unclevlad

Oh my.... The NHL is going to investigate veteran Evander Kane for betting on his own team's games. And throwing them. The accusations' source? His wife. From AP: So it's one very, very angry woman. The story also notes: So ohhh boy do her allegations seem well-founded. Ouch. This would be the worst gambling violation since Tim Donaghy.

more or less the one that started it all...Greyhawk

This was the first time in MLB history where a team out-homers the opposition by 7...and loses. And the first time in a couple decades where a team scored 17 without a home run. Mind, I thought that'd go back further...I don't remember the exact date, but it was only 20 or so years. 17+ runs is pretty rare to begin with. And there's a Futures game going on in DC...Cubs playing Nats. The 2 biggest sellers this season...the Cubs traded all 4 of the names that'd been tossed around the last few weeks. Nats just traded the farm, for the farm system.....

First part: no probably not. More accurate: "so we can keep the stock price insanely high and keep the only people who matter to us happy." The bonus to someone who does so follows, but it's incidental.

Time out. Disney is still the company that tried to dodge paying royalties on Star Wars properties by asserting that they bought the rights but not the liabilities, and thus the original royalty agreements were null. They settled with Foster eventually, because I think their legal arguments were on par with Giuliani's. They were trying to overturn very basic aspects of contract law that are simply complete non-starters. Whether this would be characteristic for Disney as it existed 20 years ago, I don't know...but it is absolutely characteristic of their style now. Whether this constitutes a breach of contract or simply is taking advantage of a loophole in it...that remains to be seen. The Variety article closes with the observation that contracts moving forward will have to include language pertaining to streaming, not simply box office. But for now, what this feels like is something you sometimes see in sports contracts. A player might have incentive clauses for reaching certain milestones...the team, especially when they're out of the playoffs, might deliberately sit him so he misses them. In baseball...a classic example was Kris Bryant with the Cubs. He was called up to the major league roster 1 day AFTER the cutoff for gaining a full year of service time. A player can become a free agent after 6 years...but if he's a day short of it at the end of year N, after year N+5 he's a day short of 6 years. And thus, can't become a free agent in that offseason. And you don't become a free agent during the season, so they effectively get a 7th year. (Player control is a huge issue right now; the trade deadline was this afternoon. It's even called "rental players.") So what I'm questioning is whether Disney is actually breaching...or simply taking advantage. That said, the whole "it's call Covid's fault" is soooooo much BS that I hope they lose.

Doubtful. I don't think it's likely but they may choose to leave the SEC for something like C-USA. The SEC is bloated right now. The Big 12 is flailing; the letter to ESPN was just more evidence, IMO. It's clearly too late to do anything for this year; it might be too late for '22. The lead time for a lot of things is pretty long. That said, the Big 12 is likely a dead man walking; it might survive by drawing in new members to be a secondary football conference, primary basketball conference, but that's hard to pull off and probably not stable. I don't expect the Big 12 to still be around a year from now. Mentioned this earlier, but another point...larger-scale shifts are more likely. The SEC alone might have enough muscle to force changes in the core structure...they're pushing to be a super-conference of their own. If they could get the Big 10, you largely have it. Who else is left? The ACC..Clemson, but that's largely it in the last 10 years. Pac-12 has become Mr. Irrelevant for the most part.

Not to mention that adding Westbrook brings on another MASSIVE contract. It tells you a lot that Antonio Davis is only the 3rd highest paid player. With those 3 alone they're nearly into the luxury tax. I'm also leery about a player who's supposed to be so great, gets moved around so much. LeBron's moved himself; he's proven he's a mercenary. Westbrook is gong to his 3 new team in 3 years. That always worries me. Westbrook will get his numbers but he doesn't necessarily translate to wins. Now, OK, granted...I'm not a Westbrook fan. I haven't been for a long time. He's very hign on my list of Most Overrated, and also Players I Don't Want On My Team. Which means the Lakers now have 2 of em...cuz LeBron's on that list too. The other that jumps to mind is Harden. All 3 distort a team too much. LeBron has made it work, so that's a plus; Westbrook did get to the finals once, but considering the reps on that OKC team, that's under-achieving. I also agree that the fit looks horrible. 2 massive ball hogs. TONS of opportunity for the ball getting stuck. MANY mediocre 3's...Westbrook's terrible, but LeBron is poor. Of the 155 players who qualified for the stat (presumably shots per game)...Westbrook was 149, but LBJ was 110. Lakers are the #2 choice in Vegas to take the '22 title; the Nets are given better odds, but I think that relates to the difficulty of getting out of the West. That's to be expected with both, but it's all betting on reputation. Yeah, both of em will pile up the regular season wins, but I don't trust either team in crunch time.

Moronic criminals are a godsend to law enforcement.

So this is exploding in their faces, as senior management botched their response. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/blizzard-employees-call-strike-discrimination-164511336.html More sharply critical... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/29/technology/activision-walkout-metoo-call-of-duty.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage If it gets to the point where 1500 workers walk out, the company has a serious problem.

Depends on whether you like pitching. Final score was 17-14. Detroit.

2, 551,443 average number of seconds in a synodic month, which is the length of time from full moon to full moon. It is not the orbital period of the moon; it's longer because it's based on geometric alignment with the earth and sun. It varies because the earth's orbital velocity is not constant.

Today, Minnesota hit 7 home runs. Detroit hit 0. Who won?

Can you begin to imagine how the locker room might fracture, if that forces them to forfeit a game...and thereby, force everyone to lose a game check? Or *God forbid* if Rivera catches it, and things go UGLY??? Radiation and chemo! do NOT leave the immune system in good shape. I suspect that alone would put him at VERY high relative risk for a severe to fatal case. Yeah...Washington used to have the Hogs. Now they've just got selfish pigs... On the lighter side...yes, indeed. Football Ad Season hath officially begun. Got the Yankees-Rays game on...and up pops a Mahomes-Polamalu Head and Shoulders ad. First one for the year....

How old fashioned. The modern evangelicals probably accept...and expect.....Bitcoin....

You realize that this would mirror forging an Israeli/Palestinian agreement...with the problems and issues scaled up from Israel-sized to USA=sized....

If we tweak the sense of this...that they became too pass-happy and thereby lost balance...I'd probably agree. Can't ignore that the salary issues in the secondary also started causing attrition around that point too. Salary data from Over the Cap...in terms of cap number, which is what matters for overall roster construction, for 2020 the ranking was Dak, Russell, Goff, Jimmy G, Rivers, Brady, Big Ben, Brees, Tannehill, Rodgers, Derek Carr, Jacoby Brissett, Stafford, Cousins. How many good years were in there? Who's conspicuously missing? Patrick Mahomes, first and foremost; it was the last year of his rookie deal. He had a $5M cap hit and got paid a net of $10M last year; this year, it's $45M. Lamar Jackson has 2 more years on his.deal, but the Ravens only have one more cheap year. His 2021 salary+bonus and cap hit is only $3M. His 2022 salary and cap hit is.....$23M. Quite a few of the teams from that list didn't exactly light up the win column.

For which you should rejoice. Rodgers is not the panacea for the Bronco problems, and at the price tag to get him, IMO he'd be a serious net liability. Potentially a plus for 2021...but only potentially, depending on the pieces...but at best where'd they be with him? 9-7? Probably wouldn't make the wild card. Losing the draft picks it'd take to get Rodgers would slow down any rebuild. The last 2 QB miracles (Brady and Peyton) were possible because they were free agents. Buffalo and KC, they groomed draft picks. Part of Seattle's surge was another home-grown, CHEAP QB in Wilson...until his rookie contract ran out, and they haven't had the extra $15-20M to splash around elsewhere. Shaky and/or marginal QBs might get traded; Montana was still playing fairly well when the Niners traded him...but they had Steve Young ready to go. I get that their current QB situation is awful. That the Bronco front office's draft record isn't so good, and their record with QBs is putrid...it's hard to be optimistic that they'll get better any time soon. With Rodgers, tho, I think it'd be 2 years of no more than mediocrity, then Rodgers bails. Broncos are set back 3-4 years.

Yeah, that's the first numbers connecting all the dots together that I've seen...football, bowl money, other sports. So they're anticipating a windfall. BTW: one thing to remember with Texas is they're NOT a former Big 8 school. They're Southwest Conference. Which...gee...died when the SEC broke away from the blanket TV arrangement, the CFA. A side thought...the SEC Network. The Big 12 Network existed but didn't show football. The SEC Network is secondary in terms of the games they show, but there are *many* compelling, interesting games in the SEC even before adding UT and OU. Found this too: https://pistolsfiringblog.com/espn-reportedly-owes-ut-for-longhorn-network-which-could-help-fund-big-12-exit/ And there's this story that makes a lot of sense...the Longhorn Network was never about...you know...showing *games*..... https://trojanswire.usatoday.com/2021/07/26/dont-laugh-at-the-longhorn-network-it-served-its-purpose-for-texas/

This isn't being used to make arrests, levy fines, or potentially cause people to lose their license. Per se. The falsification angle is a different issue, as that's got to be tampering with evidence. A point of similarity may well be, tho, whether it should be considered admissible. Here, if an analyst's judgment is required? What certification has taken place to ensure the analyst is competent?

Not the government. The country. And it's close to being there now.

There's a roof on their new stadium. Fortunately for all concerned.

IIRC they take 6 and field 4, so, yes, they subbed. Took silver. EDIT: DOH!!! In the team competition, which this was, the whole team is in play. They pick 4 per apparatus, but it need not be the same 4 each time. There is little reason to require a team to specify which 4 before their rotation on a given apparatus comes up, and AFAIK no such requirement exists.

What's the opposite of "must watch?" D'backs at Rangers tonight and tomorrow. Teams are a combined 69 games under .500. Hate this stretch of the interminable baseball season. Already got teams playing out the string, but not soon enough for the games to be particularly meaningful among the contenders...like Dodgers at Giants tonight. Have to see if maybe that one's on MLB Network...... But the amusing part right now is watching the moves at the trade deadline.

One of the issues for USA Basketball is that the NBA's become largely a freedom of movement league, with an overwhelming focus on 3s. That game can be squeezed...the Bucks showed this quite emphatically. International rules allow much more physical defense...like, gee, what the Bucks did to the Suns. It also shows the problem with the thought that if one superstar is good, 7 is better. NOT necessarily...particularly this year with little time to acclimate to each other. They don't know how to play *together*, don't know who should be doing what. They're thinking too much, not reacting. Basically, they're this year's Nets. And on the flip side, going with too much offensive focus leads to defensive weaknesses...so you can't squeeze the other team. I also think that scheduling played a big factor. The 2019 Finals ended a month earlier, which means every other round completed faster. There was no time to assemble this team. Whoa...this in, Simone Biles withdraws from the Olympics before the team finals.... Mental health cited. This is going to raise eyebrows.

So astronomy is simply popping up as the newest one. Go back, let's say, 40-50 years, and antagonism to any form of non-conformity was, if not the norm, then at least very common. It takes considerable conscious and ongoing effort to quash it. Heck, ya gotta start by even allowing the notion, for example, that women belong in science...that's STILL not universal. And something backwater? It's gonna take longer. Male Privilege is still A Thing in much of the world...white and non-white. The fact that we're seeing this called out is actually a positive sign. On the JWST...gah. Is this legitimate sensitivity or overweening political hyper-correctness? That ANY perceived slight requires full and complete redress. This attitude has significantly contributed, IMO, to cultural splintering and the rise of the Polar Society we have now.