gehringer_2

agreed. The USSR fell, but being a 'bad winner' in the cold war won't get the West any better an outcome than it got the allies in Germany after WWI. "In your face" triumphalism may be fun when it's Larry Bird on a basketball court, but it's generally not helpful in international relations. The objective should be a path to calm Putin down and give him his domestic policy fig leafs (what he probably really wants) without abandoning self-determination for the people of Ukraine. NATO is an irrelevancy to those objectives. NATO is a means to an end, not an end itself. If it's actions generate conflict that is contradictory to its charter. Of course I would note from the article that it was that most triumphalist and lest deep thinking of president's, 'Dubya' who pushed hardest on NATO for the offer of membership to Ukraine in the first place.

The story on Jacob Barnes in the Freep was also intriguing. Another guy coming back from injuries - but he was apparently hitting 98. Interesting part was he liked the Tigers because he knew he had more changes to make and he felt the Tigers pitching analytics people knew what they were talking about.

this is from Dana Milbank in WaPo Merry Christmas

so the 6th circuit appeals court ruled in favor of the OSHA vaccine mandate, contradicting the 5th circuit and more or less forcing SCOTUS to take up the issue. However, I want to know how such morons get on the court as the Trump appointee (OK nevermind, just answered the question...) who dissented from the majority with the following logic: “The virus that causes COVID-19 is not, of course, uniquely a workplace condition. Its potency lies in the fact that it exists everywhere an infected person may be — home, school, or grocery store, to name a few,” wrote Larsen, a nominee of President Donald Trump. “So how can OSHA regulate an employee’s exposure to it?” OK - lets parse this out. Are ladders ubiquitous in peoples' non-workplace exposure to them? Power tools? Dust in the air? Electricity? Is there a single thing you can think of that OSHA regulates by virtue of workers only experiencing it in the workplace? His argument falls apart within 30 seconds of consideration of what OSHA actually does. OSHA's legal mandate is not to insure people's safety everywhere, it is to insure it in the workplace. It's one thing to argue disingenuously to reach a desired political end, but one could at least have the competence to do it with with some skill. It is both laughable and tragic that such a moron could achieve a seat on an appeals bench.

I think of it as a huge test that humanity, and especially the US, is failing - and miserably. I mean if you were 'Q' and you really wanted to put humanity on trial, who needs tachyons? Just a virus. A virus that could be defeated by concerted unify of purpose, a reasonable dose of altruism, a dedication to seeking and following the logic dictated by the facts as we have the capability to discover them, and a rejection of tribalism and superstition. Or another metaphor would be that all the cultural trees seeded by the Enlightenment that grew up to support western culture have reached senescence in the US, and instead of tending to their seedlings we are content just leaving them to be choked out by weeds.

thank you, Agent Smith.

and even now, as I track the uptick in vaccination in MI, I see that the increases are mostly in areas where vax rates were already high and are now getting higher, rather than in the areas where vax compliance is low finally changing their behavior.

Which goes back to the difference that was questioned between students in a school in Oxford being shot vs people on the street being shot in Chicago. The public knows all too well that despite the cases that make the news, *most* of the violence in the inner cities is intergang/inter-youth violence and there isn't much question that that fact reduces the urgency that the larger society feels with respect to it. As long as it's "them" and "over there."

First Omicron case has been identified in a UMich student in Ann Arbor. If Omicron turns out to spread even faster than Delta and results in more vaccinated people shedding virus there doesn't seem to be much chance cases won't be going back up again. The tragic part will be that even if on average it doesn't make people sicker, the higher incidence is going to mean some people that did everything right and got vaccinated and boosted are going to get sick because they are in the few percent that didn't respond enough to the vaccine.

Need to bookmark this thread here so we can check back and see how much Avila missed by in the end.

and there is a nasty non-covid one (tested twice) going around that I'm just getting over. this.

LOL - it's kind of a paradoxical situation. You have to guess how good/bad you might be. A top 10 pick is probably reasonable chance to bank on after the 22 season. But the thing I keep forgetting is that they got 2 firsts back for Stafford. So they have a second first after '22 which pretty much guarantees then can trade up.

but the grades now are just a snap shot of a bunch of 20 yr olds. I would guess every good pro QB was a much better player 3 yrs into his pro career than he was in his last year in the NCAA. What you're hoping for is that one of these guys has upside beyond what's on video on him so far. You either take that chance or the chance you get shut out of taking one of those better QBs next year. I don't think you could call either strategy wrong, either might pan out or not.

5 pts for the 1st line, 1 for the rest of the team.

But OTOH, why would we count on the Lions ever being lucky enough to be in the position get Stroud next year? if it takes #1 overall that means you have to tank again big time next season. With Ragnow, Swift, the CBs, and a new draft class maybe that doesn't come close to happening. My guess is that one of the guys coming out this year is destined to be a franchise QB, it's just that no-one knows it yet. The question is whether the lions can figure out which.

My guess? If Houston gets him back it will be by offering a ridiculous AAV. They seem pretty intent on not going anywhere near 10 yrs.

I'm not holding my breath expecting any great hitting breakthroughs from a 29yr old. But if he makes even marginal improvements it's all icing on the cake. He's the SS after all. Catch the ball and give me 800 OPS and I'm a happy camper.

I don't like that nobody this class gets high marks for throwing accuracy. They may score on accuracy drills at the combine and maybe raise their stock but that kind of accuracy is pretty meaningless.

Ah - that makes a lot more sense - for Cabrera in NM as well. Survivalists in MT probably just finding out Babe Ruth's been passed.

well, maybe Ridder will drive Cinci to the Championship and there will be a QB to take at 1/1

Have BoSox fans soured on Bogearts? Wasn't he once the next big thing? He's not all that outstanding in any area but he's a pretty nice player overall.

IDK. Maybe. But, it's a message board. Brevity may be many things but the soul of nuance is not one of them. There is often years of subtext implicit in posts that any given reader may or may not be processing. When conversation swings into topics of sweeping impersonal forces I don't expect people to append their personal ethics disclaimers on each post for my clarity.

Giselle is international.

did any of the those other guys play 14 yr in the league? Harbaugh 'knew' pro football a lot better than some of those guys so that was a natural advantage for him. But I think the way SF ended is probably one of the reasons he's going to stay in college. There really isn't anyone looking over his shoulder or 'meddling' in his program at UM. Sure he reports to someone in the form of the AD, but a major college coach has much more autonomy than the average pro coach not named Belichek. Of course *if* a guy like Harbaugh starts feeling college football evolving down a road that feels more like pro football maybe his mind changes?

To look like Tom Selleck and play down and out would be a tour de force.