On Paul Skenes, on mlb dot tv, as I speak

He’s no hit the cubs through 5 with like 10 Ks. I tuned in during the 4th.

• Sitting 99 but throwing a buttload of ‘offspeed’ (for him) pitches, which was surprising to me.
• It has a way of looking like easy gas, but he’s such a big physical man that that’s max effort.
• It’s 99 and he gets more than a K an inning but the ball doesn’t really ride the way I see it. Curls armside ie its a sinker. Really does when he splits his grip and lets off for it to be merely 95.
• Very low release for what you type as an overhand-ish righty. There’s a type of hard throwing righty who does it this way though, Walter Johnson being one and then Drysdale. Also want to say, its a little bit of a Dominican style of pushing the ball.
• Pitching geeks would look for the up pointed elbow here. I’m not seeing it, though he has a ton of whip action ie torso / arm separation.
• Gyro slider. A bit of drop and some but not a lot of horizontal bite.

Yeah he’s good.

I’m back to, “it happens at the convention”

My formative experience with wishcasting the defeat of a Dem President was Obama v Romney. There, I was in embrace of several mistaken ideas. Along with "unskewed polls", biggest thing I think was I thought the electorate would reject Barack Obama such that he’;d been revealed fairly lefty in office.

That was all dumb and naive and without wisdom. One of the north stars you gotta understand in election predicting is it’s very hard to beat an incumbent POTUS doing adequately well in a 50/50 nation. Ideology isn’t that big a deal.

So, "doing adequately well"…. Joe Biden isn’t that man. Even with "Stormy" on the other side. Does Joe Biden know that? or Jill? IDK, probably not. But I still feel like the inevitability of a loss is so apparent that you bow out at the convention. Golly, you don’t run for re-election to lose to DJT if you can foresee that. You let someone else do it.

Anyway, yeah, also think it’s the inflation, stupid. First. Then the other issues after.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/why-joe-biden-is-trailing-the-election-polls-to-donald-trump.html

Now, MattY et al here would go… BUT BUT BUT but DJT’s policies will make inflation worse…..

Yeah, maybe. But that’s not in the mix in a binary voting choice.

Anyway, it’s the the $ printing yo. I’d seen this original Bernstein thing 10 days ago or so…

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/05/we-are-screwed.php

…and was moved to think… mm yeah. This guy is fairly unquestionably a smart guy a few clicks smarter than me and he has less of a handle on it. Now, duh… he could understand this if he put in the time. It’s just that it doesn’t matter in his world. The nature of money creation in this country is not something they worry about.

Where am I going with this…. I think it’s worrisome. I think that’s where the inflation comes from, the money printing.

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/082515/who-decides-when-print-money-us.asp

I had the briefest if well intentioned twitter exchanges on this with a guy who was tut tutting the fiat money aspect of federal govt spending. I said "Fed is just buying govt bonds now and printing the money to do it, been that way for a while." He said, "No, the debt is all sold on the public bond market." Yeah, I could be wrong there. But QE, in place for what 15 years now, buys the bonds from bondholders so the bondholders can go buy new bonds.

It’s still hokey, and still inflationary.

Latz feels strongly, deux

I’ll say it was 2 weekends ago my eldest and I were doing this and that in the driveway working on cars and we got doorknocked by a DFL volunteer working for one of 3 DFLers vying for the district house seat (which is R held).

65 yo oor so lady. So I have things to say right. But I told her I wasn’t scary, cuz, I’m effing self conscious of that… and have an affection for the idea of a Rooseveltian "DFL", would never vote for Trump, but am conservative in temperament. Gave her some things on my list over ten minutes.

I didn’t dwell on guns, but it’s something I know about, so I riffed briefly about the perils of bad lawmaking there and its passage with caucus whipping in a 1 vote majority in the state senate. My bemusement, I guess, is what you can whip the caucus on for trash bills and not have anybody object out of lawmaking or ideological principle… buncha people blindly letting Erin Murphy tell them how to vote. Like, at what point does someone use their testicles ancd vote how they see fit. And, ya know, this being a personal evaluation of however much standing and political capital whoever this person is has got, and their constituency and what they want, etc.

So, caucus whipping vs voting for your consistency.

It’s one guy in the DFL who will do that, and it’s Ron Latz on landlords accepting section 8 applicants, and say mainteneance of a freedom of association pricniple there. https://www.minnpost.com/state-government/2024/05/dfl-housing-leaders-call-out-latz-over-his-opposition-to-requiring-landlords-to-accept-housing-vouchers/

Yeah in principle the blog agrees. You shouldnt be compelled to take housing voucher applicants.

Whatevs though. It’s a minor irony here, Latz is not anything close to a conservative. Though, protecting a free market principle of freedom of association in contracting is a free market principle being conserved.

https://zingyskywaylunch.wordpress.com/2023/11/30/latz-feels-strongly/

I told the doorknocker they spent way too much money, wastefully. her answer was, ya know, there was a lengthy build up of needs… Yeah, meh.

I was resigned my guy would hate these

And that I’d have to refund him $200.

How about that, he don’t hate em. Ship em, he says.

Color mismatch, but excellent everything else.

Having pursued the question, what happened to the 6 Larsons of Hastmahult that went to NordAmerika

Hilda Larson was my great great grandmother, a Swede and migrant to Bayport in 1889. She marries Alfed Peterson, another Swede, here. 4 generations of Petersons in the US have not lost contact with the Swedish Petersons, but they had no idea who Hilda Larson was and that oral history didn’t get passed here in the US because Hilda died young.

So, practical genealogical question: who was Hilda Larson? Answer: pretty conventional Smaland farm girl who emigrated on a chain migration following her siblings. Arkivdigital details that.

Ok, natural subsequent genealogical question: where did the rest of the kids go? 6 of 8 siblings who reached adulthood in the 1880s in this commune / croft farm village thing deep in the Smaland back country. Took a couple years to figure out, given some practical problems. Those are, young Swedish women hit the US and get married almost immediately, taking on new surnames. Then, young Swedish men change their first names to something less ethnic, and you end up searching for “Charles Johnson”s for example. And there’s thousands of these in the US in 1890. Now, it’s not like compelling matches don’t appear, but if you’re good you want an identical match on a life fact attribute, like DOB, so that you don’t introduce trash facts into your family tree. It takes a while to think up the query that turns that stuff up if you are stumped like that. Took a couple years to suss out the destinies of 6 people here. And it’s to say, no one in the wide world of genealogy had a tree I could copy from for these people.

Sooo, we got eem….now.

Amanda, b 1863 – was an 1886 migrant to Bayport. Married another Swede. They had a bunch of kids, and there are a ton of descendants in this vicinity that my relatives have been rubbing elbows with for 4 generations and been none the wiser

Charles, b 1872 – migrant to Norway, Michigan, the UP. Was an iron miner, had a family.

Per, b 1869 – migrant to northern Wisconsin. Probably always a bachelor.

Last… Nils and Bonde. End up in Milbank, SD…. Fuckin Eh.

So, the thing…. Really moved to contemplate the zeitgeist of thinking and being scared for the potential of occupied burglaries in Milbank, SD, in town, in 1890. I mean, mistakenly shooting your brother when defending the house from a suspected burglary is not something that could happen to these fellows living together say 5 years prior in Sweden. Cuz, you know they neither feared that type of crime or had the guns. The crime and the guns are breathtakingly American, is what I’m sayin.

So, the crime, the ambient crime you fear…. ya know, Milbank 1890 was ever so and enough “the west” and had drunks, outlaws / thiefs, and some anarchy, I’d guess you’d figure. So there’s the psychology.

The guns… well, it was as it is, though I think it was a step up for a working man to have a handgun. Maybe a shotgun, yes. But handguns are not usually very practical things. Like, why would you need one in Milbank such that you’d spend $15 for a quality one? Well, I guess if you think there’s crime.

Oh that’s what hapened here? Really?

To say, the old Amy Pohler really.

https://jabberwocking.com/benjamin-netanyahu-is-no-ally/

I take it from a "conservative" article chronicling same that problem as they’d move to the Egypt-Qatar terms is that Hamas can produce 0 to very little live hostages.

That’s ‘rattfucking’ when Netanyahoo has a reaction to that? Really?

The ancestor worship beat

In which I am now a collector of Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Omaha panoramic employee photos. Because I’ll have 2 now.

Me and my sister and then our children have 3 paternal grx grandfathers and 2 maternal grx grandfathers that worked for the Omaha Railroad, either at the North Hudson car shops or the Randolph car shops in St. Paul.

If you’re me and in the dad zone of life, you like to get these black and white antique 36 x 12 staff photos with your grandpas in it. I have one for North Hudson, this being a curio which probably isn’t all that rare in Hudson here. They end up being obtainable, and I managed to obtain.

You should be able to presume something like that exists for all the other Omaha shops right. But when and where are they, where do they show up?

Well, I have an ebay search going…. And an employee pano photo shows up in search this morning for what’s captioned “1932 Omaha Railroad Veterans Gathering” at some hotel in Minneapolis. I think we’d be talking retirees at the time, and it’d be sensible my gr gr grandpa Ambrose Paul would be in that. He was born 1864, probably started working at the Omaha about 1901, maybe retired 1925-30, died 1938. I will have to get my mothers eye on it.

Its a niche thing that an Ebay antique vendor put out there. I think if you’re that guy and a pro you take a guess what a railfan geek will pay and be receptive to offers to move it. He started at $167. I offered him $100 and he took it. Kind of a lot, but worth a hundred to me.

Also today, I find the anchor Peterson, Alfred Peterson, bothered to finalize his citizenship last week of August 1903 before he left the next week with his family for Sweden and bought a farm in his hometown. His first 5 kids were born in the US, he must have known one or some would come back, with the oldest (my gr grandfather) being likely. That’s what happened. Maybe Alfred thought he’d make it easy for himself to visit. I don’t think that ever happened.

If its May Day it must be Columbia, bitches

But I didn’t actually hit publish on the yesterday, May 1, 2024.

Very esteemed school. Odd that they don’t have any graduates of enough public reputation to weigh in and do a helpful rhetorical framing of what’s good, what’s bad about the protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama I mean, its extremely odd that the guy hasnt been asked or volunteered an opinion, unless the answer is that what he’d have to say is inevitably unimpressive difference splitting of the type that affects the Dems write large, that would polarize both their normies and their freaks. So why do it then…

I train my discerning eye on this gal and not entirely mockingly https://www.yahoo.com/news/watch-columbia-protester-mocked-asking-040731315.html? She locked down her LI and they pulled her Columbia faculty page. She’s reliably understood as some sort of lit / labor academic, pre-PHD. Ya know, one maybe thinks it’s quite a bit trustafarians on PHD paths at say Columbia. IDK know that’d be true with this gal. Noted here many times, Studs Terkel’s book made an impression on me. This gal’s googlable cv and published work is thoroughly "labor journalist / activist" of the old Terkel type. I feel like that’s inherited, and not from a rich family.

An idea so bad I wouldn’t guess Joe Biden actually knows about it https://nypost.com/2024/05/01/opinion/joe-bidens-reckless-plan-to-take-in-gazans-wont-even-satisfy-israel-haters/

I’m sympathetic and forgiving of Joe Biden’s characterization of his football exploits. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/02/that-time-football-legend-rig-driving-eligible-bachelor-biden-was-arrested/ Scoring half a dozen TDs a year as WR means yes you were one of the best players / best athletes in your Catholic FB conference. He’s substantially right there.

Gavin Newsome not "scouted", bitches. https://calmatters.org/politics/2024/04/gavin-newsom-baseball-college/ Back in the day, if a scout gave you his business card, you aren’t scouted. If he takes out a recipe card and writes your shit down, you are scouted. Newsom was a big enough, strong enough HS player, he might have been able to play D1.

They want us to eat bugs. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24146466/europe-farmer-protests-eu-climate-environmental-policy-subsidies-livestock And good luck with that.

PIPped

The question contemplated and analysed is, are you going to get fired if you go on performance improvement. And it’s not me. I think I’m going to get promoted this year. Cuz I just got asked to do something based on my can do.

But I’ve been PIPped. I think it twas 2004. Eesh its icky. Other guy I know got PIPped with a late Friday email this last week, not a core friend but a guy I know.

Yeah, you’re going to get fired and there’s no saving it. The purpose of PIP is to telegraph and pre-text that they are going to fire you, to take the edge off for the day it happens. What you do is look for a job and keep your head so that they do terminate you if you don’t find one then you can take unemployment.

That’s all, no shame.

Londergan: Hired guns

The blog’s opinion is: "IDK exactly what happens, but Londergan will never have to face trial on this, because the superseding fact is it’s too weak a case."

In the press last week was, Mary Moriarity’s lead on this begged off, wanted out. So she’s looking to hire uber litigators in private practice to prosecute it. HC attorney’s office may well "have the money", but she needs the board to approve the retainer and subsequent large payments.

https://knsiradio.com/2024/04/30/hennepin-county-board-to-weigh-hiring-outside-legal-team-for-state-trooper-murder-case/

I’m trying to restrain my certitude because I am self aware that as a layman I don’t know all even a smidge of the shit but boy how can this not be dumb. And indicative of this prosecution’s ultimate failure

There’s a Lou Raguse tweet out there that anon quotes some other trial level county prosecutors, saying there’s other sr prosecutors who uniformly won’t take it. I’m a little bit surprised that you can casually refuse an assignment in that workspace but ya know, in most 21st century white collar workspaces you can refuse a task if a) it’s stupid enough and b) you can explain yourself. If everyone feels that way, it’s the boss that’s a problem.

So… it’s Mary Moriairty, and her woke / revolutionary / blm prism that tells her this is a case.

Such that these DC pros get the case to work, I still don’t think they win it vs the officers defense (which is very well organized). Chauvin is not an instructive example here. Dondo and a bit of the dept in testimony washed their hands of Chauvin, said "yeah, that’s on him". You got no one in the patrol, including Londergan’s partner, who isn’t going to stand up for him and be the credicility that makes his UoF case. These litigators are going to have to pull witnesses from academics and pro testifiers, and it won’t be persuasive to the practical facts. I don’t think it’s a good assumption at all a diverse Minneapolis jury is receptive to convicting Lonergan merely because "BLM".

Such that it’s true a trial flops and MM wastes $1M+ dollars, she’s going to be spared that. I can’t see that commissioner board saying yes. At that point MM apparently has to assign to a jr prosecutor, who in making her case to the board, she speculated would lose.

This is not going to trial.