"If there’s a speech you remember from Stallone, it’s a surprisingly heartfelt"

Hadn't thought about that, but yeah... Stallone's Rambo is built around the monologue he gives to Col. Trautman.

Forgot to add that this would effectively mean that the Sox play without a DH all year, right :-p

I certainly appreciate the idea of trade-offs with certain rules; but I suspect that the Players Association would strike before ever letting pitchers to hit again, plus I'd expect them to balk (so to speak) at the perverse incentive of making Starters pitch even if they are out of gas possibly leading to more injuries.

That said, I *do* like the rule change requiring relievers to face minimum number of batters... I could see maybe trying some expansions around that ruleset.

We had 80yrs of inefficiency that made the game lively *and* HR friendly.

Since then we've seen batting averages drop 30 points, strikeouts/game go from 2.5 to 8.5 and walks go up by 1/game and HR go up 1/game. While the total runs per game is exactly the same at 4.39 (odd coincidence between 1920/2024 - but variance is low)

Which is just to say that we've optimized for Walks/Strikeouts/HR at the expense of putting balls in play.

One small bright side is that making the bases 3" larger increased stolen bases per game by 50%... which puts it on the higher side in the ebb/flow of SB over time.

That why I started with 'lower the mound' ... the biggest 'bad' trend in baseball is the Strikeout. The overall bad trend is fewer balls in play - which makes the game less interesting to watch... overall. But yes, HR are fun and if we lowered the mound without doing anything else? We'd get even more of them and more walks.

So... expand the parks, keep the ball lively and batted around the park more and lets see what happens.

Otherwise it's just the long march of Earl Weaver through the baseball institutions.

"That hitters were unwilling or unable to do that is part of the problem."

Should've lowered the mound instead.

Just not sure what to do with Three True Outcomes baseball. If I'm being serious and waving a magic wand? Need to make the ballparks bigger.

More ground to cover for fielders and fewer homeruns = more hits on contact... and if every ball can't be launched for a HR... then also lower the mound to address strikeouts. But, we all know what the chicks think about the longball.

But I do like the pitch clock and ending the OCD batter rituals.

Heh, I see what you're doing; it's funnier to play Chait saying this straight.

To be fair to David's original point, I expect the Tesla firebombers really have their shit together.

The guy from Inglorious Basterds was in there too?

Man, talk about bad OpSec.

Edit to add: On the plus side, can we all not stand back an appreciate how far we've come from an insecure home email server to using state of the art dual encryption?

Of all the random Jeff's in the world... they got the Editor in Chief of the Atlantic Jeff.

Talk about bad luck.

Came here to post that I never get invited to the cool group chats. Good for Jeffrey.

Thanks, hadn't seen that.

So the French Scientist was randomly selected for screening and the TSA (mis-)characterized them as "hate and conspiracy messages" that the FBI investigated and dropped?

Seems like shockingly bad luck and sub-optimal, yes. I'm at least a little curious whether they were orangeman bad memes or kinda unhinged hate speech that would get you arrested in the UK -per links above - by way of comparison.

The other example from Newsweek was:

"Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a physician at Brown Medicine in Rhode Island, held a "valid" H-1B visa when she was detained at Boston's Logan International Airport last week. She was returning to the U.S. following a trip to Lebanon to visit family. U.S. officials said she had photos of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, whose funeral she attended."

Seems potentially optimal... she wasn't randomly searched, but rather either the DHS knew she attended the funeral and barred her entry or she voluntarily said she attended the funeral (reporting isn't certain on either of these points) and her case was referred to DHS.

I will, however, adjust my priors one-tick to the left that 'maybe' this is something keeping an eye on to see if it's a real pattern emerges.

My baseline assumption is that it's related to Mahmoud Khalil... which strikes me as a bad comp for tourists; are there other instances I should be looking at?

Strikes me as odd because *in England* you can be arrested for what is posted on Facebook; but while visiting America there is no real or imagined risk of being 'deported' while on vacation for something you might have posted on Facebook that wouldn't get you arrested in England in the first place.

Specifically:
Communications Act (2003)
Online Safety Act (2023)

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127

The night before was 'The Incredibles' and was packed when we drove by (in our golf cart... which is something people do now -- in my day you took open sided Trams and liked it).

'Ways to be Wicked' is the opening to the Descendants 2 movie that cleared the room. Long Live Evil is more of a slogan, I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX6g_cm2rM4

This is a good way to put it; the Disney creative types kinda hate the Disney vibe.

Its funny, we were visiting my folks in FL and took an impromptu trip to Disney. We've been going to Fort Wilderness since 1973, and the new 'Cabins' are really nice for families. Anyhow, we went to the nightly Campfire where you roast marshmallows, sing songs, do the hokey pokey, and then watch a Disney movie. Pretty much the same thing since 1973.

The 'singer' is really a sort of stand-up act with corny G-rated jokes plus a few insiders for the Moms/Dads... actual Chip and Dale in costumes come up as props (my kids have no idea who Chip and Dale are). And everyone sings Country Roads and a bunch of other Americana. My 10yo boy laughed at the jokes, groaned at the puns, sang the songs and then did the big group hokey pokey (with Chip and Dale).

As I say, completely on-brand Disney lightly humorous Americana.

Then the Disney Movie started: Long Live Evil music video

Sure, the movie (Descendants 2) is a dreadful 'Saved by the Bell' quality tween drama, but dreadful cringe it is. Desperate to be cool and failing at every step. We left after act 1 (as did everyone else), but the drop off from 200 people dancing the hokey pokey with a 50yo guitar playing comedian? Couldn't be more clear when witnessed in person.

Anyhow, my 17yo daughter went to see Snow White last night with her friend because they like princesses and are a little ironic tuned; her friend is 'really' conservative (which, given us is, well, remarkable) so I'll get the 17yo conservative girl princess take when she gets back from work.

Worst CGI evah pic.twitter.com/X64KImLc9p

— Marchmaine (@Marchmaine) March 12, 2025

This is Ravenna and Belasarius erasure!

My personal pet peeve was 'Early Modern' starting in 1500 and going to 1800. Felt like it was leading the witness.

410 to 793 is about as long as I'd go for an 'era' ... 793 to 1071 is the Varangian era ... Vikings/Byzantium/Carolingians

At any rate, Empires coming and going have nothing to do with 'Darkness' and there's little to be 'learned' about Rome's fall in 476 - especially since it survived and thrived until 1453. In the 'Dark Ages', the dominant powers were Rome and Persia (and China)... and those darned Steppe Peoples. And...

In my forties: Expensive restaurants are playing my Jams!

YOU DON'T NEED A SIGNATURE TO RELEASE THE FILES

Ted Cruz furiously [CTRL-F / Replace] through the remaining documents...

Trump's final humiliation / gift.

No Jack Ruby, no conspiracy theories.

Dang it... here's the msn.com one that isn't paywalled.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/elections/this-is-why-kamala-harris-really-lost/ar-AA1B9iF3

Are we ready to relitigate why Harris lost the election?

David Shor and Vox are... Why Kamala Harris Really Lost

Here are two takeaways to give the Dems some hope (the others? not so much):
• Democrats’ most effective message in 2024 was an economically populist one.
• Donald Trump is leaning into the most unpopular parts of his agenda.

p.s. not sure if the link will work... google took me to msn.com but vox had it locked.

Hope and Change we can all rally around...

I'm not sure I follow. Are we now talking about the financial impact on all of education from Student Loans? I agree that the program has had unintended consequences on the entire Higher Education cost structure, but the relationship to Private/Public institutions is not linear. That is, student loans have increased the cost of all education. We could (and should) try to 'un-distort' the funding for Higher Ed. But, that way leads to unpacking assumptions about how the fundings is being used. Are we funding the Student to access all education opportunities, or are we funding institutions, or are we going to create two tiers of Education: one Publicly Funded and the one where the Good Jobs (tm) come from.