Not so tasty. After getting their asses handed to them — at home — by a team that’s the very definition of “perennial losers,” I guess my hopes of seeing the Brewers in the playoffs this year were proven unrealistic today. This series was the baseball equivalent of getting manhandled by the Washington Generals.
I can only take solace in the fact that the Cubs will find a way to blow it again, as they always do, and their fans will continue to naively point to “next year.” Kind of like what me and other Brewers fans do, except that they’ve been doing it about 70 years longer…
I don’t get it. Not at all. Not even remotely close. I just look at it, mouth agape, and drool, trying to figure out what it all means. By way of comparison, 2001 makes total sense.
There’s some good discussion over at SayUncle about whether or not it’s justifiable to classify “hate crimes” as a separate class of crimes over and above just ordinary assault/murder/vandalism/whatever. Go check it out.
Many of the libertarian types object that it’s a slippery slope from “hate crimes” to “thought crimes,” to which Xrlq responds:
One point is clear, though: all the crap about “thought crimes” and Big Brother determining intent is just that, crap. Intent is the sine qua non of criminal law. We don’t throw people in prison for inadvertently walking off with other people’s stuff, only for doing so intentionally. Nor do we charge someone for murder simply because their negligence caused someone else’s death; we have tort law for that. Should football abolish penalties for intentional grounding? Hell, as the cliché goes, even a dog can tell the difference between being stumbled over and being kicked. So of course the government must look at intent; the question is which intents to single out for worse punishment, and why.
(Personally, I think he’s just doing this to wig me out — he knows it always gives me pause when he and I agree on anything.)
I’ve taken two train trips this year (from Memphis to New Orleans, and from Boston to New York) and loved both. It’s a great, hassle-free way to travel, especially for trips under 600 miles.
According to former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, not so much:
When it comes to Iraq, the surge is a great success, right? Well, according to Ayad Allawi, Iraq’s former prime minister, that depends on what you mean by “success”.
In a briefing before members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs yesterday, Allawi answered questions from members of he subcommittee on international organizations, human rights, and oversight. When asked by Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), the subcommittee’s ranking member, for Allawi’s “assessment of of what’s come of the surge,” Allawi all but said, not much.
Reminding Rohrabacher that the original objective of the surge was to create a safe environment for a process of national reconciliation, Allawi said, “Now, militarily, the surge has achieved some of its goals. Politically, I don’t think so.”
Allawi rattled off a laundry list of perils that still confront the Iraqi people: internal displacement of large numbers of people, millions of refugees outside Iraq, security forces he described as sectarian militias dressed in national uniforms, no enforcement of the national constitution, which he described as a “divisive” document.
The former prime minister, who is now a member of the Iraqi parliament, also alleged that the process known as “deBaathification” is “being used to punish people.” Originally designed to purge Saddam Hussein’s loyalists from the military and security forces, Allawi said the process has become politicized and can be used against virtually anybody, since Saddam Hussein’s “Baath party ruled for 35 years, and every individual had to join…”
“So, if you measure the surge from a military point of view, it has succeeded,” Allawi said. “But I don’t think this was the [prime] objective, because soon you will have reversals. Security has not prevailed, and the key element in security is reconciliation, and building national institutions for the country. If this does not happen, then the surge will go in vain.”
Which is what most of us who opposed the surge have been saying all along. The surge is only “succeeding” according to a definition of “success” that dramatically moves the goal posts from its originally stated objectives.
Man, I thought the Brewers’ bullpen was bad. But Egad! I guess it could always be worse.
Meanwhile, pardon me while I revel in pulling out the broom…
UPDATE: Channeling my inner Red Sox fan, however, I feel compelled to say that despite the sweep, there’s a lot to be concerned about. Apart from another blown save by the Brewers’ bull pen, the team left 39 runners on base in the four-game set (almost ten a game!), including 19 left in scoring position. With a little bit of follow-through and clutch hitting, we crush the Cardinals, instead of needing late comebacks in three of the four games. Still, I’ll take it.
UPDATE: I’ve added some baseball-related humor here.
OK, I’m confused. Consider the following inning:
First batter gets a base hit; advances to second on a balk. Runner on first, nobody out.
Second batter lays down a sac bunt, advancing the runner to third. One out.
Third batter grounds out to third, runner stays put. Two out.
Fourth batter gets a base hit, first batter scores. One run in, runner on first, two out.
Fifth batter hits a triple, fourth batter scores. Two runs in, runner on third, still two out.
While sixth batter is up, pitcher throws a wild pitch, fifth batter scores. Three runs in, two out.
Sixth batter grounds out to second. Three outs.
For that inning, how would you score the pitcher’s line, in terms of runs, earned runs, hits, and errors?
Now consider another inning, same pitcher throwing:
First batter gets a base hit. Runner on first, nobody out.
Second batter is hit by a pitch. Runners on first and second, nobody out.
Third batter lays down a sac bunt to third, runners advance. The first baseman drops the throw from third, and the ball rolls behind him. First batter scores. Runners on first and second, nobody out.
Fourth batter pops out foul to the catcher. First and second, one out.
Fifth batter strikes out looking. First and second, two out.
Sixth batter flies out to deep center. Inning over.
How would you score the line for that inning?
Here’s how I did it: First hypothetical inning: 1.0 IP, 3R, 3ER, 3H, 0K, 0BB Second hypothetical inning: 1.0 IP, 1R, 0ER, 1H, 1HK, 0BB, 1HB
Why do I ask? Because these examples a real game, and the official scorekeeper differed from me. His final score showed the pitcher with 4R (which I had) and 2 ER, one fewer than I had. I’m looking all over the place for the second unearned run, and I can’t find it. Digg?
For reference, here’s the box score and the play-by-play. I’m concerned with the bottom of the fifth and the bottom of the sixth.
According to Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria, Obama is the “conservative” when it comes to foreign policy, and McCain is the “liberal”:
Over the course of the campaign against Hillary Clinton and now McCain, Obama has elaborated more and more the ideas that would undergird his foreign policy as president. What emerges is a world view that is far from that of a typical liberal, much closer to that of a traditional realist. It is interesting to note that, at least in terms of the historical schools of foreign policy, Obama seems to be the cool conservative and McCain the exuberant idealist.
…snip…
Obama rarely speaks in the moralistic tones of the current Bush administration. He doesn’t divide the world into good and evil even when speaking about terrorism. He sees countries and even extremist groups as complex, motivated by power, greed and fear as much as by pure ideology. His interest in diplomacy seems motivated by the sense that one can probe, learn and possibly divide and influence countries and movements precisely because they are not monoliths. When speaking to me about Islamic extremism, for example, he repeatedly emphasized the diversity within the Islamic world, speaking of Arabs, Persians, Africans, Southeast Asians, Shiites and Sunnis, all of whom have their own interests and agendas.
Obama never uses the soaring language of Bush’s freedom agenda, preferring instead to talk about enhancing people’s economic prospects, civil society and—his key word—”dignity.” He rejects Bush’s obsession with elections and political rights, and argues that people’s aspirations are broader and more basic—including food, shelter, jobs. “Once these aspirations are met,” he told The New York Times’s James Traub, “it opens up space for the kind of democratic regimes we want.” This is a view of democratic development that is slow, organic and incremental, usually held by conservatives.
Obama talks admiringly of men like Dean Acheson, George Kennan and Reinhold Niebuhr, all of whom were imbued with a sense of the limits of idealism and American power to transform the world. “In his view of history, in his respect for tradition, in his skepticism that the world can be changed any way but very, very slowly, Obama is deeply conservative,” wrote Larissa MacFarquhar in her profile of him for The New Yorker. “There are moments when he sounds almost Burkean. He distrusts abstractions, generalizations, extrapolations, projections. It’s not just that he thinks revolutions are unlikely: he values continuity and stability for their own sake, sometimes even more than he values change for the good.”
…snip…
Ironically, the Republicans now seem to be the foreign-policy idealists, labeling countries as either good or evil, refusing to deal with nasty regimes, fixating on spreading democracy throughout the world and refusing to think in more historical and complex ways. “I don’t do nuance,” George W. Bush told many visitors to the White House in the years after 9/11. John McCain has had his differences with Bush, but not on this broad thrust of policy. Indeed it is McCain, the Republican, who has put forward some fanciful plans, arguing that America should establish a “League of Democracies,” expel Russia from the Group of Eight industrialized countries and exclude China from both groups as well.
The whole thing is worth the read. Cross-posted at SayUncle and TennesseeFree.
Most baseball fans have probably already seen this video, but it’s worth the watch if you haven’t:
But this makes me wonder: What is the rule here? Is there one at all?
UPDATE: In response to this very incident, a new rule was drafted: the pitcher must declare which hand he’s going to throw with first. The batter can then respond by declaring which side to hit from. Each may change sides once during the at-bat, but only after the first pitch is thrown, from the side originally declared by the pitcher. It’s worth noting that this is exactly the opposite of what our resident baseball expert digglahhh told us in comment #5.
I suppose I could look this up myself, but I’m lazy: Is it scored as a fielder’s choice any time when you have a double-play situation but only one out is made (sans an error), or only when the batter is the one who’s safe? I suspect it’s the latter, but I’m not sure.
Example 1: Runner on first, batter grounds to the shortstop, who throws to second, getting a force out. The second baseman chooses not to throw to first, or throws too late. Fielder’s choice, clearly.
Example 2: Runner on first, batter grounds to third. The runner gets a good jump and the third baseman isn’t sure he can get the throw to second in time, so he throws to first and gets the force there. My guess: Not fielder’s choice, just 5-3.
Discuss.
P.S.: I’m thinking of going to Huntsville this weekend to go see a Stars game. Has anyone been? Any thoughts what to expect?
Massachusetts is now in the process of repealing the racist and obsolete law that Mitt Romney invoked to continue to limit marriage rights for gays after the state legislature removed the overt bar to marriage in the law. Until now, gay couples - but not heterosexuals - could not get married in Massachusetts unless they were official residents of the state, as the result of an old Jim Crow law specifying that couples from out of state could not get married “if their marriage would be illegal in their home state” - a reference to anti-miscegenation laws in southern states. The Supreme Court has long since invalidated legal prohibitions on inter-racial marriage, and the law has never been invoked since then, but was never officially appealed repealed. When gays won the right to marriage equality, the existing anti-equality law was triggered again, so now the law only applies to gays. Romney and his right-wing supporters, happy for any form of discrimination they can still call their own, used it to prevent marriages for gay couples from other states. Now that MA has a decent governor again, they’re working to correct certain oversights.
Interestingly, the article implies (though perhaps not intentionally) that the legislature only acted after marriage equality was recognized in California without a discriminatory clause, and New York state announced it would recognize out of state marriages (ironically, without actually providing equality for in-state ones). That creates a huge pressure for New York couples to seek marriages in California or Canada, to claim equality back in New York. With full marriage equality available in Massachusetts, NY couples can get it done there much more easily than in California, representing a potential revenue stream of more than $100 million over just a few years’ time. Was MA really acting to end discrimination, or just jumping on a lucrative westward-bound bandwagon? Hard to say, but it underscores the dangers of leaving your liberties in other people’s hands.
Either way, great news, again, from Massachusetts. Step by step, state by state, one of the ugliest forms of open discrimination still remaining in this country fades into the growing trash heap of conservative history. Every day, hundreds of new legal gay couples are created, and thousands of people see their stupid fears and fantasies exploded by the simple, mundane reality of equality in their states, cities, and neighborhoods. By the time the planned hate amendment referendum comes up in California this winter, there will be tens of thousands of gay couples married and living in equality in that state - and California is not going to vote to forcibly divorce them all simply out of spite. The other states will follow suit, as their own citizens marry and demand recognition of their rights. With two states now actively offering to all citizens a form of legal equality that they can take back to their homes, there will be a flood of legally married gay couples across the country not merely challenging the legal discrimination they face, but forcing their neighbors to admit that it’s their own friends and family members they are hurting for no reason.
It’s over. The haters have lost, faster even than I imagined. The bigots are now doing nothing more than fighting a rear-guard action to see how long they can continue destroying at least some lives, somewhere. They’ll succeed in that - they’re good at it. Jim Crow taught them how to evade and undermine legal equality with a fierce and savage cunning, and they haven’t forgotten. If we don’t get a decent Supreme Court, it could be that the last state to hold out for discrimination could go for decades before giving up. But that’s all just trapped-animal raving. As far as the nation’s choice between equality and bigotry is concerned, and notwithstanding some early and painful victories by well-organized bigots, it’s over.
I have already noted how ignorant I am of geography. But this morning, on a whim, I started staring at a map of Europe, really paying attention to it for the first time in a long time, and I am aghast at how completely screwed up I am.
I had this vague mental map of Europe that I’ve been carrying around in my head, probably since high school (where, not coincidentally, they didn’t teach geography). It’s not like I haven’t seen real maps many times since then, but I never paid attention. And the few times I have tried to impress on myself the geography of a region - the Middle East, the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe - because it was relevant to some issue there, I have gotten only a distorted and out-of-context view of things. I have even lectured students on political geography (in a by-the-way, parenthetical manner - I would never set myself up as an expert on the subject) - sometimes with embarrassing results. And now when I actually look at the map, I am amazed at how wrong I was, and so uncomprehendingly, for so long.
I thought we were going to be spared the perennial Brett Favre retirement drama this year, but sadly that’s not going to happen. I’m a life long Packers fan, and I do love me some Favre, but it really is time for the team (and for Favre) to move on. So while I may be in the minority among Packers fans, I think the team is handling this very well. Even if he were to return, and they did let him start, this year would almost certainly be a disappointment — anything less than a return to the NFC Championship Game would be a letdown. It’s time for the team to move forward. I wish he’d retire gracefully.
Agree? Disagree? Don’t give a shit? This is the thread to discuss it.
