The SoapBoxers

Longtime readers may remember an article about strikeouts a while back.  At that time, I was looking at the whiffs of Mark Reynolds and trying to calculate the impact they had on his team.

Adam Dunn

This time, I went a step further.  I took a close look at Adam Dunn of the White Sox.  Dunn has 109 strikeouts this year.  How much better off would the White Sox be if Dunn had made “productive outs” – that is, outs that advance a runner – instead of striking out?

It’s important to note that I’m not trading any of Dunn’s strikeouts for HITS.  There’s no doubt that it would be better for Dunn to turn some of those Ks into single and hit .265 instead of .225.  Hits are clearly better than outs.  The question is whether strikeouts are inherently worse than ground ball outs and fly outs.  Is an Adam Dunn who hits .225 with 200 strikeouts less productive than an Adam Dunn who hits .225 with 80 strikeouts?

I combed through the play by play data for all of Dunn’s games this year to find the answer.  This is mind numbing work, and it’s possible an error or two crept in, but I think my answer is pretty close.  There are two basic components:

1. Does the opportunity for a productive out exist?  The opportunity only exists when there are baserunners with fewer than two outs.  If there are no baserunners, it’s impossible to advance any runners.  If there are two outs, any type of out will end the inning.
2. Would a productive out have made a difference in the inning?  If there’s a runner on first, Dunn fails to move him along, and the next guy hits a home run, a productive out would not have made a difference – the runner scored in spite of Dunn’s strikeout.  On the other side of the coin, if Dunn fails to move a runner from first to second and the next batter struck out the end the inning, a productive out wouldn’t have made a difference either.  The runner would have simply been stranded on second instead of first.

In a nutshell,  we’re looking for cases where a productive out would have made a difference in whether or not the team scored a run that inning. 

Was a productive out possible?

In 87 of the 109 cases, Dunn was not in a situation to make a productive out. 

• 43 of the strikeouts were the final out of the inning
• 72 of the strikeouts came with the bases empty
• 28 of the strikeouts came with two outs and the bases empty.  This overlap explains why 43 + 72 adds up to more than 87.

This leaves 22 situations where a productive out was possible.

Would a productive out have made a difference?

• In 12 of the 22 remaining cases, all of the baserunners ended up scoring anyway.
• In 6 cases one or more runners were stranded, but moving the runner along with a productive out would not have changed the outcome.  For example, in two cases, the very next batter made an out to end the inning.

This leaves four cases.

April 23rd, season strikeout #26.  Dunn came up with runners on second and third and one out.  After Dunn’s strikeout, Konerko lined out, Pierzynski drove home one of the runs, and Rios ended the inning with a foul pop.  Had Dunn made a productive out, he might have driven home the runner on third and allowed the runner on second to advance to third and later score.  The White Sox won the game 4-0, so no harm done.

May 16th, season strikeout #57.   Dunn came up with a runner on first and nobody out.  After his at bat, the runner advance to third on a single and a fly ball before being stranded.  Had Dunn advanced the runner to second, he may have scored.  White Sox lost this game 7-2, so this wouldn’t have changed the outcome. 

June 9, season strikeout #94.  Dunn came up with one out and runners on first and second.  After his strikeout, the runners advanced to second and third on an infield single before a ground ball to shortstop ended the inning.  Had Dunn advanced the runners, the lead runner probably would have scored on the infield single.  White Sox won the game 10-1, so this didn’t cost them.

June 17, season strikeout #102.  Dunn came up with one out and a runner on first.  After his strikeout, the runner advanced to third before the hitter was thrown out trying to reach second.  Had Dunn advanced the runner, he likely would have scored on the subsequent hit.  This occurred in a 2-1 extra inning loss, so this could have made the difference in the game.

Findings

Over the course of 69 games and 109 strikeouts, I have found exactly one situation in which a productive out could have actually made the difference in a game.  In my opinion, that’s not a very good reason to criticize Dunn for his high strikeout totals.  His .225 batting average really isn’t any worse than any other .225 batting average.  Trying to force him to alter his swing to cut down on his strikeouts probably has more downside risk (fewer homers) than upside opportunity.

Some of you may argue that an inning may have played out significantly differently if a productive out had been made.  Having a runner at second would have caused the pitcher to alter his strategy, etc.  While that’s true, it’s hard to speculate what may have occurred, so I’ve assumed that the subsequent batters would have achieved the same result.  I could also argue that having more ground balls would also mean more double plays, which could have killed some innings.

And finally … this is a relatively small sample size, and is specific to Adam Dunn.  A larger sample size or a different player may get you somewhat different results.  However, my opinion is that a .225 batting average is a .225 batting average – there’s no reason to separate the guys who achieve the .225 by striking out a lot from the guys who achieve it by hitting weak ground balls to shortstop.
 

Cheaters Never Win

Attorney General Eric Holder

Fast and Furious is going to be Obama’s Watergate AND Lewinsky scandals. He’s already got the executive privilege covered (and I’ll get to that in a minute)– but here’s the difference. No one died in Watergate and Lewinsky. Unless you count sperm as people. And that’s just ew.

The reason the executive privilege was such a surprise yesterday is because a President cannot invoke executive privilege unless he’s personally involved. But just a few weeks ago he was claiming he was not. I would think he was surrounded by enough smart people to know the rules, if, he was in fact NOT involved, it would not apply. Invoking executive privilege only raised more questions than it answered.

So what’s the deal? Is he or isn’t he? Then again, this just goes to show how UNtransparent he really is. Believe it or not, he DID say, “My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration.”

So much for openness and transparency.

And then there’s the issue of the most recent executive order of stopping deportation and issuing work visas to over 800,000 illegal immigrants. Again, herein lies the problem. WHAT jobs, Mr. President? People who are legal citizens can’t find work and we’re going to flood the pool with 800,000 MORE people eligible for work? Will they now be eligible for unemployment too?

While they did come here as children, and it was the sins of their parents that caused them to be illegal, they still are NOT legal. And don’t call them “undocumented”. Changing the name doesn’t make them any less illegal. It’d be like calling a drug dealer an “unlicensed pharmacist”. It still doesn’t make it right.

I’ve posed this question to a few of my friends who came here legally (from Mexico) and they consider it a slap in the face to all of the hard work they did (and money they paid) to become legal citizens to work. One friend said, “I know life isn’t fair but this isn’t fair. I’m trying to teach my son to do the right thing and this shows him bad behavior can be rewarded.”

Yes, we’re a nation of immigrants (unless you’re full blood Native American). But our ancestors came here legally. My Paternal Grandfather came here from Canada and my Maternal Great Grandfather immigrated from Ireland. Legally.

There’s a lot to be un-done come January 2013. It seems Obama’s house of cards is just tumbling down. As I’m teaching my kids, lying and cheating doesn’t pay. I’m hoping the election in November will be the best lesson for them. Cheaters never win.

It’s a common scene – you’ll come out of a movie and someone will say “It was OK, but I liked the book better.”  It’s far less common to hear someone say that they liked a movie better.  Why is this the case?  There are several reasons.

Budget

Cost to use this house as the setting for your novel? FREE!

Writers can just make up shit with no regard to any sort of budget.  Want a fighter jet flying over a, erupting volcano and having the pilot eject before it crashes into the ocean?  Give a talented writer a thousand words or so, and she can set this scene and you’ll be able to visualize the scene in your mind.  Total cost to the writer?  $0.  It doesn’t matter if the main character lives in a weather-beaten shack or a huge mansion – the cost to use the home is the exact same to the writer.  

Additionally, the writer is actually offloading a big chunk of the work onto your brain.  She’s making use of your own imagination and prior knowledge.  You already know what a jet, volcano, and ocean look like.  There’s not need to spend time on the most basic descriptions. 

On the other hand, the movie is a visual (rather than abstract) presentation.  The director can’t simply describe the jet, the volcano, and the ocean.  He needs to actually procure the use of a jet, get footage of an erupting volcano, and find a way to fake a crash landing into an ocean.  This costs money.  In modern film making, an even bigger cost is special effects.  Effects that a novelist can describe with a few pages of well-crafted text can cost millions of dollars to bring to life on the screen.

In the end, the film maker is forced to make some concessions.  To bring every single detail to life could cost hundreds or millions – or even billions – of dollars.  At some point, a line has to be drawn in the sand.

Casting

When Tom Cruise was selected as the actor who would portray Lee Child’s Jack Reacher character in the upcoming film One Shot, many Reacher fans were aghast.  Reacher is a big guy – 6’5″ and 200+ pounds of pure muscle.  Tom Cruise is officially listed at 5’7″.  It seems to not be a great fit for the role.  Lee Child’s comment on the selection was that Reacher’s size was more of a metaphor than to be taken literally.  One can’t help but wonder if financial considerations came into play.

We’ve all seen movies where actors were a bad fit for a role – or simply had poor acting skills.  Again, a novelist offloads work to your brain when it comes to casting.  While every novelist will describe physical features of a character – some more than others – no author is going to describe every single aspect.  Much will be left to your imagination, and your can mold the characters to fit your preferences.  With a movie, you’re stuck with the bums who were cast for the roles.

Surprise!

Finally, the book has the element of surprise on its side.  While I thoroughly enjoyed watching The Hunger Games and even enjoyed the casting, I definitely wasn’t surprised at various twists and turns during the movie.  How could I be?  I had read the book, so I always knew when they were coming.  In fact, I used my knowledge of the plot to time my mid-movie pit stop (long movie + previews + large soda) so that I didn’t miss any good parts.  When I read the book, these plot twists were just that – surprises.

I’ve come to accept the fact that most movies are not going to be as good as the book – through no fault of the director.  If a movie is “almost as good” as a book, I consider it to be a pretty good movie.
 

 

Caught in the Webb

Does this look like a crack?

My Pick for the US Open last week was …well…not a good one.

Phil Mickelson simply was not on his game, basically not able to hole any putts and missing more fairways than he was hitting.

It did appear that Tiger was on his way to Major #15, but after a bad start on both Saturday and Sunday he faltered and finished tied for 21st.

Jim Furyk looked like he would keep it together and was on his way to winning a 2nd US Open, and pretty much therefore assuring his place eventually in the World Golf Hall of Fame. The pressure seemed too much, he hit some uncharacteristic shots down the stretch and then had to pull off birdieing the last with fellow playing partner Graeme McDowell to force a Monday playoff. Neither of the two were able to birdie the difficult but short 18th – mainly due to an extremely tough pin placement that did not allow for much of a chance to hit it close – and Webb Simpson, walked away with the Nicklaus Medal and the United States Open Trophy.

Who the Heck is Webb Simpson? That is what quite a few of the non-die hard golf fans are asking Sunday night into Monday morning. The guy dresses nice..anytime Ralph Lauren is a sponsor you are going to have some nice digs.

He played golf in college at Wake Forest, he was on the Nationwide tour for a short while, and really came into his own last year winning twice – including the Deutsche Bank Open during the final Fed Ex Cup race. In hindsight, it appears Simpson was poised for a breakthrough this year, much like Keegan Bradley was last year. It just happened sooner than anyone, including Simpson, could imagine. After all, he is only 26 years old.

NBA Playoffs

I guess I shouldn’t tell them that I like Durant Durant.

Game 3 is in the books and the Heat hold a 2-1 advantage. 85% of the time the team that wins game 3 wins the series. While that is an impressive statistic, these teams are very evenly matched – and each create problems for the other. Oklahoma City has proven all year that it is the toughest place in the league to play.

I do get tired of all of the analysts and sports talk figured “over-analyzing” every single thing that takes place in each game. Of course it makes for listeners to your program to have the latest scoop, or to be controversial in your comments. Maybe because I have no real allegiance to any NBA team I seem to read between the lines more so than a rabid NBA fan.

It is comical how some of these “experts” seem to flip back and forth on their opinions on each team or on particular players from game to game.

Regardless, this should be a great week of basketball and then we set off to the dead period of time known as waiting for football season to start. (Kosmo calls this Baseball season)

At least this summer we have the Olympics coming up in England! I will be covering a number of stories on the Olympics once they get started.

Until Next Time, stay classy Springdale, Arkansas

It is summer time, which means that I am actually going out to see movies. I cannot say why I do not go to the movies very often during the winter months. It may be because I live in the Midwest, and all of the things that slow down in the winter just slow down the out of home entertainment. This is the first of several film reviews that I am going to undertake. I am not a true film critic. I do not read film critic reviews. In fact, I do not watch many films in theaters. I mostly go when my wife wants to go.

Snow White and the Huntsman

There have been may Snow White movies, the most famous being the Disney animated classic from 1937. For those of you who have read the “original” tale from the Grimms brothers, you will know that the cartoon is rather mild in comparison. The live action remake in 1997 with Julia Roberts is truer to the fairy tale. On those lines, the cartoon was for young Americans, the later movie was for teenagers. The original story was actually for small children, as were all of the Grimms tales, to provide a moral or warning.

The latest installment of Snow White movies is in theaters now; Snow White and the Huntsman. This movie has many attributes that appeal to the current generation of movie goers. The special effects are outstanding. They flow with the action and add rather than detract from the visual impact of the movie. There are several actors and actresses who are excellent including Charlize Theron and Chris Hemsworth.

The fairest of them all?

The story itself is well integrated, providing more detail as to why the queen would want Snow White dead. But this is where the positives end. The character of Snow White herself is far to militant and sure of herself. No offense to the actress Kristen Stewart, but she is not fairer than fair or more beautiful that the rest. Although moving the huntsman to being a huntsman rather than the executioner in the story is a good move, adding a brother of the queen to provide the chase mechanism adds little to the plat. The Dwarves are less comical than in previous version, but also only have a bit part. Rather than truly being the guys who stick their necks out to protect the fair lady, they are just the junior partners in a rather large contingent of support.

There is very little actual violence, due to the fantasy ingredient of the tale, which makes it acceptable for most kids (although some might have nightmares from the special effects). The target audience seems to be teenagers. I would not recommend paying full price at a theater, but a discount theater or video rental may be a good option.

Next week: Men in Black 3
 

Image via Wikipedia

Note: This article originally ran on June 3, 2010.

Do athletes make too much money?  The quick reaction to this question is “yes”.

Let’s take a deeper look.  As usual, I’ll use baseball as an example.

The news media reports the big signing bonuses of the first round draft picks – but fail to report that the size of the bonuses drop precipitously throughout the draft.  In the later stages of the draft, a player might received a bonus of a couple thousand dollars – or no bonus at all.  But then they jump into the minors at a hefty salary, right?  Well, if you consider $1100 per month to be a lot of money.  That’s the MAXIMUM a player can earn in his first season, if he signs a minor league contract.  (A very small number of elite prospects sign Major League contracts with different rules).  The salaries increase as you move up through the system, but it’s very difficult to get rich playing baseball in the minor leagues.  Many players have another job in the off-season.

In this year’s draft (which begins on Monday night), 1500 players will be drafted by baseball teams each year. Hundreds more are signed as foreign free agents. The active roster for a Major League team is 25 players (expanded to 40 in September). That means that there are 750 active major leaguers for most of the season. In theory, this could expand to as many as 1200 in September if everyone expanded thie rosters to 40 players (which is not the case).  Obviously, the vast majority of minor league players are never going to make it to the Major Leagues.  Most of the players who do make it to the highest level won’t stick around very long.

What we’re really looking at when we see the “rich” athletes are the elite performers.  But elite performers in nearly every industry are very well compensated.  Find me one of the top 750 bankers in the country, and I’ll bet she makes a few bucks.

Athletes are entertainers.  When we look around the world of entertainment, we see a lot of highly compensatated stars – people who make as much money working on one movie as A-Rod makes for a season of work.  Yet, people seem much more willing to point at A-Rod as overpaid, but not so much at Tom Cruise or Taylor Swift (no, we’re not Taylor haters – we like her).

Why is this?  I’m really not sure.  It may be the perception that actors and singers work at their craft, whereas athletes are just using their “God-given” talents to play a child’s game.  If you subscribe to this theory, watch some of the “human interest” stories during the Olympics.  You’ll hear about kids putting in long hours of practice from the time they were knee high to a grasshopper in order to hone those raw God-given gifts into polished skills – beginning the “apprenticeship” aspect of their career at a very young age.

A typical baseball team has a payroll of about $100 million.  For the same cost, you could produce a Hollywood movie with a couple of big name stars.  I personally see more value in 162 baseball games than in one movie.  People complain about the cost of tickets to sporting events, but in a lot of baseball stadiums, you can actually buy a ticket for the same price as a movie ticket.  The difference is that the baseball team has a detailed price structure based on seat location and the desirability of the game.  When you buy a ticket to a movie, you pay the same for bad seats to a horrible movie as you do for good seats at the best movie of the year.  How’s that for logic?

Are athletes overpaid?  Nah.  Are elite performers in various industries overpaid?  Perhaps – but people pay for elite talent, whether it’s in baseball, acting, or investing.

Did you find this article interesting?  Then you might also like my article regarding whether or not college athletes should be paid.

Note: this article originally ran on September 29, 2011

Yesterday, Amazon announced a new family of Kindle devices, including the Kindle Fire with an advanced web browser and full color screen, the Kindle Touch (obviously, with a touch screen), and a low cost $79 model. It’s mere coincidence that I happened to write about the Kindle for another article that appears on the site today. That article (What I like About My Kindle) was written prior to the Amazon announcements. Let’s take a moment to review the new models.

I listed the prices for the “With Special Offers” and without special offers. For example, the Kindle shows a price of $79 / $109. It’s $79 With Special Offers or $109 without. What are “special offers”? These are offers that appear on the screen saver and home screens of the devices (but not within the text of a book). The “with Special Offers” versions of the devices are $30-$50 less than the standard version. The general consensus seems to be that the deals that appears are good deals (I heard of one person getting a “20% off the purchase of a laptop” deal), so my thought is that most people will want this version. A friend of mine who owns a previous version complained that he couldn’t get Special Offers on his Kindle …

This week the United States Open Golf Championship will be held at the Olympic Club at San Francisco.  There is a lot of anticipation for the event this year as well as a number of stories.

The USGA has released the pairings for the Thursday and Friday rounds, and there are some very attractive made for a Hollywood movie type of three-somes.

First and foremost will be the matinee headliner of Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods and Masters Champion, Bubba Watson.  Be glad you are at home watching these three because if you were at the tournament I can assure you the gallery size for this triumvirate would parallel the crowd at a Rose Bowl game.

Tiger is the early 5 ½ to 1 favorite with the Vegas odds makers.  This is likely due to his win two weeks ago at Jack’s place – The Memorial. 

Of course we have seen this before this year. Tiger wins at Bay Hill and the world announces “He is Back” then he falters badly and appears not to be able to handle the pressure of a major while playing in the Masters.  Then he looks like the Tiger of old on the weekend at the Memorial. The question remains, will he contend this week.

Buggy anyone?

In Scotland, they are called buggies, but here in the good ol’ USA we call them Golf carts, or even sometimes affectionately – chariots.

Next week during the U.S. Open a name of court cases of a bygone era – Casey Martin again will be riding a cart for the his rounds after, qualifying for tournament.  Martin, who is the Oregon Golf Coach, retired from competitive professional golf six years ago.      

Casey Martin is most known amongst the golf aficionados as the man  who successfully sued the U.S. PGA Tour in 2001 for the right to ride a cart.  Martin suffers from a  because of a degenerative circulatory disorder and has had difficulty walking due to this condition since his teenage years.

I am quite confident NBC will give this significant play again, although it has been more than a decade since this was major news on the golfing front.

Martin did take a cart during local and sectional qualifying and will be allowed the use of a cart during the tournament this week.  His playing companions will not be able to hitch a ride with him between holes. 

Who will win?

Normally a fluke does not with the U.S. Open. It is a tournament with the most severe conditions in terms of deep and thick rough, dry fairways, hard and fast greens, and demonic pin placements.

The person who wins typically is hitting a lot of fairways, is able to control their ball flight, and is playing outstanding around the greens.

This one is on the West Coast, and not many have won more on the left coast than the left hander, I am taking Phil Mickelson.  Plus with the nickname in  GCSSA circles, Flopsy McChokenstien due to a few of his near misses in majors, I am hoping Phil can get the 5 second place monkey off of his back and magically find it this week by the bay. 

Until Next Time, Stay Classy Thermopolis, Wyoming.

47% of Americans pay no income tax, according to many sources. Is this really true?  Let’s take a look.

First of all, I’m going to present IRS data, so I’m limited to the information from tax returns. According to the 2010 US census the population of the United States was around 308.75 million people. The number of exemptions claimed on 2009 tax returns (the most current data available from the IRS) was 283.8 million. In other words, 25 million people – about 8% of the population – don’t appear anywhere on tax returns.

Who are these 25 million people? [survata]They could be people dodging taxes. They could be people who have paid their share of taxes in their lifetime (retired) or will pay their fair share at a later stage in their life (students). These may even be people who paid some amount of income tax during the year but aren’t filing for a refund (yes, this does happen).

Let’s work with the numbers we have from the IRS. Of the 140 million tax returns filed for the 2009 tax year, just over 58% paid taxes. So this means 42% of the people in this group didn’t pay taxes, right?

Wrong.

It means that 42% of the returns didn’t have any tax liability. What’s the difference?

Let’s walk through this example:

• Sam makes $3000 from his summer job and has no tax liability.
• Danielle and Thomas have three children: Mark, Lindsey, and William. They have tax liability of $150,000.

Looking at this example, what percent of people aren’t paying taxes? Is it fair to say 50? 50% of the tax returns (1 out of 2) have tax liability. Is it 33% (1 of the 3 adults aren’t paying taxes?). Is it 17% (1 of the 6 Americans aren’t paying taxes?) The people who are simply looking at the number of tax returns with taxes paid are going to say 50%. Is that right or wrong? I’ll let you decide.

If you choose 33% or 17%, let’s dig a bit deeper. Take a look on my article regarding how many people make more than $250,000. You’ll notice an correlation between number of exemptions (essentially household size) and income. The lowest income levels have the lowest number of exemptions (1.01), with this increasing until it plateaus around 3 in the $500,000 – $1,000,000 range.

There’s also a correlation between income level and likelihood of owing income tax. Less than 3% of tax returns with under $5000 in adjusted gross income owed any taxes, building to 77%+ in the $40,000 – $50,000 range and near 99% by the time we reach the $100,000+ range.

What’s my point? Let’s look at an extreme example. A million tax returns in the sub-$5000 range represent 1,010,000 Americans (1.01 exemptions per return). A million tax returns in the $500,000 – $1,000,000 range represent 3,050,000 people (3.05 exemption per return). Let’s take a sample of a million returns from each of these groups. Let’s further say that all one million returns in the $500,000 – $1,000,000 group have taxes owed and 160,000 returns in the sub $5000 group have taxes owed. That means that 1,160,000 / 2,000,000 – or 58% – of the returns have tax liability. However, these returns represent 3,211,600 or the 4,150,000 people – in excess of 77%. The basic mathematical concept here is weighted average.

An extreme example, yes. However, it does illustrate a valid point. The 42% of tax returns with no liability is going to represent less than 42% of the 283.75 million people covered by these returns.

Just want the data? Here it is!

Source: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/09in11si.xls (compare column 6 to column 1)

[/survata]

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Note: This article originally ran on May 26, 2010

For several years, President Obama has been dodging the issue of his birth certificate.  His camp has repeatedly insisted that it is genuine and ridiculed those who dare to question the authenticity.  But is there more to the story?  Of course there is.  Here are the cold, hard facts that prove that the birth certificate is a fake.

• The first step was to determine whether or not a genuine birth certificate existed in some other part of the world.  Taking a cue from his last name, we traveled to O’Bama’s ancestral country of Ireland.  In a dark records room in the city of Cork, we discovered a birth certificate insisting that O’Bama was born at a Cork hospital.
• We performed a detailed scientific analysis on the certificate itself.  While the paper does indeed date back to 1961, the ink does not.  Noted forensic inkyologist Marsupial Jones suggests that the ink is no more than 5 years old.
• Information from confidential government sources indicate that Lee Harvey Oswald was being handled by the CIA and was only following orders.
• Why is the state of Hawaii joining in the cover-up?  Our sources within the state department indicate that key Democratic members of congress threatened harsh economic sanctions against Hawaii if they failed to comply.  Planes would have been forbidden to land in the state, cutting off the vital flow of tourists’ money.  The United States would also have ceased imports from Hawaii – notably sugar cane and Don Ho albums.
• While Hawaii became a state in 1959, its citizens did not immediately become full citizens of the US.  Residents of any new states  are under a probationary citizenship during the first five years of statehood.  Only residents born after this five year waiting period are considered to be natural-born U.S. citizens (and thus eligible for the presidency).  Obama was born in 1961 – three years before the end of this waiting period.
• Sites such as Fact Check have shown a photo of a birth announcement purportedly published in the Honolulu Advertiser on August 13, 1961.  However, this evidence does not stand up to close scrutiny.  Once again, Marsupial Jones indicates that the ink is relatively fresh.  Additionally, many of the news stories read more like the The Onion than a serious newspaper.  Look no further than the article about the Cubs-Cardinals baseball game on page 2B, which makes reference to the “reigning world champion Chicago Cubs”.
• Take a copy of Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope.  Beginning at page 12 and going through page 297, write down the first letter of the first noun on the fourth sentence of the page.  You’ll be stunned at the secret message.