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Good News for our Soccer Team

Our superstar forward has improved since last year. She's now been named to some kind of all-California team. I can't wait to see her play against slightly out-of-shape rec-level defenses.

Our star forward at work.

Coaching Soccer

My daughter's rec-level school soccer season is about to start and I'm the head coach.

Deer, meet headlights.

This year I'm going to try to use the Italian flat 4-4-2 system where the outside midfielders will drive the ball up the sidelines and pass it to the ...

Oh, who am I kidding? This year will feature a pack of 7th grade girls gossiping and goofing off whether we're at the games or futilely attempting to practice. This same team won the championship last year because our pack of gossiping goofs had more club-level players than other schools' packs of gossiping goofs. I'm hoping to be similarly saved embarassment through individual heroics.

Volker Lays the Wood to the Bankers

I loved this article. Paul Volker spoke to a conference of bankers the other day ...

As bankers demanded that new regulation should not stifle innovation, a clearly irritated Mr Volcker said that the biggest innovation in the industry over the past 20 years had been the cash machine. He went on to attack the rise of complex products such as credit default swaps (CDS).

“I wish someone would give me one shred of neutral evidence that financial innovation has led to economic growth — one shred of evidence,” said Mr Volcker, who ran the Fed from 1979 to 1987 and is now chairman of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

Of course, the same could be said for massive deficits and stimulus packages. It's almost like living within your means and simple loans made with basic return-on-investment caluclations are the best ways to economic growth.

Heresy!

The Black Line Is the Adjustment Factor

Given the way the raw data was "adjusted", any dataset would show growth over time.


More here. It's definitely worth a read.

Fiscally Surreal

... and surreal on a few other levels as well.

Yesterday I visited our local public middle school. I posted about their plush front offices and huge staff. The more I think about it, the more surreal it becomes. In a nation where we're borrowing more than a trillion dollars a year and in a state where the budget deficits are supposed to be around $20B again this year, the sight of a state-of-the-art office full of about 20 government employees doing the job that two people in a run-down office do at my daughter's school is beyond weird.

It's as if we're watching Edgar Allen Poe's The Masque of the Red Death be played out before us. The revelers are all having fun in their offices, gossiping and discussing lunch plans and attending meetings in their executive conference rooms while outside the financial Red Death sweeps across the land. (California's unemployment rate is above 12% last time I checked.) They ignore what's happening and the party goes on.

It goes on until ...

Public School

Had a meeting today with some testing folks at our local public middle school. Great Caesar's Ghost, they had at least 4 times the staff as our Catholic school and a front office worthy of Google. And the end result? Worse results.

I think they need more funding.

How the Warmist Inquisition Differs from the Spanish Inquisition

In short, there is no underlying moral code upon which you can call to slow down the purges, attacks, manipulations, lies and threats. When faced with Christian nuts going overboard, one could always draw from the Bible and bring forth hundreds of quotes from Jesus telling them to love their neighbors, forgive others and show kindness towards their opponents. The global warming fanatics have no such foundation and can continue to do whatever it takes to suppress, threaten and distort.

Dig this emailed threat to global warming mouthpiece Andy Revkin of the New York Times from Michael Schlesinger, a global warming fanatic from the University of Illinois.

This is the second time this week I have written you thereon, the first about giving space in your blog to the Pielkes.
The vibe that I am getting from here, there and everywhere is that your reportage is very worrisome to most climate scientists.
Of course, your blog is your blog.
But, I sense that you are about to experience the 'Big Cutoff' from those of us who believe we can no longer trust you, me included.

Over the past week, I've read plenty of examples of scientists who are now coming out of the woodwork to claim that they, too, have been suppressed. But what of it? Why stop? What is the underlying moral framework upon which you can call to stop the threats? There is none.

Modern science has foolishly wandered off into agnosticism or atheism. With no moral precepts to guide their behavior, they are free to do whatever they can get away with. And a properly chastened Andy Revkin, representative of the MSM as a whole, is willing to let them get away with quite a lot.

With nothing larger than their own egos, their hunger for larger and larger research grants and their vision of being global, environmental messiahs, there's no reason why the ends shouldn't justify the means.

Update: The Wall Street Journal has a terrific piece today comparing skeptics claims with global warming believers. It gives a pretty fair comparison of the two and is moderately convincing in favor of man-made global warming.

More Soccer, Less Blogging

So yesterday I drove up to Murrieta to attend day one of my daughter's end-of-year soccer tournament. There, I learned two crucial facts.

First, girls will only play for their coach. Ours was at a different tournament near the Mexican border with his other team. His dual commitments placed our team in the hands of our soccer club's very capable head coach, but he wasn't the one the girls had played for all year and the connection just wasn't there.

Second, the middle of our defense has always been weak. They're uncertain when they play and neither of them have big legs - that is, even if they get a clear shot, they can't boom it out of our end of the field. As often as not, they misfire and the ball goes out of bounds for a throw-in for the other team. Without our regular coach present, one of them emotionally threw in the towel and the other isn't good enough to make up for that.

End result: two blowout losses. We haven't had a good season, but when our coach is present, we don't lose by more than one or two. The games are almost always within reach. Not so yesterday.

On a positive note, my girl hasn't had a bad game in about two months. She loves the sport, we practice together on the side (at her request!) and she's steadily gotten better and now she plays a respectable outside midfield. Lots of happiness for her and pride for me. Yay!

I've got to hop in the car and drive up there again, so the blog will lie dormant for the rest of today.

Your Cruise Ship Breakfast this Morning

... will consist of eggs fried in lots of butter, greasy pork links, old coffee and stale, sugary donuts! Enjoy!

Soccer Now, Blogging Later

My daughter has an all-day tournament today. Regular blogging will resume later. In the meantime, stop by this post and leave your entry in our roly poly habitat naming contest!