The Finisher

Tony Massarotti runs down five possible scenarios for the call-up of future Hall-of-Famer John Smoltz to the Red Sox active roster. None of them is perfect, and the one that makes the most baseball sense (demoting Matsuzaka) would be hard to get past Dice-K himself. Mazz considers a six-man rotation, or a bullpen role for Smoltz, but frowns on both.

But how about a different approach altogether: make Matsuzaka and Smoltz "co-starters". Or to phrase the idea better, give Smoltz the role of "finisher" for Matsuzaka. Dice-K hasn't been getting past the 5th inning. Smoltz is 42 and coming off shoulder surgery: neither one is going to be throwing a lot of complete games. The argument against sending Smoltz to the bullpen is that he'd lack the every-five-games routine of a starter and the slow prep toward each start. But as Matsuzaka's "finisher", he could have that routine. Every five days he'd prepare, knowing he'd be brought in sometime during the game - the 2nd inning would be a good time in most Dice-K starts this year, but the 5th or 6th is what the Sox would hope for.

So Dice-K starts the game. He nibbles and throws 95 pitches through 4 innings, and Tito lifts him before the heart of the opponent's order gets their third look at him. Then Smoltz comes on and throws his 70 or 80 pitches and finishes the game or hands it over to the true bullpen in the 8th or 9th.

Now the bullpen won't be heavily taxed every five games to clean up Dice-K's mess, and both pitchers will be kept active, healthy, and fresh in case an injury occurs somewhere in the rotation, at which point the Sox can go back to a conventional rotation... or call up Clay Buchholz.

Imaginative Economics

One of my colleagues had posted the question, "Is Imagination more important than knowledge?" He's a good friend, so I asked him about it. He expressed an interesting answer to his own question, which is that the two are complementary, and (at least for research purposes) you need a minimum of both to get anywhere.

He expressed this mathematically, and I corrected a minor error in his math to get:

result = (maximum{imagination - minimum1, 0})^alpha * (maximum{knowledge - minimum2, 0})^beta

That is, if either the imagination or knowledge falls short of its minimum, the net result is zero. If both are above the minimum, then they work together in some proportions, and can partially - but not fully - substitute for one another. Within some constraint, the result will be highest when imagination and knowledge exist in the proportions (alpha, beta) respectively.

Downsizing

America likes big. So kudos to a mayor who can find value in shrinking his domain: Flint's is apparently on board, following the lead of country treasurer Dan Kildee. With much of the city falling vacant, Flint and possibly Detroit will be returning some land to nature. Writing of Flint:

The local authority has restored the city's attractive but formerly deserted centre but has pulled down 1,100 abandoned homes in outlying areas. Mr Kildee estimated another 3,000 needed to be demolished, although the city boundaries will remain the same. Already, some streets peter out into woods or meadows, no trace remaining of the homes that once stood there.

This is at least a partial answer to the suburban sprawl caused by former Flintians moving to Las Vegas and Orlando, and it could also make Flint a pleasant place to live again.

Hat tip to Drudge.

Hassaan, hassaan! Mumlukati b'hassaan!

Check the NYTimes theatre review of an Arabic-language adaptation of Richard III. It seems more interesting as an analysis of Arab governments than of Shakespeare. This is precisely the type of self-critical art of which the Arab world needs more.

Cluster Sick

My friends aren't doing well. This morning I learned that S. has Lyme Disease, J. has a cold, and E. broke his ankle. Be careful out there, kids, and wash your hands before eating.

Hint: It's Not A Car

For those who want to fix the economy, here's a clue:

It's not a car.

You can't rev it up (34,300). You can't jump-start it either (1 million). Nor is it a motorcycle, so you can't "kick-start the economy", as 73,600 have attempted.

The poor analogies for "economic management" go beyond vehicles: 430,000 want to reboot the economy. These analogies fail because they are analogous to nothing. Economies are not 'rebooted', 'kick-started', or 'revved'. Tim Geithner isn't in the driver's seat, pushing levers and steering around chicanes. He's in a big office chair, squinting at tables of figures that reflect the agglomerated decisions of millions of car drivers, computer users, construction workers, soccer players, insurance estimators, and pantyhose salesmen.

So how should we talk about the economy? We can't expostulate theory every time we speak, so we need some shorthand. Here are a few analogies that could mean something:

• Tying the hands of taxpayers/local gov'ts/businesses. Regulations or endogenous constraints can narrow the number of choices available to economic agents, worsening their well-being.
• Herding cats. Timmy G. can relate to this one, I'm sure.
• Mending wall. Externalities can create perverse incentives; good fences make good neighbors.
• Losing the milk money. People in positions of trust can abuse their power with carelessness or malice.
• Pushing a car up a hill. For those of you who love car analogies: the fact that GM is dead as a Chevy Vega hasn't stopped the government from trying to huff and puff it back to life.

Lebanon Election Wrap-Up

The March 14 Forces won yesterday's elections in Lebanon decisively but not overwhelmingly. They'll remain a slim majority in Parliament, but be obliged to form another national unity government with their opponents.

The Daily Star notes that Christians were the swing vote in this elections, while Sunnis and Druze stayed with March 14 and Shi'ites anchored the pro-Syrian coalition. Less than 30 of the 128 seats were really contested, and the most hotly contested of these were in the Metn and Zahle, where I have family. The Metn's seats ended up splitting, while Zahle's seven seats went to the March 14 Forces.

Al-Jazeera editorializes its 'news' report with a photo of "March 14 supporters celebrat[ing]", which shows a scantily clad Lebanese brunette draining a large beer. The Arab media frames Lebanese politics as a contest between supporters of Hezbollah and the "Western-backed" March 14 coalition. The Western media is more likely to call the opposition "Syrian-backed" or "Iranian-backed" and note that the March 14 Forces rallied around the assassinated Rafiq Hariri.