FlaSoxxJim

I actually had a medical ethics Prof. very much like that in Champaign. He was the only person evver to accuse me of plagarism on a term paper (patently innocent, btw). I just happened to perfectly nail (quite by accident) some crap from a philosopher/ethicist type that this guy creamed over and thought was brilliant. He was certain I couldn't have made certain dedudictive leaps on my own and I must have been cribbing this guy's stuff without citing it. I had to show him the evolution of my ideas, and it killed him to learn my approach to ethics and philosophy terrm papers at the time -- lock myself away for a couple of days with a word processor and a case of Black Label (Sadly, I had yet to refine my tastes in beer). When the beer was gone, the paper was done. Any way, the guy ended up having to recant his accusations, and he actually wrote me a reccommendation for grad school.

Plus, Maddux and Glavine reunited - it's like the cosmos realligning themselves.

Yes, it is exactly what I was thinking. Then I started reading the thread with Yankees...Yankees...Yankees and figured I must be the one who's nuts.

I would assume biomedical ethics is a juicy enough subject to keep your attention. It's a subject I'm fairly engrossed in, actually. Over and over, we see that working out the science side of the next "medical miracle" is often the easy part, and it is the ethical questions that usually overwhelm us.

I thought Maddux had stated previously that he wouldn't play in the AL? Or did I imagine that, I know I may have.

The bastards won't return my calls!"

You're all missing the brilliance behind this latest Fox offering. You see, if it does really well and starts to get nominated for awards, the Fox execs can draw straws to get up at the podium to accept by saying, "I'd especially like to thank all the Little People who made this possible."

I enjoy Spring Training games with my wife and kids down here, but we really like the Florida State League games more once the season starts up. Only A-level, but lots of hustle and heart. We have the Brevard County Manatees (Expos affiliate)and the Vero Beach Dodgers both within 30 minutes of us. And you're right, you can't beat the price. $4-6 gets you in the park, and they have lots of half-price and $1 family nights, so you can actually afford to take a family of four out to a game, unlike an mlb game.

Still untouched? I figured the celibacy thing would have un it's course by now.

Agreed, Tex. And you are right, Badger, statistics are iffy propositions by nature and by definition. What was not considered in my statement were realities like how do teams stack up in their own division, because I was trying to cut o the chace and point out a common statistical error in a lot of situations, not just in baseball. There is a statistical phenomenon called 'swamping the system,' and that is what happens when an unlikely low payroll team comes out of nowhere and goes deep into the season. It's the same phenomenon that allows competitively inferior animal populations to drive a population of superior animals to local extinction, provided there are enough of the weak animals to 'swamp the system.' With a wildcard berth in baseball now, this becomes more relevant than back in the East-West days, because if a small payroll team in a tough division catches fire there is still a way for them to make the playoffs even if they can't do well enough to win ttheir division. Most of the Red Sox' 90-year drought occurred without a wildcard possibility, or even an East-West playoff scenario for tthat matter. The huge statistical advantage big payroll teams enjoy now would be glaringly obvious if it was just the two teams with the winningest percntage that went to the WS, without the multi-tiered playoff system like we have now. The moves to two divisions, then three + WC ere allowed to let more teams remain in the hunt despite the fact that they are at a competitive disadvantage.

Yeah, but it was already pointed out here that that is just a bit of statistical smoke and mirrors. While it is statistically likely that ANY ONE of the 25 or so small payroll teams can win it all, the chances that ANY ONE SPECIFIC small payroll team does it are a lot less than the team-specific chances of the Yankees, Bosox, et al.

The only salvation for small payroll teams is it is true that anything can happen in short series', so as long as a team has a shot at a Division or WC title, there's some hope. As bad as we feel about the situation, how much worse would it be to be a fan of an AL East team not Named Yankees or Red Sox? Think about Orioles fans, where you have ownership that is dedicated to putting together a competitive team, and just when the team decides they're going to try to run with the big dogs, NY and Boston start spending unheard of amounts of money on players. Frustrating to say the least.

If I had to drink one beer for the rest of my life, it would have to be Guinness. One really, really BIG Guinness.

Evidence doesn't sway some people, Apu. Maybe these two also have Alzheimer's? Maybe the whole company from Alabama at the time has Alsheimer's?? What the Bush camp needs to do is find the guy who doctored up the bulls*** Kerry/Fonda image and get Dubya Photoshop'd into some 1973 Alabama Guard pix pronto.

29 is a good birthday, Wayne. That's why this year will be my 8th annual 29th birthday... Have a good one!

Thanks DBAHO. I'm getting short daily dispatches on teh conference from an online service, and my institutions' library will get the full proceedings when they come out down the road. Just wondering if it is all running smoothly. Like the G7 conferences, these things tend to have protests of some sort associated with them and i was wondering how smoothly it was going.

It's a mouthful. It's the "Seventh Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity," which started last Monday in Kuala Lumpur and runs through most of this week. It's kind of neat because it's bringing together more than 2,000 biodiversity shareholders including government delegates, scientists, and environmentalists. They are, among other things, exploring ways to help indigenous people share wealth created by their biodiversity resources. The idea is that if indigenous people are the de facto stewards of their local living systems, and the systems yield some big $$ prospect -- like a cancer cure from a rainforest plant, etc., the local people will get something out of it. In return, it is the responsibility of these local stewards to prortect the natural resources to make sure that yet-undiscovered cancer-curing plant doesn't go extinct before it is found. Does that make sense? Any way, I'm insanely jealous. Kuala Lumpur is way up on the life list of places I need to see. And that was even BEFORE I knew tthey had a 10-story mall.

There's a big world biodiversity conference down there that's just wrapping up. Was there much coverage of it in the media while you were there?

Post edited from thread, since this version of GUG has been found to be a troll imposter. Get a life - preferably YOUR OWN next time. :headshake

Looked a little too much like that high school yearbook photo you've been hoping never comes back to haunt you? Plus, you have to see the other side of it. I bet Stalin's family is going to be pissed when they see your image too.

Damn! The God-like Mod powers have silenced me. Help, I'm being repressed!

Umm, okeedokee...

I got a laugh out of the REALLY BAD Photoshop job.

Now you have opened a syndicated TV Land can of worms. To put a location to Green Acres and Petticoat Junction, you need to figure out where the Beverly Hillbillies came from, as the two later shows were spun off of Beverly Hillbillies. The old Clampett homestead was intimated to be just over the mountain from Hooterville, and Hooterville was just a short train ride away from Petticoat Junction. Everything was close enough together that they all did their shopping at Sam Drucker’s general store. So if we can locate the Clampettt homestead, we can proceed from there. Piece of cake, right? Right. “Where are the Beverly Hillbillies from?” is one of those never-really-answered questions like “where is the Simpsons’ Springfield located?” (I read MA In the thread, but I’m incredulous). The Clampetts were identified as an Ozark mountain family in the show, so at least it narrows the possibilities down to Missouri, Arkansas, or (less likely) Oklahoma. The none-too-good 1993 “Beverly Hillbillies” movie with Jim “Ernest” Varney as Jed does actually place them in Arkansas, at least according to an online movie synopsis I looked up. But it seems like the Clampetts from the TV series were from the Missouri Ozarks. Two real Missouri towns, Bugtussle and Silver Dollar City, are regularly mentioned on the show as being close by. OK, that wasted some time. Now I’d better go do something productive…

No, you've still got a way to go before you fall to our level.