I’m usually loathe to link to other writings, but I was in Iceland last week reporting on the economic meltdown over there and I think the resulting piece is kind of interesting. If you’re into that sort of thing, it’s here.

Why can’t us? That’s why.

There are a few different ways of looking at last night’s rain-out. Here they are, in ascending order of paranoia:

(1) MLB did the Phillies a favor by suspending the game after the Rays tied it in the top of the 6th. Had the game been called after the 5th with the Phillies winning the World Series on a rain-out, their championship would have been viewed for all time as fraudulent.

(2) This was simple bad luck, no harm, no foul. They start over tied and play a short, three-inning game. MLB didn’t cover itself in glory, but after the way Bud Selig has managed the game in recent years, none of this is any surprise.

(3) The TV network was simply trying to maximize audience by pushing MLB to even start the game last night, despite the fact that meteorologists knew exactly what was coming. There was no conspiracy.

(4) There was a conspiracy, but not against the Phillies. Had the game been called after five, the Phillies would have won the World Series. But MLB allowed it to continue until the Rays could tie it to avoid embarrassment.

(5) There was a conspiracy against the Phillies. Selig’s confusing post-game announcement that he had–just recently!–changed the rules for rain-outs in the playoffs reeks of cover-up. If you think that MLB was simply waiting for the Rays to tie the game or get the go-ahead run before calling the affair, Selig’s claim that he would never have allowed the game to be completed after five and a half innings doesn’t make much sense because (a) No one else seems to have known the rules had been changed; (b) Selig was vague about when the rule was changed; and (c) Then why not just postpone the game in the 5th? Media who were there say that there was no material difference in the field between the middle of the 5th and the middle of the 6th–it was unplayable in both. This looks like MLB trying to bail out the Rays any way they could.

(6) There was a conspiracy against the Phillies. Not by Fox or MLB. You know where I’m going with this: Fog Bowl.

In His wisdom, God does not want the Phillies to win the World Series. So He opened the heavens and sent the rains. He guided the Rays’ bats in the top of the 6th. When the game resumes tomorrow (I assume they won’t be able to play tonight), the Phillies will lose. Cole Hamels is now done for the series, unless he would be pitched on very short rest for a game 7.

And let’s be clear: The only chance the Phillies have to win the World Series now is to win the three-inning game on Wednesday. If they lose that, the entire character of the series will have changed. Destiny will have asserted itself. And order will be returned to the universe.

Is this the new 4th and 26?

Has the end of days arrived?

I don’t know what I’m saying.

My friends at Power Line are very smart guys, but sometimes they miss the forest for the trees.

First, John Hinderaker links to something by Orson Scott Card and notes, “I’m not familiar with columnist Orson Scott Card.” Of course Card isn’t really a “newspaper columnist”–he’s a pretty grand sci-fi writer and–most importantly–author of Ultimate Iron Man series 1 and 2. For shame, Hindrocket!

Then in a post today Paul Mirengoff analyzes the World Series by going through all sorts of fancy “numbers” and “metrics.” He concludes that the Series is “too close to call.”

What Mirengoff misses of course, is the only salient fact: The Phillies are from Philadelphia.

We know how this story ends.

Nasty Boy Knobbs got kicked out of Fenway during Game 5 last night. For reals.

Go ahead a click–they even have a picture. Knobbs, evidently, is a Rays fan. And he’s still living his gimmick. That’s kayfabe.

I did a post over at the Standard Blog yesterday about a new directive from Starbucks which tells baristas not to pull espresso shots into a shot glass to inspect them before they go into the beverage cup. I argued that this looked like an admission from Starbucks that the problems the company faces aren’t of its own making, but rather are tied up in an economic environment that presents SBUX with an existential threat.

Galley Friend, coffee expert, and barista K.N. suggests that I may be over-reading this development and it may just be the SBUX bean counters trying to bolster the stock price. Her long dispatch is worth reading:

I liked your point in the charbucks post, but I think you’re missing the bigger picture: that they have noodle headed weeny bean counters to come up with “action items” about five seconds worth of labor to pour the shots into the cup is the problem. It’s the noodle headed weeny bean counters who are screwing things up, and costing them more money, I’d wager, than the average barista taking the time to check the shots.

I give you an example to prove my point: when I worked at the bou, we were in an economic upturn, hence labor was scarce. Rare was the manager who was actually staffed appropriately. We begged, borrowed, stole to cover shifts, but ultimately managers (who weren’t supposed to be behind the counter at that point in time, a policy they’ve since changed) wound up working way too many hours. To “solve” this problem, the genius Jay Willoughby (the man the board hired to take the company public, whose previous job was to take Boston Market public, a case study which is now taught at Harvard Business School about what NOT to do) and his stooge, Larry DeVries, came up with the brilliant concept of the “Labor Management Manual.” We managers were to go through our sales for the week, hour by hour, transcribe them into a nifty notebook, then look on a chart to see how many people we should have had on shift during that time and then mark that down. This was mandatory and was supposed to help us staff our stores more efficiently, and to keep labor costs down. Never mind a. that we had a shortage of employees, not that we were staffing too many people and b. that any decent manager (myself included) already knew how many people they needed on shift to handle the business. I had to turn in this stupid worksheet every week with my P&L statement, receipts, overrings, etc. I wasted hours on this thing–hours I wasn’t being paid for because I was salaried and already was over my thirty-six hours. How did it help me to staff my store in a labor shortage? They never looked at anything they could actually do to bring in employees—they only looked at what they could to make the numbers look better. They were trying to position the company to go public. To do that they had to keep the numbers looking good, and as labor is the biggest cost, they weren’t trying to help us get staffed, they were trying to make sure things were under control so the investment bankers would like what they saw.

I’m not bitter. Really. It’s hours that I’ll never get back, but who’s counting? Really. I’m fine.

Jay and Larry have since moved on to Pret a Manger (sp?) and last I heard they hadn’t driven it into the ground…yet. There’s still time, though, if they’re still there.

Anyway…the point being that this doesn’t necessarily mean the economy is going down, and charbucks is finally realizing this, it’s more about the stock market being all over the freakin’ place and this is what charbucks can do to fudge the numbers, so the shareholders stay happy. Of course, taking away the shot glasses because of a perceived increase in labor costs is going to ensure shitty shots make it into someone’s $4 latte. Which means unhappy customers, who are already shelling out more for lattes than they probably should, so if they want one, they might just go somewhere else next time. Like Caribou. Which makes better lattes to begin with.

If they need to save some money, it would probably be better if they just fired an accountant or two. I mean, really. If they’ve got the time to figure this kind of crap out, that’s not the kind of productivity most board members like to see.

Never mind the fact that the barista who takes five seconds to pour shots into a cup is not qualified to work even at Starbucks. Pfft. Amateurs.

That one’s just for the Pig.

Rays in five. Obviously. Because what could be more humiliating than losing to an expansion team in its first post-season. To a 10-year-old franchise which has never even won 70 games in a single season.

That’s why can’t.

Yeah, my pennant celebration lasted all the way through the 5th last night.

I hate to take issue with Lynda Carter, with whom I was somewhat obsessed around age 5, but here she is criticizing Sarah Palin for being the “anti-Wonder Woman.”

Here’s Carter’s description of how what Palin stands for is anathema to Wonder Woman:

She’s judgmental and dictatorial, telling people how they’ve got to live their lives. And a superior religious self-righteousness . . . that’s just not what Wonder Woman is about.

Let’s leave Palin out of the discussion. Does Carter really know what Wonder Woman is all about? Wonder Woman is an Amazon princess–an anti-democratic royal from a society which borders on a theocracy, so intertwined is it with religious tradition. Heck, as a member of the royal family she practically has a direct link to the gods. And talk about self-righteous: Princess Diana has no doubt as to which society is better, the all-woman, Amazon sisterhood or the corrupt, godless world of men.

Maybe the ’70s TV version of Wonder Woman was a more egalitarian take, but that’s not the classic view of the character.

All of that said, Lynda Carter is still getting it done at 57.