Althouse: At the Tiny Rectangle Café...

March 25, 2014

At the Tiny Rectangle Café...

... you can see right through.

15 comments:

David said...: A little square.

Althouse commenters.; 3/25/14, 8:23 PM
hawkeyedjb said...: Zero Population Growth means lots of abandoned houses.; 3/25/14, 8:26 PM
Ann Althouse said...: I don't go near the edge. It may look like it, but I'm nowhere at all dangerous, and I have the fear of heights too. But I still love mountains a lot.; 3/25/14, 8:26 PM
David said...: hawkeyedjb said...
Zero Population Growth means lots of abandoned houses.

But enough about Detroit.; 3/25/14, 8:40 PM
kjbe said...: My husband also suffers from what most call a fear of heights - he's refined that and calls it a fear of falling.; 3/25/14, 8:42 PM
Hagar said...: A cafe post!

With all the conflicting statements of the last two weeks and having heard no real explanation of the technology behind the determination of Flight MH370's probable endpoint, I consider "all options still on the table" until some positively identifiable wreckage is found.

I do not understand Putin's actions re the Ukraine and Crimea, since it looks stupid to me, and that is one thing Putin isn't.
All he had to do was to sit quiet and make sympathetic noises, and the Crimeans would have done it all for him themselves, and no one could really complain much, since they certainly have as much right to self-determination as, say Puerto Rico, does.
So why the rough stuff? It is worse than bad; it is stupid.

But perhaps his sense of grievance and paranoia about encirclement got too much for him, or perhaps it is the company he keeps, and they have more influence than we have realized. Either way, this is not good.

Nor is President Obama going out of his way to refer to the Russian Federation as a "regional power" and not much for him to worry about. This was needless, and it might well provoke a reaction of "Oh, yeah? We will give you something to worry about then, and see how you like it!"

Somehing needs to be done about Putin's ambitions all right, but it needs to be effective and long range. This kindergarten tit for tat is not going to cut it.; 3/25/14, 8:53 PM
Henry said...: I think 538 is gaining ground. Everyone's talking about Nate Silver's electoral projections. And 538 finally published a long-form sports article that actually breaks ground.

This one, The Hidden Value of the NBA Steal.

Key quote:

By this measure, [John Hollinger's Player Efficiency Rating] vastly undervalues steals. Because steals and baskets seem to be similarly valuable, and there are so many more baskets than steals in a game, it’s hard to see how steals can be all that important. But those steals hold additional value when we predict the impact of the players who get them. A lot more value. So much so that a player’s steals per game is more important to evaluating his worth than his ability to score points...

This is actual groundbreaking stuff. John Hollinger is the granddaddy of NBA stat analysis and 538's Benjamin Morris undercuts his entire set of assumptions.

The other telling thing about this article is that the comments are very informed. 538's short-form bloggish posts have been utterly disappointing -- a dollop of numerical nonsense for a non-existent middlebrow mass market. If they can let the wonks loose, they might get somewhere.; 3/25/14, 8:55 PM
Richard Dolan said...: The tiny rectangle.

It's a new/old idea for staging das Rheingold, where that last chink has to be filled with the magic ring. A powerful portent of impending doom, whether Althouse intended it or not.; 3/25/14, 9:00 PM
SteveR said...: Tiny compared to what?; 3/25/14, 9:31 PM
L Day said...: A healthy and reasonable fear of heights helped keep me alive as I played on the heights for many years. Fear can keep us honest or it can paralyze us.; 3/25/14, 9:57 PM
traditionalguy said...: Heads up...The NCAA Wrestling finals are on ESPNU right now, and well worth watching.

The camera angles and professional announcers are great this year.

Lonnie Stieber of Ohio State dominated the 141 lbs class with beautiful skills. The man knows what he is doing.

The best wrestlers to watch are from 138 to 158 lbs matches that have quickness, balance and mental toughness not seen in the heavier guys.; 3/25/14, 10:34 PM
madAsHell said...: I could never stand on the edge of a mountain...I hate heights...

West Virginia? Really?
I am moderately acrophobic. I can still ride a chair lift up a ski run.

I would rather catch 9mm in the back of my throat, then watch the earth come up to meet me.; 3/25/14, 10:55 PM
Larry J said...: mrs. e said...
My husband also suffers from what most call a fear of heights - he's refined that and calls it a fear of falling.

As an old former paratrooper, I can say with certainty that there's absolutely no reason to fear falling. Falling never hurt anyone. You can fall for miles without getting hurt. It's that sudden stop at the end of the fall that kills you.; 3/26/14, 8:45 AM
Gahrie said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/27/14, 2:28 AM
Gahrie said...: 1790 – 2001 (every president before Bush 43) 212 years 5.728 trillion in debt

2001 – 2007 (Bush 43 with a Republican Congress) 6 years 8.675 trillion in debt. (added 2.947 trillion is six years, or about 1/2 trillion a year)

2008 – 2009 (Bush 43 with a Democratic Congress) 2 years 10.627 Trillion in debt (added 1.952 trillion in 2 years, or about a trillion a year)

2010 – 2011 (President Obama and a Democratic Congress) 2 years 14.056 trillion in debt (added 3.5 trillion in 2 years or 1.75 trillion a year)

2011- today (President Obama and a divided Congress) 3+ years 17.544 trillion in debt (added 3.5 trillion in 3+ years or more than a trillion a year)

* In the last 13 years we have more than tripled our national debt. We will probably quadruple it by the end of Obama's presidency.

We are currently paying more than $360 Billion in interest every year on the debt, and that is with historically low interest rates. When/if interest rates return to the historical norm, this number will at least double; 3/27/14, 2:30 AM