Time to throw open the windows for a bit and let some air circulate. The smell of humans hunkering down without sports is getting oppressive.
402 thoughts on “The Musty Month of May”
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Time to throw open the windows for a bit and let some air circulate. The smell of humans hunkering down without sports is getting oppressive.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Stand up, all victims of oppression
For the tyrants fear your might!
Happy International Workers Day, my FKing comrades!
Small victories
Alas
https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
Width value set to “Bezos”
ew!
Head of NHS procurement sets up a private business selling PPE … nothing fishy there at all.
Not much PPE employed here I bet. Or at least not on their faces.
Degenerate gambler alert: NYRAbets.com will give you $50 on account if you create an account and use promo code BET50. No deposit required; i.e. gamble for free.
That’s a pretty crazy deal. They probably figure sports and gambling fans are desperate and hooking you now will pay off long term. Plus NYRA is the original smoke filled east coast OTB window, if you have a nostalgia thing.
I’ll take any motherFKer’s money if he’s giving it away. Unless I have to create an account. Then I’m out.
I know the Upgrades go over to Hawaii quite a bit. There might be some pretty good deals on both airfare and lodging if you scout around, and generally they are refundable or at least can be changed without fee.
Soaker will be going to both Kauai and the Big Island on separate trips next winter unless travel restrictions make that unreasonable. There isn’t much risk in committing some money now.
Yes, in fact we’re eyeballing an August trip to the Kona side.
I am still hoping for a trip to cooperstown for a tournament for the boy this summer. Airlines are pretty generous with their change policies now. They are gonna need another “bailout” with this pyramid scheme they are floating on now
Charlatan so clearly the best in leg 1 not much worth betting. But I love #2 Trophy Chaser at a price in the 12th.
Asked to pick a horse based on name for a show bet in the last race, I went with “Finnick the Fierce.” Paid $13.20.
Nice win! I was 0-fer-but-close all day long, i.e. loser.
Charlatan sure looked good tho, and Nadal. This delayed season with KYD at back end could be engaging.
One fewer Ace today. RIP Matt Keough.
I still wonder what might’ve happened with that team with a different manager and a bullpen.
Pouring one out tonight.
So I officially have a Fullerton Titan in the family as Lil Miss Aces has committed.
She was looking online at their “famous alumni” and her 1st comment “they have a LOT of baseball players dad.”
Zooks!
Brent Mayne!
Kotsay!
Cool. the train is right there. I recommend it.
Looks like they need to have better sliding instruction from at least 1 alumnus.
my niece goes there.
also did the baseball legend who played both crash davis and the guy that built a field of dreams.
And threw a perfect game against the Yankees. That’s quite the career.
how could i forget?
Congrats! Make sure family knows that you prefer your obligatory CSU-F Dad tee-shirt in any color but orange.
I’ve also flashed back to my old PCAA arguements of who the REAL CSU-F should be. Now I just need the youngest Ace to go to Florida State after high school to totally confuse our college representation.
Remember that the eldest one has been in Corvallis for a while, so I’m sure 5A has developed a sturdy immunity by now.
I balanced it by Lil Miss Aces having been at a green and gold HS. Trying hard to not think of overload now.
I watched a few minutes of the opener last night, after a rain delay. It was pretty amusing listening to Karl Ravech and Eduardo Perez talk about the players as if they had heard of them more than a couple of hours earlier. The weirdest thing was that I think the stadium was pumping in fake crowd reactions, which sounded especially bizarre when the camera was showing nothing but empty seats.
I will say this for it anyway: it is baseball.
Opening Day starting pitchers in the KBO included Dan Straily (Lotte Giants) and Raul Alcantara (Doosan Bears). Matt Williams has Aaron Brooks on his Kia Tigers.
I think I’ll stick to my 2018 A’s replays.
RIP Coach Shula
As if this year didn’t suck enough, we’re somehow going to lose all sports except for football and football-like substances.
And next week, the NFL Network will proudly present new live coverage of all 32 teams’ salary cap war rooms. Ten non-stop hours of each team’s accountants and tax experts on bonus structures, deferred payments, and roster elasticity. As much fun as amortizing assets in your head, live and on TV!
Nuance by nuance by nuance by nuance…
Looks like masks are going to be a thing for a while, so I decided to go a little bit upscale and ordered one of these mesh things. It was suggested on The Points Guy as being good for those of us who wear glasses (less fogging). We’ll see if it actually shows up within a month or two…
I’ve been limping along with an extra leftover from a paint job I found in the garage. The Sharpie enhancement is fun and sometimes gets me either a compliment or an evil glare. But, it’s intended for use on painting or sanding projects and just gets too frickin uncomfortable after a little while.
I think you’re not supposed to use masks with exhalation valves because it defeats the purpose of keeping your putative germs from reaching other people. I’ve mostly been going with the bandana’d bank-robber look, and only pulling it up when I am inside or walking close to other people. Not sure if that is any better.
I think the masks are mostly about psychology. Some of the sorry excuses for “masks” I’ve seen in the grocery store aren’t stopping much of anything. There’s no place around here that requires them* and I don’t think I’ve been in a store where more than 1/3 of the people, both customers and employees, were wearing them. I put the painting one on when I go into a store mainly for the anti-Trump fun but also because I don’t feel like having some random person decide to berate me over not wearing something. (If somebody complains about the political part my response would be “I think I saw some Clorox on Aisle 9” but everything verbal has been complimentary so far.)
The mesh mask, which does have a filter inside the valve so I think it deals with the exhalation valve concern, looks like it would be useful on airplanes and possibly other transit (think a jampacked BART train) after we’re no longer concerned about Covid-19 but are still dealing with the more mundane bugs which have always been floating around.
*Not governmentally, but certain stores perhaps. I haven’t seen any signs but I guess at least Costco and maybe Smart and Final are requiring them. Not Safeway or Raley’s which are pretty much the only stores I’ve gone to regularly since this started.
There’s almost but not quite 100% indoor compliance around here. It’s such malicious disdain for store clerks not to. Yet an unmasked guy came into a small store I was in just today. Still, rare. People get more worked up about the edge cases, like passing on a sidewalk, and in that scenario I agree that risks are low and the masks more reassuring placebo than anything else. But I wear a reused N95 without vent when I’m forced into close quarters like grocery shopping.
I am seeing the same compliance. out door exercising is about 10 percent. I find it hilarious that people always walk with a mask except when walking for exercise. When I run, I use a cut sleeve over my head and pull it up over my mouth and nose when coming upon others. mostly for reassurance.
there are plenty of people in Safeway who leave their nose uncovered with the mask.
my regular mask is homemade by slf. it has about 5 or 6 layers and a paisley front panel.
Wisconsigh
They are really letting it all hang out these days.
I’m guessing this came from the same set of talking points:
It gets worse. It was the Guns n Roses cover!
That’s perfect.
ASVD
Axl is not amused.
Now Mnuchin is asking what has he ever done for Liberia … so much stupid.
These talking points continue to deliver.
wow, abortion keeps us safe is not a republican talking point I expected.
Mr. Boras is an attorney for baseball players.
I wonder what concessions he’ll extract in exchange for the players not spitting everywhere.
I appreciate the effort this writer expended to establish that Trump was a lousy baseball player.
I got far more enjoyment out of reading this than I should. Still, just FK him.
I look inside myself and see my heart is black…
Trevor Plouffe disputes your reporting, Ken
Bay of Pigs, But Stupider is just the comic relief I needed in these somber times.
Try to top this plan, Manfred.
i think i liked it better when the cliche was *in* like flynn.
Not a comforting answer!
Barr is the most terrifying cabinet member. A second term Barr plus another SCOTUS appointee would pretty much end American democracy.
Yeah that’s pretty much where I am too.
There’s a good chance of 2 SCOTUS seats
Thanks, and go As.
I was wondering, for obvious rBGeasons, what would be the latest date a current Justice could die that would allow current-term Trump to send up a nomination and the current Senate to hold the hearings and get the nominee confirmed. I’d venture 2nd week of December?
Susan Collins, the morning of January 3, 2021, as her replacement and those of a half dozen other Republicans are with their families in the cloakroom waiting for lame duck Mike Pence to swear them in: “While I am deeply troubled by the process, because of the partisan attacks made by those mean Democrats, I vote to confirm Judge [Generic Federalist Society Dude Who Went to that Prep School With Gorsuch and Kavanaugh]…”
How much more explicit do these guys have to make it?!
I’m waiting for “I am a crook.”
where’s the follow up?
who exactly would need to win for this to be written about in a positive light?
List of everybody who has commented on FK in 2020. I bring it up because the domain name registration is set to expire this Sunday, nm isn’t on the list and I can’t say I would blame him if he wanted to ditch it. Date of most recent comment noted for the seldom seen.
5Aces
aardvark (Jan. 20)
andeux
AV
batgirl
colin
DFA (Jan. 31)
dmoas
doctorK
elcroata
Englishmajor (Mar. 18)
FreeSeatUpgrade
Future Ed
Glorious Mundy
Goody2020 (Jan. 14)
Jennifer (Feb. 8)
lenscrafters
mikeA
MikeV
oblique (Jan. 30)
ptbnl
Soaker
sslinger
vignette17
To the group-if there is anything I can do to help keep our little enterprise going just let me know.
+1
Same here. Is anyone in touch with nevermoor to ask him his plans?
I’m texting with him now.
Frank has renewed for 3 years, and doesn’t want payment beyond having beers after the lock-down is lifted.
Awesome! Thank you both!
You guys are the real MVP.
Soaker had us in the first half. I’m not gonna lie.
Huh, they get those records updated right quick.
3 more years! 3 more years!
If the lock-down lasts more than 3 years we will have to buy him beers twice.
Thank you both.
Yes, I didn’t thank anybody above, so especially thank you Frank. I worked on the hot springs website for quite a while after I realized I didn’t want to be an active participant anymore and it was quite a relief when it eventually changed ownership and I didn’t feel any further obligation to it. So, your continued participation is above and beyond from my point of view.
Yes, thank you Frank!
Thank you guys!
Nevada is opening up a lot of business tomorrow with restrictions, such as 50% of the fire marshal’s capacity in most businesses. No casinos and, sorry, no brothels. It will be a bit weird here with California just down the street still being largely closed, maybe “curbside pickup” but that’s still not really reopening.
I wonder if, when MLB is ready to go, if California and New York are imposing what MLB feels is too many restrictions, those teams will play in alternate venues while most of the others play in their regular home parks. There would be choices other than the spring training sites, and the A’s might have a pretty decent option at Las Vegas Ballpark. I’m assuming that the minor leagues won’t function normally, but if AAA did get going something could be worked out with the PCL so the A’s and Aviators could share the place.
Maybe the Angels to Salt Lake City. The Dodgers to Phoenix rather than Oklahoma City because the two time zone difference to Oklahoma doesn’t work well for LA television. Giants possibly to Reno, sharing with the D’backs AAA team if necessary. The one I can’t see would be MLB allowing one of its teams to play its home games in El Paso, so I think the Padres have to look elsewhere.
The way states are re-opening piecemeal, with the only common element being the absence of test-and-track infrastructure, we’re pretty much guaranteed a widespread second wave. Even if some sort of season starts, I don’t see it ending.
Nevada is reopening to a considerably greater extent than I anticipated at this point. We’ve been leaning blue but it’s still a purple state and I think the political heat had a lot to do with it. Clark County is Democratic but everyplace else is Republican, and that’s 16 out of 17 county commissions plus the loudmouth mayor of Las Vegas that were yelling REOPEN DAMMIT at the governor.
Why not El Paso, too many players drawn by the allure of Rosa’s Cantina and falling in love with Filina?
If shooting a man is cause to eliminate a city then Reno is also off the table.
Reno = El Paso and I only throw it in there because of 1) geographical proximity to the Bay Area and 2) not as hellishly hot as Scottsdale Stadium. San Diego isn’t as close to El Paso, they’re in different time zones and…hmmm, El Paso doesn’t even have a real big-time presence in college sports, at least since Texas Western won it all way back when, so it’s just too minor league.
I do think baseball will try to start with timing along the lines of the Plouffe Plan. There’s too much TV money to walk away from. With the starving hunger for live sports even the A’s moribund ratings will get a boost, at least until the NFL starts. NASCAR is going to start live races without fans next weekend and I bet their ratings are their best since Dale Earnhardt was driving the 3.
The German Bundesliga is re-starting next weekend too. They should get a worldwide ratings haul.
When we think about formats for a season, Questions 1, 2, 3 and 4-26 are “How will this affect television?” Because TV is the only justification for going on without fans in the stands, or with just a few rattling around. Maybe standing room only in Atlanta for a few weeks until ptbnl’s forecast comes true.
That’s why time zone is a factor in every case. I’d think the Yankees, who train in Tampa, and Rays could share Tropicana Field and the Mets and Marlins share Marlins Park.
MLB could come up with a schedule with the D’backs, Giants, Dodgers and Padres all calling Chase Field home. Two of those on the road and two at home at all times with games at 12:30 and 7:00 every day. The problem with that is, too many weekday afternoon games. Since we’re doing this for the TV audience it doesn’t make any sense to ever play a weekday afternoon game except by travel necessity. So I don’t think more than two teams can share any ballpark, thus the Reno AAA park suggestion as a way of keeping one of those teams out of the Arizona heat.
I am super excited for that.
… or maybe not.
dammit
On the other hand, the streets are knee deep in tacos.
I’ve heard the song a zillion times of course but I hadn’t seen this video and it only has 18K views, so I hope it’s not a foul, evil deed to post it.
” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture” allowfullscreen>
Bill…all that hair, wow.
I was in the goto meeting for my jurisdiction today:
No one:
Our presiding judge: We are opening up full service June 1 because there are just so many cases we have been putting off, we have to have all these people in the court room to litigate all the shoplifts and stuff
THE main DA: We don’t like that idea, our staff is scared, they have kids at home doing school an…
County staff: School is out by june 15
the main PD: one of our attorney’s father died of C-19 and we don’t want to do that
reasonable judge: hey DA, are arrests going down?
DA: Yes
Reasonable judge: Are you going to stop charging driving on a suspended license and being under the influence and having syringes and pipes
DA: …
Presiding judge: So June 1 I expect to have all services
2nd at DA’s Office: How are you getting 70 prospective jurors to show up and sit shoulder to shoulder in a courtroom for Voir Dire
Presiding judge: Our plan is very carefully thought out. I hope we can convene a task force to work on that.
—
Judges are just as dumb as everyone.
Las Vegas Ballpark idea (and maybe Reno too) gaining traction?
Newsom is being consistently deferential to the counties on reopening phases and standards (see for example the case of petulant toddler Elon Musk). But on the current trajectory of loosening, even in the more stringent Bay Area counties, by July they’ll be allowing larger groups of employees to work, provided safety plans are in place (see for example resumption of construction in Bay Area). Barring a rollback of all activities due to a new surge in cases, the A’s will be allowed to play at home by then.
But I also think there’s a drop-dead date for deciding where to play. If the A’s get a green light for Vegas but Newsom or Alameda County is still balking, then the A’s commit to playing their entire season in Vegas. That allows players to take short-term rentals if they would rather do that instead of nothing but hotel rooms for three months.
Postseason will probably be entirely neutral-site in the roofed ballparks, for the certainty of the television schedule. That would, or should, also eliminate all the asinine off days.
Welp
What a FKing scam. “Woke Patriots” indeed.
From my commercial e-mail account:
It reminds me of the security I feel when I check into one of my typical cheap-ass motels, walk into the bathroom and see that “Sanitized For Your Protection” wrapper on the toilet.
Everybody knows it’s the 10th anniversary of Braden’s perfect game…but it’s also a Golden Anniversary here in the Soaker household.
A few days after four were shot at Kent State, third-grader Soaker got to see his first A’s game in person at the Coliseum. I went with my pack of Cub Scouts on Cap Day (thus the attendance), sitting in the bleachers which I think were $1.50 for adults and 75 cents for kids. Naturally, the A’s committed 4 errors and a member of the bullpen gave up a homer in the 9th inning to lose the game, and 50 years and counting was underway.
That’s awesome. Congrats on 50 years so far. I don’t remember enough info from my Coliseum debut to pinpoint the game, sometime in the summer of 1972.
It wasn’t my first major league sports event. I know I saw the San Francisco Warriors at the Cow Palace the winter before that, probably with the same group of Cub Scouts, but the date of that has been lost to history.
I think I have pretty much only gone to baseball games.
I have seen one professional football game, Raiders and Chiefs on a Monday night in what I am guessing was 09, maybe 08.
the only professional basketball I have see is the globtrotters v generals in Anaheim, San diego Clippers v LA Lakers in San Diego and USC v dunno in Los Angeles.
This was my A’s debut in 1971. Catfish complete game with a Reggie HR. I’m pretty sure we went to a Gnats game at Candlestick the previous year, but I don’t have any idea when or what opponent.
There’s no way to confirm this but this game was likely my first time seeing the A’s. I’m pretty sure I begged my older brother to take me so I could see Vida pitch.
This was my first A’s game. It wasn’t my first game ever, I distinctly remember being excited ROn Luciano was at first and I watched him a fair amount. Only thing I remember is he gave an emphatic safe call on an obvious out.
sorry, here is the link
We’re joined in the fact that we both went to see the A’s in our home team’s ballpark.
1971: The A’s trade first baseman Don Mincher, to the expansion Washington Senators. He’ll stay with the club when it moves to Texas the following year to become the Rangers. Mincher had begun his career with the original Washington Senators in 1960, and remained with the team when it moved to Minnesota to become the Twins in 1961. He was the only person to play for each Senators franchise and each of its successors. Mincher was most famous for playing for the 1969 Seattle Pilots, with his exploits described in the book “Ball Four,” but he did not stay with the franchise when it moved to Milwaukee to become the Brewers. That would’ve been cool though.
The clock was ticking for the first baseman that day
I think the best thing about the box score is .180-hitting Reggie Jackson being used as a pinch-runner.
I don’t remember my first game, but my first memory of a game was a scramble for a Mark McGuire HR in my row during his rookie year. My dad hurt his back…
Watching some of the KBO game just now. The quality ain’t great. The cheerleaders in an empty stadium are odd. And Trevor Bauer is about to chat live, so…click.
#1 trending topic on Twitter: “MILFs”
Happy Mother’s Day everyone.
To all the mother’s out there…Happy Birthday.
Guess the owners don’t want games this year that badly.
“Wait, we didn’t agree to that? who said we agreed to that.”
“Hang on, now you want to audit our books to see how much revenue we are actually taking in? We need to re-renegotiate.”
However that works out, it sounds like 30-man active rosters are going to be in force which keeps all of Barreto, Mateo and Machin around, and all any of them has to do to get significant playing time is be better than Tony Kemp.
Will be interesting to see how the union responds to what sounds like a proposal designed to divide its membership.
Sounds like a tough deal for Bryce Harper and Mike Trout, but a decent one for the A’s roster.
My Ralphie was rescued by Muttville. I’m thrilled. He was having a lot of trouble finding an adopter with BACS. Isn’t he handsome??
We enticed Muttville with his own “how to” video.
AV are you listening to Wind of Change??
IN FACT DOING THAT ATM!!
already on epp 3.
I’m two episodes in. I’m a little underwhelmed so far. It feels kind of under-edited and is dancing around the actual story so much that I fear there is no real story there. It reminds me of the maxim that when a headline asks a question, the answer almost always turns out to be “no.” I will push on though!
In any event, the real Scorpions scandal remains uninvestigated…
i don’t mind the under editing.
and since i lived through billy balls, the no story investigation doesn’t quite bother me either.
it’s the explanation of things i lived through that rubs me the wrong way. definitely made for younger people, like the college student i had to explain what “3rd world” meant recently.
but i’m enjoying it as something to pass the time and as a break from all the political stuff (because the michael jordan season of 30/30 doesn’t interest me in the least, but i hear it’s good?). if you want a more intellectually rigorous pod tho, maybe go to the 2nd season of against the rules.
I’m only 1.5 in and the thing that keeps jumping out at me is that he keeps saying things like “while Wind of Change was not that popular in America, it was massive hit in Europe.” I feel like that song was pretty ubiquitous for a time in the US.
I’m intrigued enough to keep going. I loved the spy lady in Ep2. She’s fun!
it’s a fun ride.
right now, i’m listening to some guy remembering doing lines of coke in panama with noriega.
Is it David Lee Roth? Is that what that song is about?
nah. just a drug dealer.
ok, finished it.
and not to spoil, but this year’s single best pod epp about a song was this:
https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/o2h8bx/158-the-case-of-the-missing-hit
I listened to that and it is wild. That guy has an insane memory!
I am going to send an email to the last participants about this, join if you want. Anyone else want to join send me an email to
sidawied at gmail dot com
Have you sent the email yet? I don’t see it.
no, I’ll set it up around 5
So if we are all watching the stream for questions and also chatting with each other, I assume we all need to use earphones to avoid echo or feedback?
I don’t think I have a headset so I’ll probably keep my mic on mute while the question is being asked. We also can still use the text thread.
Good luck you FKers.
I’m lurking to see the tone of the questions, getting about half of them so far.
He posted the link to the announcer photos and 8/8 there took about 15 seconds.
Helped by the talking heads category…out of 40 questions over 5 rounds I’d say 25 were “that’s easy”, 13 were “no idea whatsoever” and a couple were “I can make an educated guess” (Justin Verlander in the Pan American Games in that last category).
So we were pretty good, 34/40 per Andeux’s calculations, but the top groupings (of 52 teams) started at 36, and went up to two teams tied at 39 and one perfect score. Join us next time!
yes please, it was fun the damned yankees question still burns me
Picture round is always my weak spot in trivia. I knew 1, maybe would have come up with a couple more eventually. But we did get 8/8 as a team, our only perfect round.
Being able to talk things over definitely helped us land on the right answer when no one was necessarily sure individually a few times over the course of the game.
I’m awful at pop culture as my numerous stupid comments here have proved over the years. I’m sure everyone else knew the rapper in the Yankees cap but not me.
Bob Gibson was the easy half of a question but I’m not enough of an instrument guy to think of Les Paul; maybe you or sslinger could have helped there.
A couple of the questions gave away the answers. The Warren Harding question would have been tough except for the “despite not having served a full term” part. Also, Suspicious Minds, duh.
Some 1930s novel with a character named “Baby Cakes” or whatever it was and a very vague baseball reference…I’m having a hard time believing there was a perfect score without cheating.
I didn’t know the rapper either (recent pop culture also not my thing).
I think sslinger said the Les Paul part first, then I came up with Bob Gibson.
mrsslinger came off the bench to get the novel.
We only missed 6 all night, were close on three of those, and maybe could have come up with the other three on a (very, very) good day. Those perfect or near-perfect scores for the people who are really into baseball trivia seem possible to me.
you can’t stumble into the ivan answer. you have to be really into baseball trivia *and* into, well, that particular 1 thing about ivan.
We came up with Dmitri Young. Guessing “False Dmitris”, well it’s not out of left field…
we came up with dmitri because i cheated, looked it up, and prompted you asking, what russian names are there in baseball.
I think the winners play in Ted’s live game so they may have a good idea of what his questions are
Also, remember when I said I wastexting with another team? Well that guy and his girlfriend were infected and he said his neighbor died.
FWIW
the virus having guy is in the red shirt halfway down playing second. He is not cliff floyd
I hope “Bartolo’s Colon Cleanse” is our guys.
We need to think of a better name
“Sons of Billy Sunday” would be a good fit. As suggested above, scatology, flatulence and similar references also work well here. “Future Ed and the Disco Proctologists”.
As far as me participating, it was interesting to try it out for a night but no thanks. As I said a while back I’ve been cutting Internet time and will be continuing that trend as the weather is getting better. I want to be in the BSOML this summer or as close to that as age allows. Anyway it looks like you have a full lineup plus at least 5Aces ready to sub in.
Crappy attendance could turn out to be the A’s secret weapon!
I don’t remember seeing anyone post the Jenkins column about the NorCal vs. SoCal contest. Sponsored by the Chron and LATimes, a simulated 7-game series will be played on May 26, and it’ll be online for viewing apparently (I’m not really clear on how that will work). The vote for the players for the NorCal side is here. There are some tough choices.
It’s made easier by getting to pick so many players at each position. Basically every notable player (and some non-notable catchers) makes the cut.
It did seem a little thin at short & third, along with catcher, but yes it’s a lengthy roster. I didn’t go vote on the LA Times page but from what I remember of the list in the original article SoCal may have some big advantages at those positions.
The NorCal outfield is pretty outrageous. I guess I’m playing Rickey – Joe D – Frank Robinson left to right, with Bonds as DH.
I concur.
Gabe Kapler also concurs. Bob Melvin annoyingly not consulted.
Checking out the Times set up and it is awful. You have to click a link to go to poll daddy for each position instead of having it embedded. Yuck.
I like that they are using APBA for the simulation. It seems like everyone played Strat-o-matic grouwing up but I somehow latched onto APBA (I think from baseball digest). Still have a copy of the advanced set and all the team cards I ever purchased in the garage.
I was a big APBA guy as a kid in the mid 80s. It’s the reason I can still remember starting lineups of random teams from 1984.
I mostly played the A’s, though, and was super sad about all my pitchers being Cs and Ds.
Not wanting to deal with that I saved up to get the Original Franchise All-Stars. Man it was fun setting up the A’s rotation. You would end up with like Catfish or Vida in the bullpen because of all the ridiculous Philly A’s starters.
Well this should be awesome
Confirmed. The remastered audio on this sounds incredible. Watch it while it’s up for the next two days.
Although a live telecast of a Prince show posed a bit of a challenge for the current video production technology in 1985.
A Brazilian businessman left his camera on while taking a shower during a videoconference with Bolsonaro and about 30 others.
I can imagine talking with Bolsonaro leaving you feeling dirty.
Good thing for the businessman that was a videoconference. Talking with Bolsonaro in person leaves you not just feeling dirty but probably infected with Covid-19 as well.
Out of the ICU and recovering at home, yay!
I liked it, but it needs to be more Funke.
As if things weren’t terrifying enough, this author submits her thesis that QAnon is positioned to become a full-fledged religion, uniting its burgeoning base of adherents “in mass rejection of reason, objectivity, and other Enlightenment values.”
well that prediction went to fulfillment faster than amazon prime.
“[…] QAnon conspiracy theories are reinterpreted through the Bible. In turn, QAnon conspiracy theories serve as a lens to interpret the Bible itself.”
https://theconversation.com/the-church-of-qanon-will-conspiracy-theories-form-the-basis-of-a-new-religious-movement-137859
Did you read the comments on this article??
oh wow.
And a full-fledged wing of the GOP
6?
there are 4 (still standing from 11) in california alone. from a link in that atlantic article.
An ultra-crazy Q woman was top vote getter today in the republican primary for a deep red House seat in Georgia, after running a campaign based on her readiness to shoot antifa invaders.
She seems to have narrowly missed getting 50%, so we’ll get a runoff to see whether the GOP has any ability or inclination to stop one of these kooks before they start giving speeches about JFK jr. or whatever from the halls of Congress.
we’re losing NW georgia, but pennsatucky’s already gone.
Mathis’s and Mitts aside, the GOP consensus strategy appears to be to concede to the extremists and go down with the ship.
Update: She won the runoff tonight and so will be bringing Qanon to Congress. She decided to call my Congressperson a “bitch” in her victory speech.
Who wouldn’t want to seize the “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out”?
the ouroboros is showing a little bit of appetite for itself, what with dylan wheeler already calling trump a satanist because he went to wharton, a jesuit school, and they are, like, top rank illuminatees, don’tcha know.
but yeah, the congressional record is gonna have some doozies and whoppers for the future to sort.
Not a satanist, the anti-christ himself!!!!!111
Anti-christ, what an asshole.
i forgot about the “apocalypse: bring it” angle.
Oh that is just fantastic. Facebook here we come.
Another one.
They’ve found their general.
oh flynn was their guy from the beginning. they were even perplexed when he pleaded guilty.
wish this wasn’t paywalled.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/michael-flynn-finally-embraces-his-qanon-cult-following
i mean not the very beginning. but fairly soon after hilary wasn’t arrested and there was no red wave in 2018 and there were no sweeps and mass arrests to guantanamo and sessions wasn’t freelancing secretly for trump. right about then.
Do you listen to the “QAnon Anonymous” podcast? I’m intrigued, but a little scared of sticking my head down that rabbit hole.
i do. it’s only good half the time, when they have an actual topic at hand. otherwise they just amuse themselves reading q-fanfic to each other.
this one was good:
close your eyes and imagine who might say “i can’t believe how much she has bought into their narrative.”
were you right?
he says that’s not his office, but still. it’s somebody’s office in the union.
And the mug just happens to be positioned perfectly to be in camera.
i always put my mug on top of the printer-fax.
i’m not against either but it says a ton about society that drunk doesn’t need to get pixelated and fuck does.
Yeah, I didn’t notice the censoring until right after I posted the image.
What is it supposed to say?
I mean, I kinda get when people type F*ck to get around internet sensors, but…that is an image and we all know what it says
In a similar vein…
jo rae took the digital oath. but i’m not sure it counts if you don’t end it with WWG!WGA.
all he knows about Q is they are a double-digit percentage of his base and it’s suicide to denounce them.
except of course there’s a newish tenet, that deception is a tactical necessity. and if he denounces them, it’s to put that in practice. so see, Q is right: trump is their guy.
It’s an infinitely flexible conspiracy theory. Any possible event/outcome can fit into their mythology.
yep.
qanon, flatearth, antisemite, 911 truther.
IT’S A 4-WAY TRIFECTA!
Two years later, and yet again we’ve all underestimated just how horrible things will get:
Speaking of full-fledged…vote here to name the Campanile falcon chicks. My nomination didn’t make the final ballot. I still like Dwight, Blake, and Channing better than any of the trios that did. Alas.
Here’s the live youtube stream if you’ve lost touch. I believe we’re only a few weeks away from them taking their first flights. Which are usually accompanied by volunteers ringing the base of the Campanile to keep predators away when the chicks reach the ground.
Some genius started this Twitter account yesterday and I can’t believe it wasn’t me.
How much do I miss live sports? I’m watching cornhole on ESPN. Masked players, no fans, live from Galveston TX. Yee haw!
Eintracht Frankfurt at Borussia Mönchengladbach not doing it for you?
I’m reading this as he realized he would lose the Libertarian Party nomination to some crank who thinks public schools are unconstitutional or something.
Damn, Fred Willard was the best in the business.
i’m so sad tha’ happened.
I remember walking out of “A Mighty Wind” mildly disappointed overall, but then proceeding to laugh about and quote the “Wha’ Happened” bit for the next five years or so. He was just transcendently funny.
Once again, just letting it all hang out.
yes. and…
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/18/linick-administration-arms-sales-saudi-arabia-265024
1. WIthin a week there will be public talk of evidence that Trump and Pompeo colluded to fire the IG to cover up one or more obvious crimes; and
2. It won’t matter.
You’ve only been taking it for about 10 days, you say?
On the bright side, his use of this stuff should make it easier to invoke the 25th Amendment on him. Unfortunately, I don’t see Pence having the moral strength to oppose his master.
Unfortunately, my assumption is that they are just giving him his usual drugs and telling him that the magic pills are in there somewhere so that he will stop badgering them about it.
With great weather expected for Memorial Day weekend (after about a half-inch of fresh snow at Chateau Soaker this morning), and so many facilities closed, I’m nervous as hell about what the scene will be at Tahoe and throughout the Sierra for three days. Reading about the idiocy down at Mount Charleston outside of Las Vegas does not increase my confidence. This could be worse than Fourth of July.
If your typical holiday weekend madness crowds are 75% Californians, I have to imagine that at least half of that cohort will stay home. I hope? I do have a tendency to underestimate how widespread mass stupidity is.
Two restaurants near me just re-opened yesterday and both were pretty packed last night. Including a bar with pool tables. People will do as people do.
I was out for a while this afternoon and it’s like a quiet weekday. Keeping the hotels and campgrounds closed seems to have been effective. Weather is still cool today but it’s supposed to warm up starting tomorrow so maybe we’ll get more day trippers the next couple days but it still shouldn’t be crowded.
Rent strike!
toeing the company line
The age old tradition when you got scooped.
Sounds like positioning for a break on the lease terms. The A’s sent this March 31, City County leaks it seven weeks later as the use date of the premises becomes less hypothetical. Not much to see here.
Ignacio De La Fuente is still around? Wow, I thought he was long gone.
The A’s may not be in the greatest cash-flow position right now, but it made me think about how much worse – in the short term – it would be for them if Oakland and AlCo had accepted their initial buyout offer last fall.
if you like sudoku, try this puzzle.
*it’s got special rules that are not written into that link*
so watch this video **just long enough to see the rules** then turn it off.
if you don’t like sudoku watch the whole video anyway.
I got recommended Cracking the Cryptic on youtube a couple weeks ago. I never would have guessed but I have watched like every episode (with Simon) since. Strangely addictive.
If you believe this site, someone took advantage of pandemic traffic to drive from NYC to Redondo Beach in 26 hours and 38 minutes.
One must get creative when working at home from a small crowded family home. So I have my headphones on, listening to Bill King call the bottom of the 9th of this memorable game.
Very memorable, I remember listening to the call in Tahoe. Not only a thrilling finish to that specific game, but it put them in first place for the first time that season after falling 15 games below .500.
Definitely one where I remember where I was. I had recently acquired an XM radio (this, which I still have in a cabinet and it still works per their occasional “free previews”) and day-hiked with that and a beach towel in my pack up to this remote lake, where I plopped down and listened to Bill and Ken for 3 hours.
If you’ve never been to that part of Oregon, go there (stay in Joseph) for a few days. It’s gorgeous. The Snake River Canyon is just to the east as well.
I was following the game on Gameday in my office at work. Gameday got me confused that I had to run out to my car to catch the post-game radio show just to find out what had happened.
Me too! The “winning run on defensive indifference” was a mystifying description.
I was driving to my parking space in a building behind the armory at 14th and valencia. there is a steep grade to get to t he underground parking and I hovered there listening to bill king because you couldn’t get reception once inside.
IIRC that is actually when I finally got my AN account. Had to talk to someone about what just happened.
I don’t think I joined AN that day, but that may be when I found it. I was following the Gameday from my couch in Jersey City without access to the radio broadcast and was furiously looking for an explanation of what had happened from the internet.
It being Memorial Day weekend I thought I’d check on the Strat-O-Matic A’s to see how they are faring. They didn’t quite keep the pace of their hot start, as they are 32-21 and 4.5 games behind the Astros. That does have them in the #1 wild card slot at this time. In the individual statistics, the thing that leaps out at me is Khris. Ugh. His OPS is .624, with a .202/.268/.356 line and just 8 homers. Luzardo was struggling and then went on the IL at the beginning of May; when he came off the IL a few days ago he was immediately sent to the minors.
That sim sounds disturbingly realistic.
Uncanny valley for sure
Watching game 2 of the 1972 World Series. I’d forgotten they suspended the mound visit rule for some stupid reason and Dick Williams was out six times in first two innings.
Also, Riverfront Stadium was horrible. And Al Michaels has been calling games for a long fucking time.
Now to Oakland for game 4. The Raiders played in the rain two nights prior and the field looks rough.
What I had not realized was the football field used to run from CF to home. The only time I attended a Raiders game was in 1980, when the FB field was in the same orientation as now.
Edit: Or maybe they set up the football field for that game from CF to home because of the WS being played so soon afterwards.
I think they went home to center from the start until maybe late 70’s
They only moved the original football bleachers in from the parking lot once per year, after the A’s were done with their season. So the Raiders went home to center for their exhibition games and first couple regular season games and then the usual left field to right field alignment for the rest of the year. And no, I don’t know how that worked for season tickets.
I think the mound visit rule just didn’t apply in the World Series up to that point. Apparently that hadn’t been abused, but in that series Williams made a total farce of it. Regular season rules applied from 1973 forward. For quite a while after that, though, the American League still had a rule that only one infielder could join the visit, while in the National League all four could come in. I don’t remember whether they did that by home ballpark in the World Series or used one consistent rule.
Found this about a letter from the Commissioner just before the 1973 World Series:
In spite of that:
Time of game, 1972 World Series:
Game 1: 2:18
Game 2: 2:26
Game 3: 2:24
Game 4: 2:06
Game 5: 2:26
Game 6: 2:21
Game 7: 2:50
Time of game, 2019 World Series:
Game 1: 3:43
Game 2: 4:01
Game 3: 4:03
Game 4: 3:48
Game 5: 3:19
Game 6: 3:37
Game 7: 3:42
There are a number of reasons for that, no GBA breaks or pauses to Stand Up To Cancer and shorter commercial breaks between innings, but the first thing I notice when watching one of those old games is: pitcher gets the ball back from catcher, takes sign, throws next pitch. Just way way less diddling around on the mound. If 300 total pitches are thrown in a game and 10 seconds are saved before each pitch, which seems about right, that’s a savings of 50 minutes.
And, the batters didn’t step out of the box after every pitch to pull their version of the Mike Hargrove human rain-delay dance.
I can’t say I had heard of Chester Farrow, A’s scoreboard operator since 1969. It seems like quite a few folks start work at the Coliseum and never leave.
Seems legit
“Amazon is looking to invest in localized podcast content, like news and sports…”maybe A’s Cast can be monetized after all.
These are substantial cuts. I know this is the first volley of negotiations but if owners are starting from here, I’m having a hard time picturing some kind of agreement in a week.
And they haven’t even resolved the health aspect yet.
:(
Sell the FKing team.
Preach, Sluss
Kyler Murray would get some publicity by sending them each $100 or so.
David Price, not somebody who has a history of seeking favorable publicity, seems to have figured this one out.
How is this not a breach of their contract? ho are they not unconditional free agents?
I would talk to a lawyer.
The SFGate headline for the story is “A’s billionaire owner says minor leaguers will no longer be paid.” Not bad.
Think of the billionaires,
Won’t somebody think of the billionaires?
Also he has the archetype cant-be-bothered-to-care rich guy signature.
I saw some sports reporter say recently that saying the owners are billionaires is too simplistic. Lots of teams are partnerships with multiple owners, and fixed budgets depending on cash flow, etc. Blah, blah, blah.
Sure, that may be true as far as it goes, but … the owners are still billionaires. And many of them take money out of their teams all the time, by paying themselves salaries or dividends, moving money around via related party transactions or other creative accounting. There’s nothing stopping them from putting money back in.
so…a group of Billionaires? what’s that called a conglomerate? a pack? a pride? A [you better hope you have a tall gate because you are going to suffer] Murder?
In this case, I think it’s called a cartel.
Jeter: “Well here’s a cheap way to not look like the worst organization in baseball for a change.”
go padres
We’re the worst.
I’ll be honest, shit like this is testing the fandom strength for someone with no geographic ties
Someone showed Fisher this comment and posted WE’RE ABOUT TO LOSE ELCROATA in the Zoom chat.
He’s made some money back the last couple weeks.
May 26:
Fisher announces the cancellation of the payments.
Closing price of The Gap, Inc. stock: $8.93
June 5:
Fisher tells Slusser he’s going to pay after all.
Closing price of The Gap, Inc. stock: $12.31
He owned a little over 12 million shares as of February 2020 so assuming that’s still about the right number, that’s a paper gain of $41 million over that time.
(The 12 million shares is his direct holdings; he has more of an interest in the company in that via various indirect holdings.)
Well, there is this too
Bricks and mortar retail in general has been an awful investment in recent years. The total return on Gap stock is roughly -65% since its high water mark in 2014. I’m saying his mood isn’t quite as foul now as it would have been from March through much of May; the stock was briefly just a bit north of $5 in early April.
Cool!
Rickey means NorCal win!
We’ve been open for haircuts for about 2-1/2 weeks. I waited despite the last one being before the Maui trip in late January. Finally called today, expected to be told “the week after next” but I’ll be going in this afternoon, so that isn’t horrible.
We were finally able to acquire some clippers last week, so Memorial Day was celebrated with a first round of home haircuts performed by my wife following extensive YouTube instructionals. The results were…sufficient to get one through video conferences while wearing big headphones.
I did mine on March 21. Reminds me I have to do it again
What a bunch of squares.
As a student at Berkeley I was good for two haircuts per year. This has been a throwback and I didn’t mind, until the last week or so when hair was starting to poke me in the earhole. It gets gross on warm days out on the trail or on the bike as well. I can’t get it cut too short though; need the scalp protection at this altitude.
My last haircut was Feb 25 — I am ready to let my wife take a try at cutting it. (though Ohio has been open for haircuts for about a week now)
23 years of free haircuts without leaving home now.
When I was little my father had his “Montgomery Ward Home Barber Shop Kit”. I would start crying as soon as I saw him get that box out. He’s 88 now, the odds are I’ll see him one more time before he dies and I’ve never really given him the reaming he deserves for that.
Great, now I totally expect Segundo to show up at my death bed with complaints about the buzz cut I gave him in first grade.
I feel like I discussed this earlier, but I got my haircut in mid Feb after going back and forth over if I could tolerate the awkward parts to grow it out again. Kicking myself daily as I will be right back at the same spot when we finally can go get our hair cut again.
If I go through with growing out a ponytail again, I will be wearing ballcaps a lot for the next 6 months or so.
I miss letting my freak flag fly at times, but even a modest heat wave like now makes me run for the clippers.
i’d been on a 2-week maintenance of a jaunty (IIDSSMS) chelsea with ed grimley / astroboy lift.
but now that i broke my arm, i’m looking into a circa 2016 will forte.
This whole exploration of the security implications of the use of Untappd by military and intelligence beer nerds is fascinating, but I just want to note that the US Embassy bar in Kabul is named the Duck and Cover.
i didn’t remember this one:
As if things in baseball weren’t shitty enough
Someone once said that hell is playing Harden one-on-one and have him call his own fouls. I might have to reconsider.
The explainer I didn’t know I needed
Like every other of the ostensibly rational factions I have no doubt that the traditional gun rights conservatives will cave to the MAGA yahoos pretty quick. I will still enjoy the inevitable shot-himself-in-the-dick story though.
30 feet? Oh good grief. Sometimes it’s frustrating living in a tourist destination, but man this last couple months has not just made me glad I don’t live in a city anymore, but also has eradicated any notion of ever moving back to one.
its not that bad. I would prefer more mask compliance but its good to get people used to the idea.
My worry is this is a new reason to stop people and search them
I’ve been wearing a mask in stores if I get there by car, which is where I keep the mask. I’m maskless indoors in Safeway, the post office, etc. if I got there walking (happens a lot). I give people on the trail, bike path, whatever, 6 feet or more to the extent possible. 30 feet worth of “mask compliance” outdoors is asinine; that’s the nonsense that makes people stop listening.
Obviously inside exposure is worse than outside, close is worse than far away, and prolonged is worse than brief, but beyond that it sounds like no one totally understands the exact risks from various scenarios. One person’s asinine nonsense is another’s erring on the side of caution.
RIP
Damn, I was just grooving on Roy Steele in those 70s WS replays.
I wish he had never gone into the Dot Racing call sewer.
To expand on that, he was definitely a great Voice Of The Coliseum for all those years. But a PA announcer is like an umpire, he or she is doing their job well if they exist only at the periphery of one’s conscience. I don’t know whether the Dot Racing thing was his idea or if somebody on their in-house production team put him up to it, but he embraced that with way too much gusto. I looked a bit askance at him for the remainder of his career, wondering when and what he might shout at me next.
I still vividly remember the enthusiasm with which Bill King used to tout Valero, the gas with VROOOOOM!!!! A big part of being a consummate professional is giving full effort on the things this boss asks, even if you don’t personally like them. Maybe even especially when you don’t like them. I don’t fault Roy Steele for that.
Bill notoriously produced plenty of gas with VROOOOOM himself (ask Ken) so he actually loved doing that commercial read.
I’m not sure how much effort he put into it, but my favorite ad of all time will always be the Ken Macha Nation’s radio ad. His delivery paired perfectly with the song. I would pay for a recording of that.
looking for it, found this instead:
https://tunein.com/podcasts/MLB-Game-Replay—Oakland-Athletics-p1318785/?topicId=142301033
I totally disagree. I LOVED his dot races. In fact my most vivid memory was him calling a dot race the day some fans showed up as the easter bunny, tooth fairy, etc. when we were facing someone (Carl Everett??) who didn’t believe in dinosaurs. Does anyone else remember this?
If I’m remembering a previous conversation correctly the Dead show being unveiled tonight on Shakedown Stream is one andeux might particularly enjoy.
I: Hell In A Bucket, Mississippi Half-Step, Blow Away, Mama Tried> Mexicali Blues, Loose Lucy, It’s All Over Now, High Time, Let It Grow> Don’t Ease Me In
II: Sugar Magnolia> Scarlet Begonias> Women Are Smarter, Ship Of Fools, Truckin’> Jam> Drums> Space> The Wheel> Gimme Some Lovin’> Wharf Rat> Around & Around> Sunshine Daydream
E: Brokedown Palace
(Crosby, Stills & Nash opened)
Thanks. Yes, my first Dead show. I watched the first set and a bit of the second, and will probably go back for the rest later. I didn’t know a lot of the songs at the time (or really “get it,” as they say), so it is interesting to watch it again now.
Also weird to think that I am the same age now as Jerry Garcia was then.
Switched over to Jeopardy, and they had a question about the Dead, and one about Buffalo. Dude.
sslinger sent me the link to this show last week, which is another memorable one I attended, after I had moved out here.
Hard to pick one thing out of the stream of shocking law enforcement behavior right now, but seeing the military (or extremely militarized police) marching down a quiet street in America doing this is extremely troubling.
i’m starting to get the feeling that tings are not going great.
Not gonna lie AV. Things could be better.
Nate needs a new hobby. Maybe he should go back to updating PECOTA.
He should have gotten more sleep. Fringy corners of the internet aside, not many real people deny that mass congregation is a COVID vector.
He has become so committed to the idea that everyone is a motivated-reasoning fraud but him, the one true data-driven prophet whose Bayesian priors are continuously updated by God’s own spreadsheet. It’s FKing tiresome.
Classic uchicago alum
The frequency and the openness of the police targeting reporters seems new – almost as if they knew they were going to get away with it even when it was on film.
I see it as them knowing they are going to do even worse shit that they won’t be able to get away with as easily unless they first intimidate the press out of getting close to it. It’s an extension of their ongoing attacks on the (mostly undisputed) constitutional right of ordinary people to film police in public. The cops who do this see the anger at police arising not from the behavior of the officers in the most egregious killings, but from the fact that some busybody was filming them do it. And now that their hero has been calling the press the enemy of the people for years, shooting/beating/arresting reporters who are up in their business is a natural extension.
I think the “what if it were me” thing is the main motivation for the cops around the country to aggressively take the order to be dicks to everyone this week.
I talk to more cops than most people, and like a lot of them. We disagree on things like opening up their personnel records, but they aren’t monsters.
I was chatting with three deputies this morning about all of this. they were baffled by the storming the streets stuff. and indignant about the three other cops aiding in cuffing and kneeling of floyd.
One even said, you didn’t have to arrest or push chauvin off, you could just say “Hey, man, I got this”
nobody thinks they’re a chauvinist pig.
Nice.
Ed’s point is something I still struggle with. I think it’s true that most cops, even on a bad day, wouldn’t outright murder someone like that. But then there’s a bigger group that will stand by and watch it happen, even if they wouldn’t do it themselves. And an even bigger group, like almost all of them, that will lie or otherwise impede investigation and punishment when it does happen.
isn’t that their meaning of thin blue line? that once you’re behind it something happens that exempts you from criming, some kind of daily danger they face in the concrete jungle? and that we civs don’t know what they go through so they need to protect each other because nobody else will (except for DAs who depend on their collaboration)? and how blind we are for not being ok with it because who’s gonna protect us from the criminals?
to which: who indeed???
You can’t handle the truth, AV.
handle? i’d be happy just to see some…
That’s the gist of it. But is it more “sometimes we gotta take the law into our hands,” or “we just get to murder people when we feel like it.”
well i hope it’s the former but i don’t think the latter would say “murder” or “people.”
How big is the group that will buy the domain name of a woman killed by one of their own to put up a website telling angry people to “support good local police” on the same day they shot and killed a beloved black restaurateur for now apparent reason other than he was standing there?
Outside the White House just now.
Oh wait, it turns out these journalists “came into contact with” the park police and “may have fallen.”
The giveaway is that they quote the date of the protest as April 1st.
They walked into a door. They’re so clumsy.
It’s not like the whole thing is on tape from multiple angles or anything.
” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture” allowfullscreen>
“We simply wish that the circumstances of their visit had been better.”
It should be obvious to a lot more people now that cities and states need serious civilian oversight of police misconduct. Given the power of police unions, that’s probably still too much to hope for. And it also doesn’t help with command-level decisions to militarize and escalate situations.
The last week has revealed just how crushingly immense the problem is, in every corner of the country. On the other hand, there probably has never been more political will to address the issue than there is right now.
I’ve been of the opinion that backlash to the Obama administration’s efforts at reform post-Ferguson were a sine qua non to Trump’s victory, but the backlash to the backlash could turn out to be just as impactful. We were already seeing some of that before this spate of police terror with the election of reformist DAs. Now, a lot more potential reforms are on the table just from having local Democratic politicians who may be 25% less terrified of crossing the cops politically.
I passed by it on twitter quickly today in court, but there was a note saying that the military is prohibited from unionization and that could be extended to POAs
Buffalo police said this guy “was injured when he tripped & fell.”
Just came here to post that. JFC.
The reaction bugs me more than the shove. The cop is an idiot and there is no reason to do that in the first place, but if he does and the man does fall, you go help him, you don’t shake your head, your supervisor doesn’t pull the cop trying to render aid away, and you certainly don’t say he tripped.
You can argue it was an unfortunate outcome* of unnecessary force it you immediately recognize it, but they didn’t
*not limiting liability for the action
The reaction is ongoing.
So that’s the part that disgusts them. I see.
“I will take a 5% paycut for the next payroll cycle in protest!”
End police unions.
buffalo buffalo buffalo, etc.
So they haven’t resigned as officers, just as members of the ERT, which seems like an excellent way of disbanding it. Excellent.
Trump and his nut job propaganda brigade stooping down to make up an insane conspiracy theory about this shows just how bad the cops have FKed up politically. They can get away with a lot of mayhem, but possibly killing an elderly white catholic guy from the upper midwest on videos where you can hear his skull crack before the blood starts running out is the kind of thing that will set off alarm bells in Republican offices.
Buffalo is nowhere near the Upper Midwest. (Wwll, culturally I guess it is.)
Anyway, yeah, even the usual suspects are clearly at a loss for how to respond to this:
Great Lakes Region? Not sure how else to define it, but yeah I mean culturally similar to a lot of the places Republicans count on for votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin.
(I’ve never been to Western New York so am open to the idea that I am full of crap here.)
Rust belt.
I’d define loss of 50% of the city’s population as a special, separate category.
Change in population since 1950:
Rust Belt
Detroit -63%
Cleveland -58%
Buffalo -56%
Pittsburgh -56%
Midwest
Chicago -26%
Minneapolis -18%
Milwaukee -7%
Indianapolis +105%
Columbus OH +139%
Sort of Rust Belt, but also sort of Kentucky
Cincinnati -40%
You know better than me but my impression has been that Cincinnati has a lot of flavor of the South.
Where I live the border is unambiguous. I’m part of the West Coast even though I live in Nevada. However, from my house I can hike about 2 hours up to the ridge of the Carson Range, and boy is that the border. Stand there and look east, it’s nothing but desert and barren mountain ranges, cowboy hats, NRA stickers and “Trump 2020 Keep America Great” flags (or the occasional “Trump 2020 No More Bullshit” flag) all the way to the Rockies, save a couple islands like Park City and Telluride.
Yeah, I’ve heard people refer to is as the “Northern-most Southern city”, but maybe Appalachian is even more accurate. You do here some accents around here.
On the other hand, the actual city is firmly blue now, despite its conservative reputation (helps that it is 45% African-American). And Kentucky elected a Democratic governor in 2018 on the strength of Louisville, Lexington (University of Kentucky), and the Cincinnati NKy suburbs.
And Marcus Thuram took a knee after scoring for Borussia Mönchengladbach.
What with him going to the bunker, we are really entering the Downfall meme phase of this presidency.
And he wants states to enact their own laws against flag-burning – he’s such a chicken-shit ass-wipe.
Strange to say, but we are lucky that he is so cowardly about his authoritarianism. Some of the up-and-coming fascists scare me more.
Shouldn’t that get the same twitter flagging as Trump’s looting/shooting?
Someone had to do it.
The video clip in the comments of the Atlanta police using tear-gas on a crowd upwind of them …
Liverpool training session.
Loving the replies to this tweet
50 games? Come on now.
I will take it.
OMFG how is this real life. Saddest display of fascism ever.
Would seem more buffoonish if not coupled with threat of troops on the streets.
I keep thinking of his quote about how Deng almost blew it at Tiananmen Square but had the strength to send the tanks in.
I’d put the chance that William Barr already has a draft opinion invoking the Insurrection Act at close to 100%.
Brownshirtesque thugs with baseball bats beat up a public radio producer on the streets of Philly.
Blackhawk helicopters looming over protestors in DC.
Things are feeling awfully ominous right now.
The actual boss of the entire U.S. military is out in the streets of DC.
Medivac (apparently) too
I was assuming the choppers were there to whisk Trump away to the Okinawa. At that point it would then be dumped into the Potomac.
Tech bro redlining – Gig blocking car pick-up/drop-off in downtown … and West Oakland.
Where’s Jamie Lannister when you need him?