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in one alternate reality, the 2007 writer's strike never happened, so The Apprentice never happened, and Trump was killed by the Russian mob because he skimmed off the top of the money laundering at Trump properties to pay Melania's divorce settlement.

It was Kellyanne Conway, and was alternative facts... Alternate reality sounds like a lot more fun, though.

I just now realized that it’s truly summer, not only because we’ve passed the benchmark of June 20, but also because the NBA and NHL playoffs are finally over. There aren’t even any NFL training camps open yet.

Overcast but dry here. A bit sticky with the humidity climbing up to 13%.

I do think this was one of the rare times he was genuine, but that just makes him a genuine idiot.

That will be a fun name.

lol. We all know that the only reason he’s annoyed this morning is that he’s already been clearing a space on a golden mantle somewhere to hold his Peace Prize.

Alberta.

Oil. When the balance of power was in Egypt and Turkey, where culture was deeper and something akin to normal economic development was underway, the Arab world had a chance. But when oil wealth empowered the Wahabi Sheiks and the Persian Shia apocalyptics and shifted the regional leverage, everything started moving backward. Oil wealth has been a curse everywhere it has bubbled up out of the ground. You could probably include Texas in that as well.

So years ago when we in the West were just beginning to be jolted by the Islamist fundamentalist movement, Bernard Lewis was one of the leading Middle East scholars and he wrote a few books about it. One of his themes was that when a culture that was once ascendant sort of falls from grace and success, the religious in that society will argue that it was because of loss of piety in the society. So for Islam the final fall of the long decaying Ottoman empire at the end of WWI is what set things off, that led by the 70's and 80's to all kinds of crazies both on the Sunni and Shia sides trying to build pious Islamic fundamentalist states (or non-states) in the hope that Allah's resulting favor would allow them to bring back the Caliphate and vault them into a reprise of the cultural supremacy they had in the 12th century. One can only hope that the serial failures of Al Qaida, Isis, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the 'under performance' of the IROI will finally disabuse the Islamic world of the idea that the turbaned heads are going to bring them power and glory if they'd only grow their beards and suppress their women. Now if can break the same paradigm we are getting from the religious right in the US, we might also get somewhere ourselves.

Since I’m hard up for entertainment - apparently - I’m watching the Orioles play the Rangers in Baltimore on this Monday off day for our club and it’s 101° and it feels like 109°. Sweet. Marcus Semien K’d in his first at bat.. forgive me for being childish, but I am hard up for entertainment The Orioles announcer said that from the opening day roster almost half of those players have been on the IL. And Orioles players said they don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for them because they have been pretty dominant the previous two years.

I miss the days when they'd show TWIB or something like that during the delay.

Interesting camera angle with Daniella's outfit...

I'm losing track of all the lies 😅😅

The Tigers could be the first MLB team to 50 wins this season with a win tonight.

shuffling the dec chairs.

debrincat was a pretty big trade, but that was a guy who basically said i'm only going to detroit.

For water or fried eggs?

There's a small chance they want next year's pick for offer sheet purposes too, there are a lot of juicy RFAs out there in 2026

Nevermind

primary resource abundance has crippled many a country. Only those who get a middle class built with actual education resources can overcome the otherwise oligarchic dominance of the bosses with all the resources and money.

I think we're in agreement, but would just add that it's pretty clear that Netanyahu played him like a fiddle... And that he didn't exactly hide the fact that he was playing him leading up to our intervention. Just makes it all the more frustrating.

I hope so because I plan on being there around 6:20.

This one's in Detroit

Padres paid a posting fee and gave him two years guaranteed last year. Dumped him on the Marlins in the Arraez deal, and the Marlins DFA him shortly after. Owens and Vanasco are out right now. Balazovic hasn't pitched since June 3, so I suspect there is an IL stint that didn't make the transactions logs there. Riley Unroe has pitched a bunch lately. Also, late June is heavy opt out season, so I see why they wanted to add an arm.

Finally, something that makes perfect sense

Weak Weak Weak

They negotiated a cease fi...nevermind.

I'm not in favor of a Duren extension. But if you're telling me we can do it for less than 20M a year, I'm taking that deal. Even if you wanted to go in a different direction later, that's a tradeable contract.

Is Draft Kings giving odds on how long it’ll last and who will break it? Anyone got a promo code handy?

Nasser, Ataturk, the baathists, Non-religious, islamic nationalism...that had its moment, for a moment there.

LOL, the dreaded 'ret con'. My daughter was/is a big aficionado of 'graphic lit' (don't call me comics). She came of age just before all the ret con-ing started and was not a fan of having her carefully constructed youthful literary worlds torn asunder by barbarian Hollywood profiteers.

Both of my personal lowest Det sports moments happened in Boston - 1987 and 2013 - a bird and a papi. Big Shot Bob's 3 in game 7 in SA in '05 is up there as well

Sayyid Qutb, born in 1906, was boy just old enough to sense the loss when the empire fell, started writing seriously ~1940s, was a sort of the Karl Marx figure for all the subsequent Jihadi's. Nasser hanged him, which just made him more the martyr.

to that narrative...the Egyptian Islamic Jihad that Zawahiri led was a direct response to the defeat in the 1973 Yom Kippur War when Egypt had all the advantages of surprise and interesting new technology from the Soviets but could not win against Israel because of a lack of...piety. Wrt to the bubba-jihad, i guess they just were potty trained too late or something.

I’m getting gun shy about this Flaherty thing.

Maybe Trump will cease to fire his mouth off.

For me one of the things I liked in Burton's Batman is that the way he created a visual style that looked drawn as much as photographed - i.e. a comic book brought to life. Considering his work in animation I guess that fits.

Similar view. I don't really care for 'brooding' Nolan; "Dark Knight", "Interstellar", for the same reason - I'm just not entertained by that kind of darkness. It's art for sure, but he's not telling me anything I need to hear anymore in it (maybe that's a product of age?). Nolan with a twinkle in his eye - "Inception" - is just more fun.

Link: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/mlb/tigers/2025/06/22/around-detroit-tigers-farm-eduardo-valencias-healthy-and-hitting/84307574007/

I don't care about the allstar game much anymore, but Torres and Greene both deserve to start. Baez is comeback player of the year but not an allstar starter. Buxton is probably #1 in CF.

In the moment, yes, but in retrospect it's bitter sweet because it didn't lead to a championship. The Pistons taking down the Lakers in 04 was crazy. Not sure if there is one moment to point to that had the high of the Maggs homer, but the atmosphere in the city at that time is unmatched.

I would argue that Magglio’s HR vs the A’s in ‘06 was the most significant/memorable moment across all Detroit sports over the last 25 years.

I mean, it's clearly Witt.