tryouts

in the club ultimate world, almost everyone is on the lookout for a "better" team. yes, there are a lucky few who play on a team with their best friends at the level they want and achieve the success they are hoping for. unfortunately, most of us struggle to match that ideal with reality - your best friends are scattered across the country, only 16 teams in each division go to nationals, teammates often disagree about the appropriate level of commitment, and a few mistakes on the field can cost you the success you worked for all year.

last year i wasn't satisfied with my team (chinstrap) so this year.... i'm forming a new team! name as yet to be determined. we held the first tryout this weekend and 60 people showed up. wow. great start - now we have to figure out who the good players are, keep them interested, get them committed, learn to play as a team, maintain goodwill among teammates... you know, all the easy stuff. wish me luck.

back in business

sorry i have been so delinquent about posting. these days i struggle to understand the American political situation; commenting on it is pretty far beyond me. on top of that, the news is so depressing that i can only bring myself to glance at the times headlines before quickly switching away. in a final blow against the news, the experts themselves don't seem to know what is going on or what will happen in the next few months. prime example - today's op-ed from paul krugman. thanks, paul - today i feel great about being an american. i'm really looking forward to your next column!

the upshot is, i don't have much to say about the current political/economic situation. i only understand what is going on because sam explained it to me at length over dinner (much to katie's dismay since he was neglecting the pasta). what is the government's bailout plan? is obama squandering his political capital on a scheme doomed to fail? are we headed for another Great Depression? is the AIG bonus scandal a sign that Geithner is completely out of touch with the public mood or merely fodder for the 24-hour news cycle? we'll just have to wait and see.

in the meantime, i've occupied myself with more fruitful pursuits. yes, you guessed it! spring break: chaperone style was excellent. i played frisbee every day, i frolicked on the beach and i managed to prevent sunburn everywhere but the tops of my ears. i loved coaching the women's team - they have a lot of talent and a great team dynamic. it's only been three years since i graduated from college, but i was amazed by how much i have learned since i was in their position, and i was delighted to pass on at least a little of that. in exchange, i basked in their pure love of frisbee. i can't wait for next season...

i am an internet nerd

here are a few websites i regularly check.

politics - nytimes.com and fivethirtyeight.com
shopping - steepandcheap.com and sierratradingpost.com
comics - questionablecontent.com, xkcd.com, qwantz.com and runningwithpencils.com

recent discoveries - fuckyoupenguin.blogspot.com, cakewrecks.blogspot.com and nerve.com/regulars/missinformation

feel free to leave some suggestions in the comments.

should auld acquaintance be forgot

happy new year! i love the holiday season. my family likes to celebrate in style (and by style i mean 16-person insanity) and new years has always been one of my favorite holidays. although this time of year has usually meant lots of snow and winter activities, i have a new appreciation for the christmas-in-the-south after spending a week on the beach in florida, where the weather was 85 degrees and blue skies every day.

a few highlights:
-the candy canes on the christmas tree melting all over the presents
-dad in a santa outfit on christmas morning
-many, many renditions of the illinois alma mater and fight song
-the family photo shoot, complete with "i'm off the set! i'll be in my trailer" from gus
-riding around in a 16-person handicapped van
-the 40-foot marshmellow shooter, electric aquarium, radio flyer sport coupe and whac-a-mole arcade game, among other thoughtful gifts from my father - although i was pretty disappointed not to receive a voice-activated r2d2 or a personal oxygen bar
-ocean swim on christmas day

new years in new york was a blast as well. james and blake make great driving buddies, and were actually excited that i brought along '60s dance party and high-school mixed tapes. paul and o-town were excellent hosts, providing beds, food, and everything else a new years party should have. the actual midnight moment wasn't the most memorable for me personally, but all in all, a great night.

blake and i also managed to make it to the miro exhibit at the moma on new years day. (i actually passed up the opportunity to play frisbee instead!) fabulous all around - blake and i had a great time analyzing miro's crazy anti-paintings and being weirded out by the other installations and exhibits.

in conclusion, my new years resolution is to learn how to play the lute. i heard this great interview on npr...

Blagojevich - maniac or - wait, what other options are there?

When my parents moved to Jacksonville, Illinois from Lewiston, Maine in 2006, I remember looking over the drivers' license manual with my mother. The first ten pages of the manual were devoted to warnings against fradulent licenses. (Illinois' "Rules of the Road" website informs the public that falsifying your ID papers can result in up to 3 years of jail time and a $25,000 fine.) I was flabbergasted - the State of Maine is completely unworried about this problem.

Governor Rod Blagojevich's brazen attempt to sell his right to appoint Barack Obama's senate replacement is certainly not the first corruption scandal that Illinois has dealt with. Blagojevich is the sixth Illinois governor to be arrested or indicted; his predecessor George Ryan is currently serving a six-year prison sentence for 20 convictions including racketeering, bribery, exortion, money-laundering and tax fraud. And that is just the beginning!

Blagojevich, who ran on an anti-corruption platform, has been investigated at least 14 separate times since 2005, largely for offering kickbacks to everyone and their brother. He has been involved in feuds with his Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Comptroller, Secretary of State, and state treasurer. He is America's least popular governor, with only 4% of his constituency rating him "good" in an October 2008 Rasmussen poll.

The senate seat scandal has grabbed the public attention, but the real question is, how could Illinois' governor possibly be so dumb? Everyone who is anyone knew that Blagojevich was being wiretapped. Why would he be so blatant? Only obscene arrogance or a desparate need for attention of any kind could explain his behavior.

ugly sweaters galore!

what a great weekend! my roommates (alex, matt and meriden) hosted an ugly christmas sweater party, which was a resounding success. our apartment was packed with frisbee players, colleagues, family members, fellow students and neighbors. lots of guests brought their own sweaters, and those that didn't got their pick of the "extra sweaters" pile. by the end of the night, most of the extra sweaters were gone, and late arrivals had limited choices...

i wore an infant sweater (the sleeves came to my elbows), we held a sweater contest (mc'ed by me), alex got in a fight with misbehaving attendees, i hung mistletoe from our kitchen light fixture, some guy threw up in the sink, chinstrap guys and their sketchy friends took over the porch and the party ended with a 5 am singing circle. all in all, a truly great party.

of course, any good party should be followed by a 7:20 am wake up call from your brother, reminding you that you are already 20 min late for the 7 am departure to Get Ho Ho Ho. (i gave sam my key on friday night so he could physically wake me up if necessary.)

by the time i arrived at the fields, i was feeling ok, if a little out of it. our team was small, which helped us keep warm, and we had a bunch of fun games. after winning our pool, we met a slow-white-conglomeration team in the semis. they started off by breaking us and it looked like it would be a tough game. fortunately, we cleaned up our playing (zirui slightly reduced the number of hammers he threw) and pulled out a solid win. the finals were another story - we were tired and their team was better than ours. we still had a decent showing (11-7 maybe?) but couldn't seriously challenge them.

i had to work sunday, which was a little hard, but i made it through and i slept all day today to compensate. next tourney is vegas!

Ziegler vs Silver

John Ziegler, a conservative talk show host, has started a website called HowObamaGotElected.com, a project which includes a documentary film and now two national polls that have gotten a lot of media attention.

Backstory: Ziegler believes that favorable treatment by the media was directly responsible for Obama's electoral success. He argues that Obama voters based their choice on inadequate coverage of Obama's weaknesses, and he has set out to publicize his opinions in the national media.

His first venture came in the form of a YouTube video that showed Obama voters incorrectly answering political questions, such as "Which party currently controls Congress?" Ziegler then commissioned Zogby International to conduct a national poll of Obama voters, asking them the twelve questions from the video.

Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com (as well as BaseballProspectus.com) sharply critisized the Zogby poll, calling it a push poll. Ziegler naturally responded angrily, and Silver then interviewed Ziegler. You can read most of the transcript here.

Since then, Zogby defended the poll, but then stated publicly that he would not have approved the poll in the form it took, and that he was on a book tour when Zogby International conducted the poll.

Recent News: Ziegler then asked Zogby for another poll that would include McCain voters, but was refused. Ziegler then commissioned the poll from Wilson Research Strategies. The Wilson poll asks the same questions as the first poll, with a few wording changes (I'll get into that in bit).

As a follow-up to this controversy, Silver and Zogby recently went head to head on the B Cast, which I guess is some sort of online show. I couldn't figure out if it had political leanings.

My Take: Whatever the dictionary definition or commonly understood meaning of the phrase "push poll", this poll is hideously biased AND Ziegler's conclusions are not even supported by the data it does provide. For the purposes of talking about the questions, I'm mostly going to talk about the Wilson poll, because I have an actual copy of the survey.

1. Twelve total questions, all negative statements about McCain, Palin, Obama or Biden. Seven answers are Obama/Biden, while five are McCain/Palin. (Sidenote: One of the Palin questions isn't actually something she did!) Of those five, only two are about McCain, which is the same as the number of questions about Biden. Buried on Ziegler's website's presentation of the poll numbers is the following quote: "...in general, the voters did universally worse on questions where the negative information was about their candidate."

2. The statements about Palin and McCain well-publicized facts, while the statements about Obama are frequently misleading or disputed. Palin definitely has a pregnant daughter, no doubt about it. But did Obama actually say BOTH that his policies "would bankrupt any company that built a coal burning power plant" AND that his policies "would make electricity prices skyrocket"? Because I have not found any quote that supports the second statement. When Ziegler asks a well-publicized and straightforward question about Obama, such as "Which candidate said the government should redistribute wealth?", no problem, everyone gets it right. Are we really shocked that most Obama voters don't remember that Obama once accidently said he'd visited 57 states instead of 47?

3. In the B Cast interview, Silver and Ziegler argue about changing the wording of the questions about Bill Ayers. The original poll asked which candidate started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground, while the second poll asked, "Which candidate reportedly held their first political fundraiser at the home of Bill Ayers and his wife, two leaders of the 1960’s terrorist organization the Weather Underground?" More Obama voters answered the question from the second poll correctly the questions from the first. Silver argues that the second question is more accurate, resulting in more correct answers. Ziegler makes the following statement on his website: "We added Ayers name... and it significantly increased the rate of correct response, indicating a very superficial grasp of the overall story." There is absolutely no way for anyone to draw statistical conclusions about WHY respondents did better in the second poll, since there are multiple variables changed.

4. How do we know this is even tied to media coverage? All this poll shows is that McCain voters watch Fox News and answer questions one way, while Obama voters watch CNN and answer questions differently. There is very little attempt to tie the answers to the questions directly to the news media.

Last Thoughts: This poll completely fails any test of academic rigor. Is this a joke?