chasfh

This is a complaint, not a pet peeve, but I guess this can go here. I bought a navigation app for my phone for our upcoming driving trip for $39.99. The total bill came in at $44.09, because my various local jurisdictions layered a cumulative 10.25% sales tax onto the purchase. I'm not one of those "all taxation is theft" guys. i understand the principle that the services governments provide to their citizens need to be funded by the people who benefit from it, so I don't begrudge the concept of taxation itself. The idea behind sales tax is to fund the infrastructure to provide legislation, regulation, enforcement, and protection to vendors and consumers for the purpose of assuring a safe, above-board, and well-structured marketplace. But if you think about it, that can really apply only if the sale takes place entirely within a jurisdiction, such as when you go to your local store and buy something. That's not what's happening here. The vendor is online and located god knows where, but it's not in any of my jurisdictions. And neither my state, county, nor city are providing any regulatory or other services to protect this transaction. If something goes upside-down with this transaction, I can't pursue any redress within my local jurisdictions, because the transaction is interstate and not local. And yet, they are all taking a cut of this sale, merely because my mailing address happen to reside within those jurisdictions. It is, essentially, a junk fee that pays for nothing. That, to me, truly constitutes theft.

It was a pretty famous fact for a while, but I'd forgotten it.

If he can guarantee that in writing, then Harris should totally get him this winter!

A.J. has intentionally walked 14 hitters this season. Not once was there a man already occupying first. In the big leagues so far this season, there have been 31,244 plate appearances where there was a man on first and no other base. A total of five intentional walks have been issued in that situation. That works out of 0.016% of all such plate appearances, which, in practical terms, is never. There was no way A.J. was going to issue a free pass to Jose Ramirez in that situation. There just wasn't. And calling for his head over failure to do so is a really high bar.

Cashing in ...

At least I still feel sorry for the kid.

The Macrons had better win, or else it's merely the Birth Certificate Fiasco all over again.

Yikes—that's downright Kreidleresque!

So tell your young pitcher, a guy you want to build confidence in his ability at the big league level, hey man, we don't trust you to dot corners and not make mistakes in the middle of the plate, so put this guy on even though there's already a guy occupying first? I'm glad you're not my manager! 😉 Joking aside: no sale. Call it stupid if you want, as though Hinch can totally control outcomes like pushing buttons. I think it's merely unfortunate that the mistake went over the heart of the plate, and that we had a better chance of getting him out than giving up a bomb—again, notwithstanding 20-12 hindsight. I know this makes me (even more?) unpopular, but I'm true to how I feel about it.

Which means there's a 62% chance we get him out, based on these lifetime stats. Your mileage obviously varies, but I just don't think forcing a man into scoring position in a tie game really computes, 20-12 hindsight notwithstanding.

I don't think Melton giving up the home run is de facto evidence that he is too dumb to follow instructions and that A.J. is too ignorant to understand how baseball works. Sometimes pitchers leave mistakes over the heart of the plate, and that goes double for rookies.

Man, this is looking like nothing less than the throes of an epic all-time collapse.

I mean, that's fine, you're certainly free to take the position that A.J. should be fired because he's not intentionally walking Jose Ramirez any time. Everyone has their unique benchmarks.

We don't have to wait for her to come around. She showed in this very tweet she's on the regime's side concerning Jimmy Kimmel. She's just preemptively trying to protect herself and her own media empire here.

Probably since ninth grade world history.

We just look dead in the water now.

Your serious benchmark for firing A.J. is whether he intentionally walks Jose Ramirez each and every time he comes to the plate? Makes it look like you're just looking for any excuse to dump him.

Goodlordamighty.

It’s that, but also, superhero movies do way better international numbers than taut political thrillers, historical dramas, or black comedies.

I graduated from Bishop Foley with his daughter. His son went to Foley, too, weirdly. In fact, Rick Fracassa was a football hero at Foley. Anyway, 92 is a really good innings. Good on him.

You could’ve stopped at “bet”. 😉

89X is back?! Sweet! I missed it when I moved back in 1992. It had just gone full time modern rock from the weirdo day/night format thing they were doing.

Should be two men on and one out, instead we were a decent throw away form a strike ‘em out-throw ‘em out.

What are the chances Swalwell gets hammered for making verbal threats against administration officials?