gehringer_2

Hockey is a funny sport. Of all major sports it's the one where energy (and maybe good goaltending) can allow a team to play far better than it is for a fairly extended period (or even low energy resulting in a talented team playing worse than it should). But in the end, talent will out, and the high level talent Yzerman has been able to add on the ice is still a very short list. Two skilled but small forwards in Raymond and Debrincat, one great and one potentially good defenseman, and Kane, who is probably just passing through - and he has given up one pretty good defenseman to get there. What the Wings have is a pipeline and a lot of optimism about it.

Xi was educated in Russia. From that I will suppose he internalized european in even mongol cultural DNA about power and statehood that continue to drive him, and from that standpoint your analysis of China as a wannabe imperial power in European historical terms is spot on. I'm still not so persuaded that because Xi sees the world through the lens of a largely Russian understanding that is enough to move a 3000 yr old culture into a form of military imperialism that it is hundreds of years removed from. Clearly you hope for the best but must prepare for the worst, so whether what I believe about China will turn out to be true or not is immaterial to the fact that the threat has be met in the terms you describe. Or in short form, there is a difference between predicting the future and preparing for it.

yes - It's only fair to concede that none of the downside consequences of 'Reagonomics' were yet visible and the Dems faced the choice of getting on board or getting run over in the face of overall positive economic momentum. Tim Wu, who recently left the Biden admin,wrote a column for the NYT describing Biden's efforts to pivot away from "new democrat" economic theory. I'm in nearly complete agreement with what he lays out, but nobody would have though any of this was important in 1992. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/25/opinion/biden-trump-economy-election.html?searchResultPosition=1

Spring baseball journalism - where all the skies are blue and Roses bloom without thorns!

Broderick couldn't persuade as sympathetic an ear as Ken Starr to take up her allegations - so they remain that.

Indeed, but TBF to Petzold, the headline may not be his

Maybe they approved that he was outgoing.... (the best numbers do come after the election was over. And 40% negatives isn't that great for a somewhat less polarized era than today.)

He's quoting Javy that Skubal can win the CY.

Ha! I've always been conflicted about Clinton on a lot of levels. It's pretty clear there was a fair amount of petty financial grift going on in Arkansas, albeit that may have been normal for the place and time. I don't really remember that that carried into his presidency like it has with Trump. Clinton's bigger problem was that he was just co-opted by the really big US economic interests into falling for what became the 'new democratic' economic theory i.e. globalism and comparative advantage - republicanism lite (much of which Biden is trying to reverse). And I've said before he absolutely should have been removed from office for lying under oath. We can criticize Gore for trying to separate himself but the Dems left him in an untenable position. He was going to lose people either way he went on Clinton. If they'd just made him the incumbent his chances would have been way better! 😉

Makes me wonder if Yzerman regrets not selling at the deadline. Or as I think someone here suggested, maybe he was and no-one was interested in what he was making available.

It's a calculation. I was going to say that the Biden campaign is not under obligation to re-adjudicate the judgment of the majority of the American public that voted for Clinton - but LOL - I just looked it up and he never won a majority of the vote. He was a plurality winner in both elections thanks to Perot; though he almost made it a majority in '96 with 49.2%. Be that irony as it may, I'll stand by the point. It's really the same reason GOP candidates can't quit Trump, their voters love him. It's easy for us on the other side to say they need to have some backbone and run away from him, but most of them understand if they did that they might as well not run - their voters are where the voters are. We can, and should, blame a generation or two of GOP leaders and strategists for helping to product the current electorate (along with Murdoch of course), but that doesn't change what a GOP candidate faces in the present tense. But back to the other side, I would note that Hillary won the popular vote still married to Bill. I don't remember her "me too" sector voters lobbying her to divorce him before she ran. So ultimately no, I don't think Biden is worried about blowback from being on stage with BC. As MB notes, there is a hierarchy of concerns and Bill still has a lot of fans among the people whose top of the memo concerns align for Biden. On the other hand, you won't see him asked to take any other role either.

More deck chairs. ...Whatever

This is spot on the difference. China is not going to destroy Taiwan to win it. The military threat is real but it's primary objective to create a sense of pressure and inevitability that will lead to an outcome more like Hong Kong. China has already shown us their preferred modus operandi.

I'm not one of them, but I have no argument with the political strategy. Images of continuity with 30 yrs of history/tradition is a good tack if many of the people you need to sway are anxious about a society with too much change too fast.

I want to know if Telly wore the glasses cockeyed as part of character if he just never get a pair of his own fitted right. 🤷‍♀️

I know defending the Grey Lady may be considered antediluvean, but I think they were actually trying to write an upbeat column about the Biden campaign that would not be immediate fodder for the pitchbot, and to have focused on one disgruntled soul in the city of 12 million would have been pitchbot paydirt.

Bert, you have supplied more than enough of that delight to throw thanks right back at ya'

Times article today says they are bringing in a large crane and will send divers down to cut the structure into liftable pieces. Going to be very dangerous diving. I'm a little surprised they don't just place a bunch of explosive charges on it to break it up. I would hate to be a diver cutting metal that could be under enough stress to squash me like a bug if it parts the wrong way.

NYT did report that there were protesters outside and inside at the rally and even talked to one of them. They did not report the incident in the tweet. Of course, who to choose to talk to is an editorial choice in itself.

TBH, it probably wouldn't make any difference, but you'd think he'd feel the obligation to make the gesture just a matter of his own sense of felt moral imperative. In the end I still can't decide if it's Dubya's inner demons that have made him into the strange outcome he is, or if he is just actually dumb as a post.

different topic, but that plot synopsis puts me in my 'old man shouts at cloud' disposition. Terrible.

Lalonde constantly stresses 'simple game' but is there a point where 'simple' turns into "dumb"

you'll have to excuse me for laughing a bit. On the Great Lakes, "highest priority" by the ACOE would mean about 8 yrs instead of 10. More seriously, I wonder what method they decide on to start moving the wreckage.

maybe the state of Marlyland should seize the thousands of containers and resell the contents to defray costs.

Nice OF. Not many balls going to find grass with Meadows, Vierling and Greene out there.