Greenwald ripping into GE's coporate censorship of NBC, as part of a sleazy deal with Fox News. GE agreed to prevent MSNBC from criticizing Bill O'Reilly and Fox News, in exchange for Fox agreeing not to report on GE's unpopular businesses.

Fuck GE.

Bill O'Reilly: "I'd rather be assraped than go to school"

On January 15, O'Reilly decided that kidnapping victim Shawn Hornbeck didn't escape from his abuser soon enough, and so he must have "liked his circumstances" and "had a lot more fun" because he could "run around and do whatever he wanted" instead of going to school.

Yesterday, Michael Devlin was sentenced to 3 life terms for attempted murder, kidnapping, and sexual assault. Hornbeck talked Devlin out of killing him by promising to do whatever Devlin asked. Further sexual assaults followed. This arrangement continued for four years.

Thanks to Mr. Smiles for the links.

billo the racist

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2007/07/normalizing-white-supremacy.html

Bill O'Reilly: But do you understand what the New York Times wants, and the far-left want? They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you're a part, and so am I, and they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have. In that regard, Pat Buchanan is right.

O'Reilly Fears the Pink Pistol Lesbians!

hahahahahahaha

"Well, you know, there is this national underground network, if you will, Bill, of women that's lesbians and also some men groups that's actually recruiting kids as young as 10 years old in a lot of the schools in the communities all across the country," he reported. "And they actually carry a number of weapons. And they commit a number of crimes."

"Now, the other thing, too, that our viewers are going to find very, very interesting, is the fact that they actually carry—some of these groups carry pink pistols," Wheeler said. "They call themselves the pink-pistol-packing group. And these are lesbians that actually carry pistols. That's 9-millimeter Glocks. They use these. They commit crimes, and they cause a lot of hurt to a lot of people."

Can I take credit for this?

Yay!

BEARS!

I'm having fun ripping O'Reilly lately. Here's a video Olbermann put together to show what O'Reilly considers more important than war coverage.

more O'Reilly pathetic

Walt: "totally argument pwned by 16 year old kid, then resorts to insulting him"

more O'Reilly

Media Matters covers the story that I mentioned a couple days ago, and adds some more information about O'Reilly's remarks on the subject. I found this paragraph interesting:

Additionally, O'Reilly asserted that "CNN and MSNBC put [coverage of the Iraq war] on because they want to give the impression that the war is a loser and Bush is an idiot," adding: "Now, that may be true. The war is a loser, and Bush may be an idiot. OK, I'm not -- that's for you to decide. But that's why they're doing it." O'Reilly claimed that the reason he doesn't "do a lot of Iraq reporting" is "because we don't know what's happening. We can't find out."

So O'Reilly admits that he doesn't know what is happening, and is thus unfit to comment, and that he can't find out, and is thus an incompetent reporter. Also Bush may be an idiot (not that he'd say that himself, perhaps because he is unfit to comment and incompetent at investigating). But he's quite sure that CNN and MSNBC cover Iraq because they want to give the impression that the war is a loser.

Seriously, how is this man not doubled over in pain at the stupidity of his own ideas? He knows that the people who know more about him about Iraq think it is a losing effort, and yet he finds something sinister in their reporting of the facts that support this idea.

O'Reilly also stated that he "can't speak for Fox News" but that his program does not "highlight every terrorist attack because we learn nothing from that. And that's exactly what the terrorists want us to do. I mean, come on, does another bombing in Tikrit mean anything other than 'War is hell'? No, it does not."

He completely refuses to consider the idea that reporting on violence might be relevant to analysis of the war. He recognizes the possibility that the Iraq War might be "a loser" but doesn't want to say one way or the other. I wonder how he's going to make that determination without knowing anything about it and without accurate coverage of the ongoing violence.

All this would just be further evidence of his being so completely brainwashed into some kind of "America is always good and right and doing God's work" mindset that he can't recognize the logical conclusions of his own partial thoughts. But then he throws in this, making him once again look like pure evil:

Media Matters has also documented O'Reilly's previous expressions of indifference to the situation in Iraq. During the September 25, 2006, broadcast of his radio program, O'Reilly declared: "I don't care what Iraq was, I don't care what it will be," and added that he "[c]ouldn't care less" about the country.

We destroyed their country, killed hundreds of thousands of their people, and committed numerous other atrocities, and he doesn't care about it at all. Evil.

O'Reilly is evil

There's a lot about the way I used to think that is embarrassing, and among the worst is that I used to think highly of Bill O'Reilly. One way I was taken in is because the man comes across as sincere and intelligent. (He also comes across as pompous, but I can ignore that because my own pompousness gives me natural immunity.) There's a quote from Michael Shermer that helped me to shatter the illusion. "Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for nonsmart reasons." O'Reilly is committed to his political ideology for nonsmart reasons and he applies his intelligence to supporting it. Either that or O'Reilly is pure evil. After this, I'm leaning towards pure evil.

In reaction to a study showing that Fox News devotes far less coverage to the Iraq War than CNN or MSNBC, O'Reilly says:

Now the reason that CNN and MSNBC do so much Iraq reporting is because they want to embarrass the Bush administration. Both do. And all their reporting consists of is here’s another explosion. Bang. Here’s more people dead. Bang. […]

They’re not doing it to inform anybody about anything. The terrorists are going to set off a bomb every day because they know CNN and MSNBC are going to put it on the air. That’s a strategy for the other side. The terrorist side. So I’m taking an argument that CNN and MSNBC are actually helping the terrorists by reporting useless explosions.

Do you care if another bomb went off in Tikrit? Does it mean anything? No! It doesn’t mean anything.

People being killed in explosions doesn't mean anything, and by reporting it, CNN and MSNBC are helping the terrorists. They do this because they want to embarrass Bush. That is O'Reilly's position.

First of all, the obvious extension of his position is that Fox News doesn't devote much coverage to the Iraq War because doing so would be embarrassing to Bush. So O'Reilly's clear position is that accurately reporting facts about the world would damage someone politically. In the immortal words of Colbert, "reality has a well-known liberal bias." O'Reilly doesn't even realize he's agreed with this.

Next, note that O'Reilly and Fox News claim to be "fair and balanced" news. Anyone who isn't brainwashed knows that they're a far-right propaganda outlet, but O'Reilly is admitting here that Fox News chooses not to report on the war to avoid embarrassing their far-right Supreme Leader. No wonder Dick Cheney insists on having TVs pre-set to Fox News before he enters a room.

O'Reilly's lame excuse for why avoiding war coverage is acceptable from a news outlet is that war coverage isn't news. This man and everyone like him rants endlessly about how their political opponents fail to support the troops, but then argues that the violent death of an American soldier is meaningless and shouldn't be covered. Very supportive, Bill.

O'Reilly completely fails to realize that the reason explosions and dismemberment and human suffering are so common as to be meaningless is because Bush's military strategy is a miserable failure and has been for a long time. That certainly is embarrassing. If Bush didn't stubbornly insist on maintaining this immoral and insane war against the wishes of the American people, the routine chaos and death that resulted from his immoral and insane and unpopular war wouldn't be the news. The news would be that our troops are withdrawing and that while sectarian violence in Iraq is still unacceptably high (as a direct result of our immoral and insane invasion), it has been decreasing since we left and American casualties are significantly decreasing. Until Bush's stupid war ends, the story remains the same and the media has an obligation to cover it and make Bush look stupid.

Going back to an earlier point, to be fair O'Reilly isn't saying that people dying is meaningless, but that it is so standard as not to be newsworthy. He's not saying that a young man's death is without meaning, just that it lacks meaning as news.

I say I'm mentioning this to be fair, but I actually think O'Reilly comes off worse when the point is clarified, because he goes from trivializing the death of an individual to trivializing and thereby enabling violence on a massive scale. As soon as violence ceases to be worthy of mention, war becomes a more acceptable option.

This reminds me of Arthur Silber's suggestion:

A single major newspaper could provide a noble and invaluable service: if they gave a damn at all about unnecessary death and suffering, they would select the most awful and horrifying picture they could find -- a body with its guts falling out, a bloody corpse shorn of arms and legs, a mutilated face made unrecognizable -- and fill up their entire front page with it, a new one every day. Perhaps after a month or two, enough Americans would demand that their government stop butchering people who never harmed us.

O'Reilly and Silber both acknowledge the same thing, that the American public's attitude towards the war is influenced by the way it is covered. One of those men argues the nation is better served by telling the full truth. One of those men says the truth should be hidden. (If you want to quibble here I'll concede the Fox position isn't that Iraq coverage should actively be hidden, just that if they have to make a decision how to use their valuable air time, reporting the inanity of Anna Nichole Smith and Paris Hilton is much more important. I'd go on to argue that this is effectively the same thing.)

In most situations, I'd say that arguing to conceal reality is a despicable position, even more so for a news man. Reporters are supposed to deliver facts, no matter how horrible, even if they make things uncomfortable for politicians (more like especially if the facts make things uncomfortable for politicians). But when the expressed purpose of distorting coverage is to enable the unpopular policies of an insane and unpopular political leader by making horrific bloody death of American military and innocent Iraqi civilians seem like a more palatable political option, despicable isn't a strong enough word.

Rejecting the nonsense from 'check my ip' / part 1

In case you didn't notice all the excitement in the comments, someone calling himself 'check my ip' typed lots of words and posted them in reply to my last post. I summarized his disorganized ideas into 5 general themes, which I posted in those comments. The purpose of this entry is to respond to point #1. Perhaps I'll have 5 posts eventually, or maybe I'll get bored with this.

I asked him if it would be fair to say that one of his main points is "1.) adspar can't handle when people have different ideas than him and he attacks anyone who disagrees with him. One should have respect for the beliefs of others, and adspar clearly doesn't."

His response was that this is "clearly true."

The following quotes from his comments supported this idea. I don't believe any of these quotes are being taken out of context, [I've added contextual helpers in brackets] but feel free to read the original and decide:

“You can't even stand when someone thinks different than you. It frustrates you. I saddens you. It angers you. It drives you crazy.

I am not playing the underdog in some big attention-desiring battle to tell everyone what I believe and why I think it is the right thing to believe. [... unlike adspar]


Why is the lack of respect for any arguments to your contrary necessary?

You have zero respect for any ideas other than your own

You have to have respect for what other people believe [;] you clearly do not.

Other beliefs drive you nuts.

My response to this line of criticism it that it simply isn't true. I certainly can handle it when other people have different ideas than me. I don't attack anyone who disagrees with me. And I reject the notion that one simply must have respect for the beliefs of others.

It isn't that someone thinks differently than me that frustrates me, saddens me, angers me, or drives me crazy. To the contrary, I'm eager to hear from people who have different views from me. I like to be exposed to new perspectives.

What I can't stand is dishonesty. What drives me crazy is hypocrisy. What frustrates me is irrationality. What saddens me is ignorance. What angers me is when someone actually takes pride in their dishonesty, hypocrisy, irrationality, or ignorance. And what drives me crazy is when all of that comes from my friends or family.

I don't attack anyone who disagrees with me, though I might challenge their views. I see nothing disrespectful about this.

Except for using the word in the sense of "acknowledgement of their existence" I see no reason why I have to "respect" beliefs that are not worthy of respect. (Belief that the world was created from nothing 6,000 years ago is an example of a belief for which I have no respect. Belief that someone who rejects Islam should be beheaded is another example of a belief for which I have no respect.) Respect for someone's belief is a separate matter from respect for the person who holds a belief. I'm more than willing to respect someone who holds an un-respectable belief, until they start to be dishonest. Then I start to have less respect for them. If they're hypocritical, or if they make irrational arguments, they'll lose a little more of my respect. Ignorance by itself doesn't necessarily mean they'll lose my respect, but if they're proud of they're ignorance that's tough to overcome.

For the record, I also have disdain for when these same faults are demonstrated in those whose views I share. If I start to see a pattern of dishonesty, or irrationality, or hypocrisy in people who share my ideas, that makes me start to question my ideas. In fact this is precisely what happened over the last year or two as I gradually shifted from a position of moderate support for Bush and the Iraq war to an extremely critical view of Bush and the Iraq war. Similarly, if you took the time to search through my archives for all my comments about Bill O'Reilly you'd see a graduate trend from general respect, to "usually I agree with him, but..." to generally disliking him and disagreeing with his views now, all because I saw increasing evidence of O'Reilly's dishonesty, hypocrisy, and irrationality.
----

I find it revealing that 'check your ip' was so eager and enthusiastic (at least 6 different statements on the matter, not to mention the emphatic "clearly" true) to conclude that my attacks and my scorn and my ridicule is aimed at anyone who disagrees with me. He seems quite anxious to cast me as someone who cannot tolerate disagreement.

I would think it should be obvious to any objective observer that my frustration in the specific post (involving the exchange between Prager and Harris) was with Prager's illogic, his dishonesty, his hypocrisy. I would think that anyone who follows this blog generally would be hard-pressed to cite an example where I "attack" someone who disagrees with me who hasn't demonstrated one of the negative traits I've mentioned.

One might perhaps dispute that the subject of my ridicule has been hypocritical, dishonest, or whatever. But I don't think it is difficult to realize that I think those flaws are there, and that is why I'm being harsh in a criticism. One might argue that I'm only claiming hypocrisy or dishonesty because these people have beliefs that I don't share. First, there are examples of posts where I've been quite respectful of differing views. Even if one found many more examples of negative posts than respectful, all that would demonstrate is that I'm more inclined to write about negative things I encounter, not that I react negatively to all opposing views. Even if I saw hypocrisy or ignorance in every single opposing view I've every written about, I generally explain how their words or actions are worthy of ridicule, how they're being irrational or ignorant. And furthermore, if I've slipped into a pattern of just presenting someone's rejection-worthiness as self-evident, I'd always be willing to discuss the matter if someone were to say for example that Prager wasn't dishonest in his responses. The bottom line is that I react negatively to things that deserve negative reactions, and that this should be obvious to any reasonable reader of my blog, or to anyone who knows me fairly well.

So, why would 'check your ip' be so quick to conclude that I shut out all opposing views? Could it be because he himself shuts out all opposing views and so assumes everyone else does? Could it be that he has some psychological defense mechanism where he won't have to confront ideas that challenge his sacred cows if he can find a way to discredit those who voice such ideas? Could it be that he's so deep into the confrontational "us versus them" mentality that is fostered by religion, partisan politics, and even team sports that he's unable to see any disagreement in any other terms?

Perhaps those questions will be further addressed if I respond to his other 4 criticisms.

Unfinished

I've been blogging for almost 2 years now. In that time I've occasionally started writing something and never finished it, an occurrence that seems to be increasing lately. Here is the list of topics of unfinished posts sitting in my queue, from oldest to most recent. If you'd like to see what I have to say on one of these topics, feel free to try to heckle me into finishing it.

not smart enough - 5/16/06 - A rant about how on multiple occasions involving different people, I've encountered "I'm not smart enough to debate you" as a cop-out way to avoid an intelligent discussion. I feel like it is a dirty tactic but struggled to express it and didn't want to do a half-ass job on it because I'm afraid it will be too likely to come across as me saying I'm smarter than everyone.

oblivious - 6/1/06 - After reading an O'Reilly column about how various entertainment technologies have everyone avoiding reality, I was writing something about how that seems like an inevitable consequence of the American way. If I were to finish this, I'd probably point out that O'Reilly often seems just as oblivious as those he's criticizing.

influencer - 7/12/06 - This will be a nice one if I ever do it. I want to highlight to a few people who have had a major positive influence on me. It started as a list of my favorite teachers/professors but I felt like I had to include a few others that changed the way I think about the world, hence "influencer." Anyway the idea was to write a little tribute to each of them and then email them to tell them about it. Kinda sappy but I figured they'd appreciate it.

What if I was good at poker? - 8/8/06 - Pretty simple idea for a post but I haven't written anything about it really. I wanted to imagine what my life would be like now and in the future if I was a lot better at poker.

Poker Manifesto - 8/30/06 - Another idea for a poker post where I haven't actually put my thoughts together at all. I wanted to expound on an idea I threw out briefly, of poker as a crappy shortcut for life.

Pat Tillman - 10/21/06 - I want to finish this one more than any other, and yet I think this will be the hardest to finish of any of them. I have a lot I want to say about Pat Tillman, but I always feel like he deserves better than what I've written so far, and I keep trying to hold myself to an impossible standard.

Liberal Bias: Media and Academia? - 10/23/06 - Since I started working on this one, Glenn Greenwald has covered some of the media bias topics that I'd want to address, but I also want to address a general topic of anti-intellectualism. I'll get to this eventually I hope, but there's a lot more work to put in to this.

Political - 10/28/06 - In my recent post I covered a tiny bit of what I want to address here. Back when I avoided all politics out of a combination of laziness and disgust, whenever I heard someone criticize a politician or a political party, my instinctive response was "well the other guys are just as bad." I understand why I made that ignorant generalization, but sometimes it just isn't true, and now I think it is pretty important to recognize differences. This post by Glenn Greenwald was the inspiration to finally make me want to write more about it.

O'Reilly + Couric = 0

If you took the time to dig through the history of this blog, which would make you a weird stalker, you'd find that my opinion of Bill O'Reilly has gradually declined after I initially liked him. The following situation continues that trend.

I saw this O'Reilly opinion column. It references a controversial Katie Couric CBS Evening News segment where they let some nutjob named Rohrbaugh on the air (a father who tragically lost his son in the Columbine school shootings) and he said some really ignorant shit about how teaching evolution leads to violence, echoing the moronic thoughts of disgraced criminal former congressman Tom DeLay. Rohrbaugh also made some anti-abortion comments.

Katie Couric was criticized for letting this guy on her show to spew nonsense, and she responded on her blog that she was aware some people would find Rohrbaugh's views repugnant. O'Reilly rants about how it is ridiculous that someone like Couric would call a pro-life view "repugnant." Katie's blog then posted this spineless retort that gave a forum for more anti-evolution bullshit.

Katie Couric and Bill O'Reilly are giants in the media, and they're both pathetic here. What is repugnant about this guy's statement is his anti-evolution ignorance. There is no evidence that widespread acceptance of evolution is harmful to a society, and in fact there is significant support for the idea that rejection of evolution and widespread belief in God is harmful to society****. How does this not get mentioned? I thought that responsible reporters, especially those who claim "no spin," are supposed to give you the relevant facts. "Fair and balanced" means that where there is a reasonable debate, you present both sides, not that you just give air time to insane people who hold views with no basis in reality. Couric might as well give 90 seconds for someone to tell us all that the Earth is flat and that 2+2=7.

Of course the reason they avoid stating the simple truth that evolution is as much a fact as gravity is that they don't want to offend the millions of zealot fundamentalists who refuse to accept reality. Those ignorant masses are a significant base of their viewers (or in O'Reilly's case, the vast majority) and they must be appeased.

**** - update: Mario points out that the study I linked to is complete bullshit. Rather than delete the mention of it, I'll leave it linked as a testament to my own shame. Also, shame on Skeptic Magazine.

another update: I was of course being over-the-top reactionary in my first update. The study has some merit, the problem is if you use it to support conclusions it doesn't actually support. It definitely offers some evidence to refute the absurd assertion that teaching evolution leads to societal ills. It doesn't, as I initially suggested, offer much support for the idea that "rejection of evolution and widespread belief in God is harmful to society." A fine but important distinction that might have gotten lost in my "complete bullshit" dismisal. Also I'm doing this update in a hurry, so I might have gotten something wrong here too.

Argh

For the last 2 afternoons, I've been trying to write something in response to this article by Bill O'Reilly. (I think that link will only be good for a limited time.) His article basically points out that Americans are woefully uninformed about important issues, an goes on to blame it (partly or mostly, depending how you read it) on entertainment technology.

I'm frustrated though because I don't know exactly what I want to say, and I keep scrapping everything I've written so far. I think his article is a mess, and my reaction to it is definitely a mess.

O'Reilly mentions in passing a bunch of things that I have a lot of serious thoughts about: America's "issue illiteracy," "mind-numbing reality shows," video games, chat rooms, ipods, tabloids, and Barry Bonds. So I kind of want to work an intelligent discussion of all those topics into my response, but that would take way too long, and it would get a bit disorganized.

I think what most drove me to want to respond was his closing paragraph:

"Ultimately, mass electronic escape will lead to a very few exercising vast power over the distracted many. That, of course, is not the system the Founders envisioned. But when more votes are cast for American Idol contestants than for Presidential candidates, you know "the times, they are a changin'." And not for the better."

I'm giving up on making my thoughts look pretty, so here is a numbered list instead.

1. Don't a few pretty much always exercise vast power over many? Isn't that what civilization always is? I guess we could revert to hunter-gatherer tribes where everyone had an equal say in how to run things.
   
2. My understanding of the founding fathers' intentions was that they wouldn't let those rulers become abusive of their power, not that they wanted to keep the elite from ruling. Didn't they specifically set up the electoral college, as if to say "just in case you stupids screw something up, here are some people who should know better." The Founders just wanted to set up a system where the farmers could do their farming and not have to worry that the King is going to steal the crops or cut their head off for praying to the wrong god.
   
3. Is it changing for the worse if American Idol is more popular than politics? People have always been a lot more interested in being entertained than sweating the details of how the country runs. Is it really so suprising that as technology shrinks the world, more people pay attention to a specific entertainment source than to a specific issue that doesn't pose an immediate threat? Isn't it nice that we have something that captures our interests so completely, and that we can enjoy it in a relatively peaceful time?
   
4. The Founders envisioned a system of economic freedom where everyone was guaranteed the right to pursue happiness. Well they got it. Electronics and media corporations used their economic freedom to give people what they want, what they think will make them happy. Average Joe doesn't want to come home from a hard day of work and read up about spooky terrorist threats; he wants to watch baseball players hit homeruns. Average Joe Junior doesn't want to study geography; he wants to play Splinter Cell. Average Jane doesn't want to examine the issue of border control after she puts Joe Jr. to bed; she wants to see Taylor Hicks sing and dance like an idiot. Granted, people might be happier if they devoted more time and effort to understanding the world around them, and less time to worthless diversions, but people don't know what actually makes them happy. They don't want to do more work than they have to, and they don't want to be bored in the meantime. It would be nice if people were more educated on the issues, but is it fair to blame their ignorance on electronics?
   
5. O'Reilly barely hints at 3 factors that are much more relevant to "issue illiteracy" than his cranky luddite paranoia: culture, education, and journalism.
6. In regards to culture, O'Reilly wrote "The USA used to be a nation that valued knowledge and rallied around national standards." I agree that our culture generally doesn't value knowledge. We're more likely to make fun of a smart kid than appreciate him. This is a problem of much more concern to me than the popularity of ipods.
7. In regards to education and journalism, O'Reilly wrote

   "Our society is so intellectually undemanding that uninformed entertainers like the Dixie Chicks can comment negatively on foreign policy and be rewarded with a Time Magazine cover. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie can have a baby and receive more attention than the Senate vote on illegal immigration. And Barry Bonds can cheat his way to home run records and still command standing ovations in San Francisco."

8. Our education system sucks. Maybe if we taught people some critical thinking skills they'd be more intellectually demanding. Maybe if we taught people how to set aside emotion and evaluate a political issue they'd have more interest in illegal immigration. Maybe if we taught people about ethics they'd shun the cheaters. But we'd rather force absurd stone-age myths into science classes than actual science. We'd rather be politically correct than present facts that might be critical of minorities. We'd rather fire a man for using the word "niggardly" than teach people what the word actually means. We fire the president of Harvard for offering an explanation of the gender disparity in the scientific community that we don't like, regardless of the validity of his reasoning.
   
9. Journalist standards sucks. The news is now a business, catering to consumer demand. And very few consumers want objective truth. They want information that supports their existing views. And so more and more news sources just give people what they want, with little regard for truth. If you like the facts, why check if they're true, right?
   

I could keep going but I guess I'll stop there. And by the way, I generally like O'Reilly. While I don't always agree with him, I think he's got a good approach to a lot of important issues. But for a man who is already so widely criticized, stuff like this makes his critics' jobs easier.

I don't care about sports any more

In high school I loved baseball. I listened to every Orioles game on the radio (Hall of Famer Chuck Thompson and Jon Miller were outstanding) and devoured the Baltimore Sun's sports page coverage every afternoon when I got home from school. I knew every story about every player, could quote their stats, and monitored the progress of minor league prospects.

Then I went off to college and stopped caring about baseball.

In college I loved college basketball. I felt a personal connection to our team and went to almost every home game in my 4 years at the University of Maryland. I knew every story about every player, could quote their stats, and followed our recruiting efforts. I ran a fan website at www.juandixon.com (which I gave to Juan after we graduated) and was friends with the Washington Post's Terps beat writer. I still consider the final four weekend in Atlanta in 2002 where "we" won the National Championship one of the greatest times of my life.

Then I graduated and I stopped caring of college basketball.

Starting around the time Michael Jordan came out of retirement, I loved the NBA. I watched all the Wizards games and TNT's Thursday night coverage. I got tickets when interesting teams came to town and read all the box scores on ESPN.com with my cursor poised to switch over to an excel spreadsheet if someone walked by my cubicle. I knew every player who got minutes for every team, and eagerly awaited the All-Star Game.

Then I quit my job and I stopped caring about the NBA.

---

I've often looked back and tried to explain my abrupt abandonment of teams/sports I loved so much. Part of me didn't want to let go. I theorized that not getting the newspaper delivered to my dorm was the reason I lost touch with the Orioles. I theorized that the letdown after winning a national championship was the reason I stopped caring about my Terps (Today I still do care about the Terps, but in a different way). I theorized that moving my computer away from my television was the reason I stopped caring about the NBA.

Now I understand it a lot better, and I think it is all about entertainment.

At the heart of it, watching a ball game is entertainment, and entertainment is a way you choose to spend your time. The transitions [from high school --> college --> office job --> playing online poker at home] each drastically changed how my days were spent. Not surprisingly, major changes in the my life brought about changes in the way I spend my entertainment time.

I still like sports. I still can enjoy watching a basketball game or spending a summer evening at Camden Yards. I still think playing fantasy football or watching a game at a sports bar is a fun way to stay in touch with friends. I appreciate the skills of athletes and coaches, and I enjoy witnessing the strategy and competition.

But I don't have any interest in being an active sports fan any more. I'm not going to read all the box scores, enter 6 fantasy leagues, tune in for the TNT pregame show with Charles and Kenny, or watch every Orioles game. I'll turn down tickets to games now, or turn the game off at halftime. Instead, I'd rather read a book, or watch a movie, or kiss my girlfriend, or write in my blog, or enjoy a Samuel Adams White Ale (or 5), or go for a run, or listen to the O'Reilly Radio Factor, or anything else I do for entertainment.

I don't know exactly why my preferences are different now. I can list a bunch of theories:

• Maybe its because I play a game for a living, so I don't want to spend much of my free time reading about and watching other people play games.
  
• Maybe its because its kind of sad how rabid sports fans seem like they're trying to live vicariously through a bunch of kids in bright green shorts.
  
• Maybe its because I'm sick of every team being convinced the refs screw them over more than anyone else.
  
• Maybe its because I'm gay.
  
• Maybe its because I suddenly realized that professional athletes are modern day gladiators whose only value to society is filling some primal need for people to feel like part of a war without any actual risks.
  
• Maybe its because I'm sick of my entertainment dollars making rich superstars out of so many complete jackasses.
  
• Maybe its because I realized that the vast majority of sports commentary is meaningless bullshit.
• Maybe its because experience to variance in poker made me realize that luck, as opposed to skill, determines a lot more of the outcomes of plays/games/seasons than people want to believe.
  

Whatever the reason, I've finally come to terms with it, and I'm no longer ashamed to admit it. I don't care about sports any more.

Is believing in God stupid?

I've been told that another reason I'm so arrogant is that I seem to think that everyone who believes in god is stupid. I've been contemplating this matter, and I keep thinking about Bill O'Reilly.

I'm mentioned a few times on here that I've occasionally listened to his radio show and I like a lot of what he has to say. I like his approach of being fair-minded and objective, and his willingness to fight for what he believes in. I think he's a brilliant guy, and I know that he is a devoted Catholic.

If he believes in god with absolute certainty, then it is because he doesn't apply the same fair-minded objective standard to his religious thought. In establishing political, historical or scientific claims, he would demand supporting evidence that passes fair tests of logic, objectivity, and reproducibility. No reasons that he or anyone else believe in god would meet those standards of proof.

Is he stupid for believing in god? No. He just hasn't decided to apply those standards to every part of his life.

Is it stupid not to apply such standards to every part of his life? Ah, this is a better question. I think it probably is stupid not to consistently apply standards of proof to all aspects of belief, but I'm not as sure about this. To answer that question, we need to determine the good and bad consequences of that decision. If the bad outweighs the good, belief without adequate evidence is stupid.

Belief in god, or choosing to follow a certain faith has certainly been a very positive thing for many people. The good side of religious faith is well documented, and I don't think I need to elaborate here. Some parts of the bad side of religious faith have also been well documented - people commit all kinds of unspeakable atrocities in the name of god.

But what about Bill O'Reilly? He's not advocating killing all the non-believers, so there isn't that bad consequence of his decision not to apply rigorous standards of proof to his religious faith. But a point I've touched on before from the Atheist Manifesto is that widespread acceptance of religious thinking encourages people to accept false certainties. Just because he doesn't choose to take drastic actions based on his beliefs doesn't mean that other people won't.

If Bill O'Reilly, who demands proof for almost everything, believes in his idea of god without proof, why can't radical Muslim terrorists do the same:

A person can be so well educated that he can build a nuclear bomb while still believing that he will get 72 virgins in Paradise. Such is the ease with which the human mind can be partitioned by faith, and such is the degree to which our intellectual discourse still patiently accommodates religious delusion.

So I think an important downside of Mr. O'Reilly's religious beliefs is that it adds to societal acceptance of irrational conclusions.

No, I don't think Bill O'Reilly is stupid for believing in God. But I suspect it does more harm than good, a suspicion based on my belief that honesty is better than dishonesty. Obviously this entry isn't a full analysis of the harm and the good, it is just to illustrate the kind of approach needed to answer the questions asked.

I'm open to the possibility that full analysis might show that religion does more direct good than harm. But I'm not sure than goodness built on irrational belief is the way I'd like the world to be running. Maybe my valuing honesty is naive.

Low limit so far

Since Sunday I've played 8,047 hands of $3/6 and won 2.05 BB/100, which is a rate I'm happy with. I've spread that play around a few different sites to step up my bonus-whoring efforts. I'm reasonably pleased with the volume of play I'm putting in, but I can't allow myself to let up on that.

Most of that play is 4 or 5 tabling during the day, which is kind of weird. I've been getting up at 5am and playing off an on until about 5pm. I've been able to listen to the Junks and Bill O'Reilly, while I play and go for runs around lunch time. It is a fairly enjoyable routine.