The Frankish Reich

What is ridiculous about Conway’s statement of an obvious fact? McCarthy is driving a hard bargain? Right now, he’s basically saying: “Elect me Speaker today with no risk. Any one of you can bring a motion for a new Speaker vote at any time for any reason, and I agree to bring that motion to the floor.” Italian governments have more staying power. Liz Truss had more staying power. Breaking: just lost the TENTH vote. It has now descended into total farce. Say what you will about Pelosi (believe me, there’s a lot to say), but she was never humiliated like this by her own party. Unanimity held.

Let’s hope they never doom scroll thru PPP here …

Fantastic news. Of course we don’t know what challenges he still faces, but there’s life, there’s hope, and there’s no sense in being “guardedly” optimistic. I choose to be optimistic without putting any of my own uninformed timelines on his recovery.

In general, yes. But if you know who your around 1 opponent will be? That may make it a closer call.

Exactly. We understand what the rules are for making the playoffs/seeding in the playoffs before the season begins, and the key one is "the team that wins the most games wins the division/gets first seed." There's a special spin on that this year that isn't expressly stated in the rules (the COVID rules maybe, but I'm not sure those were made to apply to other situations): 2 teams had a game canceled (Bills/Bengals), so they weren't given the chance to garner one additional win. So any special rule needs to: (1) preserve/credit the wins every team has accumulated; (2) figure out a way to not handicap a team that didn't have the opportunity to garner that additional win by virtue of a game cancellation. (Here it doesn't really matter what the reason was. The game was canceled. It's not the Bills fault, and it's not Tee Higgins and the Bengals fault. A horrific thing happened, and a game was canceled in the 1st quarter because of it. It wouldn't matter if it was canceled because there was an active shooter in the stadium or because there was a torrential downpour.) That's why I fall back on "tied in the loss column = coin flip/lottery." Any other option tends to give an unfair advantage to one team at the expense of the others. Playoff seeding is pretty random anyway in that you can be in an awful division and get in at 9-8 or even (as it looked just a couple weeks ago) with a losing record. Schedules are unbalanced, and most of the seeding doesn't reflect true performance throughout the regular season anyway.

The thing with my daughter's friend and her sister (with the basketball obsessed dad I talked about): I got the feeling that the girls really weren't obsessed themselves with basketball. The demands of basketball camps/travel teams, etc. kind of caused them to fall out of a really tight-knit group of friends who stayed together for 13 years of school, K-12. They missed out on a lot, and I'm not sure they're all that thrilled with what they gained from the experience.

Only if the Bills/Chiefs both win this weekend, and only if win percentage is the deciding factor. I say it should be a tie if they’re tied in the loss column and a coin flip should decide who gets the #1 seed. It’s actually good that all 3 teams involved are clear playoff teams already. The only thing at issue is seeding, and given that the NFL canceled one game, there’s no clear rationale for going by win percentage. You might as well say “when teams are tied in the loss column, the tiebreaker is head-to-head record.” Coin flip!

Thanks for pointing out the existing rules. But as you note, there isn’t one for “game cannot be played at all.” Unthinking adherence to “try to act as if everything is back to normal” usually brings the worst results. I remember the Broncos having their entire QB room barred based on 2020 COVID protocols. Yes, kind of their fault. But it resulted in a joke of a game with WR Kendall Hinton playing QB and completing 1 pass for 13 yards in a New Orleans blowout. This made a mockery of the product on the field. If they’d just forfeited tickets would’ve been refunded; the Saints wouldn’t have gotten one tainted win. Acting like “we’ll play the games as scheduled or the closest we can” was the worst solution. Likewise the 1987 strike season played (for 3 games) by “replacement players” in games the NFL insisted would count. Trying to maintain the status quo resulted in a farce. Compare the 1981 MLB season, divided in rough halves by a strike. The league decided there’d be a first half winner in each division and a second half winner. Those teams went to the playoffs. An after-the-fact solution, but nobody harps on the Dodgers WS win as illegitimate today. (The Reds fans do a little, since overall they had the best record in the NL West but didn’t make the playoffs at all under the new rule. Nobody cares except them) And the NBA COVID “bubble” season was fantastic. Every season should be as short and intense. The NHL version was kinda ok if I remember correctly. The point: try to maintain general fairness and strive toward putting the best product on the field even if that means deviating from the standard more than some of the alternatives.

Watching my kids and their friends from K-12, I’m astounded by how single-minded some parents can be. One family had 2 girls, both really, really good basketball players through middle school, and then starters and very good players in high school, but not all-state or anything. The dad moved them from school to school looking for the best (basketball) “fit.” And travel teams/summer basketball camps, adding up I’m sure to well over 100K. And they did get scholarships. To D2 colleges I had never heard of (and I thought I’d heard of most everything). Not like top academic colleges like Colgate or something. Neither is a star player at that level. Just ordinary small college athletes at out of the way minor schools of no particular distinction. In what way was this worth it? It is for the dad I guess, who still fills HIS social media with posts about their college teams.

Q. What have we learned in 57 pages of discussion here? A. No solution is perfect. In fact there are big problems with every proposal. In hindsight, the NFL should have had a rule for dealing with game cancellations that can’t be made up (based on league determination). No, we fortunately haven’t seen this particular situation before. But let’s say 9/11 had happened on 1/1 and the Jets/Giants couldn’t play and the game couldn’t be moved before the playoffs. Or that some Storm of the Century shut down Week 18 from Chicago to Boston. Or that 90% of some team tested positive for COVID ahead of Week 18. People don’t react well to after-the-fact fixes. They don’t mind if the plan was in place and known to all teams ahead of the event. I say no contest/coin flip if two teams are tied in the loss column after Week 18 concludes. We can create all kinds of fancy fixes that won’t satisfy people anyway. The Bills didn’t “forfeit”; the league canceled the game. For all I know the “atmospheric river” crossing California may inundate Las Vegas on Sunday and cause the Chiefs game to be canceled. The fix for a random occurrence altering an expected scenario is usually a random method for assigning a winner. Coin flip and be done with it.

IF it played out that way, it would be a good result - as fair as can be hoped for under the circumstances. (Visions of losing to the Steelers backups in my head and all that)

This is true. “America First” — what did it really mean? - Protectionism: starting with Bill Clinton, both parties were strongly free trade. Starting with the Bernie/Trump rise in 2016, both parties moved sharply back to the old protectionist/high tariff side. Add in the return of old fashioned (I’d say “failed”) industrial policy, and that’s “America First”-ism. It goes back to Truman at least; back to the 1st half of the 19th century mercantilism at most. Bernie provided a pro-union flavor of protectionism; Trump’s new spin was anti-unionism combined with protection from competition for old industries. You won’t find many economists other than Peter Navarro who think either flavor is a good idea. - Foreign policy: again, an idiosyncratic Trump blend. Kissingerian “real politik” (a focus on what alignments work best for America rather than the emphasis on democratization that flowed from Jimmy Carter to Bush 43), but without the broad conflict of ideology thinking that informed Cold War policy. It was almost more Monroe Doctrine than anything 20th Century: Russia, your natural domain is Eastern Europe to the Pacific; we’ll leave you alone as long as you don’t meddle in our half of the globe. As such it was a rejection of Republican strategy from Eisenhower through Mitt. - Immigration: it started out with a rational idea — the USA, unlike most developed countries, doesn’t so much pick and choose its immigrants as those immigrants pick and choose us. So maybe we move to more of the Canada/NZ points-based model for legal immigration, trying to attract high-value workers and deter low-value arrivals. But it dissolved into a general “immigration bad” narrative, whether legal or illegal, as Trump cozied up to the so-called white nationalist wing. There was a pro-USA compromise to be had early on (Trump’s pro-DACA sentiments had people dreaming), but the Muslim ban so poisoned the well that no bipartisan compromise could ever emerge. - Cultural issues. A very selfish conspicuous consumer who extolled a return to traditional moral values; a kind of “serial marriage and fatherhood and secularism is fine for people like me, but an unmitigated disaster for all those people like you.” I don’t deny the importance of government in leading on moral/social issues, but this is one area in which the messenger really needs to live it in order for the message to have an impact. - Fiscal policy. A total repudiation of the budget balancing obsession that was a Republican mantra since the time of Reagan. Cut taxes, keep spending, forget all about social security and Medicare reform since those are not popular with the electorate. It’s a mishmash of social, economic, and national security theories that may not even deserve the title of “theory.” America First had appeal as a slogan, but this incoherent mess is best described with a different neologism: Trumpism.

As I said to our other medical expert here: a sincere thanks. People want information (it’s a natural human reaction to a tragic event), and I’m glad we have people willing to share their expertise and experience. It is much better than relying on speculation and internet sources.

But what about the teams that may be screwed by handing the Vikings a win? Didn’t the NFL give teams a stern warning (hah!) about fielding a competitive team in the final week? (Was it the Pederson/Eagles thing?)

The quip “too soon” may apply here. It’s a laugh line when we talk about something that happened a long time ago, but it is a real thing. Everyone agrees that reconvening on Tuesday night to finish the game wasn’t reasonable. Yes, life will go on, and the Bills will go on. But we’re talking about whether it’s reasonable to require Hamlin’s teammates to return to business as usual: practice during the week, media availability, game 6 days later, etc, etc. And for the game itself: the kind of celebratory/party atmosphere: tailgates, drinking, all that … it just isn’t right yet. I don’t mean to say we shouldn’t play on Sunday, but I don’t really know how I (much less the team) feels about that.

The new game on the House floor: avoiding being seen in the same frame as freshman Rep., The Honorable George Santos or Whatever Your Real Name May Be. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/01/george-santos-congress-mccarthy-first-day.html

Right after Trump's very excellent much much much better than Obamacare comprehensive health care plan

Driving home last night from the bar where I was watching the game (I don’t think anyone felt like being there once the gravity of the injury started to sink in), I heard Rich Eisen doing the radio coverage. He told a story I’d never heard before. Howie Long had two boys playing college football - on different teams, one on offense, one on defense - and they were about to play each other. Eisen asked the typical question, “Howie, how do you feel about that?” He was probably expecting a funny answer - I can’t help cheering for both sides, etc. That’s not what he got. Howie said he felt a little sick about the whole thing. He said that on the line, “every play out there is like a car crash.” It’s brutal in the NFL even when it looks ordinary to us. And I think all his listeners understood exactly what Howie meant.

If the rules don’t allow for an exceptional response to an unprecedented event - a near death on the field of play - then we need new rulers. My solution: the game is declared no contest. If KC/Bills/Bengals wind up ties in the loss column, you do a lottery for seeding.

Thank you for helping to provide some knowledgeable comments here. This is they type of thing that makes social media (writ large - an old school bulletin board) a positive today: someone who knows what they're talking about helping other understand what's going on.

Agreed. I fully understand people wanting to do something tangible to express their concern. That's human nature, and I'm glad it is. But Hamlin and his family may have some big needs of their own in the upcoming days/months/years. It might be best to wait a bit and see if we can help in a way more specific to his situation rather than his charity. I don't know his family's financial situation, but he's a second year player who I think spend time on the practice squad last year. That won't make you financially secure, even if healthy. So again ... I appreciate the intention, but I'm not jumping on the charity website - I'll keep paying attention to whether there's other monetary ways people can help as we get more information on the situation.

True. I'll just say that there's no protocol for this. It's a violent game of high speed collisions between big athletic young men, and thank God this particular circumstance has never arisen before. So it's fair to criticize, but I'm not interested in creating villains here out of what was a horrible accident. At some later point it's time to have a discussion again about player safety and whether simple tweaks to the rules are enough. We've seen a few really shocking injuries on the field this year and I'm starting to wonder whether this sport is just unavoidably unsafe at the professional level.

This is kind of weird. Diggs just isn't a YAC type guy; that's not in his skillset (which is pretty amazing otherwise). But other guys? Knox: where's that Angry Run we watched a bazillion times from a couple years ago? McKenzie, and now Hines: these are extremely quick/slippery runners who haven't broken free for any long runs. Cook has shown that explosive potential too, but on runs, not passes (yet). Why not?

And Rodgers and Peyton Manning and to a lesser extent Roethlisberger and Rivers. Rodgers is a bit of an exception here as he's not the classic pocket passer. Wilson's decline (and I've watched way, way too much Broncos football this year) is mostly in his mobility/inability to escape tackles. When he has shown more aggressiveness in running, he's susceptible to the hard hits he seemed able to avoid when younger. So my thinking is more this: QBs who depend heavily on mobility/running for their success don't age well. (And yes, I'm fully aware of what the implies for our QB)

Post of the Year! And it's only Jan 1. Well played.