Friday, February 17, 2012

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Roger Craig. He's 82. When I was little, the Giants were a great team, and my memory stretches back to the end of that era, but my real memories of being a Giants fan was 1972-1985, when they were a joke franchise. You know -- we don't really have joke franchises any more in baseball. The Pirates are probably the closest it gets, and on the field as a bad team is even longer, but it doesn't seem quite like what the Giants (and Indians) were in that era, and what some other teams were earlier (hard to be a joke franchise when you have a decent ballpark). Anway -- then Al Rosen and Roger Craig showed up, and it's as if it never happened; the Giants have certainly had bad years since, but from Opening Day 1986 on they were just done with being a joke franchise. Hum baby, indeed.

The good stuff:

1. Brad Plumer has a nice post about the documents leaked from a climate denialist organization. Including this excellent point about their apparently minimal fundraising from the oil industry: "That’s a sign that climate skepticism has become less the sole concern of self-interested oil companies trying to fend off regulations — and more an ideological enterprise on the right."

2. Harold Pollack on the contraceptive flap.

3. At the Monkey Cage, Lucy Barnes cites the research on comparative taxation and concludes that the US taxes are in fact more progressive than most comparable nations, but at the same time US taxes and transfers produce less redistribution of wealth. Got that? If not, click through and read the explanation.

4. Update from yesterday's links: Jon Cohen explains the WaPo policy on using robopolls.

5. And Kylopod on the question of ideology in US politics.

5 comments:

  1. Aren't you forgetting the Kansas City Royals, notwithstanding their scrappy third-place finish in 2003?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was going to second this emotion, until I ran the numbers. Do you know that the plucky KC Royals have managed to win 2 more games, total, than the Pirates since realignment?

      Yep.

      The Royals win 0.16% more often than the Pirates do.

      But both teams are just, just terrible.

      Delete
    2. I really don't think that the Royals are a joke franchise (or the Cubs, for that matter). They've been a bad team, sure, but that's not the same thing, IMO.

      Now, the Kansas City Athletics -- that was a joke franchise.

      Delete
  2. "You know -- we don't really have joke franchises any more in baseball"

    Ever hear tell of the Chicago Cubs?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Question.
    If Newt Gingrich’s only purpose for staying in the race is to bring down Mitt Romney; would it not be better for him to get out before Michigan and let Santorum do the job for him?

    Ken

    ReplyDelete

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