Hokie

I would certainly say it does. It's a very intelligent way of aggregating his predictions in a meaningful sense. Being done on a week to week basis, I would actually expect it to be more accurate than the beginning of the season one as you have knowledge of form, injuries, suspensions, players bought and sold in January, etc, minus your point about expecting a team to "bounce back" after a loss. (Which if it truly is a real effect, if you are aware of previous performance would improve your prediction. Your case simply begs the question.) Anyhow, the criticism over the years is that Lawro has favours the top teams. I ran this season's predictions (aggregated in table form) against actual points. The dashed line is perfection (y = x). Any team with higher predictions than actual performances lies below that line. Any team performing better than predictions is above it. https://postimg.org/image/vrhcinto5/ FWIW, the slope of the predictive model from a regression I ran is 0.573 (rather than 1) with standard error of 0.092, which means its more than 4.5 standard deviations from a slope of 1. I can say with 99.999% confidence that the predictions are biased towards teams towards the top. [Note: Anyhow, my I don't have a Ph.D. in stats, and likely have been picking up more lately at work than I am actually in full command of, so if anyone wants to critique the analysis, have at it.]

Not Saints related, but he seems to generally believe safety is easier than it is. He has teams in 17th predicted, by year, as achieving 30, 36, 32, 34, and 20 points. For this year he predicted 9th place would be on 38 points! Is he still on 2 pts for a win?

A bad moment was the first season back in the Premier League, second game (?) against Wigan(?) Fonte receives a back pass and rather than playing a safe ball back to the keeper, tries a clever turn on the opposing striker, is tackled cleanly, and the opposing striker pulls away with pace and scores. I recall thinking, "Welcome to the Premier League." To be fair, he soon learned what he could and could not do.

Really? Reads like crap science, published by a crap publisher, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Research_Publishing), by a crank http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Persinger

Interesting formation. Watching online while distracted, but to me it plays like 5-3-2 or 3-5-2 with Bertrand-VD-Fonte across the center 3, Cedric and Targett as wings/wing-backs, and Long and Mane up top. Bertrand role seems odd, but can't argue with the end product.

Clearly, its not an assist if the pass wasn't that difficult or was far away from goal, the same way that PKs and tap-ins are not real goals. Can I also mention that ice hockey records two assists on each goal (if no defender touches in between) in an effort to troll a Ralf dig? (I suspect that second assists may well be the key ingredient in the Southampton Black Box.)

They are just waiting for all the players to come back from international duty to sign the shirt.

Assuming Clasie comes back, Romeu for Wanyama for the next few weeks, then rotate them according to card accumulations/suspensions. Against weaker sides, I'd like to see more of JWP as CM. Bit depressing for Reed, though. I would not be surprised to see Yoshida playing right back for Cedric on occasion, especially when playing against strong sides away from home.

Are we talking Subbuteo? 1.69 cm is far too short. The player is likely to be killed when trod on during a match. Of course, my sources (Wikipedia, if you must) claim Clasie is actually 1.69 m, or 163 cm.

No one is asking the bakers to enter into a gay marriage, or engage in homosexuality. (Which I would be against. I'd be the first with the sign at the protest saying, "No forced buggery against Christian bakers.") Does their religion prohibit homosexuality for those in the faith, or homosexuality for everyone? I have no problem with people practicing their faith. I have a problem with people who expect me to practice their faith. (No, I am not gay, but I do a number of things that would bother priest and mullah alike.) Without researching this case, I believe the baker is not, in fact, an individual baker, but in fact some form of legal entity recognized by the government. Beyond the question of whether or not a corporate entity can be "Christian", (was it baptized?) I do expect that such an entity not discriminate in exchange for the legal protections that forming such an entity provides. An individual has the right, in my mind to discriminate on the basis of religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc. A corporation does not. The bottom line to me is that the refusal was clearly discriminatory against a group of people who have suffered from their identity. (Such discrimination including loss of employment, physical assault--including death, and not too far past, incarceration.) I think I could be persuaded otherwise if the baker, in court, produced evidence of refusing business related to a wide variety of behavior/messages regarding things that their faith proscribes. This to me, on its face, seems politically discriminatory rather than religious.

Play JWP the second half?

I draw a line between "going over easy" and "diving." A dive for me is when a player goes down with no contact. If the player is fouled, and can struggle to keep his feet but in doing so loses a step, giving the defence an opportunity to recover, then going down ensures the ref does not play the advantage. As far as Mane, from what I see, he is flopping from light contact. It is a little embarrassing, but when I take into account his pace and body shape and the fact that he draws so many fouls, I am more forgiving. In many ways, I would like to see more cautions from referees on the cynical fouls that are used to stop him 30 and 40 yards from goal. That said, if he played for another team, I might be more critical. Just out of curiosity has he been carded for a dive this season?

Crap! Have we drawn Sunderland in the cup again?

Story line of the match? Bony and our central defence received 4 yellow cards in the first 40 minutes and we came out on top. Perhaps a bit lucky events happened the way they did. I remember thinking at 20 minutes, this match is not going to end with 22 players on the pitch. Was surprised how physical the match was, early going. Didn't really feel anything was dirty or cheap, just hard. Credit to Fonte for playing for that long with the yellow, but he seems quite good at that. (Does anyone keep a stat on minutes played with a yellow without being sent off?) Wanyama, Gardos, and Davis all looked very good coming on, especially the first two. Very strong in possession, although likely the events of the game (i.e. Swansea paying very high tempo for the first 40 minutes, then a man down the rest of the way) flattered them. Nice to see yet another goal from a central midfielder. Pelle looks like a load up front. A bit unlucky not to score before 80 minutes, then the last 15 seemed knackered and was terribly wasteful. MOTM for us, as EOA said was Bony. No choice for him in the poll, so I went with Bertrand (enjoyed his battle with Dyer, who I rate) although no one player for me stood out. Perhaps Fonte as well.

Just checking in on this thread again, and I am confused. Are we testing for wealth, brains, or being free from all government support before licensing parents? Or do we reckon it's all the same thing? I get that unlicensed breeders will be aborted, sterilized, and/or have children taken away from them. That's a nice touch. I often think that the only thing wrong with government is its limited authority over family decisions.

Assuming the above makes sense, how do you enforce the law? Forced sterilization? Abortions? Confiscation of illegal children? or do you just cut benefits and let the illegals starve?

I see the strategy. Koeman is looking to spend £12 m on Long to show Schniederlin how little the Spurs rate him.

The article was fine, whoever the subeditor was, must have been high. It's been fixed now. The link to the page was "Lambert praises Liverpool boss Pochettino". The headline was "Rickie Lambert praises new boss" when the article was about what Poch taught him. My interpretation was conserve your energy and only make runs for players like Lallana. Which makes me wonder, who he was and wasn't running for. Finally, the picture caption was "Rickie Lambert played under Mauricio Pochettino at Sunderland and will be reunited with him at Liverpool."

Silly Yank press. Count the errors. http://www.espnfc.us/liverpool/story/1868064/rickie-lambert-praises-liverpool-boss-mauricio-pochettino

That's not my observation. The few geologists I've known do far better financially in the petroleum industry than academia. They do a great job reminding me of that fact when we meet, thank you very much! For what its worth, you likely see barriers between geology and climate science that are not in fact true. My reading of affiliations suggests climate science is quite multidisciplinary and thier methods can be generally evaluated by many fields. (This is similar to Creation Science arguments that evolutionary biology is corrupt, when they fail to realize they are in a fight with biology, geology, physics, history.) You misread me. I said the models are "imperfect" and are "improvable". Describing a model is "wrong" is quite simplistic. (Are my calipers "wrong" because they have an error stamped on the case?) To the best of my reading, the models are within their stated confidences. I have seen critics remove the confidence intervals, and then criticise the models for the mean prediction not matching the observation, but I would strongly suggest that is a deliberate misrepresentation, and indicates an intent to deceive. I would be happy to read more about the errors due to Reykyavik, or assessments of the models, but I will warn you. I place little credence on blog posts, or news stories from Murdock-owned papers. In the interest of fairness, I wouldn't expect you to believe anything from the Guardian, the Independent, or Mother Jones. What I have read from refereed journal publications and (what I consider) credible neutral sources like New Scientist, Scientific American, and Science News suggests these models are quite accurate, and getting better. I believe the 15 year pause in warming is now 17 years. Why? You need to include 1998--a very hot year with a strong El Nino, in the window or else it doesn't make the case for the pause. Even if there is a pause, which I concede there may be, the temperature anomaly is positive indicating the warming continues. To argue against warming, it seems to me, you'd need a decrease in temperature, not a holding fast of elevated temperature. The best the skeptics can do is argue for "hotter than normal, but not getting still hotter" using a select data range. Thanks for the update. I wouldn't think any intelligent person would call for the petroleum industry to cease permanently, and certainly not in the short or medium term. I can't see resources as drying up as much as getting more costly to get what's remaining, that it's not worth producing. I do think we need more credible alternatives, and as of today the alternatives are not often feasible. Whether on climate modeling or alternative energy, I am a big advocate of heavy research funding, but then again that may be me following the dollar!

So, Geologist's (sic) are real scientists? What do you think of the Geological Society of America's position statement on climate change? http://www.geosociety.org/positions/position10.htm What do you think of their recommendations? Do you have citations for any of these things? I mean, besides a blog. I'd say from my understanding is that the "hysteria", as you call it, is based on observations of data (air and water temperatures, glacier melt, decrease in arctic sea ice) and qualitative scientific facts (CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and mankind is producing it in known quantities). The models describe the causal mechanism by which the correlated observations are interpreted, as well as attempting to extrapolate the science into predictions. What you may find surprising is that I agree the models are imperfect, and need further development. However to reject all findings of the models out of hand because of specific anomalies seems quite naive. Further to delay action until the models are "perfect", which will never happen, (every theory has anomalies) is economically more expensive. Out of curiosity, you work in the petroleum industry down there in New Orleans, George? Do you get your information from those that do? Just asking, since you make the claim that climate scientists are on the "gravy train."

For anyone interested, here's the link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/10835291/Scientists-accused-of-suppressing-research-because-of-climate-sceptic-argument.html Some quotes you missed, GM that provide a bit of nuance, to say the least. Bear in mind also, that this is from the Telegraph, not the Guardian, so its a bit of an "away fixture" for me: I think I agree with GM and the Telegraph that political advocacy has no place in scientific review. However Bengtsson's quotes use words like he "believes" and "suspects" such boas occurred, and don't actually provide quotes from the peer review. Then again, B's had a tough few weeks. (Google the news if you will, that may be worthy of intelligent discussion here, or just general ****-taking.) The editor's rebuttal on the other hand does quote the reviewers. Any editor worth her salt would not allow political bias in a review to stand. Still, its a more exciting headline than scientist has low-impact paper rejected from top journal. It happens, and at least in my case, is never a problem with my research, rather its always due to the bias of the reviewers. Still, I don't call the newspapers to have a moan. (No, I just moan to anyone within earshot in the lab, at a conference, or down the pub, etc.) I further agree with the statement from the blog GM quoted that this is every bit as important as the East Anglia "climategate" scandal. Every...bit...as...important.

So, help me understand this. Your comment seems to indicate you believe the evidence leads to a reasonable conclusion that the earth is warming, and action is needed and you are just dickering over the best course of action, i.e. build walls? I have a lot more respect, scientifically, for the later. A little devil in me wants to ask how you know there were no ice glaciers in Greenland 35 m years ago? Is your previously expressed skepticism in climate science selective? As for me, I don't deny climate has changed over the history of the earth. Heck, dinosaurs once roamed Antarctica, and more recently, (drinkable) wine was made in Britain. However, I defer to the scientific consensus that indicates that the recent rapid warming a) is occurring, b) is being caused largely by human activity, c) will cause great and negative impact on economic and human endeavours, d) will accelerate with population and economic growth. I also believe, that collective action is possible to mitigate the effects and that actions we take now will give greater benefit at a lower cost than actions we take 20-30 years from now.

Reading the abstract of "Seismic detection of an active subglacial magmatic complex in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica" (http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n12/full/ngeo1992.html) Lough and colleagues are observing earthquakes, that "occur beneath active volcanoes, are caused by deep magmatic activity and, in some cases, precede eruptions." I can't see that any eruptions have occurred other than evidence of one 8000 years ago. Rather they suggest "Eruptions at this site ... would generate large volumes of melt water that could significantly affect ice stream flow." (Italics mine.) I would suggest that future eruptions do not explain the observation of retreating glaciers from 1992-2011 as reported in the study by Ringot in Geophysical Research Letters, which the New York Times reports on.

Scientists Warn of Rising Oceans From Polar Melt "A large section of the mighty West Antarctica ice sheet has begun falling apart and its continued melting now appears to be unstoppable, two groups of scientists reported on Monday. If the findings hold up, they suggest that the melting could destabilize neighboring parts of the ice sheet and a rise in sea level of 10 feet or more may be unavoidable in coming centuries." http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/13/science/earth/collapse-of-parts-of-west-antarctica-ice-sheet-has-begun-scientists-say.html&assetType=nyt_now&_r=1