unclevlad

Even with everyone being pass-happy... In the abomination known as the London game, I happened to just turn it on now because, well, I don't need to see pre-game shows for over an hour. Matt Ryan completed his 5000th pass. Which puts him 7th all-time. Wow, I did not realize. Some of it is, the Falcons have had more terrible seasons than good ones. But he's also done it very quickly...second fastest, behind Brees. And the influence of the modern game? The top 14 is Brees, Brady, Favre, P. Manning, Rivers (another semi-surprise), Big Ben, Ryan, Marino, E. Manning, Rodgers, Elway, Stafford, Moon, and Carson Palmer. Note that Marino, Elway, and Moon completely predate going pass-crazy, and Favre straddles it...but he was pass-crazy anyway. And played forever, and *every* game.

<sigh> Ordered some coffee. Shipped from LA on the 6th. Arrived El Paso on the 7th. Went from El Paso to Little Rock on the 8th..... Went BACK to El Paso, getting there today, the 10th. It'll probably head up here tomorrow. Hopefully, not another side trip. Everything goes through either El Paso or Albuquerque to get here...why it went to Little Rock is beyond me. And it's not even the busy season.

Georgia and Iowa can't be argued. Everyone else can. Cincy's got the one good win but the rest of em? Oklahoma is undefeated but also unimpressive. OSU might be coming together; Michigan is making noise. Alabama is still Alabama, altho this doesn't look like a typical Tide. And if Iowa's 2, then Penn State can't be out of the picture either. So...probably reasonable for now but there's still a LONG way to go.

My. My. My. Could it be? Could Alabama NOT be the playoffs??? Unfortunately, everyone else in the SEC West has a conference loss already, and A&M has 2. So Alabama's still in the driver's seat for the SEC championship game, and winning that would lock them in. But now, LOSING it...they're now a 2-loss team. That said, this could be the year where a 2-loss team makes it. And I suspect Ed Orgeron's days are sharply numbered now. Lose to Kentucky??? In football? Well, OK, they're a shock this year...they're 6-0. But they're perpetual cellar-dwellers. And LSU's now 3-3 and 1-2 in conference, with their next 4 games being Florida (#20 at the start of the week, and won), Ole Miss (#17 and won), Alabama, and Arkansas (#13...lost to Ole Miss, they'll not slip that much probably). So this season is just about to go into free-fall. I'll predict a) they lose at least 3 of those, and b) Orgeron doesn't last the season. Had my hopes for more amusements, but Michigan and ND escaped the upset. Bummer.

But we know how well people respond to expert opinion...

Q: When will we have the pandemic contained???? A: When a particle and an anti-particle meet, they annihilate each other.

On a bounce! It hit off the top of the stadium outer wall. 2 hours and 40 minutes. Wow. Yankees vs. Red Sox sometimes has longer *innings*. Home teams are currently 7-1. Mid-afternoon for the game in Milwaukee (5 ET start), West Coast game's the late game. Makes the NL scheduling super-easy; that game's always going to be the last.

Ethically? I think so. One or more of the above would seem to be true: a) They know their statements are BS. b) They've never fact-checked. c) Their "fact checking" is limited to finding more echo chambers repeating the BS claims, or to those who are profiteering. d) Their "fact checking" implicitly disregards anyone in the Establishment because, well, they all lie. Take your pick. But I simply can't believe that they're not willfully ignoring the truth because it's not convenient for them. So, yes, they bear a degree of responsibility for actions driven by their falsehoods. But legally? I don't think so. There's millions who think the vaccine is risky, or that the whole "threat" is overblown. But their actions are rarely violent, and even when they are, they're property-related. Or they protest. The crazy NYC crowd that picketed at the Australian embassy...that's more their speed. IIRC a testing station was also overturned and trashed. If that's the limit in a mob action, that's mild. Accepting for argument the facts presented, the accused acted with a plan, with deliberation, and with clear and conscious intent. This wasn't spur of the moment. So his actions were wildly atypical, and you can't predict the actions of a deranged person. What *might* be possible is somehow to require stronger fact-checking, or perhaps extend notions of defamation laws. One claim from last year, at least, was that the numbers of Covid-related cases and deaths were inflated because the hospitals could charge more for them...and that death certificates were listing Covid as the CoD for political reasons. If these were targeted at an individual, they're libel. They aren't; they're sweeping generalities. Note the difference between that, and the voting-machine election fraud assertions...those were explicitly targeted, so there's libel suits ongoing. The news outlets *should* hold themselves to higher standards but that's hard to do. OTOH, the doctors who tout quack cures, or deny essential facts...they can and should IMO (and I suspect the vast majority of us active in this thread) be held liable for their false statements, as violations of their oaths, and probably malpractice.

Sorry if this drifts into the political, but IMO this is part of Trump's legacy. Sure, it's entirely possible I think that because I want to; the story makes pretty clear the accused shooter is going to be getting a psych exam before the DA considers how to proceed. But Trump's style and policies IMO fundamentally destabilized everything, and that, IMO, creates an environment, and the Covid lies create a triggering condition, where the borderline psycho crosses over. Soooo awful. Enormous sympathy to the victims, and to the surviving family.

And as of this moment, I'm rooting for them to win the Series. It's nice to be up 4-0 but...2 outs, runners on 2nd and 3rd...Randy Arozarena timed up the pitcher superbly and JUST STOLE HOME!!! The pitcher checked him...turned, took his sweet time checking the runner at 2nd. Arozarena broke when the pitcher started that, and it was no contest. YOWSA!!!

So I had the baseball game on...kinda spaced the football game. Decided to switch over. AGHHH!!! MY EYES!!!!! MY EYES!!! <hits the Last button on the remote> The Seahawks are wearing those Day-glo flourescent green unis. Tops and bottoms. GAH!!!!!!! Just for that, GO RAMS!!!!

If I were to allow this, I would consider including limiting how large the cap becomes, or how many extra dice you can add with that limitation. The model I'm thinking is Entangle. If you buy Nd6, then the additional DEF allowed is only 2N. So a 4 dice entangle has a maximum of 12 PD or ED. So if it's 3d6 Aid, then at most you could buy 6d6 with Only to Increase the Maximum.

Just my personal take? If I post video that disturbing, I write a paragraph's worth of warning. Perhaps: WARNING: The video below shows EXTREMELY disturbing footage of police behavior that is...nauseating. It isn't gory or anything...not that I saw, but it's...truly stunningly awful. With video that bad...it's important enough to post, no question...but it's rather hard to overstate the warning.

Fine with me; not like mine was startling or original. Weathertop, Shelob, staring down the Eye during the trip through Gorgoroth, then losing a finger. Merry and Pippin grow famous; Sam's Mayor forever and gets his girl; Bilbo got to live in honor in Rivendell for decades. Frodo's forgotten.

Well at least ya gotta admit it was dramatic. Altho if you're a Cards fan, I suspect it feels like plasma claws just ripped your heart out of your chest.... So now we get a combined 214 wins playing in the *divisional* round. Believe it's a record, as it's been mandated that the #1 seed plays the WC. With 1 WC team, the #1 seed picked...the 116-win Mariners dodged the WC A's with 102 wins and played (and beat) the 91-win Indians. I'd forgotten they allowed this choice, akshully...

Of course, the most famous event for this day... TA 3018, the Nazgul attack Weathertop and hit Frodo with a Morgul-knife, but fail to kill him. Frodo always got the short end of the stick.

We all do it, but it's not a good idea to read much into the early parts of the season. Ravens were week 1; lots of teams aren't really ready. Steelers are not looking good at all. Dolphins are 26th in ESPN's power rankings: Yet the Raiders had to go to OT. So their 3-0 was somewhat suspect; the Steelers are 24th. IIRC Baltimore was disorganized and didn't play well; then there were 2 soft games. So that 3-0 wasn't as illusory as Denver's, but still not a lot to it.

I don't have a problem per se with him taking some time to visit after the game, but what he did during his time there was incredibly stupid. PARTICULARLY so given the stated reason to stay behind.

Oh, my. Urban Meyer has pulled another boneheaded move, and now...his chance of even finishing this calendar year don't look particularly good.

My friends...if I might humbly address you as such... Let us doff our hats, lift our heads, and raise our voices in joyful noise, for that Great Evil has been beaten back yet again, and all that is Right And Good is SAFE for another turning of the seasons!!! YANKEES LOSE!! THHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE......YANKEES LOSE!!!! (Ken Singleton retired from broadcasting, announcing it on Saturday during game 161. Too bad, I liked him. I'm pleading for John Sterling to vanish ASAP. EDIT: Vasgersian messed up the Stanton ball in the first...but Sterling botched it way, way, way worse. Both thought it was gone off the bat, but Sterling never saw it hit the wall and stay in play, and continued to focus on his overdone, awful announcing...until the play was over and Stanton was on first. Then it was...what....???) EDIT 2: I also love that the Yankees lost repeating the same stupid stunts. Stanton trots after the ball. He might not have been able to reach 2nd; the LF played that ball perfectly, and those end up being singles reasonably often. But the arrogant HR trot meant he had no chance. Then the 2nd ball off the wall, Judge got thrown out at the plate by a lot. Yankees led the majors in outs on the bases.

Given that Boston's up 4-1 after 6, it's looking good so far. I also would kinda like the Cards to take out both the Dodgers and Giants, to show that the baseball regular season is meaningless. The lines for tomorrow are Cards at +185, Dodgers at -225; that puts the Dodgers at about 2:1 favorites, but that's all. Yeah, for baseball, for 1 game, that's pretty big but the Cards still have a big chance.

Read an article about how Texas is changing; the growth rate is seriously high, and this may alter voting patterns. That'll take a while, tho. Some things from recent news: another hospital was sued to try to force treatment with ivermectin. It was denied. But that's at least 2. Then there's the *bizarre* protest in NYC about Australia's very tight restrictions. Part of the protest, I saw, included overturning a mobile Covid testing station...so much for being purely peaceful. In another story, the core was about a 10 year old girl who died 5 days after showing initial symptoms...and while the parents were bedside, grieving, people were at a school board hearing calling for the end of mask mandates because Covid only takes out the old and sick. The degree of active disinformation is perhaps the greatest threat to free speech we've ever seen. It's been weaponized, and with instant communications, it's created its own perpetual motion. It has shown that nearly unbridled free speech may no longer be in society's best interest...which is horrifying. And I'm not saying that there are good solutions here; anything that restricts negative speech can very likely be turned around. But the status quo is broken. That needs to be acknowledged, and a search for potential remedies started. To be sure: there's no real chance that any changes will be made. But I think the debate has to start.

I get it, but I've lost most of the ability to grieve for those who appear to bring this on themselves. A quick look at WorldOMeters? Over 10,000 people died from Covid last week. CNN has a story about a 10 year old girl who developed some symptoms, then died *5 days later*...that's where I direct all the sympathy I can still manage. I will say she and her husband may well be victims in this...with some culpability, perhaps, but still victims. But the lies and disinformation have gone on too long. The refusal, in most cases, to getting vaccinated is a choice to accept the risks...but it's not just for that person. It helped keep the chain moving. I'll grant that I'm far more angry at those who push the lies...especially when they're profiting from the lies.

No prescription needed, perhaps, for its use with horses. But the point is, the woman sued to force the hospital to give her husband ivermectin. She won at the first level, but lost thereafter. So her "argument" is the hospital refused. She has plenty of "evidence" that it CAN help. That the "evidence" is debunked doesn't matter because, well, we all know everything about covid is being censored by the government anyway, right? So she'll cite the non-existent "facts" for anyone who'll listen...and create another feedback loop for the whole Covid-hoax, anti-vax brigade.

Risk with Scherzer is age and now mileage. He's 37. Not counting last season, he's averaged about 32-33 starts a year since the trade to Washington, and logged over 1000 innings and about 1300 strikeouts. At this point, he's not a great candidate for a long term deal; a big 2 year deal is as far as I'd go. The Ohtani injury issue...I don't think you can ignore it. I get...yeah...it's a risk, but pitchers develop arm problems SO often. If someone really does back up the truck and offer him something like $45M a year, it'll be a franchise-level gamble, IMO. It'd be SO MUCH of the payroll. And remember for the Dodgers...unless/until they can dump Trevor Bauer's contract, they're already WAY over the luxury tax threshold. Adding Ohtani, especially at this kind of salary, would incur a *serious* extra charge. If Bauer's situation is resolved...that's $32M, IIRC, going off the books. Now making a run at Ohtani is a heckuva lot easier. And at this point, I suspect no one outside his camp ever expects Bauer to play again. But the Dodgers have to push hard to get this resolved because they're stuck paying him. His salary was fully guaranteed. I'll also say...if someone does back up the truck, gods, DON'T make the mistake of doing it for an uber long term. Contracts like Pujols got, or Lindor's, are massive boat anchors too often. Universal DH: god, I hope so. Watching pitchers try to hit is too often a joke, and creating such a glaring gap when intraleague is now very common, is ludicrous. I'd also love to see the runner on 2nd stay in the 10th, but that appears to be doomed. So we go back to nothing but swing for the fences, pitchers piling up strikeouts, more 13-15 inning games, and more BOREDOM.