don’t let a-s-p’s fool you just because they do statistics.)

Whoops, drifted off-topic, didn’t I?  A good, smart woman just got fired because blowhard moron grad students got their feelings hurt.  So…black ”community”?  Really?  Since when does “community” equal  “mob”? 

Well, black and academic communities, read my lips:  “black studies” is as stupid as things can get.  Its idiocy is matched (“latino studies”) but not surpassed.  “Black studies” is the very antithesis of knowledge.      

Why?  It’s a quantum thing, because my using the word “quantum” proves that I am smart.   “Man” and “woman” are quantum units.  “Black” is not.  Can you subdivide or dilute “man” or “woman”?  You can try.  Transgendered?  Nope.  Changing the plumbing doesn’t change the genes.  Hermaphrodite?  That’s more like the exception that proves the rule.

Can you dilute “black” or “latino”?  You can try.  Can a black and a latino come together and make a baby?  Of course not!  Everyone knows that human racial groups are not cross-fertile.  Black is black and white is white, and never…

…the twain…

Shall meet.     

So if a female “black studies” professor married a PhD in “chicano”…what would their kids study?  There are only two choices:  “blacano” or “chack”.  Wait, “chick” also works.  Which maybe explains “women’s studies” after all.

There is nothing of value in “black studies” that can’t be gotten by considering “black” in an actual field of study.  Are you concerned with genetic differences, societal or psychological ones, what?  There’s already an app for that. 

And so the only reason to focus on “black studies” is because you want “Dr.” in front of your name and “PhD” in back of it, but can’t brave the rigors of sociology.  God help you.

But first may He give your backside a good whuppin’ for making the old “Piled Higher & Deeper” joke a reality.