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As foretold by prophesy: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/15/business/economy/tsmc-chips-grant-biden.html

I’ve been praying for Trump to survive long enough to get through his term and see his party get turned out in droves in a free and fair election in 2028. That’s the hopeful pessimist in me, and if the electoral system manages to hold up until then, that scenario seems like a certainty. Flip side, I’ve been … well, maybe not exactly worried, but at least a little concerned in one of the corners of my mind … that Trump will get to a point while in office that once he understands he’s going to die any day now, he attains Peak Sociopathic Narcissist and decides, “if I can’t live in this world, nobody can”, and pushes The Button before he goes. What, you think the people around him would never go along with that? You mean those wackadoodle super-evangelical Christians who are preparing the way for Christ to come again so He can finally put this sinful world to its prophesied apocalyptic end? As if. This government is lousy up and down the whole system with people who believe in that shǐt. Perhaps the only guy who could stop that is FElon, and for any number of reasons, he might not even be around by then. That’s the Mr. Alarmist Non-sense in me. Go ahead, tell me that’s 100% impossible. Then tell me why.

I hope France, Italy, and the UK are ramped up enough to fulfill the order, because I’m pretty sure the U.S. is no longer in the arms-sales-to-western-Europe business.

I’ve actually been wondering how the 4th of July is going to be received by the public in general this year? It is the one unabashedly hyper-patriotic holiday people of practically all political stripes lean into. I’m going to be at the Tigers-Blue Jays game in Dunedin on Saturday. I am eager to see how the Canadian national anthem will be received? I assume it will be overwhelmingly Americans there as a not insignificant number of Canadians have avoided going to the southern U.S. this year for obvious reasons, but even so, I don’t imagine there will be any incidents when the Canadian anthem is played. Either way, I’ll be ready to belt out the words.

I’ve re-read this a couple times and I’m still trying to figure out what you mean here? Do you mean Trump gone by ‘28? Or America gone? Or something else?

Me and you are totally on the same page here.

Ty Cobb was not considered a bad guy in 1936.

Rule #5 of BBWAA's Rules for Election stipulates that "[v]oting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played," and while Rose is well-qualified on at least three of these standards, he fails in spectacular fashion on two of them, and quite possibly three. It can be fairly debated whether the Baseball Hall of Fame should even consider attributes such as character and integrity for inclusion while other sports, notably football, have no such requirement. But it can't be seriously debated that as long as the Baseball Hall does require those two characteristics, Pete Rose will always fall very, very short against them. I don't understand what problem they'd be trying to solve by setting all this aside and letting Pete Rose back into Baseball and clearing him for eligibility for the Hall of Fame.

Exactly this. Permanent ineligibility for betting on a game in which you have a duty to perform, and one year for betting on any other baseball game. If they were change that to, say, one year for betting on a game a player is in, then what happens if they serve their year then return to the game? How could anyone ever trust them ever again to maintain any competitive integrity? Talk about letting the fox into the henhouse.

I was thinking of mentioning that myself, but it would have clashed with the "flying monkeys" bit.

That's because people typically regard other countries in the way they wish those countries were, rather than as they are.

I wish they were only $5.59 here. Larges are $7.99/dozen at Kroger/Mariano's here.

Or that they know enough more about it than we think so that all they have to do is craft a dumb argument that sounds smart enough to convince ignorant red hats. To do that right, you have to know at least something about the subject matter at hand.

We talked about it on the old board. Now with the guardrails down he can follow through on it. How does Trump drag along the 70+% of sentient adults who want nothing to do with quitting NATO, without them kicking and screaming and creating a fuss on a non-stop basis? Because there is no way the regime will allow constant noisy yammering opposing it in the press, on social media, or on the streets indefinitely. What are the most logical ways they can put a stop to something like that?

I need the help of some tech geniuses here because I am flummoxed. This started out of nowhere maybe Thursday or Friday. All of a sudden, Bluesky posts are not being embedded in MTF posts on my iPad only. It doesn’t matter what browser it is—Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Safari—bsky posts are a no show. On my laptop, though, they show up just fine. But the weird thing is, on my iPhone, they also show up just fine. For a couple of days, I would turn off my VPN on the iPad and the bsky posts would show up. But starting this morning, they do not show up even with the VPN off. But again, on iPhone, they show up no problem, VPN on or not. I tried restarting my iPad, and no dice. Both the iPad and iPhone are on 18.3.1, so that’s not the issue. I have no Internet security programs like Norton antivirus or firewalls on it (that I know of), and I don’t have any Adblock programs running on the iPad. My last resort was copy the URL from the bsky app and paste it into the address field, and again, it was a no go only on the iPad: but perfectly fine on the iPhone. I am simply completely flummoxed and I have no idea how to diagnose this beyond this. I don’t want to do any as drastic and reformatting my iPad. Any suggestions anyone can give t further troubleshoot this?

Just another example in a long line of Republicans doing things the vast majority of the American people would never want.

I completely agree with all of this, which is exactly why they cannot reinstate Rose back into the game.

I hate that, too. But even with that in the game, there is still a bright red line between partnering with gambling companies to allow fans to gamble on games, and allowing players to get away with gambling on a game in which they have a duty to perform.

You have to care. The integrity of the whole sport is on the line here. Without that, it’s nothing more than the WWE. It’s theater. Then what’s the point?

Oh. My. Effing. God.

Cue the flying monkeys ...

I say what now?

I think that’s part of it. Another part of it is that strikeout rates are basically double what they were in Kaline’s day. The rate was 11.4% when Kaline won the batting title in 1955. Last season it was 22.6%. If a guy has 600 at bats, it’s the difference between striking out 66 times and 132 times. Those 66 times he would not have struck out would result in something like 15 or 20 extra base hits. That’s something like 20 or 30 points of batting average difference right there. That’s partly why entire leagues hit .245 now and not .270. There is some correlation between the lack of exposure to the same guys over and over and the strikeouts, but a lot of the reason must also be that the velocity and spin are so much more than in Kaline’s day. I think if 1955 Al Kaline were magically transported to 2025 to face today’s pitchers, he’d bat maybe a buck-fifty. That’s not a criticism of Al Kaline.

You’re not waiting to hear about it on Fox, right?

I acknowledge people like to blame Hinch without blaming the level of talent he has had to work with, but I'm willing to give the philosophy a fair chance to work as he gets better talent in house.