October Surprise

The vaunted "October Surprise" turned out as none other than the porcine Karl Rove.

Otherwise, the day's events happened to contain a bunch of interesting media twists.

• Radio talk show caller Mike Stark getting pummeled by George Allen's stooges.
• ABC's Mark Halperin trying to brown-nose radio wing-nut Spew Spewitt for 3+ hours before realizing that the Spew has some serious character flaws. "Hugh, did you have some bad childhood experience?"
• Brave Stephanie Miller calling up a stalker on-air who essentially threatened to kill her in a creepy monospace-typed letter.
• Kerry getting ballsy and Bush getting stupider.
• A weird ABC radio network memo claiming an advertising blacklist on Air America Radio.

On the last item, I sent in a question to one of the companies allegedly involved in the advertising blackout, REI co-op. An outdoors store known for their liberal causes, I figured that they would give us the real scoop about the "REI Sporting Goods (sic)" involvement with ABC. They returned my query with a form letter within minutes of me sending it.

"Thank you for contacting REI regarding the Air America advertising blackout.

Today, an internal memo on ABC Network letterhead was posted on the Air America website and picked up by various blog sites. The memo lists companies that refused to have their radio advertising supporting Air America and Al Franken?s programming. REI was listed as one of the companies declining to advertise; however this information is incorrect.

REI has not refused to advertise during Air America?s programming. In fact, REI has placed radio ads on stations carrying Air America programming.

It is unfortunate that this misinformation has been widely distributed. We are currently working with our advertising agency and the ABC radio network to track down how this happened.

You are a valued member and I hope you will give us another opportunity to serve your future outdoor needs.

Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

Carolyn
REI Online Customer Service"

customer-service@rei.com

In the meantime, erstwhile Air America host Marc Maron and second banana Jim Earl made a triumphant return to the AAR airwaves and guest hosted the Springer show last week, hijacking the first hour with talk about energy efficient transportation alternatives [listen here]. The rumor mill has it that Maron may join fellow AAR outcast Mike Malloy on the NovaM radio network, and may also go over to Sirius satellite radio. Malloy had a great rant on how Bush has gone from his self-proclaimed role of King of America to King of the World, but eventually a caller had to correct this title and extend it to King of the Universe with the new Bush space policy.

Update: I sent the REI memo to Mike Malloy for an appraisal. Nothing gets past him as he replied succintly:

" In fact, REI has placed radio ads on stations carrying Air America programming."
Weasel words, as always. No one said these advertisers wouldn't advertise on STATIONS that carried Air America programming. The charge is they refused to be on Air America PROGRAMS.

Bastards.

MM

Foolish deficiency

The Toecutter provides a list of fuel-efficient cars that the USA will never allow consumers buy.

Statistical Easterbrook

Atrios said:

Probably the stupidest person in professional pundtry is Gregg Easterbrook. He's exhibit A for "too stupid to know he's stupid" and more than that he's too stupid to understand that there are people who know things that he doesn't, and more than that he's so stupid that he sets himself up as an authority about things he has absolutely zero comprehension of. It'd be comical except he's helping to make even more people as stupid as he is and what we don't need right now is even more stupid people.

An early science blogger, most people consider Easterbrook particularly weak in relation to this aspect of his punditry. But I did not realize that he has had a parallel career as a sports columnist. Which makes this passage particularly troubling.

The latest silly estimate comes from a new study in the British medical journal Lancet, which absurdly estimates that since March 2003 exactly 654,965 Iraqis have died as a consequence of American action. The study uses extremely loose methods of estimation, including attributing about half its total to "unknown causes." The study also commits the logical offense of multiplying a series of estimates, then treating the result as precise. White House officials have dismissed the Lancet study, and they should. It's gibberish.

How somebody that writes a column about a statistical exercise such as competitive sports can not understand simple concepts such as sampling and extrapolation should really give up any hope of enlightenment. In his heart he probably thinks when a quarterback has a completion percentage of 50%, his passes make it only halfway to their target. And that the conceptual premise of sports betting likely equally baffles him. (He also makes stuff up, because no where does the Lancet say that exactly 654,965 people died)

Alas, hope springs eternal in the world of mindless sports zealots; as an antidote, we need more intelligent sports writing refugees like Keith Olbermann, Charles Pierce, and Dave Zirin branching out and not the typical dunderheads like Easterbrook.

Perils for Pedestrians

Tuesday, October 24, DISH Network will show Episode 81 of "Perils For Pedestrians".

Contents of Episode 81 (2003):

• We talk with Linda Armstrong Kelly (ed: Lance's ex ?) about The Texas Bicycle Coalition at the National Bike Summit in Washington, DC.
  

• We meet Greg Lemond, a three time winner of the Tour De France.

• U.S. Representative James Oberstar gives the history of federal transportation policy.

DISH Network Channel 9411 -- The Universityhouse Channel
Tuesday -- 9:30 pm Eastern, 6:30 Pacific

Google Video
Note: Episode 81 is not yet available on Google Video.

Public Access Cable Stations
Note: Public access cable channels are showing different episodes than DISH Network.

The Klobuchars

I hope local yokel Amy Klobuchar gets the vote for US Senate instead of the cross-eyed toadie Mark Kennedy. Klobuchar has huge name recognition in Minnesota, partly because of her father's popularity as a newspaper columnist, environmentalist, and radio host. Jim Klobuchar, a former sportswriter for the Minneapolis StarTribune, wrote one of my favorite columns of all time, essentially lifting the veil for me behind the marketing of sports team "homerism". His main premise still holds true: if sports writers never wrote up close and personal stories documenting athletes' private lives, no sports fan would ever care which team wins or loses. Every big-time sporting franchise would lose a significant fraction of their die-hard fanatics because the players would become nameless automatons.

I use to live and die according to the machinations of the Twins and Vikings, but no more. But by effortlessly ignoring whatever some sports hack writes about a millionaire ballplayer going to some children's hospital as a charitable action, I brush off the success or failure of my hometown teams.

Klobuchar wrote about a taboo topic -- that which no sane (i.e. gutless) sports writer should talk about. That kind of journalistic honesty rarely shows up in the big media and in his own way spoke truth to power.

Oh and by the way, Amy Klobuchar, as a Democrat, understands all the important energy issues that a Republican's corporate and 'minionist walking papers would never reveal. I trust she also inherited some of her father's honesty and integrity, and will speak truth to power in much the same way.

Obvious

Unlike a significant fraction of the population, I don't have a hard time understanding why academics vote progressive -- apparently some 3/4 of the time. Instapundit claims it occurs because of a lack of "diversity". What he attributes to group-think of some sort, I actually believe amounts to intelligence and plain logic mixed with critical thinking. In other words, things you learn at the university level.

This number does not differ much from a report released last year, and with the possibility of even higher numbers on the elite campuses.

And it goes back even further:

At the birth of Western culture, a teacher called Socrates was executed for filling "young people's heads with the wrong ideas."

Khebab plots

Khebab at TOD (linked via Big Gav) presented a range of peak estimates all on one plot.

I placed the Oil Shock Model data as stars on the graph. My estimate -- based on discovery data -- remains on the pessimistic side, agreeing largely with the ASPO data from October 2004 and Bakhtiari from 2003 (both using conventional plus NGL as the production total). ASPO has since upwardly corrected their estimates, something that I have really no basis for, as discoveries have not gone up much since late 2004.