Matthew Yglesias

Icelandic Butter

It sounds stupid, but I saw in Whole Foods today that they're now selling Icelandic butter so I thought I would let people know that, in my opinion at least, they have really, really tasty butter in Iceland. It's good stuff. Try some.

More Greatness

He may not be the best quarterback, but it seems that Ryan Fitpatrick, conforming to stereotype, is the smartest quarterback in the NFL:

Until Sunday, Ryan Fitzpatrick's claim to fame was that he is the second player in NFL history to register a perfect score of 50 on the Wonderlic test – the intelligence test administered by NFL teams at the combine before the draft each season. . . .

Not impressed? First, Fitz finished his test in nine minutes, rather than the alotted 12. Second, according to the same report on NFL.com, the average score in the United States (the test is commonly administered to prospective employees in industries of all kinds) is 22. The average chemist scores a 31, the run-of-the-mill custodian registers a 14, and NFL players come in at about 21, on average.

It's worth noting that, contrary to the "dumb jock" stereotype, professional football players are of roughly average intelligence. At any given college the atheletes are going to be less smart than the non-athletes, but compared to the population as a whole there's no difference.

Greatness

I usually stick to basketball here, but it looks like the Colts have a very realistic chance of going undefeated, no? That would really be something. I look forward to torturing the young people of 2047 with grumpy old man talk about how they never saw a really great football team. Of course, Jacksonville, Seattle, and San Diego are all good football teams so they could very well lose. On the other hand, Pittsburg's good too and they certainly got trounced.

D'Antoni

I'm glad to see Mike D'Antoni chosen as an assistant coach for Team USA basketball, but really it seems to me that he ought to be the head coach. For one thing, he's obviously a good coach. More specifically, he's the American with the most experience in coaching international basketball. The lesson everyone seems to have taken away from recent debacles is that the USA needs to start taking this stuff more seriously, and that should probably start with recognizing that the rules are different in international competition and that makes a difference in terms of strategy, what players you want, etc.

On the other hand, I should say that the discredited "Dream Team" model would still be pretty awesome if you could put a bona fide dream team together. Shaq, Duncan, McGrady, Kobe, and Kidd start, I guess, with Garnett, Iverson, and James rounding out your basic eight-man rotation.

The Turnaround

Joe Biden, writes an op-ed on November 26. Later that day, Captain Ed explains that Biden has managed to get "the entire war on terror fundamentally wrong" and demonstrate "why the Democrats have entirely failed to provide any leadership on Iraq and the wider war." Later that after noon, a White House press release declares "Sen. Biden Adopts Key Portions of Administration's Plan for Victory in Iraq." The following day, Ed posts on such topics as alleged Iranian training of Chechen rebels, why Alito's membership in a racist and sexist student group isn't so bad, how the intelligence bureacracy should be organized, Ariel Sharon's political strategy and, indeed, just about everything under the sun except the White House's embrace of a plan Ed thinks is fundamentally wrong.

The Game

I've been remiss in not gloating over Harvard's exciting defeat of Yale last weekend. The reason is that I've been hanging out with all these Texas grads who like to cast aspersions on the Crimson football program. Nevertheless, Ivy League football is endorsed by America's premiere source for white supremacist football commentary:

Think Ivy League. Though the Ivy league is not, strictly speaking, a Division I-A conference (it's Div. I-AA) its schools are so famous that an athlete that plays for one will have the rapt attention of the eastern media. Ivy League schools have to have a student body composed of the smartest students in the country, or risk losing their status as academic powerhouses. Quite simply put that means there are few slots open for non-white students, who on average score hundreds of points lower than their white counterparts on the SATs. Sure the schools can sneak a few affirmative action cases in on the sly but it is nearly impossible for them to find a way to house and educate the type of black "student-athletes" that play football at other universities. . . .

Watch an Ivy League game some time. It's like watching a game from the 1960s. A few black players scattered here and there, but mostly white players, and they're playing those positions forbidden to them at nearly all other schools. Running back, receiver, and corner back/safety. If you want a good education, and some good exposure for a very long-shot at the pros, the Ivy League is not a bad place for a white player to go.

I trust that even Larry Summers won't be going there. See also white supremacist basketball commentary:

Washington, D.C. is the capitol city of the “global revolutionaries” supposedly pushing “democracy” and “diversity” on the world – often at the point of a gun – but the basketball team representing Washington has no diversity. None at all. The curiously named Wizards boast the NBA’s only all-black roster. However, don’t expect any media outcry such as erupted when the Houston Astros won the National League pennant without any blacks; a lack of “diversity” is only bad when it’s blacks who are supposedly under-represented. No whites? That’s a wonderful thing in the anti-white Caste System.

No doubt San Antonio was dying to make that Ginobili-Jeffries trade, but the norotious racist Abe Polin wouldn't go for it.

Statues

A surprise good point from Mark Krikorian:

On the other hand, Krauthammer gets a little carried away with himself in the other direction, writing about how our monuments to foreign liberators demonstrate our devotion to "liberty for its own sake." Well, maybe, but he might also be reading a little too much into it. Sure, a Gandhi statue may not have had any ulterior motive, but isn't it possible that statues to Irish, Ukrainian, or Italian revolutionaries might have just a wee bit to do with ethnic pandering? Not that there's anything wrong with that, and his point isn't entirely without foundation, but a little realism (if I might use that word) isn't a bad thing.

All that said, I think public statuary is an unalloyed good and America could use more of it. My favorite pander statue in DC is the Tomas Masaryk monument near the Czech embassy on Massachusetts and 22nd. Meridian Hill Park near my house, however, goes one better by featuring a memorial to James Buchanan, traditional consensus choice as worst president in American history. After that, a question: Who is the Logan of Logan Circle fame?

A Reprise

Over the holiday weekend I managed to encounter a shockingly large number of cinematically aware people who not only didn't have Me and You and Everyone We Know on their top movies of 2005 list, but didn't even know the film existed. Well, it's real and it's good. Visit the website here. Watch the trailer. It doesn't seem to be showing anywhere at the moment, but Netflix will come to the rescue.

Who Needs Cap Room?

Though obviously intrigued by the possibility of Kevin Garnett becoming a Knick, I have to agree that trading him for cap room would be bizarre and stupid. You acquire cap room in order to acquire players who are better than the ones you have up. Arguably, there simply isn't anyone who's better than KG. Certainly there isn't anyone who's clearly superior. And nobody who's even plausibly in his league is going to be a realistic free agent pickup for Minnesota anyway. On top of that, you have to figure the Minnesota fans would lynch the ownership if they pulled something like that.

Thanksgiving

Being thankfull is a good idea. It's worth noting that for all the world's problems, those of us fortunate enough to be fairly prosperous in early 21st century America probably enjoy the highest standard of living the world has ever known, largely thanks to the efforts of those who've come before us. I'm less thankful for the continuing string of humiliating defeats the Wizards have suffered after an oh-so-promising 5-1 start.