The Regulatory Cliff

Paul Mirengoff discusses Rob Portman discussing the “regulatory cliff.”

As much as I want to curtail government spending, I’m definitely banging my high chair with a spoon more often about regulation.  The reason is that government spending isn’t nearly as much of a drag on the economy as government regulations.  Spending by the government means that people cannot do things they would rather do—be it spending on other goods, spending on the same goods, saving, or lending.  Regulation, however, outright prohibits people from performing classes of activities.  Some of these regulations are more defensible than others, but they increase the cost of doing anything.  And considering the volumes of new regulation each year at all levels, you need to buy plenty of lawyers and politicians if you want to get anywhere.

We suck anyway, but at least you can keep your job

According to MLBTraderumors, Manny Acta’s job is probably safe because it wouldn’t make a difference.

That’s only a little discouraging.

The booing would probably down a 747.

Pro Football Talk reported that the Browns won’t have a moment of silence for Art Modell, because it wouldn’t be silent.

Honestly, this would be their only hope:

More thoughts on Madden

I just finished my second season of Madden 13, and I’ve got a better feel for the game now. (I went 16-0 in the regular season and lost by one measly TD in the Super Bowl because Sheldon Brown is slow and has the reaction time of a turtle. A dead turtle. A dead turtle with a sixty five ton anvil on its back.)

— Playing with 15 min quarters so you get realistic defensive stats is excruciating. It’s even better when almost every linebacker wants 100 tackles as his season goal. (Part of the problem is that, at present, assisted tackles aren’t calculated.)

— Trading up for picks is really hard.

— The projected draft positions update over the course of the season; I do like that.

— I have no idea where the ratings in this game come from, or why they’re radically different in game vs. in the roster screen. I think they’ve taken DPP (Dynamic Player Performance) a bit too far.

— You know what’s awesome? The AI resetting my scheme changes every week.

— In simulated games, everybody’s Peyton Manning. Example: I played against the Bengals, was winning 45 to 7, and simmed it in the third quarter. He had 200 yards passing. At the end of the game? 580 yards passing. Andy. Dalton. Broke. The. Single. Game. Passing. Record.

— Trent Richardson is awesome. How awesome? 3,000+ yds, 30+ tds, 500 carries. (Did I mention QBs and RBs are nigh immortal and never get hurt?)

A lot of these can be fixed in a patch or two; I think for now, I’ll wait.