This Might Explain Isiah Thomas' Reign of Terror with the Knicks

As the Lord of Truth notes, this means the Mets and Rangers aren't the only things that suck in New York...

A fireball created in a US particle accelerator has the characteristics of a black hole, a physicist has said.

It was generated at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in New York, US, which smashes beams of gold nuclei together at near light speeds.

Horatiu Nastase says his calculations show that the core of the fireball has a striking similarity to a black hole.

His work has been published on the pre-print website arxiv.org and is reported in New Scientist magazine.

You know all those physics classes you found boring? If you'd have listened, you could have a job creating black holes. What a shame.

The Face of True Evil

God, people like this are why I love the Internet. An entire website devoted to documenting the evil that is Starbucks. If there was any justice in the world, this guy would be nominated for a Nobel Prize.

Not that I care about locally-owned coffee shops or the exploitation of third-world people to make coffee. But I just think Starbucks is trying to take over the world, one latte at a time, and I'm one of the few non-coffee drinkers left on the planet, fighting the growing legions of coffee drinkers armed with those stupid cups with that idiotic logo on them. I'm betting there's some kind of mind-control drug within their products to get people addicted. Of course, now that I've revealed their secret, they'll have me killed. Just like when they killed JFK.

More Opportunities for Bad Puns, Courtesy of the Left

John Ashcroft couldn't stop the editor of Playgirl from working on her magazine, but her party affiliation apparently did...

PLAYGIRL editor-in-chief Michele Zipp has been stripped of her duties after she revealed how she voted Republican in the 2004 election.

Zipp, in an e-mail, claims she was fired after an onslaught of liberal backlash.

What a naked case of the left's hypocritical claims about tolerance. It's just obscene.

War Protestors -- What Are They Good For?

The anti-war folks are still out there? Guess so...

Nearly 100 demonstrators lined the streets near Centennial Park yesterday holding homemade signs that promoted peace and decried war at a rally marking the second anniversary of the Iraq war.

Some held children as they stood, while others tightened the leashes of their barking dogs. Frequently, drivers passing by honked horns in support of the protest, holding up two fingers in the peace sign.

''What we call for is to bring the troops home,'' said Matt Leber, coordinator of Nashville Peace & Justice Center, ''and the United Nations takes the lead. So the United States would not be the primary decision maker but primarily fund the rebuilding of Iraq.''

Numerous protesters interviewed at yesterday's event believe there is no need for the war and feel the money could be better spent on other programs.

No need for the war, yet we'd keep funding the rebuilding, to be managed by the U.N., an agency with as much corruption and mismanagement as Enron. Makes sense to me, but how does that give us money for other programs?

Social Security -- The Tide is Turning

Interesting polling news on Social Security reform and personal accounts, coming from RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, as reported by Rich Lowry at The Corner...

Support for Personal Retirement Accounts has increased. According to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, fifty-six percent (56%) of Americans support allowing workers to invest some of their Social Security contributions in the stock market, while 41% oppose such an idea. The number of Americans who support PRAs has increased by a net of 6% since last December, when 53% supported the plan and 44% opposed it. This is the highest level of support for PRAs since the Post first asked the question in 2000.

Those eligible for Personal Retirement Accounts see benefits from them. According to a recent Pew poll, among those eligible for Personal Retirement Accounts, 56% believe investment would bring higher benefits; just 12% predict lower benefits and 55% would invest if given choice.

Once PRAs are explained, a majority of Americans support them. According to the Democracy Corps poll, 40% of Americans support PRAs before they are explained, while 51% oppose them. However, after a plan for voluntary personal retirement accounts is explained, support rises to 54%, while 45% remain opposed.

Let's keep explaining, folks. The Left seems to think the battle is over, as evidenced by Jacob Weisberg's column at Slate. I think the Left hopes that by acting like they've won, people might believe it. Of course, they also thought John Kerry was electable about this time last year. Jim Geraghty makes a strong point...

It seems lately that a lot of folks on the left and in the anti-reform camp are declaring loudly, "Fight's over, we win!" Bush and the pro-reform forces are in a long-term game to shift public attitudes — and to portray (or reinforce?) the Democrats as the all-opposition, no-ideas party of cranky naysayers.

The only real deadline Bush faces on this is Jan. 20, 2009 (although he obviously would love to get a substantive proposal passed before the midterm elections). There may not be enough public support for a serious Social Security reform plan... today. But the outlook for Bush's tax cuts, education reform, the establishment of the Homeland Security Department, Medicare prescription drug benefit, tort reform and other proposals looked dire at times, too.

Of course, there's always the idea that Social Security privitization already took place, as evidenced here. I'm going to Las Vegas to investigate the matter.

Man's Eternal Quest

The Woj sends us a tragic story of a man who died in search of a beer...

Prosecutors are investigating the death of a man who was subdued by several fellow airline passengers after he became disruptive on a New York-bound flight, a spokesman said Sunday.

William Lee was pronounced dead late Friday after he was removed from the American Airlines flight at Kennedy International Airport. The cause of death had not yet been determined and was under investigation.

Lee, 48, of New York, stood up in his seat on American's Flight 4 from Los Angeles and "loudly demanded another beer," airline spokesman Tim Smith said.

Flight attendants asked him to wait until they reached his row, Smith said, but the man "got very, very belligerent and loud and disruptive and was told he would not be served any more alcohol."

The purser tried to calm him down, but he pushed her aside to get to the aisle, the spokesman said.

Seven other male passengers restrained Lee, who was a large man, and they and the flight crew put flexible handcuffs on him and put him back in his seat, Smith said.

Lee got out of his seat again and the seven passengers held him on his back on the galley floor until the plane landed, Smith said. He said he had heard reports the men were members of a rugby team but said he couldn't yet confirm that.

I'm thinking that I will be much quieter on my trip to Vegas.

The NCAA Opening Weekend Update

Well, the first weekend of the tournament is over, and we’re sure of only thing: Billy Packer is still an annoying twit.

Speaking of which, we’re actually shocked to report that there are things that made us almost as ill as listening to the aforementioned Mr. Packer this weekend. First, let’s all bask in the weekend that was – the true feast of college basketball that features 48 games in 4 days, not counting the NIT (which doesn’t count anyway). It’s truly a wonderful weekend when any of the following 16 (in honor of the 16 remaining teams) things occur:

1. Bobby Knight reaches the Sweet Sixteen for the first time in a dozen years, allowing us to potentially see a chair tossed, a player choked or a screaming fit worthy of Howard Dean.

2. Kentucky starts a guard with the delightful name of Rajon Rando, which is close enough to our own nickname to merit inclusion on our annual Cherokee Parks Memorial All-Name Team (no, Parks is not dead – but when’s the last time you heard from him?). The other members include Vermont's Germain Mopa Njila (a certain Hall of Famer for this category) and Taylor Coppenrath, Arizona’s Channing Frye, Georgia Tech’s Jarrett Jack, Louisville’s Taquan Dean, Wake Forest’s Vytas Danelius, Pitt’s Chevon Troutman, St. Mary’s Daniel Kickert, LSU’s Tack Minor, West Virginia’s Kevin Pittsnogle, UAB’s DeMario Eddins, GW’s Pops Mensah-Bonsu, UCLA’s Dijon Thompson, Old Dominion’s Arnaud Dahi, N.C. State’s Engin Atsur, Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Boo Davis, Alabama A&M’s Obie Trotter, Delaware State’s Jahsha Bluntt, Pacific’s Guillaume Yango and the unforgettable JamesOn Curry of Oklahoma State.

3. In case you’re wondering, the criteria for selection to the Cherokee Parks Memorial All-Name Team is rather simple – do I want to name my son after any of these people? If the answer is yes, the name’s appearing on the list. At this point, I’m planning to name my son RajOn Yango Njila Pai, to be nicknamed “Tack”, which is yet another reason my fiancée is reconsidering the entire wedding idea.

4. Congress doesn’t waste taxpayer money by having a hearing to berate baseball for its spineless conduct regarding steroids. Okay, they did that, but we have to admit that watching highlights of this was better than 95% of reality TV on the networks. We know, that’s not saying much.

5. I get beaten about the head with promos for a CBS movie called “Spring Break: Shark Attack.” Okay, it’s not that wonderful, except that CBS kept promoting it as starring “The O.C’s Shannon Lucio!” This would have been like promoting a mini-series during the late 1970’s as starring “Happy Days' Donny Most!”

6. The evil UConn Huskies are eliminated from the tournament. Look, it’s a Big East thing – we all hate Syracuse, but the incessant UConn praise from ESPN (which is located close to Storrs) gets tiresome, especially after they won a title last year. It’s Connecticut – a state whose basic function is to serve as an interstate highway between more interesting locales. At least New Jersey gets it. Plus, the present-day Huskies may be the ugliest team in America. This is America – we don’t want ugly people on TV (which is one of the many reasons I’m not on TV).

7. The Florida Gators disappear during the first weekend. We’re pretty sure spring can’t start until the Gators lose in the tourney.

8. Some Cinderella team no one has ever heard of makes a run. This year’s entry into the Cinderella pantheon is the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which ripped Alabama and held off Boston College in the space of three days, which of course guarantees that head coach Bruce Pearl is receiving job offers from other schools when he goes to pick up the paper at the end of his driveway this week. Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s other prize is a date with No. 1 Illinois in Chicago. We hope they enjoy Michigan Avenue.

9. The #1 seeds prove the tournament committee correct by stomping into the Sweet Sixteen. With the exception of Duke, the #1 seeds won its games by an average margin of 467 points. Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration, but UNC, Duke, Illinois and everyone’s whipping boy Washington are into the Sweet Sixteen, while powers like Wake Forest, UConn, Syracuse and Kansas are sitting at home.

10. We’re guaranteed at least one game for the next weekend where we hate both teams. See Duke and Michigan State. Can we get them to play nine or ten overtimes?

11. Speaking of overtimes, we got two doozies this weekend. First Syracuse and Vermont on Friday night, a game where the Catamounts knocked out a popular Final Four pick with 25 points from the aforementioned Germain Mopa Njila (we love typing that name). This would be the game of the tournament, if not for the unbelievable Wake Forest-West Virginia marathon that slipped into a second overtime and featured everything from sheer brilliance (Chris Paul, Mike Gansey, Tyrone Sally and Taron Downey) to utter stupidity (Wake coach Skip Prosser). The two teams combined for 216 points and seemed ready to play long enough to foul out everybody until both teams would be playing three-on-three.

12. Two teams from Wisconsin make the Sweet 16, but none from hoops hotbeds like California, New York or Indiana. In fact, no teams from Indiana even made the tournament this year, the first time since the early 1970’s that’s happened. Good thing they re-released Hoosiers on DVD.

13. Our biggest pet peeve re-appears: players calling timeout as they fall out of bounds. This aggravates yours truly to no end. It cost Gonzaga a chance to tie their game with Texas Tech, and we know we saw an absurd case of it at the end of the first half between Cincinnati and Kentucky Saturday night. The pros don’t allow this, do they? Of course, no one in the NBA hustles enough to get the ball before it goes out of bounds, but that’s beside the point. And we'd complain about atrocious refereeing, but that's almost as much a March staple as crowd shots of Coach K's wife.

14. On the 20th anniversary of the greatest upset in NCAA history, my alma mater makes its first appearance in the Sweet 16 in 17 years. Villanova fans now get to spend the week basking in the limelight and talking bravely about what we will do against North Carolina. And before you start laughing… wait, you probably should laugh. But never count out the Wildcats. Someone ask Georgetown’s 1985 squad.

15. My beautiful fiancée agrees to score the pool sheets, allowing me to work on this recap. Hey, we get requests from some of you for this thing. Granted, you’re being sarcastic, but we can’t disappoint the public.

16. We get to listen to the wonderful voice of the sublime Bill Raftery. Please, can someone kidnap Packer for the title game so we can listen to Raftery? There’s nothing better than hearing Raf intone “With the kisssss!”

Stay tuned for next week's action, when I report on what it feels like to gamble money on your alma mater legally and actually believe they have a chance to spring an upset.

More on Social Security

There's much more on the Social Security debate. The Lord of Truth sent me this article earlier this week, where Brandon Miniter of the Wall Street Journal reviewed his Social Security statement and realized that it made the case for reform all by its lonesome...

Looking over the letter, however, it became clear that there is a fundamental flaw in the arrangement. Although, I've already paid enough into the system to "qualify" for benefits, not a penny of that money is likely to be counted in determining the size of my retirement benefits. What's more, whatever I pay over the next two years probably won't count either. The problem here is that I am only 30 years old. Social Security counts only a worker's top 35 wage-earning years when determining benefits. And since the government considers 67 to be my "full retirement age," assuming a steady climb of income, I'm still two years away from starting to accrue the credit that will determine the size of my monthly Social Security check. In other words, the system is exactly the inverse of what we've all been told to do in planning for our retirement. Those who work hard and put money into the system early in life, get the same as those who start paying in later on. And as a proportion of what they've paid in, the early-contributing ants actually get less than their grasshopper peers.

Those who defend the current system are always quick to point out that Social Security isn't supposed to be a pension, but rather an insurance policy that takes care of the disabled as well as providing a retirement benefit. But here too, the system is skewed against those who pay in early. According to the letter I recently received, if I become disabled my monthly checks will be about $250 larger (in today's dollars) than they will be if I take early retirement at 62. And although there's no credit for early work, those who work a few years after their full retirement age get credit for the "extra" money they pay in. If I retire at 70, my monthly checks will be about $800 larger than they would be if I was to take early retirement and $400 more than if I call it quits at 67.

I think that hit both the Lord and myself the same way -- we're both 30 years old, yet neither of us is writing for the Journal. Seriously, take a look at those numbers and try to make the case that this program is a good idea -- you can't. The basic argument for Social Security in its present form seems to be "But we've always done it this way!"

Better yet, the way we've always done it seems to be pretty stupid as well. Here's a short excerpt from an excellent piece by Alan Reynolds in last week's National Review...

The population aged 65 or older will increase from 37 million today to 75 million in 2035, when their average life expectancy will be 85. Because future beneficiaries will live longer, they will receive more benefits over their lifetimes. Meanwhile, the number of younger workers who pay for these retirees will barely rise. Economists Jagadeesh Gokhale and Kent Smetters note that today, “there are almost five people of working age (between 20 and 64) for each retiree age 65 and over. By 2030, the number of working-age people per retiree will decline to less than three; by 2080, the ratio will decline to about two.” Any burden shared by half as many taxpayers must, as a matter of simple arithmetic, become twice as heavy.

This demographic time bomb has been compounded by an arbitrary “wage indexing” formula. The level of benefits when people first start collecting Social Security happened, in the late 1970s, to be indexed to average growth of real wages rather than simply adjusted for inflation (as many experts proposed). As a result, benefits for new retirees become more generous by about 1 percent each year in real terms, which adds up fast. “The purchasing power of the average earner’s benefits at retirement is expected to nearly double between now and 2075,” notes the Congressional Budget Office, with the result that “45 percent of the rise in spending is due to a projected increase in the real value of Social Security benefit checks.” As long as initial benefits are indexed the way they are, faster economic growth will not help much — because it would result in faster wage growth and therefore larger Social Security benefits.

The reason future taxpayers cannot and will not pay rising real benefits to twice as many seniors is basic economics. Nobel laureate Edward Prescott found that lower income, payroll, and sales taxes fully explain why Americans work so much harder and longer than Europeans. In economic jargon, lifetime work effort is highly “elastic” (responsive) with respect to tax rates. “The large labor-supply elasticity,” Prescott concludes, “means that as populations age, promises of payments to the current and future old cannot be financed by increasing tax rates. These promises can be honored by reducing the effective marginal tax rate on labor and moving toward [different] retirement systems. . . . Requiring people to save for their retirement years [in personal accounts] is not a tax and does not reduce labor supply.”

So basically, we will have a system that doesn't provide enough money for retirement and provides disincentives to work. Yeah, that makes sense for a government program. Does anyone know why we have this program?

Ummmmm.... Give Me a Donut

Time to re-think that low-sugar Cinnamon Toast Crunch...

Could this be the end of cereal aisle showdowns between parents and sweet-toothed tots? New reduced-sugar versions of popular children's breakfast cereals — everything from Froot Loops to Frosted Flakes — certainly sound promising, but consumers might want to hold off chiming in when Tony the Tiger says, "They're Gr-r-reat!"

Experts who reviewed the lower-sugar versions of six major brands of sweetened cereals at the request of The Associated Press found they have no significant nutritional advantages over their full-sugar counterparts.

Nutrition scientists at five universities found that while the new cereals do have less sugar, the calories, carbohydrates, fat, fiber and other nutrients are almost identical to the full-sugar cereals. That's because the cereal makers have replaced sugar with refined carbohydrates to preserve the crunch.

Officials at General Mills, Kellogg's and Post were unable to explain why the new cereals are a better choice, but noted they give consumers more options about how much sugar they eat.

So apparently these cereals taste worse and offer no significant nutritional benefit. I'm glad they explained that in detail.

Jokes aside, I'm tired of people painting the food industry as some evil monolith that forces parents to buy sugary stuff for the little ones. Is parenting a tough job? Absolutely. And I wish there were more healthy options out there. But kids eat sugar because it tastes good. Parents are capable of imposing the necessary discipline on their kids -- mine did, even with both of them working. It's tough, but that's the job.

What Liberal Media?

You have got to be kidding me. Editor & Publisher reports that the AP now plans to offer its member services a choice between "straight" news dispatches that report the facts and more "creative" dispatches...

"The concept is simple: On major spot stories -- especially when events happen early in the day -- we will provide you with two versions to choose between," the AP said in an advisory to members. "One will be the traditional 'straight lead' that leads with the main facts of what took place. The other will be the 'optional,' an alternative approach that attempts to draw in the reader through imagery, narrative devices, perspective or other creative means."

The advisory added that the change is an attempt to "enhance the value of the AP news report to your newspaper." The AP serves about 1,700 members.

..."This is not an attempt to turn a hard news story into a feature," the advisory said. "We will still present the main facts of what happened in the top few grafs of the optional. Following the alternative lead, the story will typically pick up into the body of the traditional lead."

...An example of the differing leads:

Traditional

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) A suicide attacker set off a bomb that tore through a funeral tent jammed with Shiite mourners Thursday, splattering blood and body parts over rows of overturned white plastic chairs. The attack, which killed 47 and wounded more than 100, came as Shiite and Kurdish politicians in Baghdad said they overcame a major stumbling block to forming a new coalition government.

Optional

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) Yet again, almost as if scripted, a day of hope for a new, democratic Iraq turned into a day of tears as a bloody insurgent attack undercut a political step forward.

On Thursday, just as Shiite and Kurdish politicians in Baghdad were telling reporters that they overcame a major stumbling block to forming a new coalition government, a suicide attacker set off a bomb that tore through a funeral tent jammed with Shiite mourners in the northern city of Mosul.

The example above is one display of why no one believes the "no liberal bias" claims from press outlets in the mainstream media. What's more surprising is that this is news -- I think most Americans relaize that the press slants news in favor of liberal clauses and against conservative one But it's nice to know the press will soon admit they're in the tank for liberals. We may have hope for detante yet.