I thought it was a free parking spot, but it was actually a Geo Metro.
Is the old or new span more likely to fall down in an earthquake?
Mark Ellis would make an excellent second base upgrade.
Remember when we were trying to figure out whether we should keep Brandon Allen or Kila Ka’aihue as our everyday firstbaseman?
I totally forgot that FUUUUUU was even on last year’s team.
Twenty vials of moon dust were recently found at LBL, labeled by Melvin Calvin himself. They were dated 1970; I’m surprised they survived the decade without someone snorting it.
Screw you, I can have beer and skittles for dessert
I had skittles for dinner last night… I think. Green Apple replacing Lime is an abomination.
Thank you! I have a friend who tried to tell me green apple is good. He may be an ex friend…This is all part of the sour conspiracy. Every candy must have sour now, and sour Skittles arent enough, they have to raid my wonderful mix of flavors.
How can you do a lemon-lime combination without fking lime??!! Or strawberry lime? It’s a quintessential part of the package. And I’m with you on the overblown “let’s make everything sour” nonsense. Leave my childhood along, damn it!
The bolt issues notwithstanding, supposedly the new span is much safer right now, not even close.
Yeah Im not sure about that.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/breaking-news/ci_23404330/new-bay-bridge-vastly-safer-than-old-span
Yeah, that’s what they’re *saying* but the utter incompetence/negligence shown in actually building the damn thing leaves plenty to doubt.
It’s a bizarre and unnecessary use of percentages – just say the maximum acceleration has risen from 0.1 to 1.8G.
The good news is that even if they’ve pissed away half of the improvement due to incompetence it’s still 10x stronger than the old one.
Furthermore, G is itself unnecessary here – why not just say the maximum acceleration has risen from 1 to 20 meters per second per second?
Readers are more likely to have some sense of how strong an acceleration is if it’s expressed in g than in m/s^2.
Oh Ok I thought you were talking about the west span not the old east span.
That I think is the far more relevant question. Everyone knows the old east is a joke.
It would be an interesting experiment to leave both bridges up and allow drivers to choose their safety — say, ten bucks shiny new side, five bucks old relic. I do not think the new side would get much use.
Yeah, well, all that referendum would prove is that people are stupid. I’ll take modern seismic engineering over its 1930s counterpart any day.
It’s a flawed concept, but not for that reason. The new span is not so much for the few lives it might save, as it is to avoid the multiple economic disruptions that a significant period of closure would bring with it.
Things don’t last nearly as long as they used to.
I would totally snort moon dust.
sounds unpleasant.
my brother once snorted a pixie stick… he regretted that
There was a year in college where I experimented with snorting all kinds of things. I could handle some rock dust. Maybe it’d turn me into a superhero.
…this explains a lot.
Here is a six-year run of very good pitching from the same pitcher. Every year was an ERA+ of 130-140, except one which was 97. Do you know which one?
HR/9 BB/9 SO/9HR/9 BB/9 SO/9
1.2 2.1 8.7
1.1 2.1 7.8
1.1 2 7.8
1.1 2.6 9.1
0.8 1.8 8.1
1.0 2.2 9.0
Colon?
Rickey.
I meant, can you guess the year with the poor ERA?
The year with the 2.6 BB/9?
I’m going to guess year 5 just b/c it seems least likely
It’s very hard to guess, but I’ll go with year #1
That was kind of the point. This guy was basically the same pitcher every year except for the one where he had a .320 BABIP. The stats are for Cole Hamels from 2007-2012. In year 3 he had a 97 ERA+. In every other year he had an excellent ERA.
Cria2, after the end of the NBA finals: “Are they going to throw a pie in the face now?”
So much win it hurts.
Backstreet Boy claims assault at hands of gang of New Kids on the Block loyalists.
Has anyone seen Kyli?
Pshaw. Aaron Carter is not a Backstreet Boy.
*fistbump*
I believe you mean ‘younger sibling of the hottest Backstreet Boy’.
Also, I am still laughing at this several days later because what.
Ellis: 86 wRC+, -0.4(!) UZR
Suck Ass: 90 wRC+, +0.4
Thanks, and go As.
Ellis would look a lot better if you platooned him. He’s got a 120 wRC+ this year against lefties.
Rosales is 111…
Thanks, and go As.
Ellis would look a lot better in green socks and white shoes.
If there is any justice in the world, he’ll be back serving root beer floats and signing autographs with a smile tomorrow. Like he never left.
Stop it.
MURICA.
http://seattle.cbslocal.com/2013/06/24/company-sells-pork-laced-bullets-to-fight-islamic-terrorists/
…
They should go whole-hog and just make bullets entirely from bacon.
Straight out of True Blood.
Reclamation project?
https://twitter.com/Buster_ESPN/status/349567998115315715Thanks, and go As.
god dammit twitter.
Cubs DFA’d Carlos Marmol
Thanks, and go As.
I fixed it in your original comment; what you have to do now is copy Twitter’s embed code and paste that here, rather than just pasting the URL of the tweet.
Roger that…
Thanks, and go As.
Brian Bogusevic: Possible Croatian-American?
Fan reactions:
When he hits a home run – AWESOME!
When he strikes out – bogus
BP top 50 is out (subscribers only). Addison Russell at #11. Jason Parks is chatting now.
I love his sass.
Its like the hipster version of Keith Law, if Keith Law was funny.
I liked this:
Parks is clever. Law just comes off as a pompous dick.
To be fair, Law is a pompous dick…right?
Keith Law emailed me once to tell me I was being a jerk.
Were you?
you have to ask?
Are we talking about this again?
Yeah, we are talking about a guy who likes to watch somebody play once, the pronounce scouting bon mots then tell people they are jerks and demand emails.
Swing and a miss.
This is what I said. He was backing up his homey Sheehan.
So no.
Also this is a good line:
Gotta be a tagline, “Too dumb to outsmart ourselves.”
In looking up Russell’s stats (not bad, considering his poor start/injury), I notice that James Simmons is back in A ball, and starting again. Also, Raul Alcantara looks like he got promoted to Stockton recently.
Should I be excited?
unread comments stop working for anybody?
Thanks, and go As.
Working for me
Tonight we are having an informal fast food tailgate, Oz is here visiting and he will also be joining us, basically if you are not familiar with our fast food tailgates, it just means that we will have no grill, and generally speaking, people just grab some food and come to the parking lot and sit down and eat together! Also it is free parking Tuesday! We will meet in our usual spot…..
https://www.facebook.com/events/262384710571172/
Damn, I can’t go. I really want to meet the great and terrible Oz.
I’m pretty sure he moved back to the Bay.
Yasiel Puig: Empty .442
My favorite Blondie song:
” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>
Thanks, and go As.
He’s catching today and hitting 8th.
Thanks, and go As.
I’m waiting for the tweet that tells us Suck Ass is leaving the A’s today.
That would be nice.
Slusser on Vogt: ““Classy†and “as nice as Mark Ellis†(extremely high praise) are among some of the texts and tweets I got today.”
Nice little smash-em-up on N 101 at Montague today.
Doesn’t appear anybody was seriously hurt, though.
I take it y’all have seen this Giants fan (or some variation thereof) by now.
The custom jersey is a nice touch.
Nice
I love my tablet. 90%+ of the time I am posting here it is on the tablet. I do not understand this idea of taking it everywhere.
Took the kids to see Monsters U on Sunday and a guy brought his tablet in there. Was checking emails all through the trailers. Blew my friggin mind. Now I have been to plenty of kids movies that I wanted to ignore..but the trailers? What is the workd coming to?
Hold on. I’ll answer you as soon as I’m done with my Angry Birds level…
I’m in section 113, row 23 courtesy of the opposing manager. If anyone’s at tonight’s game, come say hi.
You are friends with John?
My dad is.
neat
Two things I learned today:
Estate planning is complicated when your children are 7, 30 & 32.
Jupiter is a Drake’s brewpub, and their XHP is just the 1500 by another name.
The Martin brothers (owners of Triple Rock and Jupiter, and Big Time in Seattle) bought Drakes a few years ago. But even before that, I think Drakes was contract brewing their house beers.
Doesn’t Triple Rock brew its own?
Yes. Sorry, unclear. “Their” in last sentence = Jupiter’s.
Have you had any of TR’s “single hop” brews?
I tried a couple at some point. Not for a while though.
Seems like it might be an interesting idea if they had several available at once that you could try as a flight, but otherwise …
The last one I tried was made with a “single” blend of 4 hops.
Amazing stuff going on in the Texas Senate right now with the Wendy Davis filibuster.
Around 15 minutes prior to midnight the Senate President was trying to end the filibuster and was not allowing an inquiry by Leticia Van De Putte, claiming it was not heard before a roll was called.
She got another chance to make an inquiry afterward and asked, “At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be heard over the male colleagues in the room?”
At that moment the entire gallery broke into loud cheering and has not stopped. They carried the filibuster up to midnight to keep it going tomorrow. Wow.
From the livestream on YouTube by the Texas Tribune:
“State Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, is filibustering controversial legislation that would dramatically restrict access to abortions in Texas. Abortion opponents argue the measure would improve women’s safety, while reproductive rights advocates argue it would effectively cut off legal access to abortion in the state and endanger women’s health.”
wow
Hard to hear now, but I think the Senate President tried to say the extended cheering was like a “time out” and he still wanted to call the vote after midnight, which should not be allowed. The audio’s too quiet to make much out but I can hear the gallery still going.
It looks like they’re forcing the vote after all and denying something? So hard to tell right now.
I think they just voted to pass the abortion bill that was being filibustered.
BREAKING: Republicans pass new restrictions expected to close almost every abortion clinic in Texas.
Woke up to see SB5 did fall in Texas, and now DOMA is declared unconstitutional? Good start to the morning.
Prop 8 going away as well.
Thanks, and go As.
Great day!! And I just got a new showroom in Atlanta *and* I’ve got a line on 15 free puzzles on craigslist.
I’m marching in the pride parade on Sunday with Mercy for Animals–should be quite a party!
I’m marching with Bay Area Atheist Groups. We’re at the tail end of the parade – atheists bringing up the rear, again. Do you know your group # or where you’re lining up? I’d love to come over and say hi!
I have no idea what our group number is. The email I got says met at “Market St. at Beale St.” but I think everyone meets near there? I’m guessing it will be very chaotic. I went to a safety monitor meeting last night in Oakland so now I know that I have to:
a. stay sober until I cross the finish line
b. don’t throw boxer shorts
c. wheel monitors do not leave your wheels!
d. if wearing spike heels, walk *around* the muni grates
Imma get your cell number so I can text you!
And Prop 8 has no standing. Yes.
Interesting split on the 5-4, with Scalia in the majority (with Roberts Ginsburg Breyer and Kagan) and Sotomayor in the minority (with Kennedy Thomas and Alito).
Very interesting. My guess is that Kennedy was going to write a merits opinion that had something for both sides to dislike.
That was my guess, but I just got to the office. and now I don’t care to look into it.
Not sure I like that. Opens a potential can of worms if you don’t allow standing. I guess it partly depends on what they deemed as not having standing in this case, but I’d prefer it to have gone it’s merits even if were a small scope variation.
they mean the state has standing to appeal, not the group that did appeal. Since the state intended on letting the lower court opinion stand, SCOTUS doesn’t look at the merits of the case.
I know that, but that just opens the door to the state not backing the public initiatives.
Good. Initiatives, especially ones vulnerable to attack in federal court, are usually bad news.
State=Elected officials.
Personally, I hope no public initiative has help.
So you believe that the state officials should just be able to ignore inititiatives?
No one has said anything remotely like that.
Except in a sense, that’s what you’re saying if you’re okay with them not having to defend an initiative.
Not in any true or meaningful sense, no.
Sure it is. President Paul disbands the IRS and refuses to enforce taxation laws. No one can sue.
ignore? or Defend?
Ignore, no, Defend, sure.
Not sure how that works. Hard to enforce a law if you’re not willing to defend it.
I haven’t noticed California not enforcing Prop 8.
have you gotten pulled over with weed in the past year?
there are a lot of laws. not all of them are enforced equally.
Right, but (per GM’s comment) that hasn’t even been an issue in this case.
If I’m not mistaken, the state executive branch is required to enforce state law. Therefore, Brown, Harris, et al should not be allowed to blow off enforcement, no matter how much they might disagree with the law (seems like I remember a lot of anger directed towards Bush for his selective enforcement of federal law). If they don’t like the law, then work to change it. My guess is that today, a state-wide initiative to repeal Prop. 8 would pass fairly easily. In fact, this should still be pursued by those who oppose Prop. 8, in order to get on record that the people of California support same-sex marriage.
The ruling does nothing for Nevada, whose Constitution states that “Only a marriage between a male and female person shall be recognized and given effect in this state” (ironically, that’s within the Declaration of Rights). The 2013 Legislature passed a measure to repeal that, but that measure would have to be re-passed by the 2015 Legislature and then ratified by the voters in November 2016 to remove that from the Constitution. I do think the repeal will succeed because enough attitudes have changed and a state that relies so heavily on tourist money realizes how much we’re forfeiting by turning down the gay marriage business, but it’s over 3 years away and a different ruling today could have shortcut the process.
You could sue under the full faith and credit clause to get that removed
The portion of DOMA presuming to exempt states from having to recognize gay marriages from other states hasn’t been struck down yet (I think), so that’s still a live issue.
right but now if you sue for that there is a lot more momentum.
Thats actually not good, because lets say you pass a ballot inititive that protects X group and the state refuses to enforce it, you then cant sue the state and force the state to enforce it.
I’m not sure that’s true. Standing to appeal and standing to sue in the first place can be two different things. And you could still have standing under state law.
It is. If the state won’t defend a law passed at the ballot why shouldn’t the ballot petitioners be able to do it?
I haven’t read the opinion yet, but I tend to agree that denying standing here was probably the wrong decision. I’m just saying that it doesn’t necessarily mean that citizens who wish to force a state to enforce a ballot initiative wouldn’t have standing as plaintiffs, rather than as defendant-appellants, as was the case here.
The government should have to defend its laws.
I don’t follow.
Basically in both cases the government decided that the laws weren’t consitutional. What that means is that for doma the HoR had to fund a group of lawyers to run the case and in CA the failure to have the state take it to appeal, so the ballot petitioners continued the case.
Gotcha. It’s just not as easy as saying “the government should have to defend its laws,” though, because often the people controlling the government’s lawyers changes (in the case of DOMA) or the law was enacted over the objections of the government (Prop 8). Can you force Jerry Brown to appeal the decision of a federal judge invalidating a state referendum that neither he nor his predecessor supported? What would be the point?
I think the key is that they can’t be allowed to get in the way of a proper defense of the law. If they’re unwilling and/or unable to give their full support of our laws then a) they probably shouldn’t be in the office they’re in the first place and b) they need to actively hire/assign someone in their stead to represent them so that proper standing can’t be made an issue.
Im fine with them saying that it is unconstitutional, but I think then the petitioner at no cost to the state should be able to carry the appeal.
See, I don’t think the legislative branch as the right to make that declaration once a law is established. I don’t mind them believing it to be unconstitutional and if do they’re not the one’s that should be arguing it’s defense. But as long as it’s an established law, right or wrong, the state needs to be on the hook for defending it. At the very least they should be on the hook if the judiciary branch decides it’s legal after all.
We’re probably going to need to amend the state constitution to remedy that.
Agreed. And short of that, allow someone else to stand in their place.
It kind of depends on what part of the standing they nixed it on. If it’s a ballot petitioner’s lack of standing issue, then the ramifications are pretty severe. If it’s a “you’re not hurt by this” lack of standing then it’s not so bad.
Well, I think it’s both. The basic holding is that a general interest in seeing a state’s law’s upheld is not enough of an injury to create an actual case or controversy, and that the fact that it was enacted by referendum doesn’t change that. Once it’s a law, it’s treated just like any other law, for standing purposes. I’m not sure that’s well reasoned, but there you have it.
Compare this to DFA’s original hypothetical, where a referendum passes to give protections to certain individuals. There, and individual who is part of the group that referendum was intended to protect should be able to both sue at the trial level and maintain an appeal, because invalidating the referendum would actually injure her.
Clubhouse repairs get rave reviews. Hooray for effective, responsive Coliseum management.
Unfortunately I’ve seen Suck Ass in uniform since then, so it wasn’t him.
I figured that FUUUUUUUUUUU was trying to sneak back in the only way he could.
There’s nothing like national negative attention to get people working!
Aren’t you supposed to be sipping margaritas on a beach?
Honeymoon postponed due to a death in the family. It’s been an up and down week.
Damn. I’m sorry to hear that.
Fortunately it seems like we’ll pretty much get back all of the money we’ve put out for the trip, so it should just be a matter of rescheduling everything for August or September.
Ugh–I’m so sorry!
Whoa, sorry colin.
take care of business first.
Ouch – sorry.
Sorry to hear that.
bummer dude. sorry
Thanks for the condolences, all.
Oh no :-(
Ugh, tough lot. Sorry, colin.
Same thing happened to my folks. They celebrated 31 years in April.
crickets
DFA bait.
Best part:
To avoid potential rico act issues, I will not be commenting on said post.
Smart man.
who the fuck wants to pay CHINESE wages? Outrageous! Bring on Bangladesh! I hear you can add stories to your buildings willie nillie there.
Nancy FTW
Supreme relevance:
She has a comic book, too.
(Also in that series: Cher, Rosie O’Donnell, and Ellen DeGeneres)
For RBG, I think there should be more color.