SL Xpress

I love Scheffler and the way he represents. But all I can think when I see that is, "Nobody gets a crowd fired up quite like a golfer!"

And then the guy turns around a day or two later and picks Georgia 38-35 on his live show. But yeah, I really enjoyed that segment. Georgia has been talented enough they don't hide their coverages as much as OU did last Saturday. But this year they don't get to the passer as well and they've had breakdowns in the secondary. I'm not saying they're terrible on defense, because they're not. But they haven't been as dominating as the Georgia defenses in the past. What they haven't done as well this year is play with good eye discipline - which of course, is one of Sarkisian's strengths with his offense. Objectively, without even commenting on Saturday's game, they really need to be able to pressure the QB better. That's true for the rest of their games this year, too. I've seen Georgia fans poo poo the threat of Ewers because he doesn't beat teams with his feet, the way, say, Jalen Milroe does. And that's completely fair. "Honestly, I'd be more concerned if Manning were the QB," says ignorant biased homer Georgia fan. Of which there are thousands with their own fucking internet show. I had no idea so many hayseeds in rural Georgia even had access to the internet, much less the wherewithal to stick a camera in their face and record their hot air thoughts about the upcoming game. But I have no room to criticize. I'm the one watching. At least for a minute or two until I'm so tired of attempting to decipher their broken English and the youtube automated subtitles are just printing, "I give up." Ewers is at his most dangerous outside of the pocket in ways someone like Milroe isn't because he's elite at keeping his eyes downfield, he has an uber quick release, he's extremely accurate on the run. Also, he's not stuck in concrete. He can get a first down every now and then with his legs. He's just not looking to run the ball like someone such as Milroe or OU's Hawkins is the first sign of trouble. He's looking to get the ball downfield to one of his very talented receivers. The closer this game gets the more and more I want a beatdown over these ignorant fucks. I'll take a win. But I really want to see Georgia and SEC fans entering the same kind of soul searching I've seen out of Sooner fans. They're on the precipice. You can just see it. We just need to push them the rest of the way over the cliff. An exciting game like Oregon-Ohio State or Georgia-Alabama isn't going to do that. I respect the program Kirby Smart and his bag men built at Georgia pre-NIL too much to say that's going to happen for sure. But that's what I'm wishing for.

I think OU is coached better on defense. Which is not really a knock on Georgia. Venables cut his teeth playing and coaching under Snyder, then coaching under Stoops, and then being the highest paid assistant in college football for years under Sweeney during Clemson's peak years. Venables is going to field really good defenses. People being dismissive of OU (and that's not anyone I see on here, that's media types trying to discount UT's performance) don't know what they're talking about. Georgia still has a lot of NFL talent on that defense, and Kirby Smart is a very good defensive mind. I just think Venables is an even better defensive mind.

The SEC chant by Texas fans in Tuscaloosa after the Alabama game was out of reach is a highlight for me as a fan. The kicker being we weren't actually in the SEC at the time. I like sarcastic SEC chants. I don't like it when we're celebrating the entrance to the SEC and the athletic director starts it from stage with a microphone in his hand, but what are you going to do? That's going to happen, and people are going to join in. But I don't like it even a little bit.

The internet is going to speculate he'll announce Arch Manning is entering the transfer portal.

What I sense is that there's a difference between college sports shows kind of centered in the south, versus sports shows on the coasts or Midwest. Texas gets the benefit of the doubt outside of the south because they've just played better so far, even against lesser competition. So you see Klatt, or Cowherd, Eisner, or some of the national betting guys taking Texas. Sports shows centered around the SEC give that same benefit of the doubt to Georgia, because they're still questioning whether Texas is really SEC ready. Also, I consistently detect a little rooting interest against the newcomers. It's often combined with "a great deal of respect for Sarkisian as a playcaller" from his days at Alabama, but Texas as a football program and fan base deserves to be handed some humble pie in some regard, and there's a hope that Georgia as the flag bearer for SEC dominance is just the program needed to deliver it. Gerry Hamilton made a great point (as he so often does) that the Georgia game is less of a threat in certain ways because the players are going to be so amped up for it. It's the Vanderbilt game in Nashville the next week that he's pointing to for a potential Texas letdown. But we have to get there, first.

Fuck all of them. I hate the SEC and I hope the SEC hates us back. I'm glad to be a part of the conference. In many ways I'll admit we needed them more than they needed us. College football is now going to be centered around the Big 10 and the SEC in all kinds of ways, and without a membership in one of those two conferences we wouldn't have a seat at the table. But I'm glad we didn't join this collection of hillbillies sooner. I've watched/listened to so many SEC centered internet shows over the last two years, and you can just feel the sense that we're outsiders oozing out of everyone. And it's not the same kind of outsider vibe a school like Missouri gets, because they're not really seen as a threat. Or A&M, which everyone understands is just a little different, even if like the Aggies love to brag about, no one really understands why. We do, but they don't. There's a sense we just think we're better than everyone else - which we do - without really deserving to feel that way - as if that has ever really mattered to us. There's also a sense there's something inherently wrong with the football program that we've underachieved for so long. People love to bring that up over and over again. Not just SEC fans. Big 12 fans loved to do it. College football fans loved to do it. If you don't have the right coach all the resources in the world aren't going to help you. And if you do have the right coach, sometimes they can make a huge difference in not having as much resources as everyone else. We have never had a coach we fired or forced to resign go on to great success anywhere else. Not Akers. Not McWilliams (who never went back into coaching). Not Mackovic. Not Brown. Not Strong. Herman is still a little bit up in the air, but I'm hoping for his abject failure as well. We've made bad hires. That's it. Now, some of that can be blamed on the hiring process, but I've seen completely borked hiring processes manage to get the right guy. Pete Carroll at USC is my biggest example of that. But you have to get the right guy, and we haven't on a regular basis. That's it. That's the issue. In any case, I'm going to enjoy thoroughly being the heel in this conference in a way this conference has never seen. Not Florida with Spurrier. Not Alabama. Not Georgia. Because we literally think we're better than all these other cocksuckers, and that's going to rub people the wrong way the same way it always has. Especially when we win big. I'm going to enjoy all the discounting so much. But we have to win, and eventually we have to win a national title. I just like the general direction the program is heading in under Sarkisian. Regardless of the outcome of this particular game, which I do think we're going to win.

Texas still isn't ready for the SEC. The SEC is just having a down year.

It's an interview from the Dallas Morning News. It came up in my feed two days ago because of the Geogia game this Saturday. It's an awesome interview. I think about Blake Gideon missing that interception against Texas Tech all the time. He's put that past him and is on the coaching staff. I think of Curry's dropped punt as way less egregious, since he shouldn't have even been out there in the first place. That was as much on Akers as Curry himself. Probably more so. But even if Curry could get to a point of not blaming himself - which as a human being he deserves to get to - as a fan it was such a heartbreak. I still wish that Texas team could have played that Nebraska team instead of Miami. Also, regardless of whatever else Osborne did or didn't do as the leader of the Nebraska football team, I'll always admire he went for two at the end of that championship game instead of kicking the extra point. It was the right thing to do, but coaches like Parseghian didn't have enough competitive integrity to do it. Anyway, the DMN article is behind a paywall but I found a free version of it I'll copy/paste here. It was written in 2005 reflecting in part on what it would mean for the team to win a national championship that season, which as we all know they did in the most exciting football game ever played. I felt like it was a great read. Thanks for bringing it up.

We have our own Georgia moment. We're currently 4-1 against them. The .800 winning percentage is the highest winning percentage against the program from anyone who has played at least 5 games against the Bulldogs. But, man. That one loss. Man.

There's some fishes and loaves and women with loose moral standards somewhere in there, too. And yes. I can delightfully hear the Aggies' plaintive cries of, "See? See? We TOLD you how horrible they are!"

It would tickle me to no end to hear SEC bots talk about how the SEC is down over the next few years if Texas can manage to dominate the conference. Fuck those guys.

How much economics have you studied? You can argue the blanket statement as much as you want. You are certainly entitled to your opinion. But in this case your opinion is wrong. Talking about something as inflationary doesn't mean it's inherently bad. Spending money on something that isn't meant to be consumed or assist in making other goods and services is inflationary. The fact that it helps all that other stuff continue to occur is salient.

But the output itself does not. I am not making an argument countries should reduce their military spending. In fact, I am of the opinion we are not spending enough on our conventional forces right now. I am particularly biased towards the Navy, which is the key to our projection of power. Which sounds absurd given how much our spending dwarfs everyone else, and how much of the national budget consists of defense spending. But it's still my point of view. Nonetheless, regardless of all the wonderful benefits of spending money on our defense industry, there are opportunity costs, and one of the overall costs is that defense spending is inherently inflationary. It's just that at 4% of GDP the inflationary contribution is negligible in ways that at 41% of GDP it is not.

Sure, and the fact that the US has the most powerful military with the most robust projection of force in the history of the world helps in regards to having the world's reserve currency and subsidizes the cost of our debt. There are tremendous financial advantages to being stronger militarily than our neighbors. It's the equivalent of other countries offering us tribute for our protection. Everyone sells us goods, and then either keeps the dollars they earn as a reserve currency, or agrees to buy our debt (and our assets) so that we can continue to enjoy a standard of living we're not currently actually producing enough goods and services that other countries want to pay for it. But Russia doesn't have that advantage. And it still doesn't make an effective counterpoint that spending on the military is inherently inflationary. It is. Just to review, the article was specifically about how Russia's economy is spiraling into a hyperinflationary economy. They list a bunch of reasons why spending 41% of their GDP on their military is helping to create that issue. My basic point is that the military spending by itself is also inherently inflationary. The US's ability to parlay our military might into advantageous economic relationships via both our friends and foes does not apply to Russia in the same way, especially as they're subject to severe sanctions by most of the developed world, and are mired in a battle of attrition for assets in the Donbas that aren't currently of a great deal of economic value, since in order to take control of them Russia has to obliterate them first.

Military expenditures can increase productivity indirectly. Talking about military expenditures being inherently inflationary refers to military items themselves not contributing to an increase in productivity. An aircraft carrier is not going to make the economy more productive. A trebuchet is not going to make the economy more productive. Which is not to say the resources shouldn't be spent on those items. But it is an inherently inflationary investment. I would argue that in the US, military investment is basically our only national investment in manufacturing at this point, in ways that I would argue are critical for our long term economic output. But that still doesn't change the concept of military expenditures as being inherently inflationary. But yes, all kinds of advancements have come from military investment. Mainframe computers simply being one in a long long list, going back to the dawn of mankind. I will say that often it's because military use can demand the expenditure of resources because of its existential nature that the same civilian R&D would not. Not to mention humans are galvanized in a different way when faced with extraordinary circumstances. Then there's the simple fact that if one tribe invests in their military and the neighboring tribe invests in their civilian economy, history shows that the tribe that invests in their military simply takes over their neighbor, in which case we can wonder how much of a consolation it is for the latter tribe that they invested in the less inherently inflationary activity.

That's exactly my point. You and I are on the same page. And that's the problem. 1) In my view along a long enough timeline nuclear weapons will eventually be used 2) The fewer countries that have the capability of using them, the better, with the ideal being zero, second best being one or two, depending on whether you agree having two nuclear adversaries is better than one country having a monopoly. I lean in favor of one, but there are legitimate arguments for two. I'm just not going to go down that rabbit hole. Mind you, we're talking existential terms, so whether the country with all the nukes is benevolent or comic book villain evil is less important than the fact they're less likely to end the human race if they're the only ones with the weapons, at least for the sake of the discussion I'm engaging in. The more countries that possess them after one or two, the greater the likelihood they'll be used. 3) To have fewer countries possess nuclear weapons, there have to be incentives for them not to possess them. The incentives must be greater than the current incentives to possess them. Right now the incentives for giving up nuclear weapons are not aligned with my goal of having fewer countries possessing them. For example, North Korea and Iran have both faced severe sanctions and isolation to give up their nuclear weapons programs, but possessing them and suffering the consequences are weighed against what has happened to Ukraine, which has had their country torn apart, first through subterfuge and then by direct invasion. Something that would have been given pause on some level if the threat of nukes had existed. So securing a country's sovereignty even after they give up nukes is paramount, but also making the consequences of keeping them has to be elevated to an existential level to some degree, otherwise the incentives to give them up fall short.

I get that often.

He has that Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers look to him.

Well, in my ideal world the consequences would be as severe as necessary, including annihilation, if that's what it took. I feel like the threat from nuclear weapons - specifically ICBMs - and their eventual use is that dangerous and existential. I would argue if the US chose to be the only country to keep their nukes the rest of the world should band together to completely isolate us. But if they can't be eliminated entirely - which they can't - then certainly the fewer countries that have them the better, and the odds increase for the species' survival without suffering through a nuclear holocaust. My view is not based on a 10 year, 20 year, 50 year, or 80 year timeline. In many ways the build up of nuclear arsenals has done the world a lot of good. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but it's a mixed bag and it's certainly been THE key factor in preventing a worldwide conflagration the likes of which we saw during WWII. But over a 100 year, 200 year, 500 year time span I view the use of nuclear weapons inevitable unless the consequences for possessing them are much more severe than they currently are. We have our incentivization for the collective species reversed, where our tribes are encouraged to possess nuclear weapons because of a demonstrable security and stability for our nation states. For the species as a whole that incentivization should be the other way, to whatever degree is necessary. But this is fanciful blathering on my part. I'm posting on a message board anonymously. If I was secretary of state or a foreign minister somewhere I would have to mend my message in many ways. I still think the core of it is compelling on some level - that along a long enough time line the use of nuclear weapons is inevitable, and nuclear proliferation is a much more serious, important, and existential issue than we choose to collectively acknowledge, with Ukraine a key test case for why any efforts at reversing the trend will end in failure - and I wish the public dialogue reflected that. Not that it's absent, but it's not as draconian as I'd prefer. We're not really geared as a species to be fully pro active. We need a catastrophe to galvanize us in a specific direction, because without it, being proactive can feel like a waste of collective effort to significant portions of the population. Even a catastrophe can produce mixed reactions, so it often has to be really bad to truly galvanize an entire community. "The party doesn't end unless it ends badly." So maybe there's a limited nuclear war somewhere - e.g. Pakistan and India - and that shifts the thinking into a much more radical perspective without ending the species and/or life on the planet. I'm not hoping for it, mind you. Frankly, I'm hoping we help Ukraine win this war and they win their sovereignty from Russia, and Russia pays a huge price for their invasion. I don't think that makes nation states reconsider their level of safety even without nuclear weapons, but the better Ukraine does, the less empty the Budapest memorandum seems. To me at least. It's unconscionable to me that Ukraine is being punished so severely for handing over their nuclear weapons. It's heading in the exact opposite direction we should be as a species.

I would add that military spending by its nature is inherently inflationary because it does not add directly to greater productivity. It does add to greater productivity indirectly, but the same amount spent on military R&D and manufacturing versus civilian R&D, manufacturing and infrastructure should increase the latter economy more, all other things being equal. The only way for something akin to 41% spending on military to pay for itself is to take over the productive capacity or at the least leverage tribute from countries scared of the possible use of that military. But it's tough to make that work. Especially at those levels. And certainly Russia isn't successfully doing anything remotely like that. And at whatever time those military conquests and/or tribute payments stop or slow down, the whole mechanism falls apart. But Russia can skip the stop or slow down part and go directly to the fall apart aspect of it. But as long as other countries are assisting in a blowback to US hegemony, Russia can at least forestall the collapse to the extent that the other countries are helping. Obviously I'm thinking about China specifically. I just don't believe China has a blank check they're willing to give Russia. They're more like a loan shark looking to divvy up Russia's most productive assets to become a sort of long term vassal state than some kind of actual ally. And Iran and North Korea have their own significant economic issues. Maybe enough central and eastern European countries enter firmly into Russia's orbit as sympathetic political actors? But I don't believe that will happen, either. Many of the election results are worrying to me, but just because in countries like Austria the far right has gained a pluralistic majority, and the political philosophy continues to gain steam in many places, we're still a long ways off from those countries offering direct support. It's more like they become obstacles for putting more pressure on Russia and gum up the works in assisting Ukraine as a bloc. Which is important, but not helpful regarding Russia's inherent inflationary issues.

All I know is that given a long enough timeline nukes are going to be used someday given the level of proliferation and the fact that some people would rather destroy a thing if they can't have it. At this point it's an 80 year old technology, with enough widespread knowledge about how to create one. It just requires a lot of infrastructure to make enough of them to be a real deterrent more so than simply the biggest and most spectacular suicide bomb ever. There just needs to be some level of concurrence between such a personality having control over nuclear weapons and the people around them buying into their leadership, and then a set of circumstances where they'd rather blow up the world or at least some part of it damn the consequences. We're in a collective willful suspension of disbelief regarding this. Along with being hopeful maybe as a species we'll hold off until after we're all gone and then it can be somebody else's problem. I don't really believe it will be Putin, but it's going to be someone, so maybe it ends up being him. If we were truly serious as a species about preventing their use, the consequences for possessing them would be much more severe. Instead there are more countries than ever that possess them, and I don't believe the number is going to go down any time soon. Especially with the lesson learned from Ukraine. "Here, give us the nuclear weapons you currently possess, and in return we'll give you this piece of paper where several of us make very serious assurances about your sovereignty. We'll even pinky swear."

I feel like it's become a litmus test issue for which tribe we belong in, whether we want it to or not. I feel like I'm inherently accused of being transphobic if I don't believe transgender women should be competing in women's sports. I guess if that's part of the definition, then I am. I like your point about men being the open competition. If a woman is able to compete equally with men then by all means, she should be able to do so. I don't think the problem is as much about whether she's permitted to. It's about she's not able to compete athletically with the men, so there's a separate category created for women so there can be a more competitive footing among their peers. In theory the idea of a more nuanced categorization that isn't completely binary can have some appeal, but in practice it becomes too subjective and people get into arguments about what subjective measurement is the ideal. It's simpler to say if you're born a woman you can compete against other women. If you're not, then you're not. Absolutely there are plenty of transgender women who will not dominate their biological counterparts in athletic endeavors, but all it takes is one, unfortunately, for the whole thing to feel unfair for people who were women at birth. To me it feels unfair for transgender women not to be able to participate in sports when that's such an important part of our existence. But it's also unfair in my opinion for women to compete against transgender women, when the whole purpose of having women's sports in the first place was to give them an exclusivity because of the acknowledgement that it would not be a fair competition to introduce men into the equation. It's my belief if you break the seal and say it's okay for transgender women to compete under certain circumstances it can be difficult to actually argue that arbitrary line, whereas if you make the line whether someone is born as a woman or not, the line seems as clear cut as it's going to get.

I do not believe Syria will ever have a democracy in my lifetime, any more than I feel Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain, or any number of other Arab Spring countries. I feel like it's silly to aspire to. I had high hopes for Tunisia, but they've been dashed. First there would need to be some kind of reinterpretation of the Koran. I don't think that's achievable accept in an authoritarian state with a single ruler who can help encourage a clerical school of thought more amenable to democracy. Or there would need to be a completely secular rule a la Kemal style with the military in charge of bringing about a coup any time the Islamists take power. But a grass roots democratic movement is doomed to be taken over by Islamists who mandate the application and enforcement of Sharia law. I always felt it was a massive mistake to declare establishing democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq as chief aims of those wars. I don't even think of it as pessimism, although I understand why someone else would see it that way. The Palestinians were displaced. It's seen as an injustice in the Arab and Pan Muslim world. More than that, it's not just seen as an injustice, but as a symbol of the Muslim world's impotence that they haven't been able to do anything about it. If only they were ruled by a Caliphate under a united banner. There will always be plenty of aspirants for that position.

This cheering on of the end of Hezbollah reminds me of George Bush parachuting onto the Abraham Lincoln. I understand Hezbollah's operations have been crippled, but the foundational motivations of the organization haven't changed. Whether it's the PLA, Hamas, Hezbollah, or various entities in the Muslim world - including heads of state - who want to take power in part by identifying with the jihad to throw Israelis out of Palestine, the struggle will continue. It's been an impressive series of attacks on the Hezbollah organizational structure, though, from an organizational perspective. Obviously the civilian deaths are going to be unacceptable to a lot of people, but Israel is continuing to show that's a consideration they're willing to overcome. Repeatedly.