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Mole

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Everything posted by Mole

  1. There's a good case that the Bible supports something like the pro-life position. You can apply biblical principals to the abortion issue and reasonably end up with a pro-life view. But you have to make the case for it -- it isn't plainly there. There's no need to make a case about treatment of immigrants; it's explicit and addressed repeatedly. Poor treatment of the poor and immigrants is in direct violation of God's repeated and explicit commands as presented throughout the Bible. There's no getting around it. I'm personally pro-life in the sense that I think we should reorient our culture to be more pro-life. The fact that women are in circumstances where an abortion seems like the wisest choice reflects a far greater cultural sin -- one that we all bear -- than the fact that she chooses to terminate the pregnancy. The fact that girls are in positions where it's even a question is even more grave of a sin that falls on all of us. That Brazilian case is pure degeneracy. The Catholic Church can't support that and maintain any moral authority. Jesus said something about tying up heavy burdens and not being willing to lift a finger. This seems pretty applicable in these discussions.
  2. Harden cracks me up in this one.
  3. Mole

    Tinnitus

    For anyone reading without tinnitus, they make musician’s earplugs that are relatively cheap. They make things softer but it still sounds relatively normal. You get over any weirdness with them pretty quickly. Get a pair, get a little holder for your keychain so that you always have them, and use them in any questionable environment. For shooting or other really loud stuff, use something a little more heavy duty, but at least you’ll always have something on hand.
  4. The field team is said to lack a great big. I submit Moses Malone.
  5. Depending on the parameters, Kareem was also a number one pick. If you give me Magic, Kareem, Hakeem, and LBJ, I think I’d win even if my fifth was Squeaky Melchiorre shaving points.
  6. I have no interest in a decade-old beef about the 4th amendment and vaguely misogynistic vehicle smack talk, but I’d love a thread with just VAPA, Grendal, and Randolph Duke all talking past each other. Maybe a future podcast idea?
  7. I’m already tired of the phrase “build your brand.”
  8. I’ve worked at institutions that largely dropped the term freshmen for more practical reasons. Since freshman, sophomore, etc. are often established by credit hours, it gets complicated these days. An incoming “freshman” with 30+ hours is somewhat common, so some designation that this is their 1st time in college is handy. TCU doesn’t seem to be doing this for this reason, but abandoning the term freshman isn’t all that new. Secondly, language and mores change with each generation. This isn’t even a small harbinger of some coming decline. It’s just a small change at a single institution. Your parents and grandparents thought the same way about the stupid ways you talk, as did their elders about them. You get old and complain about change. That’s life. Third, since this touches on the culture war, I predict that if this thread gains enough interest to reach page five, it’ll be necessarily moved to the cloak room.
  9. I’m sure the 1st person to suggest cooking their food rather than gnawing on the rotting carcass was roundly mocked, but now we have the Steel Shank thread. Advancement will ruffle some feathers but the payoff is huge. I’m well aware that my approach will likely never be popular. Starting with the standard rather than the number of teams is the only objective and truly fair way to do it. Every other method is just giving a trophy to the team that won the last game on the calendar. That’s no real test of a champion.
  10. In hindsight, she should have called 911 to alert dispatch that she believed a lunatic impersonating a public servant was trying to pull her over and to late them know she was going to wait until she found somewhere safe.
  11. If you want to watch highlights on their webpage, you have to sit through a 20 ad just to watch a 15 second clip, then another ad before the next play, etc. If you’re on a computer, good luck finding the standings or even the scores you want. But you’ll find plenty of Stephen A hot takes.
  12. If you want to get mad, check the Reddit cop threads. “Don’t flee the police” is the common refrain. Is the dishonesty self-selection or training? Why can’t they see that this stuff makes their job harder?
  13. I hope all those 2nd place trophies and romanticized mediocrity was worth the generations of suffering caused by the silence.
  14. This feels like another iteration of the HCQ discussions of last summer.
  15. All this discussion of Critical Race Theory in schools, and I’m still stuck on the definition of “is being taught.”
  16. The Rose vote was fan vote, so the moron was the royal us.
  17. I have no interest in anything Herbstreit says or does, but a late night trip to Skyline is one of life’s special pleasures that should be celebrated.
  18. Since Bird and Magic won titles as young pros in the early 80s, very few players have been the main guy on their team and won a title before age 27. Using Finals MVP as a proxy for being the guy on a championship team (with a few exceptions like the Warriors first run): Steph was 26 (didn’t win Finals MVP but obviously was the main star). DWade was 24, but he also had a hobbling Shaq. Duncan was 22 but had an aging superstar teammate and a well constructed team. Same with Kawhi. Tony Parker was 24 when he won the Finals MVP, but it was obviously TD’s team. Dumars was 25, but it was Zeke’s team, who was 27. Then you have Magic and Bird who did it young. Jordan, LBJ, Hakeem, Shaq, KD, Dirk, Zeke, all couldn’t win the big one until they were at least 27. Kobe didn’t do it without Shaq until he was 30. So in the last 35 years, the only guys who were led their team to a title before age 27 were Steph, DWade, and the Spurs.
  19. Could be, but my guess is that in about five years, we’ll be hearing about how these guys don’t have what it takes to be the guy either. Then, one or two will distinguish themselves in their late 20s. Great young players are exciting, but we get impatient and expect them to figure it out more quickly than it realistically takes. Early 20s stars can turn into mid 20s regular season MVPs who don’t seem to have it in the playoffs. Then some of them figure it out (and get great teammates) and we forget all of the questions.
  20. I brought MJ into this as the extreme example of what we so often see. In hindsight, MJ is some kind of otherworldly champion, but at 26, his reputation was that of a stat stuffer who couldn’t get past the great teams of his era. That was the MJ of my youth, not the guy who would surely will his team to victory. Dirk’s clutch play in contrast with LBJ disappearing in the 4th quarter was Lebron’s legacy until it wasn’t. Now he’s maybe the second best ever; then he was a superstar but also a punchline to lots of jokes. At 26, KD’s Thunder choked away a 3-1 lead. Now he’s an unstoppable force. He’s coming off a career-ending injury, just lost his MVP-winning #2 teammate, and it doesn’t seem to matter. The criticisms of Giannis, which are fair right now, could be tweaked and made of many all-time great superstars at the same age. We forget how young 26 is in NBA terms. I make the MJ, KD, LBJ comparisons only because there’s a reasonable chance that Giannis will be the guy after the decline of KD. Maybe he’ll instead be the guy who’s not quite good enough, but he’s a pretty reasonable candidate for the next unstoppable force — and we shouldn’t be surprised that he’s not that guy quite yet. There’s varying levels of greatness among MJ, LBJ, and KD, but the comparison seems apt for a guy who doesn’t seem to be quite there yet. Maybe they were closer, but they weren’t there either.
  21. These are all fair points, as is the the question about how his game works in the modern NBA during the playoffs, but mid-20s superstars having holes in their games and questions about whether or not they can lead a team to a title is a pretty common story. My guess is that in 2031, we’ll all be wondering why we’d ever ask such questions, but maybe he’ll never put it all together and KD’s NBA will be followed by the pasty Euro era a few years ahead of schedule.
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