Re: Friedman/Trainer Stats/ and more

[Marc At]

\"As for the $1000 he mentions, what I got for that was Friedman’s admission that track maintenance affects track speed, which contradicted his earlier statements (regarding the 2000 Wood Memorial figures) that it did not.\"

I\'m a bit hazy on this, but my memory of \"The Odds Must Be Crazy,\" is that there are repeated mentions of track maintenance affecting track speed.

Isn\'t the general argument from you and Friedman on this issue is that you\'re more liberal in your beliefs on *how much* track maintenance can affect track speed, whereas he is essentially more cautious/conservative?

It seems like every time this issue comes up, there\'s a bit of genuine confusion between the two sides-- you think Friedman is saying ABSOLUTELY NO IMPACT, when instead he thinks the impact is less than you do, but not non-existent. And he doesn\'t seem to explain himself that well. Unless he can make $1000 in the process.

Unrelated: Walking around the book at Bally\'s at the National Handicapping Championships a couple weekends ago, I noticed someone in the Wolfson gang (and I guess it turns out it was Jr.) was using T-graph. Certainly validation of T-graph as a viable tool for handicappers looking to improve their game.

Ragozin customers? Saw some of those, too (no, I will not speculate on the ratios!), including the second-place finisher.

Had a nice chat with Josh Silverstein, a bright young guy who finished 8th-- Josh told me he uses absolutely NO speed figures when handicapping, because \"there\'s no money in figures.\" He later admitted that some players obviously succeed with figs, but he makes most of his scores in maiden races and on the turf, focusing on what sounded like highly nuanced breeding and trainer plays.

Jerry, given the repeated mistakes that Ragozin makes-- that you point out with great confidence so often-- how do you think it\'s possible that Ragozin customers performed so well at the NHC (and at Suncoast) a couple weeks ago? Shouldn\'t the numbers be so wildly offbase that \"condition plays\" such as Offlee Wild would be out of the question?

Or, at the end of the day, would you acknowledge that their numbers are valid but you just know yours are better?

[Silver Charm]

A simple game of golf may be the best example to settle this argument. If Thorograph is Tiger Woods and \'The Sheets\' are Phil Mickelson who would you choose as your partner in a big money match. No is saying Mickelson can\'t play a lick he is just not as good as this particular competitor.

You would certainly have to agree!

You also wrote the following:

\"Isn\'t the general argument from you and Friedman on this issue is that you\'re more liberal in your beliefs on *how much* track maintenance can affect track speed, whereas he is essentially more cautious/conservative?\"

What is your definition of cautious/conservative? I was at Churchill Downs when Chilukki broke her maiden at 4 1/2 furlongs and Ragozin gave her a ~6. The condition of the track changed THREE TIMES that day all by track maintenance personnel. Thorograph chose not to give the race a number. Who was conservative and who was liberal?

Perhaps Friedman should listen to his own words when he wrote the following:


\"It is not admirable to encourage others to use factors in making handicapping decisions that are not reliable indicators of anything at all.\"

[TGJB]

Marc,

Very busy today, but briefly--

The point about track maintenance was very specific, not general. OF COURSE it affects track speed, which is why it was so ridiculous that Friedman said at the time of the 00 Wood that the whole day should be lumped together for variant purposes, despite rain during the card and the track being sealed early in the card AND unsealed before the Wood. Details on this can be found in \"Figure Making Methodology\", 5/2/00 in the archives on this site. He didn\'t publically disavow that general position until the brouhaha following Preakness day 2002.

There is no such thing as an argument about how much effect maintenance has-- just whether it does or doesn\'t. If it doesn\'t, you lump a bunch of stuff together and take an average. If it does, you have to use the horses who run over the track to see how much.

On the other question, the same point could be made in reverse, since our guys did win that tournement and at least 2 others during the year-- but the problem is that the two services have extremely different philosophies of figure making which result in dramatically different figures on occasion, so both can\'t be right. I would say that since the players using both forms of data tend to be more sophisticated than those who don\'t, since both figures include weight and ground, and since the handicapping theories used by both go against the market in general, those using both sheets are more likely to \"succeed\", at least in the short term, than those who don\'t use either, no matter which one of us is right. But the one who is right will succeed more than the one who is not.

As for Offlee Wild, read what I said in ROTW. I said essentially that he was random, and Friedman said he had him as one of 5-6 contenders, and played him because of price.

People cash tickets after every race without using either product. People win handicapping contests without using either product too, because there is a lot of randomness in short samplings (Friedman could have lost the photo, for example).

The test of the two products has nothing to do with short term results (which can be evidence, but not proof), or the claims of the two organizations. The true tests are long term results and whether the underlying methods used to make the figures are sound, and hold up to critical analysis. To facilitate evaluation of the former we have the Red Board Room, and for the latter I bring up all the issues you have seen, and don\'t duck questions as they come up. And it seems to me that serious Ragozin players would see that it is to their self-interest to get Friedman to deal with the same critical analysis.

[Marc At]

\"He didn\'t publically disavow that general position until the brouhaha following Preakness day 2002.\"


Whether it\'s intentional, or accidental, I\'m not entirely sure, but I believe he knew it all along and believes that he handled it within the figuremaking in a consistent manner, but he didn\'t care to engage you on it. For better or worse. In other words, they knew the track was changing that day, but they didn\'t think it changed as much as you did, and they did indeed factor it into their figures. I could be wrong on this-- please show me where Friedman said (before the $1000):

\'There was no impact on the speed of the track absed on the track maintenance that day.\'

\"On the other question, the same point could be made in reverse,\"

Right, I made the very same \"point in reverse\" in my initial note.

\"the two services have extremely different philosophies of figure making which result in dramatically different figures on occasion, so both can\'t be right.\"

I guess I\'m arguing precisely the opposite of that. I\'ve gotten into this conversation with a variey of sophisticated players who absolutely detest the idea of groundloss being in figures, because they think the process of factoring groundloss (and weight, too) into the numbers can lead to some gross distortions based on the subtleties of track biases, as well as the physical make-up of different horses... At the end of the day, I politely concede their points with only a little argument, but first I of course force them to admit that if a horse travels 10 wide around the turns, any speed figure that does not acknowledge this is of course problematic, if one were to look only at the figure. In other words, each type of figure has its own flaws, and players who use them with any sophistication have no choice but to try to adjust accordingly.

Similary, I suspect that the differing methodologies that Rag/T-G employ leads to variations that occasionally benefit TG players and occasionally benefit Ragozin players. What NOBODY has ever been able to prove is which works better more of the time. And of course, no one will ever be able to prove that.

So there are different ways to skin a cat. If there are \"extremely different philosophies\" at play, doesn\'t it follow that there are extremely different numbers, either of which could be advantageous to a player who knows how to exploit them?

\"As for Offlee Wild, read what I said in ROTW. I said essentially that he was random, and Friedman said he had him as one of 5-6 contenders, and played him because of price.\"

Pretty easy to toss the chalk in such a wide-open race, and maybe one of the others, too. Now you\'re left with 3 horses with intriguing lines, one of whom is 25-1 and bred to go long. He wasn\'t \"random\" on Ragozin. Perhaps there were 20 other plays in a row that favored TG, but in this case, Ragozin certainly looked good. Then again, Wolfson Jr. played him too.

\"People win handicapping contests without using either product too, because there is a lot of randomness in short samplings\"

Randomness, yes, but people win handicapping contests and in fact make a living betting on horses without using either product, and while using either product. Let\'s not dismiss them because of short samplings.

\"The test of the two products has nothing to do with short term results (which can be evidence, but not proof), or the claims of the two organizations.\"

But that will never stop either organization from trying!

[HP]

It\'s interesting that the past few months have seen these direct attacks from Friedman. First the stable thing and now this. It\'s a real departure from his old strategy of ignoring TG. And this trainer thing comes at a time when he could just spend all day crowing about the contest. If I were a little less witless I would try to figure this out. HP

[TGJB]

Marc,

You would do this on a day I have no time.

The question is not whether Friedman said those exact words, and I can\'t point you to what he did say because they don\'t keep archives that go back that far. But you can tell what he said by what I posted 5/2/00 (and before then), and that there were no follow-ups saying I misstated his position-- just ones saying that his position was right as stated. What he said was that they tied the Wood to the surrounding races, despite the rain and work done on the track, period. This was the first invocation of \"texture\", by the way.

The philosophies of both services can be wrong, and both can be wrong at times. But they can\'t both be right. The Ragozin philosophy, which I have gone into great detail about before and haven\'t got time to do again right now, makes a large number of unprovable assumptions, which I say (and have gone to great lengths both to explain and demonstrate) are wrong. It is either correct or not correct to ASSUME that the track speed did not change on Wood day, or the day Chilukki ran. This has nothing to do with whether by looking at the data from the day you can DECIDE whether the track stayed the same, or changed. In a related issue the Ragozin approach also makes much more use of broad averages, and fixes the claiming levels from year to year-- if 10 claimers are getting better as a group you can\'t know it on Ragozin (a discussion I had with Friedman on their site, under another name), and since they tie all their figures to these levels(which Friedman called \"objective\"), one could draw the conclusion that their figures could not be used to compare horses from different generations-- a 5 now may or may not be equal to a 5 from 5years ago, on Ragozin.

Offlee Wild looked slightly better on Ragozin, but looked good enough for Wolfson to win a contest with him on ours. So?

My point on randomness was this-- if someone cashes a ticket (or wins a short term contest) using some handicapping method involving picking names, jockeys or something else you and I would scoff at, does it prove the method is valid? My point also was that there are enough other issues involved to make it possible a sheet player could win with bad data-- I have won using both sheets, for example.

There are skills which could be good enough to let someone OVERCOME bad figures. There is no way to take advantage of bad figures, unless it\'s because other people are using them.

You pulled my last quote out of context. I explained how we try to make our case IN THE LONG RUN.

[Marc At]

\"But you can tell what he said by what I posted 5/2/00 (and before then), and that there were no follow-ups saying I misstated his position-- just ones saying that his position was right as stated.\"

Back in those days, he often wouldn\'t dignify the accusations with follow-up responses.

\"What he said was that they tied the Wood to the surrounding races, despite the rain and work done on the track, period.\"

But I\'d maintain he *both* tied the Wood to surrounding races while factoring in track maintenance. I don\'t think it truly is either/or. Meaning:
Surrounding races= \'Here is what these horses ran in each race, and this will help us make our decisions\'
Track maintenance= \'And there was some change in track speed, too, just not as much as some would have you believe, and I\'m goign to drive Brown nuts by not even acknowledging his point, even though we of course factored that in.\'


\"The philosophies of both services can be wrong, and both can be wrong at times. But they can\'t both be right.\"

We\'ll have to agree to disagree on that.
 
\"Offlee Wild looked slightly better on Ragozin, but looked good enough for Wolfson to win a contest with him on ours. So?\"

Offlee Wild looked pretty damned good on Ragozin, and in your words, random on T-graph. Let\'s give Ragozin credit for that. I was only acknowledging Wolfson Jr. because it\'s true (though I think I remember him saying it was a breeding play, primarily).

\"My point on randomness was this-- if someone cashes a ticket (or wins a short term contest) using some handicapping method involving picking names, jockeys or something else you and I would scoff at, does it prove the method is valid?\"

If they\'re actually able to make a living at it year after year, yes.

\"There are skills which could be good enough to let someone OVERCOME bad figures.\"

I guess this is what I was waiting for you to say. I\'d argue that is purely ridiculous-- Len Friedman can\'t go back to Vegas and take that much out of the Suncoast tournament every year if he\'s using bad figures. It\'s unquestionably the main tool in his toolbox. As I said on the Sheets site, with no argument from Friedman or anyone else:

\'Yes, I don\'t know how you managed to even survive at Suncoast, or how Angie Daniels did so well given the reliance on numbers that should be wildly offbase, if one is to believe the competition. Nothing gives the lie to that notion like results.

Hey look, I was out there for the NHC, and there were plenty of handicappers looking at DRF only, others who go for BRIS, and I know of at least one TG player who was doing well on Friday-- I\'m sure there were probably more. Many ways to skin a cat. But anyone who proclaims the results as anything other than an endorsement of the legitimacy of Ragozin methodology is being awfully silly, IMO.

If the numbers were truly bad, the results would be a debacle, too, no matter how sharp the \'capper.\'

\"You pulled my last quote out of context. I explained how we try to make our case IN THE LONG RUN.\"

Sorry, I guess I needed to include a ;-)

[TGJB]

Marc,

I gave you the benefit of the doubt on the first two, this one is a joke. You are smart enough to understand the points I was making, so your responses are disenguous, and it\'s annoying I have to take the time to deal with them.

\"...he wouldn\'t dignify the accusations with follow up responses\".

Completely beside the point. He said exactly what they did on the record, I made an issue of it, and David Patent and others defended his position. If I had misstated his position DAVID (who is a bright guy, and combative) AND OTHERS would have pointed it out on our site, and you would be able to throw it in my face-- you wouldn\'t need Friedman to refute it.

\"But I\'d maintain that he both tied the Wood to surrounding races while factoring in track maintenance. I don\'t think it is truly either/or\".

1- Bull. You can fantasize all you want, but he said what he said, and doing it that way is the only way you can give out all the tops they gave out in the Wood.

2- As I said before, you CAN\'T do both. You either make an assumption that the track didn\'t change speed, or you don\'t, in which case you use the horses to decide how fast the track was. If you are claiming there is a \"sealed and unsealed the track\" correction, please tell me what it is, and how it was arrived at.

\"We\'ll have to agree to disagree on that\".

Bull. Show me how the two philosophies of figure making I put forth can be reconciled so that both are \"right\". If you think I didn\'t define them correctly, show me how.

\"Offlee Wild looked pretty damn good on Ragozin...\".

Please. I saw Ragozin\'s sheets on the race. He was 1 point faster vs. a couple of main contenders than on ours, and his line was SLIGHTLY better because we had the last 1 point back where they had it 1/2 (I think) point forward, which didn\'t matter much anyway since it was followed by a layoff-- the big issues were how he would run off the layoff, and whether he could go long. Friedman said he was one of 5 or 6 contenders, I said he was tough to key and tough to throw out. Friedman also said he bet it because it was 25-1.

I would point out that there are a bunch of guys who post on the RAG board when they cash, especially on weekends, especially in stakes. Did you see a lot of them saying they had it?

\"If they\'re actually able to make a living at it year after year, yes\".

Bull. My point on randomness was specific to short term events like cashing individual races or winning handicapping contests.

\"I\'d argue that is purely ridiculous\".

Then argue it. Start by showing that Friedman takes that money out of the tournement EVERY YEAR, as you said. Is that the only tournement he plays? How does he do on his bets in general (we have an extended history of his handicapping on big races on his site)? Then go on to deal with my comments that some players have enough skills to overcome bad figures by showing that it can\'t be done. A similar argument could be set up for handicapping theories-- Richie Schwartz and Ernie Dahlman don\'t believe in patterns, as Len and I do. Yet they are two of the most successful players of all time. How is that possible? Does it prove patterns have no validity, or is it that they have enough other edges to overcome the flaw?

Let\'s try something more constructive. On 6/25/02 Friedman said on their site, in answer to a question, \"It is true that we only slide our variant when the physical resiliency of the track changes-- a practice that produces accurate, objective numbers\".

Care to comment about how they measure \"physical resiliency\", or about \"objective numbers\"?

[Marc At]

Jerry,

Now you\'ve caught me on a busy day. But after this one you get last words because I\'m done trying to make whatever point I thought I was trying to make.

\"2- As I said before, you CAN\'T do both. You either make an assumption that the track didn\'t change speed, or you don\'t, in which case you use the horses to decide how fast the track was. If you are claiming there is a \"sealed and unsealed the track\" correction, please tell me what it is, and how it was arrived at.\"

I have no idea how it was arrived at, only that the track was indeed sealed and unsealed that day-- hey, I was there-- and it\'s beyond ludicrous to assume Ragozin didn\'t see this either. As a Thorograph customer once wrote here:
\"Ragozin says that he sticks with one variant UNLESS the weather has come into play.\" Show me where he ever said: \"The weather didn\'t come into play at all that day.\" If he did, all apologies. Seriously.

>We\'ll have to agree to disagree on that

\"Bull.\"

No really, when someone says we\'ll have to agree to disagree, you can\'t respond in the negative. It just doesn\'t work that way.

\"Show me how the two philosophies of figure making I put forth can be reconciled so that both are \"right\"

I think this is really easy-- two different types of variant-making make for two different types of numbers. Each may \"work,\" to some extent (indeed, sometimes your numbers are quite similar), especially if the player knows what he is doing. I don\'t understand why this is such a reach for you. Other types of numbers qualify for me under the \"right\" umbrella, as long as smart players are finding ways to utilize them to make money. They may not be for me, but if smart players are finding a way to grind out longterm profits using any methodology, it validates the methodology, in my book.

Bringing up the Vegas trip again, I certainly taked to many players who probably aren\'t consistently profitable. But I talked to more than a handful who are, and I was struck by the wide variety of methodologies that they employed. None of those methodologies struck me as wrongheaded, even if many of them wouldn\'t work for me, or so I believe. I get the impression that you have so much religion that you think they are all wrong?

\"Start by showing that Friedman takes that money out of the tournement EVERY YEAR, as you said.\"

Where do you think his ROI stands on tournament play, lifetime? And in the last couple years? I mean, please. I just don\'t think this is a good argument for you-- there\'s just too many players/trainers/etc. who use Ragozin succesfully for their numbers to be as flawed as you portray them.

\"Yet they are two of the most successful players of all time. How is that possible? Does it prove patterns have no validity, or is it that they have enough other edges to overcome the flaw?\"

No, it simply proves that there is more than one way to skin a cat, as long as your methodologies are sound. There are Ragozin and T-graph customers who are anti-pattern plays who are quite successful. If the numbers were sh*t, they couldn\'t be quite successful. It proves the numbers are good, but it also shows that there are different ways to utilize them.

That half point forward move, if you believe Ragozin pattern reading, means the horse is explosive-- it\'s different than a 1 point backwards move, as I understand it. 8 weeks into the race, a considerable forward move is a sharp but easy read. Making the argument that there was no Sheets Bboard bragging about it as proof that it wasn\'t a good play, I had no idea that was the way it worked. I\'ll try to keep in mind that every time I make a score because of a condition read, I need to post it over there as some sort of scoreboard...


Care to comment about how they measure \"physical resiliency\", or about \"objective numbers\"?

I truly am in over my head on some of the subtleties of this stuff, so let\'s not give me too much credit. Or Ragozin too little.

[dpatent]

I have been trying to stay out of this -- you remember: wife and kid, blah blah blah -- but I do need to correct the record here.

Back when they ran the 2000 Wood, I specifically asked Friedman on the site whether they used a different variant for the Wood, given the rain and the apparent disparity in times between LDK\'s race and FP\'s win.

I do not recall the precise wording of Friedman\'s response, but the reply was in the affirmative, though he wrote that it was not a huge change in the variant.

[TGJB]

David-- I\'m not calling you a liar because I think you believe it, but if you think about it you will see that that can\'t be true. The whole point of the post you made to me (which I still have, along with my response, in hardcopy sitting on my desk, and which has come up in/as the source of many disputes since then) was that I was \"making up\" (your term) the figure by NOT doing it with the surrounding races, and that Friedman was right because Ragozin USED the surrounding races to make the figure. Whether he used the exact same variant as another race or added a point to have some horses pair up is not the question-- you either recognize that since they worked on the track (remember, it rained during the card, they sealed the track during the card, and unsealed it RIGHT BEFORE THE RACE IN QUESTION) you have to cut the race loose, or you use how fast horses ran in the surrounding races to make your variant. Period. There is no in-between, unless you believe there is a rain-during-the-card-sealed-and-unsealed mathematical correction that can be applied.

[TGJB]

Marc,

You\'ve got to be kidding.

1- \"Show me where he ever said \'the weather didn\'t come into play that day\'\".

As I told you, they don\'t keep back posts, so the comment is bull-- you know that there is no way to do it, and THAT IT IS BESIDES THE POINT. It\'s not about them saying what did NOT come into play-- it\'s about whether, in light of the weather AND TRACK MAINTENANCE, it was correct to do what they did by tying the race to the surrounding ones. See my reply to David Patent for more on this.

2- \"Bull\" wasn\'t because I disagreed with you, it\'s because you didn\'t adress what I said (which obliterated your arguement), so you copped out rather than concede. You are still doing it, and it\'s bull.

3-Two figures that both are supposed to represent the same thing, and are different, can not both be right-- at least one has to be wrong. This is supremely self evident. That someone can win with bad figures (whoever is right) is a function of randomness, or of other skills overcoming the bad figures, as I described. Since the two figure making philosophies themselves MUST produce different figures, at least one has to be wrong.

4- You are attempting to confuse the issue by mixing handicapping methods with figure making methods. NO dice. No, I don\'t think there is just one way to handicap.
 
5- You already are backing off your \"every year\" comment, and shifting the ground and attempting to recast the argument as you have with each succeeding post. If Friedman wins in tournements but has a much lower ROI at other times, it is either a sign of randomness (winning photos helps) or good tournement skills. Having seen his handicapping results in public forums, I know what my guess is.

6- Repeating the same thing over and over about some players winning proving the figures are not flawed doesn\'t help you. Remember Ernie and Richie-- does their winning invalidate pattern reading? There are many ways to skin a cat when it comes to handicapping-- but figures are either right or wrong. Ask Friedman if he disagrees. After that it\'s just a question of figuring out which are right, or right more often, which is what this discussion should be about, and is whenever I can make it so.

7- The point (which you keep trying to change) was whether it was a \"DAMN GOOD PLAY\" on Ragozin. If it was an obvious play, it would have been obvious to lots of players, and there is no evidence that was the case-- although we do know that TG player Wolfson had it. Do you think Friedman , who had it as one of 5-6 contenders, would have played it at 10-1? If not, how \"obvious\" could it have been? Out of curiosity, do you know how he played the race with real money?

8- \" I truly am over my head on some of the subtleties of this stuff\".

Yeah, I knew you would duck that last one. Here\'s a thought-- why not ask Friedman to explain how they measure \"physical resiliency\', and how it produces \"objective numbers\". After he explains it I\'m sure you\'ll understand it better, so you should want to ask, no?

[dpatent]

Jerry,

All I know is what I posted -- because I was interested in whether they changed the variant -- and what Friedman replied, which was a \'yes\'.  So I don\'t know how you can say that \"that can\'t be true\", because it is.

What you can say, however, is that you disagree with Friedman for making the variant in a dishonest or indefensible way and without Friedman going on record as to how they came up with the variant for the Wood there will be no answer to your charges.

[JimP]

At the risk of getting involved in a p***ing contest, here\'s my 2 cents worth. TGJB wrote in response to Marc: \"Two figures that both are supposed to represent the same thing, and are different, can not both be right-- at least one has to be wrong. This is supremely self evident. That someone can win with bad figures (whoever is right) is a function of randomness, or of other skills overcoming the bad figures, as I described. Since the two figure making philosophies themselves MUST produce different figures, at least one has to be wrong.\"

You two guys seem to be talking past each other. Hopefully not intentionally. (If it was intentional on either part then just disregard my comments and I\'ll be on my way.) My comment is that it is entirely possible for two numbers measuring the same thing to both be right. That would not be the case if the numbers in question were in an EXACT SCIENCE. But surely we can all agree that what any \'sheet\' product is measuring is NOT an EXACT SCIENCE. (Again, if we can\'t agree on that then you can disregard everything else I have to say.) So with that basis, it appears to me that two measurement systems in this inexact science will be \'correct\' only a percentage (something less than 100%) of the time. The one that is best is the one with the higher percentage. But it is difficult to state categorically that the one with the lower percentage is WRONG. For example, one might be correct 75% of the time and one might be correct 65% of the time. (Pick any two percentages greater than 0%.) Now if both of those systems have a high enough percentage for users of either to show a profit over a long period of time, then it seems that it can be argued that both are CORRECT even though the methods may differ and the numbers may differ. I don\'t think that the producers of any system which purports to measure the performance of race horses should be so bold as to claim that every number that is assigned to every horse is a PERFECT representation of that horse\'s performance. It seems more logical that the objective of such measurements should be to be produce an approximately correct representation in a high enough percentage of the cases to enable users of those measurements to show a profit. I believe Marc was simply asserting that it is POSSIBLE for both Thorograph and Sheets measurements to be CORRECT within that definition. (Marc, if I have missrepresented your position, I apologize.) I don\'t know what the accuracy is for either product. I\'m not sure that it is even possible to produce such an assessment. But I\'m willing to accept that if such an assessment could be produced it would show that neither product is perfect. And there seems to be some evidence, at least circumstantial (e.g., contest results, etc.), that both products produce results that are useful for some to generate a profit from their use. I happen to use the TG product for varying reasons, but it\'s certainly not because I think that TG must be right and The Sheets must be wrong simply because they don\'t produce the same numbers for every horse in every race. Ok, I\'m going to duck now because I\'ll probably get hit from BOTH sides of this debate.