Seven pitches for Towers in the first, 30 for Maroth. 3-0 Jays, on five straight 2-out hits.

Sparky just went deep to make it 4-0.

On another thread someone -- Pistol? -- posted the Giants lineup today. Is it me or is tonight's Tigers lineup, save for Pena, perhaps, twice as bad as that limp Giants one?

I don't know. That "limp Giants one" sure was limp.

You *really* have to know how to lose games. There isn't any Giant line-up that knows how to lose that many games. I'm taking the Limps over that AA Squad down the road from Windsor.

Young, 2B
Perez, SS
Hammonds, CF
Feliz, 3B
Galarraga, 1B
Linden, RF
Torrealba, C
Torcato, LF
Ponson, P

That lineup is much better than what the Tigers put out there...

Torres, CF
Morris, 2B
Higginson, RF
Pena, 1B
Witt, DH
Petrick, LF
Halter, 3B
Walbeck, C
Santiago, SS

The Tigers are better at first base and *maybe* left and right field. The Giants are much better at all four positions up the middle and at third base.

Santiago < Perez. That's like being less than absolute zero.

Every E-5 looks the same on the score sheet, but I thought Hinske played that ball OK until it took a bad hop. The runner was erased anyway; Carlos Tosca called a pitchout on a hit-and-run and Cash gunned out Hallter.

Towers isn't quite as emotional tonight; he's allowed only three hits but has left a couple of pitches up. The Tigers clawed back to within a run, but Dave Berg just drove an RBI single up the middle and Cash dropped a squeeze bunt to make it 6-3 and end Maroth's evening.

Is anybody keeping count of the Ontario PC ads on TV tonight? I count at least six, and I wasn't watching in the top half of the first. Are they saturating other stations too, or have they decided that Jays fans represent potential swing votes?

Nice bunt, Kevin!

It's been said before, and repeatedly, but boy are the Tigers bad.

Boom!

A 3-run blast by Vernon Wells (his 33rd) and it's 10-4. Over and out, Tigers.

Scoreboard watching: A pair of 2-run HR by Jacque Jones and it's 4-2 Twins in the fourth. The sweep would just about break the White Sox' hearts. The Mariners lost an extra-inning heartbreaker themselves today, and the Red Sox just held off the D-Rays to open up another game in the wild card race.

Is anybody keeping count of the Ontario PC ads on TV tonight? I count at least six, and I wasn't watching in the top half of the first. Are they saturating other stations too, or have they decided that Jays fans represent potential swing votes?

A baseball game pulls men over 45 in the GTA, which is the region the Tories need to keep ahold of if they're going to stay in power. Obviously, most Tory policies resonate better in older audiences so the target age makes alot of sense and because of the cut backs that have hurt women specifically in comparison to those that hurt in an equal opportunity, men are far more likely to vote Tory. Women also tend to (of course generally) value a health care and education system, something the Tories refuse to offer.

How bad is Detroit, example #962,556:

They're 16-17 in one-run games, so they're not unlucky at all in that regard. In fact, they're probably a bit lucky.

In games decided by two or more runs, the Tiggers are 22-96, a .186 "winning" percentage.

I heard someone (Bill James, I think) say that games decided by five or more runs are a good measure of whether a team is dominant. The Tiggers are 5-39 (.114) in such games.

Tigger: "I'm gonna bounce! Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoo!"

It looks like the rain will stop in Baltimore Friday morning. So, depending on the condition of the field, they might not even have to cancel Friday night's game.

And even if Friday is rained out they can play 2 one day over the weekend.

I need Wells & Hinske's stats!

It looks like the rain will stop in Baltimore Friday morning. So, depending on the condition of the field, they might not even have to cancel Friday night's game.

Now, all they have to do is get there... :-)

Apparently, the Yankees are currently stuck in Baltimore, and their game today was called, tied 1-1. Maybe the O's can lose to two teams in one day.

The D-backs-Dodgers game is on Sportsnet Pacific (not blacked out at least at the moment). I get to listen to Scully - cool!

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Obviously, most Tory policies resonate better in older audiences so the target age makes alot of sense and because of the cut backs that have hurt women specifically in comparison to those that hurt in an equal opportunity, men are far more likely to vote Tory. Women also tend to (of course generally) value a health care and education system, something the Tories refuse to offer.

There's actually a much simpler explanation.

The more money you make, the more likely you are to vote for a party on the right. Since men tend to have higher incomes than women, they tend to vote for more right-ist parties.

If you take a man and a woman who each make $100,000 a year, they're pretty much equally likely to vote Conservative.

I couldn't in good conscience vote for any of the major parties. I've got to decide if I'm going to vote for a fringe party, spoil my ballot, or stay at home and drink beer. Knowing me, it will probably be the latter.

Mike

I've got to decide if I'm going to vote for a fringe party, spoil my ballot, or stay at home and drink beer. Knowing me, it will probably be the latter.

Well, don't spoil your ballot; that doesn't do anything except complicate the lives of the poor slobs that have to do the counting. I read once that they have an option in the States where you can rescind your ballot (I italicize because apparently the word is key). Apparently if you rescind the ballot they count it, sort of, as a vote for nobody. It's like officially registering your dissatisfaction with all the candidates. If you spoil it, on the other hand, it just gets chucked out and your opinion is lost. I don't know if they have this, or something similar, in Canada, but I keep meaning to check it out.

Nope, wouldn't agree with you Mike. 100,000/yr is likely to breed a Tory voter (I actually don't think that 100,000 is the key number, it's higher, though I get your point) but there hasn't been one poll that has concluded that men and women don't have different values when they look at a political party. I'm not all about polling but after a while when they all say the samething you have to believe there's validity.

Knowing me, it will probably be the latter.
If you do sit home and drink your beer I hope you're also content to sit there and not have any resentment for the state of the province. Spoiling your ballot is a great solution to disenfranchisement. They are counted, though media doesn't look at it as much as they should. If those votes were counted, it would go alot further in showing how much confidence people in the province have on one party to govern us. Look for a voter turn-out rate of 45%, 55 at the absolute highest. The only rate anyone is sure of is the whining rate, it's at an all time high of 100% :p

Oops - I seem to have turned this into a political thread. My bad.

I have very strong opinions on provincial politics, but I don't want to wander too far off-topic; mail me if you're interested in discussing same. (Hint: I'm not a conservative.)

Here's a slightly less controversial topic: is Josh Towers for real? Here's his latest starts, and opponents:

(scorelines are IP, H, R, ER, BB, SO)

Sep 18: Det 6 5 4 4 1 6
Sep 12: Bal 7.2 9 2 2 0 9
Sep 7: Det 7 4 0 0 0 5

He had a good start against Seattle on August 20th, and I like how he throws strikes, but are we looking at another case of Hendrickson-Lyon Syndrome here? His win on August 15th wasn't particularly impressive:

Aug 15: Oak 5 7 4 4 0 1

Another thing I don't like about the Jays' schedule: their September opponents are always patsies, which makes September callups of prospects pretty much useless. It's hard to judge whether a kid pitcher is ready for the major leagues when all he faces are opponents that Roger Clemens' grandma could probably shut out.

Anyway, what do you think?

Ignorant American here. What's the upcoming election? You're not voting for PM, are you? I think even us Texans would've heard about that. I started to read a news story about it at canada.ca, but it mentioned three or four different political parties and I became too confused to read on.

Anyway, my opinion is that Josh Towers has just enough talent to hang on. In terms of general ability, he reminds me of former Jay and Ranger Doug Davis, someone who flashes brilliance on rare occasions but mostly has to be perfect just to get by. Towers has always allowed an ungodly number of home runs (more than 1 per 5 IP for his career), so any time he's a little too generous with the walks or singles, he's going to get killed.

Against Detroit, Cleveland and Baltimore, he has a 2.70 ERA. Against everyone else, it's 6.14. Yeah, the sample size is small.

My semi-educated opinion is that he's established his level of performance, and if he can maintain an ERA of 4.75 or so for any length of time, Toronto should take it and run.

I get extra innings, and occasionally watch the west coast games. It took me awhile to realize that Scully was doing the entire broadcast by himself. It's amazing that he can do that.

Ontario's going through a provincial election, we go to the polls on October 2. PEI is also in a provincial election, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have had recent provincial elections (there could be a total of seven by the end of the 2003 calender year).
If you're interested on more about it you can comb through the [ Reply to This ]

Sorry, I forgot to close a tag, can someone with Admin access fix that? Actually, I just realized that the result of the mistake is that everything in the Form is now a broken link to the Toronto Star.

Thanks.

Provincials elections. I remember those from when I used to live in Ontario. Things are much simpler now that I'm back in Alberta. We just appoint a king. The latest controversy here is that King Ralph stated that if he was the farmer who owned the one cow in the province that suffered from 'mad cow' disease, he would have killed it, buried it, and shut up about it.

Long live the King.

If you are actually dissatisfied with all the options in the election, go to the polling place, take a ballot, tell the person who gave it to you, "I refuse my ballot," and hand it back to him or her.

This is a more acceptable way of not voting. Refused ballots are also counted up and reported.

Could somebody kindly point me in the direction of where I kind find information on how the post-season playoff brackets are determined?

http://economics.about.com
Political discussions are always dangerous. So we should keep it light.

If you are actually dissatisfied with all the options in the election, go to the polling place, take a ballot, tell the person who gave it to you, "I refuse my ballot," and hand it back to him or her.

I'd like to take my ballot, walk into the little booth, put the ballot in my pocket, then try casting a ham sandwhich instead of my ballot. Hannah thinks this is a bad idea, mainly because of the jail time involved. :)

If you do sit home and drink your beer I hope you're also content to sit there and not have any resentment for the state of the province.

Do you and my girlfriend read out of the same book? :) That's exactly what she told me last weekend.

My problem is that I live in a riding which is always decided by like 22,000 votes. What do I care if some guy I don't like beats some other guy I don't like by 25,341 votes or 25,342 votes? The first-past-the-post voting system ensures that the votes of about 80% of the voters in the province are absolutely meaningless.

Democracy doesn't end at the ballot box, though. I try to contribute to lobby organizations, either through money or times, in causes I believe in. In University I worked with a few different gay rights organizations, primarily EGALE. If I ever get the time (not posting on here would help a lot) I plan on doing some writing promoting FairVote Canada. I also donate to the [ Reply to This ]

http://economics.about.com
ARRGH! I really need to preview.

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I also donate to the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation whenever I can.

That's how I participate in the democratic process. I personally think it does a lot more good than continue to support a rigged electoral system. So I can stay at home, drink my beer, and not feel guilty in the least. No matter how hard Hannah tries. :)

Cheers,

Mike

What is Towers contract status? I think he was signed by the Jays as a free agent, so would he be a free agent at the end of 2003?

http://economics.about.com
We're also the only ones who want people to actually pay market prices for power. As a sane economist, I know that you will like that idea.

Yep. I've been promoting it since before the blackout and was on several radio stations the first day of the blackout saying that we're going to constantly be running way too close to capacity since rates are not allowed to adjust to market forces. So yeah, I like the idea.

The networks are, right now, trying to keep us out of the leaders' debate (despite two third-place finishes in recent by-elections, including over 12% in the Parry Sound-Muskoka byelection).

Yeah, you guys are getting hosed on that. I figure if you're running pretty close to a full slate of candidates, you should be allowed to participate in the debate. It just goes to show the tyranny of the majority inherent in the current system.

I don't trust the Greens to implement PR (not that it matters anyway). Sure they like it now that it would help them, but if they had a chance to get and maintain power, I think it'd be the first thing they'd throw out. The NDP has promoting PR off-and-on since the mid 1960's and you heard nary a word of it when Rae was in power.

I considered voting for the Green Party, but I probably won't for two reasons:

1. Some of their more "out there" proposals. The idea of voting for the Greens would be that it would scare the mainstream parties into stealing some of their better proposals (like Chretien did with Reform in 1993). However I'd be scared that the Liberals (or whoever) would implement the really bad proposals and not implement PR, power price deregulation, etc.

2. Their close ties to Greenpeace. Given the absolutely wretched labour relations record Greenpeace has (I used to work for them) and the millions they stole in the early 1990's from magazine subscriptions they never sold but never honoured, I don't want anything to do with the Green movement.

If it looks like I won't be satisfied with anyone, it's because I won't be. :) I still might vote for the Freedom party, even with all the Randians [ick!] they've got.

Cheers,

Mike

http://economics.about.com
Err, that should be "that they sold but never honoured"

Mike

http://economics.about.com
Clarification : there may be "close ties" in that some of the members are supporters, but the Party has, as far as I know, no ties to Greenpeace. I'd be horrified if it did... not that I hate Greenpeace, but that's not what we're about at all.

Good point. What I meant was the two have a large overlapping number of members. To my knowledge there are no official ties between the two groups, but you'd know much better than I would. Thanks for the clarification.

Mike

I also donate to the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation whenever I can.

Granted I know nothing about that foundation or much about the American education system, but what I read on their Web site scares the s&it out of me. Public schools can't be a for-profit venture. It's one of those things that people need to agree is important enough that financial losses are worth to produce a competant work-force (I don't speak anymore conservatively than this when it comes to funding education). Vouchers to create "choice" is the biggest crock in the world. There is no private school option for the working class unless they want to take out another mortgage on their house and live on pay cheque from eviction until their kids graduate. What I do know is that schools are rated by universities for admissions purposes, to deprive a public system in favour of a private system is criminal. The families that need the system to be there for them are being failed beyond belief by this and their kids simply don't have the same chance for success. Tax dollars belong in a public system, if you can pay your dues in a public system and still can and want to put your children in a private system then go right ahead but everyone's first obligation is to ensure a publicly funded system.

I am with you both 110% on the Prop. Rep. side of things, first past the polls is preciesly the reason for vote disempowerment. And I agree even that Green is the only party that would ever look seriously at implementing it. But I just don't subscribe to the view that issues are "green and grey", I just can't see it that way and many of their "green and grey" platform planks just don't sit far enough to the left for me. Dave suggested in an email that the NDP is un-electable, I'd agree, but damnit they'll make a great opposition.

Hannah and I had a great cup of coffee together, it was our Mike Moffat Elections Strategy Committee Meeting. We focused on how to get Mike Moffats into voting booths :p

vouchers to create "choice" is the biggest crock in the world. There is no private school option for the working class unless they want to take out another mortgage on their house and live on pay cheque from eviction until their kids graduate.

I believe I am living proof of the opposite. I didn't spend all my school years in private schools, but I did in grades K-3 and 9-12 and also three years in an amazing public school system (Ottawa-Carleton Board of Ed, to whom I owe *a lot* in life). In fact, when I was 13 I think getting out of the horrible Halifax County public school system - honestly - saved my life. At least my future.

I am opposed to tax deductions for private school tuition because I think that's bad tax policy (as well as being ugly and classist). I am in favour of charter schools and the like. Vouchers? Eh, I'm lukewarm to that, but it would have meant that more kids in my position could have afforded a top-notch education. A voucher isn't like a tax deduction... a voucher is money in a pocket.

All in all, I'm just in favour of choice... not "you live on Street X, so you have to go to school Y." My niece and nephews live in a lower-class area, and their school is genuinely awful, and they do not have the option of getting out because I can't afford to pay tuition for them and there's no damn way anyone else in their family can.

In Toronto, where schools have all sorts of money (trust me) and there are loads of good teachers clamoring for jobs, public schooling looks like a sensible option in most areas. It's not like that where I grew up. More choice - and competition between schools - is the right way to go.

The families that need the system to be there for them are being failed beyond belief by this and their kids simply don't have the same chance for success.

If you enable parental choices, then they will.

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Vouchers to create "choice" is the biggest crock in the world. There is no private school option for the working class unless they want to take out another mortgage on their house and live on pay cheque from eviction until their kids graduate.

Some voucher proposals make it illegal for private schools to charge more than the amount of the voucher. So private schooling would be affordable to all under that system, rather than only to the elites like it is now.

Sure most poor parents right now don't have 10K a year to send their kids to a good private school. But they sure as heck don't have 200K to move to a good neighbourhood to go to a good public school. My parents saved up for 17 years so we could move to a good neighbourhood so my sister and I could get a decent education (we moved when I was in Grade 7). That's something I can never repay my parents enough for.

Mike