prior probability

Why aren’t any of the postseason games at Wrigley Field day games? Because the suits at Major League Baseball and the TV networks are greedy bastards. In the words of sportswriter Ryan Fagan:

… it’s known start times are heavily influenced (OK, controlled) by TV networks, and TV networks love prime-time contests. But they’re missing a wonderful opportunity to give a nod toward nostalgia, and how great of a hook would this be? They could sell this, folks.

Saturday’s Game 4 would have been the perfect fit. It’s a weekend, which means the typical 9-to-5 routines of the work week don’t apply to most would-be viewers. And the way the primary competition for sports eyeballs — college football on Saturday — is set up, with flexible start times, most of the best games are in the evening anyway. 

As Fagan notes, the Cubs didn’t play their first night game at the Friendly Confines until August 6, 1988. By way of comparison, the White Sox, the other baseball team in Chicago, installed lights at the original Comiskey Park in 1939.

Welcome to the Friendly Confines.

Instead of wasting time with term limits, codes of ethics, or campaign finance reform laws, what if we redesigned the federal electoral process by allocating electoral college votes by county, with one county = one electoral college vote? In the alternative, what if congressional districts for the U.S. House of Representatives were based on the existing map of counties within each State, with one member of Congress per county? One problem with our proposal, however, is practical: the House would have to increase in size from 435 members to over 3000! According to Wikipedia, for example, there are 3007 counties, 64 parishes, 19 organized boroughs, 11 census areas, 41 independent cities, and the District of Columbia, for a total of 3,143 counties and county-equivalents in the U.S. We would thus need to build a bigger Congress or find another way to house so many congressmen.

Unit of selection?

Via Tyler Cowen (once again), we discovered this beautiful introduction to the work of Thucydides (written up by T. Greer, who blogs at zenpundit.com). Here is an excerpt:

Thucydides earned a place at my “internal council” table. A spot has been saved for him near the doorway, between the seats given to Xunzi and Ibn Khaldun. One day he might sit opposite to Tocqueville; the next he will debate with Madison. In all cases I will be glad to hear his voice. But Thucydides is a wily one, and I am not quite ready to let him in yet. I have too many questions that must first be answered. So I invite him instead (or, at least, so I imagine) to a cozy side room, warmed by a great fire place and graced with two old armchairs. I ask him to sit down and bear kindly the interrogation that is to follow.
“How should I read your book?”

“Should it be understood as a work of what we call history, or literature, or social science?”

“How can I distinguish between your narrative of events and the events themselves?”

“Could your explanations be wrong? How would I know?”

“And why, for heaven’s sake, did you not tell us when and how the Athenians passed the sanctions on Megara?”

Thucydides smiles, pulls out his manuscript, and begins his reply. I listen carefully, questioning here, prodding there, occasionally crying out, “You rascal, you almost fooled me!” and then arguing furiously against what I hear. I know these questions will not all be resolved in one sitting. It will go on for weeks, I think, and even then some queries will remain unanswered. But by then the old Hellene will be ready to take his seat place at my table. I, in turn, will have learned a great deal about the world and its workings that I’d never considered before.

How should we read this book?