2003_01_26_archive

Interesting essay from Brian Micklethwait over at Samizada on NFL

parity and comparing it to big-time soccer in England

Parity is achieved by such devices as imposing a "salary cap" on

all the teams, so that they must basically all spend the same

amount on player salaries, and by giving the worst teams last year

the pick of the following year's best new players. I don't like

this. As Hawley says, it drains the meaning out of things. Maybe

Americans are religious. Maybe that's it. If God can't fix life, he

can at least, in the person of the NFL, be made to fix American

football to give everyone an equal chance. Maybe that's what going

on.

It's strange that the least PC of the big American sports (you could

make a case for hockey being even less PC) is also the most socialist,

with most revinue being shared and the draft and salary cap allowing

the weak teams to retool and have the money to do it. Compare that

with big-time soccer

In English football ("soccer" - which, I learned the other day, is

because our football is As-SOC-iation Football) the rule is: to

them that have shall be given. If you get to be Manchester United,

or Arsenal, or Liverpool, it's because you are based in a great and

ancient city with a past glorious enough to have assembled a decent

number of people to buy the season tickets and the shirts and the

merchandise, and because with that foundation you also did

everything else right as well. You built a good stadium. You bought

good players and not just overpriced big names. You gelled your

team of multi-national internationals into a team of team players,

and when you got to the top you didn't get complacent but kept on

improving. You have a good youth set-up. You find a really good

manager, and you stick by him through bad patches.

Translate "Manchester United, or Arsenal, or Liverpool" to "Yankees,

Braves and Dimondbacks", drop the "and ancient" and change "youth

set-up" to "farm system" and you've got the current state of baseball

pretty darn cold.

# posted by Mark @ 1/26/2003 11:17:00 PM

Tony's New Crony-Here's a cute food fight- two Americans telling the

British what to do. Patrick Ruffini has this paean for Tony Blair

I like Iain Duncan Smith as much as the next guy. But by reaching

an unpopular decision rooted in moral conviction and standing with

the U.S. on Iraq, Tony Blair has attained the full measure of a

statesman. This is why I think it's especially important that those

of us on the right here in America refrain from supporting the

Conservative opposition and tacitly support Blair's re-election in

2005 or 2006.

You might call off the dogs some, but you have to give the Tories some

props, especially if Blair continues to mugwump on the Euro and

greater EU intergration and the Tories run a solid pro-US Eurosceptic

platform.

It's a tough call to make. When it comes to taking the war on

terror to Iraq, the vast majority of Blair's Labour MPs aren't just

unhelpful; they're proactively malignant. There's also a strong

possibility that Blair will be replaced sometime after the next

election with someone more eurocratic than he, Gordon Brown being

the most obvious contender. If Blair is party leader at the next

election, one fervently hopes that, armed with vindication in Iraq,

he can use his centralized authority in the party to drum out the

neo-Trotskyites and groom a pro-American successor. But even

setting these hopes aside, it just seems right to me that the need

to reward a good friend should overwhelm all else, even ideology.

The problem that could happen if Blair does run the neo-Trotskyites

out is that they run to the Liberal Democrats, making them the party

of the left and squeezing out NuLab. The trick will be for Blair to

keep control of the party without POing the hard-left of the party. If

Blair does lose control of the party to the leftists, the Tories will

be their to win the next election. If Blair does keep control, we have

a fight between two fairly pro-US candidates. However the

Conservatives would be better partners in international affairs. As

far as rewarding friends, you still run candidates against a honorable

member of the other party. For instance, would the Georgia GOP have

rolled over and played dead if Zell Miller had run for another term?

Their heart might not have been in it, but they would have run a solid

campaign and lost 60-40. No, you still back the Conservatives, but

don't lose too much sleep if Labour wins. As I recall, Churchill was

voted out of office in 1945 after the war was over. The campaign

posters were, IIRC, "Thank you, Winston. Vote Labour." Time to reverse

the field-"Thank you, Tony. Vote Tory."

# posted by Mark @ 1/26/2003 10:25:00 PM

Can't I Keep My Claudometer Working?-"N. Korea Economy Founders."

# posted by Mark @ 1/26/2003 09:48:00 PM

Evening Musings-Our church was having the kickoff of their missions

conference today; we had Wally Magdangal, a Filipino-American minister

who heads up an agency, Christians in Crisis, dedicated to interceding

for the persecuted church oversees. Magdangal has about as direct

experience as you can get and still be living; he was a successful

underground pastor in the Saudi entity and converted a few too many

Saudis. He was arrested and sentenced to death and was badly tortured

before an international stink got him released hours before his

scheduled execution. I haven't seen his site before until tonight, but

this newsletter page seems to have some interesting updates on the

highs and lows of mission activity. I missed the first 25 minutes of

the Super Bowl; they moved the evening session of the meeting up to

4PM but it went long. It looks like the Bucs will be wearing the nice

jewelry, being up 34-9 as the third quarter comes to a close. Of

course, the Buc defense ran on back for a touchdown in the third

quarter to put them up 34-3 and put the game out of reach.

Congratulations to Ben for his wedding yesterday. He's likely off on

his honeymoon. When Collin Powell turns hawkish, we've turned a

corner. We're going in and soon. After listening to Pastor Wally, they

should turn south once they clean up Iraq. This is doubly interesting

news. Sen Lautenberg was hurt in a skiing accident? He's 79. So much

for the dinosaur argument. Weird thought-the picture of Brazilian

president Lula reminded me of Wolfman Jack. I report, you decide.

Listen to this socialist howl, however

Lula's speech emphasized a common global agenda directed at

achieving growth alongside better income distribution and social

conditions. He called for developed countries to share scientific

and technological advances with poorer nations and proposed the

creation of a global anti-poverty fund.

Go talk to the EU, they might help you. The US isn't going to be much

help.

# posted by Mark @ 1/26/2003 09:34:00 PM

Morning Musings-Someone seriously's thinking about Carol Mosely-Braun

for VP? Of the Green Party, maybe. Speaking of the Green Weenies,

could they be on the verge of making the US a 2.25 party system,

holding the niche that the NDP holds in Canda. It's hard for a third

party to get much traction in first-past-the-post system, but in

hard-core liberal areas that the Republicans stand no chance in, the

liberals won't be shooting themselves in the foot by having

Green-Democratic races. Prediction-Tampa Bay 37-Oakand 34 in OT.

# posted by Mark @ 1/26/2003 07:35:00 AM

Edifier du Jour-1 Corintians 11:17-19(NASB)

17 But in giving this instruction, I do not praise you, because you

come together not for the better but for the worse. 18 For, in the

first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that

divisions exist among you; and in part I believe it. 19 For there

must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may

become evident among you.

There is something to be said about divisions. If you insist on not

dividing, you can't judge something on their merits. If you don't give

grades, you can't acknowledge the good students. If you don't keep

score, you can't easily tell who is and isn't doing well. For

denominations who have very broad definitions of what it means to be a

Christian, it becomes hard to determine what they stand for

collectively other than a hesitancy to criticize. Sometimes having

division is better than trying to paper over differences. A number of

denominations that have employed a big-tent philosophy seem to be

coming apart, for the liberals and conservatives in the church are

chafing at one another. You might be better off with conservative and

liberal Anglican blocs and moderate and liberal Presbyterian and

Methodist blocks. A clearer definition of what a church stands for

will help people's church selection. I know I'd be hesitant to

consider a PC-USA or Methodist church due to the underlying liberal