Religious Freedom and Intolerance

I attended theological seminary for two years back in the 1960s.
Despite that background, I avoid discussing religion, and I hate having people try to proselytize me. And I really hate it when those who are unsuccessful in their attempts to convert me think it is okay to kill me.

The crusades, the inquisitions, the witch trials are all horrible examples of this type of fanaticism from historical Christianity.

And the devastatingly murderous beliefs of radical sects today are every bit as bad.

59 million Dumb? That's a little extreme

According to Jane Galt (a pen name, I gather), here is Jane's Law:

The devotees of the party in power are smug and arrogant.
The devotees of the party out of power are insane.

Here is the Econoclast's corollary:
The devotees of the party out of power are elitist and arrogant.
The devotees of the party in power are dumb.

Measuring output in sports

Here is a great example of why I don't like "triple crown" stats in baseball [the triple crown stats are batting average, home runs, and RBIs]:

"As a rule, team-OPS explains about 92% of variance of runs per game, while team-BA explains only about 70%."

That's from sabernomics.com. OPS is a cobbled-together stat: On-base-percentage Plus Slugging-average. It has its detractors, but is a fairly simple and readily available stat that does a decent job of indicating the contribution of a player to team wins. Read the whole piece here.