The Frankish Reich

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

On this much we agree. It is a spectrum, a sliding scale, whatever you want to call it. Working hypothesis: extremes on the Introvert-Extrovert scale don't make for successful presidencies. (exception that proves the rule: Clinton, an extreme extrovert, who I think had a generally successful presidency)

Jeb Bush, Mike Dukakis, Barack Obama (a more complicated case, but read up on him; he was always much more of an introvert), Hillary Clinton, Al Gore ... just some over the past decades who immediately come to mind. I would guess that introverts actually dominate politics. They are the policy wonks who start off as legislative aides and try to work their way up into their boss's offices. They learn skills for dealing with people that emulate the natural, glad-handing extroverts. For every true extrovert like Biden in the Senate there are probably a dozen Michael Bennets. I will agree that presidential elections greatly favor extroverts, particularly in modern times. I'm not sure this is a good thing. You beat me to it. Nixon of course is a prime example of an introvert who made it to the top office. JFK? Umm, that strikes me more as one of those extroverts who likes to pretend that he enjoys quiet time with a book if the woman he was trying to seduce at the moment thought that made him more attractive ...

I hate to give the source any credit, but ... he may have a point here. Even if not "on the spectrum," we're probably dealing with an introvert. Which is not at all a bad thing. But that introvert needs to get past not one, but two of the biggest loudmouth extroverts on the planet in Trump and then Biden ...

My daughter tells me that Hailee Steinfeld single-handedly ruined the sequels to Pitch Perfect. Just don't ruin Josh too. That's all I ask.

I was blissfully unaware of this National Donut Day, here is ridiculously fitness crazed Colorado. I promise to do my part to publicize it, starting with my first dozen shortly.

I just said it - focusing on how he says his name is a stupid story. But Ron could make it go away instantly, just like I said he should. He won't, or can't. And so it'll get traction until he does. And guess what? The "attack" may have come from the left, but it's gonna be waged from the man trying to outflank him on the right. Kind of like "I don't know about Lyin' Ted, but a lot of people are saying his father was in a picture with Oswald ..."

From the introduction to a fairly recent reprinting of the Book of Johan, Micah, and Nahum: "Adam, Cain and Noah find God punitive but soothed by the smell of burnt flesh, mostly animal." That sums it up.

Yes! He is. That's why this strikes a nerve. Look, who couldn't make a compelling campaign launch video out of the real story? From his wiki page - it's an All-American success story! Smart kid, athlete, went to the best schools, actual athlete (implicit contrast: Trump) could've made a mint in private practice but felt the calling to serve in the military (implicit contrast: Trump military avoidance). Given one of the most sensitive national security assignments you could have. But instead he wants to snap at reporters who bring attention to his Italian heritage? DeSantis was born in Jacksonville, Florida, the son of Karen DeSantis (née Rogers) and Ronald Daniel DeSantis. His middle name, Dion, extols the singer Dion DiMucci.[4] His mother's family name, Rogers, was chosen by her grandfather upon immigrating from Italy.[5][6][7] All of DeSantis's great-grandparents immigrated from Southern Italy[nb 1] during the Italian diaspora.[13] His parents and grandparents were born and grew up in western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio.[4] DeSantis's mother worked as a nurse and his father installed Nielsen TV-rating boxes.[14] They met while attending Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio, during the 1970s and moved to Jacksonville, Florida, during that decade.[15] His family then moved to Orlando, Florida, before relocating when he was six years old to the city of Dunedin in Florida's Tampa Bay area.[16] His only sibling, younger sister Christina, died in 2015 at age 30 from a pulmonary embolism.[17][18][19] He was a member of the Dunedin National team that made it to the 1991 Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.[20][21] DeSantis attended Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School and Dunedin High School, graduating in 1997.[14] After high school, DeSantis studied history at Yale University. He was captain of Yale's varsity baseball team and joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.[21][22] He was an outfielder on that team; as a senior in 2001, he had the team's best batting average at .336.[23][24][25][26] While attending Yale he worked a variety of jobs, including as an electrician's assistant and a coach at a baseball camp.[14] DeSantis graduated from Yale in 2001 with a B.A., magna ***** laude.[27] After Yale, he taught history and coached for a year at Darlington School in Georgia.[28] He subsequently attended Harvard Law School, graduating in 2005 with a Juris Doctor, ***** laude.

Which is why his defensiveness is so weird. It isn't happenstance - his staff clearly tried to shift the "official" pronunciation from DEEsantis to DUHsantis. Nothing like that in politics is happenstance. Feel free not to take some football fan forum poster's free advice, Ron, but for your benefit: Relaunch. Now. Tell your family's rags-to-riches immigrant story. If there isn't a rags-to-riches story, make one up. Kid about how different parts of your family say it different ways. Emphasize how there's nothing more "American" than that kind of thing. Turn an admittedly stupid criticism into an asset. Who exactly is running your campaign?

For people wondering about my posts trying to manufacture a defense for Trump on the classified documents investigation ... it looks like new Trump buddy, old Epstein buddy Alan Dershowitz is thinking along the same lines: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/jun/1/did-trump-declassify-documents-criminal-indictment/ I do take issue with this: "Theoretically, there could be evidence that Mr. Trump told an associate that he was taking classified material with him, knowing it was still classified. It is extremely unlikely, however, that any such evidence exists." Theoretically, Alan? The reports we just read yesterday involve exactly that type of evidence! Trump is allegedly on tape saying "I have a document about our Iran defense strategy, but I can't talk to you about that because it's still classified." Other than that, a solid article.

I don't care how he pronounces his name. All "ethnic" in America names are to some extent Americanized. As I understand it, his family name wouldn't be said "Deesantis" in Italian since that would be spelled DiSantis. It would be more like "Daysantis." So why does this get traction? Because he seems hypersensitive about it! Instead of celebrating his Italian-American background, he seems just a little bit embarrassed by it, like he's a little too immigrant-adjacent. That's what trying to appeal to the new Republican base does to you ...

At my age, I'm very conservative with investments .... I do think this AI thing really is a big deal, but it's for me to watch, not participate in.

No, I mean shifting heavily toward boring old fixed-income investments like treasuries and CDs of different maturities. Right now a safe 5% return doesn't seem that appealing when inflation has been running at 7-9%. But if there's deflation, suddenly that becomes a fantastic return. https://www.wsj.com/articles/black-swan-debt-ceiling-mark-spitznagel-nassim-nicholas-taleb-18bb38f1?mod=hp_featst_pos4 And ... uh oh. Nassim Taleb and friends are ready for the next market collapse. Ready to make billions of it, that is. My prediction: commercial real estate is a bubble ready (actually, overdue) to burst, and it will carry other sectors down with it.

LOOK AT ME IGNORING YOU!

I suspect many grandfathers don't eagerly invite their illegitimate-from-a-hooker-hookup grandchild to be in their family Christmas photos.