chasfh

Also, liberalism on the march even outside the First World. Some pundit made the point that this doesn't matter because Iran's "supreme leader holds the reins". While this may be true in a technical respect, the people are making their wishes known here, so we'll see whetehr it makes a difference.

Don't look now, but Isaac Paredes was also named to the All-Star team.

Let's be clear what's being said here: Biden is not telling Congressional Democrats he is staying in this race, nor is he informing them or advising them. Biden is warning them he is staying in this race. That is, Biden is threatening Congressional Democrats with staying in this race. That is how this is being framed. Lord'a'mighty.

I wonder how much the threat of Trump beating Biden here in the States drove voters in Britain and France to the polls to repudiate their own right wingers. I would bet that influenced the outcome a lot. As long as there are free and fair elections, hard right wingers will lose practically everywhere in the First World. There are only two ways I can think for them to win: (1) fix the election upfront; (2) overturn the election results after the fact. After that, staying in power is all about the muscle.

Biden took a (self-inflicted) hit and he’s not holler “I’m dying”, inconsolably or otherwise. He’s fighting. Therefore, by the transitive property, that should appeal to male voters.

I have no idea who the heck Joe Chapp is or how he knows anything about this other than what's being publicly reported, but personally, I'm rooting for MLB to take over the broadcasts the way they have for the Padres or Diamondbacks. Clean screen, watermarked MLB logo only, smallish score box tucked in the corner. I'd prefer it to be in the top right corner rather than the bottom right corner, but even as is, it's way better than the constant 24/7 Bally crawl giving me scores from other sports, program promotions, and (ick) betting lines. In fact, that's what I fear from a new network the Tigers might start themselves, whether alone or with the Pistons or Red Wings: it would have gambling feces smeared all over it, nonstop, on the order of Apple TV+.

See **** be hard on the beaver ... hard, hard, hard ...

So you know how they introduce the actors during the Leave It To Beaver opening credits, right? "Leave it to Beaver! Starring Barbara Billingsley ... Hugh Beaumont ... Tony Dow ... and Jerry Mathers ... as The Beaver." Well, the old **** Van Dyke Show, which I still watch on occasion, has the practically the same type of introduction: "The **** Van Dyke Show! Starring **** Van Dyke ... Rose Marie ... Morey Amsterdam ... Larry Matthews ... and Mary Tyler Moore." And I just can't help but add at the end: "... as the beaver." Which ... oh, hell, yeah ...

I'm out of likes, unfortunately, but totally agree.

Skubal has now struck out ten batters in 5/13 innings, including each of the nine starters in the Reds' batting order at least once.

"Craig Monroe takes allegations of this nature very seriously and would never commit or condone such despicable conduct." That's vehement? Really? Looks pretty measured and lawyerly to me. is Dave Boucher engaging in adverb inflation here for clicks?

What, were the law firms of Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe and Howard, Fine, and Howard otherwise engaged?

The logo can't be helping, either.

They should have 20. Fire Hinch!

Mark Canha sucks, he only got an RBI single, not a homer. You're fired!

Who are these guys and who do they think they are coming back like this to tie the game? Don't they know that Hinch is the manager and doesn't care about winning games? 😝

Your keyboard to God's monitor. 🤞🏻

At the risk of going up against the relentless buzzsaw here, it's becoming clear a week afterwards that the debate was indeed a cataclysmic political event that almost certainly will have democracy-altering effects. Blame anyone you want for the ensuing state of affairs, and trash anybody who expresses any level of doubt if it makes you happy, but you can't pretend the thing you say is not happening is indeed not actually happening. It is definitely happening. The best we can hope for is that Biden stays in the race and beats Trump, but that is becoming increasingly unlikely. It's true some polls are showing little or no effect, but there are other polls showing substantial movement toward Trump, and that must mean something, because many people inside the actual house are lipping off about wanting Biden to pull out of the race, while other are battening down the hatches to keep such barbarians away. The obvious disunity alone could be enough to prevent people from crossing over to vote for Biden, but it could also be enough to peel off a number of people who were inclined to vote for Biden because he was obviously more stable than Trump, but now that's back up for debate. And if it turns out that Biden does end up pulling out of the race, that leads to its own potential parade of horribles. First of all, who gets the nomination in his place? So many people believe it will and should be Kamala Harris, but she has been such a cipher during her vice presidency that I don't think anyone has any clear idea what if anything she actually stands for. And do we really believe Kamala is the person with the best chance of beating Trump? Because beating Trump is Job 1, and you can't pull Biden off the ticket without replacing him with the person who has the best chance of beating him. That may or may not be Kamala, but a thorough vetting of possible replacements would be 10 times out of 10 better than following the party tradition of Peter Principling the next person in line up for the job. The Detroit Tigers did exactly that in 2015, and how did that turn out for us? And whether it's Kamala or someone else—let's say Kamala for the rest of the post—Trump is already on record as going to sue in 50 states to keep Biden on the ballot. That probably won't work in most states, but it might work in several other states, including states where the Democrats have a natural leg up. But even if that occurs in, say, a dozen red states only, what is the election going to look like with most states' ballots having the replacement candidate and the remainder having a candidate who can't even take office at all? Who's going to vote for Biden in those outlier states? Practically nobody. That could get Trump the electoral majority he'd love to claim, since that gives him the imprimatur of a mandate, which makes all the horrific changes they want to make that much easier to implement. It's still easier to make awful changes with even a sham mandate from a compromised electoral majority than it would be at the point of an M16 against a clear opposition majority. And even if all that happens and Kamala ends up winning the election, Trump is going to file beaucoup lawsuits seeking to overturn the election as being illegitimate because of the chaos, and once the case that reach the egg that is the Supreme Court actually gets there and the Court expedites a ruling for it—how do you like our chances then? We are now in a world of ****, and what we are left with is hoping Trump gets incapacitated by a stroke or something before Election Day.

Is it Gen X versus anyone anymore? All we ever hear about are the boomers and millennials and Gen Z. I don't hear boo about Xers, in any way. Talk about a silent generation ... 😏

One hundred percent grammatically correct post. 👍🏽

This probably doesn't rise to the level of pet peeve, which is why it's not going there, but I guess it wouldn't not belong there. Anyhow ... We've all had the experience of being humped for a survey after a customer service phone call. Almost all companies with phone-based customer service do so now. A lot of time they do so before you get a CSR on the phone, so you feel obligated to say yes you'll take it because you wonder whether they won't take your call if say you won't. And sometimes it's an email after the call, like this one: Conceptually, I like the idea of taking this kind of survey because I have had the idea long established in my head that they would ask questions about how they can improve their service, preferably with a text box I can put comments into. But they almost never have that, and the question above says exactly why. The first, last, and only thing they want to know is, do you like us and would recommend us, and give us a 10! So, any survey that leads with this question, I never take it, because it's clear as day that it will have nothing to do with improving customer service, and everything to do with marketing their brand as one that customers love and would recommend. It annoys me to no end, because it's so gaslighty, leading you to believe they want to actually hear about the customer service experience you just had. Hey, Synchrony: I'm not here to help you promote your business to other customers. Do your own goddamn marketing heavy-lifting. Or at least pay me for my time helping you with it. I'm a professional, after all. Maybe this was a pet peeve after all ... 😏

I crapped out of the Bear a few minutes into the second episode of the first season. I just couldn't connect to the characters, and I'm not a fan of shows about damaged people that induces anxiety in me as I watch it.

So this is what we've become ... 😉

This is only a snapshot, too. The only attributes Maeda's showing red in is inducing pop-ups, limiting hard contact, and preventing swings on pitches within the zone, and it's not as if any of those are bright crimson. Although he does come in among the top 15 of all pitchers for run prevention on his changeup, so ... there's that, I guess? Too bad he throws it only 2% of the time, which might be why it's so effective on a SSS basis—no one is looking for it!

****, yeah!