By this time today I expected to be starting the coals in the Coliseum parking lot. Oh, the opening day parking lot, a carnival of glorious green and gold, East Bay vibe on full display, victorious even before the first pitch is thrown.
Alas, that day is not today. Nevertheless, we A’s fans should try to summon up just a little bit of that Oakland spirit today, feel the new season, even if the new season ain’t quite feeling us yet. And when the Opening Day does arrive, whenever that may be, we can celebrate making it through…up to and including the first pitch.
"Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
I want a person in front of every building from today on, no matter if there is a health crisis or not, taking people’s temperature
Can I skip the line with Temperature Pre Check for a small fee?
It’s definitely going to create some permanent changes, as did 9/11, and probably not all good, as with 9/11. 20 years from now we’ll say “we never gave any particular thought to this until the coronavirus crisis but we accept it now”. One small thing I noticed that I bet stays: the bagels and sandwich rolls at Safeway’s bakery aren’t loose in bins anymore; instead they are wrapped two to a bag in single-use small plastic bags. And Safeway’s employees won’t touch your reusable bag; you have to pack that yourself, which seems to discourage the use of reusable bags.
Good news /
Bad news
Also bad news (source: Adelson News). That stadium timeline is pretty tight for completion by August, and the Raiders’ 2020 option at the Coliseum shouldn’t be forgotten.
The Raiders, masters of timing that they are, reportedly declined their 2020 Coliseum option last week.
Also note gratuitous shot at Cal at the end: “Cal is never going to win, but they are never going to move, either.”
Oh good, I missed that. They can play on the high school field out in Boulder City.
Also presumably the A’s are now free to make whatever further modifications they want to the Coliseum immediately, and people could use the work.
All the football stuff has been removed already anyway. There was no way they were gonna come back for another season.
Thanks, and go As.
Oakland isn’t even plan D.
They’re probably right in thinking that another “this could be the last season in Oakland” for the fourth year in a row would be going to the well (at least) once too often.
Of course, if you’re playing games in empty stadiums it doesn’t really matter what venue you use. And if that’s the case, I’d choose a location with a more business-minded governor, like SLC or maybe San Antonio.
I’m confused how SEIU was able to “locate” 39 million N95s while presumably every state health department is actively seeking the same.
Also thank you so much, yours are helping nurses as we speak.
I am a bit skeptical of that press release…
Skepticism is quite often well placed in a crisis.
I was hoping you (via NurseU) might know something more about it.
And glad we could help (however slightly). It is mind-boggling that that kind of thing is necessary.
We got through Opening Day without the usual loss, and to my knowledge nobody has Syndergaarded themself into oblivion either.
And in fact the A’s are 1-0 in the Strat-O-Matic simulation, posting a 5-3 win before 25,682 at the Coliseum. It’s good to see that Stephen Piscotty had a miraculous comeback from his injury and was in the Opening Day lineup, and in case you were wondering Tony Kemp was the starting second baseman.
2-0
7 scoreless for Manaea, Canha’s solo shot provided the only run of the game.
(I think the rules may need some tweaking, as it looks like Melvin brought in Petit to start the eighth, and pulled him after two batters. Here’s hoping this doesn’t mean he’s injured.)
3-0
Chapman, Semien, and Murphy homer. Sweet Lou gets the W, Clip Art gets the L.
44,279 in attendance sounds a bit ambitious.
Why did barreto come in? Is marcus hurt?
Very un-Melvin like indeed to give Semien an inning off, even up 10 runs.
Josh Donaldson is off to a lousy start, 0-for-10 with 2 BB and 5 K.
It’s a FKing SWEEP! The East Bay is fired up, as 45,617 packed the Coliseum to see Jesus Luzardo’s first big league start. He gave up a couple long balls in the third inning, but fanned 7 and didn’t walk anybody in his 6 innings of work, and the bullpen sent the Twins packing with 3 more innings of stellar relief. Homer Bailey took the loss for Minnesota.
This could be a stupendous season, like 125 wins stupendous.
Simulated me must be pretty jazzed about having seen that from the front-row seats.
The 45,000 simulated fans are hard to account for, unless Kaval let the Corps of Engineers turn the East Side club into an emergency hospital,
I asked SuSlu if she will start a simulated reluctant mailbag, she said yes.
Simulated Kaval failed to anticipate the huge walk-up, which meant parking was a total clusterFK and security lines wrapped around the Arena due to the understaffing. Simulated you missed the first three innings anyway.
The simulated GT has been lonely too with all you local FKers at every game.
Finally took a loss, Puk struck out six in five innings pitched but takes the loss. First Khrush homer of the year is the highlight on offense.
Looks like Melvin got a scoreless eighth out of McFarland down a run and then inexplicably left in him in to start the ninth, allowing Houston to break it open. Dammit Bob.
Ramon walk off!
That would’ll’ve been great to see from ptbnl’s luxury box.
Colin and I would have been in the front row seats.
And we would have been able to
argue aboutdiscuss the role of simulations in personI’m talking about baseball season simulations **obviously**
**obviously**
Canha have another pie?
(If 6-1 isn’t enough, Baseball Reference’s sim using Out of the Park Baseball has the A’s 7-0.)
Given the A’s legendary second half prowess this team may win 140 games.
Or it could be 2014 part deux. We will know at the trade deadline if we trade Chapman for a bag of baseballs.
The br one is good. Has Bob using Diekman as backup closer and Diekman sucking. Plausible.
Simulated Schlitter must have started taking massive amounts of PEDs and destroyed the last couple weeks of the Cactus League to make the Opening Day roster. He’s not even on the IRL 40-man. And where’s Puk? Optioned? Spring training injury carried over when Piscotty’s didn’t in either simulation?
There was horror at the Coliseum on Opening Day when starting pitcher Luzardo faced only 4 batters, throwing 15 pitches, in the top of the first and had to come out. But he came back to throw 97 pitches and beat Verlander last night so we’re good there. Also, Bob used Soria as an opener ahead of Fiers on Monday.
Hey, is this something you set up, or is there a public league of some sorts? Can’t find the homepage, standings…
Strat-o-Matic is running it; here’s the home page.
Do you know if there is anywhere on the site that shows the full roster for each team? I want to complain about the bullpen or something but dont want to try and piece together who is in it…
The A’s are now 10-3 in this simulation. I’m starting to get really sad that we could miss out entirely on one of the great A’s teams of our lives.
Best 13-game starts in Oakland A’s history:
12-1 in 1981
10-3 in 1978 and 1990
On the other end:
3-10 in 1987, 1998 and 2001
That 1978 team peaked at 19-5, as late as July 5 had a 1/2 game lead in the AL West at 43-39, and saw .500 as late as August 15 (61-61 and only 6 games behind the Royals). They finally found their form after that with an 8-32 finish.
Totally!
If I’m setting odds on which A’s player is most likely to hurt themselves in some stupid way while sheltering in place, Khris is the obvious favorite. Beyond him I worry about clowning-related injuries to jokesters like Bassitt and McFarland.
Would be a way to protect Barreto/Mateo for another year…
Trivino is my pick. I’m assuming he is still showering while under quarantine.
Dan Haren is still funny.
When the Red Sox went over [the luxury tax threshold] during their World Series–winning season in 2018, the penalty they were assessed amounted to something like…2.75 Sogards.
OK, to hell with the niceties. Yes, I don’t wish disease on anyone. That said, if Trump’s GOP is determined to literally kill off its highest officers and most devoted adherents, I’m becoming more inclined to be OK with that.
I’m tellin ya…
Tonight starting at 5pm NBCCA is showing noteworthy A’s games from 2010, 2018, and 2019, started by Braden, Manaea, and Fiers, respectively. I’ll try not to jinx anything.
Today’s 3pm offering is this 2016 game remembered (hah!) as the best game of Kendall Graveman’s career. Also they like picking on James Shields.
I see from looking at our series thread that this was also when Danny Valencia beat the crap out of Billy Butler.
The beginning of the end of our
longfat nightmare.Meanwhile, MLB Network is carrying repeating programming of Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, not just the game telecast but interview-type shows too. It looks like there’s literally nothing but that until 9:30 tomorrow morning.
Why bother showing a game that was suspended after 8 innings?
https://www.sfchronicle.com/athletics/article/A-s-minor-league-coach-Webster-Garrison-15164117.php?utm_campaign=CMS%20Sharing%20Tools%20(Premium
Caught a glimpse of Ben Sheets in the dugout during Braden’s perfecto replay. One of many past-their-prime one year free agents whose A’s tenures I barely recall.
Fangraphs has a very technical discussion of Luzardo’s pitch arsenal and ways that it could be tweaked. I guess I’m pretty skeptical that pitchers are able to change their spin rate / axis in intentionally defined ways, but maybe it’s something that could be done with lots of practice and repetition. Then I’m also skeptical about the robustness of their swinging strike rate predictions.
I hate baseball
Does he not know how to use Google? Like this or this or this? Outrageous dumbshittery.
Well none of your links go to Fox News or Breitbart so I suppose that’s why he isn’t seeing that stuff.
Hang in there man.
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well, crap to that
Astrophysicists, is there anything they can’t do? Turns out yes.
Happy Birthday andeux! The longstanding tradition of an A’s home game on March 30 has been temporarily interrupted but let’s party anyway!
A birthday being like New Year’s Day as a time for an evaluation and thoughts about changes going forward, I think my best way to reduce the psychological and sociological impact of current events is to reduce my time sitting in this chair and looking at stuff on the Internet by a rather high percentage. Reading less information and opinion that I don’t really need and reducing my own investment by cutting back on participation. FK isn’t a specific target but it’s not exempt either. It’s not a *click* but I don’t think you’ll be seeing Vince grinning out at you from the avatar quite as much.
Happy Birthday Soaker!
I hear you about internet fatigue. Even before the current crisis, the constant stream of things about which to be outraged for the last few years has been taking a toll. OTOH, I’ve never been much for talking on the phone (or texting) so in the current situation the internet (and largely FK) is my main connection to people outside my household. I hope you find the right balance for yourself. And also that we have some real baseball to talk about before too long.
Happy birthday, both of you! Welcome to 0x30 club andeux!
Thanks ec.
yes, Happy birthday to both of you. As someone who also had a birthday in shelter in place, I feel for you.
Speaking of shelter in place, anyone else over thinking every headache/sore throat/fatigue?
Also, I am hoping Nurse upgrade is staying safe.
Happy birthday to March FKers.
Nurse U is fine, due to canceled vacation is actually off schedule until next week. A nice respite before the deluge. Each kid managed to get strep throat and terrify me.
I’m not a big bday person. Might have gone out to dinner if possible, but otherwise it’s not so different from usual. Does feel a little weird though.
On the other thing: I have allergies, so really glad sneezing and runny nose are not symptoms of covid. The other day I woke up not feeling great, a little stressed about some other stuff, and by the time I got out of bed had convinced myself that maybe I had a fever (even though we have been good about the quarantine, and at that particular point had had zero contact outside the home for over a week). Took my temperature. 97.0.
I can’t even imagine what it’s like for Nurse U. and the other health care workers (and their families) going out on the front lines.
Every time I have a tickle in my throat. Or if I start to feel a little warm, or a little cold. There was a period of like 3 days where i would go check my temperature every 4 hrs or so because I was thinking about it so much and the thermometer was right there…
Fortunately I have been so underwater at work that it has distracted it me on most weekdays. All of our vendors have been hit by their nations implementing quarantines, which left me with about half of our staff. At the same time we have actually seen an increase in people contacting us. (Guess be a home exercise type place is a plus when everyone is stuck at home). Long story long it has been a string of 13-14 days and full day weekends since the 13th.
all the dreams I had of a snow day scenario went up in smoke.
Prayers to Nurse U, Gertie (if she ever sneaks by and sees this) and all the other frontline warriors.
The ski resorts are all shut down anyway, no?
I would NEVER go skiing on a snow day.
I went walking over in South Lake Tahoe today, which gets more snow than I get here just by virtue of being maybe 3 or 4 miles closer to the Sierra crest, and at lake level the amount of snow is quite impressive for April 7 (though it will be gone at that elevation soon per sun angle). It wasn’t the greatest snow year overall but the late returns were pretty good. I hope the ptbnls are enjoying some terrific simulated spring skiing.
One change I have noticed is that the other folks out for walks are much more outwardly friendly, and so am I. Much more smiling and a “good morning” rather than just a grim nod if that. Even people in cars give a little wave to the pedestrians. Folks walking toward me on my side of the street do almost always go over to the other side when our approach distance gets down to 50 yards though. There’s also one guy I have seen out there for years who will never smile or nod or anything, he just glares straight ahead. It could be the Zombie Apocalypse, just him and me left, it wouldn’t change.
No skiing for us this season – with the extra Astro2020 workload and the change in vacations between middle and high schools it was only ever going to be day trips at best, and then one of the two main lifts at Homewood broke, February was absurdly dry, and COVID happened. Not the worst season to have missed.
Trump sure does have a type when it comes to doctors.
That picture of him just screams “WOONATIC”.
Well, I thought Justin Verlander was the tiger person I hated the most. Turns out there’s a show that’s got a whole group of tiger people I dislike. Thankfully, none of them could ever be described as athletic.
No more farms, in Berkeley? Booooo. No, Mooooo. In addition to all the products on the dairy shelves they had the restaurants, the Walnut Creek location of which being one of my departed mother’s big favorites.
RIP Adam Schlesinger. One of the greatest, most underrated crafters of pop hooks the world has ever known. I’m suddenly remembering seeing him with Fountains of Wayne at Slim’s, also now dearly departed…
Dept. of Poorly Timed Ad Campaigns: Today I received in the mail a survey from The Neptune Society (“Cremation, Today’s Sensible Choice”). If I had completed the survey and sent it back, rather than immediately running it through the shredder, I would have received a FREE Cremation Answer Book. Sometimes maybe you need to call up your mass marketing company and say, umm, let’s hold off on the survey mailing for a while.
Contrary to this advice I went ahead and cut my own hair a few days ago and it worked out fine.
My greatest anger out of all of this so far. My hair was just starting to get into the awkward phase in late Feb. Decided I didnt want to go through it and grow it long, so I chopped it down.
If it’s any consolation I made the opposite choice and regretted it. Grew hair long into Feb, came close but blew off a few Supercuts trips, then by quarantine time I looked like an even crazier person and also itched. Nothing a dust-covered set of clippers dug out of the garage couldn’t fix.
I think you are correct of course. I also am reminding myself that my hair grows slow enough that the awkward phase would roughly be about 9-12 months so hopefully we dont hit that point.
Related: I also took this time to go clean shaven for the 1st time in I have no clue how many years. I can say with certainty that that won’t happen again. Also I need to cut out 1-2 mid day snacks.
I cut mine two weeks ago, it was fine. I have forgiving hair.
been cutting my own hair for, well, since i gave up on that magnum pi look whenever that was.
So twitter. One thing I do is click on the profiles of “regular people” accounts that give bad opinions on political threads, the berners that can’t stop calling biden a rapist or the anti pelosi people that think SALT reform means a tax break to only millionaires.
I am trying to determine how crazy or if the account is a russian troll/bot. FOr a while I was looking at the “other account suggestions” to suss it out. A few were easy where other accounts were clearly russian or middle eastern words yet american avatars, but I haven’t seen those in a while.
Now I am noticing that toxic accounts all follow about 4000 and are followed by about the same.
My new running theory is that accounts that have about a 1:1 ratio follower/ing arelikely troll bots.
FK salon started following me.
who was running that? someone here or was it bed alone?
FK Salon contains multitudes.
ah.
I set it up and I think i made the password public here. Periodically, I sign onto it and mess around. it could have been me.
Do you remember what that password is? Once or twice I have thought of something more fitting for it than me, but could never remember it.
let me know if I am wrong
Will do. I got a second confirmation though so I think you are right.
Best part of this already great tweet is all the MAGA Kentucky fans pissed at him about it in the replies.
………
LOL. Between him today and Kevin McCarthy complaining about nepotism a few weeks back, they’re producing some great ad copy for the general election campaign.
Looking forward to the general in november twenty never
I don’t know why this particular bit of everyday venality is especially pissing me off, but it is.
no, you are right to be mad
i clicked through.
That’s insanely cool!
reminds me of that guy shooting a soccer ball through moving tires.
you don’t know what’s supposed to happen, but once it happens, you’re like, HOW DID THAT HAPPEN??
Most definitely not a Lovely Day.
A couple of my favorite subjects in this podcast, baseball and jam bands. The second half starting at around 21:00 is the segment with Sean Doolittle. Unsurprisingly he shares this interest with his wife but not with anybody else in the baseball community. It was recorded a month ago before the COVID-19 stuff hit the fan.
In case you’re missing Korach.
I have decided to restart the 2018 season. I hope I don’t get past 100 games, but there may some doubleheaders especially here in April with some lousy weather coming in. In the current game which I’m doing radio only, Manaea has given up just a solo shot to Trout but Tyler Skaggs has levitated from the grave to throw 6 shutout innings at the Coliseum.
An excellent teAse, but with the tying run at third base Matt Joyce grounds out weakly to end the game. I’m off to the Chicken Pie Shop of Walnut Creek for a postgame snack.
Tell Ray and Townie we say hi.
I’ve made it through the first 4 games (A’s won on Opening Day but dropped the next 3 with some horrible defense in Games 3 and 4). It’s a different way of looking at it, somewhat dispassionate because although I only remember sporadic details of games from two years ago I know how it’s going to turn out after 162. I can come back here at the end of a series to see the real time comments. For example:
We’re going with a center field platoon of Boog and Smolinski to start the season, so there’s two. Lucroy is the starting catcher and with Phegley on the DL Maxwell made the roster as the backup. Maxwell had a horrible defensive game in his one appearance in the series and he’s a solid three. Casilla of course is four, and five might be either Hatcher or Coulombe at this point.
Hah, I don’t remember what part of that game triggered that comment but looking over the roster to start that season, you’re right that Hatcher, Casilla, Maxwell, and Smolinski were almost certainly on the list. And I think Piscotty might’ve also been given his godawful start to that season. And I’m sure there were additional candidates on the 40 man too.
Piscotty is real tough to watch here. The last two games he’s 0 for 8 with 4 K and 2 GIDP and he clanked a fly ball for a three-base error (96% catch probability). I’m giving him a big break because as he probably suspects, and I know, his mother will be gone in a couple of weeks. If this goes so long that I ever start replaying the 2019 season I won’t be so charitable.
Part of doing this, in my usual anal way, is that I have to go through every game in order, even when I remember that one was particularly awful. Tonight’s replay of a shitshow in Anaheim, which I did remember (not all the details but the general picture) gloriously typifies the genre. When I’m on my deathbed with a few minutes left, it’s going to cross my mind that I dedicated not 3 hours and 35 minutes, but 7 hours and 10 minutes of my life to that.
That was a Friday night game. I have a feeling Ohtani is going to pitch very well deep into the Sunday game in Anaheim and I’m going to tolerate that with good humor as well.
Watching Ohtani will at least be nice
Today NBCCA gives us three vs the Astros: At 3pm, 9/8/17 in Oakland. At 5pm, 8/17/18 in Oakland. And at 7pm, 9/10/19 on the road, in which several runs were scored.
Sorry for the reply–FK won’t let me start a new comment.
National Theater Live is making some of their broadcasts available for free on Youtube one week at at time. I recommend One Man Two Guvnors.
Thanks, that looks like a good diversion.
reply–FK is my new favorite FK.
Hah! Just randomly turned on the TV for the 8/17/18 game…and there’s sslinger being interviewed by Kara!
3ple play game i believe?
wait, no. wrong year.
how many times have you been interviewed by kara, SS?
I think maybe twice. I didn’t see it but I’m guessing that game she was asking about the Streak. The other time would have been when we went out to see the goings on behind the RF scoreboard and I got to flip over a number. And a bunch of us sang TMOTTBG at a 7th inning stretch, but don’t think I was interviewed. Pretty sure I turned down one because of the onset of the pregame edibles I ingested.
More than that. She had you sing TMOTTBG on a freekraut day. I have video
I didn’t even read the whole comment
Triple play game was when we went behind the scoreboard. And we stopped to talk to Dogfather when it was happening. (IIRC)
my fuzzy memory is that somehow i got the tickets from dogfather. i remember thanking him for the in-person triple play experience. not sure if he was there himself. maybe he had better seats and that’s how i got his?
you came through on the way behind the scoreboard and asked if we could take a pic of the screen when the interview was happening.
That sounds about right, and I think he was there too although possibly not sitting together with you.
That was all during the year Kylie put together the scavenger hunt, and Kara was really great about helping us make things happen. It was supposed to be some fun to keep us entertained during a down year, and ended up being a lot of fun in a surprisingly good year.
and EM was sitting next to me.
yep, that was a fun season.
Apart from losing monkeyball.
So I thought I was never going to use, or even open, my extra Cespedes scarf. But in a pinch it made a usable grocery shopping mask.
Pro-tip for those unable to find open places to walk for exercise: Hike in the rain! I was just up on some heavily used Tilden Park trails and there were very few others out. Nice days have been crowded AF.
https://writeforcalifornia.com/p/remembering-larry-berroya
Not sure if people here ran across Larry on the internet, but he was one of my favorite people on the sports internet, and a wonderful person in life. This hit me hard.
Has anyone else seen The Platform (or El Hoyo, the original Spanish title) yet?
I tried. It was too weird for me.
Thanks, and go As.
Definitely weird. And it gets weirder. And grosser. But I couldn’t stop watching.
No news here, but I just noticed this from Kaval in an email to Access members late last week:
No mention of whether they are going to continue to make monthly debits for memberships they are fairly likely going to have to refund.
Said refunds would also need to account for those of us who paid for full 2019 postseason tickets then had the unused balance credited against our 2020 Access fees.
They will probably ask us to credit these refunds against 2021 Access now that I think about it.
Update:
So with Boris Johnson in the ICU…who exactly is running the UK government right now?
Answering my own question.
ICU. raab. and johnson.
so we’re not in the dumbest timeline. we’re in the porn parody one.
I assume many of us were in the house for tonight’s NBCCA offering, Opening Day April 6, 2015, starring Sonny Gray.
So if I am on my work’s secured connection, I can borrow my buddies NBCSNCA account and actually get the recording telecast!! There is old baseball on my computer..
Brett Lawrie and Ike Davis???
This sounds like the bargaining stage of grieving for the 2020 season.
Soaker was on this idea awhile back. As game play goes I could see it working, but from a public health perspective? You’d have to regularly test every player coach ump and broadcast crew person, and tightly control their external contacts 24/7, all without diverting test kits and other public resources. Hard to picture that working.
To the extent that somebody like Gavin Newsom is putting up roadblocks when other cities and states are ready to reopen, I can see Arizona being a (bad) solution for California’s major and minor league teams, but one that gets the TV money flowing again which is why something like this is even suggested. If the health concerns are still such that all 30 teams and their top minor league teams have to work in some sort of giant quarantined bubble, then no.
The summer heat alone would seem to make this plan a non-starter. Chase Field can only host so many games.
It doesn’t work for all 30 teams, but if at least half the teams could play in their regular home parks the heat can be miserable but doesn’t prohibit it. The Giants AAA team played in Phoenix Muni and then Scottsdale Stadium for many years; ask former Firebirds announcer Ken Korach about that. Even Arlington through last season. There’s also an Arizona Summer League. In addition to Chase Field most Cactus League parks have AAA to MLB-standard lighting for televised night games.
so what you’re saying is…
Sounds like MLB is trying to walk it back a little now. I get that they have to plan. You cant just sit around and wait until everything is perfect or it would be 2022. But you cant be leaking trial plans while we are in the middle of what everyone keeps saying is the most critical week.
It could probably be done. Rent out several hotels, quarantine them and the stadiums. Employ staff within them that stay there too so the only ones who can possibly have interaction with them are all in isolation. Build a quarantine zone between anything coming in like food and supplies, etc. It would be complicated and have a lot of moving parts, but with enough planning it could be done without having to use too many medical resources. At least in theory. The odds of that kind of preparation being done by May or even June/July are pretty unlikely though. It’s kind of a rabbit hole of preparation to get into. Of course, the moment an outbreak does occur, it’s going to be a disaster.
The biggest issues are that you’d have likely play without a minor league system or a place to do rehab play. The heat. All kinds of little things that change the game pretty dramatically. At which point you have to ask whether it would be worth the risks.
On this day in A’s baseball history our heroes turned a routine 8-4-3-2 triple play.
Quite a catch by Ernie Young to start it off.
Biden is a creep. he was a creepy young man, he was a creepy middle aged man and he is a creepy old man.
The way he touched all women and girls is and always has been wrong and gross. I will not out of hand dismiss the allegation of rubbing a woman’s vagina area, but I need more information before I believe it.
That said, Bernie seems to also be a creep. I haven’t seen any video of him and AOC where he isn’t doing something wrong like where his left arm is in this picture
It will be a healthy thing when our politics moves on from guys born in the 1940s. Lotta those guys don’t/didn’t understand what level of touching is appropriate. The Biden thing stinks of desperate BS to me, but he is certainly a guy who likes to lay hands on people in ways that you don’t do anymore.
Anyway, I don’t think Bernie is a creep, but I do think he is an ineffectual slogan artist who, while very, very appealing to a certain small segment of American voters, made it hard for a real progressive leader who can build a winning coalition from emerging over the last four years. It will be interesting to see what happens when some of that oxygen floods back into those corners of the electorate (during a Biden presidency, I hope).
This is Bernie’s national campaign press secretary, a person who also publicly announced in 2016 that she was voting for Jill Stein. If he was going to run for the Democratic nomination again, he really should not have staffed his campaign with people like this.
I feel pretty comfortable at this point concluding that the accusation against Biden is a fabrication. Hard to tell what the actual deal is with the accuser, but the accusation is not credible at all, from what I can tell, and nobody other than the particular brand of Bernie deadender and/or grifter media types who are coaching here is even acting like it is. Even they seem to have moved into a zone where they are no longer asserting it’s true, but trying to suggest that he should step aside because….he was accused of something I guess. We’re now into the world of meta stories (this will raise lingering questions/some unnamed Democrats nervous/what happened to “believe women” huh????/why not release some set of papers or something/he can’t prove this *didn’t* happen etc.) that pretty much concedes that there’s no actual there there.
New Top Flack McEnany says she’ll never lie to us, but also says with a straight face that Tara Reade is credible and Christine Blasey Ford is not (also she immediately lied about the FBI and Flynn).
Start with the big lie and everything else is sprinkles on the cupcake.
That’s where I am too. She always reminded me of some of my clients that have been so damaged by drugs that their fanciful stories have cemented in their minds as truth. I don’t know what damaged this woman, but she is being actively harmed by the people promoting her story.
The USA today editorial was very well done, pointed out something I forgot, she has a law degree and presumably would have been exposed to enough training to know that her story has a difficult narrative arc and evidence is scant and flimsy.
If you care to read a neat story that has a little to do with her credibility but nothing proving or disproving the allegations, just a sub culture that is new to me read the medium piece about her and the horse rescue
I think her main purpose (to those who will use her) is to set up the false equivalence to Trump’s numerous, well-documented, self-confessed, assaults.
Part of what pissed me off so much about the Dems process was not valuing the opportunity to attack that cleanly that someone like Warren would have provided. And all the more so after the Clinton experience.
I don’t understand why they didn’t just let warren and harris duke it out, for the non sanders lane
Maybe this is unfair, but with the involvement of The Intercept crew here I can’t help connecting it to the way they hung Reality Winner out to dry through their sloppy work.
That is fair
And now, after those guys pushed her iffy story into the national spotlight, her entire life has come under scrutiny and been found to have been built on lies and potential frauds, to the point where even her Trumpy lawyer has withdrawn from representing her. Agenda-driven irresponsibility in the extreme by people holding themselves out as paragons of journalistic integrity.
the expert witness cases…
Yeah, those suck.
I think the appellate court will probably say the testimony was harmless except in the one case that is quoted in the story. That one is a tougher call.
Ultimately, its on the Defense attorney to suss out the credibility of the witness. obviously fine tooth combing over every CV is resource intensive. I hope the 6th district will send them back, but I just don’t see it happening even with the attempt murder
When I was a student in Berkeley, we had to go outside to see a naked guy yelling racial slurs.
first i heard that term, i thought they were talking about *my* zoom.
because it’s BOMB.
Hah! Excellent Zoom game. The Repo Man generic is especially awesome.
OTOH, in none of those are you being either naked or racist.
well, i’m bad at racist.
but i’m not wearing pants?
About the most creative thing my family has done while locked down together is to dig the Wii out of the garage and have Mario Kart tournaments.
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I somehow missed that Ronaldinho has been in a Paraguayan prison for the last month because he entered the country using a fake Paraguayan passport even though Brazilians are allowed entry to Paraguay without even a Brazilian passport.
He’s spending the rest of his sentence on “house arrest” in a luxury hotel in Asuncion.
lol. that team name.
somewhere between cumbia-dancing dude and cumbia-dancing black guy.
This kid is totally going to be on the SCOTUS shortlist in a future Republican administration.
Gosuch is the cousin of a former co worker. there is a crazy coincidence about scalia’s death and his family history, like they used to vacation at the same place scalia died. Right after gorsuch was nominated I gave her a lift to somewhere were were both going. It was an hour and a half drive and she was really high and trying to figure out if it was some deep conspiracy or not.
this seems like a place in need of fresh commentating.
He needs to put out at least 5 videos a day to get me through this.
Right? Someone sent these to me yesterday and I was cry-laughing for 20 minutes.
Finally some good news.
Holy hell this PPP loan thing is an ungodly mess.
That is good news, I do a lot of copy editing and am tired of having to argue with two-spacers who are certain what they learned in typewriter class is still correct.
I work with some older lawyers who insist on two spaces even after I show them that one spacing will allow them to fit more (unnecessary) words within the page limit on their briefs. It’s like a religious tenet for them.
Good idea.
Christ the Redeemer what an asshole.
ASVD
Just finished reading the Last Detective series. I found it perfect for this shut in time.
I can’t believe they Rick-rolled us on Wait Wait.
32 years later and I bet you could still easily get Dave Stewart to fly into a rage by asking his thoughts on these balk calls.
nahhh. he totally gets over shit like that.
like, let’s see what he’s up to nowadays….
A’s continue to dominate the Strat-O-Matic AL West, 13-5 after today’s win over Boston, featuring the rare Tony Kemp two-homer game.
Cant stand the DieBBman couldnt finish off the 9th and we had to use Soria. This is the type of thing that comes back to bite you once we hit the dog days.
(Man did that feel good to type..)
Piscotty ninth inning walkoff jack sends 18,000 work-shirking Oakland fans home happy! Best record in baseball 11.728% through the 2020 season. I’m worried about that Murphy injury though.
All individual stats through 19 games. The pitching is FKing awesome. It doesn’t matter which reliever Bob chooses, they’re all off to good to great starts, even Lou. Throughout the league it looks like offense is way down though, at least to start. 20 of the 30 pitching staffs have ERAs under 4; there were 6/30 in that category for real life full season 2019.
In “real life” the 2018 A’s will be playing their Free Game at the Coliseum against the White Sox tonight, with Trevor Cahill 2.0 making his season debut after a few starts with Nashville. Chapman is emerging as a bonafide MLB star and he and Jed! have been leading the offense through the first three weeks, with Khris also hitting 4 HR in the last few games after a slow start. Aside from Manaea, who has been sharp despite somewhat reduced velocity (some theorize that he’s not throwing as hard to obtain better command), the starting pitching has been a mess with Graveman off to an especially disastrous start and Gossett already exiled back to Nashville, and that’s the main reason why they are 7-10.
I tend to remember at least whether the A’s won or lost each game and occasionally some detail like a big home run, and obviously I know what Manaea will do in his next start against the Red Sox. So there’s not a heck of a lot of suspense but I do feel like watching the games in order gives me a little sense of the normal day-to-day structure. How long I’ll stick with it, haven’t decided.
Interesting
If you compare the current death rate in New York with the annual average, the excess is 2x the official COVID count. Seems like a much more reliable number.
That’s one reasonably reliable number, but we really want two – how many people have been infected and how many of those have died.
Yeah – unfortunately I don’t see any way to get the first.
Where can one get such data?
The CDC has it here
What am I reading wrong?
If I chose Region 3 (which I assume is NY), I get 5369 total deaths in Week 14 of this year (first April week).
If I chose the same region one year ago, I get 5862 deaths.
Same happens if I compare nationally.
There’s something weird with the New York state data, since it shows fewer deaths than New York city.
Don’t know if it’s been updated since you both looked at it, but Region 2 includes New York (and New Jersey). Data show deaths at 6788 vs 4206 (2020 vs 2019). As for NYC vs NY state, if you add NYC + NY + NJ you end up with the regional total. Therefore, NY selection is the state excluding NYC.
I now get similar numbers, but not quite the same, which irritates me.
2020W14R2 = 6788
2019W14R2 = 4512
Also 2020W14R2 & 2020W12R2 are exactly the same, which points to some kind of a bug in the query.
Oh, OK, now I get it, you probably just changed the year and landed on W38 (4206 deaths).
But back to ptbnl’s original point, that NYC deaths 2020 ~= NYC deaths 2019 + 2 x Official Covid-19 count, I just don’t see it.
This is the data I compiled from that CDC page:
And this is the official count from here:
I count roughly 4k more deaths in Region 2 since beginning of March as opposed to same time last year. Nationwide, there are ~25k fewer deaths, if I read that data correctly.
Apologies – it applies to New York city, not state.
No problem, I am sincerely intrigued by the situation and am happy for anybody pointing me to any reliable data.
Two questions, though – do you have any sources for the NYC Data and how do we explain lower mortality in the US this year despite what are at least 35k COVID-19 deaths?
The NYC data is on the CDC site (floating in the Atlantic on the map).
My guess (though I’d have to look at the data) is that nationally COVID deaths are still in the noise, and it’s only when an outbreak really takes hold as a fraction of the total population – as with NYC – that you see the discrepancy.
I was looking under “Regions” until now, not under “States”. Found NYC now, thanks!
Hmmm, the data still doesn’t add up.
For weeks 10-15 (March 1st – present), I have about 6k extra deaths in NY (5k of which in NYC). There have been 16k reported COVID-19 deaths in NY.
Check your email.
Go A’s.
I don’t know about raw data, but this report (and the previous one it links to) says, for the period March 11-April 13:
5155 deaths expected in NYC
18551 actual deaths in NYC.
The first number matches your table, more or less, but the second one doesn’t. (Part of it might be that your column totals seem to include only the first 5 rows out of 6, but there is also some other discrepancy.)
Of those 13,400 excess deaths:
~6600 officially died of COVID-19
~3700 not officially of COVID-19 but had symptoms
~3100 not counted in COVID death toll.
Correct on column totals, I first used only the weeks 10-14, then added W15, but forgot to adjust.
Either way, assuming that report is correct, that makes the CDC raw data unreliable to the point of not being useful at all. March 11th to April 13th is Weeks 11-15, minus March 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th and plus April 12th and 13th (assuming you guys still haven’t figured out that a week starts with a Monday).
CDC has 12,762 deaths for NYC in Weeks 11-15. Removing four March days with the W11 daily average and adding two April days with W15 daily average makes it 13,112. The report mentions 18,551. That’s 40% on top.
Tried to find the raw data on total deaths on http://www.health.ny.gov because they are quoted in the article, but no luck.
It’s very interesting, and I’m sure it’s at least vaguely related to baseball’s return. Say, if every player and team employee is tested before each homestand, you could get a pretty good sample of spread in an actively moving cohort. At least conceptually, I am sure MLB sees this as helping blunt the argument that the game’s return would strain public health resources.
Yikes.
“About a week before the crash, (Halladay) had flown the plane under Tampa Bay’s iconic Skyway Bridge.” That seems like a thing that can’t be legal for a civilian, right? Of course, Florida, so…
I mean, Yeah. Wasn’t that a thing at the time of his death? I remember it that way anyway
anybody want to join me in ted bergs baseball trivia?
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSelAAzgqGxG901gXkIJjBophFsPygqFkY4HBe8MBhfbprYEKw/viewform
All the answers are Rickey.
i already lost. without more context, i can’t tell what team name is the right answer.
More context
Ted is a former baseball writer at USA today. He was laid off recently, but has been doing trivia at a brooklyn bar
He also plays baseball in the NYC equivalent of my SF game. He came out and played with us a few times and even once went to san quentin with us. (I was the one who grounded into a double play behind him)
Anyway, let me know if we should sign up
i wouldn’t be any actual help…
I’d play, but my fast-twitch recall muscles ain’t what they used to be. I could be our expert on events of the 70’s and anything that appeared in Strange But True Baseball Stories.
I am sincerely asking. I don’t know what the questions are going to be like, but I will say that the first prize he gave out at the bar trivia he did was a jack cust bobble.
I assume we would have a text thread through sms or what’s app or something for deciding the answers
I’ll happily join in with you – who knows, maybe I can answer an old Twins question! I have no pride so if we come in last and it’s fun, sounds like a win.
yay!
2. Joe Tinker and Johnny Evers
4. Dykstra and … Mitch Williams?
6. Don’t know. Encarnacion and Cruz maybe? They’ve both moved around a lot (including not playing for the A’s) and I don’t even remember where either is now.
8. Lefty Grove. Jimmy Foxx.
I’m another maybe, if you don’t get 5 definite yeses. My baseball trivia knowledge is pretty good compared to the average person, but probably weak compared to the average person who does baseball trivia contests.
I would have gotten 2 and 8 also, the easier ones. Maybe #4 I swap in Schilling as the obvious heel pick.
If I were handicapping and FK baseball trivia contest you’d be the prohibitive favorite, at maybe 2-5.
I don’t know. At least when it comes to past A’s games, several people here seem to remember more specifics than I do.
If there are questions about five-year-old comments on FK, I will dominate.
cool.
I would, but it’s 2:30 AM my time. Sorry.
I would be interested.
Cool. I want to set up a team by monday. I think 5 in the limit
I’d be interested but I’m unsure if I can commit to being available at 5:30.
cool. we’ll count you as a “more committed than ec”
I’m somewhere between GM and EC. I have virtual plans already otherwise I would.
hey, can anyone that wants to do this trivia or is thinking about it email me at sidawied at gmail dot com?
If you have a twitter account and a phone number so we can have a texting tree for questions?
Did you get mine?
Email sent.
16th place out of 41. No rickey answers, but he was featured in a card
We’ve been doing Jimmy Carr’s daily quiz on You Tube. One question was pretty funny. He translated chunks lyrics of the songs from English to Japanese and then back to English.
Name the song:
Fate, fate, fate, fate, fate, lizard.
Cute
Karma chameleon
My pub trivia team has been writing our own trivia games (following the particular format of the game we usually go to) and then running them over zoom.
We’re never getting that Red Sox cheating report, are we.
Interesting that the convict is a West Pointer. What are they teaching there anyway?
Possibly an odd bit of timing, but it’s long overdue: We’re going to build a concert and sports arena. The commissioners’ vote on the bond issuance was the final requirement for the funding. It will be in what’s now the Montbleu surface parking lot and will hold up to 6000 for concerts including floor space and 4200 for sports.
Your turn, Oakland.
The only way to attend the American Physical Society’s virtual meeting this weekend is to set your computer clock to Eastern time!
Sponsored by organic CBD oil company. I’ll take it!
Looking over the bracket, I think the weak Sithole Region is primed for an underdog to make the Final Four. Watch out for Perfecto Cuervo.
I would have pegged you for a Chadfield Clapsaddle fan.
Kokain Mothershed also looking strong in that bracket.
Overall, I like Mathdaniel Squirrel to take it all.
I had not realized that Saag’s shut down last year.
I didn’t realize that either. This chron article makes it sound like the sadly typical tale of a strong local company getting bought by a megacorp then being shuttered. So probably not the fault of them losing the Coliseum concession.
Smithfield is the same outfit that’s having coronavirus issues in its big Iowa plants.
It’s cool, Smithfield has a racist explanation for that.
I guess that explains why I stopped finding Saag’s at the store last year.
Dammit.
Also, FK Smithfield.
With oil prices going negative due to lack of storage capacity, at what point do producers start pumping it back into the ground?
Getting rid of oil? Isn’t that what ecologically-sensitive wetlands are for?
So, definitely no baseball, right?
Taiwan retaliates by imposing a tariff on beef!
So suspending green card approvals … no impact on immigration (let alone public health) but FKs up a bunch of non-citizens lives. To call him an ass-wipe would be an insult to shit-stains.
Sandy Alderson said on today’s Baseball Tonight podcast that he offered to sign Michael Jordan to a MLB contract with a guaranteed spot on the 25-man roster to lure him away from the White Sox.
Slusser update on the harrowing tale of former A’s reliever Micah Bowie.
Still leading the world after beating Cleveland on the strength of 3 HRs, including the 6th Khrush bomb of the year. Liam Hendriks is unscored upon in 12 appearances.
Today in news to alarm the not-insane conspiracy theorists, Palantir is building the federal platform to track coronavirus contacts.
I’ve been enjoying bits of these World Series replays from the 70s. Just saw Wayne Newton croon out the national anthem, Dodgers Stadium 10/12/1974
Sounds like Ricky Gervais and Albert Burneko a part of a conspiracy which developed the novel coronavirus to make Trump look stupid. Funded by George Soros, no doubt.
Next time someone offers to play rock, paper, scissors against you in Quebec for half a million loonies, don’t bother.
I generally haven’t been paying attention to the simulation games but seeing today the A’s won again and are 18-9 actually kind of pisses me off.
Man that’s nothing, on TV this year they are undefeated, with like three no-hitters!
yup
I have a $2 Win bet on Soros, a longshot (he wants you to think) in the 9th race at Gulfstream.
Impressive work by the Patriots scouts managing to still find their Nazi during lockdown.
He is a lightweight
A guy named Rohrwasser from West Virginia with a 3%er tattoo, yeah, I’m not giving this guy the benefit of the “I was just a dumb teen” doubt.
I’m waiting for Belichick to show up on the sidelines in one of Melania’s “I really don’t care. Do U?” jackets.
So the First Saturday in May won’t be what it usually is. I will still make my mint syrup and enjoy a julep or three while watching and betting on Derby-quality fields in the rescheduled Arkansas Derby, running two divisions of 11 horses each. With a bonus race of top-level four year olds in between, including last year’s contenders Tax, Tacitus, and Improbable. Great card.
Mint syrup is cooling overnight. I’m definitely backing even-money favorite Charlatan in the first flight. The second flight is wide-open, more handicapping to be done. And the Oaklawn Handicap for four year-olds could be the most exciting of the bunch. NBCSN around 3-5pm our time. Live sports!
FSU have you provided a Julep Recipe before? Could you again?
They’re all pretty much the same, with one big decision. Are you a dim hayseed who freshly muddles the mint like lawn clippings right into each glass (plus crushed ice bourbon and simple syrup)? Or are you a person of taste who infuses your syrup with minty deliciousness in advance?
By far the 10 funkiest minutes I have spent this month.
Cincinnati native!
warning: for completists only.
was brew the album where miles told the engineer to paste a take into a certain spot, the engineer said something like, that’s on the wrong count, and miles said something like, fuck it they won’t know the difference?
FYI, for your commenting templates
I mean it makes sense. Why would he want to be known as a guy who hits a lot of big HRs. With all those other tools he has.
checks other tools
uhh…I got nothing.
It only ever worked for me because of the spelling, I agree that his personality is too reserved to fill out a “Crush” nickname. The Kh spelling is the part that inspires.
But I suppose Khmer Verte is too edgy. Other suggestions? Key Hole? Henry’s law?
The inevitability of this news does not diminish the spectacle of the abject idiocy on display.
I feel for you.
The same contestant disappointed by correctly answering “Aer Lingus” tonight.
The new who-knows plan is a 100-game season beginning by July 2 and played in empty big league parks.
The proposed divisions:
I love that Atlanta would have played in the east central and west divisions
It would be pretty easy to ignore 2020 Studio Baseball if the A’s were in one of their Geren-ish doldrum periods. This being a season we’ve been pointing to for a while as the biggest opening of the contention window…I’m sure I’ll watch whatever they come up with for a format but there’s going to be a very hollow feeling about it.
Should add that I don’t see much possibility of attending either A’s games or Cal football games for the rest of 2020. I imagine there will be a lot of hoops to jump through to gain admission to any of those events, I’ve seen plenty of both and just wouldn’t be interested in bothering with any hassle, others can fight those battles. Watch Cal make it to the 2021 Rose Bowl.
When I got the stimulus payment from our Dear Leader I stimulated both United Airlines and Outrigger Resorts for a Kauai trip late this year. I expect that will go as scheduled although I made sure the condo deposit is fully refundable and the plane ticket can be swapped without penalty for some alternate plan. The payment was direct deposited but I did notice the letter that came later with Our President’s signature bragging about the money he had sent.
There are projections that show the pandemic fading away in only another month or so. It’s possible that football could proceed as normal by the fall.
But without a vaccine, the worry is that things could flare up again as soon as people start socializing, leaving us stuck in the current situation for who knows how long. I don’t even have a clear idea of how it ends. The comprehensive test-and-trace plans people talk about seem awfully pie-in-the-sky.
In any case, these plans MLB keeps coming up with are aiming at a pretty small target – players, coaches, and necessary fans and support staff able to interact, travel, etc., but fans still not able to gather. I’d take whatever I can get, but at this point my expectation is still no baseball this year at all.
Socially distant watch party in July seems about the best we can hope for.
Still, I can’t help but think such distance can be achieved at your average Tuesday night Coliseum game.
Cactus League games are usually such a throwaway, just a chance to sit in the sun and watch some who-cares baseball for a few hours, but boy am I glad now that I have that relatively fresh ballpark experience in my memory bank. Gonna have to live on that until 2021.
I am very hesitant with those projections For one, they assume that the slope coming down is as fast as coming up. As we’ve seen from Italy, Spain, and New York it’s got a long tail not a normal distribution. And they also have perfect social distancing going forward. Basically, no new clusters are ever formed. That seems…unlikely. Without incredibly heavy testing and/or contact tracing, I fail to see how this can go away before a vaccine or we let enough people get sick to get herd immunity. And either option seems miserable.
I’m not sure there is necessarily symmetry baked into the model. But you are probably right that the assumptions about social distancing are too optimistic.
Looks like it is just not a good model
Great article. My disappointment in that model is threefold: the flaws in its analysis were apparent from the very beginning, this will further divide those already disinclined to trust statistical analysis, and I wanted it to be right!
It brings me no joy to see it fail by people dying. But from the very first day I saw that model, I knew it was wrong.
OK but wait til you see the “cubic model”
I’ll leave it to you stats people to confirm that this is every bit as amateurish as it sounded.
yep. In absence of a well-motivated model, there is no reason to believe that any particular functional form is predictive at all.
And they give it away with this figure, where the cubic fit cuts off at the present day, so they can’t be accused of using it for predictions… but if you aren’t extrapolating based on that curve, then there is just zero reason to use it at all. We can all see the actual data.
Years ago I started working for a credit card group. They were super proud of their forecasting accuracy at a daily level. After a week or so I was able to see how they got there-they would update their daily forecast throughout the day up until about 3-4pm.
This feels like that, only with human lives and not just phone calls.
Yeah, what Colin said.
Curve fitting can be useful, if the form of the curve to be fit either comes from a model (in epidemiology, the simplest one would be exponential growth or exponential decay, depending on whether a certain parameter is greater than or less than 1) or comes from historical data (that IHES model based on previous recovery curves in China and Italy). Even then there are a lot of caveats.
Fitting some arbitrary curve and using it for “prediction” is just abominably stupid.
Also, as a side note, whatever that curve is, it isn’t a cubic. It looks like a Gaussian.
Also also, AV’s picture there relates nicely to a quote from John Von Neumann I saw on this subject just this morning on Twitter: “With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.”
It’s really easy to model the past. In fact with enough parameters, you could create an equation that matches it exactly. It’s really hard to model the future. Especially when there are so many (mostly unknown) variables. But once you lose trust, it’s nearly impossible to win it back. People still use Nate Silver’s and 538’s names derisively and they were closer to right than anyone!
That’s why an inaccurate model is so god damn dangerous. It’s sophisticated enough to convince moderately well-educated people. And that’s typically the decision makers. Non subject matter experts. Insert Trump joke here.
So, it’s easier to criticize then create? Here’s a prediction I will stand by. There are two ways this pandemic ends: herd immunity by vaccination or herd immunity by natural antibodies. The vaccination will take another 12 months. It’s contagious enough (and people will relax regulations enough) that we’ll get to herd immunity by people getting the virus before 12 months are up. And 500 K-1 M people in the US will eventually die. That’s the prediction you make with as few variables as possible, and there’s not enough information to change it. Please, please convince me I’m wrong.
i can’t imagine the time between having a vaccine developed and its approval. that’s going to be chaos
We’re already sort of in it now. They have multiple vaccines created. Testing and approval are the next steps.
And this sure won’t help.
hm. to my untrained eye, the green line is tracking.
too early to call it a stopped clock?
Depends if it follows typical pneumonia patterns or not. The probability of a second wave coming seems pretty likely to me, but it’s always better to see a decrease, so those numbers are at least semi-good news.
Re the hoops and hassle:
I expect scenarios like that will be the rule for some time, and I’m just not in that market.
I think that when I look back on this period of American history the thing I may remain most disgusted by is the president putting his idiot, corrupt son-in-law in charge of running everything for four years when everyone knows he is a corrupt idiot. It’s obviously only one facet of a larger disaster, but such a telling and aggravating one.
Really? I heard it was a great success story.
Many people are saying it.
Just an unimaginable dumpster fire. Great job Jared.
Remember when there was the hope that Ivanka was the smart/nice/sane one, and that her father would listen to her, and she could reign him in? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…
To be fair, she was busy creating 15M jobs.
Kentucky Governor Beshear: I thought Tupac be juggin, but he kept it trill, needs his scrilla.
East Harlem?
I don’t have any A’s single-game tickets. I do have tickets for the A’s-Mariners games in Seattle May 12-14 and got the e-mail from Ticketmaster today, but there’s no refund option at this time. My event has been “postponed” but it’s still happening! (says the e-mail) at a later date to be announced.
The refund option is available now. Airplane and hotel were refunded a while back. Sigh, I’ll check the Seattle weather next week; I hope it’s pouring rain for three straight days.
I would be in for the trivia again.
Same here.
I’d play again too.
Let me check my calendar this weekend and I may be able to lend a hand if you need 1 more.
I don’t think there is a limit, it says there is but who really carers.
I was thinking of doing a video chat this time? might be easier?
That would be good, but however we do it we should make sure we’re all online together beforehand so we’re ready.
Will we want to do video chat while we are all watching a video feed to hear the questions?
Group text was OK. I would prefer something that would also work from a computer, not just phone (like fb messenger or equivalent).
But whatever works for everyone else is fine.
“Kraut-sourced” (or some other cabbage-related pun)?
“All the answers are Rickey”?
Something more topical?
Yes yes, we should do this.
I was thinking of using zoom? we could still use and should use the chat, but might be easier to talk out answers and not have me fail to write stephie graff and one other that we got right in banter, but I didn’t put in
That sounds like a plan. I haven’t set up a zoom call yet but my understanding is without a paid platform you’re limited to 30 minutes or so. Does anyone have the ability to set up a call with an unlimited time? As to the team name – Quarantined Kraut? Isolated Kraut? Free the Kraut?
i think i can set up an unlimited meet for you to use without me even being there.
i’d email you the link rather than post it here.
why wouldn’t you be there?
see???
you thought it was an easy question, but i’m already stumped.
Is this happening again on Thursday?
I haven’t seen it advertised. I’ll look
It doesn’t appear to be happening.
Ok thanks, please let us know when you hear about the next one.
FKlin Barreto
Having to decline again. Father of Aces passed away this weekend so I am on clean up detail this week. I never bought into all the “issues” of being an only child, but once you lose the last parent it stinks.
My condolences. That’s got to be even harder to go through in current times.
I’m so sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine how hard this is–awful under normal times, but this just makes it that much more difficult.
So sorry.
So sorry to hear that – please let us know if there’s anything we FKers can do.
Very sorry for your loss Aces.
Thanks to all of you. And 3 years of Krauty goodness is the best thing you guys can do so know how much I appreciate it.
Dad had been in poor health for the last few years so, while it was not expected (he had sounded really good the last couple of times we spoke) it wasn’t a shock. And given our current world I should say it was non-Covid related.
Odds and ends from having it happen now. I dont have to/get to plan any sort of celebration of life. I also have to make appointments to get death certificates and things like that. Also there isnt a way to just have DAV or some other group come out and pick up things to donate. So I have spent the last few days trying to see if anyone wants all sorts of items that I cannot/do not want to take back to LA before calling someone to just throw them out. It is surreal.
This is some really sick shit.
Maybe I’m not remembering it properly, but even the most wacko Tea Partiers never never got to this stage of menacing, did they? These are the kind of people who used to stay holed up in their compounds looking for helicopters. Now they are inside capitol buildings.
White dudes can get away with pretty much anything and everything.
And of course Trump just called them “very good people.”
Carrying confederate flags and swastikas while shouting “Heil Whitmer” … hmmm.
The defense behind using Nazi imagery is supposed to be that they are calling the Democratic governors Nazis, right? Not sure how that works when the protestors are using Nazi concentration camp propaganda to advocate for what they, the protestors, supposedly want.
My understanding was that the confederate flags and swastikas were personal adornments, but the slogans were in protest.
Meanwhile…
I saw that last night and literally could not believe I was seeing it correctly.
I am 1000% sure they did not pay for those
and they will say they were not given adequate PPE by the Libtard city so they used what was donated to the, personally by the union. THEY DEMAND PPE AND A RAISE
Apparently they were actually branded with SFPOA’s logo. That’s incredibly provocative and surely deliberate.
Saw one live today on an officer
Police unions are bad.
Really hope this is fake.
i always thought the *thin* blue line referred to the liminal edge between a law enforcer and a law breaker.
still think so. just wondering how it’s so widely misinterpreted.
This is the only Thin Line I respect.
i like the one between loathe and hate.
Wasn’t the documentary about the closing of ranks between officers? I haven’t seen it since college
Not fake, though it was Hamilton County sheriffs, not Cincinnati PD. They tweeted out a weak excuse last night:
FWIW, the Hamilton county sheriff (Jim Neil) is a Dem, but he got a bit Trumpy and he was beaten handily in the recent primary.
I like to think some frustrated classics major running that account capitalized Vandalism out of respect for the sackers of Rome.
Up there with giving fascist salutes while “defending” Winston Churchill’s statue.