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Gimme something that I missed
Oct. 9th, 2007 11:59 pm
Currently at Toronto Pearson: 16. High today: 22.
It officially got up to 31.6 at Pearson yesterday, 31 at Toronto Buttonville, 30.8 at the Island (a full eight degrees above the old record for yesterday), and 30 at "Toronto". The biggest number EC reported in Ontario was 32.3 at Sarnia.
Today's offense by CBC weather gerbil Nick Czernkovich: he pointed out an area of low pressure spinning away inside a dip in the jet stream, currently around Lake Superior, and said that this kind of slow-moving low-pressure system is called an "omega block", because the dip in the jet stream looks like the Greek letter omega (and it's blocked--by what, Nick, by what?). Which is also a nice try, but 180 degrees bass-ackwards. Michael Kuss, as usual (and despite the inane promo spots CITY has been running for him ("If you can't see it you can't track it"?--yeah, who needs satellites and radars when you've got a comprehensive network of weather stations at highschools)) has it right. He also backs up my hypothesis about last Thursday's fog. Trying to find Nick Czernkovich's e-mail address today to yell at him for making shit up--unsuccessfully, because that bit of the CBC's website is broken--I learned that he and the CBC's other main weather gerbil, Natasha Ramsahai, are both York alumni, and both have master's degrees. Trained meteorologists, they are! Lord 'elp us. It occurred to me today that actual weather experts must change the channel when the weather comes on on the news. But, you know, it's just further confirmation of the rule that whenever the newsmedia has anything to say about anything you know anything about, you will find things that they get wrong.
Which reminds me that I have been delighted and relieved, these last couple of weeks, to discover that the Blue Jay blogosphere is united in its opinion that Richard Griffin, referred to there as Dick, is an idiot and a jackass. I believe that Dave Perkins is also an idiot and a jackass, but I have a hard time telling them apart. I hafta tell ya, the more I know about baseball, the harder it is to read the papers. But it is a joy to hear Mike Wilner calmly and methodically rebut the idiots on the radio after the Jays games, despite the fact that Wilner still has not quite got it through his head that there are no upsets in baseball. (That's why there's no crying in baseball, see, 'cause there's no upsets.)
In the last game of the Cubs-Diamondbacks series, there was a very close double-play call that went against the Cubs--I don't remember whether they were at bat or in the field--and, while Lou Piniella was out arguing with the umpire, they ran a few replays on TV from different angles, most of which didn't show anything, but one or two of which strongly suggested that the umpire got it right. So, all the available evidence indicated that while it was really, really, really close, the umpire probably got it right. After all that, there was a shot of Piniella sitting in the dugout steaming, and the play-by-play guy said Piniella was mad, and the colour guy said, "He should be." Now, I'm thinking, OK, maybe you might think that whenever a close call goes against his team, the manager should be mad, even if the right call was made, because it's the manager's job to fight for his team no matter what. But I have a feeling there was something different going on there. This umpire (Mike Everett, I think it was) was on trial. As we all know, there is an overwhelming tendency for people to believe that someone on trial is guilty. Even after someone is acquitted, there is still a strong tendency for people to believe that the acquitted person is guilty.
The problem isn't just that people think that you wouldn't be accused if you didn't do something wrong, although people do think that. Once upon a time, I was out for a walk late at night, and noticed a cop car sitting with its engine running across the street from a strip mall. I walked by the strip mall to the street corner, and then turned around and went back the way I'd come. When I got to the driveway to the strip mall's parking lot, the cop car roared across the street and the cop rolled down his window and asked me for ID. He ran my driver's license and gave it back and said something to the effect of: "You're lucky. There's a guy with your name, born one day later, who's done some bad stuff in Barrie." So, in this cop's eyes, I was not only tainted by my proximity to this potential crime scene, but also by the fact that I shared a name and nearly a birthday with some crook somewhere. I wasn't innocent; I was lucky not to be guilty. This is what I think may have been going on with that commentator and the umpire the other day. He didn't make the right call; he was lucky not to have made the wrong call--and his call was tainted by its proximity to wrongness. If this is the case, if this phenomenon really is as widespead as I suspect it is, then you can't win as an umpire on a close call. Even if you get it right, you nearly got it wrong, and that's enough to taint you.
It's looking like an anti-MMP avalanche. My guess is it comes in just under 40%. This is, without doubt, the biggest democratic fiasco I've ever personally seen, and it has put another serious dent in my impression of humanity and the value of and prospects for liberal democracy. (But, ya know, it beats the alternatives, etc.)
I'm also guessing that people are being way too quick about forecasting a Liberal majority based on the raw total polling numbers. An awful lot of hotspots have opened up where they might lose seats, including my own riding, where I'm wondering whether the large Jewish population will tip the balance to the Conservatives and their religious schools (on which something like 28 Conservative candidates have now defected). It's a bit comical in this riding--on the lower-middle-class multi-ethnic side of the ravine (which ravine I will have something to say about someday), there's hardly anything but Liberal and NDP signs; on the upper-middle-class, predominantly Jewish side, there's hardly anything but PC signs. I also like the fact that the small businesses along St. Clair, as elsewhere in the city, overwhelmingly have Liberal and NDP signs. People think that small businesspeople ought to like the Conservatives, because they ought to not like the taxes. Seems to me like small-businesspeople don't like the Conservatives because being a small-businessperson is a short distance from being an out-of-business-person.
And it looks like there's maybe a 30% chance that the Green candidate will be elected in Owen Sound-something-or-other (Bill Murdoch's riding), and shock everyone who hasn't been paying attention, which is basically everyone.
It officially got up to 31.6 at Pearson yesterday, 31 at Toronto Buttonville, 30.8 at the Island (a full eight degrees above the old record for yesterday), and 30 at "Toronto". The biggest number EC reported in Ontario was 32.3 at Sarnia.
Today's offense by CBC weather gerbil Nick Czernkovich: he pointed out an area of low pressure spinning away inside a dip in the jet stream, currently around Lake Superior, and said that this kind of slow-moving low-pressure system is called an "omega block", because the dip in the jet stream looks like the Greek letter omega (and it's blocked--by what, Nick, by what?). Which is also a nice try, but 180 degrees bass-ackwards. Michael Kuss, as usual (and despite the inane promo spots CITY has been running for him ("If you can't see it you can't track it"?--yeah, who needs satellites and radars when you've got a comprehensive network of weather stations at highschools)) has it right. He also backs up my hypothesis about last Thursday's fog. Trying to find Nick Czernkovich's e-mail address today to yell at him for making shit up--unsuccessfully, because that bit of the CBC's website is broken--I learned that he and the CBC's other main weather gerbil, Natasha Ramsahai, are both York alumni, and both have master's degrees. Trained meteorologists, they are! Lord 'elp us. It occurred to me today that actual weather experts must change the channel when the weather comes on on the news. But, you know, it's just further confirmation of the rule that whenever the newsmedia has anything to say about anything you know anything about, you will find things that they get wrong.
Which reminds me that I have been delighted and relieved, these last couple of weeks, to discover that the Blue Jay blogosphere is united in its opinion that Richard Griffin, referred to there as Dick, is an idiot and a jackass. I believe that Dave Perkins is also an idiot and a jackass, but I have a hard time telling them apart. I hafta tell ya, the more I know about baseball, the harder it is to read the papers. But it is a joy to hear Mike Wilner calmly and methodically rebut the idiots on the radio after the Jays games, despite the fact that Wilner still has not quite got it through his head that there are no upsets in baseball. (That's why there's no crying in baseball, see, 'cause there's no upsets.)
In the last game of the Cubs-Diamondbacks series, there was a very close double-play call that went against the Cubs--I don't remember whether they were at bat or in the field--and, while Lou Piniella was out arguing with the umpire, they ran a few replays on TV from different angles, most of which didn't show anything, but one or two of which strongly suggested that the umpire got it right. So, all the available evidence indicated that while it was really, really, really close, the umpire probably got it right. After all that, there was a shot of Piniella sitting in the dugout steaming, and the play-by-play guy said Piniella was mad, and the colour guy said, "He should be." Now, I'm thinking, OK, maybe you might think that whenever a close call goes against his team, the manager should be mad, even if the right call was made, because it's the manager's job to fight for his team no matter what. But I have a feeling there was something different going on there. This umpire (Mike Everett, I think it was) was on trial. As we all know, there is an overwhelming tendency for people to believe that someone on trial is guilty. Even after someone is acquitted, there is still a strong tendency for people to believe that the acquitted person is guilty.
The problem isn't just that people think that you wouldn't be accused if you didn't do something wrong, although people do think that. Once upon a time, I was out for a walk late at night, and noticed a cop car sitting with its engine running across the street from a strip mall. I walked by the strip mall to the street corner, and then turned around and went back the way I'd come. When I got to the driveway to the strip mall's parking lot, the cop car roared across the street and the cop rolled down his window and asked me for ID. He ran my driver's license and gave it back and said something to the effect of: "You're lucky. There's a guy with your name, born one day later, who's done some bad stuff in Barrie." So, in this cop's eyes, I was not only tainted by my proximity to this potential crime scene, but also by the fact that I shared a name and nearly a birthday with some crook somewhere. I wasn't innocent; I was lucky not to be guilty. This is what I think may have been going on with that commentator and the umpire the other day. He didn't make the right call; he was lucky not to have made the wrong call--and his call was tainted by its proximity to wrongness. If this is the case, if this phenomenon really is as widespead as I suspect it is, then you can't win as an umpire on a close call. Even if you get it right, you nearly got it wrong, and that's enough to taint you.
It's looking like an anti-MMP avalanche. My guess is it comes in just under 40%. This is, without doubt, the biggest democratic fiasco I've ever personally seen, and it has put another serious dent in my impression of humanity and the value of and prospects for liberal democracy. (But, ya know, it beats the alternatives, etc.)
I'm also guessing that people are being way too quick about forecasting a Liberal majority based on the raw total polling numbers. An awful lot of hotspots have opened up where they might lose seats, including my own riding, where I'm wondering whether the large Jewish population will tip the balance to the Conservatives and their religious schools (on which something like 28 Conservative candidates have now defected). It's a bit comical in this riding--on the lower-middle-class multi-ethnic side of the ravine (which ravine I will have something to say about someday), there's hardly anything but Liberal and NDP signs; on the upper-middle-class, predominantly Jewish side, there's hardly anything but PC signs. I also like the fact that the small businesses along St. Clair, as elsewhere in the city, overwhelmingly have Liberal and NDP signs. People think that small businesspeople ought to like the Conservatives, because they ought to not like the taxes. Seems to me like small-businesspeople don't like the Conservatives because being a small-businessperson is a short distance from being an out-of-business-person.
And it looks like there's maybe a 30% chance that the Green candidate will be elected in Owen Sound-something-or-other (Bill Murdoch's riding), and shock everyone who hasn't been paying attention, which is basically everyone.
