buddha

my tell? your tell is thinking every year is 1938.

well duh. we will protect our nato allies. we will not protect ukraine.

athletic article today on how this whole negotiation thing is missing the real problem, which is improving the pace of play. which is very true as has been discussed here many times.

did we invade russia when they annexed the crimea? nope. and were not going to do it now either.

ukraine is not an ally. its a former soviet republic that is much more important to russia than us. same with georgia. same with belarus. if we had expanded nato to include them (which would have been foolish) or put them in the EU, things would have been different. but we didnt (rightfully) and now we are where we are.

no its not. if russia put missiles in mexico and venezuela and cuba, how would you react? the ukraine is nothing to us. sorry to let you in on the uncomfortable truth. they need to bargain this in a way that prevents a russian invasion and allows russia to save face. that's what needs to be done. america is not fighting russia over the ukraine, just like it didnt fight them over georgia.

you want to go to war with a nuclear powered russia over a country that has zero significance to the united states? come on. that is not going to happen.

there will never, ever be promotion/relegation in american sports. its a different business model.

this is about labor negotiations, not public relations. this lockout has really flustered some folks. i swear joe sheehan is going to shoot himself.

about time.

bad win. even if it was boston. sorry to say this, but they need to finish last so they cant pick worse than 5th.

+/- is a very incomplete stat.

hot take: there are more rams fans today in LA than there ever were in St. Louis.

i agree. the twitter outrage machine tends to focus on the extremes of both parties. but only one party has gone ahead and made their extreme a president of the country. fortunately i dont see the democrats going down that same path, as they now seem to be distancing themselves from them in a lot of their major urban bases.

i dont know either, that's why im wondering what republicans will run on there. covid reopenings?

there arent really many democrats in san francisco?

almost 80% of san francisco voters vote to recall three of their city school board members. the big issues being their support for changing the names of schools named after lincoln, jefferson, washington, and diane feinstein because they werent sufficiently anti-racist enough, their re-doing of the admissions standards for selective public schools to eliminate "academic ability" as a criteria because it was racist, and their inability to re-open the public schools after covid when everyone else in the country had done so. next up on the recall block is their ultra progressive "thou shall not charge anyone with a crime" prosecutor. if san francisco voters are getting fed up with left wing messaging on crime and covid, will that be what republicans run on nationally? i imagine it will be. and its probably why democrats and progressives seem to be moving a bit toward the center on those issues.

are you getting political ads in michigan yet? the ads in illinois for the governors race are all about crime and public safety. is that a theme in michigan too? i'd be interested in knowing what republicans are running on. i'd figure it would be crime and covid reopenings. those seem to be their two strongest issues.

new?

the linear progression we assume is coming may not happen.

All your swedes are belong to us.

1) i think baez will be baez at the plate: strike out a ton and not hit as many homers. i think pecota is closer to what his actual numbers will be in detroit. 2) you should see the other predictions. suffice to say they dont think much of our prospects next year (except tork), and the pitching will be bad (although it likes skubal a lot more than mize and especially manning). tigers are an under 500 team by pecota.

btw, european soccer owners look longingly at the american model and wish they could emulate it. this past year a number of big clubs got together and tried to form their own "super league" wherein they would all play a round robin style tournament against each other every year. but there would be no promotion and no relegation. just marquee matchups of real madrid v manchester united and barcelona v juventus every week. but the fans went ballistic and held protests and riots, stormed fields. the idea of european soccer without the incentive of promotion/relegation and just guaranteeing the big clubs money was too much foe most fans. the idea was abandoned and most of the big clubs issued apologies. for now. the lure of that kind of money and certainty of income will continue, especially as many if the traditional big clubs (the spanish and italian giants in particular) have been left in the dust by the amazing revenues from english soccer, as well as the influx of oil money that has propped up clubs who have unlimited budgets (chelsea, man shitty, psg, and now newcastle). the old guard cant keep up.

it wouldnt. american sports are inidividual universes that guarantee a certain income for their owners and limit their labor costs with salary restraints. nothing identical exists in europe (especially england). however, many euro leagues have strict financial rules that you cannot break in regards to club debt. go over the debt limit by the new year and you will be punished with a points deduction (like derby - pronounced DAR- be - in england this year). but back to promotion and relegation. it wouldnt work here. but if it did, you would have the bottom four teams get relegated to triple a (baltimore, arizona, pirates and texas) the worst in the al (baltimore) and the worst in the nl (arizona) are automatically down. the next two play a three game series against the runner up in the aaa west and aaa east divisions and the winner gets to play in mlb the next year. last year it would have been durham bulls promoted, buffalo bison v pittsburgh for promotion. and tacoma raiders promoted, and the sugar land skeeters v the texas rangers for promotion. it would be fun and is a surefire way to prevent tanking because no one wants to go down to triple a.

nice of the germans to sell their pretty green souls to the russians for their natural gas because bader meinhof thinks nukes are bad. lol. and were still not going to hot war in ukraine. and we still shouldnt.