The SoapBoxers

Much like the rain delays this weekend at the 109th United States Open Championship at Bethpage Black course, your truly is a little late in getting in this week’s sports story in.

Yesterday provided some great drama and a great and memorable finish. It became somewhat of a Darwinesque survival of the fittest down the stretch. The last group with Ricky Barnes and Lucas Glover started Monday play on the second hole with a comfortable cushion of 5 shots between them and the next closest competitor.

Only in the US Open, no lead is comfortable, especially when you have not contended in a Major before.

Barnes was the first to falter, giving away a number of strokes early in the round. He started to show signs of this late in the day on Sunday as he missed a very short putt on #18 and then promptly began the fourth round by barely keeping it on the golf course. Barnes has been in a position like this before, albeit while still an amateur. He is a past United States Amateur Champion. That is a Major in my book, and it sure was to Bobby Jones.

Glover leads the PGA this year in total driving statistics which combines length off the tee with accuracy. That is the kind of statistical support you need to find yourself at the top of a US Open Leaderboard. As Barnes faltered, Glover hung in there just a bit better…mainly due the number of fairways he was hitting.

A number of other players made a charge, Mike Weir, who was a magician with the rescue clubs and fairway woods all week. Ross Fischer…Who??? Most had never heard of him, but they will now. And if you watch golf channel coverage of the European Tour you would know a lot more about Ross and his golf game.

David Duval, who had gone the way of Ian Baker Finch, win the Open Championship only to never be heard from again. Duval showed the world that he might be closer than we think to being among the games best again. He had a few horrible breaks early in the round and could have easily faltered, but instead righted the ship and finished tied for second. No one saw that coming. Except maybe Double D himself.

Tiger made a fourth quarter drive, but ran out of holes and out of time. NBC is always pushing for Tiger, and frankly pushes too hard, I think the reason a lot of folks don’t like Tiger is the media is often so slanted to have him win that it turns a lot of folks off. Still it is impressive that he has no putting game at all this week, hits it just average and still can finish tied for 6th. It just proves how good he really is.

The peoples choice, Phil Mickelson once again came up just a bit shy. Too many good story lines here if he did pull this one off. Now we look at his record in U S Opens and see five….count em five second place finishes. This might be like Arnold Palmer and the PGA Championship. Many close calls but he could never win that one. How many more shots will Phil get to be this close.

At the end it was Lucas Glover hoisting the trophy. One of the quietest and unassuming champions you could predict. With now two wins to his credit on the PGA tour, Glover gets a lot more attention, fame, and a smooth ten year exemption on the tour.

A lot of other big stories later this week including the finale of the College World Series and the start of Wimbledon.

Also I would be remiss if I did not mention a good friend of mine says to purchase your Colorado Rockies tickets now….for the playoffs. What a turnaround in Coors!

Until next week- Hit em straight!

My favorite baseball team, the Colorado Rockies, have been on tear lately.  The Rockies have won 17 of 18 games, dating back to June 4 against Houston.  Their only loss in this stretch was a June 16th game against the Tampa Bay Devils.  That game followed an off day, which is another great reason not to have any off days during the season.  The Rockies are 19-5 under interim manager Jim Tracy after starting the season 18-28 under fired manager Clint Hurdle.

Much maligned shortstop Troy Tulowitzki has played in 16 of those 18 games and has hits in 14 of the 16 games in which he played – good for a .400 batting average during that span.  Tulo has also smacked 5 of his 10 homers during the streak.  For those of you keeping track at home, his OPS (On-base-plus slugging) is nearly identical to the numbers he put up in 2007, when he was putting up numbers deserving of the Rookie of the Year award.  This fact is hidden a bit because injuries have cost him some at bats this year, and because his batting average is lower than it was in 2007.  However, his on base percentage is actually higher than it was in 2007, because of a marked uptick in the number of walks Tulo has drawn.  Keep in mind that the kid is still just 24 years old.

What other players are having good years for the Rockies?

• Todd Helton finally had back surgery after a sub-par and injury filled 2008 season.  The Toddfather might have a legitimate shot at 30 homers for the season, and he already has 49 RBI.  There is one small area of concern – Helton’s walk rate is the lowest it has been since 1999.  Helton’s walk rate is on the upswing, though, as he already has more walks in June than he did in all of May.  Helton surpassed 2000 career hits earlier in the season, to the surprise of many observers who were under the impression that he had already reached the mark years ago – but Helton’s relatively late start in his career (coming through the college ranks) as well as his propensity for taking walks, has served to limit his at bats a bit.
• Right fielder Brad Hawpe continues to be the best player that nobody has ever heard of, putting up a .335 batting average and an OPS above 1.000.  Hawpe has been a beast at home this year, with a .400+ batting average at Coors Field.  Over the course of his career, Hawpe has not been a “product of Coors Field”, however.  His career OPS differential is +45 points, compared to a typical hitter who enjoys a 30 point advantage at home.  Hawpe clearly gets some additional benefit from Coors, but not the typical Coors Field boost.
• 24 year old rookie Ian “Stewie” Stewart has displaced Garrett “I can’t hit no more” Atkins as the starting third baseman.  Stewart’s batting average is still hovering around .225, but he has 13 homers in just 180 at bats in the season, including 6 in 70 June at bats.  Stewart appears to be bouncing back from a dreadful May that saw him post a horrendous .595 OPS, largely as the result of an absurdly low .128 BABIP (batting average on balls in play, a number which is typically around  .300).  Oddly, Stewart has a “reverse split” this year, posting significantly better numbers away from Coors Field.
• Catcher Chris Iannetta has fought some injuries, but still has 10 homers in just 132 at bats this year, building upon the power he displayed last year (18 homers in 333 at bats, as he shared time with Yorvit Torrealba behind the plate).
• Off season acquisition Jason Marquis (9-4, 3.71 ERA, 97 innings pitched) leads the Rockies in all three of those categories.
• Aaron Cook had a horrendous April, posting a 7.11 ERA.  This was attributed to a mechanical problem with his delivery, and Cook has been money in the bank since that point, putting up an ERA below 3.00 since the beginning of May.  With a win last night, Cook became the all time franchise laeder in wins, with 59.  (Note that the Rockies have only been around since 1993 and haven’t had many pitcher hang around very long). 
• Closer Huston Street  posted a 6+ ERA in April before enjoying a dominant May (0.82 ERA) and a strong June (2.79) as has established himself firmly ahead of Manny Corpas in the closer slot.

James von Brunn

James von Brunn, who shot and killed a guard at the National Holocaust Museum, may face some additional charges.  When searching von Brunn’s computer, investigators found child pornography.  For the few of you out there who feel that von Brunn is an otherwise good man who simply had some radical political beliefs that got him into trouble, it’s time to jump off the bandwagon.  This man is not a kindly old grandfather – he is a criminal who derserves to be severely punished. Since von Brunn committed the crime in the District of Columbia, the federal government has jurisdiction.  That means that he could face the death penalty.  However, it is very unlikely that he will be executed.  By the the time that the case goes to trial, a jury renders a verdict, and von Brunn’s appeals have been exhausted, a lot of years are going to pass.  It’s much more likely that the 88 year old man is going to die in custody when his appeals are being heard.

While James von Brunn’s son Erik has offered his condolences to the family of security guard Stephen Johns, saying that “the wrong man died that day”, some von Brunn supporters feel that a conspiracy may have been at work, and that von Brunn might have been set up.  This appears to be rather unlikely.

Air France flight 447

It is beginning to appear that Air France flight 447 broken apart during flight on June 1.  Many of the bodies have had multiple broken bones, which is consistent with falling from a great height.  Very few have shown head injuries, which occur very often during crash landings.  The key question, of course, is WHY tha plan would have broken apart.

Air France is paying the families of victimes approximately $24,500 in initial compensation.  The key word is initial.  Certainly further compensation will be paid at a later date.

Illegal music downloads

A Minnesota woman was founded guilty of illegally downloading 24 songs and was fined $1.9 million by a jury.  The was actually a re-trial, as she was granted a new trial because of an error that was made jury instructions in her first trial.  She was also found guilty in the first trial, although the fine that was assessed by that jury was “just” $220,000.

The fine seems a bit on the high side, since stealing the same 24 songs from Wal-Mart (shoplifting 2 CDs) would be unlikely to draw a fine remotely in the same neighborhood.  I think that the fine will eventually be reduced, but there’s a lesson to be learned here.  Don’t mess around with illegal downloads.  Pay for your music.  The artists deserve to be compensated.  After all, you wouldn’t walk out of your favorite restaurant without paying.

Donte Stallworth

Cleveland Browns wide receiver Donte Stallworth reached a plea agreement in his vehicular manslaughter case.  The plea deal calls for Stallworth to spend 30 days in jail (minus 1 day time served and 5 days off for good behavior).  Stallworth was drunk when he hit and killed a pedestrian.

To many people, the penalty seems absurdly light.  I agree that more jail time was warranted.  However, there are several factors that helped Stallworth.  First, it is possible that the victim was not in the crosswalk when he was hit.  However, for the sake of argument, I’ll assume that he was in the crosswalk.  After the accident, Stallworth did all the right things.  He called the cops and cooperated with the investigation.  He expressessed remorse.  He reached a financial agreement with the family of the victim (the family supported the plea deal).  Stallworth was also a first time offender.  Add up all these details, and clearly he is going to end up with less jail time than a repeat offender who flees the scene.

Some have compared Stallworth’s sentence to that of Michael Vick.  Vick’s situation was much different.  This is not simply the case of a man’s life vs. a dog’s life.  Vick engaged in intentional acts of cruelty against animals (whereas Stallworth intended to drink, but did not intend to kill) and continued a pattern of deceit after being arrested.  In short, Vick appeared to be the sort of person who needed a stiff prison term to rehabilitate him.

Tears streamed down the face of Beth Page, smearing her carefully applied makeup.  She stood by the side of her husband’s grave, the very picture of the grieving widow (although perhaps her black dress was a wee bit too low-cut for the occasion).

It was no surprise that she was convincing in her grief.  After all, she had practice.  This was the third husband she had buried.  With each death, a few more dollars had gone into her coffers.  The trick, of course, was to make the death appear accidental.

The death of her first husband, Zach, nearly was accidental.  Beth and Zach college sweethearts.  On their honeymoon, they decided to go scuba diving off the coast of Florida.  The couple were accomplished divers, and they took turns inspecting the equipment before each dive.  On the fateful day, it was Beth’s  turn to check the equipment.  She noticed a problem with Zach’s gear.  She very nearly pointed it out, but she was still a bit upset over a comment he had made the night before, so she kept her mouth shut.  Zach’s oxygen tank malfunctioned, and Poseidon claimed another victim.  The life insurance had been more than generous.  Even after paying Zach’s funeral expenses, Beth had a sizable pot of money to work with.  Beth kept a low profile for a year, before telling her friends and Zach’s family that she was going to pull up stakes and move back to the midwest, where her family lived.  Boston simply had too many memories of Zach, and she was overwhelmed with emotion.  That was her story, in any case.

Instead of going back to her non-existent family in the midwest, Beth spent the next few years lying on the beach, getting a tan, reading Danielle Steele novels, and flirting with cabana boys.  She also invested some of the insurance money in herself, using an augmentation to increase her cup size.

The breast enlargement turned out to be a rather profitable investment, netting her a second husband, Phil.  Phil was a Manhattan investment banker.  Beth had tired of Phil within a few weeks of meeting him, but she was intrigued by his collection of art, as well as his portfolio of stocks.  Her lust for his riches made it tolerable for her to consummate the marriage.  Soon after they were married, Beth began plotting against her husband.  In the end, it was not terribly difficult to kill him off.  The man was a slave to his cell phone, and she made a habit of calling him when she knew he would be jaywalking across busy streets.  She would intentionally draw him into arguments until her actions eventually had the intended effect.  A taxi cab hit a distracted Phil as it drag raced with another car, efficiently separating him from his precious cell phone and ending his life.

Beth spent another year among grieving family and friends before once again declaring that she was moving back home to be near her own family.  This time she had enough money for Maui.  Beth was carefully stalking her third victim within hours of landing in Hawaii.  Eldrick had more money than Zach or Phil – perhaps enough money to allow Beth to sustain a pampered lifestyle.

The bodies were starting to mount, so Beth had to excercise caution when killing off Eldrick.  This had to appear as an obvious accident.  She couldn’t risk a clumsy attempt such as cutting the brake lines in his car.  She eventually decided to engage an accomplice.  Beth ensured herself of an alibi by heading out to a night on the town with her friends at the same time that Eldrick was heading off to the course for a solo round of twilight golf.  It was the next morning when they found his body on the 9th green.  His death was ruled a cerebral hemorrhage.  The impact mark on his head indicated that he had been struck by a Titleist ball moving at a very high rate of speed.  Someone had neglected to yell “fore”.

The Mind of Bill James: How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball by Scott Gray

A few chapters into this book, I noticed that I was a bit disappointed. I quickly realized the problem – as a big fan of Bill James, I had simply built up too much internal hype. Additionally, I probably had more familiarity with the life of Bill James than the typical reader. I took a step back and took a slightly different approach when reading the rest of the book – and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Many of you are probably clueless as to who the heck Bill James is. Bill James is the father of sabermetrics. There you go – you have your answer.

OK, OK. Let’s go a bit deeper into Bill James and sabermetrics.

The story really begins with the history of how baseball teams evaluate talent. For decades, scouts (using the “eyeball test” for a decent portion of their analysis) have been a cornerstone of talent evaluation, aided by historical stats such as batting average (for hitters) and earned run average (for pitchers).

While working as a security guard at the Stokely Van Camp plant (guarding the Pork ‘n Beans) James began writing a series of essays that took a closer look at various aspects of baseball. Sometimes James would take viewpoints that were contrary to prevailing theories; other times he would focus on things that simply hadn’t been studied in any great detail before. James sold a few copies of his first book. Writer Daniel Okrent read a copy and helped push James toward the mainstream. Today, many in the baseball establishment bristle at his name, but James has a large legion of followers. Other writers have followed in his footsteps, and today sabermetrics is well respected in many baseball clubhouses.

James’ analysis exposed some of the traditional statistics as being poor judges of a player’s talent, or of the player’s value to the team. Fielding percentage had long been used to determine the defensive value of a player. However, a player’s range can be considerably more important, as a player with good range can take away a lot of hits – and hit minimization is the true defensive goal in baseball. James also showed that, many times, a player who steals a lot of bases can be counter-productive – if he gets caught a lot.

James also point out the importance on context with statistics. A ballpark can have a considerable impact on a player’s statistics. James also developed major league equivalent, a formula for taking a minor league player’s statistics, adjusting for park factors and level of competition, and determining what the player could have accomplished in the major leagues.

One of the more interesting concepts of James’ work is the “relief ace”. It is his belief than many teams make inefficient use of their best relief pitcher by using him to close out games in the 9th innings. James would prefer that teams use their best reliever (which he refers to as a “relief ace”) a bit earlier, in a critical point in the game. He notes that each run saved in a tie game has eight times the impact of a run saved in a game with a three run game. In spite of this, many teams keep their closer on the bench in the 7th inning of a tie game, but bring him into the 9th inning of the next game with a three run lead in order to close the game. The relief ace concept makes a lot of sense to me – but it doesn’t seem to be taking hold in Major League Baseball.

This book tells us more about Bill James – showing us the living, breathing human being behind the formulae – with anecdotes from family life, college, the army (as a college educated dog handler), and the Stokely plant. Interestingly, it also shows us that James isn’t a guy who believes that numbers are the complete solution. Instead, the gist of his philosophy seem to be in keeping an open mind to new ideas, as well as taking a fresh look at old ideas to determine if they are still relevant today (if, indeed, they were ever relevant).

The appendix has some of James’ research (scratching the surface a bit), and Gray mentions several of James’ books during the course of this book. This book won’t make you an expert sabermetrician, but it will give you a good understanding of the origins of sabermetrics. The book is essentially one part Bill James biography and one part sabermetrics primer. The book has a good flow and is an easy read.

Scott Gray The Mind of Bill James

I have a bunch of topics that I want to discuss today, but none of them really warrants an entire article, so I’ll bounce around a bit.  The segues are going to be rough, so hang on for the ride.

First of all, Kosmo is growing a goatee!  Why?  Not because I think it looks cool.  Not because I need facial hair for an upcoming 80’s party (like a certain Casual Observer reader).  Nah, I’m just a bit lazy and really hate to shave, especially the goatee zone.  We’ll see how long this lasts.

Baker at ManVsDebt (a personal finance blog) talks about his ongoing trip to Australia.  The plan is for the Baker family to set down some Australian roots for a while.  His article talks about the flight to Australia and the first few days in the country.  It’s a good read.

Two time NFL MVP and genuinely good guy Kurt Warner is back in his home town of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, this week, working with Habitat for Humanity to build homes for those who were displaced by last year’s flooding.  Cedar Rapids (where I work) and Iowa City (where I live) were devastated by flooding last June, and much work still needs to be done in the recovery effort.  Warner and fellow local god Zach Johnson (2007 Masters  champion) routinely make trips back home to do good things, as do many other athletes and entertainers (ok, we basically just have Ashton Kutcher) from the state.

My beloved Colorado Rockies have climbed into wild card contention with an 11 game winning streak (which, alas, ended on Tuesday).  The firing of former manager Clint Hurdle and the promotion of Jim Tracy to interim manager seems to have marked a turning point in the season.  Shortstop Troy Tulowitzki seems to have shaken off the cobwebs with a strong June.  His 2009 OPS is in line with his career mark – he is hitting for a lower average this year, but is compensating with more walks.

Many Rockies draft picks have signed contracts and will be reporting to the minor league affiliate in Casper, Wyoming before long.  The Casper team was formerly known as a the Casper Rockies.  On October 31, 2007, they changed their team name.  They are now known as … the Casper Ghosts.  The equipment manager was quite happy with the change.  Whenever the team gets a new player, the equipment manager just grabs a new sheets, cuts a couple of eye holes, and the uniform is finished!  (Yes, I’m joking about that part – but the Casper team REALLY is called the ghosts!)

Bryce Harper is in line to become the youngest draft pick in baseball history.  The 16 year old catcher (who also pitches and plays a few other positions) will take his GED and enroll in a junior college for the 2009-2010 academic year.  Harper has been a man among boys when playing high school competition, and will most likely be the #1 overall pick in 2010.  The Washington Nationals are by far the worst team in baseball and are in line to hold the #1 pick.  They could conceivably get Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper in consecutive drafts.

On Mother’s Day 2004, the Oakland A’s had a 5K run to fight breast cancer, free mammograms for women, and a free hat to the first 7500 female customers.  A male lawyer from San Diego decided that this was discrimination and decided to sue.  Incredibly, a $500,000 settlement has been reached – half going to the lawyers and half going to the victims of the travesty.  For decades, baseball teams have tailored certain giveaways to males, females, adults, or kids.  The giveaways are not part of the price of the ticket (and in fact often feature advertising from a sponsor).  If these sorts of lawsuits become commonplace, expect teams to take the easy route and simply halt the giveaways entirely.  (Thanks to Rick Reilly of ESPN for the heads-up on this)

Cheese is the latest victim of shrinking portion sizes.  I noticed that Kraft has been changing the design on their packaging.  On Saturday, I noticed that their 8 ounce blocks of cheese were fatter and shorter than the previous iteration.  And the “8 ounce” block now contains just 7 ounces.  Be wary, beer drinkers – the “5 pack” is just around the corner.

I’ve never been a huge fan of red “licorice”, preferring instead to indulge in true (black) licorice.  However, my interest has been piqued by Fire Twizzlers.  Red, yes, but with the extra zing that comes with the flavor of fire.  I’m a fan of fire – I gulp atomic fireballs and love fire Jolly Ranchers.  By the way, if you’re ever looking for cheap thrills, toss a few fire ranchers into a bowl of cherry or strawberry ones and watch for the reactions of your victims.  Ah, good clean fun.

Here’s a tip to squeeze a bit more light out of a light fixture.  Replace the bulbs with a compact flourescent bulb.  For example, a 13 watt compact flourescent bulb has the same amount of lumens (i.e. light) as a 60 watt incandescent (it will probably say “use in place of 60 watt bulb” – but if you look closely, the package will show the true wattage).  If you pop in a 20 watt CF bulb, you’ll see a nice improvement in the amount of light you get – while still using less energy and producing less heat than the 60w incandescent.  Do you have a fixture that indicates that you can only use a bulb of X wattage?  Well, according to knowledgeable people I have spoekn with, this refers to the true wattage.  If it has a 60 watt limit, you could use a 60 watt CF bulb (which could put out a ton of light) – you wouldn’t be limited to the 13 watt.  Note that you might want to double check this before going hog wild – I’m definitely not a certified lighting expert!

This weekend marks the toughest challenge in professional golf. The 109th United States Open Championship. The United States Golf Association is always known to set up the US Open venue brutally difficult, and this year is sure to be no exception.

Bethpage Black – located in Bethpage Park in New York will host the event for the second time since 2002. Tiger Woods was the winner that year and many feel this year will be no different.

Bethpage is a very difficult and very long course. It is among just a few recent courses that have hosted US Opens that are accessible to the public to play. By now you have all read countless stories of die hard golfers sleeping in their cars overnight to play this golf course.

I am one of the biggest fans of golf I know, but I can’t imagine sleeping in the FJ Cruiser overnight in order to play this place. It is long, somewhat scenic, but we aren’t talking Augusta, St Andrews, Sandhills, Merion, or a bunch of other courses that would be much more enjoyable to play….

but I digress….

This course is just flat out difficult. Which alone will probably eliminate about 80% of the field from a chance at winning. In order to win most U.S. Opens you have to hit fairways, have a great short game, and play conservative yet aggressive. Here at Bethpage you also have to hit it a country mile as the course will play much the same as it did seven years ago.

Here are my favorites to contend this week.

1) Eldrick Tont Woods – Any reason to not take Tiger? Hmmm…#1 in the world, just coming off a win at the Memorial with one of his best Fairways Hit rounds in forever, and the last time they played here he was the only golfer under par for the tournament. I’ll play with the house money in this shocking pick.

2) Phil Mickelson – Sentimental favorite for three reasons. First of all, he has been close in the Open a couple of times. Second, his Wife Amy will start cancer treatments soon, and a lot of people would love to see lefty pull this rabbit out of the hat. Third, New Yahkaas Love Lefty!. Will undoubtedly be the favorite of the crown and one of the few that has the game to do it.

3) Jim Furyk – Furyk has a game suited for all U.S. Open venues. Drives it well, plays smart, good short game..Length here may hurt him a bit. He is also playing very well this year, good enough to win.

4) Geoff Oglivy – Stole the Open a few years back at Winged foot when Montgomerie and Mickelson spewed oil and threw gears on the finishing holes. Has been hot or cold this year but has the type of game that should succeed here.

5) Sergio Garcia – It pains me to pick him however you cannot discredit his ball striking abilities. He has the length to contend at this track. Biggest question with Sergio is will the locals remember the antics of 2002 and bring the heat on Sergio again in 2009. I for one am betting they don not forget and the crowd might just be the reason he is NOT around on Sunday.

Now that only leaves about 151 golfers I am not picking, so sit back this weekend, and enjoy another great installment of our National Championship.
Happy Fathers Day this weekend to all you dads out there!

Digital Transition

The digital TV era officially began at midnight Friday/Saturday, as analog TV signals ended.  The FCC received 300,000 calls on Friday.  I can fully understand any confusion about the transition, since it came upon us suddenly, with very little information from to the government.  Perhaps the government could have delayed the transition, forced TV stations to have messages about the transition on the bottom of the screen every day for an incredibly long amount of time, and given away coupons for a discount on the converter boxes.  If they had taken all those steps, perhaps there would not have been as much confusion.

(sigh)

Many of the calls were questions about how to set up the converter box.  Just a thought, but maybe it would have been a good idea to get the box set up a week or two before the transition date?  I really have a hard time feeling sympathetic for these people.  I’m not sure how anyone could have been unaware of the transition.

Holocaust museum killing

On Wednesday, 88 year old  James von Brunn shot and killed security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.  Other security guards returned fire, and von Brunn was shot and remains in critical condition.  von Brunn is a white supremacist who denies the existence of the holocaust and spreads anti-semitic messages on his web site and in his book.

von Brunn served six years in prison after attempting to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve Board in 1981 as a protest of the high intest rates rates of that time.  I guess he didn’t mellow as he got older.

The holocaust occured.  I’m really not sure how people can argue against it.

I’m always a little surprised that so many people pour so much time into spreading hatred.  It seems like such a poor use of the limited resource of time.  “Spreading hatred” doesn’t crack my list of  favorite things to do in my spare time.

Cat killer

18 year old Tyler Weinman has been arrested for killing 19 cats in south Florida.  Weiman was also charged with 4 counts of burglary – apparently the result of break-ins on his canapping expeditions.  Residents ofthe area have been fearing for the safety of their cats, as cats have been found stolen and have later turned up dead, with their bodies mutilated.  Police have indicated that there are multiple suspects, so we may see other arrests in this case.

I’m not much of a cat person, but nonetheless I find this very appalling.  These cats were harmless pets and did not deserve the die in this manner.

It’s also worth noting that many serial killers tortured animals when they were younger, and they escalated to violence against humans.  This is not to suggest that Mr. Weiman was destined to become a serial killer, as the vast majority of people who torture animals do NOT escalate their activity to homocide.  However, because of the animal cruelty, there is a greater possibility that he would have escalated his activity – particularly since Weiman apparentlt stalked some of the cats.  Needless to say, it’s much better to put a halt to the activity in the earlier stages.

Another bankruptcy filing

Six Flags has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.  Six Flags does not expect its visitors to see any changes as it seeks to reorganize its debt load.  Six Flags is attempting to reduce its debt from $1.8 billion to $600 million.  Six Flags  operates 20 theme parks in the US, Canada, and Mexico.  It recorded record profits last year, but has been unable to refinance its debt.  My guess is that there will be a debt-for-equity swap with some creditors.

I really hope that they are able to reach a quick resolution.  Nothing would be sadder than a roller coaster sitting idle.

We take you back to math class in today’s edition of The Soap Boxers, as we discuss probability.

First of all, if someone tells you that you have a million to one odds of winning a lottery, they are wrong.  Your odds are actually a million to one AGAINST you winning.  Another way to phrase this is that you have a one IN 1,000,001 chance of winning.  But we’re being too picky, so let’s get down to the nitty gritty.

Let’s examine the multi-state Powerball game.  Powerball chooses 5 winning white balls from a group of 59 white balls, and then one red ball (Powerball) from a separate set of 39 red balls.  To win the jackpot, you must match all 5 white balls (in any order) plus the Powerball.

To eliminate confusions, I will refer to the numbers on your tickets as “numbers” and the winning numbered balls as “ball”.  Let’s use an example winning combination of 04, 18, 26, 31, 50 with a Powerball of 17.

• First number: The first number on your ticket has a 5 in 59 chance of matching one of the winning white balls.  There are 5 winning white balls and 59 total balls.  It isn’t necessary to match the white balls in order, so matching any winning white balls is sufficient.  Let’s say that the first number on the ticket is 26.
• Second number: The odds of a match drops to 4 in 58.  Why the change in odds?  Because the first number on the ticket was 26 – the second number can’t duplicate this!  We reduce the number of possible winning numbers to 4 possibilities (they are 04, 18, 31, 50) and the total number of balls remaining to 58 – because there are actually only 58 balls remaining in the selection pool.  The basic lesson is that the selection of the white balls are not independent events – the selection of each balls affects the pool of balls that are used for subsequent selections.
• Third number: The odds are 3 in 57, as there are two fewer balls in the hopper than when we began, and two fewer winning possibilities.
• Fourth number: Odds are 2 in 56
• Fifth number: Odds are 1 in 55
• Powerball:  The Powerball is completely independent from the other balls.  The odds are 1 in 39.

OK, we have the odds; what do we do with them?  We multiply them:

5/59 * 4/58 * 3/57 * 2/56 * 1/55 *  1/39

or

120/23,429,886,480

or

1/ 195,249,054

If you want to get really fancy, crack out factorials:

5!/((59! / 54!) * 39)

This article is about plugins for the WordPress blogging platform.  If you aren’t a blogger, this article may not be very interesting to you – you might wish to browse the archives instead (there is a link to the archives in the blue bar toward the top of the screen).

When I began blogging, I was using Blogger.com.  A friend quickly convinced me to move to a self-hosted WordPress solution.  I was a bit of a leap of faith, as I needed to do a decent amount of work to get the same look and feel I had on Blogger.  However, a few months later, I am very happy with WordPress.  The best thing about WordPress is its flexibility.  Plug-ins are a big part of this.  Today, I share some of my favorite plugins.

Comments

• CommentLuv– This is  my favorite plugin.  When a visitor leaves a comment, they can select one of their recent posts, and a link to this post will be appended to their comment.  The goal of Comment Luv is that subsequent readers will visit the commenter’s blog.  I’ve stumbled across some great blogs simply by clicking on the Comment Luv links.
• Comment Author Count–  This plugin displays the number of comments that a particular comment author has left over the time the blog has been active.  A rather simple idea, but still cool!
• Do Follow–  By default, WordPress appends a “no follow” tag to URLs within comments.  The effect of this is that the URLs are links are not counted by search engines such as Google.  The reason for this was the prevent spammers from leaving comments with bunches of URLs in an effort to boost the Google rank of their sites.  This hasn’t been proven to prevent spam (and, in fact, anti-spam plugins are probably a better option) and “do follow” negates the “no follow” tag.  So if you’re linking to things in your comments, Google knows about the links!

Look and feel

• WP-PageNavi–  I wasn’t impressed with the default page navigation in my theme (text hyperlinks).  Page Navi adds clickable buttons to quickly allows someone to navigate to particular pages.  Note: if you are viewing this article as the result of a search engine or receiving a direct link, you’re not going to see this in action.  Go to to front page to view the newest articles, and you’ll bump into Page Navi at the bottom.  I apologize to my RSS subscribers – there’s really not a good way for you to see this.
• Bunny’s Print CSS– If you have printed many blog articles, you may have noticed that the printed copies often suck worse than the Washington Nationals.  Garbage from the header, footer, and sidebars get printed, doubling the number of pages that get printed.  There are other plugins that allow you to present a printer-friendly version of articles to your viewer, but this can cause problems with search engine optimization.  Bunny’s Print CSS allows you to create a CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) that defines exactly what you wanted printing.  A few minutes editing the plugin’s default Print CSS, and I had de-crapified my printouts to a large extent.  I can still improve things, but they look a lot better.

Archives

Smart Archives– The nifty archives page that you can access view the navigation bar at the top of the screen is a product of the Smart Archives plugin, which rebuilds the page ever time a new article is posted.  For Smart Archives to work, yu must first enable the ability to write PHP code in your “pages” – use Exec-PHP for that.

Collapse

You may have notice the collapsing archives and categories widget in the left column.  You can easily browse articles by date or publication or by category.  If you want to simply read all my baseball articles, just click the box next to “baseball” and you’ll see a complete list, in reverse chronological order (newest first)

Ads

Ozh’ Who Sees Ads– At times, you may want to change the behavior of your ads, so that they are only show to certain subsets of your traffic (search engine traffic vs. repeat visitors, for example).  Who Sees Ads can do that – in fact, you can use it to optionally execute all kinds of code.  I plan to use it to restrict access to a giveaway that I am planning for Julyish.

Spam

Akizmet and  Spam Karma 2team up to fight spam in my blog.  So far, not a single spam comment has been posted to the site, and very few legitimate comments have been flagged incorrectly as spam.

This is not a comprehensive list of the plugins I use – but it’s definitely a list of some of the best!  Which plugins are your favorite?

If you’re a brand new blogger, you might want to check out my article, “10 Tips for Novice Bloggers”.  I ‘m fairly new to the game myself, but I hope I’ve learned a few things that can be useful to you.