Analyzing a game like last night's really gives me a sense of the outer boundaries of performance analysis. We can look at players' performance records and approximate their talent levels and get a sense of what to expect over a given time frame. On a single night in October, though, the analysis breaks down and you're left with 50 guys playing a game of baseball. There's no tool in our box that's going to tell you what will happen.

... [Was] I was surprised that Roy Oswalt was so ineffective last night ... The answer is, "no." I know, and the people who do this kind of analysis know, that players aren't "stat-generating robots," .... Just because Oswalt had an ERA of 2.94 doesn't mean he'll allow two runs in 6 2/3 innings each time out. Just because he'd been very good in his last three starts doesn't mean he'll be good in his next one. Player performances oscillate around a mean, that mean being their performance record, and some nights are going to be much worse than others.

What is grating is for people like me to know this, and for Phil Garner to act as if he doesn't. Oswalt scuffled from the start last night, lacking the movement on his fastball and the location on his breaking ball that he'd shown in three previous postseason starts. That he didn't allow any runs in the first four innings was misleading at best, dangerous at worst; Garner may have been lulled into a false sense of confidence based on the zeroes on the scoreboard--the stats--rather than what was obvious to anyone with two eyes.

So when the White Sox started beating Oswalt like a pinata in the fifth, Garner should have been prepared. [...] Instead, he let the Sox pile up six hits, a walk, a hit batsman and five runs without ever making a switch.

Then Oswalt went back out for the sixth, and I officially gave up on Phil Garner. Forget that Oswalt got through the inning unscathed; Garner didn't do his job last night, which is to give his team the best chance to win the game. In the fifth, Oswalt wasn't the best pitcher available, and Garner needed to recognize that and make a move. A label of "ace" doesn't actually get guys out, and Oswalt doesn't get to throw his strikeout rate and groundball/flyball ratio at hitters. Garner was looking for a stat line last night, and what he got was a human being.

[...]

The one guy I would hope doesn't come in for too much criticism is Ezequiel Astacio, who officially took the loss. I submit that using him in the 14th inning of a tied World Series game violates his warranty pretty thoroughly, given that his career consists of 81 innings with a 5.67 ERA and 23 home runs allowed. —Joe Sheehan, Baseball Prospectus

• After the Shuffle is turned on, it takes about four seconds before it responds to any buttons.
• It's hard to slide the off/on/shuffle button to on without slipping past to shuffle.
• The earphones that came with mine have developed buzzing noises. First it was only the left, which was not too bad because I usually listen on my bicycle, with only the right earbud in. But now it's both.
• If you turn it off, it loses your place within a track.
• When you add new files, it loses your place.
• If you leave it on for a long time, it sometimes becomes unresponsive and must be turned off and back on. This operation usually makes it lose your place.
• The battery condition light sometimes doesn't respond. When it does, the green looks yellow to me.
• It's not suitable for listening to long tracks. The fast-forward is slow, and if your finger slips you can easily lose your place and have to start over.
• Rewind stops at the beginning of a track, so you cannot rewind to something late in the previous track.

Cheney: If Fitzgerald can collar Judy, maybe nobody's safe, below, you know, a certain level. Maybe nobody can resist the pressure to crack. Maybe nobody can stick to the agreed upon testimony already given to the grand jury. Under oath. Under penalty—

Libby: Sir, I-I really don't need to come three dozen feet underground to get a lecture on the disadvantages of a felony perjury conviction. Obviously my representatives and I crafted some wiggle room into my testimony; otherwise I'd have, well, less leverage than Salman Rushdie in Mecca.

Cheney: Leverage? With the prosecutor? Scooter, why would a person want leverage if said person weren't planning at some point to attempt to ... leverage it?

Libby: Look, if everybody's still on the same page, you can rest assured that I'm going to be on the same page too, right there with them. On that page.

Cheney: No, if you're talking about the "who told Judy Miller, who told Karl Rove, who told Matt Cooper" page, that's a very good page to be on. That's a page that doesn't mention any constitutional officers, and speaking as someone who took an oath to uphold that constitution, I'd say that's a page you definitely want to be on.

Libby: Well—

Cheney: —and if anybody tried to pressure to get off that page, to get on some other page—

Libby: Sir, sir, straight ahead?

Cheney: Mmm-hmm.

Libby: Working for you, I, I face more pressure every day.

Cheney: I appreciate that.

Libby: But now, on the other hand, if other people in that equation decide to visit their testimony, or lack thereofe, that's obviously when old man leverage may have to roll up his sleeves—

Cheney: Oh, Scooter, spare me the homespun metaphors. I get enough of those from the Bush lad. Here's the deal, and by that I don't mean to imply that there'll be any dealing. Director of Central Intelligence has taken a bullet for us. I don't think you can do any less. Being convicted of a felony hasn't hurt Ollie North's career any. And doing five years of soft time may have helped G. Gordon Liddy's later prospects.

Libby: I-I-I-I won't be in as nice a facility as Judy Miller.

Cheney: You'll be in a fine faciility

Libby: There won't be women in it.

Cheney: We've done harder things, my friend. Don't forget, we brought democracy to the middle east. That ain't bean-bagging.

Libby: No, I-I-I

Cheney: I'm telling you something you already know. You go the other direction, that way lies Paul O'Neil country, only after it's been nuked. Karl's already signed off on that, and it's just a matter of time before the president is brought into the discussion.

Libby: Mister Vice President, I'm uh, I'm a little taken aback, uh, I don't think in all the time I've worked for you, you've ever come remotely close to uh, to threatening me.

Cheney: No, you're correct. First time I've had to. You can let yourself out. Of the residence.

If you have trouble with the Real Media stream, ask me for the podcast mp3. (As far as I'm concerned, the popularity of podcasts is due solely about the convenience of the downloadable, unencumbered mp3 format, as compared to the awful, incompatible, limited streams in Real or Windows Media formats. We should have had podcasting in the last 1990s, and the only reason we didn't was the fear and loathing of the content providers. When regular people started to become content providers en masse, and they were willing to make their content available simply and freely, what a surprise - it took off! Downloads rule, streams suck.)

Q. You're also a member of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, are you not?

A. I am.

[...]

Q. And how long have you been a dues paying member?

A. [...] I can't remember. I've been on the National Advisory Council for several years, although, maybe since 2001.

Q. You've been on the National Advisory Council since 2001?

A. That's about right.

Q. What does the National Advisory Council do?

A. As far as I've been on it, we haven't done anything.

Q. Good.

We are ... engaged in a vast, shambling and tragic occupation of Iraq, the nominal aim of which is to create a secular, rule-of-law-based democracy which would end the cycle of repression, fanaticism and violence which spilled onto America's shores four years ago.

At the same time, President Bush argues for Miers' confirmation neither on the basis of her 'judicial temperament' nor her judicial philosophy or ideology but because she is a staunch evangelical Christian.

The fact that many of the president's more theocratic supporters don't seem to believe him just adds a level of irony or entertainment for those of us still holding out for the Enlightenment tradition. —Josh Marshall

[Witness]: Now the prediction that is made by Dr. Behe in his book is extremely straight forward, which is, since this was an irreducibly complex machine, and we've taken away most of its parts, what's left behind should be non-functional because, you remember, he wrote, any pre-cursor to an irreducibly complex machine that is missing a part is, by definition, non-functional. This [diagram of a flagellum] is missing 30 parts.

Next slide. Well, it turns out that what is actually left behind when we take those parts away is a little structure with those 10 parts, which is known to microbiologists as the type III secretory system. And I can see, Mr. Walczak, you're saying, why, of course, it's the type III secretory system.

THE COURT: That certainly was on my mind.

—Sep 26 afternoon session, p. 18 of the transcript

What if our fiscally clueless president really does keep spending at a rate that far exceeds what our government can take in at these low tax rates? What happens if the president's acolytes and the Pollyannas in Treasury keep believing that we can grow our way, fairy-tale-like, out of this jam? You can bet that when you cash out your nest egg of nice U.S.-based mutual funds and solid common stocks, your dollars will fit nicely into a wheelbarrow designed specifically to cart worthless currency to the bank.

Or you can take matters into your own hands and build a portfolio around these five imminent-Bush-disaster stocks. Be the first on your block to immunize yourself against what may turn out to be the most financially reckless president in history with these anti-inflation equities designed to profit from our president's unbelievably foolish Panglossian profligacy.

—New York magazine

Sir Richard Mottram ... is to take on the key job of the prime minister's top security and intelligence adviser. ...

He was permanent secretary at the Department of Transport when, on September 11 2001, Jo Moore, an aide to Stephen Byers, then secretary of state, told officials in an email that it would be "a very good day" to "get out anything we want to bury" ...

Mr Byers, who did later resign, gave a confusing account in the Commons about what had gone on. Sir Richard put it more succinctly. He is said to have told a colleague: "We're all fucked. I'm fucked. You're fucked. The whole department's fucked. It's been the biggest cock-up ever and we're all completely fucked."

—The Guardian