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Goodish news, bad news 103

31 Jul 2009  |  andeux  |The Grill

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SuSlu reports:

Orlando Cabrera is now a member of the Minnesota Twins, according to two sources with knowledge of the talks.
The A’s will receive minor-league shortstop Tyler Ladendorf, according to an A’s team source….
Top Twins prospect Danny Valencia was thought to be the A’s original target, but Landendorfwas a second-round pick last year.

I’m not sure what to make of Ladendorf. But I said last week that I would be happy to get Wallace for Holliday and anything at all for Cabrera, so I guess I’m happy.

Also, in other A’s news, Justin Duchscherer’s rehab start tonight at Triple-A Sacramento has been scrapped. No reason has been stated, but his return from elbow surgery has twice been interrupted by back trouble.

103 thoughts on “Goodish news, bad news”

  1. monkeyball Jul 31,2009 10:49 am

    Not really sure how the Duke update qualifies as “bad” (except, of course, for Duke himself) — any more wins this year negatively impact draft position, and this start wouldn’t have done a thing for his trade value, and one start at the end of July isn’t going to impact his overall comeback picture.

    Is it possible Beane has a deal in place with Duke as a PTBNL?

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • andeux Jul 31,2009 10:57 am || Up

      I really don’t care about how it impacts [sic] draft position. I like to watch Duke pitch.

      TINSTAAFK
      • monkeyball Jul 31,2009 11:25 am || Up

        Sorry, just felt like channeling grover there.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • andeux Jul 31,2009 11:30 am || Up

          Well, you obviously did a good job, in that you managed to push two of my buttons with one sentence.

          TINSTAAFK
          • monkeyball Jul 31,2009 11:32 am || Up

            TWSS

            you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
          • Leopold Bloom Jul 31,2009 12:14 pm || Up

            To be fair, it was an unusually long sentence.

            • monkeyball Jul 31,2009 12:52 pm || Up

              TWSS
              (fuck you again, wordpress)

              you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • FreeSeatUpgrade Jul 31,2009 12:13 pm || Up

        Given the particular inexactitude of baseball drafting, the agent-fueled practice of using college and holdouts as threats to stop less desirable teams from drafting the most desirable prospects, and the widely varying levels of self-imposed draft pick bonus restraint among teams, I am unconvinced that the difference between drafting fifth and tenth (for instance) is a meaningful difference at all.

        My disbelief obviously doesn’t apply to “once-in-a-lifetime” consensus top picks like A-Rod, Mauer, or Strasburg.

        "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
        • green star oakland Jul 31,2009 12:54 pm || Up

          I agree in general, but wasn’t Mauer the economy/hometown pick over the unaffordable (to the Twins) consensus top pick Mark Prior?

          If this is His will, He's a son of a bitch.
    • nevermoor Jul 31,2009 11:03 am || Up

      You still haven’t answered my question

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • monkeyball Jul 31,2009 11:06 am || Up

        I would have traded the little old lady for a left-side infield prospect.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • nevermoor Jul 31,2009 3:56 pm || Up

          I have to admit I’m disappointed. Given your complete disdain for the “he made a non-terrible decision given that there were no good options” argument, I was hoping you had a good option available.

          "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • Leopold Bloom Jul 31,2009 12:14 pm || Up

        No, I won’t dance naked for you. I don’t care if you do make it rain.

    • mikeA Jul 31,2009 3:00 pm || Up

      pitching=type B. not pitching=not type B.

  2. nevermoor Jul 31,2009 10:55 am

    Unintentionally hilarious. (hint: follow the link to her supporter)

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  3. nevermoor Jul 31,2009 11:05 am

    I like Ladendorf because you can’t have too many guys with .410/.500/.721 slash lines at shortstop. He will be our starting shortstop next season. Also, Rickey did ‘roids and Santa isn’t real.

    (I need to stop reading **)

    "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • andeux Jul 31,2009 11:18 am || Up

      But you can have too many with .233/.292/.267.
      And, in fact, we do.

      TINSTAAFK
    • lenscrafters Jul 31,2009 12:43 pm || Up

      Sign of the apocalypse: FF is the voice of reason here

      • andeux Jul 31,2009 1:15 pm || Up

        I’ve only skimmed it, but it looks to me like RLangford is the voice of reason while FF is his usual smug insufferable self.

        TINSTAAFK
        • Leopold Bloom Jul 31,2009 1:40 pm || Up

          what about me, goddamnit?!

          I’m not the voice of reason?! Of FUcking Reason? What the FUCK?!

        • nevermoor Jul 31,2009 1:42 pm || Up

          For my money, FF is probably the one I agree with. His need to completely ignore opposing viewpoints (with one notable exception), however, is a large part of the reason I can’t stand it over there.

          "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  4. monkeyball Jul 31,2009 11:44 am
    Goodish news, bad news

    Sullivan has officially jumped the shark undersea alien space monster.

    In college, I was a roadie for the Chairmen of the Anomalous Phenomena Service.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • mikeA Jul 31,2009 3:03 pm || Up

      “I wonder if Andrew will be mad/even notice if instead of posting the usual links, I put one up about aliens”

  5. monkeyball Jul 31,2009 11:47 am

    Joe Biden … crypto-occultist?

    The addition of Biden was perfect. This is what he’s there for: to be a bridge to men called Crowley.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  6. andeux Jul 31,2009 11:52 am

    Other trades today:
    Jarrod Washburn to the Tigers for Luke French and Mauricio Robles
    Victor Martinez to the Red Sox for Justin Masterson and Nick Hagadone

    TINSTAAFK
  7. monkeyball Jul 31,2009 11:58 am

    Slupdates:

    Pennington is coming up and should be in the lineup tonight.

    The Justin Duchscherer scratch is a mystery. I’ve tried numerous sources – team, agents, etc. – and Beane said on the just-completed conference call that he can’t say anything until later today. I don’t think Duchscherer is being traded, because Beane said there’s nothing imminent and the team is probably done as far as pre-deadline deals. I hope it’s something minor, but the silence on the matter is troubling.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • FreeSeatUpgrade Jul 31,2009 12:14 pm || Up

      They couldn’t trade DUke anyway, right? I thought trading players on the DL was forbidden.

      "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
      • andeux Jul 31,2009 12:17 pm || Up

        Most trades are contingent on the players passing physicals, but I don’t think there’s a rule against “as is” trades. Didn’t we trade for Denorfia when he was already out for the year?

        TINSTAAFK
      • Leopold Bloom Jul 31,2009 12:18 pm || Up

        can be a PTBNL…

  8. andeux Jul 31,2009 12:30 pm
    TINSTAAFK
    • monkeyball Jul 31,2009 12:41 pm || Up

      I was resisting posting that myself. I was going to do an “Astronomical 1” link to the recent Adrian Gonzales rumors, then an “Astronomical 2” link to that.

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • nevermoor Jul 31,2009 1:56 pm || Up

      My reaction is unsurprising. Although now I understand the vehement anti-Easterbrook sentiment. Having only read TMQ (which I like), I’ve been insulated from his anti-climate change stuff.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • andeux Jul 31,2009 2:25 pm || Up

        His football writing is of a piece with his science writing – “The average gain on a pass play is only 8 yards. Some team blitzed on third and long and got burned. Therefore you should never blitz on third and long!” repeated ad nauseum.

        TINSTAAFK
        • nevermoor Jul 31,2009 2:34 pm || Up

          I disagree with your analysis.

          I think teams punt way too frequently (an issue he’s covered in depth). I also think teams overuse blitzes, have terrible clock management skills, and are generally as uncreatively managed as baseball teams were in the pre-moneyball era.

          "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
          • andeux Jul 31,2009 2:48 pm || Up

            I agree with a lot of that (definitely the parts about punting and clock management), but he never offers anything more than cherry-picked examples and horribly flawed logic (“Since the average pass play yields only 8 [or whatever] yards, all they had to do was play normal defense”) to support his pet positions. He endlessly mocks the cliches of conventional football wisdom, and that seems to be what people like about him. Unfortunately, he doesn’t offer anything beyond that except his own version of conventional wisdom, that’s just as shallow and flawed.

            TINSTAAFK
            • nevermoor Jul 31,2009 3:31 pm || Up

              You seem to really hate that concept. I submit that the following is true:

              1: The average pass play gains X yards
              2: When a defense calls a blitz, it increases the odds of a very long gain
              3: When a defense calls a blitz, it increases the odds of a very short gain (or loss)

              Given that, on third and Y (>X), the odds of a conversion are less than 50% and the benefit of #3 above is minimal.

              I agree with you that it’s a simplification, but I think it’s more like OPS is to wOBA than RBIs are to OPS.

              "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
              • andeux Jul 31,2009 3:47 pm || Up

                (2) and (3) are probably true, and, yes, I know that that’s the point he’s trying to make. And it may even be true.

                But what he actually says:
                a) Ignores that the average already contains both blitzes and non-blitzes.
                b) Ignores that the average (in either case) is irrelevant. What’s relevant is the overall distribution of outcomes (which is probably skewed toward extreme outcomes), and in particular the probability of a gain > Y.
                c) Ignores the game theory aspect of play calling – if you never blitz on 3rd-and-long, the offense will have a much easier time than if you use a mixed strategy.

                If it was a one-off comment on his part, I could look past all that. But he repeats this same paragraph multiple times every single week in his column, and never (that I have seen) gives a more detailed analysis or any hint at all that the issue might be more complicated than he is making it out to be. Which makes me conclude that he spends an awful lot of time writing (or at least cut-and-pasting) about football, and very little thinking about it.

                TINSTAAFK
                • nevermoor Jul 31,2009 4:05 pm || Up

                  re: a – you’re right, the average is granular (it would also be nice to balance the number based on the two teams on the field) but that is only relevant on the margins (i.e. it changes X, not the underlying argument)

                  b is certainly true. On third down, all that matters is the probability of a gain >= Y. I think his argument, simply stated, is that as Y increases opting to blitz (and I think he’s usually talking about “sell-out” blitzes rather than sending one linebacker) increases the offenses probability of gaining those yards.

                  re: c – This is true.

                  I haven’t been reading him long enough to know whether he ever gave a more nuanced view, but given most of his non-mainstream ideas I don’t think he’s guilty of not thinking about football.

                  "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
              • mikeA Jul 31,2009 3:51 pm || Up

                It’s not like that at all. 2 and 3 are a bit dubious, you can’t make that conclusion based on 1, 2, and 3 anyway, and it should be obvious that the correct strategy would be some mix of blitzes and non-blitzes in most situations.

                • nevermoor Jul 31,2009 4:18 pm || Up

                  You really don’t think blitzing increases the odds that a pass will go for short or negative yardage?

                  Also, one could counter “some mix” by saying his analysis really boils down to “much less often.” Then we’re both right.

                  "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • mikeA Jul 31,2009 3:09 pm || Up

        He writes stupid bullshit is a moronic tone on a multitude of topics.

        this is the actual stupidest and most annoying article of all time.

        dogmatic scientists won’t let the nice men teach our kids about intelligent design

        The latter is the explanation for the horror at him being referred to as a “science writer,” although it is perfectly true. He writes many articles about science.

        • nevermoor Jul 31,2009 3:39 pm || Up

          Those are bad stories. Although in a world populated by Glenn Beck, and his other article, it can’t be the most annoying of all time.

          "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
          • mikeA Jul 31,2009 3:53 pm || Up

            Glenn Beck is just a doofus, who no one takes seriously. He would have a very difficult time annoying/offending me.

            • monkeyball Jul 31,2009 4:15 pm || Up

              Easterbrook will never provoke a mob of pitchfork-wielding villagers to kill someone. Beck will.

              Being killed by pitchfork-wielding villagers = very annoying/offensive

              you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
            • nevermoor Jul 31,2009 4:19 pm || Up

              Works for me.

              "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
            • Leopold Bloom Jul 31,2009 10:45 pm || Up

              There was a truck in front of me tonight on the way home with a Glenn Beck bumper sticker.

              My fear is his shtick/insanity plays well in places like here.

      • monkeyball Jul 31,2009 4:21 pm || Up

        To me, the most offensive thing about Easterbrook’s football writing is that it is adding more football content into the universe.

        The flip side of that, though, is that since I ignore all football-related content, it would be better for me if Easterbrook confined himself to writing about nothing but football. Perhaps ESPN should contact Glenn Beck.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • Leopold Bloom Jul 31,2009 10:48 pm || Up

          Could he write about football?

          “Friends, I’m…concerned…worried…frightened for the Buffalo Bills. I love them so much, but I fear the Cowboys will destroy all that Dick Jauron has built this weekend.”

  9. monkeyball Jul 31,2009 1:36 pm

    Other other trades today:
    Rolen->Reds
    Peavy->Chisox (again)
    Nick Johnson->Marlins
    Adam LaRoche->Braves (for Kotchman)

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • Leopold Bloom Jul 31,2009 1:43 pm || Up

      Lots of trades this year, huh?

      • nevermoor Jul 31,2009 2:00 pm || Up

        Yeah. Don’t understand Rolen for Encarnacion + (Or the Braves moving Kotchman)

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  10. monkeyball Jul 31,2009 1:48 pm
    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • andeux Jul 31,2009 2:00 pm || Up

      Seems like that must be actionable, and possibly criminal.

      TINSTAAFK
      • monkeyball Jul 31,2009 2:09 pm || Up

        Probably, but likely nowhere near as much potential jeopardy as the statutes violated by Toobin et al in the whole NH phone-jamming stuff. Low risk, high reward, imaginative, cheap. Very nice ratfuck right there.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  11. monkeyball Jul 31,2009 1:50 pm

    More sloppy ‘n’ stupid from Neyer.

    1. According to most reports, it seems as though the A’s are only sending the Twins the $1/4M bonus Cabrera was due for getting traded, NOT the entire remainder of Cabrera’s salary.

    2. Even if the A’s did/do cover the entire remainder, STFW? It’s a sunk cost. They could cut him loose entirely get nuzzink for him, and still be paying for that privilege.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • andeux Jul 31,2009 2:04 pm || Up

      Yes, very sloppy. What’s odd is that after using badly flawed logic to make it sound horrible for the A’s (“Essentially, the A’s will wind up spending $4 million to acquire Tyler Ladendorf” – where did that $4 million suddenly come from? Cabrera’s salary for this whole year?) he adds: “Good move for both clubs.”

      TINSTAAFK
    • Leopold Bloom Jul 31,2009 2:16 pm || Up

      Neyer is….uneven. At times, he’s so good…but…well, yeah…my sister’s boy. He was always a disappointment.

  12. batgirl Jul 31,2009 2:15 pm

    Uh-oh, Crosby’s shorts are frosted:

    When reached after Beane’s conference call, Crosby, who is batting .324 in July, but .222 overall, was sorely disappointed to hear he won’t be playing every day.

    “It’s a joke,” said Crosby, who will be a free agent at the end of the season. “I’ve been taking ground balls [at shortstop] every day in the event that something like this happened, and I’ve been swinging the bat great. It’s an absolute joke.

    “I thought the idea is to put the team on the field that gives you the best chance to win, and I think I can play the position pretty well.”

    • Leopold Bloom Jul 31,2009 2:19 pm || Up

      Wow. I sure hope he doesn’t go out there and not try or anything.

    • nevermoor Jul 31,2009 2:35 pm || Up

      I guess they didn’t deliver the whole “we have no use for you ever again” message clearly enough by signing Cabrera in the first place.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • Leopold Bloom Jul 31,2009 10:38 pm || Up

        “Well, she set all my stuff out on the porch at the beginning of the year, but she didn’t spread it around the lawn, until yesterday…”

    • monkeyball Jul 31,2009 2:36 pm || Up

      I would presume Buck’s are as well:

      “You have to be careful about judging players when they play sporadically, which he’s done when he’s been up here. Young players develop at a different rate, and it helps knowing they’re going to be in the lineup every day.”

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • monkeyball Jul 31,2009 2:38 pm || Up

      Duke Urpdate:

      was scratched from his scheduled rehab start Friday due to “a non-baseball related issue”

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
      • nevermoor Jul 31,2009 2:43 pm || Up
        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
        • monkeyball Jul 31,2009 2:46 pm || Up

          Didn’t the Indians just acquire him?

          you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • monkeyball Jul 31,2009 2:45 pm || Up

      I hope we can extrapolate that Giambi will remain DL’ed for the rest of the season.

      Nomar and Crosby, though … they wouldn’t actually be “blocking” anyone, in that they’re both likely to get only sporadic PH/spot start work. I think we’re stuck seeing them every coupla days.

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • mikeA Jul 31,2009 3:13 pm || Up

      It is somewhat comical. Hard to argue with that.

  13. monkeyball Jul 31,2009 2:49 pm

    Yahoo! sports editor fail:

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  14. monkeyball Jul 31,2009 3:00 pm

    My Sal-ubrious suspicion is that this was pretty much the O-Cab endgame for Beane from the outset — and, had they stayed healthy (see what I did there), Giambi and Nomar as well.

    you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
    • andeux Jul 31,2009 3:03 pm || Up

      So you think Beane paid $4 million for a C prospect?

      TINSTAAFK
      • monkeyball Jul 31,2009 4:23 pm || Up

        Heh. I think he thought OCab wouldn’t suck as much as he did and would garner a B prospect. But from a lot of Beane’s recent comments, he seems to have had a hankering for a lot of fast/athletic/long-development-path-to-the-majors guys from the ’07-09 drafts (as well as a few Stairsian complements), and that he’s really had his eyes on 2011/12 and beyond.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • andeux Jul 31,2009 4:31 pm || Up

          I just noticed that in addition to getting Wallace, who he passed on for Weeks, Beane has now also picked up the two players taken immediately after Tyson Ross – Shane Peterson in the Holliday/Wallace deal, and now Ladendorf. I’d attribute this to some weird kind of drafter’s remorse, except that Ross, even with his weird delivery, still seems to me to be the best prospect of those three. (And Weeks, though farther from the majors than Wallace, is also having a good year: .302/.389/.479 in 200 PAs for Stockton.)

          TINSTAAFK
          • nevermoor Jul 31,2009 4:37 pm || Up

            I hadn’t made that other connection. Like you, though, I think it’s mostly just an odd coincidence. I’d be more disturbed if I didn’t think Wallace was the best player we could get from the Cards.

            "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • nevermoor Jul 31,2009 3:40 pm || Up

      I think Beane thought this season would go (much) better than it did, but wasn’t sure enough to take away all of his outs.

      He was wrong, and these are his outs.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • monkeyball Jul 31,2009 4:24 pm || Up

        See, to me, Beane thinking that would mean that Beane’s not all that bright.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • nevermoor Jul 31,2009 4:32 pm || Up

          Lots of people (and projection systems) thought that. Especially before Duke went down and Gallagher and Eveland cratered.

          "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
          • monkeyball Jul 31,2009 4:44 pm || Up

            I was certainly in the 82+W camp (heck, I might have been higher than that). Yeah, this bad, no one was expecting (maybe FSU). But the house of cards Beane was building w/r/t health status (Duke, Chavez, Giambi, Nomar, Ellis) seemed a pretty obvious major risk.

            you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
            • nevermoor Jul 31,2009 4:54 pm || Up

              Yeah, the Giambi thing was stupid and the Nomar thing was low-risk.

              Chavez is Chavez (and relying on him has been stupid for awhile).

              Duke and Ellis combining to miss a season and a half, though, is worse than Beane could have expected.

              "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
              • monkeyball Jul 31,2009 5:29 pm || Up

                Ellis, I’ll give you — it’s debatable as to whether he’s truly “injury-prone” (as with Crosby, he’s had a bunch of bad-luck, not chronic, injuries).

                But Duke? Sure, maybe missing the full year is the high end of expected injury risk, but he’s simply not a healthy player, and hasn’t been for a while.

                you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
                • andeux Jul 31,2009 5:43 pm || Up

                  Even your end-of-spring-training pessimism is now looking optimistic.

                  TINSTAAFK
                • monkeyball Jul 31,2009 5:57 pm || Up

                  Yikes.

                  Chavez 8
                  Ellis 45
                  Duke 0
                  Devine 0
                  Buck 31
                  Holliday 93

                  Total 177

                  mb est. 250

                  G remain 61

                  Figure Ellis will probably hit 50 more games easy … seems unlikely that Buck will make up the additional 23. Though he could. I’m claiming force majeure on Buck. I think my guess was pretty darn close.

                  you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
                • monkeyball Jul 31,2009 5:59 pm || Up

                  And this looks pretty good.

                  you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
                • nevermoor Jul 31,2009 6:12 pm || Up

                  Nice link.

                  "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
            • FreeSeatUpgrade Jul 31,2009 5:36 pm || Up

              I was in the “contend in a weak division until August, then fade” camp…maybe 78 wins or so.

              "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
  15. mikeA Jul 31,2009 3:28 pm

    You’re probably wondering how Ladendorf’s labrum is doing. Torn? no.
    “Disintegrated”

    • monkeyball Jul 31,2009 4:25 pm || Up

      That would be the differential diagnosis by BA’s in-house roving scout/MD?

      you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
  16. mk Jul 31,2009 5:34 pm

    1. This contains lots of German names, as well as the phrase “game-theoretic equilibrium”, and explores how the results of the following contest differ when the participants are chess players as opposed to regular humans:

    We want you to give us a number between 0 and 100 inclusively. The number need not be an integer. You have won if your number is closest to 2/3 of the average of the numbers given by all participants.

    2. In defense of Megan McArdle. Sort of.

    3. Cronenberg inexplicably decides it would be a good idea to make a movie out of Don Delillo’s worst novel.

    4. Alyssa Milano’s Twitter feed is surprisingly substantive. I may have misjudged her.

    • andeux Jul 31,2009 5:48 pm || Up

      I wonder if the results would have been any different if they had asked (good) players of poker or bridge – games that actually involve game theory.

      TINSTAAFK
      • monkeyball Jul 31,2009 5:58 pm || Up

        I wonder what the results would be if one were to ask all MLB GMs.

        you better hope to God you don't show up in this little community, because you'll wish you had never come
        • nevermoor Jul 31,2009 6:13 pm || Up

          Omar Minaya would say 0, thereby screwing up everyone’s results.

          "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • andeux Jul 31,2009 6:05 pm || Up

      re: McCardle, I tend to agree with that sort-of defense. The “glibertarian” label may be appropriate on issues of policy advocacy, but that’s not all she does, and I think she’s written some interesting stuff.

      This was one of the better posts I read (by anyone) on the financial meltdown. It’s far from the reflexive “blame Fannie and Freddie” stuff that most of the right was spewing, and it seems to me that it has some pretty good insight into how and why the markets failed so badly, which is an important question regardless of one’s preexisting attitudes toward regulation of those markets.

      TINSTAAFK
      • nevermoor Jul 31,2009 6:16 pm || Up

        As someone who has spent some professional time in the nitty-gritty, I think it’s an oversimplification but I agree it’s pretty good.

        Of course, there’s a tie-in somewhere to my recent ranting and raving.

        "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • FreeSeatUpgrade Jul 31,2009 6:12 pm || Up

      44 is an excellent number and I want to pick it anyway.

      "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
      • mk Jul 31,2009 6:21 pm || Up
        • FreeSeatUpgrade Jul 31,2009 6:48 pm || Up

          I like it, though 14.7% less than I would’ve had he managed to spell “sentence” correctly in the title of his blog.

          “Shaftoe had been trained to eat insects, and to bite the heads off chickens, so he figured he could handle this.” Since you seem to like German names and phrases like “game-theoretic equilibrium,” I’m even more surprised you abandoned Cryptonomicon (which I’m still reading).

          "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
          • mk Jul 31,2009 7:09 pm || Up

            1. It’s the Shaftoe sections that wore me out after awhile. Wrong war, I know, but I kept picturing him as Tom Berenger in Platoon. I liked the Randy and Enigma/codebreaking/Waterhouse sections.

            2. He/she (“obeedúid~”) lists him/herself twice as a contributor, and “sentence” is misspelled in all the posts, too. I’m going with the theory that multiple (apparent) blunders signal intent, not incompetence, and that the “a” is some sort of clever literary allusion or diabolical mindf***.

            • Leopold Bloom Jul 31,2009 10:52 pm || Up

              “Therefore I hate looking-glasses which show me my real face.”

    • Leopold Bloom Jul 31,2009 10:43 pm || Up

      Re 3:

      I was all itching for a fight when I clicked on the link, then I realized I agreed with you.

  17. JediLeroy Jul 31,2009 9:12 pm

    So, Mia’s had a rough time in the hospital, but things are finally starting to look up.

    My posted to her blog with a few paragraphs on the matter.

    az di bobe volt gehat beytsim volt zi geven mayn zeyde
    • Poppy Aug 1,2009 12:40 am || Up

      Wow, Mia sounds like a tough cookie (Mrs. Jedi does, too)…

      There's a wild thing in the woolshed and it's keeping me awake at night.
      • batgirl Aug 1,2009 6:31 am || Up

        Very tough. I’m glad to hear things are looking up. You all have been through a lot. That hospital system sounds like it takes a lot of patience to go through all the steps. I bet he first time or two were incredibly frustrating, especially with a sick child that you’re worried about! Thanks for sharing–I’ve been wondering how Mia is doing.

        OK, I did read past a few paragraphs, and I also want to point out that I love Mrs. Jedi’s shorter, sassier hairdo!

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