The Frankish Reich

Ignore the troll. Please don't quote me in your responses as it gives the troll an opportunity to performatively "ignore." No substantive comment on my suggestion that some people just seem obsessed with thinking about the sexual practices of others?

You gotta love the masturbatory fantasies of this particular poster. Does anyone spend a higher percentage of his time browsing images of these things? Every man hates what he has to deny. (And then tagging people he pretends to ignore is just special)

Agreed.

I've said it before - the horseshoe theory of politics. The far right and the far left share one big thing: conspiratorial thinking. And the "U" sides of the horseshoe are getting closer and closer. The overarching theme: secretive powers are ruling the world, they're hiding information from you (or engaging in mass disinformation campaigns) to advance their elitist agenda. Now we are even getting the return of the UFO conspiracies of the 1970s, and yes, all of this is coming from the fringes of both sides. Here's a nice summary putting it in historical context from an Englishman's perspective: https://www.ft.com/content/2c0d5ce2-c8bc-42a5-829b-f6a15162bb21 America, as Richard Hofstadter wrote a few years before RFK’s death, suffers from periodic waves of paranoia. The historian did not explain why the US was prone to these passing manias — from the anti-Masonic conspiracy theories of the 1820s to the red scare of the 1950s. Part of it must be that the US is a nation forged by creed, which creates debate about the meaning of the founding contract and people’s loyalty to it. In a country that tells itself it is evolving to a more perfect union, when things go wrong it must be because of hijack. Subterfuge is a much more glamorous culprit than “***** happens”. *** RFK Jr’s worldview is found across the spectrum. You hear it from counterculture liberals in Portland, Oregon, as much as from biker gatherings on Veterans Day. The essence is that science is rigged against ordinary Americans: big pharmaceutical companies, in league with the CIA, created the Covid-19 pandemic to boost their profits and suppress people’s freedoms; the virus was a bioweapon created by a US-funded lab; the vaccines killed more people than they saved; America’s gun violence has been driven by prescription drugs, starting with Prozac.

Danger! Danger! Celebrity girlfriend. Russell Wilson. That's all I got.

Thanks. Every know and then a reasoned discussion breaks out here ... ... My take: I knew people in NYC who were scared in March and April 2020. Really scared. And for good reason. People dying in their buildings. People staged in hospital corridors. People needed ventilators to save their lives and there weren't enough ventilators to save their lives. By mid-summer 2020, we started to understand the virus better. We knew by then that some things were really important (avoiding large numbers of people in enclosed spaces, improving air circulation), some not (avoiding large groups outdoors, wiping down surfaces like maniacs). But governments and businesses were conservative by nature. Nobody wanted to be the guy who opened the floodgates to the virus. We also knew vaccines were coming, and it was prudent to wait for vaccines that were showing great promise. The vaccines came, and by summer 2021 it was probably the time to eliminate most restrictions, but too many states and businesses (and countries) kept them in place. Again, conservatism, in the old small "c" sense of the word. I don't see any conspiracies here, just well-meaning people scared of the virus, and then scared of being the one who stepped out front to repeal restrictions. Did some politicians/unions/interest groups see the virus as also offering an opportunity? Of course. They always do. That's to be expected. But no crazy conspiracies. We did o.k. Really, better than o.k. Those early days were scary. We heard about what was happening in China, and saw what was happening in NYC, on Indian reservations, in norther Italy, etc. We largely prevented those kinds of horrific outbreaks in the USA and indeed in most of the developed world. We got too dug in and stuck with restrictive measures too long. But science did respond with remarkable speed with effective if imperfect vaccines. We should pat ourselves on the back and then do a full after-action report about what worked, what didn't, and what worked initially but was kept in place too long.

I will admit it: I'm a glass half full guy. Maybe it's just my disposition, maybe it's because I have faith in humanity, I don't know. Three and a half years after the virus was first detected, I have to say that we made a lot of mistakes in responding to the virus, but the virus did not end civilization, the economy did not collapse, we lost a lot of family members and other loved ones to it, but we muddled through with a generally effective (at times, heavy-handed, but effective) collective response, including a remarkably fast and (yes) effective development new category of vaccines that put us in a better place for dealing with this situation in the future. At this point, I am just getting tired of the negativity. We did well as a country (and a world, perhaps minus China) when faced with the real possibility of the kind of devastation not seen since the Black Death. Sometimes you declare victory and also try to learn from your mistakes.

Racist. [I kid!]

I've worked for the federal government, so I have some insight here. That's why Hanlon's Razor is my default explanation: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." No, but you're a security guard and it's been pounded into you that there are "no organized demonstrations or performances without express permission of the Office of the Speaker" and that the constitution requires you to enforce that in a content-neutral manner, and you literally did not get (or did not read) the memo about this particular one. Things like this happen all the time. All. The. Time.

From what I've seen: - from the individual perspective, you are probably correct that for people under 30 with no complicating health issues (asthma, obesity, etc.), getting vaccinated did not render any health benefits at a statistically significant level - the question, however, does not end at the individual level. As with all vaccines, we are also concerned with public health impacts: did mass vaccination allow us to bend the curve and help to arrest the spread of the virus (and its many mutations) to the population at large? That is difficult to unpack given the many, many confounding variables, but from what we know it is reasonable to assign a significant benefit to the vaccines This reveals one of the problems with political discourse in America. One side focuses solely on their own personal situation and individual liberty while the other worries about population effects. In the end both matter. They must be balanced.

Aaron Donald was on the field for almost 90% of all defensive snaps in the Rams Super Bowl year. So your proposition is correct - you keep truly elite talent on the field. But I think there's a little confusion about cause and effect: one of the reasons Donald is elite is because he is able to play at high intensity and skill play after play after play, quarter after quarter after quarter, game after game after game. In MLB, statisticians compute "Wins Above Replacement (Player Level)" or WAR. It is cumulative. A guy who is a tremendous hitter in 200 plate appearances is not as "good" as a guy who is a really good hitter in 600 plate appearances. This is the same reason Aaron Donald is great and is headed to the Hall of Fame.

I knew a few Asian-American parents who do still have their kids learn the abacus (in after school programs they pay for) since it gives them the intuitive sense of how arithmetic works. And the kids certainly excelled in math later on… Agreed. For me it was being a kid obsessed with sports and sports stats - particularly baseball. I used to be able to ballpark batting averages, etc, in my head, like “he needs to go 2 for 5 today to be hitting .300 for the year.” Those skills are gone…age + a calculator in the form of a phone always in my pocket. I do think it helped me understand math concepts at an early age though.

I checked to see who this Twitter poster is ... he's a teacher. And his commenters nail it: the principle here is exactly the same as the principles behind the abacus (which is, well, several thousand years old), which seems to be serving many math student in Asian countries quite well as a learning device. In their haste to criticize everything they don't understand, people like this Paul Rossi undercut their own arguments.

Yeah, not exactly complex stuff. They're trying to get kids to solve simple addition problems in their heads without rote memorization or the need for a calculator. This says more about "Paul Rossi" at Twitter than it does about our textbooks. There's a reason he's some kind of homebrew journalist and not in STEM.

I saw Cornel West at Disney World about 10 years ago. It was a sweltering Orlando June day and he was there with (his?) kids (grandkids?). He was chatting with a "Cast Member" and certainly seemed to be an amiable visitor. Here's what struck me: he was wearing his full black suit with suit coat while standing outside in the hazy 92 degree, 80 percent humidity Florida summer. He didn't even seem to be breaking a sweat. You gotta love that kind of dedication to one's brand ....

Latavius uses the more Lithuanian spelling. Tre'davious is more English/Canadian.

The fake outrage machine must be fed.

Right. Yet some people who complained about a big extension for Ed Oliver (overpaid! too long!!) will complain about a short-term, low-risk, high possible reward signing in Floyd.

Well that was an under the radar signing. Isn't he immediately our best pass rusher, at least until Von makes a full return?

Ed Oliver is better than "serviceable." In a vacuum, this contract is, of course, fair value for a DT of his solidly above-average performance and age. I think most people here are reacting to the fact that Beane isn't constructing a team in a vacuum; he has to decide how to allocate contracts to various players playing various positions within a fairly rigid cap structure. And that's why I really have nothing bad to say about Ed Oliver - nice player, congrats on the new market-level contract - but am left scratching my head as to whether he (like Knox) was the best guy to offer an extension given other team needs. It has a little bit of the "endowment effect" look to it - the tendency to overvalue what you have and to undervalue what you could get instead.

Why does it bother you that a company is trying to get trans people to buy their beer? This is not Bud Lite going into our schools and trying to make children not only drink beer, but also to wash down their puberty blocking pills with their beer. I though it was about "the children." In this case, that hyped up thing about male fragility seems to fit the bill

Listen carefully, children, so you may understand the concept of nuance. - Bud Light (godawful sh!te beer anyway) paying some person I never heard of before to promote their brand: why should anyone care? I do not believe the foods and drinks I consume are for purposes of signaling my political or cultural beliefs. I wasn't a huge fan of Chick-Fil-A funding anti-gay marriage groups; I still got their food from time to time. I'm not a huge fan of Hobby Lobby and some of their political takes; I took my kids there many, many times to get stuff for school projects. To raise a big fuss about who a company employs to promote their products, or about the political beliefs of an actor in a movie? That's what we expect the left to do. We call that out-of-control wokism when it comes from the left. Oh no, I won't allow Spotify to stream my music because they pay Joe Rogan to do a podcast with material I sometimes find offensive! Generally silly whichever political side you find yourself on. Don't drink crappy beer. Life's too short. - The Dodgers disinviting, then reinviting the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Unfunny/obvious satirical group poking fun at a dying institution, Catholic nuns. Wasn't funny when they'd show up at parades when I lived in San Francisco, is even less funny and more obvious now. But the whole point is poking fun at a religious institution. Simple question: change the religion being ridiculed; would you still think it's appropriate? The Brothers of the Perpetual Taliban? Umm, no. The Orange Buddhist Monks of the Perpetual Lentil? Obviously not. The Rabbinical Brotherhood of the Perpetual Circumcision? Ouch. No, No, and No. So the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is simply not an appropriate satirical group to invite to your Dodger Pride Day festivities, because they are not celebrating "pride" (which I traditionally read as "I am not ashamed to be LGBT so I will march openly to display my identity as such"), but rather are ridiculing someone else. We are used to this in football (isn't this still a football forum?). You celebrate after scoring a touchdown by doing a dance with a teammate? You celebrate by doing a dance around a defensive player who fell to the turf trying to break up a pass? Penalty, because that's taunting. This is taunting. The other one is celebrating. Two different scenarios, two different answers.

That's why they put the B and the T (and the +) in there!

Put that Corona down, you LGBT+ loving creep! https://www.newsweek.com/half-americas-10-most-popular-beers-have-lgbt-partnerships-1793173 Corona Extra and Modelo Especial are both owned by Constellation Brands, which has supported a number of LGBTQ+ events. The brand partnered with Stonewall Sports, which promotes LGBTQ+ participation, and in 2020 scored a top 100 score on the 2020 Corporate Equality Index for LGBTQ equality. Next thing you know, we'll have to boycott Labatt's Blue. You might as well just call off the 2023 season right now. https://humanise.world/blog/somewhere-over-the-rainbow-marketing-to-the-lgbtqia-community/ One of the first Canadian brands to market directly to the LGBTQIA+ community was Labatt Beer approximately 20 years ago. It's like the only entertainment left for us regular guys is to pleasure ourselves with the cheap innards of a My Pillow.

Maybe a topic for another discussion (it’s a good one), but I’d have to disagree. Introverts don’t dislike people, and they’re not necessarily poor public speakers - in fact many (Obama) are superb at that. They just don’t necessarily feel the need to be around a lot of other people, and for politicians this sometimes means they have to force themselves to do the glad-handing, working the crowd thing. I’ve always thought that successful politicians are typically either good speech makers or good work the crowd types. Rarely do you find both in the same politician. Maybe Reagan fit that description? In my voting life: - Carter: good with his crowds, boring/weak public speaker - Reagan: had a gift for both - Bush 41: had a gift for neither - Clinton: superb “I feel your pain” work the crowd guy. Cure for insomnia as a public speaker - Bush 43: see Carter - Obama: excellent inspirational speaker, for better at working the crowd but never quite there Trump: great at working the crowd, never translated well to formal speeches Biden: the gladhander to end all gladhanders. Cringeworthy as a speech maker