GG

Wow. I was on a plane during last year's Super Bowl, so I hadn't seen one with the outcome really in doubt that close to the end the end since the Panthers-Patriots game four years ago (The Eagles-Patriots matchup was technically very close, but the Eagles needed a successful onside kick, and I seem to recall Reid engaging poor clock management).

But what a great finish. The shotgun-max protect-go route call was a brilliant call; there's nothing else worth doing on third-and-ten on your own one yard line. I think even the Cardinals were stunned at the hold-in-the-end-zone that called it back, since the first down would have ended the game. They didn't show enough of the All-22 to see why Fitzgerald got so open for his TD; the Steelers looked like they were in cover-2, but why did both safeties pinch out? Was it an error or was there some deception? Holmes's catch was one for the ages, and I'm always happy to see a non-QB, non-RB player earn the game MVP award (had the Cardinals won, it would have been a coin toss between Fitzgerald and Warner). And of course the general pass-wackiness of the ache will give Gregg Easterbrook heartburn, which is always an appealing thought.

Like Ezra, I'm pretty sure Warner's arm was moving forward on the endgame "fumble". In addition, the Steelers seemed to benefited from a couple of other questionable calls (not that I'm bitter or anything), particularly the roughing the passer shove (to avoid a penalty, I believe the Cardinals' player would have needed to hold his hands up and try to twist to the side, all in the span of one step, which borders on the absurd). But on balance nothing that hugely changed the outcome.

I hope next year the Competition Committee takes a look at lightening up on roughing the passer calls, while getting much more agressive about penalizing and fining open-field, leave-your-feet, lead-with-your-shoulder hits. Those are the ones putting people on stretchers (see McGahee, Willis) for no good reason; if you're in a position to make those kinds of hits, you should be wrapping the guy up anyway. Alternatively Sportscenter and the NFL Network could simply refuse to show those hits, which would probably have almost the same effect.

More Fun With Maps

A nice visualization comparing of estimated per-capita stimulus spending versus the change in unemployment. Because much of the spending comes in the form of tax credits to the working poor and boosts to Medicaid, states like Mississippi and New Mexico see fairly large bumps in spending. Likewise, Michigan and Indiana, two of the hardest hit states, will see a big boost.

No clue what's going on in North Dakota or Vermont.

Come On Homie, We Major

Both Neil and I are part of an expansive guest blogging crew over at Ezra Klein's. The mix is have political bloggers, half policy bloggers, so perhaps things will get interesting.

[Neil jumping in] So far, other than Nicholas' Gillibrand post, which he crossposted, we've got:
AL-QAEDA IS NOT FEELING THE HOPE AND CHANGE
THE STIMULUS: GOOD DEALS ON PUBLIC GOODS
ZOMBIE ECFA LIES
SOME SCAMS HAVE THAT RETRO FLAVOR. THIS DOES NOT MAKE THEM BETTER
A WAIVER KIND OF DAY
LOCOMOTIVE 8, SOUTHERN CRESCENT, HEAR THE BELLS RING AGAIN
REPUBLICANS WANT TO TAKE AWAY CSI. AND LOST. AND EVERYTHING ELSE
CRAM DOWNS: TO HELL WITH THE MORTGAGE BANKERS ASSOCIATION
THE 155 REPUBLICANS (AND 13 DEMOCRATS) WHO WANT TO TAKE AWAY YOUR TEEVEE
THE NEWS GAP
I GOT A HAND, SO I GOT A FIST, SO I GOT A PLAN, IT'S THE BEST THAT I CAN DO
NOW CAN WE GIVE BOEHNER TO PELOSI?
AND THE THING ABOUT DESTINY IS IT NEVER EVER MAKES MISTAKES
(there were more)

Not that the titles are all that helpful or anything. You might as well just click over to the Ezra-blog.

The Rod Blagoejvich Comedy Hour

It is a shame that professional etiquette prevents journalists from asking this guy, "Are you out of your fucking gourd"? When your lawyer quits on you, things are bad.

Kirsten Gillibrand: Generic Democrat

I know this bit of news is about two hundred years old in blog time, but for all the caterwauling about the selection of Kirsten Gillibrand, it's worth pointing out that her voting record was actually slightly to the left of her district. Gillibrand's district is the 242nd most liberal district in the country. But her voting record is the 219th most liberal. This puts her voting behavior, as measured by the distance from her district, almost exactly in line with the party as a whole. Here's a chart showing how all of Congress shakes out. I've taken the 435 Congressmen and ranked them by both their district's Cook Partisan Voting Index and their DW-NOMINATE rankings, where low numbers in each case represent a more liberal Congressmen or district. Then I just took the difference between those two numbers. A negative number (PVI > DW-NOMINATE) means the Representative is probably more liberal than the district; a positive number means their more conservative. If you then throw all the Congressmen into buckets 25-slots wide (all Congressmen with a DW-NOMINATE - pvi between 25 and 50, etc), and plot the results, you get something like this.



The median Democrat is 4 slots to the left of their district, and the average Democrat is just over 16 slots away, so by almost measure she's just a tick to more liberal than she "ought" to be. Since Gillibrand's constituents now include New York City, its suburbs and other, more Democratic-leaning areas of the upstate region, if she continues to vote in a way that represents her constituents views she'll be a fine Senator. Of course, if her voting patterns don't change at all, she will be a total waste of a blue-state politician.