The Frankish Reich

None. Don't you get it? PEOPLE ARE LAUGHING. They aren't angry.

I seem to be in agreement with The Great Orange One on this. Just saying.

I have no "problem" with any of it. A fail is a fail. You can't admit that's what it was? What, Musk was expecting under the free Zoom limit of 100 participants and wasn't willing to pay for the Zoom Plus? That's a rookie mistake I made way back in March 2020 ... You kinda expect a campaign that's been preparing a launch for months and the World's Leading Tech Figure to do better, no?

Congrats for hanging in there. The rest of the world will never hear that wonderful discussion. And I'm not sure we're taking your word on it.

It's pretty damn funny. Try speed "watching" (err, listening ... he hasn't figured out streaming video yet) the first 20 minutes ... ... you can imagine Ronnie's campaign staff freaking out. I flipped on Fox News and they threw him on there right away for damage control, with some weird cone-headed Tucker replacement. Understanding that Elon's worst year is still way better than my best year, you still gotta admit: Elon is having a rough year. The rocket blowing up ("it's a success! we learned something important!!"), the call-your-bluff forced purchase of Twitter, the Meatball RonFail ...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/get-ready-for-deflation-fed-powell-tightening-money-supply-contraction-36ce5530?mod=trending_now_opn_1 Inflation Has Peaked—Get Ready for Deflation Price increases would have eased without the Fed’s tightening, which we will soon see was overkill. - short-term interest rates are high. I shifted heavily to treasuries and laddered CDs. What's not to like about 5% risk-free (that is, if the US Govt doesn't default!) returns? - it is prudent to move some money into long bonds now. If we do go through a deflationary spell, those 3.5% long treasuries will go up in value Income investing is back.

For me, I might have stuck with them for a few years, until the players I cared about retired/moved on. I lived in LA for a time, and there was nothing stupider than the transplanted New Yorkers who claimed to be Dodgers fans because of the historical connection to Brooklyn - a place they had abandoned in the 1950s. It's to the NFL's credit that they recognized this when they decided that we'd just pretend that the New Cleveland Browns were the Old Cleveland Browns for purposes of franchise records, etc. It seemed ridiculous at the time. Now nobody even notices.

Right. Because let's face it - kick returns are no longer a thrilling play (if they ever were). https://ktar.com/story/5410817/nfl-nextgen-stats-turns-focus-to-special-teams-returns/ One kick return TD every 30 games. Of course, the Bills (having Hines now) are probably among the teams negatively impacted.

I think the NFL's idea - and it's a sound one - is that the potential for serious neurological injury (think Kevin Everett) is greatest per play on kickoff returns. Big men sprinting full-speed into each other. F=MV. So they want to reduce the number of classic-type kickoff returns. You make touchbacks come out to the 25, which is a disincentive to trying to return a kick that lands in the endzone. It works. But kicking teams adapt, and learn that the short kickoff may actually force a return. So the impact of the 25 yard line touchback is partly consumed. So now you allow teams to fair catch a flyball kickoff that would land at the 5. It makes sense. Kickoffs will probably go away eventually, but the NFL hasn't really figured out how to do that while preserving the things worth preserving, which right now is probably just the onside kick. Squib kicks don't present the same risk, so I think the NFL would be fine with seeing more of those.

True. Team allegiances are formed when you're young. I lived in Buffalo as a kid, I became a Bills fan, the Bills never left Buffalo (even though I did) ... I'm still a Bills fan. The Sabres were brand new when I was little. They're still my NHL team. But ... when it's like the Bills drought years, you soon develop a 1A and 1B allegiance. So I follow the Avs more than the Sabres now. Until 2023-24 (there's hope!) I was a Buffalo Braves fan. They left. My NBA favorite teams have changed over the years as I've moved. We never had MLB in Buffalo (came a little close once), so my baseball teams were first those with a national following (the Reds when I was a kid), and later the teams where I lived.

I like that idea. It would make things more interesting. Not gonna happen, but it should.

To inject a bit of seriousness into the proceedings ... ... I've mentioned before that I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh in the late 80s/early 90s. He was keen on quoting the great NY Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan about "defining deviancy down." Things that were once frowned upon were normalized. Divorce or adultery of any kind used to be a disqualification for a candidate. Reagan was the first divorced President, but he got a pass since everyone agreed that his first wife essentially dumped him and because he had such a long and faithful marriage to Nancy. Then there were new things: single moms by choice (remember the whole Murphy Brown/Dan Quayle broohaha?). Or how about Bill Clinton (the ostensible subject of the multiple divorcee Limbaugh) and his bimbo eruptions? Again, traditionally the end of a politician, but Clinton moved the goalposts. He "defined deviancy down" in Moynihan's words, changing what was viewed as acceptable by the voting public. And then ... Trump. Sex with Pr0n "actresses" and payoffs. Grabbing 'em by the you-know-what. And the acceptance of trailer trash culture - indeed, the embrace of trailer trash culture - by the old stuffed shirt country club types we used to call Republicans. Sara Palin, the almost-VP with the teen pregnancy daughter. MGT doing her personal trainer while married. Boebert, the 36 year old grandma to be dumping her husband, apparently for Pastor Nickelback. And yes, equal timers - the President of the United States not apologizing for his crackhead d!ck-pic sending son's antics, but actually saying he's "proud" of him. (What's wrong with saying "we love him as parents and are deeply hurt by the things his addiction has led him to do" or something like that.) So that's it. Trailer trash culture is now the most "American" thing of all. Not something to try to work your way out of, but something to be relished. Something to be ... proud of. Just like Joe is proud of Hunter.

Winner! And "Sean F**ked-Boebert" speaks for itself.

Brandon Weeden was almost 29 when he made his NFL debut. (What, that's not what you were looking for?)

I've worked with law enforcement officers at all levels - federal, state, big city PDs, local sheriff's deputies. My admittedly anecdotal impressions: - federal are the best trained, best compensated, most professional, although typically the most bureaucratic/risk-averse. - state law enforcement agencies (think highway patrol, state investigative agencies) are also excellent, and the second-best compensated. - local PDs are the most variable. The good ones are really good and more proactive in stopping crime rather than trying to set up big prosecutions for crimes that have already been committed. They also have a huge problem with recruitment and retention. Yes, the incessant second-guessing of anything that goes wrong doesn't help. These forces are also seriously underpaid. Who would stick around for a poorly compensated, dangerous job that will leave you exposed to being charged yourself for a mistake in judgement? (I'm not talking about the sadistic Derek Chauvin types; I'm talking about the ones in arguable cases where reasonable minds can disagree about whether force/arrest was necessary.) A disturbing trend: cops seeing themselves as just another (state-authorized) gang battling to get an upper hand against other criminal gangs. The ones who join law enforcement biker "associations," etc. (again, I'm not talking about recreational bike clubs; I'm talking about the ones who adopt that look - including tats, etc - and culture of outlaw gangs and inject themselves into that culture). When you make taking/keeping a job as a cop undesirable for a lot of ordinary public servants, what your left with isn't very appealing. People who aren't in it to serve and protect as much as to antagonize and show off. - local sheriff's deputies, particularly in non-urban areas? Well, that recruitment/retention thing means you often have a pretty embarrassing or even dangerous level of incompetence.

I agree. Chrysler Pacifica is simply the best car to move kids in and out of dorm rooms. I just don't want to own one.

Streaming will not end. The war is the panic among the many streaming services to gain market share and long-term dominance, or at least survival. That results in bidding wars for products like an NFL wild card game - Peacock is going to make NFL fans sign up, but will they stay?

Yep. I dumped Peacock after my free trial (yeah, I forgot to cancel, so I think I paid for a month or two). Then my wife started her own account when they were running that 99 cents a month for a year. This is getting really annoying. I'm ready for the streaming wars to end.

When I was younger I definitely agreed. His career just didn't equal that of many of his contemporaries. But as time went on, I changed my mind. It's the Hall of Fame. He was, well, really famous. And he did more than anyone else to establish the legitimacy of the AFL. Surely there's a few spaces in the Hall for guys who didn't dominate statistically but were nevertheless critical to the history of the NFL. Yep. He's the anti-Namath. Really good for a really long time, but never the best at his position or one of the leading lights of the game. It's that Bill James thing applied to football: https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2014/11/9/7052865/baseball-hall-of-fame-bill-james-monitor-standards He's the Harold Baines of the NFL.

Grade 4 level = Valedictorian out on the island.

Ken Anderson.

I love me some Flynndicated bump. By the way, that Jeffrey Clark guy Trump wanted to install as Acting Attorney General looks, umm, kinda like a grown up special ed kid ...

Tell that to the Cherokee.

CNN is quite openly trying to reposition itself as the centrist news network. That's fine - there's a lot of acreage between the likes of Fox News and MSNBC. But this was a weird way to do it, giving Trump a solo platform with a friendly audience. I don't know if they've offered similar platforms to the other credible announced candidates (Haley, Hutchinson, etc.) or if they will do so for DeSantis. There was no indication that this was some kind of "town hall with the Republican candidates" series rather than a one-off. So it just looks like a ham-handed attempt at a reboot. Kind of just starting by kissing Trump, or maybe grabbing Trump by the pu$$y shall we say. Not a promising start.