Dave's Verse

It was like the Arizona game in last year's NCAA tournament. They are more athletic than us and that gave us problems on offense. Curry, Dawkins, and Kelly were basically invisible. They couldn't get their shots off and when they did they weren't going in. I'm not sure that is the sole reason Coach K benched them for most of the second half. But that was a big reason we lost. The only two starters that played fairly well were Rivers and Mason Plumlee. Rivers was his usual self, getting into the lane when he wanted and making a few contested layups. It was a typical game for Rivers. But he scored more because he took more shots. He still needs to develop a better jump shot and make better decisions. Mason did a decent job on Sullinger. He wasn't great defensively and he didn't convert the shots he got on the offensive end. The rest of the team, which consisted of a lot of bench players, didn't really add much. It was mostly Rivers and Plumlee. And they were...

Ezra Klein has a nice chart up showing how, since the 80s, the number of hearings in Congress has steadily declined. Ezra interprets this as a decline in Congressional oversight of federal agencies. The political science research that I'm familiar with says that Congress generally takes a non-aggressive approach to oversight. Attention is called to an agency and a hearing is called when something grabs their attention, such as a big mistake or a scandal. So we might assume, like Ezra does, that because Congress isn't calling as many hearings they aren't overseeing agencies as much as they should be. Given the conservatives in charge during big chunks of this period, I think that's probably correct. But I'm not sure simply the number of committee hearings shows that point. I want to point out other political science research regarding the nature of committee hearings in Congress. The data shows that most hearings feature people who agree with the majority party ...

Poor Dee. She really gets the emotional shaft throughout the series. First Billy is killed right in front of her. Then she marries the guy she was kind of cheating on Billy with and he proceeds to go from a ripped, good looking guy to a overweight guy who isn't the soldier he once was. Now we find out that Lee cheated on Dee with Starbuck when they were on New Caprica. And now that they are back on Galactica and blowing off steam during a boxing tournament, we find out that Lee and Starbuck still have feelings for each other. Emotions can be complicated enough under normal circumstances. Being on Galactica must make them even more complicated. I hope Dee finds some stability. And I hope Lee and Starbuck finally sort out their feelings for each other. Speaking of the boxing tourney, Adama uses it to send a message to the crew, which basically sounded like he got soft on them and didn't want it to happen again. This was played out by showing a lot of flashbacks to the crew on N...

I touched on this on twitter but I wanted to flesh it out a little more. I was watching the episode "Safe". The crew is taking some cattle to a far off planet. They get there and the non-muscle part of the crew go into town so Mal and the muscle part of the crew can make a deal for the cattle. Shepard Book gets shot and Simon and River get kidnapped. Mal decides to leave so that they can get Book some help, leaving Simon and River for the time being. Throughout the episode we are shown flashbacks of Simon and River. In one they are kids. Simon is doing his homework. River is correcting the math in the textbook. Their dad gives Simon some computer type thing in exchange for him becoming a brilliant doctor. Another one is Simon telling his parents something is wrong with River. They brush it off as River playing a game and warn Simon about hurting his career by interfering. Basically they want to show how much Simon has given up in order to save River. I'm not sure if i...

I didn't see it because who really cares. But someone saw it and is mad : Critics of President Obama felt little holiday cheer after the president did not thank God in his Thanksgiving-themed weekly Internet address. They immediately took to Twitter and the Internet to voice anger and disbelief. "Somebody ought to remind Obama (and his speechwriter) that when Americans sit down around a meal today and give thanks, they give thanks to God." Someone ought to remind that person that not all Americans sit down and give thanks to god. Millions don't for one reason or another; whether they don't believe in a god or don't have the means to eat a nice Thanksgiving meal. And the president is under no obligation to acknowledge god in a speech. In fact, I'd argue that if he is obliged to do anything, he is obliged to leave religion out of the political arena. What we, the president and these critics, ought to be thankful for is that we all live in a free count...

Andrew Sullivan ponders that question today. I'm feeling link lazy. So go to the Beast if you want to read it in full. Basically he makes the reasonable points that he helped keep the economy from being worse than it was, passed a form of universal healthcare, oversaw the ousting of bin Laden and Qadaffi, and has conducted himself in a more or less presidential manner. That's all true. And of course that hasn't prevented the right from completely freaking out over everything he has done. But more than the outrage from the right, Andrew has a harder time pinning down why liberals aren't happy with Obama. I think a big part of the problem for liberals were our expectations for Obama coming into office. We had just suffered through 8 years of the ridiculous Bush administration. And at the end of that we suffered a big recession. On top of that Obama came in with the uplifting and hopeful rhetoric that suggested that he wanted to change things and implement strongly liber...

I was kind of looking forward to Duke playing Memphis in the Maui Invitational. Duke held up its end of the bargain by beating Tennessee fairly handily tonight. But Memphis lost to Michigan. I didn't see that game. But it looked like Michigan beat Memphis at its own game, using their athleticism to play up tempo. That could be a problem for Duke because we aren't that athletic at guard and struggle to keep athletic teams out of the lane, which happened tonight against UT. The Dolphins put a beating on the Bills Sunday. The defense has been playing like I thought they could before the season. They haven't allowed a TD in 3 games and they are finally forcing turnovers. They did such a good job against the Bills that the offense didn't have to do much in order to score. But unlike the first seven games of the year, the offense took advantage of being in the red zone and scored more than enough to win. Basically everyone is playing better. Both lines are doing well. Dan...