gehringer_2

I posted in the Trump thread why I think Schumer end point was right while his leadership has been all wrong - but again - the Dems are forming their typical circular firing squad in over a strategy that is too knee jerk, too short term, and too poorly thought out to begin with (i.e. forcing a shut down). Wasting their ammo on the wrong battles.

Not sure what aspect of 'Munich' you mean in particular. I can think of some ways we may have 'over learned' Munich if what you mean by Munich is in the sense of 'appeasement'. I would give you Vietnam, where by looking through the lens of Munich we saw Ho Chi Minh's nationalist movement in a more globalist threat context ("domino theory") than we maybe should have. Admittedly hard to put ourselves back in the ethos of 1960 though. One of the curious things about that era was that not even 20 years after the victory over Nazi tyranny, western policy intellectuals had already lost confidence that capital 'C' Communism wasn't the inevitable world outcome, that the best we could do was make a temporary space for ourselves in the "long twilight struggle" in which there was no hope of enduring victory.

TBH, I think a shutdown is the wrong strategy for the Dems. Trumps favorability ratings are falling, he's still basically ignorant and incompetent and will continue to generate failure and need to walk back his missteps - why give him a foil to divert attention for all he is doing to lose support? It's the old line about not interrupting your enemy when he is making mistakes. Not to mention that you give him more excuse to push for greater 'emergency' freedom of action and huge additional leeway to pick and choose who to punish and who to reward. Schumer's huge mistake was taking a position in the first place he now is walking back. Think it through before standing in front of the mics is always better. But the nearby microphone has always been Schumer's Achilles heel.

Versailles was the one lesson that the US learned well and was determined not to repeat. That one act of undeniably high international virtue bought us a ton of good will in the world that we have managed to pretty much completely squander - Vietnam, TGWOT, and now Trump. Three strikes and 'yer out.

by the 2nd half of last season his throws on the DP seemed to be picking up and were very accurate. Statcast only aggregates the whole season but Colt's maximum throws last season at 2b would be a little below average throws for a 3b, so he's not far off, but it could certainly be as much a matter of the re-injury risk going up if he pushes it that hard more often as would be required at 3b.

Schumer, after going public with a Senate Dem commitment to stop the CR, reverses course. I will let others argue the merits of letting the gov shut down vs taking a bad bill and letting the public steep in the GOPs priorities, but I will not accept that it was anything but bad strategy to announce a policy you find yourself walking back so quickly. If the possibility of the dems blocking the CR was real, Schumer never needed to say a word about that publicly. If the votes were actually there in his caucus he could have kept that leverage in his pocket right up until the vote, while leaving his options open for his members to take the temperature in their states and spike the effort if it wasn't playing well back home.

IDK, with scale things operate today, doesn't take many bad actors to produce a hell of big mess - best we don't let anyone start back down that path!

I remember the first time I landed at LAX in the early 70's. You could see the brown miasma settled in the basin as you flew in. Since it was sunny CA they still did not have jetways, it was the rolling stairways down onto the tarmac. When the door opened to the outside it took about 30 seconds for my eyes to start to sting. I wouldn't call the air in basin today great, but it's absolutely nothing like it was. Pittsburgh was another place I had to go a lot early in my working career. Everything was black from coal dust and soot regardless of what color it had started out. Again - you wouldn't believe how it was to see Pittsburgh today. OTOH - in Pittsburgh's case a whole industry did die to produce that change. The clean air and the jobs still there would have been a lot better.

They seem dead set against that. I give them a strong benefit of the doubt that the docs have mandated that - because if even if Tork weren't a factor, it would seem pretty dumb not to explore that.

Chafin came to this invite without his FB, which is probably the main reason it was only a NRI and why he's not going to make the team. Jobe: Stuff is universally praised, results don't match as often as the former would imply should be the case.

Yup - I do remember the idea at the time was if a pitcher could keep the hitter in CF he deserved a chance to get him out even if he hit it hard. I believe the other aspect as to why bigger in left than right, was because once the field was rotated to view the skyline, the 3rd base line ended up pointing SW, and the prevailing summer wind in MI is westerly - so it was possible LF was going to play smaller than it was built. In the end, the big scoreboard and Ford Field going up across the street meant that didn't happen, at least not enough to matter, though there are still days with strong westerlies when the ball flies out to left ridiculously easily.

I'd like to see the Dem's argue a lot less about "liberalism vs progressivism" and a lot more about figuring out practical ways to start running their party in a way that doesn't produce disasters like 2024.

This just goes to show that you are always going to be wrong when you try to deal in economic absolutes. Everything is relative - there are no truly 'free markets', they all have some kind of constraint - though the degree can very widely. There is no truly 'free' enterprise - every operation in a just state must in a way that meets social necessities such as safety. Etc, etc right down the line for any economic organizing principle you want to pick. All these idealized concepts are useful intellectual constructs, but none of them can ever be applied rigorously in the real world because the real world is far more complex and messy and full of humans with their own life imperatives for idealizations to be more than starting off points.

A little slight by Vlad to remind Donnie who the boss is.

I think Jung starts in Toledo - he's not doing enough to make the team. Sweeney and Javy are the left side until one of them plays his way out of a job. Baez is back to having some XBH pop - that's what they were hoping for. It may not last but I think what he's doing to far is earning him a starting spot on a provisional basis. With Vierling and Meadows down, DH is available for Tork with Carpenter in the field. If Tork is still hitting when Meadows comes back, they'll cross that bridge then. If he isn't it's an easy decision.

The chicks love the long ball - As of today I'd bet Torkelson is going North. Of course if he goes cold the rest of the way that will still change.

1.200 OPS in 33 AB. I wasn't that surprised they let a guy go that was still in AA and was going to be 25. I was surprised they hadn't moved him AAA last season - I guess they weren't seeing something they wanted despite the apparent turnaround with the bat.

Casey still has command issues to iron out. By my informal count he was into the 2nd before he landed his first breaking ball for a strike. But he battle through the walks without losing his cool and that's progress too.

Farming is a funny business. Since prices can respond so elastically, you can end up with a fair profit even when you lose a lot of your 'crop' (whatever it is) because if losses are wide spread (as they are in this case) prices rise a lot (which they have) which makes it profitable to stay in the game even with reduced production capacity.

In general chickens for eggs and chickens for the pot aren't the birds. The flu is a much bigger problem for laying hens - I would imagine at least one factor would be that they generally live in closer quarters where contagion is worse (thus the drive for cage rules).

It would be ironic if the states with cage laws, which operators complained would cost them money, end up being the lowest total cost operators in the country in the bird flu setting. But of course, regulation bad, government bad.

Hopefully there is some 'learning curve' effect of farmers learning how to keep their hens flu-free. Pretty simple, if bird losses Go down, egg prices will fall but they probably can't fall to where they were if the cost of operations with containment measures in place is higher, which it almost certainly is. On the other hand, if the virus take a mutational left turn that leaves the present control efforts in the dust, any respite we are seeing now will be short lived. In a situation like this, it would be such a great thing if only there were some method by which such scientific needs could be worked on in the interests of the whole country.

The difference in his approach so far this season is night and day - he is swinging at everything in the strike zone. That may end up being an over compensation and whether it works for him once pitchers are in midseason form I can't say, but he has certainly taken the idea of 'look for ball, hit ball' to a level he never practiced before. Any worry that he may still be in a 'refuse to change' mode can be put to rest. Even if he's not a better hitter, he is a different hitter.

bring them both up, prove their NHL bone fides splitting time (assuming they both are good enough!) then trade one once he can bring back another difference maker.

I would take the question as: Is Duren bringing something above average to the table or would any big athletic player do as well being fed by Cade? If he could develop even a little short offensive game.... But how many guys have we said that about who never did.