barry manilow is gay. who knew?

Barry Manilow has come out of the closet. Uh, seriously, is there anyone who thought he was straight? I honestly didn't know it was a secret.

A few other things that are bound to come out soon:

Joe Pesci announces he's Italian

Chuck Schumer? Jewish!

Ken Jeong is Asian.

And Michael Jackson is black.

OK, that one's a little far-fetched.

a meaningless number

You know what annoys me way more than it should?

Statements that refer to an amount -- typically potential savings or prices as "up to <amount or percentage> or more!"

It's on my mind today because I got an advertising flyer in the mail from Liberty Mutual Insurance. They want me to switch my auto insurance. Actually, I'm happy with GEICO, thank you very much. But the following three statements appear in bold:

• Save up to $519.52 or more a year.
• starting with savings of up to $519.52 or more a year.
• On average drivers save up to $519.52 or more a year

The problem is that the statements are essentially meaningless. Because the phrases "up to" and "or more" are included, it doesn't really say anything. The statements could be rewritten with $1,000. Or $10,000. Or $57,873,293.61. It would still be just as true.

I've seen this kind of thing in ads for sales -- "all prices reduced up to 50% or more!" And it always annoys me.

Maybe I need decaf

putting the cart before the horse (addendum to the national security post)

On Saturday I posted my thoughts about a national security forum I attended with Ethan. That post is here. I realize that there was something I wanted to note but forgot to.

Someone on the panel -- I forget who, but I think it was Tom Nichols -- noted one development in policy that is very dangerous for our country. More and more, people (from all points in the political oort cloud) base their opinions about foreign policy issues on partisan considerations on how it will affect particular politicians or political parties.

Put another way, they're putting their "team" ahead of the country.

Now, I don't think Nichols (or whoever it was who made the point) was saying that people consciously think, "Gee, does this hurt or help my party? I'd better take the position that helps." But on a subconscious level, people find all sorts of rationalizations to come to the position that will help their cause. At least that's my interpretation -- maybe I'm just rationalizing so that I can agree with Nichols, a man whom I admire.

At any rate, it's problematic if people are basing decisions on what policy they support based on what politicians they like. They -- we -- should be doing the reverse.

how important is opening day?

Opening day...When every team in the majors has a chance of winning the World Series.

How important, a friend at work asked, is it for a team to win on opening day?

Looking back at the last five seasons, four of five World Series winners had won on opening day. The one exception, the 2012 Giants, lost to Arizona on opening day. For the rest of this post I will assume that that statistic accurately represents the underlying dynamics of the game, and that nothing has changed in those dynamics.

There are thirty teams, and fifteen opening days. Over the past five years there have been 75 winners of opening day games, of which four won the World Series. So winning on opening day means that the probability of winning the World Series is 4/75. By contrast there were 75 losers of opening day games, of which one won the World Series. So losing on opening day means that the probability of winning the World Series is 1/75. Based on that, winning on opening day indicates that your chances are four times as great as losing does. Which, I guess, makes sense based on that four-out-of-five statistic.

Of course, the shortcoming of this analysis (aside from the broad assumption stated in the third paragraph above), is that it reads as if I'm saying that winning is what causes your odds to increase -- an example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. I think a better guess is that winning on opening day is correlated with winning the World Series because both feats are more likely to be achieved by good teams than by bad. Which is not to say that winning on opening day has no positive effect on a team's chances of winning the World Series. All else equal, a team is better off going into game 2 with a 1-0 record than with an 0-1 record. But only slightly.

Now, do you really want to know what game is important? If you want to win the World Series, make sure you win the last game of the postseason.

If anyone has any thoughts on deepening this analysis, I'm all ears...

at a panel discussion on national security

Ethan with Tom Nichols

Ethan and I attended a panel discussion on global security at the NYPL. It was one of six discussions that were part of a program titled "Shades of Red and  Blue: Uniting Our Divided Nation. The idea being to get people who disagree to talk in a civil manner. It was largely successful.

While the goal is laudable, our main purpose was to hear Tom Nichols speak. Nichols is one of Ethan's favorite national security experts -- the others being John Schindler and Kurt Schlichter. Yeah, I know -- some parents' teenagers have favorite rock stars or football teams. My teen has favorite national security experts.

The talk was somewhat wide-ranging, as the panelists made points about FDR acting as the nation's teacher, the changing nature of warfare, and America's changing role in the world.

Nichols made the point -- a couple of times -- that Americans as a whole are ignorant of foreign policy and its complexities. The first time was in response to co-panelist Walter Russell Mead arguing that the American electorate has been remarkably consistent over a period of decades in voting against American involvement overseas. Nichols' response was that they weren't so much voting against involvement as voting on other issues. The last time he made the point was when an audience member began a multi-part question by noting that foreign policy isn't complicated -- it's just an extension of interpersonal relations -- if you're nice to others they'll be nice to you.

If I were a foreign policy expert, I'd have blown a gasket at that. Nichols calmly said that he disagreed, and foreign policy is complicated by the possibility of unintended consequences. I can't speak for him, but I suspect that he relied on considerable restraint.

After the panel discussion, Nichols stayed to talk to (and take pictures with) interested audience members. Listening in, I heard him discussing "fake news." He argued that fake news does represent a threat to our country. But he was clear that "fake news" should not be used as a placeholder for "editorial positions I disagree with."