gehringer_2

that's the problem, Americans 'pride themselves' on being a lot of things they are not.

It may energize the D base, but I'm pessimistic it does much to energize voters in the middle, so I'm not sure it is actually going to create much anti-conservative backlash where it would matter.

TBH, looking at the org's recent hires, they have gotten some positive reviews, I don't think we necessarily need to be pessimistic a priori. Al has shown an ability to hire good people.

The 'security' of Crypto is illusory. The tech does make it secure against one kind of attack - man-in-the-middle attack of transmitted data. But there are many other kinds of attack on assets and for those it's often worse than a conventional bank account. One of the issues with Crypto is that it actually offers no identity based security. IOW, if I go to the bank tomorrow and the bank says I am not me, I have some recourse to prove my identity to the bank, or ultimately to a judge who can rule that I am who I say I am. Crypto accounts are like numbered Swiss accounts, only the number(well -a crypto key) of the account # is recognized by the system, - you have no other provable identity. Thus any fraud against that number - which is prone to all the kinds of fraud and theft any other piece of information is, is absolute and there is generally no recourse, because there is no identity backstop in the system.

education in the US is pretty bad and we don't actually teach much history of any kind so I doubt it's anything being taught positively. Certainly more like things not taught at all. Furthermore, I'm all for STEM ed, being an engineer myself, but I have to wonder how much that's just been one more excuse to avoid teaching more language/writing based curricula (which of course is hard). But to my mind, that is the only place you really can be forced to think - to present an idea and defend a conclusion. And the other, probably bigger issue is that all these behaviors overlay the distribution of certain kinds of religious belief. Now it's a fair question which is chicken and which is egg? Do people who are already prone to those modes of (un)thinking gravitate to that kind of religiosity, or does acculturation in those religious milieus create minds that don't think critically? Probably goes both ways, but you can argue based on the geographic distribution of Trump's support that the thinking follows the religious acculturation. But that is only a symptomatic answer. What makes that style of religion persistent in those places? The US - Canada comparison should tell us something there as on many grounds there is a lot of similarity between US and Canadian Western culture - Montana and Saskatchewan no doubt should have more in common that Sask. does with Toronto or Montana does with Chicago. Understanding the disconnect between the politics/religion in those places might be instructive.

so bottom line - very impressive the way Weaver got what he wanted. It was a complex plan and he pulled it all together. So he gets an A+ as GM in terms of working the knobs and switches. The answer to the "second" question is unknown for now, which is whether the strategy he has been successful at is a winning strategy or not.

Champlain towers building had an emergency warning system. Security Guard didn't know how to use it. 7 minutes elapsed between the call to 911 and the building's collapse. Do the math.. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/23/us/surfside-condo-collapse-alarm.html

Teams also get unlucky and have bad years. FOs are no more, or less responsible for ether. You hope to be able to see past that at the longer term organizational direciton.

well, everyone prepare yourselves for the fact that it will likely be Al that hires his own successor.

Duren could be maybe 3-5yr from whatever his final product is going to be? Big men normally take a while.

Add free throw shooting to the improvement wish list. Would like to see a top level guard shoot more than 74%.

Hayes and Duren probably the 2nd unit - at least until Duren gets a little experience?

not bad. So now we have a fun team, but like Del says, somebody still has to put the ball in the hoop.

Doesn't the ball just go in the hoop out of fear when your players are athletic? No?

LOL - gotta love NBA transactions. More convoluted than a Russian spy novel.

right pick, no deal ---- yet?

they've got ~2 min.

good outing for Wilmer Flores 5IP 4H 1R 0BB 7K; Lipcius HR.

IDK, he's probably happy with himself for being on pace for something like 150 hits, but he'd be a lot more useful if he risked a few more outs to drive the ball more. Or maybe he is and this is still the result.

no deal

went right to the wire, must have been working the phones

The original Packos, which is also still there, is at Front and Consaul across the river in East Toledo. The one at the ball park came after 5/3rd was built.

TBF, sometimes the guy in front of the tank stops the tank, sometimes he just gets run over. It's heroic when it works, but it doesn't always. If it did it wouldn't be heroic to try. Rosen and Donoghue did have a number of advantages - they had the support of their institution, they didn't personally have much on the line - they were defending their Department, not themselves, they were past Trump having any personal leverage over them. But what stands out to me is that not only did they do the right thing themselves, but actually mobilized opposition to fight back. The scramble to mobilize the upper levels of DOJ in support was just as important as the the act of saying no to Trump.

I guess I would take the other side. I would think Chris has a lot more invested emotionally/personally in Al than Miguel. If he can bring himself to fire Al, Cabrera won't be an impediment. Besides, what can Miguel do? He either shows up and does his best, or dogs it in order to get cut to show his dissatisfaction. I imagine the new GM might actually thank him for the latter - though very privately....

as I listen to the testimony of these guys mobilizing DOJ to oppose Trump, I'm struck that this is *exactly* what Robert Bork did not do to defend the DOJ from Nixon. Or for that matter Richardson and Ruckelshaus didn't attempt to do it either before they got canned either.