The SoapBoxers

Our entertainment column has been on hiatus for a while, so I thought I’d share some of my favorite things to read and watch lately.  I’ve actually been watching more TV than I have in a long time – because I’ll watch in the wee hours of the morning when feeding the baby.

Monk – This was a show that my wife and I always watched religiously, until Ugly Betty popped in the same time slot for a while.  Unfortunately, the show has come to a conclusion.   I was pleased with the way it wrapped up, though.  I do have a couple of seasons on DVD that I can watch when I start going into withdrawal.

NCIS – Since I’m an aspiring crime novelist, it shouldn’t be a big surprise that crime dramas top my list of shows to watch.  I’ve eschewed CSI.  Despite the strong basis in forensics, it just doesn’t seem particularly believable and seems a bit contrived from the small bits I’ve watched.  NCIS mixes forensics with other investigative techniques, all within a military setting.  I really like Mark Harmon as an actor, and the supporting cast is good as well.  NCIS is a favorite show for me to watch on my wireless headphones while I’m shoveling snow.  The fact that it’s an hour long means that I can make decent headway shoveling during the course of a show.

M*A*S*H – When I was a kid, M*A*S*H and Wheel of Fortune competed in the same time slot.  My mom liked Wheel (and actually won something in a call-in contest through the local TV station once) and Dad liked M*A*S*H.  Personally, I thought both shows were pretty stupid.  Years later, I’m still not a fan of Wheel of Fortune, but I love M*A*S*H. I really need to snap up the DVD collection at some point. (All 11 Seasons (Amazon), All 11 seasons + Movie + Bonus Material (Amazon))

I’m also doing some reading, of course.  Yesterday, my fresh new copy of Ron Shandler’s Baseball Forecaster for 2010
arrived on my doorstep.  This book is one of my tools for fighting the winter blahs.  Shandler analyzes secondary statistics in order to determine if a player’s basic statistical inputs accurately reflect his skill set, or are based largely on luck.  It’s a handy tool to have before your fantasy draft – did a player that you like actually have a breakout year in 2009 (and thus great things on the horizon) or was he lucky?

And, of course, I’m reading short stories by the master, Lawrence Block.  I’m currently reading One Night Stands and Lost Weekends, a collection of some of Block’s very early work.  The stories are great, but be sure to read the introduction as well – it’s as interesting as any of the fiction stories in the book.

I’m also reading a few blogs, of course.  I highly recommend all of the blogs that you see in the right column.  Today, I’ll give special attention to Living with Balls.  The author writes about sports and other manly pursuits (such as relationships and farting), with an unabashedly male point of view.  Haute couture it is not, funny it often is.  Be forewarned – if you don’t like it, you’ll probably hate it.  I can’t imagine that there is much middle ground.

I like math, particularly algebra and probability.  This article is the first of what may become a semi-regular segment that takes a deeper look into topics of a mathematical nature.

Russian Roulette

One of the most dangerous games in the world is Russian Roulette.  The player inserts one bullet into a revolver with six chambers.  The player then spins the cylinder and pulls the trigger.

What is the chance that you can spin six times, pull the trigger each time, and hit an empty chamber every time?

The basic math of the situation is that the odds of hitting an empty chamber on any particular spin is 5/6 (5 empty chambers, 1 chamber with a bullet), or .833.

Just as the odds of having a coin come up heads X consecutive times is .5^X, this situation is .833^X.  In our case, this is .833^6, or .335.  You have a 1 in 3 chance of walking away from this game alive.

But I still wouldn’t recommend trying.

Fuel Consumption

Let’s look at these two scenarios:

A: Upgrade a car that gets 10 mpg for a car that gets 20 mpg
B: Upgrade a car that gets 20 mpg for a car that gets 30 mpg

At first glance, it appears that either scenario will result in the same amount of fuel savings, right?  After all, you’re saving 10 mpg in either case.

This isn’t the case, though.  Let’s assume 10,000 miles are driven in a year,  Scenario A results in fuel consumption dropping from 1000 gallons to 500 gallons – a savings of 500 gallons per year.  Scenario B results in consumption dropping from 500 gallons per year to 333 gallons – a savings of a mere 167 gallons.  Huh?  What’s the trick?

The problem is that we’re trying to use the wrong tool.  We want to determine the change in fuel consumption – but the mpg is not the rate of fuel consumption.  It is the mathematical reciprocal of the rate of consumption.

Let’s take a fresh look at the two scenarios, using the actual fuel consumption rates.  We’re using the exact same cars, but simply stating the facts in a different manner.

Scenario A: Upgrade a car that consumes 0.1 gallons/mile for one that consumes 0.05 gallons/mile

Scenario B: Upgrade a car that consumes 0.05 gallons/mile for one that consumes .033 gallons/mile.

The difference becomes clear – scenario A reduces fuel consumption by .05 gallons per mile and scenario B reduces fuel consumption by .0167 gallons/mile.

It almost makes you wonder why the government didn’t use fuel consumption rate in the Cash For Clunkers guidelines instead of mileage.

Why do we, as a whole, use the wrong tool to gauge fuel consumption?  Probably because we prefer to use whole numbers rather than fractions.

Pizza Pi

We’ll finish up with an easy problem.

The last time my friends came over, I ordered an 8 inch pizza.  My friends could only eat half as much pizza as they wanted before the pizza was gone.  This time, I was more prepared and ordered a 16 inch pizza – but there is lots of pizza left over.  What did I do wrong?

A lot of folks in the crowd are going to immediately know the answer to this one.  The area of a circle is Pi times the square of the radius (the radius being half the diameter – or 4 inches for the 8 inch pizza and 8 inches for the 16 inch).  This means that the 16 inch pizza is four times as large as the 8 inch pizza, not merely twice as large.  The 16 inch pizza has ~200 square inches [Pi X (8^2)] whereas the 8 inch pizza has ~ 50 square inches [Pi X (4^2)].

“The pay isn’t much, but I know how you feel about widows and orphans.”

“How much, Jack?”

“Only ten, I’m afraid.”

The man at the other end of the phone hesitated for a moment and then decided to take the job.  Ten grand wasn’t much, but he had a soft spot for damsels in distress.

“OK, I’ll do it for ten.  Make sure to pay FICA for me.”

The caller laughed.  “You know the drill, Rex.  You’re an independent contractor.”

Jack Stone arranged to call back in a few days with more information.

Rex Mortimer grabbed a Cuban cigar from the box on the corner of his desk and shoved it into the corner of his mouth.  He pulled a box of wooden matches from the top desk drawer, extracted one, and struck it sharply against the side of the desk.  The match immediately illuminated, and Rex lit his cigarette and enjoyed one final smoke.  After he finished his cigarette, he’d pull the bottle of single malt scotch from the bottom drawer and enjoy a final dose of that wonderful elixir as well.  Rex Mortimer loved fine cigars and quality booze, but he always swore them off when working on a job.  The stakes warranted complete sobriety.

To the outside world, Rex Mortimer was a marketing executive named Alexander Milne.  He operated his front business under the name of Sanders Consulting.  Indeed, Sanders Consulting was small, but had a long history in the industry, and their reputation had continued unblemished after Alexander had bought the company from the old owner.  This was largely because Alexander outsourced the work to people far more qualified than himself.  He had little difficulty outsourcing the jobs, since he paid more than the clients paid him – and paid with cash.

While the business was not profitable from a pure economic sense, it served a very valuable purpose – accounting for Alexander’s frequent business trips and reasonably high level of income.

When Alexander took a road trip, it was his alter ego who performed the work.  Rex Mortimer’s business was death, and business was very good.  Rex was a contract killer.  He wasn’t an elite guy like Jaguar or Condor, but he managed to make a very decent living from his profession.  Most of the money was diverted to safe haven in the Cayman Islands.  The rest was passed along to the flunkies who performed the outsourcing for Sanders Consulting.  The recipients never complained about receiving cash, and the process did a nice job of trading dirty cash from the contract killers for clean cash paid by clients for the excellent work of Sanders Consulting.

How do you like the story so far?

This other half of this particular story will NOT be available on the blog! It will only be available as part of an eBook that I am giving away to my most valued regular readers. Don’t worry, it does not cost any money, nor do you have to give up any personal information.

If you are a regular reader through the web site, look up at the blue bar at the top of the screen. You should see the text “Free eBook” toward the right edge of the bar. If you don’t see this, then you’re just a wee bit shy of being a “regular reader”.

If you are an RSS subscriber, look at the bottom of this story. You will see a “Free eBooks of short stories” link directly to the left of the copyright notice.

Clicking on either of these links will get you to the correct page to download the eBook. The 50 page eBook contains thirteen stories. Twelve of the stories have been featured on The Soap Boxers. The first story in the eBook – The Professional – is only available to members in this PDF.

I hope you enjoy the eBook!

If you aren’t a regular visitor, you can get the eBook by simply subscribing to the RSS feed – or simply look around the site and read a few stories. Before long, we’ll think of you as a regular visitor.

If you run into any problems, just send me an email at kosmo@observingcasually.com

I used to live in New York City, Court Street in Brooklyn to be exact.  One fine Tuesday morning I woke up late and decided to take the subway in, rather than riding my bike.  It was a pretty typical, boring subway ride.  I came up out of the subway to a big booming sound followed by thousands of people screaming.  While I had been underground a group of fanatical extremists decided to murder thousands by crashing an airplane into World Trade Center 1, more commonly known as the North Tower.  I had come up the subway station stairs just after 9:03, right as another airliner was flown into World Trade Center 2.  We all have our own stories for that day, but I’d like to talk about the thing that makes me almost as angry as the attacks themselves that followed in the weeks and months after; the political football that was played.

A lot of us were swept up with the emotions following 9/11 – even I found my self not completely disagreeing with the angry mobs and their internet toughguy cries of “glass parking lot!” – a reference to using nuclear weapons on those responsible.  After the initial anger passed I realized how stupid I was, since the likelihood of any single nation perpetrating attacks of that magnitude was slim to none.  I calmed down and went on with my life, but there was an agenda to be pushed and fear is a powerful tool.  The Cheney administration deceitfully guided the United States into a war in Iraq under the guise of pre-emptively stopping Saddam Hussein’s completion or acquisition of weapons of mass destruction.  It has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that no such weapons were found in Iraq and proven with modest doubt that Dick Cheney deliberately moved us toward war using fear to complete the stated goals of his neoconservative think-tank Project for a New American Century.  The extreme left-wing blogosphere also speculates that Cheney and his friends at Haliburton had a lot to gain financially from such a war, speculations that I certainly don’t disagree with.

Let me sum up that previous paragraph, TL:DR it for you internet meme fans:  Dick Cheney lied to get us into war in Iraq.  I won’t deny that Saddam Hussein was a disgusting man and overthrowing him – in and of itself – isn’t a bad thing, but at what cost?  Over 4000 Americans have lost their lives in combat operations in Iraq.  Over 30,000 have been wounded.  One trillion dollars has been spent on war since 2001.  Trillion.  1,000,000,000,000.00.  Figures like that should be pretty sobering, yet we continue to allow politicians play political football so that they can gain at our expense.

There is a growing trend in US politics to sensationalize a contrary position simply to oppose the other party even if it’s on a subject you agree with them on.  While that is disgusting in and of itself, playing politics for your own benefit is far worse.  A perfect current example:  Joe Lieberman.  Here’s a quote from the Connecticut senator from 2006:

“My proposals were to basically expand the existing successful public health insurance programs Medicare and Medicaid…. When it came to Medicare I was very focused on a group — post 50, maybe more like post 55. People who have retired early, or unfortunately have been laid off early, who lose their health insurance and they’re too young to qualify for Medicare. What I was proposing was that they have an option to buy into Medicare early and again on the premise that that would be less expensive than the enormous cost. If you’re 55 or 60 and you’re without health insurance and you go in to try to buy it, because you’re older … you’re rated as a risk so you pay a lot of money…”

Yet as was reported in the past few months, he has vocally and almost singularly derailed any expansion of Medicare or Medicaid.  The health care industry sees Medicare or Medicaid expansion as a bad thing, a threat to their profits.  Joe Lieberman has received almost two and a half million dollars in campaign contributions from the health care sector and his wife is a lobbyist specializing helping health care companies make more money at your expense.  A majority of Connecticut residents have said they want not only a public option but a single-payer system.  Do the math in your head:  Joe Lieberman, elected to represent Connecticut is playing political football, and he’s doing it for personal gain.

Both these examples, Lieberman and Cheney, show people’s willing to put other’s lives on the line so they can get more money.  This is the political environment we live in today:  your votes are bought by advertising paid for by corporations that care more about making money than about your well being.  The dystopian future presented in the cyberpunk genre of corporations running the world with a monolithic, uncaring, capitalistic face is not so far off, we merely have puppets named Lieberman, Cheney, or Gingrich as a pretty public face to make the hard pill of political football easier to swallow.

It is seemingly commonplace that the actions of humanity negatively affect our environmental world around us, and no continent is exempt from this reality. In the midwestern United States, a legal battle has recently begun that could forever change interstate commerce and leave a legacy of saving the largest freshwater fishery on the planet, the Great Lakes..

In December of 2009, the state of Michigan sued the state of Illinois, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the states of Indiana and Wisconsin to force the closure of the Illinois Sanitary and Shipping Canal (ISSC), a man-made channel that is the only direct water link between the Mississippi River Watershed and the Great Lakes. The channel is some 28 miles long and is jointly controlled by the Army Corps of Engineers (ACoE) and the State of Illinois. Why was this lawsuit brought forth? To stop the rapid encroachment of a prolific invasive fish, the Asian Carp.

Asian Carp, a general term referencing four different types of carp species originating from Asia, have exploded in population in the Mississippi River Basin since 1990. The main culprit is one species whose common name is the “Silver Carp”. These Silver Carp grow to nearly 2 feet long and can weigh up to 40 lbs, and are known for their spectacular ‘leaping’ ability. They are able to launch themselves upwards of 10 feet into the air; a behavior that is not fully understood. The Carp are filter feeders and devour plankton and detritus almost constantly, as they lack a true stomach. As compared to other fish, they reproduce at a fantastic rate and have no natural predators in American waters. They were originally introduced into the U.S. as a biological means to reduce algae growth in wastewater treatment facilities and within one year of introduction, had found their way into public waterways.

Many people ask why a planktivorous filter feeding fish would be a concern for a fishery, and it is a legitimate question with a specific and far-reaching answer. Nearly all native sportfish and commercially important fish in North America (bass, sunfish, pikes, etc) are planktivorous in their youth stages of development. If a vast, reproducing population of Silver Carp were to be established in Lake Michigan (and the other Great Lakes), the rippling population effects on native, commercially important fish would be devastating. The Carp would essentially “clean out” the Great Lakes and youth populations of those native fish would be starved, causing a catastrophic drop as quickly as a decade from introduction. And once established, a Silver Carp population will be virtually impossible to eradicate from waterways as large as the Great Lakes.

To stop this encroachment, the ACoE built two massive electrified barriers that supposedly disallow fish from passing in either direction at a point on the ISSC some 9 miles from Lake Michigan. Unfortunately, in November of 2009, Silver Carp DNA was found on the Lake Michigan side of the barriers, causing a massive response from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Three weeks after the DNA finding, those two agencies intervened with a massive chemical fish kill which resulted in 90 tons of dead fish, but almost no Carp were amongst the kill. The Michigan lawsuit requests that the ISSC be closed semi-permanently, until a more effective barrier can be constructed to protect the Great Lakes fishery.

If the lawsuit is successful, and the canal is closed, thousands of jobs may be lost as the canal provides a vital link from the Great Lakes throughout the midwestern and western United States. However, other thousands of fisheries-related jobs may be saved, and a massive irreversible environmental disaster would be averted. Considered yourself urged to further look into this matter, and contact your congressman or senator to voice your opinion, especially if you live in a Great Lakes state.

On January 6^th, the Baseball Hall of Fame announced that the Baseball Writers of America (BBWA) had selected Andre Dawson as their sole choice for 2010 induction into the hallowed halls of Cooperstown.

I was a Cubs fan when Dawson won the MVP in 1987 – his 49 homers nabbing the award despite a last place finish by Chicago.  Dawson is one of just three players in major league history with at least 400 homers and 300 steals (Barry Bonds and Willie Mays being the others).

Dawson was a victim of collusion by MLB owners when he became a free agent after the 1986 season (read all about it here – the owners were found guilty) and ended up signing a contract for “just” $500,000 for the 1987 season.  (Yep, that’s still a lot of money, but far below the market value).

Bert Blyleven, in his thirteenth year on the ballot, got tantalizingly close to election, garnering 400 votes – falling just 5 votes shorts of the 75% required for election.  Players tend to pick up a bit of momentum in the last couple of years on the ballot (they are on the ballot for 15 years), so it is an almost certainty that Blyleven will make it in 2011.  (Read my case for Blyleven).

In his first year on the ballot, Roberto Alomar fell just 8 votes short of induction.  Alomar likely would have had the necessary votes if not for an ugly incident on September 27, 1996.  During a heated argument, Alomar spit in the face of umpire John Hirschbeck.  Alomar’s version of events was that the umpire had used an ethnic slur, and some viewers contended that Hirschbeck called the player a “faggot” as he walked away.

Should this incident have kept Alomar out of the Hall?  I’m going to say no.  Why not?  Because John Hirschbeck long ago forgave Alomar, and Alomar has become a fund raiser for the fight against adrenoleukodystrophy, a rare disease which afflicted two of Hirschbeck’s sons.  If Hirschbeck forgave Alomar of his sins, should we not due the same?

Other notable players on the ballot:

In his first year on the ballot, former Reds shortstop Barry Larkin picked up 51.6% of the vote. Larkin will – and should – eventually be elected.  He was a player I loved to hate.

Jack Morris – the winningest pitcher of the 1980s and a three time World Series champion – had the fourth highest vote total, with 52.3%.  However, in his 11^th year on the ballot, he might not be able to push above 75% before he falls off the ballot.

All time saves leader Lee Smith continues his long journey.  Smith picked up 478 career saves to go along with a 3.03 ERA.  There was the thought that Bruce Sutter’s election in 2006 might open the door a crack for Smith, but this hasn’t been the case.

Edgar Martinez got 36.2% of the vote in his first year on the ballot.  Martinez was primarily a DH during his career, playing in the field in only 561 of his 2055 career games.  I’m on record as hating the designated hitter.  Having said that, if we are to allow DHs into the Hall of Fame, Martinez should be welcomed in with open arms.

As for the five voters who returned blank ballots – seriously, none of the players on the ballot deserved your vote?  Did you even watch baseball in the 1980s?

Our continuing, albeit erratically paced, series of interviews with other bloggers sends reporter Scoop Chevelle to the wilds of Philadelphia in search of Kelly Whalen of The Centsible Life.

Scoop: Hello, folks. I’ve just flown to Pennsylvania and boy am I tired. Being chased by an angry mob can really wear you out. Apparently the Liberty Bell is only for decoration and is NOT to be actually rung. What’s the point of having a bell, then? Well, I digress. Today, I come to you from the Steel City, home of the reigning Super Bowl champion Steelers.

Guy on the street: Dude, Pittsburgh is the Steel City. You’re in Philadelphia.

Scoop: Oh. Is Philadelphia a suburb of Pittsburgh, then?

Guy on the street: Are you crazy? Philly’s bigger than Pittsburgh – and Pittsburgh’s clear on the other side of the
state!

Scoop: OK, then. Today, we come to you from Philadelphia, which is famous for not being the home of the Super Bowl champion Steelers.

Guy on the street: (grumbling in disgust): Yeah.  That’s what we’re famous for. Not the constitutional convention, cheese steaks, or Rocky. We’re known for not being home to the Steelers. Knucklehead.

Scoop: (completely oblivious): Today, we come to you from the living room of Ms. Kelly Whalen. Good morning, Kelly.

Kelly: Welcome.

Scoop: In the last several months, you have been nearly impossible to ignore in the media. You have been featured on the Today show alongside Jean Chatzky, as well as appearances in local media outlets. You’ve also picked up gigs writing for Consumerism Commentary and Moolanomy, in addition to your work on The Centsible Life. It seems like everything you’ve touched during the last year has turned to gold.What’s the secret to your success?

Kelly: Coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.

Scoop: How did you come up with the name for The Centsible Life? Did you consider the Dollarsible Life, since that name would have 100 times the value?

Kelly: I wanted something that was a play on words. Of course I didn’t think that it might be difficult to spell. Dollarsible isn’t a word, Scoop.

Scoop: With 4 kids and the responsibility of running a household, when do you have the time to write articles for three different web sites? Are you one of those zombie types of people who only need a couple hours of sleep every night? Do you write articles while you’re in the checkout line at the grocery store?

Kelly: I find pockets of time when the kids are playing nicely, or after they go to bed, or occasionally I leave Mr. Centsible in charge and head to Starbucks.

Scoop: Of all the articles you have written, are there a few special ones that stand out?

Kelly: I have 3 favorite articles. This article talks about the balance between being a mom and doing what you love. I wrote a guest post for Bargaineering about daycare from a stay at home mom’s perspective. And my most heavily visited article is Kids and Allowance, where I tackle how not to go broke when you have kids.

Scoop: What lies ahead for you in 2010? Do you have any advice for bloggers who are just getting started?

Kelly: I’m currently celebrating my one year blogiversary at The Centsible Life; with a ton of giveaways. I expect 2010 will be a big year, and have plans to create an exclusive newsletter, and start writing an e-book. For bloggers who are just getting started I recommend following people you admire, basically stalking them. In hindsight I wish I had thought more about my goals with my blog versus jumping in with both feet.

Scoop: They call Pennsylvania the Keystone State, but really, I see as much Budweiser and Miller in stores as Keystone. Also it seems a bit silly to nickname your state after a beer. Hey, I like a beer in a can that tastes like beer in a bottle, but I wouldn’t name my state after it. So what’s up with the moniker?

Kelly: I don’t know. I prefer wine anyway.

Scoop: Is there anything else you would like to say to the readers of The Soap Boxers?

Kelly: Thanks for having me!

Scoop: Thank you for your time, Kelly.

Kelly is a long time friend of The Soap Boxers. Be sure to check out her blog at www.thecentsiblelife.com

If you visited The Soap Boxers just to see the interview with Baker, feel free to look around a bit. Browse the archives, subscribe to the RSS feed, or simply come back again tomorrow. We offer a full money back guarantee. If you read us for a week and don’t like the content, we will refund 100% of the purchase price. RSS subscribers gain access to my two fiction eBooks – look for the “free ebook of short stories” link in the RSS footer (just to the left of the copyright information).

I really hate winter.  Let me count the ways.

1. I hate cold weather.
2. I miss the sun.
3. Driving on ice sucks.
4. I hate shoveling show.
5. The winter sports pale in comparison to the grand sport of summer – baseball.

Thus, each winter, I typically bump into a bit of a case of the winter blahs.  During the last few years, I have found myself better equipped to fight it off.  How?  A couple of ways.

Mitigate the misery

Shoveling snow is a winter task that I hate.  I keep putting off the purchase of a snow blower for a few reasons.  First, I keep telling myself that the last few winters have been atypical, and that it really doesn’t snow in Iowa much.  Second, it seems that many times ice is the main culprit, and snow blowers don’t handle ice very well.  Third, they’re a bit pricey (although possibly cheaper than the chiropractor bills some years).

So, each year, I spend too much time outside in cold weather shoveling snow.  To make the experience a bit better, I grab my wireless headphones, fire up the downstairs DVR, and listen to one or two TV shows while I shovel (depending on the length of the show and the amount of snow).  Left to my own devices, I rarely watch non-sports TV, so this does give me a chance to catch up on the couple of shows that I care enough about to record.  In the last few weeks, I have greatly reduced my backlog of NCIS and The Office.  I grew up listening to baseball on AM radio for much of my entertainment, so I can get significant entertainment value out of a TV program even when the video portion is absent.

If you enjoy reading, winter can also be a good time to catch up.  The weather sucks for outdoor activities, so why not stay indoors a bit more.  If you’re looking for recommendations of some good authors, I have a list.

Set Intermediate Milestones

Years ago, I would sigh deeply when the first snowflakes hit the ground and start counting down the days until spring.  This made for a very long winter.  In the last few years, I have started to look forward to winter milestones.  This helps reduce the wait a bit by breaking it into manageable chunks.

A major milestone for me is the date that spring training begins.  This is mid-February each year – a full month (or more) before spring begins in the midwest.  However, when the first pitchers and catchers report to Florida and Arizona, I know that there will significant baseball news every day until November (my threshold for “significant baseball news” is probably a bit lower than most people’s.)

In 2010, there is another wonderful milestone – the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.  I absolutely love the Olympics.  At some point during the Olympics, I will know person details about athletes from dozens of countries from sports that I pay little attention to outside of the Olympics.  Then, of course, there is luge.  I fully intend to DVR ever possible bit of luge coverage in order to satisfy my desire for the sports for the next four years.

In closing, I would like to point out the fact that there is a big difference between a mere case of the winter blahs and the more serious condition of depression.  If you feel that you are experiencing depression, I urge you to seek proper medical attention, just as you would for any other ailment.

Back on April 15, when the Dow was at 7920.18, I launched a stock market contest between a team of three personal finance bloggers (team Goliath) and a team of folks who, while they were intelligent, did not immerse themselves into finance at quite the same level (team David).

So, who won? Team David, of course. Don’t you people read the bible?

Every participant was at least somewhat bullish, with the lowest guess being 8232. Peter Rabbit of Team David (who would later join the staff of The Soap Boxers) was the closest, but even his guess of 9500 was more than 900 points below the actual December 31 close of 10428.05.

Everyone on Team David had a guess of at least 8492.48, while the highest guess from Team Goliath was 8400 (Team Goliath had a very tight spread in their guesses). Thus, Team David slays Team Goliath … and it wasn’t even close.

For your reading pleasure, I present the original article below, in its entirety.

The rules:
Each player predicts the closing value of the Dow Jones industrial average at the close of day on December 31, 2009. Points are awarded on a 12-10-8-6-4-2-0 basis for being closest to the actual closing value. The score of all players on each team are added together, and the best team score wins.

I will update the contest every month, focusing on the actual rate of Dow rise or fall compared to the guesses. For example, if a player guesses a 850 point increase and the Dow increased 100 points in the first month, they would be on target. This relies on a false assumption that the market will move similarly in each month.

Note: this contest is for entertainment purposes only and is not to be construed as investment advice.

The predictions:

Team Goliath

Team Goliath consists of three people who write blogs related to personal finance.

Trevor of Financial Nut
Why do I choose 8,400? Though I do not necessarily agree with Keynesian economic theory, I do feel that some of this spending is going to create some jobs and allow for money to be injected back into the economy. By this time I would imagine that many of the Obama Administration’s plans to deal with all of these “toxic assets” and to create employment in an increasingly dying economy will be in place. Right now the plans are only being discussed and just barely being implemented.

In addition, recessions in the past haven’t lasted much longer than what we’ve had. This one is, however, very unique and may be longer.

But at the end of the day, who really knows?! 🙂

Lazy Man of Lazy Man and Money
Although some suggest that much of the recent drop is psychological, I think that much can be explained by the large amounts of credit that were extended over the last 10-15 years. More money in the system allows earnings to rise – which results in a lower P/E ratio – making it easier for buyers to justify higher prices.

We’ll see what happens in a bad economy where the earnings drop not just due to the lack of buyers, but the lack of easy credit.

I do, however, think much of the damage is priced in now. Although I am not a currency expert, I think it will be important to watch the impact of the stimulus package on the dollar in the next 8+ months.

Heidi of Bankergirl brings a bit of sugar and spice to a group filled with snails and puppy dog tails.
Based on historical data, we have yet to hit the low for this economic cycle. I think that sometime in the second quarter (or possibly early Q3) of 2009, the dow is going to hit its low. It will recover throughout late Q3 and into Q4, but it will land around the low-to-mid 8000 mark.

Hope I’m wrong – my job is much more secure once we are back up to around 10,000.

Team David

Team David consists of three people who have ordinary jobs and do not write about personal finance.

Peter Rabbit is an IT Auditor.
The last few reports on housing and the purchase of durable goods were very encouraging. These are lagging indicators when we enter a recession as well as when we come out of one. This signals to me that the worst may be behind us. By no means are we in a period of growth but we may have stabilized. Basically, I am betting that we have about 4 more days of 500 point gains sprinkled in the next few months. But otherwise you will see a lot of +100 and -100 point days that just pass time and wash each other out.

Phil Ossifer is a computer systems analyst and has recently launched the (not finance) blog Chunga Goes Wild
Stocks WON’T perform like they did over the last 80 years. Unique circumstances of that period are unrepeatable, e.g., post-Industrial Revolutionary growth, outcome from wars, political/demographic changes, etc.

Monetary policy will float us for a while, but also leads us toward a serious, long-term decline. We now have more debt than any nation; we have a negative savings rate – and yet we look to more spending for the answer. Over-consuming and under-producing is not sustainable!

Finally, analysis based on a few known factors like bad mortagages, trade deficits, and economic cycles are short-sighted. We are now in a complex, unpredictable, global system (think: Chaos theory). Cheers!

Black Hole is where logic goes to die. Fittingly, he works in human resources.
In the past month, the Dow has been on the incline, and I think it will be up and down (in small variances) throughout the year, but I think towards the end of the year it will climb a little more steadily. Banks will become more stable than they are now, and the economy is receiving such a boost monetarily that it will definitely turn around and quicker than other “recessions”.

Free agent
The Soap Boxers will not be a member of a team, but I will be awarded points on the basis of my finish. Thus, a good showing by TCO can serve as a spoiler for one of the teams. Think of me as the guy in the middle of a game of “keep away”.
I personally believe that much of the recent drop in the market is due to psychological factors. A lot of really good stocks are getting beaten up. When the Dow was hovering around 6500, P/E ratios were at five year lows. This is a time to snap up some solid blue chip stocks at good prices. I think that there will be some slight corrections in the near future, but that we have hit bottom and that the market will turn the corner once spring is in full bloom. The positive energy of spring will improve the mindset of potential investors.

Submit your own guess in the comments sections. Invite your friends to compete against you. I will also track the guesses of commenters in the monthly update. Only guesses made before April 30 will be included in the monthly updates (sorry, had to make the cutoff somewhere).

Ignorant. Stupid. Naive. Reckless.

These are just a few words I think of when I consider Barack Obama’s decision to continue with the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay. It’s been said by many Homeland Security and terrorism officials that Yemen is the new Afghanistan. This means that the new terrorism training location and the safe haven that terrorists (Al-Qaeda) are currently residing in is Yemen. The attempted airline attack on Christmas Day by Abdul Mudallad has ties to both Al-Qaeda and Yemen.

Let’s consider Guantanamo Bay for a moment. There were roughly 100 Yemini detainees at Gitmo. I remind you that Gitmo has been reserved for prisoners that are the “most dangerous of the dangerous”. We have already released roughly 20 of these prisoners to YEMEN. There are around 10-15 that are expected to go to trial (in the US) which leaves about 70 prisoners that could very well be released back to Yemen.

I’m a layman regarding this subject. However, this layman would like to apply some common sense to this subject. How stupid is it to release potentially 100 prisoners back to the hot spot for terrorist training? Why would we ever dream of strengthening the enemy by sending reinforcements to them? Meanwhile, the other countries of the world are pointing and laughing at us because we act weak. We focus on getting H1N1 shots to the Gitmo detainees while our own citizens do without. In countries like Switzerland they are making stand against Islam by banning any new Minarets in their country. Why are we (in the United States) so focused on being politically correct that we help Islam grow while other countries try to stifle that same epidemic growth?

What about keeping us safe while we are flying? How many of the terrorists in Gitmo and in the terrorist attacks fit a certain profile? [Pause for reflection] When are we going to wake up and use the intelligence and knowledge that we have? If we know that people traveling from specific countries or that have lived in specific countries have a higher potential to be terrorists why not use that information? If we know that Muslim males between the ages of 15-40 are more likely to carry out Jihad on us, why not use that information? Yes, I’m talking about profiling. No holds barred profiling.

Is it so bad to profile that liberals would rather see hundreds of lives lost instead of inconveniencing a few Muslims to extra searches? Have we become a country that is so politically correct that we’re willing to put aside all common sense so that we don’t offend someone?

Conservatives speak up. Liberals wake up. The time has come for all of us to get back to the way we thought on 9/12. Remember the Towers falling and people jumping. We need to do all we can to keep our citizens safe. The failed Christmas Day bombing by Abdul Mudallad was one of luck—–luck that Abdul either cracked under pressure unable to make his bomb work or luck that the bomb maker did a poor job to start with. Either way, I believe that we have been spared massive loss of life purely by the Grace of God.

I hope that 12/25 was a wakeup call for the USA.
I hope that the closing of Gitmo will be stopped or at least paused so that terrorists are not brought onto US soil or released to receive more training. Our leaders need to evaluate this threat more before simply trying to appease their constituents by fulfilling a campaign promise that was founded on lack of information

I hope that the US Agencies will work together better and share information.

I hope that we will all finally wake up and be willing to call a spade a spade and a terrorist a terrorist. If that means profiling, so be it. My family, friends, neighbors and coworkers are worth it to me.

Squeaky…