CSI Lakeland: Rude drivers and Jessie Diggins

http://www.startribune.com/olympian-jessie-diggins-says-angry-driver-nearly-killed-her-as-she-roller-skied-near-afton/499157071/

15th S is down by the fire station, other end of the village from our shack.

Money quote: “just gave us that one good piece of sign language. … The sheer maliciousness of the encounter is stunning and so unusual for Afton.”

Meh, dont know about that…. Jessie has spent her 20’s away from home, and not gotten accustomed to traffic here as an adult. There certainly are dicks in SUVs being dicks rolling through town.

*** I’d not want to be this guy Frost right now

*** we’re pro Diggins here at the blog, cant get enough.

*** I graduated from Pony High with Coach Kris in ’87, knew her.

The potentiality of the straight A’s christian fundie on the debate team antagonizing the freaks on the debate team

His debate team was almost exactly like mine. Say 15 kids, at least one straight A Christian fundie, one future gay man, and one future butch lesbian. Sometimes more. Along with some other archtypeable personalities to round out the crew. Must be the way it is with HS debate teams.

http://www.startribune.com/new-scrutiny-of-doug-wardlow-keith-ellison-blasted-for-recorded-remark-as-ag-race-intensifies/498963631/

Not that there’s anything wrong with that…course. I don’t say ‘freaks’ or anything else pejoratively.

So Wardlow was his team’s straight A Christian fundie. In an ecosystem like that with some exotic personalities, I have seen some fundies be pretty nice and amiable… which is the right, sensible instinct. But he easily could have been a dick, there’s no overriding signal in this one.

Lets ask for the right things on ARs and split the baby

Synagogue shooter bought his guns legal retail, and I would not have anticipated anything else.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/30/us/ar15-gun-pittsburgh-shooting.html

Cuz I know as a matter of vocation that people who navigate the unregulated by comparison gunnie secondary market do so because they have cognitive skills that obviate them ever being mass shooters.

I still don’t say ban civilian ownership of the AR, but it needs to be removed from retail markets. My solution at the moment is, if you want to buy one, it gets delivered from the mfg to a gun club, where there a board of certified gun guys evaluates you to take delivery of it. Its a hoop to jump through, and if you can’t first approach the hoop and second explain yourself without being anti-social, you don’t get it.

This would work, such that over time you’d have less AR mass shootings. And its not too fantastic a regulatory apparatus. Would be constitutional the way Scalia and Thomas wrote Heller.  But its not the approach anyone in this country takes with respect to gun lawmaking, where we all still argue in terms of bans or anarchy. So no, its no going to happen this way, its anarchy for the foreseeable future.

I have no interest in how you Minneapolitans maintain your city, but

The Matty Yglesias in me thinks you got to allow houses to be built to adequately supply people who need a place to live at liquid rates. That includes allowing fourplexes and these high rises.

http://www.startribune.com/hundreds-show-up-to-sound-off-on-the-minneapolis-2040-comprehensive-plan/498968981/

So we are somewhat anti-nimby here at the blog.

Other thing that occurs to me as a high minded economic principle is you got to let developers build housing and profit is because it moves the obligation and risk of your housing initiatives off the city govt…. win win, developers wanting to build housing in your city is a sign of health.

Bert is not that easy on the ears…

…much as the lower info fans might like the idea that he’s there doing the broadcast.

I venture to say its because he doesn’t sound like a bright man. You can kind of hear senility down the road for him too. Though its faint, yet.

https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-sports/bert-blyleven-says-twins-fsn-want-him-to-broadcast-fewer-games

I like Smalley’s basic sensibilities, though he searches for words quite a bit times.

I relented before, but I relent again: there needs to be a higher bar, more hoops to jump through to get the AR pattern rifle

It’s always the AR at this point, and its too easy to get one with these otherwise clean record whack jobs buying it retail and then causing mayhem.

Whatever they want to do…. a training course, expanded background checks for the AR… This would be constitutional the way Scalia and Thomas wrote Heller.

We do need a Nixon going to China on this, and I have no idea who that would be.

Rich Hill can really crack off a deuce and thinks Trump should stay in his lane

Alas, the Dodgers did not win. It’s an embarrassment of riches for these Red Sox Itellya. I dislike them almost as much as I dislike the Yankees.

With video of the modern era you get to see a lot of superlative breaking balls and understand their action. Hill’s is actually the freakiest in the game, I think. I don’t know if he generates the most spin, but he probably does. He probably has the hardest spin in combination with a complete absence of gyro cement mixing… So you get this ball that has a shit ton of horizontal frisbee action. Now historically, the sideways breaking curveball has been a bad pitch as opposed to the downer curveball. To have bat missing pitch you generally want it to drop. But Hill has so much movement on this thing no one can put their bat on it.

https://twitter.com/PitchingNinja/status/1056339022841307145

Hes a good story generally, and a beneficiary of the analytics age…. he got unlearned of the old school notion ‘you have to establish your fastball’

Also sensible in other ways:

https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2018/10/28/players-respond-to-president-trumps-tweet-criticizing-dave-roberts/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2018/10/28/rich-hill-president-trump-dodgers-world-series/1802518002/

Me to my wife last night in the 9th inning: F, see that pitch from Sale slide? They call that a slider.

John Smoltz: what a slider from Sale

Me: Yeah, there’s no one in the world that could put their bat on that.

Smoltz: that’s an unhittable pitch

*** There’s this talk of Kershaw declining his player option like its a serious possibility. He’s a diminished entity, kids…. He’s old. He’s taking his guaranteed $30M a year money.

*** Golly David Price is an odd man. Looked irritated to be getting interviewed after the Sox WS victory.

*** Sandy Koufax looks great at age 82

The MAGAbomber absolutely is a Rush fanatic

The pre-occupation with Debbie Wasserman tells ya that.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/bomber-cesar-sayoc-is-trump-republican-extremism.html

The car with a gazillion political bumper stickers is absolutely a signal for this sort of… something. Our mayor down the street is like this.

All that said, such that Cesar is supposed to be emblematic of ‘the right’, I’m not convinced the right’s ecosystem fosters this more. The Bernie guy that shot up the Republican baseball team seems to have been forgotten awful fast.

Baldelli got hired b/c….

The Rays won 90 games last year with unsung talent, and its regarded that they managed this with new wavy things like ‘openers’ and managing their game to analytics…

And Baldelli was with Tampa Bay.

So, Twins want to do that.

I wouldn’t make Buxton or Sano a part of measuring Baldelli over the course of the next 3 years: http://www.startribune.com/all-analytics-aside-new-twins-manager-s-prime-task-hasn-t-changed-salvage-careers-of-byron-buxton-miguel-sano/498602281/ What will be, will be, with those guys.

Buxton has a bad swing and its doubtful that he can be ‘fixed’. He will end up a Carl Crawford type, he’ll play until he’s 36 and be a pretty useful player over that time, but he’ll never be a real hitter.

Sano will wash out by 4 seasons from now, maybe go to Japan.

Guys re-tooling their swings to have a career is possible. Greatest example at this moment is JD Martinez of the Red Sox. He got released by the Astros in the spring of 2014. He was a 3 year, 25 yr old MLB vet of modest accomplishment by then and Astros made their judgement, and cut him. He re-tooled his swing and now hes a $20M player.

The hockey name factor in this years MN elections

IE, Stauber and Housely.

Stauber will win, Housely might win.

They talk a lot about the 8th going red. And it very well might be such that they don’t find trans bathrooms rights and whatnot all that important up there. But I am struck that the Dems didn’t field a very good candidate in the 8th in Radinovich. You can’t win when you field bad candidates.

Now, I do think the NRCC ads up there against him are ridiculous such that… whatever they are trying to infer, that he owned a bong at a point and got traffic tickets in his 20s…. these are not things that should be disqualifying. It’s smeary / character assassination aimed at a knee jerk low info crowd.

But he is an inferior, flawed candidate, at least by comparison. He’s too young and undistinguished. And not that graduating from Mac and running 2 winning campaigns for meaningful offices and having been a rep himself isn’t ‘not having done anything’. He’s obviously earnest and has energy. But this is all DFL political nerd stuff, and its wanting in comparison to Stauber having been a pro hockey player and police officer and county commissioner and now being 52 and very distinguished looking.

I don’t make the rules, that’s just the way it is. Stauber is a way better candidate, and he’s going to win. I guess I’m surprised that it fell to Radinovich to try and win the seat with Nolan retiring, that he was the next in line, that they didn’t have their own guy that was say 45 and had built a name for something. Maybe the range DFL does have an empty cradle say.

So… Smith / Housely will be close. Ya figure Smith has an edge but you sense no energy out there for her. Thing is if the 8th goes for hockey Stauber it also goes for hockey Housely (… who I don’t think is qualified, but she is an appealing candidate in her way…). Contemplate the coattail action there, I’m saying….. like if we’re waiting for the 8th to come in on election night to determine Smith / Housely.