The Frankish Reich

My top 3, in order: Haley Christie Scott My bottom 3, in order (least bad to most bad): Ramaswamy RFK Jr. Trump A pure match-up, hold your nose and vote for him if the competitor is worse: Biden I'm starting to see that Haley probably isn't anyone's perfect candidate, but that she's acceptable to more people of many divergent views than anyone else.

I think I'd like that.

I didn't want you to instinctively choose a different bunch! Well, your choice - Youngkin - is outside the scope. Current candidates only. But let me expand the question: what unannounced candidate would you prefer?

I think of myself as a high-information voter. Probably most people here think of themselves the same way. No 2024 presidential candidate fits perfectly with my policy preferences. And certainly they are very different in terms of experience, intellect, judgement, and demeanor. But some come far closer than others in my ideal blend. As a high-information voter, I don't just take into account which candidate comes closest to my ideal. I also think about how that person would fit as a president with the likely Congress he/she will have, and with the composition of the Supreme Court. For example, I favor the right to an abortion, more or less along the lines of Roe v. Wade. When that was the law, I didn't concern myself too much with how a presidential candidate views the abortion question, other than how he would impact the composition of the Supreme Court. Now I can't ignore that. I'm also kind of middle of the road in my politics, so I worry about the consequences of giving one party too much power in Congress and the White House. For example, a far right/far left House and Senate (particularly a filibuster-proof Senate). That would encourage a wild swing in either direction. With all that in mind, and in a vacuum (assume you have no idea about how the House/Senate/Supreme Court will be constituted in 2025), how do you rank the candidates now? Top 3, Bottom 3.

He was pretty clearly losing it by his second term. Maybe earlier. But … I think most historians believe his presidency was successful despite that. Again, because he leaned heavily on (mostly) skilled advisors with good judgement. Senile > Sociopath

I love how unabashed socialist Greenwald and (as revealed by Greenwald) hidden socialist Carlson are now the heroes of the posters who call old fashioned Democrats "commie."

Playing along with your premise: Which one is more dangerous? A sociopath who fires anyone in the White House who doesn't follow his orders even when all his key advisors say that those orders would be unlawful (for example: installing Jeffrey Clark as Acting Attorney General to do his bidding in overturning the election?). Or a senile man who leans heavily on the decision making of younger/sharper people?

Which is ideally where they'd be, but an upgrade = more money, which they don't have under the cap, and if they did have would be better spent on upgrading/adding depth to the O line, or linebacker, or other places. The names I'm hearing here as possible upgrades - Colt McCoy, PJ Walker, etc. - aren't upgrades at all. Case Keenum is probably a bit better, but he would probably cost more in trade value and/or salary. Trey Lance would've been intriguing, but the Bills were a bad fit for him: he's raw and the chances of him not even keeping you in a game that your defense/special teams can win are lower, and there's no sense in grooming him to take over since Allen will be here for a long time.

Which is about what you’d expect of a guy relegated to journeyman backup. A .368 win percentage, and mostly on bad teams. In other words, expect him to go 1-2 as a starter if Josh misses 3 games. 2-1 if he’s lucky or his opponents are bad teams. I suggest you look at Kyle Allen’s career stats

Also remember the randomness in QB performance/stats. I just said the Pats are in the best backup QB shape with Bailey Zappe. That's because he made a couple starts last year and he was surprisingly good: 100.0 and 118.4 QB ratings. Kyle Allen's first 2 starts in the NFL: 111.3 and 144.4 QB ratings. On the basis of that, he's always had a job for the last 5 years. My hunch is that Zappe's next dozen starts will be more like Kyle Allen's last dozen starts. Dumb luck early on? Defenses don't have film on their weaknesses? Both? Moral: If you want to be a career backup and always have a job, just have a couple good starts at the beginning of your career. You can then continuously suck for the next half dozen years and still be employed.

Has anyone looked at the quality of backup QBs in the NFL? Our division: - Miami, a team with a particularly fragile starter, has Mike White and Skylar Thompson as #2 and #3 - The Jets, a team with a 39 year old starter, have Zach Wilson and Tim Boyle - The Pats are probably best off with Bailey Zappe and Trace McSorley, but the gap between starter and backup isn't so big simply because Mac Jones isn't so good The only "good" backups are typically the guys like Garoppolo last year, who got demoted only because Shanahan really wanted to go to Trey Lance. That's why they got better when Jimmy took over.

That's really bad. I've been in the same situation, and I've always had reporters respect an "off the record" comment. If I understand this one correctly, Beane allegedly said something off the record to a broadcaster, who then inadvertently repeated it to another broadcaster without realizing there was an open mic. That's just a mistake. My understanding is that journalists can share off the record comments with other journalists or editors, but that they won't publicize them (except by mistake)

Agreed. A while back I took a look at how teams do when they have to bring in the classic "emergency QB." The guy signed off the street who has a week to learn the offense. We've seen a few of those here: Derek Anderson (horrid, but on a horrid offense), Thad Lewis (better than expected) come to mind. Overall, even these emergency/almost no preparation time guys actually win about a third of the time. My conclusions were: - there's a lot of randomness in the NFL. Any given Sunday and all that. - we tend to overrate the value of a backup QB. There's a huge chasm between Josh Allen and Kyle Allen. Not much of a gap between Kyle Allen and another journeyman, Jordan Allen, who came into Niners camp this year as QB #4 - basically freely available talent. (I guess he'll now be their #3 with Lance traded). A few teams every year are lucky enough (or stupid enough to commit serious money to a backup QB? It's a good question) to have an unusually good backup. Mostly you are looking at the revolving door of Kyle Allens and Jordan Allens. And if you look closely at results over the course of a game or three, you won't find any significant difference between the guys you pay a little more (Kyle) vs. a little less (Jordan) Yep. My point, but you said it with a lot fewer words!

Kyle Allen isn't totally incompetent. You'd hope to go 2-1, might go 1-2. But the reason he has a job is because you really want to avoid bringing in the total replacement level guy who is likely to go 0-3.

There's a reason they brought in Kyle Allen instead of just elevating Matt Barkley to the active roster: Allen has been pretty standard backup QB quality. Barkley has been horrible. Allen, career: 7-12, 82.2 QB rating, 26 TD, 21 INT Barkley: 2-5, 66.6 QB rating, 11 TD, 22 INT Heaven forbid Josh misses 5 games. Depending on the part of the schedule, I could see Kyle Allen winning 2 or 3, keeping us right in the thick of the race. Barkley? No.

Jack Posobiec's thing.

God will not tolerate intolerance. Heading straight for the most conservative/anti-LGBT part of Florida. https://www.cnn.com/videos/weather/2023/08/27/idalia-florida-weather-forecast-vpx.cnn

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/25/vivek-ramaswamy-overconfident-simplistic-solutions/ George Will may be 80, but he can still write - he nails it here: a loudmouth fool. Ostentatiously confident, he advertised his intention to skip normal preparation for the first Republican debate. Then The Post informed him about a photo of him in a suit, standing at a lectern, flanked by two others, also at lecterns, which looked like normal prep. He said he “reluctantly” tried prep; his campaign spokeswoman said he “experimented with” prep. The problem of unsustainable Social Security and Medicare trajectories? Simple, says Ramaswamy: Just achieve sustained 5 percent economic growth, and the problem will disappear. (Average annual economic growth from 1947 to 2022 was 3.1 percent, according to Cato Institute fiscal analyst Norbert Michel; only once was it more than 5 percent for three consecutive years.) The problem of China’s threat to Taiwan? Not a problem, Ramaswamy says, if we dare to embrace ruthlessness: “Xi Jinping should not mess with Taiwan” — until 2029. Ramaswamy says that at the end of his first term, the United States would have “semiconductor independence” and no further use for Taiwan. Announcing a date when Xi can launch a risk-free invasion of Taiwan is one way to reduce uncertainties.

Good point. That's what lowered his market value. After all, other than he's recovering from a significant injury, we really don't know anything more about him and his likelihood of succeeding than the 49ers knew when they traded up to draft him. Still raw, still (assuming recovered) very athletic, still maybe a Josh Allen or a Jalen Hurts or a Justin Fields? High risk, high upside. Even given the cap hit, I have to grudgingly say Jerry may have made a good move here.

Agreed. In a more normal political world, Haley would be the leading candidate. Decent record as governor, some international affairs experience, and - unusual for any politician, and particularly a woman - an accounting degree. And the first woman president and first president of Asian ancestry (take that Kamala). But that is not our world.

Correct. The details are not hard to find. It was sick and sadistic, far beyond "merely" sending dogs into a pit to fight each other.

I imagine it was just poor disaster planning. You shut the roads to ensure access for firefighters etc after a small fire breaks out, ambit then when it goes gangbusters there’s no evacuation route. Let’s hope lessons have been learned.

Here's a whiny "millennials have it so hard!" story from the New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/07/11/style/economic-anxiety-millennials.html A quick summary of the first ten. 1. 35 year old "podcaster and theatrical sound designer" struggling, finally able to find her own apartment. 2. 35 year old who works in a "luxury car dealership" struggling with 60K in student loans and attorney's fees from child custody/divorce proceedings. 3. 30 year old "actor and producer" makes about 2K per month as a waiter. 4. 35 year old "watchmaker" didn't go to college, now makes about 70K a year, working hard to start his own business, no kids, says he delayed family to get his career going. 5. 38 and 33 year old couple, both with graduate degrees, one is a research scientist, one works for the State of Utah. Lived with family to save money, now have their own apartment, saving up for a house. 6. 33 year old "producer and director for a branded content studio" (?) has paid off student loans, just bought a house in upstate NY. No family of his own yet. 7. 26 year old working in a clothing store for $16.50/hour. No mention of higher education or family. 8. 33 year old former teacher, now working at a bank. Says he was underpaid as a teacher. 9. 32 year old, signed up for the military at 20, injured, now out and has a successful business and disability VA payments. 10. 35 year old "comedian and substitute teacher" paying $1000/month for a "tiny room" in NYC Look at what we have. - 1, 3, and 10 are "following their dreams" and struggling mightily. Urban democratic Oliver Anthony's if you will. - 4, 5, 6, 9 delayed gratification. Family/kids will wait till a career is established. Either lots of education of tons of hard work/military service getting established. - 2 is off to a very rough start. College/loans without a marketable degree. Kids/divorce way too soon. - 7 just seems to have no life plan at all - I do feel sorry for 8, since I think teachers are grossly underpaid. Hard work, delayed gratification = success "Follow your dreams" regardless of the odds typically = failure Having no plan at all = failure I see nothing in these stories that would show millennials are in any different situation than any other generation.

Good for them. You never hear about the 99% who wind up like the pre-Rich Men Oliver Anthony. I don't criticize him for following his passion! It's a choice. I only criticize him if his lyrics (which seem to be based on his personal experiences) suggest that someone else was to blame for his dreams not coming true for a dozen years. He persevered, he hit it big. Most give up or keep trying, working in bars and restaurants while they keep trying to land their big break.

Nice comeback! So what you're saying is we have a difference of opinion flowing from a different initial premise. You think people who've done vile acts and have shown rehabilitation should be welcomed back into polite society in all aspects. I think not. It's not an error of logic. Both are logical. It is indeed a difference of opinion. We will also no doubt all agree that it is a sliding scale. No one here wants to invite OJ back, even though he was acquitted of murder (albeit found responsible in a civil trial). To me what Vick did is not on the same order of deliberately killing another person, but it does show a callous disregard for animal life and animal suffering, or even a sadistic pleasure in such things. You may invite him to your corporate golf tournament. I won't. And I think the Bills shouldn't.