Ghost of LL

I think that’s the real interesting possibility. The prospect of being able to shoot down Russian fighters is probably something that would be pertinent to the interests of a lot of our fighter pilots.

This is entirely on Ryan Suter. Entirely.

I would say that he made a sojourn over to Caesars this morning and put some money on Vegas, but the truth is he just sucks.

Fuck you, Suter—it wasn’t enough to turn the puck over. You had to go skate to the slot and . . . stand there with your thumb up your ass whole a guy took a pass right next to you?

“Would you like to make it a double for $1?”

Yep. The Germans got to occupy the whole of Stalingrad. For a while.

Oooh—another Russian red line. Let’s see what happens when we step over this one. I bet nothing. Just like with the last one. And the one before that. And the one before that.

I hate these stupid caps so much.

The second period has been our kryptonite all through the playoffs. And so it’s nice to see us staying true to form.

That was far too adventurous.

This post aged well.

You mean the GOLL Full Employment Act of 2023? I mean, yeah--it's completely unconstitutional. But it's also incredibly vague. So in the time until the Texas Supreme Court strikes it down as unconstitutional, there's going to be a whole lot of litigation over what in the hell it means. And at least for my purposes, that's pretty fucking great.

I actually disagree with this. Texas has always been a one-party state. There's a good reason for that. For all the talk about how this is a free-enterprise, small-government state, it is really a very heavily regulated state. Some of that is a function of Texas' economy being heavily driven by resource extraction, which is heavily regulated by its nature. But another part of it is a holdover from the Progressive Era, when we thought regulation was good, and we never got rid of things like the Cosmotology Board. Regardless, it means that there are a bunch of industries that are heavily regulated. And those heavily regulated industries pay a lot of money into campaign contributions. And it's a whole lot cheaper to pay one party than it is to pay two. So when the Republicans took power from the Democrats in the late 1980s and early 90s, all of the money shifted from the Democrats to the Republicans. There really wasn't a minute when TAB and TXOGA and the like were contributing to both Democrats and Republicans. They want this to be a one-party state, and they pay a lot of money to keep it that way. And they don't care enough about the Republican Party to fight it if the Democrats ever start to regain power.

The fun thing is that vouchers would do the most damage to the MAGAts in Southlake that want it the most. If there are suddenly a bunch of kids going to private school instead of Southlake, two things happen: (1) Southlake's attendance drops, meaning its state funding drops, which means that its rankings go down, or (2) to forestall that from happening, Carroll ISD starts accepting a lot of transfers. In either event, the value of a house in Southlake goes down. If I am looking for a house in the Dallas suburbs, why would I possibly move to Southlake if the school district's rankings are shit? And if the school district is keeping its rankings/state funding up by accepting transfers, why would I pay a premium to move to Southlake when I can live in a neighboring burg and transfer into the school? Good job, MAGAts--you're about to nuke your own property values. Yes--you'd essentially be taking money directly from public school districts and giving it to private schools, some of which are for-profit enterprises. That is because state funding is based on attendance. So the more kids that opt out of the public school district, the lower the district's funding. As noted above, Chernow's biography of Grant is really very good.

Goddamnit--now I'm never going to be able to see that photo without seeing it as a freestanding set of prop pants with a pants-free MacArthur right behind.

Yeah--they're really close. They're separated by about one degree of latitude (35*N for Raleigh vs 36*N for Vegas, as I recall).

Actually, Vegas is farther north. it surprised me, too. But I was just having this very discussion with @Brisketexan and we googled that shit. BTW, Google really takes the fun out of a good barroom debate.

This is the first playoff series I can remember that we finished without ever really hating the opposing team or an opposing player. There was no Brian Marchment or Matt Dumba in this one. on the one hand, that’s refreshing to just watch hockey. On the other hand, it’s kinda boring.

Nice to see us continuing to maintain the initiative rather than sitting back and nursing the lead.

Finnish him!

No guys, no glory; No heroes, no story. Have a good evening, kids.

Oh, good--because Abbott always has so much success in special sessions. Was it the last Legislature or the 86th that gaveled itself out sine die within ten minutes of the beginning of the special because it wasn't going to do anything on Abbott's list? Because unless there's the budget left to do or something like that, I could see that happening again.

Oh, good--something to look forward to.

That’s what the trade deadline is for. The bullpen is the easiest thing to fix at the deadline.