In Halladay's near-perfect game yesterday, he had a game score of 94. You'd think that would be tough to top, eh? I mean how can you top a no-hitter with one walk? The only better score in the NL all year was Halladay's own perfect game in May.

Lincecum's game score was 96.

'Nuff said.

Fox News reported the billion dollars worth of jetpacks for the L.A. police. It was a hoax.

The Academy's citation honors the 74-year-old author for what it called "his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt and defeat."

It must have made more sense in Swedish.

"This guy is a real jerk. He needs to knock this shit off before every girl on earth starts thinking their boyfriend should be like Johnny Depp. I need a good Chris Brown story right now to balance things out."

"Maybe I don't go read stories to sick children, but I didn't punch a girl in the face 40 times either, so overall, if you look at the big picture, I think I’m still doin ok."

This is shocking!

Who could have dreamed that there was a lower job than first base coach!

Ok, so they wanted somebody who was 20-something, beautiful, aloof, intellectual, and unsmiling, the kind of woman who would slap a restraining order on you if you tried to talk to her without making an appointment. When they couldn't get her they settled for a friendly, down-to-earth, highly approachable, always smiling, comedienne in her mid 40s.

Well, you see they are both beautiful and they both have vaginas!

Although, to be fair about that vagina and beauty thing, they originally turned to Tom Arnold when Portman bailed.

Although I wouldn't call Chris Coons a bearded Marxist. That's a characterization from the righties, based on a comment he made about his youth. To me he seems like the guy who runs the screws and nails aisle at your local Home Depot. He just doesn't look natural without an apron.

Y'know, I think the polls are proof that O'Donnell is not a witch. If she could bewitch people, wouldn't she be running ... oh, I dunno, about 99 points ahead?

"A violent new red-band trailer for ‘Faster’ came out today, and finally Dwayne Johnson is punching people in the face like he should be. Maybe now we can get some decent action movies, instead of Jake Gyllenhaal prancing around the desert. Putting that sugary little treat in an action movie is like a MMA fight with basset hounds. They would both just sit there, and the winner would be decided by whoever gave the other one the fewest kisses. And it would still be more exciting than ‘Prince of Persia.’"

A man who appears to have a rifle in his pants? Great. One more reason for the police to question me.

I gotta get me one o' them Costanzamobiles

I wondered why the cops have been asking me so many questions. And I thought it was the dead drifter I buried in the basement!

"EA Sports released a new version of the video game 'NBA Jam' that features Obama, Biden, Bush, and Cheney. Bush and Cheney play the first half, then Obama and Biden try to come back from a 6 billion point deficit."

"Christine O'Donnell is fighting back against the charges she's a witch with a new ad in which she says, 'I'm not a witch...I'm you.' If she's me then she masturbates constantly. And if she's me then that means she can turn herself into other people, which means she's a witch."

"Osama bin Laden keeps releasing audio tapes to show that he's still relevant. Really? Audio tapes? How about an iPod download?"

Re #1 Eclipse: "A September 2009 report indicated that final costs could approach € 800 million ($1.2 billion US)."

Yeah, that's right. $1.2 billion dollars for a guy's private boat. And it's one of THREE owned by the same dude.

The National League is 134 years old. Post-season play began in 1884. This is the first post-season no-hitter in NL history.

Halladay is the first starting pitcher in the history of post-season baseball to have more hits in a game than he allowed.

He's also the first guy in history to throw a perfect game and another no-hitter in the same season.

There goes the last really good chance for gay men to get married without controversy.

It's not a secret that they want Downey. Now that they have Raimi, that is a realistic possibility.

Sometimes you CAN tell what kids will be when they grow up. The Long Island Lolita is now a full-out porn star.

I expected that, but Lee can't pitch every game.

OK, it was in an exhibition soccer game, but still ...

Obama could challenge Gingrich, for example, to a quick game of one-on-one, trip him, then give him a sharp stomp in the nads. I think Newt would be very receptive to that kind of persuasion.

It's not the longest book, but the largest in physical dimensions - six feet by nine feet. The total print run is 31.

"A fundraiser featuring a male stripper turned into an all-out brawl when up to 150 drunken women got out of control"

"the man in a Green Power Ranger costume appeared lost and disoriented and apparently had been drinking."

Submitter wrote: "Since you mentioned my old acquaintance Adam Green (exceptionally affable and intriguing guy--you'd like him) recently, I thought this might interest you. AMC started pulling the unrated Hatchet II on release day (Friday) after they enthusiastically agreed to exhibit it unrated. It looks like it's already off all of the screens. I saw the L.A. premiere recently. It is no more violent or gruesome than Stallone's R-rated Rambo. I am no horror fan, but I admire Adam for his stand. This could affect far more films and encompass sexual issues and controversial themes at some point."

Here is my original post. (Full disclosure: I don't know Adam, or very much about him.)

I like to think he just kept getting smaller and smaller until he could no longer be seen.

"The State Department has issued a travel warning. They've warned Rick Sanchez not to travel to Israel."

"We're now in the longest, deepest recession since the Great Depression. When this recession started, Lindsay Lohan was known for her acting."

"A Senate has passed a new bill that requires TV stations to lower the volume level on commercials. This is great, a hundred of the most powerful people in the nation have managed to do the same thing my remote does."

"The White House has issued an alert for American tourists traveling in Europe over fears of a terror attack. But the joke's on you, terrorists. We can't afford to go to Europe."

"They say Osama bin Laden is struggling to stay relevant. Welcome to the club. In his latest audio tape, bin Laden is talking about global warming. If he thinks it's hot now, wait until he gets to hell."

Although those guys are now old farts, there is still no better host/guest combo than Letterman/Willis.

Kinda interesting. The Steelers lost, but they retained #1 in the power rankings, presumably because Big Ben returns next Sunday. The Chiefs get no respect. Although they are the only undefeated team, they are rated tenth. More embarrasingly, they are the biggest underdogs in next week's games - from 8 to 9.5 points, depending on the oddsmakers. The Cardinals are considered more likely to beat the Saints than the Chiefs to beat Indy!

It is part of baseball's conventional wisdom to assume that, but it has not been such a clear case as you might think. Between 1993 and 1999, excluding the 1994 strike year, there were six seasons in which the Braves had three #1 starters. Each of them won a Cy Young Award durung that period. Maddux even won an extra one, so they took the Cy in four of those six years. Those three guys were good. Indeed, Randy Johnson had probably his best year, and one of the best years in the history of baseball in 1995, and he still lost the Cy Young to Maddux, who went 19-2 with a 1.63 ERA. OK, you get the point. Like today's Phillies, the Braves had three legitimate #1 starters. So how did the team do in those short series?

In the five-game series, they were tremendous. They won all five they were in, all of them by 3-0 or 3-1. They won 15 of those games and lost only two.

They were NOT very effective in the seven-game series, so they finished with only one World Series title in that great run. In the NL championship series, they won three match-ups and lost three. In the World Series, they won one and lost two.

In the regular season, the team won the division every time. Six out of six.

Like everyone else, I have always thought that such superior pitching was more important over a short series. That ignores the fundamental rule of statistics - the longer the periood evaluated, the more likely that the better team will win. If you have three great pitchers like that, you can just bet you'll do great in the regular season if they stay healthy, because luck and flukes are less important over a period of 162 games than in a short period. In the long haul, things even out. You all know that a guy can bat .700 over five games, but nobody has ever batted .700 for the year. That fact illustrates the same principle - the longer the period, the more likely are things to perform at their expected level. A great team is more likely to emerge on top in a long period than in a short one.

Having noted that point, I am not about to go out and bet any money on the Reds. As I noted above, the Braves of 1993-99 won every single five-game series they were in, and none of them were even close.

Once that series is over, however, assuming that the Phillies can follow the script, the rest of the route is unpredictable. The Braves of the Glavine-Smoltz-Maddux starting era were 4-5 in their nine seven-game series, and won only one WS championship in six opportunities. On other words, the odds against the Phillies are a lot longer than you may think. A current bet on them to win the WS only pays off 2-1. That's not good action.

Current odds to win the WS:

Atlanta Braves 12/1

Cincinnati Reds 11/1

Minnesota Twins 17/2

New York Yankees 7/2

Philadelphia Phillies 2/1

San Francisco Giants 7/1

Tampa Bay Rays 9/2

Texas Rangers 10/1

"A man gatecrashed the event held for Jonathan Franzen at the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park, stole the glasses from his face and ran away leaving behind a demand for £100,000."

"Madonna is 52 years old, but she thinks that with enough yoga and CGI, maybe no one will notice. So she poses in sexy ad campaigns like this one for Dolce and Gabbana. Her plan was going perfectly until someone leaked the originals, and now she’s reportedly furious about it. As if it was some treat for the rest of us."

Study: Americans Get Majority Of Exercise While Drunk

Dear Rick Sanchez, Know this, amigo. You will always have a job at the Iranian New Agency.

Well, off to Greco-Roman wrestling night with Ayatollah and the Clerics. What? It's great exercise.

Well, Great Satans. Thanks to your Lady Gaga, we are seeing a disturbing increase in meat burqas in Tehran.

With Chaplin and Wisdom dead, here's your big chance to be the biggest living comedy star in Albania!

You never know who's going to click where. That's called the "Hasselhoff rule." In Tallinn, Estonia, for example, they planned a walk of fame like the one in Hollywood, but so far there's only one star on it: Greg Evigan.

Possibly the only person on the planet who has taken more different drugs than Jim Morrison. He has not lived a happy life.

Saturday would be his 70th birthday, and I can't think of a better way to celebrate than to see him in porn!

The premise: "If you disagree with our position, there's no pressure, except we'll kill you violently."

iowahawk's comments

"Today we found out that a third college that Christine O'Donnell said she attended has no record of ever knowing her. I'm starting to wonder if she ever really went to Hogwarts."

"Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff, is quitting. He said he loves it in Washington, he just wanted to spend more time with his fucking family."

"The United States had to apologize today because in the 1940s, our government conducted experiments where scientists injected mentally ill Guatemalan prisoners with syphilis and gonorrhea. And Hillary Clinton was the one to make the apology. It was heartfelt. She said, 'I know what it's like to go to bed worrying that someone you love has an STD."

"In honor of the host of Australia's Next Top Model announcing the wrong winner of the esteemed competition, here are the other greatest and most cringeworthy FAILs in Reality TV Show history. From Vern (Mini Me) Troyer riding a scooter around a house naked and then peeing in a corner, to Snooki getting punched in the face, to the worst faceplants in TV dance audition history."

"I don't understand what the fuck Facebook is. I used to hear about it from the college kids at Southern universities who liked reading my shit because they thought I was as afraid of women as they are. Then the local the high school kids talked about it, how they couldn't wait to post pictures after they'd beaten the crap out of me behind the Conoco. Now, though, every fucking jerk talks about Facebook. Old people, young people, my sisters and even babies. Hell, the insurance agents who leave fliers on our apartment door say to join them on it. What good can a place be where you spend more time with insurance hacks?"

"The charity hopes to recruit more volunteer toad patrollers, a role which involves carrying toads in buckets across roads at night to nearby breeding ponds. So far this year up to 65,000 toads have been thus airlifted to safety."

I can relate. I've noticed that those cagey skunks always use their Jedi mind tricks on me as well.

There are 11 cottages scattered around the island - and nothing else. Better check the limits on your credit cards.

Not GAY vampire hunter? How did they miss that?

Tough break for the the kid and for the Twins, who will face the Yankees without their superstar first baseman, who was on his way to a second MVP when he suffered the concussion. Among all major leaguers with 300 or more plate appearances, he finished first in OPS, ahead of Votto, Pujols, Hamilton, Cabrera, and everyone else.

The good news is that one of the guys who picked up some of Morneau's at-bats, veteran Jim Thome, finished fourth, ahead of Pujols and Votto! Thome was downright awesome down the stretch, with an great OPS of 1.127 in August and an astronomical one of 1.399 in September. Thome's OPS for the year had been only .815 on June 4th, but he finished the year at 1.039.

It's way better than it sounds. Actually quite entertaining!

From the Tyrell corporation.

Who knew George Hamilton was a master hacker.

That's the right honorable, most distinguished Lord Grumpy to you.

Just think of him as the Brazilian Joe Biden.

"Will the distinguished senator from Rio yield to his esteemed colleague from the Big Top?"

Grumpy really did say: "What does a congressman do? The truth is I don't know, but vote for me and I'll tell you"

I dunno. Does oral count?

Below, a cool amateur video. The stands erupt as Scobee nails an unlikely 59-yard field goal to defeat the mighty Colts. The kick looks like it was launched in another county!

The linked article reinforces the point I made earlier about how sportswriters don't "get" park effects. The article refers to the Padres weak offense and calls them "pitching-rich." Dude, any team would appear that way if their home park was Yellowstone, aka PETCO.

The Padres scored 343 runs on the road, compared to a NL average of 336. Put them in Coors and you'd think they were the '27 Yankees. The poorest offense in the league (excluding the pathetic Pirates, who are really not in the league) is actually in Colorado, and people think the Rockies can hit! The Rockies scored only 290 runs on the road. But here's the effect of home parks: although the Padres outscore the Rockies 343-290 on the road, the Rockies outscore the Padres 479-322 at home!

That's not a misprint, by the way. The Rockies scored 479 runs at home, 290 on the road. Although they have the second-worst offense in the league (assuming you consider Pittsburgh part of the league), their home park makes them appear to be very close to the best. Only the Reds, who really do have a good offense, scored more total runs.

As for San Diego's pitching-rich team, well, they do have decent pitching, but the reason they allowed the fewest runs of any team in the league is that they had a 2.90 ERA at home. Latos was the only starter with a road ERA below 4.00! Wade LeBlanc had a 2.71 ERA at PETCO, but his road ERA was (are you sitting down for this?) 6.11. Now THERE'S a split. Clayton Richard's 14-9 record looks pretty impressive, but his 4.41 road ERA is much less so. And so forth.

Overall, their road stats show that are 45 runs better than the NL average on defense, and 7 better on offense, so they are better at defense, but are not a wildly unbalanced team, and their offense is OK. The Padres are nowhere near as unbalanced as the Rockies, who are (+29) on defense and (-46) on offense. In fact, using road stats as the yardstick, the only NL playoff team which is significantly more balanced than the Padres is the Braves, with (+27d, +11o). The Giants (+52d, +14o) and Phils (+48d, +19o) are also better at defense than offense, in about the same proportions as the Padres (and both have stronger pitching staffs, by the way). The Reds are similarly unbalanced, but in the other direction (+17d, +55o)

I know somebody is going to ask this. The Pirates are VERY balanced. They suck at absolutely everything. They have the league's worst offense and the league's worst defense. (-97d, -84o) They do have a beautiful ballpark in a dramatic location. If only they had some reason for the fans to go there.

It'll be Giants/Braves and Reds/Phils. The Padres went down with a whimper, not a bang. Latos pitched fairly well, but the Pads' bats were shut out with only four singles.

The Yanks have to play the Twins instead of the Rangers, which means nothing. In fact, the Rangers are probably tougher in a short series, since Hamilton is healthy and they have Cliff Lee. But here's the rub - because the Twins are division champs, they get home field advantage over the Yankees, even though the Yanks had a better record. Although the Yankees had the third-best record among the 30 teams in baseball (and the very best run differential), they only had the second-best record among the five teams in their division.

"A man named Elvis Presley filed papers with the secretary of state's office on Wednesday to run as a write-in candidate for governor. He declined to tell the Associated Press how he got his name but says he is an Elvis impersonator in his spare time."

As you might expect, VERY unsafe for work.

The weekend was a slow one in general, with about a 4% decline from last year during a time of year that is never particularly impressive to begin with. As expected, The Social Network was the top movie by a wide margin, but even that film performed below expectations. ($23 million, versus an expectation of maybe $28). And what little success it had can be partially attributed to the fact that it faced the weakest competition of the year.

The other two new films bombed completely. They were the second and third worst films of the year among films in 2000 or more theaters, beating only MacGruber! (One or both of them may end up also beating Jonah Hex when the numbers are finalized.) They opened with five million each. It's quite rare to have two such poor performers open widely at the same time, and that clearly explains why the weekend ran below last year. Indeed, it's amazing that it came within 4% of last year!

The weak box office performance was no surprise in the case of Case 39, which was expected to perform poorly and did, finishing seventh with only $5 million dollars. The surprise came from Let Me In, which could not cash in on the latest vampire-mania. It actually finished lower than Case 39, taking 8th place when it was expected to finish second. The other films which have performed that poorly this year (Case 39, Jonah Hex, and MacGuber), have been reviled and scorned by the critics (the "top critics" scores at RT are 0%, 7% and 29% respectively), but Let Me In is a critical darling (86% positive reviews), and it's a remake of a foreign film which the critics liked even better (97% positive). The failure of that film gives you some indication of how irrelevant critics have become to our moviegoing choices.

Since they don't specify "natural" blonde, and since anyone can become a blonde within minutes, even people with dark skin, they have effectively restricted their employees to ... everyone.

It's no competition. The Social Network kicked ass, with eight million, compared to a mere 3.3 million for the second place film (Wall Street 2)

Let Me In bombed. It took in $1.9 million, barely beating Case 39 for 6th place. Let Me In was expected to finish second, and to take in at least twice as much as the doomed case 39.

"Rush Limbaugh has a bedroom so gay it has a walk-OUT closet"

O'Donnell was more than a witch — she dabbled in Buddhism and Hare Krishna, too

Who says the Brewers didn't have enough rotation depth? In July, they were deep enough to become the first team since Pete Naktenis' 1936 A's to have four pitchers give up at least 10 runs in a game in the same month.

Marquis became the first pitcher since 1979 (Lynn McGlothen) -- and only the fifth in the past 90 years -- to have two games in one year in which he got one out or none while giving up six earned runs or more.

Dotel becomes the first reliever in the past 60 years to cram three walks, three wild pitches and two strikeouts into the same inning

What have the Pirates done now that the Steelers haven't done since 1989? Lose a 20-0 game, of course.

Ozzie Guillen, on whether his team's offensive issues were going to keep him awake at night: "I'm going to sleep like a baby: awake crying every two hours."

From Stephen Colbert, on the Goldman Sachs scandal: "There's nothing illegal about selling customers a product designed to fail. The Chicago Cubs do it every year. Are they going to jail?"

"The wife of Republican New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino said she accepts that her husband had an affair, that he has a mistress, and the mistress had his baby. He actually convinced her this is no big deal. Guys, let me tell you this, don't try this at home. This guy is a lawyer, a real estate developer, and a politician. That is the trifecta of professional liars."

"It's getting very nasty in Louisiana in the Senate race down there. The Democrat that's running has a two-minute TV ad about Republican Sen. David Vitter, which features the hooker that Vitter paid $300 to. It's a two-minute ad. And here's the embarrassing part for Vitter: the ad lasted a minute longer than he did."

"South Dakota Senator John Thune says he's talked to his wife about running for president in 2012. And of course his wife had the same question that we all have: 'Who are you again?'"

"BP announced earlier today that they have created a new Safety Division for offshore drilling. In related news, General Custer has just hired a lookout."

"Goldman Sachs has a new ad to show what the company does. Isn't that what the recession was for?"

He should have been sacked long ago for incompetence, but he finally just shot himself in the foot:

"I’m telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish, are an oppressed minority? Yeah."

He produced "The A Team" and a gazillion more shows.

Uncharacteristically for Hollywood, he was married to the same woman for 46 years.

Well, that goes without saying. The real question is - are they evil masterminds or just the henchmen of more powerful evil figures?

By the way, I just heard from my own evil overlord, and I'm finally in line for a promotion from minion to henchman.

Reader comment:

Here’s an 8 min. clip of the Mythbusters episode where they made a speed boat out of frozen newspaper. It worked surprisingly well … for about fifteen minutes.

Hey kids - that ain't milk on that cereal.

Not guilty? With hundreds of witnesses? I wonder what his defense could be.

"Yeah, gimme a cup of coffee with, I dunno, maybe 6000 sugars."

I blame the British MickeyD people for adding Filet o' Oats to the menu.

Two more "brooding vampire" movies, both critically acclaimed. Let Me In is an English-language remake. Let The Right One In is the original Swedish film.

"Britain has once again proved a country to be reckoned with in science after landing a national record four wins at the annual Ig Nobel awards ceremony at Harvard University.

Researchers from across the UK were honoured for achievements that included proof that swearing relieves pain, a means of collecting whale snot with a remote-controlled helicopter and the first documented case of fellatio in fruit bats."

Note: EXTREMELY unsafe for work, unless your boss is Larry Flynt.