Sledging has no part in Cricket

 In my experience few cricketers understand what the preamble to the laws of cricket say.

In essence it says you should respect all umpiring decisions. Again in my experience respect is usually given to decisions in their favour not the other way.

It also says respect should be given to the opposition and their own team mates.

It goes without saying therefore sledging should have no part of the game.

Test umpires have IMHO been very poor with regard to player behaviour. Yesterday they shouldf have told both Lyons and Hazelwood to tone it down when they took a wicket and clearly were looking straight at the departing batsman when they were 'whooping' it up. It is small  incidents like this that make for larger and much worse ones.

As important as this is the influence on Junior and indeed senior players cannot be underestimated. I had 14 seasons of junior cricket and had to at times tell youngsters what they were doing was out of order.

The excuse always was and is they do this in tests. They say the same thing in Shires!!

Trump needs to be both impeached and convicted

 The events the other day in Washington were an absolute disgrace. such an event should never be allowed to occur again in the USA.  See HERE for whether it was terrorism or not.

Trump's speech that very day together with others were a direct incitement to overthrow the electorate's decision on the election by those supporters who had such little intelligence they believed the fraud conspiracies' be perpetrated by Trump and his friends.  Just one example will do. They believe over 50,000 'dead' people voted. This would be very easy to prove. It wasn't used in any of the 60 odd legal cases the trump camp lost.

Trump incited this mob by again telling lies about the election. There was at the very least an attempt of an insurrection. 

Trump should be impeached and convicted because of this. This is very important. Unless this is done every potential tinpot dictator will attempt to do what was attempted. The Whole of the US Congress can say we do not want this to ever be attempted again by both impeaching  and convicting Trump.

Around the Traps 8/1/21

 It is time for Around the Traps

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• James Laurenson on china-enters-2021-a-stronger-more-influential-power-and-australia-may-feel-the-squeeze-even-more
• Daniel Hurst and Graham Readfearn on australia-inching-closer-to-committing-to-net-zero-by-2050-top-energy-advisor-says
• Phillip Laird on distance-based-road-charges-will-improve-traffic-and-if-done-right-wont-slow-australias-switch-to-electric-cars
• Catherine Bennett on australias-mishmash-of-covid-border-closures-is-confusing-inconsistent-and-counterproductive
• Jason Potts and Kelsie Nabben on why-is-bitcoins-price-at-an-all-time-high-and-how-is-its-value-determined
• Timothy Leary and David Whalley on solar-panel-fire-season-is-all-year-round-and-its-getting-more-intense-in-australia
• Institutional Economics on rate-cuts-and-sentiment-revisited?
• Daniel D'Hotman and Steven Hamilton on how-australia-can-phase-out-coal-power-while-maintaining-energy-security
• Renew economy on esbs-market-vision-fall-short-of-whats-needed-for-renewable-grid

Northern America

• Cameron Peters on washington-post-trump-call-georgia-secretary-state-raffensperger-recording-find-votes
• Ken Melvin on the-fallacy-of-unions
• David Frum on trumps-georgia-call-crosses-red-line
• John Cassidy on trumps-authoritarian-moment-is-here
• Gwylim Blunt on once-donald-trump-is-out-of-the-white-house-americans-should-write-him-out-of-history-too
• Mikal Skuterud on 100-million-is-a-really-big-number-a-review-of-doug-saunders-maximum-canada
• Andrew Eggers et al on fraud Thanks Tyler Cowen 
• Menzie Chinn on guest-contribution-how-might-bidens-anticipated-tax-changes-affect-the-market
• Sam Wang on is-georgia-2020-the-new-virginia-2008
• the conversable economist on some-economics-of-middle-class
• Clayton Besar and Mathew Frank on was-it-a-coup-no-but-siege-on-us-capitol-was-the-election-violence-of-a-fragile-democracy
• Jordan McSweeny on why-are-the-capitol-rioters-so-angry-because-theyre-scared-of-losing-grip-on-their-perverse-idea-of-democracy
• Jared Mondschein on bidens-job-gets-easier-after-senate-wins-in-georgia-but-dont-expect-a-progressive-revolution
• David Smith on delighting-in-causing-complete-chaos-whats-behind-trump-supporters-brazen-storming-of-the-capitol
• 538 on how-democrats-won-the-georgia-runoffs, trump-helped-take-extremist-views-from-the-fringes-of-society-to-a-mob-attacking-the-capitol

Europe

• Peter Geoghegan on swedish-model-failed-covid-19
• Mainly Macro on why-uks-covid-crisis-should-be-personal-for-tory-voter
• stumbling and mumbling on whats-given-whats-not
• James empty blog on blueskiesresearchorguk-not-even-half-half-there

Asia

• Aarti Betigeri on putting-caste-system-in-its-place
• Nematullah Bizhan on for-the-afghan-peace-talks-to-succeed-a-ceasefire-is-the-next-and-perhaps-toughest-step-forward
• Helen Davidson on dozens-of-hong-kong-pro-democracy-figures-arrested-in-sweeping-crackdown 
• Lauren Williams on bleak-reality-sectarian-lebanon
• Barkley Rosser on the-end-of-embargo-against-qatar
• Lauren Williams on bleak-reality-sectarian-lebanon

Wonk

• Tim Harford on things-i-think-i-was-wrong-about-this-year
• Nick Rowe on loanable-funds-redux
• Alexandra Wake on doom-surfing-and-fact-checkers-prosper-covid-19-infodemic
• the conversable economist on the-curse-of-knowledge-bad-writing-bad-teaching-bad-communication
• Tyler Cowen on new-evidence-that-spices-fruits-from-asia-had-reached-the-mediterranean-earlier-than-thought, half-doses-as-good-as-full, the-politics-of-covid-just-got-even-more-hellish
• Peter Greste on julian-assanges-extradition-victory-offers-cold-comfort-for-press-freedom
• David Hope and Julian Linberg on the-economic-consequences-of-major-tax-cuts-for-the-rich Thanks Peter Whiteford
• Noam Gidron and Peter Hall on populism-erupts-when-people-feel-disconnected-and-disrespected
• Coppolla comment on reconciling-is-lm-and-endogenous-money
• Xueyhin Zha on unique-power-tiktok-s-algorithm
• stumbling and mumbling on on-bad-governmentl

General

• Elke Hacker and Louise Baldwin on i-cant-get-sunburnt-through-glass-shade-or-in-water-right-5-common-sunburn-myths-busted
• Kate Cantrell on guide-to-the-classics-the-wind-in-the-willows-a-tale-of-wanderlust-male-bonding-and-timeless-delight

Climate

• Peter Sinclair on energy-storage-update-progress-report-on-flow-batteries
• moyhu on templs-global-surface-2020-just-cooler-2016
• and Then Theres Physics on warming-commitments
• BOM on annual-climate-statement-2020-australias-fourth-warmest-year-on-record

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

• translation-plagiarism
  
• maybe-the-better-analogy-is-that-these-people-are-museum-curators-and-were-telling-them-that-their-precious-collection-of-leonardos-which-they-have-been-augmenting-at-a-rate-of-about-one-per-month
  
• our-ridiculous-health-care-system-part-734
  
• megan-higgs-statistician-and-anna-dreber-economist-on-how-to-judge-the-success-of-a-replication
  
• authors-retract-the-nature-communications-paper-on-female-mentors
  
• nyt-editor-described-columnists-as-people-who-are-paid-to-have-very-very-strong-convictions-and-to-believe-that-theyre-right
  
• xkcd-curve-fitting-methods-and-the-messages-they-send
  
• what-is-are-bad-data
  
• weakliem-on-air-rage-and-himmicanes
  
• Kaiser Fung on excess-deaths-accelerated-deaths-and-co-morbidities

Econometrics

• Freakometrics on crossvalidation

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

• b
• Eszter Hargittai on positive-note-10-book-reading-non-fiction-edition
• econjeff on book-promise-me-youll-shoot-yourself-by.

Vox wonk

• financial-market-sensitivity-announcements-ecb
  
• post-covid-19-potential-output-euro-area
  
• epidemiological-and-economic-consequences-government-responses-covid-19
  
• interregional-contact-and-national-identity
  
• joint-effect-private-and-public-environmental-regulation-emissions
  
• disruption-seaborne-trade-south-east-asia
  
• effective-pandemic-management-minimises-economic-harm
  
• drivers-who-spend-too-much-fuel-efficiency
  
• how-fdi-responds-non-trade-provisions-preferential-trade-agreements
  
• european-commission-digital-markets-act-translation
  
• human-capital-oecd-countries-new-measure-and-its-policy-drivers
  
• antitrust-actions-against-facebook-igm-forum-survey
  
• covid-19-americas-north-south-differences-and-labour-market-channel
  
• risk-resilience-and-recalibration-global-value-chains
  

The USA today

 What occurred today in the USA merely is what occurs when people believe insane conspiracy stories and want to get rid of democracy.

Let us be very clear. Trump and his supports have many times tried to use the courts to overturn results. They have failed every time. Why? NO evidence. Just remember a lot of so called 'evidence' was never produced in any court because it was bunkum.

Possibly the best thing to come out of this is the permanent stain on Trump and should mean Republican leaders finally cutting themselves from him.

It is ironic that the only evidence of a person attempting fraud was Trump himself.

If those Republicans go ahead and protest the certification then the stain will be on their record as well.

What has been attempted is nothing less than insurrection!

All this has lead attention from the Democrats winning both senate seats in Georgia being vastly diminished. I am still coming to terms with this.  ( John King on CNN is the USA's Antony Green. Yep he is that good). I have to admit I thought it would go the other way however in Donald Trump the Democrats had the perfect foil. He patently had no strategy and must be the main reason why there was a swing to the democrats.

Can the 25th amendment be invoked immediately? Trump has now tried electoral fraud and now violent insurrection. what more evidence is needed.

Jim Mattis  on what occurred. Explosive but accurate.

Postscript:

Georgia was amazing. Fancy a black man and a jew winning senate seats. Do not think everything will go Biden's way now. There is more than one senate democrat who could change positions on certain policies. On the other hand If Biden does not know about how the Senate works then no-one does

Moyhu on both climate and Stats

 This is dated but this is a good article about using anomalies not average absolute temperatures.

how-averaging-absolute-temperatures

As an added bonus we have 

templs-global-surface-2020-just-cooler-than-2016

The Indians have a point

 The Indian cricket team have apparently made it clear they do not want to play a test in Brisbane when they must live under quarantine conditions for 14 days.

I think they have a point.

They had a 14 day period in Dubai which was not recognised and then a further 14 days in Australia and now they are being told they have to do a further 14 days.

What should have been done was to play two tests in either Melbourne or Brisbane,  The Hobart pitch has been one of the better pitches as well. The MCG pitch was a bewdy in the 2nd test. The SCG pitch which has been poor in recent years will have had little time to prepare given the consistent rain we have had.

What is it about Democracy some Republicans do not like

 Okay new year and all that. The USA had a Presidential election. Biden won easily. Trump has said Fraud was involved.

Yeah I know it makes nonsense to win the Presidency by fraud but completely ignore the senate and the house but whoever said Trump had brains. We should also note a lot of allegations do not make it to court because of the lack of any evidence at all.

We now have evidence Trump is clearly attempting to subvert democracy.  We have a small minority of Republican senators and house members willing to vote against what the Electoral college has certified.

Dubbing the media fake news simply gave dictators and would be dictators the perfect excuse to clamp down on the media. Subverting the democratic process simply shows the same people what to do to say in power illegally.

They are doing this in the USA the home of democracy why can we not do it here would be the refrain.

It is disgraceful this is occurring at all!