Instead of runs created, you could just use VORP (also available at Baseball Prospectus, even for pitchers), and subtract it from runs allowed, dividing by innings to get a rate: (RA-VORP)/IP*9.0

I forget whose system uses it, but you could even add in Fielding runs for the total packageL (RA-VORP-FR)/IP*9.0

To be honest, you could just swap out VORP for runs created, which was already in the proper format. Dividing by 3.5 and then multiplying by essentially the same factor was kind of unnecessary.

Love the column, and I have to say that the Air ans Space museum's Udvar-Hazy center on the outskirts of Dulles airport is one of the neatest museums I've ever seen. With only a slight interest in airplanes, having lived beneath the O'Hare incoming flight path in Chicago, I was capitvated there for hours.

One tiny quibble, though: the star attraction of the museum is the Space Shuttle Enterprise, the test model that was used for landing simulations after being dropped off a 747 (I think). Second place is a competition between the Concorde, the SR-71 Blackbird (it is indescribably cool standing 10 feet from it), and the Enola Gay.

Again, thanks for writing what might be my favorite column on Salon.

Cheers,

Josh Faber

Glenn was too kind to mention it, but people like Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post's media/politics critic, have been doing puff pieces on him forever. From an article in the WaPo :

Hume is no partisan brawler in the mold of some of Fox's high-decibel hosts. By virtue of his investigative background, his understated style and his management role, he represents a hybrid strain: conservatives who believe in news, not bloviation, but news that passes through a different lens, filtered through a different set of assumptions.

...

Sometimes Hume can stretch things to make a point. In August 2003, he reported that "U.S. soldiers have less of a chance of dying from all causes in Iraq than citizens have of being murdered in California, which is roughly the same geographical size." The problem: California's population of 34 million people compared with 145,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Hume later agreed it was a "crude comparison."

You see, he has different "filters" (read: outrageous obvious biases) and occasionally "stretches" the truth (read: lies through his teeth).

With apologies to Kevin Drum, who was pretty damn clever to try to name that phenomenon after himself, I still prefer the term "nutpicking" for boosting anonymous comments up to the level of "the views of the left".

As to Howie Kurtz, there is no bigger "useful idiot" in the media today. He is utterly incapable of finding the important point of any story he covers. Also, he's the right wing's dream columnist, in that he repeats every smear job the put forward with such neutral and brief commentary that he carries water for people even when claiming their attacks aren't exactly fair, per se.

It went unmentioned by Wittes, and thus by Glenn as well, but in case anyone would like to complain about "unelected judges" making law, make sure to remind them that California justices are elected, every 12 years I believe. Also, lest people argue about "liberal judges" run amok, six of the seven are Republican appointees.

I admit these are only distractions, and Glenn's main point, and the notion of Justice, are the more central ones, but it's good to be able to beat back the stupider talking points without too much work.