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My wife and I are going to Curacao in January and expect the experience to be similar to yours.

SNO has been doing that for years. Don't Bally and the Tigers do that now? I could swear I've seen ten-second spots for one of the casinos in between pitches.

Sociopathy is pretty much indicative of just about anybody who rises to the tippy-top, isn't it? I can hardly imagine a circumstance in which someone rises to the top tier of a major function—government, business, whatever—without breaking laws, flouting ethics, disregarding integrity, and/or callously ruining some people's lives along the way.

Between this and the report that he may have over-exercised his way to the injury, this strikes me as a possible bad sign. He may be too eager to push it too early, either because he thinks he feels good or else he wants to test out how he's doing, which would risk re-aggravating it or otherwise lengthening his recovery time. He might be too antsy to just keep off his feet and just rest to start with. (I can relate.) If he's truly like that, I hope he can overcome his instincts and take it as easy as the staff tells him to in order to minimize time off.

Fascinating Fresh Air episode from the other day talking to the guy who make the new Frontline doc about Clarence Thomas. He spent a lot of time talking about Thomas's upbringing. It was fascinating. Clarence Thomas was born in Pinpoint, GA (seriously!) in the Jim Crow south as a coastal geechee, born Catholic, abandoned by his father, rejected by his grandfather, cast off to live alone and make his own way before he was an adult, went to seminary for high school and then Holy Cross on a scholarship, was never accepted by the overwhelmingly white student body at either, the latter because he was part of the first black class borne of affirmative action. While he was at Holy Cross he joined the Black Panthers, grew out his hair, went to protests and whatnot. One day he had some sort of epiphany: why am I doing this? I might get arrested! So he quit that. After getting his JD from Yale he did not get offers of high-paying law firm gigs so he decided to try to get into government, and he chose to work for Republicans because "the line was shorter" for black people to rise up in those ranks. He knew nothing of conservative ideology so he contacted John Bolton, who had been a classmate of his, and asked him to recommend books he should read on conservative topics. By the time he joined the Reagan administration, the Republicans were only too happy to hire any black person who would be willing to step out in front of the media and defend their racialized policies, and Thomas was only too glad to do so. He eventually became chairman of the EEOC (with Anita Hill on his staff) and stayed there until nominated to the Circuit Court of Appeals by Bush Sr and, eventually, became the affirmative action appointee to the Supreme Court, of which he has always resented the implication, which might explain why he is so anti-affirmative action. So now that I've capsulized his story, I want to share the big insight I got from listening to this program: Clarence Thomas had no ideology growing up into adulthood. He was neither liberal nor conservative. He joined an extreme black organization because he felt he had to; he then went to work for extreme right wingers because it was a good career move. He had no problem going from extreme left to extreme right. The only thing they had in common is that they were extreme, kind of like the Bernie Bros from 2016 who turned around and voted for Trump in 2020. Some people just want to do things to the extreme because it makes them feel alive. I think that's Clarence Thomas. He had a ****ty childhood that made him feel dead inside. Once he got agency he busted out and chose extreme paths in all directions. Didn't matter what side of the spectrum the extremeness was. Just that it was extreme. I've learned a lot about Clarence Thomas just from this Fresh Air. I might watch the Frontline on it, too.

Which i have done for four straight years now.

It’s hubris, nothing more. Once you reach a certain level you completely lose your olfactory senses and can no longer pass the smell test. He literally has no idea anymore, if he ever did, just how unpopular cutting Medicare and Social Security is, mainly because he doesn’t travel in circles of people who need it.

Maybe McCarthy was told he was going to be on Fox Business.

My only broken bone was my left tibia. I was fifteen and on a skateboard being pulled along by a bike with butterfly handlebars and a banana seat through a grade school parking lot. I’d had almost no experience on a skateboard, and it showed when it jerked up from under me and I landed ankle bone first on the asphalt. They put me in a cast on my brother’s birthday. After a week on crutches they put me in a walking cast. I was walking normally on it within three weeks. I even hit a softball home run with someone running for me in ninth grade gym class. The cast came off on my birthday. That was almost exactly eight weeks. Good as new. Never a problem since. I am not a major league athlete.

He is completely off my radar. I will be honestly surprised if he comes back to baseball and produces positive results for the Tigers.

Jake Marisnick is the third of the four “think” players named in this post as being the level of player we can pick up and try that we have actually picked up and tried. Keep your eyes peeled for Johan Camargo.

Are you really criticizing voters for not turning out in the past midterms in the same numbers that they did in the biggest-turnout election in sixty years? Come on.

Counterpoint: surprising Democratic turnout in 2022, an off-election year. I’ll say one thing for MAGA: they can sure turn out the other side.

I don’t see him winning over people who voted against him before; and I don’t see people scared shirtless of him being elected again, of which there are a lot, staying home; and I don’t think there are a lot of previously unengaged people coming out to vote for the first time for him.

I agree that Trump cannot win a free and fair election.

Somebody who doesn't get hurt all the time would be a nice start.

That's six to eight weeks. This season has fallen apart quite rapidly, hasn't it? Less than forty-eight hours by my estimation.

As if this girl's iniquities are at the same level as Trump's or MTG's or Ted Cruz's, people with their hands on actual levers of power.

And I should give a **** why?

Agree—I'm also sure Hinch's public presentation is designed to elicit certain responses and engender confidence in him. I'm not so sure it's all a ruse to mask underhanded intentions that would be detrimental to the franchise. Just because he's careful about his public statements in his role as manager of the team doesn't per se mean he's a slimeball. I acknowledge you're not at all saying that, although I would also guess that some fans might wonder about that.

That's what "maybeing" is all about!

I'm also laughing at the speculation that Hinch is short-sightedly focused only on winning today's game at all costs and is disregarding every developmental consideration, contradictory to Scott Harris's goals. I believe, rather strongly actually, that it is very unlikely that Harris and Hinch are at loggerheads and working at cross-purposes, and that is it very likely they are very much on the same page regarding the direction and development of this entire franchise. I have no evidence to support that conclusion beyond almost eight months of public statements.

"Maybe statements" are not conclusions, and I don't have to provide evidence for this "maybe" statement any more than you have to provide evidence that they never have done so.

Maybe because they have already rigorously attempted to get Baddoo to hit lefties better and have determined that he simply can't do so. This is possible. Just because they're not playing him against lefties against our will doesn't mean they are simply being ignorantly obstinate. It is also possible they are giving the entire issue short shrift and have prematurely concluded Baddoo can't lefites because they are indeed being ignorantly obstinate. I would regard that as being less likely.

Who the **** is "Amanda the Red" and why the **** should I care about what the **** she has to say?