Yeah, we know, we’re late. We didn’t realize until Wednesday that it was that time of year again, and it took us a while to work up the gumption to do this. Part of the problem, of course, is that this is the column where TMQ mocks the mock drafts. As we’ve said in the past, TMQ thinks this is more amusing than it actually is, and there’s really no reason to go item by item through his attempts at humor.
But we have an obligation to our reader. So we might as well get into it…
“everybody needs everything”. 267 words down.
For a decade, one entry on my mock of mock drafts annually read, “Los Angeles Clippers, projected trade. It makes no difference whom the Clippers draft, and it never will.” As in pick 21 here. Now the Clips have won their division, besting the cost-no-object Lakers. Didn’t see that coming!
8. Buffalo. Andrew Cuomo, governor. Cuomo will have a suite, built at taxpayer expense, in the Bills’ taxpayer-renovated stadium. Former New York Gov. David Paterson dropped his campaign for re-election after it was revealed that he took free World Series tickets. The current governor is forcing New York taxpayers to supply him with an entire free suite. Cuomo’s promise to fix the state’s finances certainly doesn’t apply to Cuomo!
Dear people of New York: why is this man still in office?
The Dolphins’ new helmet emblem looks like the logo for a brand of genetically engineered surimi.
Surimi isn’t a fish, but a combination of fishes chopped up and pressed into fish-like objects (sort of Fish McNuggets), so “genetically engineered surimi” is a nonsense term.
24. Indianapolis. Mitch Daniels, president, Purdue University. When the former Indiana governor and White House official took over the school in January, he promised two years without tuition hikes — then froze administrators’ pay, including his own, to free up funds for faculty. Purdue “will accommodate spending to our students’ budgets, not the other way around,” Daniels said. Why is this sense of public spirit missing from so much of higher academia?
No snark here: this is a good story, and one we had not heard previously.
25. Washington Wizards (from Vikings, projected trade). It makes absolutely no difference whom the Wizards draft, and it never will.
Guess we have an answer to that question. Look for the Wizards to do well in the playoffs next year.
The next delightful series coming straight to broadband looks like “Alpha House,” whose pilot can be watched free on Amazon.
Actually, this is one of eight pilots that Amazon has put up and asked folks for feedback on. It may make it to series, but it is not as certain to win out as TMQ would have you believe.
Steve Alford is a weasel. So is Andy Enfield. Mike Rice isn’t a weasel, just an a–hole, so what’s he doing here?
The academic part of Rutgers has been doing well, while the Rutgers athletic department produces embarrassment after embarrassment. And the board of trustees does nothing. Could this be because Rutgers has such a large board — surely many of them named for reasons of political cronyism — that the trustees are for intents and purposes useless? Eighty-eight trustees is a nonsensical total; compare to 46 trustees at nearby, similarly sized, similarly funded Penn State.
For the record, the entire University of Texas system is run by the Board of Regents, which has ten members.
“Justified” is unrealistic. Stop the f’ing presses. “Of course time sense and travel distance often are distorted on television.” We swear to God, we are going to look up Easterbrook’s address and send him some William Goldman books on screenwriting. Of course, you can lead a Brookings Institute scholar to knowledge, but you can’t make him think.
TMQ’s “Absurd Specificity Watch” has some valid points, but they’re mixed in with some stupid stuff.
Maryland just raised its state income tax rate to 8.95 percent. It’s certainly not 9 percent! Medicare taxes are rising this year by 0.9 percent for many filers to help finance ObamaCare. It’s certainly not a 1 percent increase!
If TMQ’s point is that 8.95 percent is absurdly specific, we disagree. This is a figure set by law, so of course it is going to be specific. If his point is that the legislators are trying to fool voters by making the tax rate 8.95 percent instead of 9 percent, well, TMQ, welcome to .95 cent pricing.
Reader Brad Kasavana of Grand Rapids, Mich., notes a Babe Ruth jersey sold at auction for $4,415,658.This suggests there was someone at the auction willing to pay $4,415,657 but who said, “Go to $4,415,659? Whoa, I am out.”
We spent a lot of time last night trying to confirm this, and couldn’t, but we suspect that $4,415,658 includes the bidder’s premium paid to the auction house, which is figured as a percentage of the final auction price. Prices, in general, are specific; if the winning bidder tried to give the auction house $4,415,650, does TMQ think they’d take it?
The New Yorker ran this unsettling story, by Rachel Aviv, on whether people should be imprisoned solely because a psychologist’s report concludes they might commit a future crime. Aviv writes of one case, “The prosecution’s expert, Amy Phenix, a forensic psychologist who makes her living testifying at civil-commitment hearings” said a prisoner should be kept in jail because he had “roughly a 24.7 percent chance of reoffending within five years.” There seems no possibility human nature can be understood to this precision. But set that aside — any supposed “expert” who foresees “roughly a 24.7 percent chance” is a quack.
We haven’t had a chance to read that New Yorker article yet, though we plan to. We wonder how this debate fits in with the background check debate; we already have people who want to deny gun purchases to individuals on the notoriously inaccurate “Terrorist Watch List”. Do want to extend this and allow denials to people “because a psychologist’s report concludes they might commit a future crime” if those reports are inaccurate?
That’s a wrap for this week. Tune in next week, and we’ll try to to get the column up on Tuesday.
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