Texas Rangers Manager Ron Washington comments, 12/9/09

Ron Washington:

Kinsler is young and it's [Kinsler's uppercut swing + swinging for the fences] being addressed on a daily basis, but some wild horses, you have to let be wild horses. His style is his style. The change has to be made by Kinsler. In time, he will recognize that and will change. But right now, he's still something of a wild stallion.

So, basically, at this point, Kinsler is uncoachable. This jibes with my amateur psychology speculation that it's Kinsler's hardheadedness which got him to the major leagues when a thousand guys like him never made it, yet that very same hardheadedness - which is in some ways Kinsler's greatest strength - is currently preventing Kinsler from reaching his potential. This is a suck eggs situation for the team, and also for me: I can't stand watching Kinsler hit the same way he hit last season.


More of my amateur psychology: Ron Washington - who was a scrappy hitter - doesn't know how to manage immensely powerful hitters like Nelson Cruz. Ron Washington is like a father who mercilessly rides and criticizes one of his sons; who never gives that son any credit.

Ron Washington :

It's important that we sign a right-handed bat, even if we don't get it done in the winter meetings. We have to be very creative in how we do that because of the current financial state. Cruz did provide some protection, but in August and September the league made some adjustments and we don't know if that's the real Nelson Cruz or not. I still would like to keep as much pressure off him as possible in the middle, somebody with a more veteran track record.

Translation: Nelson Cruz was good last year, but I, Ron Washington, think it was a fluke. I don't think Cruz is actually as good as he looked last season. Also, he's a rock-head who can't make adjustments at the plate.

Other Washington observations:

- Enthusiastic about Chris Davis bouncing back
- Still cautious about risk of re-injury to Teagarden's back. Team needs catching depth for this reason.
- We're going to stretch C.J. Wilson out (as a starter), then see what our needs are at the end of Spring Training.
- McCarthy has definite major league ability; can win ballgames at this level.

Washington, on veteran players:

The key is to be a professional. And who knows more about being a professional than veterans? There is a way you act, a way you dress, a way you show respect, a way you go about your routine. I think leadership is essential to winning. How can youth take on leadership when they haven't been there to lead?

Translation: I hate young players! Well, not really, but sort of. Alternate translation: Michael Young is too square, in some respects, for young players to follow his lead. We need other veterans.

My take: needing veterans is understandable - especially if you've the talent to be in a pennant race, you need veteran presence to calm and inspire and discipline your younger players. Still, it's a bit of a shame, as every veteran on a one year contract is on the 40 man at cost of a young and promising player who is controllable for 6 years, and who is dirt cheap for 3 of those years.

Clumber Spaniel

Nice:



I've never seen this breed before, but I like it: handsome and noble. Spaniels don't make my heart go pitter pat, but maybe the Clumber Spaniel does. They have superior noses. They are bred to be low to the ground, to go through brush and not over it, so as to flush pheasant and such into the air. Their skin gives with the branches and obstacles they encounter: perfect for crashing into brush and such w/o injury. Their mouths are soft, so as not to damage the game (does lead to drooling). The Working Clumber Spaniel Society:

"The most hansomest animal this kingdom ever produced"
-The Modern Clumber 1865.

During 2003 there were 134 Clumber Spaniels registered in Britain. Compare this with 12,000 Springer Spaniels and 13,000 Cocker Spaniels registered annually and you will realise that this is not a common breed. The Clumber Spaniel has however, been part of the British sporting scene for over 200 years. Once the favourite of dukes and kings they take their name from Clumber Park in Nottinghamshire. Although not the speediest of spaniels they were highly prized as game finders.

[...] The coat is white with lemon or orange head markings, abundant and straight, with feathering around the legs. They have a steady reliable character, are stoical, great-hearted and highly intelligent and are known for being silent workers with excellent noses.
[...]
The Working Clumber Spaniel Society formed in 1984 is the force behind the breed's revival as a genuine gundog bred for the field. It exists to represent those whose first interest in Clumber spaniels is that of working them.
[...]
Every owner of a working Clumber soon discovers that the chuckles of his shooting friends turn to admiration when "that funny white dog" finds game missed by other dogs.

h/t - for introducing me both to Clumber Spaniels and to the linked blogpost below, to Bird Dog.



Seems to fit here:
a British-y post,
by an American,
Enough is as good as a feast.

Emily of Texas

Somewhere
outside Alpine,
the Border Patrol is stepping up efforts
in noisy fashion.

Emily of Texas
makes an artistic comment.

Since we mentioned Texas, see Alpine resident Hugh MacLeod's "West Texas".

The Bristlecone Pines of Great Basin National Park

Great Basin National Park, in Baker, NV, is halfway between Las Vegas and Salt Lake City - and is some distance west of the highway between the cities. Great Basin National Park has one of the most undiluted views of the nighttime sky of any venue in America.

Great Basin National Park has Bristlecone Pines which are thousands of years old. Bristlecone Pines are the oldest living trees in the world, and are only found in America.

Wow. WOW. I want to visit this park. I want to gaze at a gazillion stars and hug a three thousand year old tree.

"One bristlecone pine near Wheeler Peak was dated to be more than 4,900 years old. This tree, known as "Prometheus", was cut down and sectioned for scientific research in 1964 before Great Basin National Park was established.

Bristlecone pines in Great Basin National Park grow in isolated groves just below treeline. Conditions are harsh, with cold temperatures, a short growing season, and high winds. Bristlecone pines in these high-elevation environments grow very slowly, and in some years don't even add a ring of growth. This slow growth makes their wood very dense and resistant to insects, fungi, rot, and erosion. Vegetation is very sparse, limiting the role of fire. Bristlecone pine seeds are occassionally cached by birds at lower elevations. Bristlecone pines grow more rapidly in more "favorable" environments at lower elevations. They do not achieve their legendary age or fascinating twisted shapes."

Miss Barbados 2009 - Leah Marville

It's cold, gray, raining, with chilling wind.

Time for Miss World Barbados 2009!

Have put up photo or video of beautiful women on four consecutive days:

1. Tammy Roy,
2. Lina Romay,
2A. Carly Fiorina,
3. St. Vincent's Portland,
3A. Sarah Palin, &
4. Leah Marville.

Winter weather blogging! Like steaming hot soup on a bitter cold day, like a snow capped Colorado peak in July: it hits the spot.



Had Grantland Rice had Bing.com access to Leah Marville, the "Four Horsemen of Notre Dame" never would have ridden. The game story would have read:

Surrounded by a cold gray November sky, watching hapless Michigan be gashed by Notre Dame, my computer screen and my thoughts turn to the fetching Miss Barbados: Leah Marville.

If AGW is real, then CRU scientists ought be shot

finemrespice.com

How even more deliciously ironic would it be if, in their lustful, Dr. Hendronsian self-aggrandizing rush to be the first to save the planet from the Neomalthusian horrors of free market economies, Phil Jones and Keith Briffa have stunted the world into inaction and indecision by disastrously overplaying their hand and, in the unlikely event that the Earth’s climate is in fact characterized by unchecked positive feedback systems, thus doomed the human race.

h/t


Can't remember who said this next, but it fits here:

If AGW is a fraud, CRU scientists ought be embarrassed.
If AGW is real, CRU scientists ought be shot.

The climate alarmists who are pooh poohing Climategate, who are defending CRU scientists, are caught inside an illogical knee jerk reaction. If AGW is real, then climate alarmists - above and beyond everyone else - ought be most eager to investigate CRU's deceptions; ought be most eager to work their and our way to true numbers which will surely validate the climate emergency they believe we are living in. Are climate alarmists eager to investigate and discover true numbers, i.e. numbers which will ostensibly validate the Earth's climate emergency and thus spur the peoples of the Earth to action?

They are not eager. Why?


My first guess: their virtuous self image is too closely tied to their advocacy of the CRU false numbers. They remain whacked upside the head by cognitive dissonance, and have not yet regained their logical faculties.

I have written, sloppily, of the left tying their own virtue and self esteem to their political beliefs.

Briefly: for the right, virtue is about, for instance, the Golden Rule. Virtue is about morality, ethics, and having the faith to walk the disciplined walk. Virtue is about action: virtuous action.

For the left, the Golden Rule is too judgmental, as are morality and ethics. The left desires neither faith nor discipline. But, buuuuut, the left desires virtue. Leftists want to be virtuous people. And they achieve it, in their way of thinking, by advocating virtuous beliefs. See?

A leftist thinks like this: I am pro gay marriage, and therefore I am virtuous. To the left person, being pro gay marriage is not merely having an opinion. It is bigger. It is a matter of virtue vs lack of virtue. Similarly, supporting CRU's numbers was not an opinion that CRU's numbers were accurate. It was bigger. I was a matter of virtue vs. lack of virtue.

Therefore, if advocating CRU's numbers amounted to virtuous action, and if CRU's numbers were fraudulent: where does that now leave a climate alarmist who spent a decade being virtuous because of his or her advocacy for CRU's numbers? THAT is the cognitive dissonance climate alarmists are now saddled with.

Eventually, climate alarmists will rationalize their way out of the problem via finding a fall person(s) at CRU, and that fall person will be excoriated in nasty, nasty fashion. But the lefties are not there yet. They are still in the cognitive dissonance stage of: Wha? What is happening? CRU numbers exist, and therefore I am virtuous. There is no other possibility. I am virtuous. CRU numbers are accurate. There is no other possibility. I feel woozy.

Texas Rangers don't need trades

The Rangers, most likely, are about to swing one or more trades. Fine. A good trade is always a good trade.

However, the Rangers don't need trades. The franchise has competitive and affordable personnel in place - w/this caveat: b/c Saltalamacchia is a risk for arm trouble, the Rangers need to sign Pudge Rodriguez. If they sign Pudge, the Rangers can win the division with the team they already have in place.


Hamilton```Borbon````Cruz
Murphy``.``Boggs

Young```Elvis```Kinsler```Davis
Inglett ``Arias

Pudge
Teagarden

That's a strong enough team (as I expect some bounceback years and some improving pitch selectivity) to win the division.

Note: I like Esteban German and his high OBP potential (.400 in 2009 AAA, and currently .390 in winter ball). However, German is in line to get $1M in arbitration. The Rangers do not want to pay him $1M (sigh), and are likely to put him on waivers instead. Wishful thinking: maybe, after they release him, they can resign him for $600K.



Pitching:

Millwood
Feldman
McCarthy
Hunter
Holland
Feliz

Harrison


Francisco
C.J. Wilson
O'Day

Nippert
Mathis
Eyre
Strop
Madrigal
Moscoso



Guitterez, Kiker, and Beavan are coming - any of them might be ready in July. And after them, beginning in 2011, the deluge: Hurley, Scheppers, lefties galore, and plenty more.

Can't get enough Sarah Palin

Update: John at Powerline comments on Palin's visit tomorrow, and on Mall of America's detailed instructions about what to do and what not to do beforehand - There's Something About Sarah:

There is nothing quite like the Palin phenomenon. Is there anyone else in public life who, for a book signing, could draw a crowd that would have to be warned that they can't camp out overnight, but can only start standing in line--in December in Minnesota!--seven hours before the event begins?
[...]
In the comments on the Strib's story, meanwhile, liberal and conservative readers are duking it out. No one brings out the hate in liberals like Sarah. An interesting question: has there ever been anyone on the left who has prompted a similarly crazed reaction from conservatives? The closest I can think of--not very close, actually--is Ted Kennedy. It is instructive to compare the reasons why many conservatives despise Kennedy with the reasons why most liberals seem to lose their wits at the mention of Governor Palin.

Don Surber covers Palin's quips during her appearance at the Gridiron Dinner. She rocked.










An American original - who created her public self from nothing, Palin is out of the same tradition as Andrew Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt.


When a person can do that - can rise through sheer shrewdness and chutzpah: that person is interesting and scary. That person frightens people who prefer a status quo in which no one rises except through a traditional path - i.e. a more understandable path, and thus a path which is more comforting to observers.



What might she say? Or do? She's a wild card, and thus unpredictable and scary (even to her supporters). Sarah Palin doesn't throw soothing, modulated tones and bones to the left. Rather, she is more likely to punch the left squarely between the eyes. This is why I love her. Other Repubs don't throw punches as consistently or as overtly as Sarah Palin does. This is scary, to both left and right.






Everyone would be more comfortable with a more predictable Repub. politician - with a soothingly predictable Romney or Pawlenty, for instance.


But, would everyone be better off? Is comfortable what we really need?

Dare you to watch this without smiling

from Providence St. Vincent Medical Center, in Portland, Oregon

Do Hospital personnel become weary of routine? A slight change in glove color has a dramatic effect.

The dancers are fab. Some personnel are infrequent dancers, yet willing to dance as part of the team: at 1:02, woman at back of the line on right; at 2:48, woman on right. Way to go, ladies.

3:12 (Indian?) woman on left, in brown blouse. She, maybe, has not done a lot of western style dancing, but by golly she wants to! She is SO READY to dance. Love her.

3:18 woman on left, in blue: dancing is serious business! Love her, also. Whatever she does in life, she gives it her best and most focused effort. Inspiring.

This video is FILLED with sexy and alluring women - they are out of their routine, they are being genuine and human, and it is attractive. However, for fun, I unleash manly instinct and point to a few specifics. I enjoy making instant guesses about people.

1:28 woman who is 4th in line - you can barely see her at 1:38. Manly instinct: I want to see more of her.

2:46 You may or may not find ample bodies attractive. Yet, stop the video and take a second look at this dancer. You don't even need instinct to see that this is a sexy woman. You only need to be open minded enough to notice her. Lots of men like ample bodies and would love her. She knows it, too. Her confidence with her body is part of her allure.

2:50 on right, for the barest moment, swinging an imaginary rope over her head. You actually have to stop the video to really see her. Manly instinct: ahhh, yes. We only have to notice her. A lifetime of studying women tells me this is a sexy girl. Actually, the woman dancing with her - for the right age and right type of man - is also a sexy girl. The companion dancer is obviously a good sport and a fun person.

There are sexy persons all over this video, if we wish to see them.

Carly Fiorina on Healthcare, Breast Cancer, and Death Panels

Climate Science: "Even the most rigorous statistical methodology will generate estimates with large margins of error."

Stephen F. Hayward, writing in The Weekly Standard:

It has long been thought that over the last thousand years the earth experienced two significant natural climate cycles: the "medieval warm period" (MWP) centered around the year 1000 and the "little ice age" (LIA) from about 1500 to 1850 or so. The first report of the IPCC in 1992 displayed a stylized thousand-year temperature record showing that the MWP was warmer than current global temperatures, but this was mostly conjecture. Yet it was a huge problem for the climate campaigners: If the medieval warm period was as warm as today, as some scientists believe, it would mean that today's temperatures are arguably within the range of normal climate variability, and that we could not yet confirm greenhouse gas emissions as the sole cause of recent increases or rely on computer climate models for predictions of future climate apocalypse. There had long been rumors that leading figures in the climate community believed they needed to make the medieval warm period go away, but until the CRU leak there was no evidence besides hearsay that scientists might be cooking the books.

The evidence for the medieval warm period and the little ice age is mostly anecdotal, since there were no thermometers in the year 1000. Is there a way we could determine what the temperature was a thousand years ago? Calculating the average temperature for the entire planet is no simple matter, even today. This is where the paleoclimatologists at the CRU enter the picture. The CRU circle set out to "reconstruct" past temperature history through the use of "proxies," such as variations in tree rings, samples of centuries-old ice drilled out of glaciers and polar ice caps, lake sediment samples, and corals from the ocean. Using a variety of ingenious techniques, it is possible for each of these proxies to yield a temperature estimate at a particular location. Tree rings are thought to be the best proxy, because we can count backwards and establish the exact year each ring formed, and by its width make temperature estimates. But tree ring data are very limited. There are only a few kinds of trees that live a thousand years or more, mostly bristlecone pines in the western United States and a few species in Siberia. The thousands of data points that emerge from these painstaking efforts are not self-explanatory. They need to be adjusted and calibrated for latitude, altitude, and a number of other factors (such as volcanic activity and rainfall during the period). Even the most rigorous statistical methodology will generate estimates with large margins of error. One of the striking features of the CRU emails is how much time the CRU circle spent discussing with each other the myriad problems with processing these data and how to display them to a wider world. On the one hand, this is typical of what one might expect of an evolving scientific enterprise. On the other hand, these are the selfsame scientists who have insisted most vehemently that there is a settled consensus adhered to by all researchers of repute and that there is nothing left to debate.

Friday Hot on Saturday: Lina Romay

Merry Christmas, from the entire staff at The End Zone!


1943 performance with Xaviar Cugat, "Bombshell From Brooklyn". Miss Romay begins at 1:50.





I don't understand why 1960s flower children were so confident they had invented good sex. Clearly, they had never seen Lina Romay.







An aside ... look at the pose in the striped blouse. I suspect, in the 1940s and 1950s, every professional photographer lined up every actress in that exact pose, and in that exact striped blouse (the stripes to delineate shape?). I feel as if I have seen photos of every 1940s and 50s Hollywood actress in that pose: their arms always plastered flat against the wall, their Maidenformed(?) chests always thrust forward like a statue on a ship's prow (the stripes as nautical hint?), the camera always below - shooting iconically upwards. This pose personifies America in the 1940s and 1950s: healthy, powerful, active, unafraid, and not much interested in nuance. Kudos, 1950s America.


h/t 1, 2, 3

Doesn't it perturb you

because it does me,

when you are at the park

and the dog is sniffing around

and you launch a couple of Titleists (w/taped up 8 iron)

into a field

which turns out to have too-high grass?

You search and search for the golf balls

and find them (you think)

and launch them again

and follow them

and launch them again

and follow them

and, whats this?

"Dunlap"?! Augh! How could I be so foolish?

You redirect your launches back towards where you figure the Titleist must be,

and search through the area.

Much searching.

Nothing.

Time to give it up - past time to give it up.

So, you launch golf balls around the park

until dark

as the dog sniffs on.

And he's eating something in the distance.

It's kind of disturbing that you don't know what he is eating,

b/c the other day he kind of choked up whitish clearish liquid

which choking didn't look unlike frothing at the mouth.

And rabies is never fun

in a dog which sleeps near your bed.

And you do allow him to dig and chase

in field and wood

after varmints.

And who knows what diseases they have? (shudder)

Are you a gigantic fool?

Maybe.

But, either way, that dog is getting shampooed tonight.

Wait, where were we?

Oh yes:

Now searching for the last 8 iron launches of the twilight.

It includes a duck hook which was hit out of a muddy lie and went way off-line and short to the left - near a creek which you intended to hit over but ended up hitting short of.

You see your duck hook in the darkening gloam,

except it's your lost Titleist!

Then you find your other Titleist, AND the Dunlap,

and probably 3 minutes later you couldn't have found a golf ball unless you stepped on it in the darkness.

Such fun.

Anyone can understand it.

Where IS that dog?

Palin gives appropriate radio interview; her enemies bring the hysteria

Update:

Assistant Village Idiot:

Palin’s critics don’t care what she said. They care what they can make it sound like.

There may be a time, in future, when I do not defend Sarah Palin. However, I'm defending her re this radio interview. A Washington, D.C. automaton would have avoided directly responding to the question. Sarah Palin is fresh air precisely b/c she is not that automaton; precisely b/c she directly responded to the question. Her response, while politically naive, was nevertheless logical and appropriate.

I wonder: was her response really a political mistake? She didn't intend it to be a stealth attack on Pres. Obama. However, if the accusations against her continue long-term, Palin will be protected by the "boy who cried wolf" dynamic of past smears against her. Meanwhile, the hysteria will remind voters that Pres. Obama still hasn't proven he is legally qualified to hold office.

Disclaimer: I strongly suspect Pres. Obama was born in Hawaii. Birther arguments are unconvincing. Yet, it's a scandal that I do not know the certain and proven facts about his birth. As in Climategate: why must I rely on opinion instead of proof?

If you listen to the interview, you realize Palin has little interest in this issue. She knows little of the minutia of the issue - just as everyone who has little interest in the issue knows little of the minutia. If she had interest, she would have educated herself about the issue.

Her in-context response was about the McCain Campaign's failure to adequately focus on issues in Sen. Obama's background. Here is the conversation preceding, then the relevant quotes:

6:45
Humphries

"You really seem unaffected by this tremendous media scrutiny you've been under. Why have you been so unaffected? Or, are you just good at playing it cool?"

Palin

discusses "political shots my family has taken", and how Trig's circumstances ("He's given us his first smile!") and Track's military deployment have helped her keep perspective: "I can blow off a bunch of the bullcrap that goes on in the political arena, b/c of these things that God has allowed me to go through that, again, keep it in perspective."

7:38
Humphries

"You have a daily Thanksgiving perspective, almost?"

Palin

"Yeah, that's right on."

7:45
Humphries

"One if the questions Jason asks is 'Would you make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?'"

Palin

"I think the PUBLIC, rightfully, is still making it an issue."


Note: "rightfully" equates to Obama's background ought be vetted, yet has not been vetted. "rightfully" was sloppy construction by Palin. When "birth certificate" was raised, Palin ought have heard alarm bells in her head, and she ought have been carefully precise in her answer.


Palin
"I don’t have a problem with that."


Note: This equates to I am not into this issue, but it's not an unfair question.

It's absolutely fair for the public to demand proof of Pres. Obama's legal qualification for the office. If the constitutional requirement is unfair, then Congress ought change or amend the constitutional requirement.


Palin
"I don’t know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think that members of the electorate still want answers."


Note: This is sloppy language on Palin's part, and ought have been cleaner. Here's what she was saying in her head, yet was failing to precisely communicate: If I investigated this, and if there were something there: I don't know if I would then have to call attention to it, due to the keen public interest which already exists.


Humphries

“Do you think it’s a fair question to be looking at?”

Palin

“I think it’s a fair question, just like I think past association and past voting records — all of that is fair game. The McCain-Palin campaign didn’t do a good enough job in that area. We didn’t call out Obama and some of his associates on their records and what their beliefs were and perhaps what their future plans were. And I don’t think that that was fair to voters to not have done our jobs as candidates and as a campaign to bring to light a lot of the things that now we’re seeing made manifest in the administration."

Sarah Palin's Facebook response, later that night:

"Voters have every right to ask candidates for information if they so choose. I’ve pointed out that it was seemingly fair game during the 2008 election for many on the left to badger my doctor and lawyer for proof that Trig is in fact my child. Conspiracy-minded reporters and voters had a right to ask... which they have repeatedly. But at no point – not during the campaign, and not during recent interviews – have I asked the president to produce his birth certificate or suggested that he was not born in the United States."

Verdict:

Tempest in teapot. Palin's interview response was reasonable, though not as clean and precise as it ought have been. Her Facebook response was clarifying, and was consistent with her interview response. Smearing her over this is either misguided or dishonest.

Verdict #2:

The left will try to hang this on her, similar to "potatoe" and "I invented the internet". However, smearing Palin, in future, will be made more difficult by the "boy who cried wolf" dynamic of past smears against her. Undecided voters know she has been smeared like crazy. They will not credit this hysterical accusation against her. There's a chance, actually, that future publicity about this will result in collateral damage to Pres. Obama.

Friday Hot: Tammy Roy

Stratford, Wisconsin mother of three and eco artist:
"My mantra: stay centered with God, keep balance in your life, and use your gifts."

Who could fail to find Ms. Roy attractive? Impossible! A man could spend his days lightheartedly listening to her berate him over his politics, and that man would be happy. Vive la tension politique!

h/t Tom McMahon
Examples of Ms. Roy's work: her blog, 1, 2
Stories: 1, 2, 3, 4.