Brazil - Couldn't Even Afford The Roof

Direct approaches make a distinction between means and ends that often does not exist in reality.
John Kay, Obliquity, p. 50

You know the Brazil 2014 World Cup of soccer is going to be an utter train wreck when somebody in Canada even realizes it from watching the old fashioned vulgar TV media. Billions of dollars have been poured down the proverbial shit hole. The Oracle of Ottawa really thought that story on the stadium built up the Amazon River was especially a laugher. It ought to be a hoot watching all the pussy Euro types drop dead one by one, as the weeks progress. And even someone called jay low, who ever that is, has now refused to show up! The omens are really adding up. 

No soccer for paupers?

And the overall look of the structural rigidity of said stadiums, as far as the Oracle of Ottawa is concerned, look to be somewhat shakey, to say the least. But the Oracle will concede that watching the video on You-Tube of one of them collapsing with a sell out house will certainly be great summer entertainment. Seeing as there is no war scheduled this summer in the sand spit Middle East. You have to take what you can get in the off season.

The main broadcaster of the World Cup in Canada is the poor old CBC, Canada's State Broadcaster. The Oracle of Ottawa can only wonder what the hell they were on or what they were thinking. God only knows how many millions of scarce cultural resources were pissed away to secure the transmission rights. The Oracle of Ottawa figures that at least 10,000 people in Canada, a country of over 35 million people, will be watching at one time. Soccer sure as hell can't compete in the ratings when the almighty Blue Jays are on a hell of a roll this season. Why anyone would want to watch soccer when they can easily watch Major League Baseball is an utter mystery to the Oracle of Ottawa. 

The latest information at the time of this writing states that most all the essential services will be out on strike before the first tip off. That will be something to check out the progress of between innings as I watch my daily baseball game or two or maybe even three. The parts where the locals rob and kidnap the foreigners at will ought to be also most amusing. Not to mention all the weird STD's that will be transmitted back to the developed world after the said great event.  

If you need any more proof that soccer is a corrupt, fixed game with a totally corrupt and out of control board of governance, I guess you will be tuning in, to watch the paint dry. What really makes the Oracle of Ottawa wonder late into the night is why an up and coming country like Brazil would even want the hassle and outsized risk and expense of holding such a train wreck, when they so many other pressing problems on their own patch. Of course the answer to that is easy. Every one has gotten greased. The money is secure in a daisy chain of off shore tax havens, impossible to trace, and proof of a very successful political career.  And as far as the poor and destitue are concerned, Fuck'em, there is plenty more were they came from...

Milos Raonic Loves Canada?

The most painful moments are not those we spend with uninteresting people; rather, they are those spent with uninteresting people trying hard to be interesting. 
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed Of Procrustes, p. 11

It was a Friday night in the August just passed that the Oracle of Ottawa was really looking forward to watching the Oakland Athletics at the Toronto Blue Jays in Rogers Centre. It would no doubt be very nearly sold out, that is over 40,000 people were going to be there to see the awesome low dollar team of Money Ball. (Not to mention the millions of Canadians from coast to coast that would be watching on television...) Immortalized by the great writer Micheal Lewis. The Montreal Cup tennis crap was also happening at the same time, but the Oracle of Ottawa was confident that with his cable package from Rogers Communications which has 5 Sportsnet channels, that surely they would step down and allow the baseball to be shown. Especially since Rogers Communications owns the Toronto Blue Jays!

Milos Raonic - Canadian or tax dodging fraud?

 But Dear Reader it was not to be. It was tennis on every channel, the same crap on all five channels at the same time. The Oracle of Ottawa was livid. A call was placed to Rogers and after about 15 minutes, the Oracle of Ottawa was told by something with a thick East Indian accent that "Sir, you cannot complain"!! I then asked for a number at head office with someone in programming and / or content and again the Oracle of Ottawa was told; "I am so sorry Sir, you can't complain". You can't make crap like this up. And for anyone reading this from Canada, that has Rogers for cable knows the Oracle is telling the truth.

 Canada has never been, is not now, and will never be in the future a tennis superpower. Tennis is for the 1% of the New World Order. As a rule of thumb, any sport that can be watched from a "verandah" is pretty much a wipe out in Canada. That also explains why we suck as a nation at golf, cricket and tennis. But why would Rogers cut the nose off their face and lose all that advertising revenue from MLB? Tennis is not a spectator sport. If it was, the Center Court at Wimbleton would have more than 11,000 seats wouldn't it?
And that endless flogging of this character Milos Raonic, that claims to be a Canadian, but speaks English like a country club gigolo. What is up with this insanity? The Oracle of Ottawa has decided to investigate.    

Brett Lawrie - A real Canadian sports Star!!

  The Oracle of Ottawa was just floored at all the neat stuff that he has found out. The Oracle of Ottawa has provided a link to the information. First, Milos Roanic is not a native born Canadian. (He is the spawn of economic migrants.) He was not even born in Canada, he was born in Titograd, Montenegro, formally Yugoslavia! Of which you can be sure he has a passport to. Yet Rogers sells him to us as a "real Canadian". To the Oracle of Ottawa, a real Canadian sports star at present is Brett Lawrie, who was actually born in Canada and lives in Canada as much as he can, no matter how much money he makes. 

 Second: Milos Roanic seems only to live in Canada when Rogers ponys up the money for him to pass himself off as a "Real Canadian". Otherwise he stays at his present home in Monaco! Which is a pimple of a tax haven on the arse of France.  Can you believe this avarice? How come Rogers does not tell that to the Canadian people in the endless Raonic ads? Why doesn't Rogers tell the truth and admit that Milos Raonic is simply a Canadian of convenience?

Third: Milos Roanic's siblings really do believe in Canada. That is why they have left it to return to their "home" country. 

Fourth: Mols Roanic has a hard serve! That is like a young baseball pitcher that can throw a one hundred mile an hour fast ball. Both are essentially useless, if you cannot control them.

I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, .....

Fifth: Milos Raonic has earned $3,006,227 in prize money since turning pro in 2008. The Oracle of Ottawa can only say that it all has hardly been worth all the trouble, perhaps Milos should have tried baseball as a kid...

Another OLG Paradox Of Probability

In stochastic processes the future is not uniquely determined, but we have at least probability relations enabling us to make predictions.
William Feller, An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications, Third Edition, Vol. I, p. 420

The Oracle of Ottawa has the grand pleasure to be a resident of Ottawa, Ontario. And in the Province of Ontario we have a wonderful organization known as the Ontario Lottery And Gaming Corporation.  The OLG is a house of many games. One of the most interesting is a sports game known as Pools. It is just like an office sports pool that you play at work, but Pools is an office pool that has as its "subspace" the whole population of Ontario! (population, 13,505,900)

Lesson? - Probability is Spooky...

  As you can well imagine, things can get pretty exciting well into the NFL football season, where by one of the most popular bets in Ontario is the weekly series of NFL games. There can be up to 16 games, from Thursday night to Monday night. For five dollars you can take your best shot, straight up, and come Tuesday, the winner(s) are announced. If you can pick 14-16 NFL games, straight up, you could turn $5.00 into several hundred thousand dollars! And it being Canada, this will all be sweet and tax free.

HP-11C - Good tools are very important...

If the Oracle of Ottawa's old brain is working correctly, The weekly NFL Pool was the first and only Pool in the Province of Ontario. Then of course came the weekend NHL hockey Pool, then the MLB baseball Pool. With a hold back of any where from 40% - 60% the good old OLG ran with a really good thing until at the time of this writing, there are pools offered every day.  Which is proper and fitting, fair and wide open.

Most of the time, the results are to be totally expected. Such as the days when 14 baseball games are on the list, and the results are that only 2- 4 people were able to pick 12 of the 14 offered games. For this awesome feat, the reward can be several thousand dollars! This, for those that know of such things, fits the normal curve about just right. And tomorrow there will another list. Now remember, this is a pool, you do not have to get all the games right, you only have to be the punter or punters that gets the most games right, result, you get all the money, Sweet!  

William Feller - Awesome beyond words...

For example, early last week, there was a card offered of a mere 10 night MLB games. If you have tried it Dear Reader, you know that handicapping MLB baseball is all but impossible. But on this day one punter in Ontario got all 10 games, and in turn took all the pool money, which was north of $20,000 bucks Canadian, great work, if you can snag it!

On Thursday last was offered Card #99, it consisted of all the pre-season NFL games from August 15, 2013 to August 17, 2013 a small list of only 14 pre-season NFL games. If you think that major league baseball is hard to cap, you also know that regular season NFL games is an awesome feat of capping prowess. But who in heavens name would be crazy enough to even try to cap 14 pre-season NFL games? Surely a total impossibility?


Then the little fridge light came on in the Oracles brain, give it a random guess, by a very possible stroke of luck, the Oracle could possibly pick say 12 out of 14 games and share the prize with say at least six other randomizers. Well it was this fine Sunday morning when the Oracle checked his ticket and discovered that he only could guess 7 out of 14. Pure text book expectation. But the Oracle of Ottawa was shocked to discover that 66 punters in Ontario were able to predict 14 out of 14 pre-season NFL games!! The odds of performing such a feat of picking 14 of 14 games are 1: 16,384! That means that about 1,081,344 tickets at five bucks each would have to be sold, more or less. For a gross pot of $5,406,720 +/-. before withholding percentage of the house take, assuming 40%, would leave a prize pool about 3,244,032, which would have meant 66 prizes of $49,152! The actual prize that was awarded to these awesome subset of punters was a mere $555.30 each!! Hmmm...

This of course means, and makes very much sense, that only a very very small subset of the population of the Province of Ontario actually played. But excuse me! Sixty six people of this small subset were able to pick all 14 of 14 winners!???  While the greatest capper in America alive today Kenneth Massey, could only manage a paltry prediction of 10 out of 14!? If one was really cynical one would blurt out that the only way this could possibly happen is if you were somehow able to buy your tickets after all the games were actually played! But the Oracle of Ottawa wouldn't think of doing a nasty thing like that....

Atta' Boy Daniel 'Alfie' Alfredsson!

A doubt that doubted everything would not be a doubt.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, Sec. 450

'Alfie' Alfredsson is beyond any doubt National Hockey League Royalty. He was the 75th player to make the 1000 point list. There are only six active players at the time of this writing that are on the hallowed roll, and Alfie is one of the living active Greats. It all seemed to be such a done thing back a few weeks ago. Alfie decided to play one more year, and surely that year would be played in Ottawa, wouldn't it? Surely the Ottawa Senators would back their desire with the market price of this desired player. Wouldn't they?

Daniel Alfredsson - Living Legend

All the reporting in the local old style vulgar media did not fool the Oracle of Ottawa for a moment. And the Oracle of Ottawa was not in the least surprised in the outcome. There is no doubt in the Oracles view that the Senators brain-trust made the fatal error in attempting to "wall-mart" Alfie. Relax, we can get him for a song, he owns a house here in Ottawa, his family is grounded here, and all his do good'in social charity work is located here, and he is such a rube of a boy scout that he will probably take a huge cut just to fulfill his moral obligations. Well as we all know the egg is on managements face on this one. Alfie and his agent figured some things out and bailed.

When the Oracle of Ottawa first heard the astounding news that the nutter Mel-Dick terminated the Scotia Bank naming deal everything in the future is now in question. When the Oracle of Ottawa first heard of the Can Trash Center naming deal and all the side arrangements that is essentially giving it control even into player operations, well a really smart person could see the writing on the wall. The Ottawa Senators  is soon to become the Houston Astros of the NHL! The goal for the future is not to win but rather to lose large and utterly every year so as to make a fortune in the increased higher level of draft picks. Being in last place and a total loser can be very profitable, year in and year out can't it? 

All you guys in Detroit are the real winners. Your chances of seeing the Red Wings drinking from the Stanley Cup just increased greatly. And the Alfer is from great genetic stock, probably related to Eric the Red, with great hockey player makeup, and with way more than one more season left in him. Looks like a dynasty from here...

Screw The 'Harper Government' - I'm Watching The Bluejays!

One thing a writer has, if he is fortunate, and I have been fortunate, is a partnership with the years. 
Roger Kahn, The Boys Of Summer, p. xxi

Re: Memo from the Sports Desk....

Well dear reader, if you thought this piece was going to be on the Oracle of Ottawa's impressions of the latest 'Harper Government' interview with the Fuhrer himself, on the state broadcaster of the CBC, you are going to be disappointed. The Oracle of Ottawa was watching the Toronto Blue Jays  just whooping the Chicago White Sox on Sportsnet. But during the commercials, the Oracle of Ottawa checked in briefly, and came to the realization that I could miss 90% of it and still cover it for my adoring readership.

Rogers Centre - The wealth of summer...

The Prime Minister states that he doesn't pay much attention to the Canadian media! The Oracle of Ottawa was very surprised when the pig-eyed little man's nose didn't explode out of his face! He doesn't pay attention to Canadian media? If that is true, why wasn't he wearing his favorite Do- Me Hot Pink lipstick, in double high gloss? Is it because some one in the Prime Ministers Office picked up my wicked trashing of it in this blog? You can rest assured dear reader that that is the case. The Oracle of Ottawa collapsed in laughter when the Great Man mentioned that we are "running out of runway"! He should have listened to those young punks in the NDP and not have closed it!

Now the Oracle of Ottawa knows that somebody in the Prime Ministers Office will have read this piece within twenty four hours of this 'umble blogger pushing the "publish post" button. And the Oracle of Ottawa has two serious observations to be taken into consideration. The first is; stop buying the Great Mans suits at Walmart! Second; if that is his old Walmart suit, someone had damn well better book him into the DND medical Centre for a cat-scan! It appeared to this blogger that this man has lost at least 15-20% of his body mass in a very short time of about a week! Or has he had a near death experience in the form of a very frank chat with, say, that nice American Ambassador to Canada, whereupon the 'Harper Government' was confronted with the facts of their nuts deep depth (debt?) to the Peoples Republic of China, especially relating to a recent certain "tele-com" deal? Ya, those frank discussions can be near life or death, can't they?

Yes dear reader, the Oracle of Ottawa sensed like Peter Mansbridge, that something was deeply troubling the Fuhrer. What ever could it really be? Hmmmm.... But back to the ball game...

It seems that the "syringe era" of Major League Baseball is over. The Oracle of Ottawa has not seen one guy so far that looked like a comic book character. And watching baseball in full 1080HDi is just like watching a shiny  baseball card in full motion! Baseball is so real in HD. The Oracle of Ottawa is again enjoying the great game. The Rogers Sportsnet coverage of the Blue Jays is just the best out there. The commentary isn't Harry Cary, but is the best I have seen and heard so far. Could it be possible that the corporate lads in Toronto still have some semblage of a soul left? There may be hope for Canada after all... 

What is the definition of  great character team? Even when they lose, you can't stop watching! Hats of to the corporate overlords at Rogers Communications! (And please don't screw it up!!)

Evolution, Physics And the Death of Hockey

A man cannot become a child again, or he becomes childish.
Karl Marx, Grundrisse, p. 31
 
It is a truly great day when a big union pension fund puts the nuts to the corporate overlords. And this indeed was the case of the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan selling or rather dumping there interest in Maple Leaf Sports Entertainment. Yes Rogers and Bell got a hell of a deal for a mere 1.32 billion dollars! At first I didn't get it either. But upon some relaxed thinking about it, it all dawned on in a flash.

Hockey-Greece 500 B.C. Not a Canadian game at all!!

You no doubt have heard in the old style vulgar media of all the hazards of playing hockey today. Concussive brain injury, causing fatal life shortening brain degeneration. The guys at OTPP are just brilliant. They quietly realized after some thinking about thinking that the game of hockey is done for. The equipment has advanced incredibly quickly, the conditioning of the players is just insane and the speed of the game and the average size of the players has increased much faster than the ability of the actual human being to catch up! Hockey has reached the end of the road. Or it will shortly. Some very smart people saw the writing on the Zamboni and pushed the sell button. Just brilliant. The same thing goes for the basketball team. The average player height is now approaching seven freaking feet tall. In another few short years the average height of the players will no doubt be hitting eight feet. What will happen to the game of basket ball then? The scores will be like 300 points a side average and the guy could shoot down to score. The slam dunk will be from the midget era! Well maybe Bell and Rogers will get a risk free rate of return from the real estate. It all won't be a total loss.

The OTPP has done a lot of very smart stuff. Why they have more money than the 'Harper Government'! And they have true "market power", that is they have killed deals and made unlikely ones more than possible. Just imagine if they teamed up with CALPERS and OMERS. Why they could do what the 'Harper Government' couldn't even begin to dream to do.... Create a virtual workers state....

That asset value is now  107.5 billion! Someone knows what they are doing.....