See... Soccer does matter!

Three researchers just completed a study regarding the affects of World Cup performance on the stock market. The effect is fairly large and likely temporary. What is really odd, however, is that they found that there is only a negative impact (i.e. after a loss) and no corresponding positive impact.

The reason, I suppose, is that losing in the World Cup is generally fatal, whereas winning just means you have another game to play.

What an odd idea

Check out this new service being facilitated by Amazon. It's interesting... and weird... and interesting...

The idea is that there are tasks which are simple for a human but difficult for a computer. These tasks can be farmed out en mass and done cheaply by humans... The current task up on the website is to determine the actual artists name from an album title (I'm not actually sure why that one's hard for a computer... I suppose duplicate album titles is the problem... )

I am a little curious at how fast you could go through them... maybe I'll try tonight ;)

What's wrong with an exit strategy

I was again flummoxed by President Bush the other day. In a speech that was heavily hyped by both sides, he articulated almost the exact same position that his administration has been saying for months. The Iraq war is plugging along and we'll leave when things are done. Democrats are busy screaming because they want something more concrete. Some want an immediate withdrawal. Others want to see the administration lay out goals and objectives with some kind of basic timetable. Republicans are adamantly against the first group and they view the second group as imposing some kind of strict time line for withdrawal.

Why can't we do both? Why can't the administration place a very basic, fuzzy time line on the table so that we can have concrete goals to work towards. There reluctance to do this is probably because they fear a worsening situation. They think that if they say that, "6 months to a year from now we'll have Iraqi militais fully trained," and then they don't meet that goal then there will be a failure that will come back to bite them and people will call for a real withdrawal.

Here's my question then: How long is too long? What length of time... What loss of life is too much? There has to be a line that we can draw. If we stay there 5 years is that too long? If we lose 10,000 men is that too many? There must be a limit.

All of this dovetails in with the war critics. It's my perception of events that there were multiple causes for war. But the one that was the easiest to sell, the one that was the most convincing, was the Weapons of Mass Destruction Argument. Yes, Saddam was an evil dictator. Yes, the world is a better place without him. But everyone realizes that those arguments weren't good enough reasons to go to war. You couldn't sell America, let alone the rest of the world, on the idea of us going in strictly to remove Saddam. I do not think that Bush manufactured data. I don't think he lied. I think he based his sales job on a fact that turned out to not be accurate. I don't think that was intentional at all. I do think that no one considered the possible scenario we're in now. No WMDs. Worse civil discord then was expected. Higher casualty totals then thought. Longer occupation period than anticipated. That lack of foresight is the real problem. That lack of foresight should be the real criticism.

Alito attacked

It's becoming pretty clear the ways in which Alito should be attacked during his confirmation hearings. Unlike Roberts, Alito has a long judicial record. Along with that is a long list of cases in which his reasoning was contrary to a later Supreme Court decision. Included in this list are several in which he opined contrary to Scalia and/or Rehnquist. My opinion is that he places certain portions of the Constitution on a pedastal and mentally relegates other sections to second class status. I'll be tuning into NPR to see the sparks fly. Roberts confirmation was enthralling because of the respect in intelligence in Roberts presentation. Alito's may be enthralling because of the sheer volume of punches and counter-punches...