gehringer_2

Just in case anyone thought Netanyahu was the only one who can double-down on stupid, Hamas just elevated Sinwar to run the show. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/08/06/world/israel-iran-hezbollah-gaza It's like you have two fanatical sides locked in a mutual death embrace. Netanyahu probably knew full well that if they killed Haniyah and Sinwar was still alive, Sinwar would emerge the leader and that would would make the militancy of his approach that much easier to sustain politically in Israel.

There is something to just running on a 'trust me' campaign *if* you think your candidate can connect at that level. If you can persuade the electorate you care about them you do not need to be as specific on policy. But it's tricky. I did not agree with R Reagan's politics on almost any issue, but I still trusted his instincts on the international stage and even domestically to do what needed to be done when it had to be. As an example, in spite of his tax-cutting mantra, Reagan did start raising taxes when he saw how badly the deficit had ballooned under his original program. And he made mid-course corrections on some environmental issues once the facts got through to him. So I still 'trusted' him in a way I didn't trust Carter, whose heart I knew was always in the right place but whose policies were mostly feckless or ill-conceived and who was often too captive to his beltway consultants in ways that were not authentic to who he was. Reagan absolutely did start a movement in the wrong direction on economics in the US - but the difference was that Reagan believed conservative policies could help the poor and if he had lived long enough to see they didn't, I think he would have changed course again, as he did to become a Republican in the 1st place. He was not like this generation that just wants to punish people for the circumstance of their birth. That's why people voted for him then, when today we look back and say they were voting against their own interests.

well, if the theme is going to be to get to a 'happier' politics, they couldn't have done any better. And maybe that will be the ticket, just like it was for Reagan against the sour puss Jimmy Carter. (yeah, I know he grew out of it, but not until after he left office).

Christian belief about the enduring or not so enduring character of the Abrahamic/Mosaic covenant varies quite a bit. In my experience, non-fundamentalist protestant Christians claim no particular insight/dogma about the current status of Judaism. Obviously there is a powerful anti-Semitic heritage in Western Christianity inherited from the medieval Roman Church which is undeniable. As of Vatican II that has been formally repudiated by the RCC which holds that the old covenant does endure.

I've always thought this was the kind of thing where cost-plus contracts make sense. Vendor documents exactly what the costs are, the buyer pays the costs plus reasonable profit to the vendor. With a public entity as the buyer it provides more transparency to the public and it makes it easier to show what any low ball bidder is leaving out of his bid. (like a workforce!)

👍

This is weird MB. You have quoted a post of mine, but part of what appears in the quote was not in the original post? How does that happen? I posted excerpts from an article by D French directly from the NYT website to open that thread. It was all text only, and here where you quote my post, there is a demographics chart was not in the original post or in the original NYT story. Where did that come from? I'm also not sure what the post as to do with Tlaib but that's a different question.

this has always been one of my favs...: 😱

It is probably true for most people, that whether consciously or not, they first react emotionally to some question, then attach themselves intellectually to some rational arguments in support of what they feel about it. Then if/when they enter into some kind of dialogue about it, maybe their mind changes or they think the arguments they adopted remain strong enough that they hold to their position. But there a process (a dialectic if you will) where terms get defined and points of agreement and disagreement and fundamental premises are stated. That is sort of the ideal level of an integrated human intellect. What I think we see more and more of today is with social and media segregation the second part of the process never gets off the ground for too many. They aren't prepared to go beyond their negative emotional response to something and make any defense of why what they are feeling should be justifiable to anyone else who disagrees. There are kindred spirits in their immediate circle who validate them and that is enough. Thus to reject someone's feelings becomes the same as not allowing them their argument. Both sides play to this, but conservatism, being based on resistance to/fear of possible unwelcome consequences of change has a natural predisposition to play to fear above all other emotions, making it far more prone to this kind of elevation of emotion over rationality. For me to come to this conclusion is doubly ironic because in my political youth, it was conservatives like William Buckley who were often the calmer more rational voices as opposed to the supercharged emotion of the anti-war movement. But in the long run I've realized the '60s were the anomaly in that regard. The atavistic fears of conservatism were there, they were just disguised with more sophistication.

Political expediency makes for strange bedfellows. Apparently nothing personal. TBH, Obama didn't have too many scruples about donning the mantle of the imperial presidency once he was facing the dog and pony show Congress under Boehner.

that's a little broader than my guy was aiming for but it works too. Funny thing was that as I mentioned, this guy was from/lived in Southern Ind, and his name was Bob Knight. Lucky for him there was little physical resemblance (he was about 5"10 and I don't remember any particular tendency toward red sweaters....) but it must have been a pain to constantly explain who he wasn't to strangers on the phone. 🤣

To me one of Walz's strengths is that he won't shy from the label, he embraces it and can explain to you why he, as a 'Bubba' himself, thinks you need to see what he does. He also has the advantage that in Minnesota, you might say liberalism is very conservative. I know that sounds weird, but people in MN tend to be both liberal and hard headed (living there was sort of the antithesis of A^2!), so you seldom see even liberal programs in MN that have silly or ideological excesses - so I'm going to guess his liberalism carries less potential baggage as your average 'coastal elite' liberal might.

I like that. A guy I used to work for (you could guess he was Indiana farm country) had a favorite about the market which was "Pigs get fat. Hogs get slaughtered."

As of this moment the S&P is still up about 5% over the last 6 months, 16% over the last yr. Buy and hold investors are really suffering, aren't we?

This. And Walz may be the most articulate speaker since Bill Clinton when he talks about why liberialism/social welfare works for everyone. He argues the straight line from things like better child welfare and education to a safer more productive society in a very difficult to dispute manner. His argument for universal versus means testing school lunches is a great example - he gives two reasons, one for the conservatives and one for the liberals. 1), the universal program is so much easier to administer it's actually cheaper and 2) it prevents the immediate class distinction forming between haves and have nots in the lunchroom.

It will also help energize the progressives. Harris doesn't really have the kind of progressive street cred, Walz does.

I like it. Don't try to be too clever, just pick a good guy. One of the things Walz said during his podcast with Ezra Klein was that as a political leader, you should have an agenda of what you want to do, and if you get it done, you should move on. Not something you hear very often. Now who knows, maybe that's a well practiced line, but it still highlights that he brings some different rhetorical ideas as a campaigner.

The whole organization is risible and it's entire premise is superfluous in a world of paid athletes. When does the whole facade collapse under the weight of its own contradictions? Can't be soon enough.

Overnight futures on the 4 indexes all running up 1%-2% even you post this. Neither making the Yen carry trade less attractive or letting some air out of future expectations for AI really has much to do with the near term health of the US economy.

My memory is not good, but I seem to recall there was a game last season where this was looking like a possibility but then it didn't happen, and it is hard to believe it hasn't happened yet.

well there is certainly no excuse for any manager who puts a reliever into a game after the reliever tells him he is going to blow the save. Wait, What? ... you mean they *don't* tell them? Well that's poor.....

didn't they say last week the announcement would be this Tuesday? Always good to be on schedule.

Good point. There may be fewer Al Kalines but you also see fewer Greg Luzinskis

but Alito and Thomas only in part. /...sigh../

It's a bonus kind of thing isn't it? Not going to decide as many games as the bat and when the steroid era hit and everyone was pumping up that just wasn't good for the ability to throw and there was a period where there was real dearth of guys with good arms. I think it has come back some, hard to know how much just because you have a lot more players today. You might be able to pull as many good arms out of today's league as you had in 1960, but they would still play a much smaller percentage of the total innings played so they make less difference.