@Randem

The Lovable Losers have been doing a lot of winning this year, and Cubs fans have been hearing “Go, Cubs, Go” to their hearts’ content. There is a little bit of history behind the song that I find interesting.

“Go, Cubs, Go” was written by Chicago folk legend Steve Goodman — two-time Grammy winner, and perhaps most well-known for his song “City of New Orleans”.

Goodman was a die-hard Cubs fan. Literally. He was born after the Curse of the Billy Goat, and died of leukemia at the age of 36. The Cubs never played a single playoff game in his entire lifetime.

But in 1984, they were playoff-bound, and Goodman was asked to sing the national anthem for their first post-season game. He never got to see it. Goodman died eleven days earlier, and Jimmy Buffett filled in, dedicating the song to Goodman.

Now, I will always think of Goodman when I hear his song sung after a Cubs victory. He was a real die-hard fan. And some of his ashes were scattered at Wrigley Field.

Baseball season’s underway
Well you better get ready for a brand new day
Hey, Chicago, what do you say
The Cubs are gonna win today.
They’re singing …
Go, Cubs, go
Go, Cubs, go
Hey, Chicago, what do you say
The Cubs are gonna win today
Go, Cubs, go
Go, Cubs, go
Hey, Chicago, what do you say
The Cubs are gonna win today.
They got the power, they got the speed
To be the best in the National League
Well this is the year and the Cubs are real
So come on down to Wrigley Field.
We’re singing now …
Go, Cubs, go
Go, Cubs, go
Hey, Chicago, what do you say
The Cubs are gonna win today
Go, Cubs, go
Go, Cubs, go
Hey, Chicago, what do you say
The Cubs are gonna win today.
Baseball time is here again
You can catch it all on WGN
So stamp your feet and clap your hands
Chicago Cubs got the greatest fans.
You’re singing now …
Go, Cubs, go
Go, Cubs, go
Hey, Chicago, what do you say
The Cubs are gonna win today
Go, Cubs, go
Go, Cubs, go
Hey, Chicago, what do you say
The Cubs are gonna win today.

This week’s theme is coaching. The difference between good teams and bad teams is often as simple as the coach. It’s particularly interesting to note the effect of a coach’s win-loss record, as well as that of his overall experience as a head coach.

Houston at Atlanta
Bobby Petrino (0-3) can’t be blamed for his losses. The Vick media circus started his head coaching career on the wrong foot. Still there may be a possibility of Atlanta putting some wins together after Byron Leftwich takes over, but that’s not going to happen yet, and they’re not going to beat a Texans team that wants to make a new identity for itself under head coach Gary Kubiak (8-11).

New York Jets at Buffalo
Buffalo has a lot of problems, but the first step to fixing them is replacing lackluster coach Dick Jauron (43-61). Eventually the Bills will get their first win, but with Thomas Jones heating it up and Pennington having a some success, I don’t see them beating Eric Mangini (11-8) and his Jets this week.

Baltimore at Cleveland
Tough call. Equally mediocre teams, these two. Romeo Crennel (11-24) has shown no talent for leading a team, while Brian Billick (77-54) has led his team to a Super Bowl victory. I’m going to go with the Ravens.

St. Louis at Dallas
It’s hard to watch St. Louis be this awful, when they’ve got the talent to be so good. It really comes down to coaching. They were great under Vermeil, they were good under Martz, and now they’re not even a football team any more thanks to Scott Linehan (8-11). No contest. The Cowboys have a winning coach in Wade Phillips (51-39).

Chicago at Detroit
Lovie Smith (30-21) was losing coaching stock in my opinion — and probably that of his players, too — until he finally made the decision to bench “Wrecks”. They’re banged up now, and starting a second-string quarterback, but I think the Bears have what it takes to beat the Lions whose coach, Rod Marinelli (5-14) is the latest of the Tony Dungy crew to land a head coaching position.

Oakland at Miami
This is an almost meaningless matchup of rookie coaches, pitting Cam Cameron (0-3) against Lane Kiffin (1-2). With the iced kick last week, I see that Lane Kiffin learns quick. I’ve insisted for three weeks that Daunte Culpepper was the missing element for Oakland, who do have something the Dolphins don’t have — a win. If Kiffin is the quick-study he appears to be, he’ll stick with Culpepper and the Raiders will win.

Green Bay at Minnesota
Another battle of young coaches puts Mike McCarthy (11-8) against Brad Childress (7-12), but one team has the best quarterback in the game. Win lose or draw, Brett Favre is going to set history on Sunday. That should lift an emotional athlete like Favre to step up his game and lead the Packers to their fourth win.

Pittsburgh at Arizona
The Cardinals looked good last week with Kurt Warner passing, but that has more to do with him having been the backup than it does with him having been Kurt Warner. Teams don’t game plan for the backup, but rookie head coach Ken Wisenhunt (1-2) hasn’t learned that yet. Bill Cowher (149-90), the longest tenured coach in the league, will have Pittsburgh ready for fumble-fingers Warner. I predict not only a Steelers victory, but at least one fumble and one interception for Warner.

Tampa Bay at Carolina
John Fox (46-37) and his Carolina team seem to be in a rut right now, while Jon Gruden (79-68) and the Bucs are really heating it up behind Garcia. I expect the Buccaneers to improve to 3-1 and take the lead in their division.

Seattle at San Francisco
Another talented team looking amiless right now is Seattle, but Mike Holmgren (149-94) won’t stand for that. The 49ers don’t look much better, and Mike Nolan (13-22) doesn’t seem to have the answer. Both teams are at 2-1, but the Seahawks looked better in getting there.

Denver at Indianapolis
Tony Dungy (117-62) and Peyton Manning has has Denver’s number for a few years now. Until Mike Shanahan (133-82) and the Broncos figure out how to beat the Colts, their season is going to keep ending in Indianapolis.

Kansas City at San Diego
This is a matchup of two underachieving teams, both with superstar running backs who have yet to make any noise this year. Both teams are suffering from poor coaching. Herm Edwards (49-50) is the definition of mediocrity, and Norv Turner (59-84-1) is a consummate loser, capable of turning a 14-2 team into a 1-2 team. The more talented team is San Diego and they’re at home, so I’m going with the Chargers to win.

Philadelphia at New York Giants
The Giants look about as average as their coach, Tom Coughlin (94-85). Meanwhile, Andy Reid (81-50) and his Eagles always figure out how to get things on track.

New England at Cincinnati
For all his lobbying to get a head coaching job, and all the hype that surrounded him in his first two years, Marvin Lewis (36-31) has done a surprisingly mediocre job of leading the Bengals. Not so in New England, where Bill Belichick (114-81) has his Patriots rolling over the competition, even if they have to cheat to do it.

“The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.” -George Bernard Shaw

It never ceases to amaze me how much people give away about themselves, all while thinking they’re pulling one over on you. It only makes stronger my argument for authenticity.

The latest example of this behavior, which sets me off on this rant, involves the guilty conscience and its effect on trust.

At an early age, I learned that people see the world as they see themself. Thus, a liar never believes what he’s told; a thief never trusts anyone else with his property; a cheater always suspects he’s being cheated; and so on.

What never fails to surprise me is that this is fairly common knowledge, and fairly easy to understand, and yet people continue to give themselves away.

It’s in the accusations, you see. When someone accuses you of something, your first instinct is to defend yourself. Repeated accusations become painful, because you feel untrusted and constantly defensive when you’re not guilty of anything.

But the trained mind can pick up on the subtle clue. When someone is constantly accusing you of something, it’s because that thing is always on their mind, most likely because they themselves are guilty of it.

When someone close to you is always accusing you of lying, it’s a good indication that they are probably a liar. When someone close to you is constantly accusing you of stealing, it’s a good indication that they are probably a thief. And when someone close to you seems to always be telling you that they don’t trust you, it’s a good sign that you should not trust them.

Federal Judge Ann Aiken thinks so.

In a ruling released yesterday, Judge Aiken found sections 1804 and 1823 in violation of our constitutional guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures.

“Now, for the first time in our Nation’s history, the government can conduct surveillance to gather evidence for use in a criminal case without a traditional warrant, as long as it presents a non-reviewable assertion that it also has a significant interest in the targeted person for foreign intelligence purposes,” wrote Judge Aiken in her opinion.

In addition to finding the relevant sections of the Patriot Act unconstitutional, the judge also ordered the government to destroy all the illegally-obtained evidence.

You can read more about it at Ars Technica.

Everyone who has ever used my computer, even for a moment, has taken a particular liking to my search shortcuts — most notably gg, my shortcut to Google.

I’m doing Google searches all the time. Whenever I have a question about anything, I don’t hesitate to grab my laptop and look it up on Google. If I had to go to Google.com, wait for the site to load, and click in the search box before I could type in my query and search, it would slow me down.

After reading that, you probably think I’m crazy. But yes, that little bit of extra work would slow me down. I search a lot!

So what is my more efficient solution? It’s simple: Firefox bookmark keywords. If you don’t understand them, I recommend that you go look at the LifeHacker article about them.

I’ve published some of my more useful search shortcuts here. Firefox users can simply right-click on the link and choose Bookmark This Link. Then, go into Organize Bookmarks and add keywords to them. I also recommend grouping the search shortcuts into a folder called Search to keep some sanity in the Bookmark menu.

Google Search - keyword: gg
Google Maps - keyword: map
Google Image Search - keyword: img
IMDB Lookup - keyword: imdb
Dictionary - keyword: dc
Thesaurus - keyword: th
Wikipedia - keyword: wiki

After saving the bookmarks, don’t forget to add the keywords. The shortcuts are useless without them. Oh, and if you don’t use Firefox, you’re out of luck.

With the shortcuts, you can now go to the address bar and type gg britney spears to learn everything you want to know about annoying pop singers. But that would be useless.

More useful would be, when you’re looking at the web site for a local sushi restaurant and you see their address on the page, you could copy it from the page and paste it into the address bar, typing map before it, so you have something like map 401 N Michigan Ave Chicago. Just a few keystrokes gets you the directions you’re looking for.

Richard Dawkins, in his book The Selfish Gene (ISBN: 0199291152) explains the Evolutionarily Stable Strategy (ESS) in terms of Game Theory.

He describes the give and take of numeric representation of possible sides of an genetic disposition, showing how some traits evolve to become dominant while others fall into an ESS where more than one side are represented in varying proportion.

Of particular interest is how this relates to lying, as a genetic trait:

Obviously, it is vitally important in the war of attrition that individuals should give no inkling of when they are going to give up. Anybody who betrayed, by the merest flicker of a whisker, that he was beginning to think of throwing in the sponge, would be a an instant disadvantage. If, say, whisker-flickering happened to be a reliable sign that retreat would follow within one minute, there would be a very simple strategy: ‘If your opponent’s whiskers flicker, wait one more minute, regardless of what your own previous plans for giving up might have been. If your opponent’s whiskers have not yet flickered, and you are within one minute of the time when you intend to give up anyway, give up immediately and don’t waste any more time. Never flicker your own whiskers.’ So natural selection would quickly penalize whisker-flickering and any analogous betrayals of future behaviour. The poker face would evolve.

Why the poker face rather than out-and-out lies? Once again, because lying is not stable. Suppose it happened to be the case that the majority of individuals raised their hackles only when they were truly intending to go on for a very long time in a war of attrition. The obvious counterploy would evolve: individuals would give up immediately when an opponent raised his hackles. But now, liars might start to evolve. Individuals who really had no intention of going on for a long time would raise their hackles on every occasion, and reap the benefits of easy and quick victory. So liar genes would spread. When liars became the majority, selection would not favour individuals who called their bluff. Therefore liars would decrease in numbers again. In the war of attrition, telling lies is no more evolutionarily stable than telling the truth. The poker face is evolutionarily stable. Surrender, when it finally comes, will be sudden and unpredictable.

The Selfish Gene is an excellent source for understanding why the altruistic society can never be. It also serves to point out the folly in generalizations, such as the ever-popular “why do men lie?”

The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Brian Griese will be the starting quarterback against the Lions.

Here’s what Smith said Monday when asked about Griese: “How much confidence do I have [in Griese]? I have confidence in our entire football team. Brian is a part of that. Even after you have a loss like that, at the same time, we all feel bad. We should. But as far as confidence in our football team, I have a lot still. Brian is a part of that.”

That’s good, because if they had kept “Wrecks” Grossman at the helm, I’d have to wonder about the long-term possibilities for head coach Lovie Smith.

A head coach has, essentially, only one real job: to prepare his team to win. If he’s doing that, his job is safe. If he’s not, he should be let go. Lately, Lovie Smith hasn’t been doing that job.

The Bears defense was reasonably prepared coming into Sunday night’s game, but their offense was not. And at half-time, Wade Phillips made positive adjustments to the Cowboys’ game plan while the Bears seemed to step backward.

Also, part of preparing the team to win is giving them confidence. When a problem exists at quarterback — or any other position — and the coach doesn’t make a change, the team loses confidence in his ability to make the decisions necessary to win.

Smith’s unwavering support of “Wrecks” sends the message that he’s not willing to admit his mistake. It’s like hanging onto that stock Enron stock you bought, hoping it will bounce back, rather than cutting your losses and looking for a good stock to start investing.

But sticking with the stock metaphor, I fear that the Bears portfolio is not well diversified. I have little doubt that Griese will fare better than Grossman did, but he lacks the talent to be a long-term solution.

Of the three QBs on Chicago’s roster, I can’t help thinking that the only confidence-inspiring option is third-stringer Kyle Orton, who in spite of lacking any real NFL-level passing skill, has the true grit to make his team believe they can win.

The crew over at Amazon.com are really shaking things up. Earlier this month, they released a redesigned home page. Compared to this, that was nothing.

Today, they launched Amazon MP3, an online music store that is completely DRM-free. At the time of launch, they are offering over two million songs. Most songs sell at $0.99, though there are some going for $0.89, and the occasional long song might cost a bit more. All songs are offered in MP3 format only, and encoded at 256kbs.

Given Amazon’s existing user base, the lack of DRM, and the comparable prices, this could be a bad sign for the future of Apple’s iTunes store. Adding insult to injury, Amazon offers software to download purchased songs seamlessly into the iTunes software. I can imagine no reason why someone would continue to buy songs on iTunes.

The DRM is the thing that has always stopped me from buying on iTunes. Sure, it’s no problem playing on my Mac and my iPod, but if I want to play my purchased song on my PC, or take it to work, or use it in my car’s MP3 player, I’m out of luck with songs purchased on iTunes. But that’s not the case with Amazon…

“I strongly believe that if you add value to the lives of others, value will be returned.” -Lodewijk van den Broek