Who am I, the word allah?

Yesterday I read an article about Sarah Palin believing that her selection as VP candidate was part of God's plan. What caught my eye was the claim, by chief McCain strategist Steve Schmidt, that she was "very calm -- nonplussed". I find 'nonplussed' an odd clarification of 'very calm', given the meaning of 'nonplus' as "to cause to be at a loss as to what to say, think, or do : perplex". I suspect that he was making the not uncommon error of using 'nonplussed' to mean 'unrattled' or 'unfazed', but I'd expect a bit better from a chief strategist of a presidential candidate for the GOP.

I also read a post about the word 'Allah' in the NYT blog section yesterday. It was interesting and informative, but what I found puzzling was its failure to distinguish between use and mention. In a couple of instances the author used the expression 'word Allah' without indicating clearly he was talking about the actual string of characters, with quotes or italicization, as opposed to the concept 'Allah' denotes. Stated thusly, without single quotes or italics, a reasonable interepretation is to think 'word Allah' refers to a god of words, or something, e.g., Who are you to tell me how to use this word, the word Allah? Again, people often fail to make the distinction clear, but in an article/blog about word usage in the NYT written by a Pulitzer Prize winner, I'd expect a higher standard. And the errors are still there today, maybe I'm missing something?

Another NPR WTF moment

On the way in to work this morning I heard a discussion on the radio of some similarities between the movie Avatar and the popular song Tik Tok by Kesha. It was an interesting discussion of the two works as consisting mostly of a "mashup" of various pop cultural references and genres, etc. I don't know whether that's true, but what did strike me was a comment about the song. The reporter says "This is not a good song in my opinion but it sounds enough like a good pop song so that you can't quite tell the difference".

It reminds me of an illustration Raymond Smullyan once used to illustrate the verification principle. He writes about a concert pianist who used to note that the difference between European and American critics was that European critics would write things like "he played too slowly during this part of the piece", etc., while American critics would write things like, "he didn't play with enough moonshine". (Sorry, don't have a reference handy.) What in the world could it be for a song to sound like a good song but fail to be a good song for reasons that one cannot perceive?

Health care reform finally making it, but there's not much to cheer about in the bill, unless you own insurance stocks. I appreciate the fact that it's finally going to do away with this draconian denial of coverage because of pre-existing conditions, one of the key things that I was hoping to see come out of this bill and something I'm very relieved to see put into place. Also, it puts in place some very significant subsidies for health insurance. But what I don't see it doing is anything about the high and ever increasing costs of health care. We see in this bill, I think, the continuation of the worst of all possible worlds. No public option that might allow us to see a powerful government insurance entity that could negotiate better pricing nor do we see any innovation that could result in true competition and price drops from that effect.

Player Effectiveness Measures

I think I've argued here before that hockey needs to undergo a sabermetrification of sorts, an analysis of the metrics that we use to determine how effective a player is being in particular situations, how well a team is doing as compared to earlier teams, how effective the power play unit is, etc. I've recently discovered On Goal Analysis, a site with an associated blog, that apparently shares my interest. Recently they've undertaken to design a metric that measure overall effectiveness. This metric works by measuring the number of points scored per shift and the number of "defensive actions" per shift.

I think the intent is laudable, but it's not clear to me that this is a better metric than the old fashioned +/- metric that simply calculates the difference between the number of even strength goals scored while you were on the ice and the number scored against your team. After all, not all defensive actions are equal. Some hits are light or result in the hitter falling out of the play, some blocked shots weren't headed for the net or fervent shot blockers may also have a tendency to screen their goaltenders. Similarly, not all shifts are equal. Some players spend more time on power plays, others on penalty kills. Some teams favour longer shifts, other short shifts. And considering only points scored per shift overlooks the offensive actions that can lead to goals but not count as points or "defensive actions". At the very least, I'd have liked to have seen this changed to points/defensive action/minute played, but even then we're ignoring power plays. The old +/- effectively addresses all these things without overly favouring power play units and hurting penalty kill units. Presumably, if your defensive actions are effective, the long term result is fewer goals scored against you. Show me a man with a high 'defensive action/shift' and a lousy +/- and I'll show you a poor hitter or shot blocker.

So, I like the old +/-, the main disadvantage being that it's not very effective at measuring player power play and penalty kill contribution. But here's a way to do that: for each player measure the power play goals/per power play minute played (or net goals, subtracting shorthanded goals) and number of goals scored against/per penalty kill minute. Then compare that to the team average. Is the player a positive or negative contributor to these situations?

Lieberman

I loathe Joe Lieberman. With memories of his cheerleading for the Iraq war and Dick Rumsfeld fresh in my mind, I now have to sit back and watch while this political no-mind, ignoring the wishes of his constituents, undermines health care reform out of spite. For, apparently this Medicare extension that his conscience allegedly requires him to reject is very similar to something he himself argued for just a few months ago, may before his insurance company supporters let him know that they didn't like it. But this process does give us some insight into how Lieberman's political mind works, from this article:

And he said he was particularly troubled by the overly enthusiastic reaction to the proposal by some liberals, including Representative Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, who champions a fully government-run health care system.

I guess that's one way to avoid thought and analysis. Wait to learn where an ideological opponent stands and then take the opposite view, may not always be sensible, but it may be a route to consistency, assuming your opponent is consistent, and it beats thinking.

(I agree with Glenn Greenwald that the Obama WhiteHouse has been intentionally feckless and/or subservient to the health care lobby on this issue as well, just wanted to point out why I find Lieberman so particularly contemptible.)

A Lesson ...

Remember when Canada was the "greatest country in the world"? In a few short years it has fallen from that to "thuggish petro state" and international environmental laughingstock. Let this be a lesson to anyone inclined to vote for conservatives.

What??

From an article entitled "Obama defends US wars as he accepts peace prize":

"President Barack Obama entered the pantheon of Nobel Peace Prize winners Thursday ... delivering a robust defense of war ..."

Fortunately for Obama, nobody reads anymore or we'd be all over him about Orwellian doublespeak.