The Jayhawks are back with legendary lineup

It's been 15 years since Mark Olson and Gary Louris both performed in The Jayhawks but the full band is back with a new album and tour. It's been way too long. 

WNYC's "Soundcheck" episode above features a mix of old and new tunes, as well as short interviews with host John Schaefer. The set closes with "Blue," which for the life of me was never a hit for them or anyone else smart enough to cover it. This is Americana at its best. 

I'm not a huge fan of the band, but whenever I put on "Sound of Lies" (the band's 1997 album and first without Olson), I think, "Man, this is so awesome. I need to listen to this more." For some reason I don't. (note to self: Must not be so stupid).

Why shouldn't we rank our pundits like athletes?

Wouldn't it be great if we measured the performance of political pundits like we do our sports stars? Why shouldn't we know ahead of time that the screaming political "expert" on cable or radio talk shows has been right only 10% of the time? 

Our friends at the always insightful "Freakonomics" radio show raise that very question in examining society's long history in predicting -- make that attempting to predict -- the future. 

Not to spoil the punch line, but odds are those "experts" will miss the mark, and often are no more accurate than a simple guess. 

Formula 1 gets a taste of dirt-track racing

It's not often that one sees a Formula 1 car purposely take to the dirt.

But Red Bull, ever the promoters of the unorthodox, did just that in showing how its world championship-winning car performs on the under-construction Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, which will host a Formula 1 race next year. And by "under construction," we mean dirt, a long way from the smooth asphalt that make F1 cars the most fearsome on Earth.

World of Outlaws, you have nothing to fear.