March 30, 2006
No it isn't
Cost of dome up 10.2% to $68 million
It's up 10.2%, which is $68 million, to $624.2, in its continuing climb to costing $1 billion.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 08:14 AM | Comments (0)
March 24, 2006
Inevitable
Has anyone posted the "Cast the Ben Domenech" movie thread yet? If not, I call. I say Ashton Kutcher as Ben.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 02:42 PM | Comments (2)
Bendo Menech Resigns
washingtonpost.blog - The Editors Talk About Site Policies, Design and Goals
(That's how I always used to read his name back in the Blogger days, when I had a link to his site.)
Anyway, how embarrassing is this? The wingers bully the Post into hiring Bendo and within a week he's forced to resign in disgrace after a few liberal bloggers actually did a background check. The winger spin, inevitably, must be that the Post knew about this and hired Bendo to embarrass the right. Right.
Meanwhile, I checked Red State and got this:
Fitting.
You can't steal. You know where I learned that? Ten Commandments. And I didn't even need a big rock to read them on.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 01:33 PM | Comments (1)
March 13, 2006
Get a grip, Hitch
No Sympathy for Slobo - Let's not forget Milosevic's many crimes. By Christopher Hitchens
Nobody (other than European communists) was going around feeling sorry that Milosevic died. Maybe you need to hang out with a different bunch.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 05:02 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
February 12, 2006
Ah, the English
OUTSIDE LOOKING IN What they're saying about us
They're so refined:
Jeremy Clarkson, The Times of London critic hailed as the "Motoring Writer of the Year" on the paper's Web site, loves the new Mercedes ML 320 CDI Sport. But in a January column, he had much to say about the original model and who made it: "... Built in Alabama by people more used to picking cotton than making complicated machinery, it emerged into the world badly built, lumpen, impractical and already old fashioned. Obviously Mercedes wasn't going to make the same mistake twice, so plainly the people making the new one have been told to stop singing 'Swing Low Sweet Chariot' and get on with some work, and the designers were told it was 2005, not 1956."
Mr. Clarkson would like to apologize to anyone he didn't manage to offend and will get you next time.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 04:42 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
February 09, 2006
Yeah, it's the Klan
The Australian: Alabama fires spark fears of Klan night riders [February 10, 2006]
That's why they burned down all those white churches first. Sheesh. Article ties in the death of Coretta Scott King, the life of George Wallace, and all sorts of "isn't that quaint" detail. (To be fair to the Australian, I believe this is a reprint of a British article.)
Posted by Mac Thomason at 11:20 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 03, 2006
Chris Matthews is an asshole
Your liberal media, everyone!
(Thanks -- if thanks are appropriate -- to Kathy.)
Posted by Mac Thomason at 10:01 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 11, 2006
Correction of the day
Corrections and Clarifications
Beat this one:
Because of incorrect information in a press release, The News said in a Local News story Tuesday that Oak Mountain High School head basketball coach Jerry Hood successfully fought cancer. Hood, who is the athletic director and head football coach, does not have cancer. The basketball coach, Jerry North, successfully fought cancer.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 10:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 09, 2006
Department of Horrible Puns
The copywriter who came up with this headline (about additional elephants and space at the Birmingham Zoo) should never ever try to be clever again. At least they didn't go with "Broketrunk Mountain", I suppose:
Mona, believed to be 58, has been alone since her longtime companion, Susie, died last January.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 10:59 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 08, 2006
Surplussssssssss
Big question over education surpluss
I think we need to spend more on education, at least until our copy editors learn how to spell "surplus".
Posted by Mac Thomason at 01:00 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 07, 2006
Great moments in paranoia
ABC 33/40 Weather Center - Realtime Earthquake Monitor
1. Technically speaking, earthquakes are not "weather".
2. They're also not generally something we have to worry about in Alabama.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 09:22 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
December 28, 2005
It was a slow news day
Turn lane slated for Mitt Lary intersection
This was the lead story in yesterday's Tuscaloosa News. Big, above-the-fold headline.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 01:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 15, 2005
The fatal Chalabi charisma
A weeklong journal of a writer in Iraq. By Tamara Chalabi
Slate hired Ahmed Chalabi's daughter to chronicle the Iraqi election? I'm sure this is an objective look at the situation. No doubt there.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 02:11 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
November 18, 2005
Their first task
al.com: NewsFlash - Alambama launches distance learning initiative
Teaching the copy editor who let this headline escape to the web how to spell the name of the state.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 01:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 11, 2005
I never thought I'd see this
Choosing Life in a Death Penalty State
The Birmingham News has come out against the death penalty.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 12:02 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
November 10, 2005
Extremely awkward correction of the day
In Tuesday's Mobile Register, a story about a Holocaust survivor's visit to a Mobile school incorrectly referenced a "Jewish race" of people. There is no Jewish race; the Jewish faith includes believers of many races and ethnic backgrounds.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 08:46 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 28, 2005
Hooray for AP geeks!
al.com: NewsFlash - Beta testing a pair of Colombian islands
Fun with computer/hurricane headlines.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 03:47 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 27, 2005
Noted without comment
Corrections and Clarifications
The Ulysses Smoot of Birmingham who filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy before the new bankruptcy law went into effect Oct. 17 is not the same Ulysses Smoot who formerly owned Club Jaguar, as reported on Page 1D on Oct. 19. The Ulysses Smoot who filed for bankruptcy listed his address as 157 Beasley Lane, according to U.S. Bankruptcy Court records.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 08:16 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 20, 2005
How it works
CNN.com - Nazi hunter Wiesenthal dead at 96 - Sep 20, 2005
You can be one of the great men of the last century and spend your life pursuing justice, and yet, when you die, you'll get less attention than Bob Denver.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 10:35 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 14, 2005
Breaking news from the Associated Press!
al.com: NewsFlash - Water important to survival
Posted by Mac Thomason at 02:08 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
August 29, 2005
Hurricae Katria
Tremedous storm will strike Gulf Coast today
Apparently, this headline has a cold.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 08:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 29, 2005
The summer of lightning
Teen, infant killed by apparent lightning strike | ajc.com
It's almost August, so the media need a theme soon. I think this is the way to go, it's the second time two people have been killed by lightning in the south in the last week.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 08:36 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
July 12, 2005
New from me
Who is the worst person on ESPN? Using the format of the NCAA Tournament, I intend to find out. Non-sports fans may ignore this, free in their world that is almost totally devoid of Stephen A. Smith.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 08:19 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
"Restriction" now a verb
al.com: NewsFlash - State school board restrictions soft drink sales
Hey, you can use any word as a verb.
"Roy Moore defecations on the Constitution".
See?
Calvin: I like to verb words.Hobbes: What?
Calvin: I take nouns and adjectives and use them as verbs. Remember when 'access' was a thing? Now it's something we do. It got verbed. Verbing weirds language.
Hobbes: Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 02:19 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 05, 2005
First I've heard of it
College student missing a week | ajc.com
Bet it's the first you heard about it either. Of course, she's black.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 10:30 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
June 29, 2005
Great moments in subject-verb disagreement
al.com: NewsFlash - Prices at the gas pumps continues to climb
That's just sad. Of course, so are gas prices.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 01:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 15, 2005
Land Of 1000 Dimwits
I have purposefully refused to comment on the latest media tempest, the case of a missing teenager on a graduation trip to Aruba. I do this even though it's in my blogging "purview"; her home in Mountain Brook is next to and maybe a half step up socioeconomically from my sometimes home of Vestavia Hills, and she was to attend the University of Alabama. I refused to get involved out of general disgust with the media horde that chooses, seemingly randomly, the story of any presentable young white woman in trouble and got hooked on this one during a slow news day a couple weeks ago. (As usual, The Poor Man has the definitive statement on this matter.) I might have commented if the story had stayed local, but I ended all plans for that when I saw it hit CNN.com's front page. I have stayed away since even though it dominated the Birmingham/Tuscaloosa news and made it difficult to find anything else to talk about.
And then, they pull me in.
Caribbean Net News: Alabama radio station blacklisting the Caribbean
Colossal nincompoops Russ and Dee Fine, who like so many more important radio wingnuts have grown increasingly deranged and self-important over the past few years, have called for a general boycott of the entire Caribbean over what they see as police failure in this case. Not just Aruba; not just Dutch colonies; the entire Caribbean, including U.S. territories.
It is clear that Russ Fine (Dee is by all accounts a tool of her husband) perceives the entire Caribbean as but an undifferentiated mass of cannibals and headhunters, an assortment of brown and black people who do not know their place in the world and who need to be taught a lesson in caring for their betters. Aruba is far on the horizon of the tiny world viewed by the Fines' tiny brains, and thus basically the same place as Jamaica, or Bermuda, or probably the Azores. Quick question, Russ: What's the official language of Aruba? No, sorry, "Spanish" is not the answer.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 02:17 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
June 13, 2005
One question
CNN.com - Report: Paris Hilton�to retire in�2 years - Jun 13, 2005
From what? What, exactly, does Paris Hilton do?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 03:52 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
June 11, 2005
Impressive storm
Arlene Bringing Rain and Wind to Florida, Louisiana
I mean, to bring all that weather to Florida and Louisiana while completely ignoring the two states in between. It's certainly unusual.
Stupid Yankees. Well, Florida and Louisiana will be underwater when the ice caps melt, and then we'll have the beachfront.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 11:55 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 31, 2005
Deep
Apparently, W. Mark Felt is coming out as Deep Throat in a Vanity Fair article. Tim Noah will be happy.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 11:25 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
February 19, 2005
Call today
The Poor Man - And now, a word from our sponsors
I'm sorry, I know when I'm beat. I can't follow this. Just read it.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 04:26 PM | Comments (16) | TrackBack
February 11, 2005
"25 percent of our readers are fascists!"
Not sure this link will work...
Anyway, there's one of those online polls on the Tuscaloosa News website...
Should lawmakers control how you wear your clothes?Yes - 24.7 %
No - 75.3 %Number of votes cast: 728
Who votes "yes" in such a poll?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 02:07 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
February 09, 2005
Alan Alda, no!
ESPN.com - NCB - Ex-Hawkeye Pierce charged with assault, more
It's a former member of the Iowa Hawkeyes basketball team named "Pierce". You'd think someone would catch that, wouldn't you?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 04:49 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 26, 2005
Just the on-air people, right?
CNN.com - Radio station pulls show over tsunami slur - Jan 26, 2005
I mean, pulling the off-air people doesn't seem right. Anyway...
Jones and her team were suspended indefinitely, according to publicist Lizzie Grubman, who declined to say whether Jones would feature in another show at a later date.
Wait, they fire people for bad taste, but hire people who run over people on the sidewalk?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 09:34 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 19, 2005
The Greatest Headline Ever
CNN.com - Poll: Nation split on Bush as uniter or divider - Jan 19, 2005
Says it all, doesn't it?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 08:28 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Where Things Are
achenblog (washingtonpost.com)
Joel Achenbach has a blog. It's not having "Why Things Are" back on a regular basis, but it's a start.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 07:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 07, 2005
Truth in URLs
CNN.com - Judge: Listerine not same as flossing - Jan 7, 2005
I don't really have anything to say about an order that Pfizer can't run ads insinuating that using Listerine is as effective as flossing. But I really like the URL some gremlin at either AP or at CNN.com gave this story -- it includes the phrase "flossing.v.rinsing". Hee.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 03:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Wrong dead guy
I love corrections. From the Mobile Register:
A memorial Mass set for Monday at Little Flower Church in Mobile will honor John "Kevin" Brown, who died Dec. 18. A story in Wednesday's Mobile Register named a different person to be honored at that Mass.
I hope that the other person is at least dead, because that would come as quite a shock to a living person.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 09:01 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
December 06, 2004
Always a highlight
Herald.com | 12/05/2004 | Dave Barry's Gift Guide
And what child wouldn't want a Talking Gollum Doll?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 03:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Nothing major
Officials say there is no major drug problem at UA
The dead-tree version of the Tuscaloosa News has a slightly different headline: "Officials say no drug problem at UA". So I'm thinking, None? Wow, they sure have cleaned up the place since I was there, then. Either that, or they've redefined "drug problem". Perhaps they mean there's no problem getting drugs. But I kid my alma mater. The drug of choice there has always been alcohol anyway.
So anyway, there are no drugs on the University of Alabama campus. Absolutely none, and when I say none, I mean there is a certain amount:
There have been five arrests in the last four months, said Capt. Lee Harris of the UA Police Department, and eight narcotics violations, seven of which were involving marijuana. In fact, most drug use on campus is marijuana, said Harris, although students will occasionally abuse other substances."We sometimes see prescription medicines," he said, "often in conjunction with a DUI."
Snyder said while crack or cocaine are seldom found on campus, ecstasy and Ritalin are common. Some students use Ritalin to stay up to study, he said.
Ah, good times.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 01:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 30, 2004
Death, Death, Death...
Five of the six top Alabama stories from the AP wire:
19-year-old man jailed in girlfriend's murder
Discovered body is that of missing Jasper woman
LSU lab provides tentative I-D of skeletal remains
Police find son, slain couple's vehicle
Fort Rucker-based team investigates deadly chopper crash
Cheerful, yes?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 09:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 21, 2004
But I don't want to be Tucker Carlson
Wing Chun on l'Affaire Stewart:
Imagine, for a second, that you're Tucker Carlson. (Let me help you to get into character: you're a dead-eyed assberet.) You know that, of the conservative pundits -- a group that includes such non-luminaries as Sean Hannity and your own colleague Robert Novak -- you are marginally the least loathsome. You are occasionally, privately, able to break from Republican doctrine (as he did in Vanity Fair this summer, talking some shit about the even more odious Karen Hughes). But on camera, you have an image to project, and that image involves a bowtie. If you ever had any idea of being a respectable journalist, that was a long time ago, and you can never go back. You hear the things that come out of your mouth sometimes and you realize you sound like someone who's never known the touch of any woman, never mind unconditional maternal affection. You would hate yourself if you weren't already dead inside.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 10:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 19, 2004
They aren't even pretending
Yahoo! News - Sinclair Axes Journalist Critical of Film
Sinclair fired its Washington bureau chief because he called their Kerry sliming program "biased political propaganda, with clear intentions to sway this election." Which, of course, it is.
It's hardly new to Sinclair, of course. Have you ever seen the sort of "news" programs they put on? They're horribly slanted, they contain the (by now) well-known right wing blatherings of a company VP, and they are apparently produced by a bunch nine year olds with ADD. They're awful. They make the news show on WVUA here -- where many of the off-air duties are performed by college students and the on-air talent isn't a whole lot more experienced -- look slick.
My stepmother used to run one of the stations now owned by Sinclair. She says that their ratings are half what they were when she was there. Some of that's just the general decline in broadcast ratings, some of that's that they were a Fox affiliate then and a WB affiliate now (but Fox at the time wasn't much more important than the WB is now). But a lot of it's their terrible management and their terrible news program, which goes head-to-head with Channel 6's and simply can't compete.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 09:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 16, 2004
Tucker Carlson savaged: should be put down
Jon Stewart devastated Carlson on Crossfire yesterday. A sample:
CARLSON: I do think you're more fun on your show. Just my opinion.(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: OK, up next, Jon Stewart goes one on one with his fans...
(CROSSTALK)
STEWART: You know what's interesting, though? You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! That, literally, was my reaction to that. I couldn't manage a syllable, much less words. Man, he was harsh.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 04:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 09, 2004
I hate political reporters
Bigley's death a blow for Blair
You know who it was a blow for? Bigley. And his family, and his friends. I don't think it's nearly as important to Tony Blair.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 02:02 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 29, 2004
Blindingly obvious headline of the day
ABCNEWS.com : Bush, Kerry Hope to Win Voters in Debate
Um. Yeah. Pretty much.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 04:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 24, 2004
CNN mailing it in
Actual link text from the front page of CNN.com:
Man who walked away from plane crash 'incredibly lucky'
What can I say, I'm a fan of the bleedingly obvious headline.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 02:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 16, 2004
Someone at Channel 13 has a weird sense of humor
They're running a scroll of area closings. So I see this, consecutively:
ALABAMA HOMELAND SECURITY HEADQUARTERS CLOSED FRIDAY.
ALABAMA ISLAMIC SCHOOL CLOSED FRIDAY.
Hey, they put the two together, not me.
All clear here in Tuscaloosa/Northport, at least my part of town. There's a partial power outage at work; they'll be closed tomorrow, with the weekend in doubt. (I have to work, albeit short hours, Saturday and Sunday -- if the place is open.)
I'd like to thank everyone for the kind words and wishes. I got really lucky. Nearly a million Alabama Power customers lost power -- and not everyone is on Alabama Power, many are with TVA or local outfits -- and most who lost it are still in the dark. My family all live in or near Vestavia, one of the hardest-hit areas, and are without power. (Though they did find an open Mexican restaurant in Hoover.)
Homewood got it bad, with major flooding on Lakeshore Drive. An apartment complex there was evacuated after the parking lot turned into part of a river. I don't mind so much, because that complex, I do believe, once refused to rent to me. Several creeks in the Birmingham area flooded, which is nothing new because they flood once or twice a year. But that all pales in comparison to what happened in Gulf Shores -- practically wiped off the map -- and in the far west of the Florida Panhandle.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 11:34 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
September 15, 2004
I figured I could link to this
You know, the problem with these TV weathermen is that they get so wired about even routine rain that they have no higher gear to shift to when a real life-threatening storm like Ivan comes. On the other hand, they do have people standing in rain gear at the beach praying that a piece of debris doesn't take their heads off.
You know, it's really nice out. There's a good, steady breeze, the temperature's a little lower than it's been, and Ivan has sucked all the humidity out. It won't last, of course, but for now it's as comfortable as it's been in a month.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 08:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 13, 2004
Works for Ivan, too
Herald.com | 09/06/2004 | On the beach, waiting for Frances
Carl Hiaasen:
Welcome to the exciting world of hurricane journalism!While your highly paid colleagues on the anchor desk are broadcasting from the dry safety of a heavily fortified television studio, you and your camera crew will be out in the maw of the storm, risking your lives for no good reason.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 01:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Ivan worse than I thought!
CNN.com - Hurricane Ivan back up to Category 5 - Sep 13, 2004
According to CNN, even though Ivan is still in the Caribbean, it has already destroyed Mobile and Baldwin Counties!
The latest projections indicated Ivan would reach far western Cuba by early Monday evening, and a chart of its most probable path showed the storm heading into the Gulf of Mexico and toward the Florida-Mississippi border by Wednesday night.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 08:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 05, 2004
I don't get reporters
Watching CNN's hurricane coverage, they seemingly have at least half a dozen reporters, including an anchor in southeast Florida to get slammed by the storm. One of them was talking about driving around US 1! Honestly, what's the point? Why aren't these people under cover? Why aren't they in Atlanta or New York, for that matter?
My stepmother and her mother couldn't get out of West Palm before the airport closed. I hope they're okay. But these bozos are driving around in a hurricane! Do they think they're invulnerable?
Posted by Mac Thomason at 01:10 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
August 10, 2004
Free trade for journalists
Reuters to Move Editorial Jobs From U.S. and Europe to India (washingtonpost.com)
That ought to get the media's attention. 20 editorial positions in the US and Europe eliminated, and up to 60 replacements hired in Bangalore. One thing that tells us is that journalists in India work a whole lot cheaper than ones in Europe and America.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 12:57 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
August 02, 2004
Why is this a story?
CNN.com - Police arrest husband of missing Utah woman - Aug 2, 2004
A national story, anyway. Much less the national story. People go missing every day. People are murdered every day. I'm sorry it happened to this person, as I'm sorry whenever it happens. But honestly, why should I care about this as opposed to all the other murders? Why does the media occasionally pick out one murder as the murder to focus on? It makes no sense to me.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 02:33 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
July 30, 2004
There they go again
SI.com - Writers - Donovan: Maddux probably last of 300-game winners - Friday July 30, 2004 1:17PM
You know, I understand that baseball writers aren't up on the latest studies of the game. I don't expect them to be. I don't expect encyclopedic knowledge. What I do expect is a basic understanding of history.
Early Wynn won his 300th (and last) game in 1963. (He was obviously holding on to get that win, though he was still a fairly effective part-time pitcher at 43.) Wynn went around for years -- supported by the usual suspects in the press -- saying he would be the last 300-game winner.
Phil Niekro won his 300th game in 1985. Don Sutton won his 300th game in 1986. Nolan Ryan won his in 1990. Sutton at about this time began broadcasting Braves games and routinely saying that no one would ever win 300 games again (while watching Greg Maddux win 15-18 games a year like clockwork), supported by the usual suspects in the press.
Roger Clemens won his 300th game last season. Greg Maddux will win his this season, hopefully in his next start against the Phillies. Soon after, one of them -- Clemens is my guess -- will start saying that nobody will ever win 300 games again. And John Donovan is already supporting him.
It's a crap argument. Until they reach the 260-win mark or so, the odds are against any pitcher winning 300. But if one pitcher has a ten percent chance, and another has a ten percent chance, and three others have seven percent chances... well, if you have ten guys with five percent or better chances of winning 300 games, it becomes pretty likely that at least one of them will win 300 games.
Donovan relies upon a number of arguments that are in fact misproven by Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens. Pitchers are being used in five-man rotations now, so they get fewer starts? Well, what's new about that? Maddux and Clemens (and Sutton, for that matter) spent their entire careers in five-man rotations. Relievers are being used more? Well, maybe they're sucking up more decisions, but (a) this is less of a problem for the elite pitchers, and (b) using top relievers to finish games rather than letting starters hang out to dry gives starters a better chance of getting a decision, not a worse one. Even mediocre closers save eighty percent or more of their chances.
I haven't worked it out, but Tom Glavine still has a reasonable shot at 300 wins. (It would be better if he'd stayed in Atlanta, but I told him that at the time. But does he ever listen? No, of course not.) I think he's likely to pitch until he's 42 or 43, and in those circumstances would only need to add about ten wins a year. Donovan mentions Glavine as having a real chance, but underestimates it. Randy Johnson is further away, but he's such an unusual pitcher I wouldn't say he's a stretch -- so to speak -- to get there. The real question for Johnson is his knee, because his arm is still sound, and with his strikeout rate he might pitch until he's fifty.
At any event, Donovan has no idea what the careers of younger pitchers will look like in their thirties. Pedro Martinez is only 32, has 177 wins, and still one of the better pitchers in the game. What does he have to do to win 300? 11-12 wins a year for ten years. Pitching until he's 42 may seem unlikely, but it's pretty common in the modern game. Clemens, the pitcher first on Martinez's similarity list, is 41.
Anyway, 300-game winners tend to clump. A lot of them came into the game in the late sixties and early seventies, so we had a lot of them win their 300th in the mid-eighties. (There were also a lot of pitchers who came up just short at the same time.) A lot of them won theirs in the years immediately before Wynn. Maybe there really aren't any established pitchers who will win 300 games after Maddux. But I wouldn't bet on it, and I'm sure that someone, sometime, will be the next 300 game winner. And there will be a writer there to say that he'll be the last.
(Cross-posted from Braves Journal.)
Posted by Mac Thomason at 02:45 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
July 21, 2004
The media are so liberal...
Big Three Networks Dim Their Lights on Kerry
Okay, he's the President. Pretty much anything he does is news by definition. And there was that whole torture thing. But four times as much coverage as Kerry in June?
On the other hand, it worked pretty well for Kerry, considering that the polls stayed steady and Bush's negatives rose. Hmmm...
(Via TV Barn.)
Posted by Mac Thomason at 06:19 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 16, 2004
One reason I'm not a journalist
CNN.com - Wall Street Journal reporters withhold bylines - Jun 16, 2004
I don't quite understand the nature of the protest. They don't put their names on the stories, and this, somehow, is supposed to get management on their side? It seems to me that management would want reporters to stay anonymous. Makes them easier to replace.
The WSJ, of course, is a great newspaper with a terrible editorial section. I think the editorial writers should take their names off, then we can try to figure out who wrote what. It would be a good way to kill five minutes.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 11:05 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
June 09, 2004
Why we need two newsmagazines
Yes, in honor of the death of Ronald Reagan -- a man who was photographed as much as anybody in history -- they did both use the exact same picture of him to fill their front covers. But they had slightly different color enhancements to the picture!
I am aware that there is supposedly a third national newsmagazine, but I've never met anyone who's read it.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 09:18 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
June 08, 2004
Breaking news!
Western Airliners May Be al-Qaida Target
Okay, this is an old headline. From yesterday. Do we really need to be told this at this stage? I think pretty much everybody knows that al-Qaeda (however you spell it) is interested in airliners. If the AP wants to make itself useful, send the story back in time to 2001. Of course, that might not help...
Posted by Mac Thomason at 11:09 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 06, 2004
That has to be disappointing
The New York Times > Arts > Harry Potter Lands $92.65 at Box Office
I mean, that's what, ten tickets?
Obviously, they mean $92.65 million. $92,650,000.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 03:31 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
June 01, 2004
"Bombs as Iraqi government announced"
CNN.com - Bush praises Iraqi interim government - Jun 1, 2004
That's what CNN's link to this story says. I don't know if a bomb-based government is feasible, but that seems to be what they're headed towards.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 02:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 23, 2004
What about Bob?
CNN.com - Journalists subpoenaed in CIA leak case - May 22, 2004
Novak won't say if he's been subpoened or no. I certainly hope so. I don't really much care about the whole "protecting their sources" thing one way or another. But Bob Novak revealed the identity of a CIA operative. Which is, you may have heard, a felony. It's worth up to ten years in prison! I'd really like to see Novak spend the next decade in jail.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 01:03 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 21, 2004
Correction of the day
Friday, May 21, 2004An article in Thursday's Mobile Register Living section provided the incorrect year that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The attack took place on Dec. 7, 1941, not in 1942.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 09:24 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 06, 2004
"Also, he wrote Forrest Gump, not Titanic"
Re a story I linked to a couple days ago...
A story in Tuesday's Mobile Register mischaracterized author Winston Groom's agreement to do "Alabama Wild Shrimp" commercials. He had a verbal agreement with Lewis Communications, which produced the commercials. Also, the story gave incorrect information about payments made through the $1.2 million Eat Alabama Shrimp committee fund. The South Alabama Regional Planning Commission received a $29,544 administrative allowance for its services, rather than $59,080, and shrimpers have been given no payments for Turtle Excluder Devices.
Other than that, the story was 100% correct.
Posted by Mac Thomason at 09:16 AM | Comments (0) |