Whipped Cream Difficulties

And so we’ve come to the end of our first season doing the TMQ Watch, with the final TMQ of this season: the annual bad predictions review.

No, we said the bad predictions review. After the jump…

Sorry this is late. It took us some time to figure out how we wanted to handle this, since TMQ’s bad predictions review is really more of a list than a column. Our decision was that we wouldn’t break out individual predictions unless they’re somehow worthy of note, but give the general headings and provide some comment on the non-prediction portions.

Offseason predictions. Does TMQ understand hyperbole when he complains about “the sky’s the limit”? And why pick the mesosphere as where the sky ends? WCD thinks the troposphere makes more sense.

Season start predictions. While the predictions that the Steelers wouldn’t make the playoffs look bad in retrospect, WCD suggests that they were reasonable predictions in the context of the Steelers early season. Peter King picked Carolina? Now that’s funny.

Bad Congressional Budget Office predictions. Goofy sports predictions by the WSJ. Bad Deepwater Horizon predictions. While it pains us to be fair to President Obama, his statement “Oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills” seems unworthy of TMQ mockery; if oil rigs generally did cause spills, Deepwater wouldn’t have been the news item it was.

Bad basketball predictions. Bad <former Cleveland Cavilers player who we will not name here> predictions. Bad predictions by the Miami Heat.

Favre bashing! What will we do next year, without Favre to kick around? (That will probably show up in a bad predictions review.) Retroactive bad predictions. Coach firings. Player firings. Bad BCS predictions.

“Perhaps above the columned entrance to the Fed headquarters in Washington could be engraved the legend: WELCOME TO THE FEDERAL RESERVE. WE ARE NOT INCREDIBLY INCOMPETENT.” Okay, Gregg, points for that one.

Last creep of the season! Hurrah!

More Easterbrookian rantings about guns and about television, specifically his favorite target, “Human Target”. Easterbrook mentions a recent episode where two characters were shot “exactly one inch wide of the heart” and references One Hundred Years of Solitude. We give Easterbrook mad props for the Gabriel Garcia-Marquez reference, as the first thing that came to our mind when TMQ brought this up was the plot of an old Hawaii Five-O episode.

Reader Glade Roper of Sacramento, Calif., a physician at UC Davis Medical Center, writes, “The number of people who die from gunshot wounds is staggering. What concerns me nearly as much is the number who are permanently disabled. The Centers for Disease Control estimate that 52,447 deliberate and 23,237 accidental non-fatal gunshot injuries took place in 2010. I am really sick of seeing teen males and young men come into the ER paralyzed or maimed by handguns. They don’t amazingly recover like on television. Many of their injuries cannot be treated. Those paralyzed or maimed by guns often become wards of the state, increasing our taxes. Common sense gun control measures — like preventing the retail sale of combat magazines — would be a step in the right direction. So would realistic network depictions of the awful consequences of pointing a gun at a human being and pulling the trigger.”

First of all, Dr. Roper, are these injuries somehow less serious if a person is shot with a reduced capacity magazine instead of a standard capacity magazine? Does it reduce the severity of the injury if someone is shot with a magazine that holds 10 rounds, instead of 15? Or if they’re shot with a single-shot rifle instead of a revolver? Or a zip gun instead of a single-shot rifle? If it does, we suggest you submit this paper to the NEJM immediately.

Second of all, Dr. Roper and TMQ, we seriously doubt that “realistic network depictions of the awful consequences of pointing a gun at a human being and pulling the trigger” would reduce the violence you condemn. The people who are pointing the guns and pulling the trigger know what the awful consequences are; that’s why they do it. In some cases, such as self-defense, they may not have a choice; I’m sure Dr. Roper has also seen the awful consequences of a small woman being raped by a larger, heavier male. In other cases, they’ve made the conscious choice to take the life of another human being. Would reduced capacity magazines or stronger gun control stop them from making that choice? New York City gangs in the 50s made guns out of car radio antennas. Or perhaps you’d prefer the awful consequences of knife violence? Or car violence?

We share your concern, Dr. Roper, but television and standard-capacity magazines are not the cause of the problem, and you’re not going to solve your problems by taking your anger out on inanimate objects. WCD is not sure how to solve the problem, but we think it involves a lot of things other than guns and television; fixing broken schools, punishing criminals, providing jobs for kids who’d otherwise be in gangs, and ending the pointless war on some drugs would be good starting points.

Repudiated predictions. Once again, TMQ thinks he’s “Regret the Error” and goes after the NYT. Randy Moss bashing.

Wacky disclaimers: window screens don’t keep you from falling out the window, Borax is not for drug use, and sweat-proof headphones should be kept away from sweat. “Best bets” aren’t. “Three Cheers for Greg Jennings” and we won’t argue with that. Why is Nouriel Roubini a celebrity?

Midseason predictions. Bonus TV bashing: “Fringe”. Bad political predictions. Bad Jim Cramer predictions.

“TMQ’s off-price generic prediction, Home Team Wins, went 157-110, using the home team of record for the Super Bowl, the London contest and the Vikings-Giants snowstorm game played in Detroit.” Good to know. TMQ keeps bringing up the NYT final score predictions, even though the NYT stopped doing those several years ago. We understand the larger point about the futility of predicting exact final scores, Gregg, as well as the point about the stupid way people do it, but let the NYT go already. “Existing Trends Continue; If Trends Same, Home Team Wins” went 167-99. Also good to know.

Bad Olympic predictions, but TMQ fails to note the one about nobody being killed on the luge.

If you can’t afford concussion reducing helmets, proper mouth guards help, too. Also, your helmet should fit snugly.

Bad Super Bowl predictions. “…if scantily attired mega-babes are better than predicting football outcomes than former NFL players and coaches, perhaps it’s time for ESPN to re-examine the business model.” Yes, please.

Worst predictions of the year: Hey, we were right! Plus: Mike Florio, Peter King, Matthew Berry, and number one on TMQ’s list: Chris Berman.

“As usual, I recommend you employ the offseason to engage in spiritual growth. Take long walks. Attend worship services of any faith. Exercise more and eat less. Perform volunteer work. Appreciate the beauty of nature. Read, meditate, serve others.”  Rotate your tires. Remember the Pueblo.

As we said at the start of this, we generally like Easterbrook and TMQ, but there are times when somebody has to call TMQ on his crap. We’ll end this season’s TMQ watch by throwing Easterbrook a final bone: The Memory Chalet does sound like a fine book, albeit one we won’t be reading for personal reasons. Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food also sounds like something that’s up WCD’s alley.

That’s it for the TMQ Watch (unless TMQ returns for the draft) for this year. To quote one of WCD’s blog idols, “Y’all keep saving lives and stamping out disease.” We’ll see you on the flipside.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 16th, 2011 at 2:35 pm and is filed under Guns, Neuroscience, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.