Russ Roberts, host of EconTalk, on current times at his blog Cafe Hayek:

Good politics requires action, constant proof that the politician is working tirelessly.

Good economics requires quiet consistency so people can plan for the future.

The times we live in are the greatest example in my lifetime of the tension between these two goals.

 

 

 

 

An interview with Pat Lawlor, pinball creator of the Addams Family and others.

Few people have defined the modern era of pinball like Pat Lawlor has. In the late 1980s, he emerged as a leading designer in the industry with innovative Williams titles like Earthshaker and Whirlwind.

In 1990, Lawlor and Larry DeMar hit it big with FunHouse, a pinball game in which an animatronic head named Rudy taunted players and dominated the playfield. Lawlor and DeMar went on to create The Addams Family for Bally and watched as it became the best-selling pinball machine in history.

Rickey Henderson will be elected into the Hall of Fame this year. I found this list of the 25 Best Rickey Henderson Stories.

He called San Diego GM Kevin Towers and left the following message: “This is Rickey calling on behalf of Rickey. Rickey wants to play baseball.”

A reporter once asked Rickey if he talked to himself, “Do I talk to myself? No, I just remind myself of what I’m trying to do. You know, I never answer myself so how can I be talking to myself?”

A lovely weekend holiday. I must remember not to book a late Monday return after four nights of self-abuse. Especially on a short roll.

Congratulations to Princess, long may you reign.

Thanks to JC for coming down and sharing a dorm.  Glad to spend some time hanging out.  See you soon.

It was great to see all the folks.

Good read here by one of my favorite writers. Michael Lewis  The End

That’s when Eisman finally got it. Here he’d been making these side bets with Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank on the fate of the BBB tranche without fully understanding why those firms were so eager to make the bets. Now he saw. There weren’t enough Americans with shitty credit taking out loans to satisfy investors’ appetite for the end product. The firms used Eisman’s bet to synthesize more of them. Here, then, was the difference between fantasy finance and fantasy football: When a fantasy player drafts Peyton Manning, he doesn’t create a second Peyton Manning to inflate the league’s stats. But when Eisman bought a credit-default swap, he enabled Deutsche Bank to create another bond identical in every respect but one to the original. The only difference was that there was no actual homebuyer or borrower. The only assets backing the bonds were the side bets Eisman and others made with firms like Goldman Sachs. Eisman, in effect, was paying to Goldman the interest on a subprime mortgage. In fact, there was no mortgage at all. “They weren’t satisfied getting lots of unqualified borrowers to borrow money to buy a house they couldn’t afford,” Eisman says. “They were creating them out of whole cloth. One hundred times over! That’s why the losses are so much greater than the loans. But that’s when I realized they needed us to keep the machine running. I was like, This is allowed?”

In a recent column, Bill Simmons mentioned his picks for best sports pieces ever written.  The Millions Blog has collected several links, and I'm enjoying reading these classics. 

David Foster Wallace was found dead in his home on Friday.  Wallace covered McCain's 2000 presidential campaign for Rolling Stone. 

Excerpt:

It's hard to get good answers to why Young Voters are so uninterested in politics. This is probably because it's next to impossible to get someone to think hard about why he's not interested in something. The boredom itself preempts inquiry; the fact of the feeling's enough. Surely one reason, though, is that politics is not cool. Or say rather that cool, interesting, alive people do not seem to be the ones who are drawn to the Political Process. Think back to the sort of kids in high school or college who were into running for student office: dweeby, overgroomed, obsequious to authority, ambitious in a sad way. Eager to play the Game. The kind of kids other kids would want to beat up if it didn't seem so pointless and dull. And now consider some of 2000's adult versions of these very same kids: Al Gore, best described by CNN sound tech Mark A. as "amazingly lifelike"; Steve Forbes, with his wet forehead and loony giggle; G.W. Bush's patrician smirk and mangled cant; even Clinton himself with his big red fake-friendly face and "I feel your pain." Men who aren't enough like human beings even to dislike — what one feels when they loom into view is just an overwhelming lack of interest, the sort of deep disengagement that is so often a defense against pain. Against sadness. In fact the likeliest reason why so many of us care so little about politics is that modern politicians make us sad, hurt us in ways that are hard even to name, much less to talk about. It's way easier to roll your eyes and not give a shit. You probably don't want to hear about all this, even.

Get your game on over at Fantasy Sports Live where every week you can pick a new team!  In addition to daily contests, they are running some cool promotions, including Sundays with Dr. Pauly.

Missing years in Bernann McKinney's strange journey from Mormon sex case to clones called Booger

The Boston Phoenix has posted a listing of the best bands, new acts and solo acts from each of the 50 states.

Joe Posnanski writes about sports at the Kansas City Star.  He recently wrote about Tiger on his blog. 

All I know about Tiger Woods can be summed up in about seven words: “I knew he would make that putt.”

I like this blurb in his mini-bio:

Joe is currently at work on a book about the 1975 Cincinnati Reds tentatively called “The Machine.” Well, no, he’s CURRENTLY at work writing some stupid blog post about the old game show Passworld Plus or Pam Dawber or he’s creating some stupid baseball statistic. But he SHOULD be working on the book.

Gratz to Iggy and LJ for winning seats to the Main Event!

Fascinating chart at NYT that links diseases to the genes they have in common.

I was going through old links and found a comic worthy of my attention: Basic Instructions  Enjoy!  

I will be joining some friends in Vegas June 6-9.  I see that there is a NL shootout tournament downtown at Binion's on Saturday.  This becomes a candidate for any possible "serious" tournament venture.  I suspect the trip will feature very little in the way of seriousness, but youneverknow ...

Tyler took 5th and won over 55K.  He was "disappointed, but very happy".

My close friend Tyler is chip leader of the final table at River Rock for the inaugural WPT Canada .  Play begins at 6 pm Pacific today (Sunday).  Good luck!

WSJ interview with Leonard Mlodinow discussing the role of randomness in our lives.

Excerpt:

Mr. Mlodinow: I believe there is true expertise in some endeavors, and not in others. There is obviously no such thing as expertise in predicting the results of coin tosses, but there is expertise in predicting the behavior of lasers. I feel that picking stocks or predicting Hollywood hits is more like the former. The process of building a company or making a film is more like the latter.
But there is a related question: Given that we are discussing an endeavor in which it is possible, how can you tell if someone has expertise? That is hard, because expertise plus bad luck can equal a failure, and lack of expertise plus good luck can equal success. The only way to tell the two apart is to observe the individual over a long time, which in statistics often means 100 or even 1,000 trials. This is obviously often not possible, so I recommend instead that we judge people by a thoughtful analysis of their intelligence, philosophy, work ethic, etc., rather than simply by their results.

Phil Gordon

Here's a question & answer column from the angular Phil Gordon.

Excerpt:

Q: Is Phil Hellmuth really as unpleasant as he seems? Conversely, who are the top pros that are regarded as being the most fun to play with — not necessarily the ones you can clean up on, just the ones that you’d have a good time with? (I’m guessing Negreanu is at the top of this list.)

A: Hellmuth isn’t as bad in real life as he appears on T.V. I really like him. He’s a great family man, does lots of work for charity, and has a kind heart.

Unfortunately, he comes across like a complete a–hole on television. But, it’s great for ratings.

I really like playing at the table with Phil Laak, Antonio Esfandiari, and David Grey — they have excellent stories and are very entertaining. As for Negreanu — things aren’t always the way they appear on television.