The real problem with the part I saw yesterday is the unspoken, but quite clear assumptions built in: that the US has been "at war with terror" for a long time; that military means can protect us; that, if we just had real men in Washinton who don't care about legal niceties, we would be safe. The outlook of this thing is thoroughly militaristic. And, as usual (remember "Black Hawk down"?) the motivations of the "enemy" are not explored - he's just somehow evil, for no apparent reason.

Against these shortcomings, the fairly egregious factual distortions pale.

Weirdly, it seems some think it is out-of-bounds to use harsh words to describe a president - while insulting whole groups of people, or entire nations, is acceptable. I just saw Rep. King (R-Iowa) on the floor of the House, saying that [Islamic] civilization is defunct, in love with death and hadn't contributed to progress in 700 years. I am eagerly waiting for Rep. Rangel or Pelosi, and our commentariat, to denounce this racist outrage.

Good piece by Glenn, though - as usual.

Well, it's now clear why the US did not join the International Criminal Court. It would have jurisdiction over the war crimes committed as part of "the program" that are not proscuted in the US itself - and given that we are on track to pass a law explicitely stating they can't be prosecuted in the US, there would be no fudging of that matter.

1. Given that economists day-to-day work is to use mathematics to hide their ideological preconceptions, I am not surprised they would come up with absurd results (I say this as a mathematician).

2. No matter what the measure is, it can at best measure the value a player had in a given position on a given team. Clearly, it is absurd to believe that removing Jordan from the Bulls would have had a lesser impact than removing Rodman, at any point in time (this being the only, mostly hypothetical (exception is extended time missed due to injury) measure of the actual value of a player to a team). Calling such stat-based measures "wins created" or whatever is sheer hubris.

3. Any measure based on production (however evaluated) per minute will run into the problem that players playing few minutes cannot be accurately evaluated. They might play only in certain situations (e.g., garbage time, or as mentioned, with or without leads) helping or hurting their metrics (this is like comparing a right-handed hitter who only ever gets at-bats against left-handed pitchers to an everyday player). This problem persists for measures using "scoring margin while on the field" and such.

4. I'd say defensive and offensive rebounds are equally valuable in a fixed possession. Say there's (on this fixed possession!) a 70% chance of scoring following an offensive rebound; then the offensive rebound is worth 1.4 points, just as the defensive one (in the same situation) would have been.

In general, I am extremely skeptical of using metrics based on individual stats to evaluate players in Basketball. What I do believe is that statistics can play a very useful role in determining strategy at certain points in the game (most famous example: the team is up by 3 with 8 seconds to go - do you foul?).

Only 3?? Screams mob involvement to me. Somebody is gonna get rich on this.

My favorite part is when HH is reduced to bring up "discovery of the oil-for-food scandal" as a reason for the invasion. Hilarious (also, sad, of course). And did you notice how HH tried to push the nonsense that US withdrawal from Vietnam was responsible for the Khmer Rouge crimes, when it was really the US attack on Cambodia that precipitated their takeover (as Odom rightly suggests)? The likes of HH are just amazingly insulated from reality, both historical and current.

Did daleyrocks make a single actual argument? Maybe somebody can help me out there.

Thank you, King, you describe exactly how I felt the first time I saw that dance. And could we please stop with the "analogy" to the Padres or Fighting Irish? I don't recall white Americans perpetrating genocide against Irish people, or Catholics in general. Keeping the Chief around for so long was a stain on our university, and sign of cowardice on the part of the administration.

Let's see. Clearly, none of the people who think it "unhinged" to wish for Cheney's death - whether they are Howie Kurtz, or M. Malkin, or various liberals crying "this is only a few comments by unhinged people" - consider it "unhinged" to wish for a person's death. All of them, in fact, profess to wish Osama bin Laden dead - witness countless "why is Osama still alive?" posts etc.

Now, why would it be ok. to wish bin Laden dead, but not Cheney? It can't be because one is responsible for the murder of innocent people and the other isn't, since it's fairly obvious both are. Thus we are reduced to Malkin's/Howie's explanation: we shouldn't wish Cheney dead because he is an American official. In other words, we are just supposed to be nationalist or racist here. Now, that's what I would call "unhinged".

Personally, I don't wish for anyone's death. But I wouldn't really be very sad if either OBL or Cheney were gone.

I think Tree's is a good idea. I've always wondered why there is such a thing as "intentional foul" in the rules - but then, fouls that are clearly intentional aren't called that way. On the other hand, I understand the economic behind the late fouling: b/c of the higher scores, it's just less likely for a basketball game to be within striking distance late without the strategic fouls than in Football or Baseball. Which would translate into lower ratings.