gehringer_2

The other interesting one is that the Palestinians in Gaza live in a area settled by a group modern historians call 'the Sea Peoples" who migrated there possibly after the fall of one of the pre-Greek civilizations, They sailed around creating a fair amount of havoc for a short time - in the 11th Cent BC IIRC (don't quote me on the exact dates), I listened to a couple of lectures about this some time ago. They are a rather enigmatic group in terms of their origins, but they may have brought a more sophisticated culture with them than existed in that area at the time. So the Gazans - or least some of them, may have more complex antecedents than most. There is/was a whole speculative theory about the rise of this group somehow collapsing the commerce that supported the Minoan civilization.

One can go overboard on the skeptics side as well. If nothing else, there is plenty of archaeological evidence still standing and staring one in the face that Jerusalem was the center of an empire large and rich enough to support building a significant city in the pre-Hellenic period, ~11th-9th century BC.

Right. The dilemma is that Hamas has to go but Israel likely cannot completely eradicate Hamas purely by military action or as an occupying authority without that authority being completely tyrannical. What you want to happen with the Palestinians and Hamas is what eventually began to happen in Iraq with ISIS: the rise of domestic authority in conjunction with the population's eventual rejection of the ISIS program. Now, I have no idea whether that is even possible given all the things that make the situations different, but that is the kind of mechanism that somehow needs to be driven towards. The problem I see is that you still need a provisional authority, and as bad as things were in Iraq the bulk of the Iraqi population was never as militantly anti-American and the Palesitinians are anti Israeli so if Israeli can't run successfully Gaza because of that, who can?

LOL - Lange walks the first batter he faces and then gives up a 423ft moonshot.

Skubal through 2: 0H, 1BB 2K. Meadows had to run down one hard hit ball. Skubal hitting 99 as per pirates announcers.

Filipkowski may be correct about Trump fatigue inside the party in general, however I don't believe that is what is driving McConnell's decisions. I think in this particular case it's more about Mitch's failing health.

Gameday Audio for this game sounds like it's being broadcast with paper cups connected with strings. Bush league audio quality.

TBH, I don't get it either. You make a protest vote in the primary, but where are you going to go in the general? As Ratko posted, Trump's problems with Muslims are lot deeper than the Gaza War. Will they stay home? I doubt it, naturalized citizens love to vote - in general a lot more than natives.

All fair args - you can go a step further and speculate that without Netanyahu, history might be so different that this war might never have happened. What I meant to point out though is that given where things are, security in Gaza is now an issue for Israelis that transcends internal politics. Any more liberal leader would be under just as much pressure to secure the southern border. They may like being in the situation of having to do it less than Netanyahu, but I don't think in the end they would agree to anything much different in terms of Israel's security demands. Where there could of course be a LOT of difference is in a lot of non-security issues that could form the lubricant for any deal.

The weakness behind Javy at shortstop concerns me. It's probably going to mean that his bat is going to have to get really bad before there is any move to limit his ABs - assuming he doesn't turn it around and make it a moot point . Kreidler has the glove but his bat coming around would be a real development coup at this point. Eddys Leonard is interesting but not much track record to go on.

I haven't been a big enough basketball fan over the years to have a sense over this, but I'm pretty sure all the years I followed basketball more closely when I was younger, substitutions were mostly always individual, coaches would give one or two players a blow, or sub for match-ups in for length or shooting - e.g the way Vinnie J was used. So I can't say that I have any memory of the concept of complete 1st and 2nd teams having traditionally been a thing in basketball. It makes me curious what drives the concept. Is there some evidence more successful team have gone to it? Or maybe just with so many guys that come into the league without long college careers players don't have the game experience to have learned how to adjust to playing with more than one set of teammates?

Netanyahu is a bad guy, but you could have a Labor PM in charge of Israel and it would still be a non-starter for Israel to give up security control over Gaza now.

Orchard Lake at I696 in the '70s. There was nothing quite so vaguely disturbing yet edible on a student budget than JITB deep fried Tacos.

Nate Cohn did write a polling story in the NYT today but wasn't pushing any grand conclusions.

Sure , the Caps are on the downside, but still a lot of fun to see the Wings doing to the Caps what the Caps used to do so regularly to the Wings.

Not for nothing that decision comes out of Grand Rapids.

Turnbull's control was never a sure thing before the surgery. The short stretch in '21 before he got hurt was his lowest walk rate since he had been a starter by a good margin.

It's fine ranking system if an NHL roster was 10 players.

Keith, Green, Biggie and Tork all hitting the ball hard. Works for me.

Au Contraire! This is Spring Training and Casey rides again with a 1-2-3 2nd.

I remember when my grandfather was alive and the old Armenian men would sit around and agitate about what was going on the 'old country.' My GF, who had probably suffered more personal loss in the genocides than all the rest of them, had no use for any of it. "This is your home now, forget all that!"

absolutely. This conflict doesn't rise quite to the level of "damn both your houses" like say, the Iran/Iraq war did, but only because we have to consider that the US strategic and political culture alignment with Israel is more important than, and will eventually outlive Netanyahu. In the short term, anything the US can do to make Netanyahu suffer for doing absolutely nothing but making the situation worse for 25 yrs is too little.

You have to weigh those numbers against the quality of chances the Wings are regularly giving up. The two big issues are that the drop-off too our third paring too often leaves them totally overmatched where you are watching knowing that they are inevitably going to give up a goal. The other is transition mistakes leading to grade A+ chances. That's where I think Lyon is living on borrowed time. He's already stopped more of those than you should have to count on an Vezna goalie for.

>>wet blanket is your middle name. If a team gets good goal tending from a goal tender with an established record, that's more projectable than a journeyman backup turning into Dominick Hasek. But I'm hoping right along with the rest of us!

that's an interesting observation. I would say that if it's true that people are going to Trump rallies today more to be entertained by crazy uncle than to hear their own political grievances supported, that is not a good sign for voter motivation levels on the red side.