The Art Neuro Weblog

Keeping Up With The Joneses, Keeping Ahead Of The Zhangs
The Pentagon has released its annual take on the Chinese military and space capabilities. Their take on it sounds a little paranoid, but again, a little paranoia is probably a healthy thing.

China's strategy for the developing world seeks to expand the scope and depth of its relationships, primarily as a means to secure access to natural resources and markets, but also to build influence and political support in multilateral bodies.

For example, the DoD cites one Chinese observer who points to Beijing's work with Brazil for satellite technology and with India for computer software.

In addition to weapon components, Russia continues to cooperate with China for technical, design, and material support for numerous weapon and space systems.

Over the past decade, Russia has been the primary source of foreign military technology, although China has also benefited significantly from transfers and sales of defense and defense-related technologies from Israel, France, Germany, and Italy.

For the past 5 years China has sought to diversify its sources of foreign technology -- to include military technology -- in an effort to avoid over reliance on a single source for military technology and to reduce its dependence on the United States for dual-use and civilian technologies.

Getting into the Swing of Things - A Case Of Better Late Than Never
My main man in pinstripes Derek Jeter has busted out of his slump somewhat. Essentially he's had a torrid week of hitting and his Average is up above .200, a.k.a. the Mendoza Line. Just as he went into this season-recovery project this week, Aaron Gleeman at The HardBall Times wrote this interesting article about good batters who struggle. Very neat stuff:

At some point though, it's just no longer that early. We're coming up on 30% of the season being completed. For Jeter to get his batting average to .300 by the end of the year (in 625 at-bats), he would need to hit .343 for the rest of the season. To raise the average all the way to his .317 career average coming into this season, he would need to hit .366 from here on out.
All of which is a long way of saying that, yes, it is early, but it's just not that early.

There is still time left in May and Jeter just might get on a roll this weekend and end the month hitting .230. As of this morning, he has hits in six of his last seven games and he is hitting .333 during that stretch. And, of course, he has back-to-back three-hit games. If he doesn't continue to hit well this weekend though -- if he's still hovering around .200 when June begins -- recent history won't be on his side when it comes to ending the season with a lofty batting average.

...

That's not to suggest that Jeter finishing this month at .209 is going to signal the end of his days as a good hitter, but it's interesting nonetheless. It would seem as though this weekend is pretty important for Jeter. A few good games could put him past the Mendoza line for good and get him away from comparisons to the sub-.210 group. A couple of bad games though, and he's right back to .200, and being a ".300 hitter" is going to be pretty damn tough this year.

On May 30, Jeter is at .220, right above the Mendoza Line. Gleeman concludes:

I'll say this ... if anyone can overcome this slow start and finish the year hitting .300, it's Derek Jeter.

Amen to that. :)

Acts Most Unspeakable and Fowl
Check out this one. I don't know why beastiality stories get such a high rating. What's a little hard to understand is that:

The hen was slaughtered after the incident.

Okay. If the hen had consented, it was a bestial(?) hen; but how would they have known? How could they know?
And did they cook it & eat it afterwards? Do I even want to go there?

- Art Neuro