10/12/2015 archive

Oct 12 2015

Junior League Division Series: Blue Jays @ Rangers Game 4

Sunday’s Game

Top 3rd Leadoff Double.  Infield Single, Runners at Corners.  RBI Double Play.  Blue Jays 1 – 0.

Top 4th Leadoff Double.  Sacrifice. Intentional Walk. Walk, Bases Loaded.  RBI Walk.  Blue Jays 2 – 0.  Double Play.

Top 6th Leadoff Infield Single.  Single, Runners at Corners.  Walk, Bases Loaded.  Double Play, Runners on Second and Third.  3 RBI HR.  Blue Jays 5 – 0.

Bottom 7th Single.  Single, Error, Runners at Second and Third.  RBI Sacrifice.  Blue Jays 4 – 1.  Final

Rangers lead Series 2 – 1.

Analysis and Setup

Still win or Spring Training for the Blue Jays (94 – 71).  The Rangers (90 – 75) will want to close out at home.

Derek Holland (L, 4 – 3, 4.91 ERA) will be on the mound for the Rangers.  The Blue Jays will be starting R.A. Dickey (R, 11 – 11, 3.91 ERA).  Holland missed 4 months with a shoulder tear, Dickey used to play for the Rangers (where he was terrible).  I don’t much like the Rangers, a Blue Jay win after an 0 – 2 start would be counter-intuitive.

Game time is 4 on Fox Sports 1.

Oct 12 2015

Junior League Division Series: Royals @ Astros Game 4

Today’s Meta (because what good is a day without Meta?).  As I mentioned yesterday both TMC and I are in meetings all day long.  We were able to resolve some of our issues yesterday (we think, that’s what today’s meeting is about) which is good.

In planning the rest of the week (because it’s not like we don’t have weekly and daily story meetings, we’re very professional like that) it’s become quite clear that Thursday the 15th, Transition Day, is going to be fraught.  We expect that the Wordpress sites will be open for reading including our back catalog with little delay (there will probably be some).

We’ve decided that the best way to communicate with our readers is through our normal twitter activities.  Information that can’t be expressed in 140 characters we will post at Corrente which is run by our friend Lambert.

There is virtually a 100% chance that there will be NO POSTING AT ALL on Thursday.  We will simply be too busy.  If you visit you are likely to get an Internet error.  THIS DOES NOT MEAN WE HAVE CEASED PUBLICATION.

We hope to resume posting, at least ours, by Friday.  User posts may take a little longer to resolve.

User accounts WILL BE RESTORED, at least for posting.  Commenting may take longer and there’s a possibility that the initial commenting system will not represent a permanent solution.

That’s the best case scenario.  In the worst case it may take us up to a week.

Sorry for the inconvienience.

After tonight The Daily Late Nightly Show will not be posted again until next Monday (the 19th) at the earliest.

After tomorrow we will stop Baseball Playoff coverage until functionality is restored sufficiently to do so.

We will have an Open Thread Tuesday for the Democratic Debate.

After that all regular publication will stop except for Meta announcements on progress.

I want to apologize once again to our Readers, Authors, and Commenters.  We like Soapblox and are not leaving the Platform willingly, it’s just that our vendor will no longer support it.

Baseball-

There will be no live blogging of today’s games (except the Mets, c’mon).

Sunday’s Game

Top 4th Solo Shot.  Royals 1 – 0.

Bottom 5th Walk.  Double.  2 RBI Single.  Astros 2 – 1.

Bottom 6th Leadoff Double.  Sacrifice.  Walk, Runners at Corners.  RBI Single.  Astros 3 – 1.

Bottom 7th Leadoff Solo Shot.  Astros 4 – 1.

Top 9th Leadoff Solo Shot.  Astros 4 – 2.  Final.

Astros lead Series 2 – 1.

Analysis and Setup

Game as expected, an Astros (89 – 77) blowout.  The Royals (96 – 69) must win tonight or they will hit the links and wait until next year.

The Astros will send out Lance McCullers (R, 6 – 7, 3.22 ERA) and the Royals Yordano Ventura (R, 13 – 8, 4.08 ERA).  The New York Times thinks McCullers is almost as good as Keuchel though te numbers don’t agree.  Ventura is the pitcher who got rocked in Game 2 and had to leave after 2 Innings, supposedly because of a stomach virus.  Royals fans better hope he’s recovered because it’s win or go home.

Game time is 1 on Fox Sports 1.

Oct 12 2015

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Krugman: The Crazies and the Con Man

How will the chaos that the crazies, I mean the Freedom Caucus, have wrought in the House get resolved? I have no idea. But as this column went to press, practically the whole Republican establishment was pleading with Paul Ryan, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, to become speaker. He is, everyone says, the only man who can save the day.

What makes Mr. Ryan so special? The answer, basically, is that he’s the best con man they’ve got. His success in hoodwinking the news media and self-proclaimed centrists in general is the basis of his stature within his party. Unfortunately, at least from his point of view, it would be hard to sustain the con game from the speaker’s chair.

New York Times Editorial Board: America’s Aging Voting Machines

In his victory speech after his re-election in 2012, President Obama offered special thanks to those Americans who had stood in long lines to vote – some of whom were still waiting even as he spoke – and then offhandedly added, “by the way, we have to fix that.”

The line got big applause, but now, three years later, much of the country is still far from fixing one major cause of the long lines: outdated voting machines and technologies.

With the 2016 presidential election just a year away, the vast majority of states are still getting by with old machines that are increasingly likely to fail, crash or produce unreliable results. The software in them, mostly from the 1990s, doesn’t have the capabilities or security measures available today.

Berbard Kouchner: The bombardment of a hospital is a too-frequent ‘accident’. It’s also a war crime

In the 1980s, as a field French doctor working in Afghanistan, I wrote several articles and open letters to the Soviet Union president to avoid the destruction of the Médecins Sans Frontières Wardak hospital. Of course, the Russian planes bombarded it as an answer.

Targeting a red cross drawn on the roof of a hospital is an unacceptable, cowardly and sadly too-frequent accident. And in Kunduz, last week, a line has again been crossed.[..]

The world demands answers. Who were they targeting and why? Under which military orders? This deliberate killing is not acceptable. What took place is a violation of basic human rights. It was committed against humanitarian and international law, in complete contradiction of the Geneva conventions.

It’s a war crime.

Leo W. Gerard: TPP: Foie Gras for Corporations; Dead Rats for Workers

Some terms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the 12-nation trade proposal completed last week, are so repulsive that the New Zealand trade minister who helped negotiate the scheme described accepting them as swallowing dead rats.

Here’s what New Zealand Minister Tim Groser said: “On the hardest core issues, there are some ugly compromises out there. And when we say ugly, we mean ugly from each perspective – it doesn’t mean ‘I’ve got to swallow a dead rat and you’re swallowing foie gras.’ It means both of us are swallowing dead rats on three or four issues to get this deal across the line.”

There’s no reason for the United States to swallow a trade deal filled with rotten rodent terms. Previous so-called free trade deals have killed American factories and hundreds of thousands of family-supporting manufacturing jobs. Based on that terrible experience, American workers know for sure that if the scheme contains any foie gras, it’ll be served on silver platters to corporations while workers are force-fed rats.

Eric Kasum: Columbus Day? True Legacy: Cruelty and Slavery

Once again, it’s time to celebrate Columbus Day. Yet, the stunning truth is: If Christopher Columbus were alive today, he would be put on trial for crimes against humanity. Columbus’ reign of terror, as documented by noted historians, was so bloody, his legacy so unspeakably cruel, that Columbus makes a modern villain like Saddam Hussein look like a pale codfish.

Question: Why do we honor a man who, if he were alive today, would almost certainly be sitting on Death Row awaiting execution?

If you’d like to know the true story about Christopher Columbus, please read on. But I warn you, it’s not for the faint of heart.

Here’s the basics. On the second Monday in October each year, we celebrate Columbus Day (this year, it’s on October 11th). We teach our school kids a cute little song that goes: “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” It’s an American tradition, as American as pizza pie. Or is it? Surprisingly, the true story of Christopher Columbus has very little in common with the myth we all learned in school.

Zach Stafford: Respectability politics won’t save the lives of black Americans

In the wake of Michael Brown, many black Americas still secretly believed and clung to the idea that respectability politics, or the idea that if we ‘act right’ we will be just fine, were actually a viable way to stay alive. In the past few years, we have been reminded that being respectable will not save our lives. [..]

The reason why being ‘respectable’ doesn’t work is because no matter how respectable you may be acting, your performance isn’t undoing the very real systematic ways in which our world operates.

Wearing a tie doesn’t rectify the fact that black people are incarcerated at six times that rate of white people. You having the ‘right job’ doesn’t give a black person a job as the community faces an unemployment rate of twice that of white people. And saying #AllLivesMatters doesn’t take the bullet out of the literally countless black bodies shot dead by police officers.

Instead, believing that our lives only matter when we ‘act right’ only fuels the very dangerous ways in which our world operates. It protects the structural racism that no one ever wants to talk about or challenge. And it inevitably makes you believe that your life depends on a well enunciated “yes, sir.”

Oct 12 2015

The Breakfast Club (Music Man)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

photo 807561379_e6771a7c8e_zps7668d00e.jpg

This Day in History

Columbus lands in Americas; USS Cole bombed in Yemen; Soviet leader Khrushchev bangs shoe at UN; Blast rips Bali nightclub; Opera’s Luciano Pavarotti born; Singer John Denver dies in plane crash.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

Learning music by reading about it is like making love by mail.

Luciano Pavarotti

Oct 12 2015

On This Day In History October 12

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

October 12 is the 285th day of the year (286th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 80 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1810, Bavarian Crown Prince Louis, later King Louis I of Bavaria, marries Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen.

The Bavarian royalty invited the citizens of Munich to attend the festivities, held on the fields in front of the city gates. These famous public fields were named Theresienwiese-“Therese’s fields”-in honor of the crown princess; although locals have since abbreviated the name simply to the “Wies’n.” Horse races in the presence of the royal family concluded the popular event, celebrated in varying forms all across Bavaria.

Oktoberfest is a 16-18 day festival held each year in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, running from late September to the first weekend in October. It is one of the most famous events in Germany and the world’s largest fair, with more than 5 million people attending every year. The Oktoberfest is an important part of Bavarian culture. Other cities across the world also hold Oktoberfest celebrations, modelled after the Munich event.

The Munich Oktoberfest, traditionally, takes place during the sixteen days up to and including the first Sunday in October. In 1994, the schedule was modified in response to German reunification so that if the first Sunday in October falls on the 1st or 2nd, then the festival will go on until October 3 (German Unity Day). Thus, the festival is now 17 days when the first Sunday is October 2 and 18 days when it is October 1. In 2010, the festival lasts until the first Monday in October, to mark the 200-year anniversary of the event. The festival is held in an area named the Theresienwiese (field, or meadow, of Therese), often called Wiesn for short, located near Munich’s centre.

Visitors eat huge amounts of traditional hearty fare such as Hendl (chicken), Schweinsbraten (roast pork), Schweinshaxe (ham hock), Steckerlfisch (grilled fish on a stick), Würstl (sausages) along with Brezn (Pretzel), Knödel (potato or bread dumplings), Kasspatzn (cheese noodles), Reiberdatschi (potato pancakes), Sauerkraut or Blaukraut (red cabbage) along with such Bavarian delicacies as Obatzda (a spiced cheese-butter spread) and Weisswurst (a white sausage).

First hundred years

In the year 1811, an agricultural show was added to boost Bavarian agriculture. The horse race persisted until 1960, the agricultural show still exists and it is held every four years on the southern part of the festival grounds. In 1816, carnival booths appeared; the main prizes were silver, porcelain, and jewelry. The founding citizens of Munich assumed responsibility for festival management in 1819, and it was agreed that the Oktoberfest would become an annual event. Later, it was lengthened and the date pushed forward, the reason being that days are longer and warmer at the end of September.

To honour the marriage of King Ludwig I and Therese of Bavaria, a parade took place for the first time in 1835. Since 1850, this has become a yearly event and an important component of the Oktoberfest. 8,000 people-mostly from Bavaria-in traditional costumes walk from Maximilian Street, through the centre of Munich, to the Oktoberfest. The march is led by the Münchner Kindl.

Since 1850, the statue of Bavaria has watched the Oktoberfest. This worldly Bavarian patron was first sketched by Leo von Klenze in a classic style and Ludwig Michael Schwanthaler romanticised and “Germanised” the draft; it was constructed by Johann Baptist Stiglmaier and Ferdinand von Miller.

In 1853, the Bavarian Ruhmeshalle was finished. In 1854, 3,000 residents of Munich succumbed to an epidemic of cholera, so the festival was cancelled. Also, in the year 1866, there was no Oktoberfest as Bavaria fought in the Austro-Prussian War. In 1870, the Franco-Prussian war was the reason for cancellation of the festival. In 1873, the festival was once more cancelled due to a cholera epidemic. In 1880, the electric light illuminated over 400 booths and tents (Albert Einstein helped install light bulbs in the Schottenhamel tent as an apprentice in his uncle’s electricity business in 1896). In 1881, booths selling bratwursts opened. Beer was first served in glass mugs in 1892.

At the end of the 19th century, a re-organization took place. Until then, there were games of skittles, large dance floors, and trees for climbing in the beer booths. They wanted more room for guests and musicians. The booths became beer halls.

In 1887, the Entry of the Oktoberfest Staff and Breweries took place for the first time. This event showcases the splendidly decorated horse teams of the breweries and the bands that play in the festival tents. This event always takes place on the first Saturday of the Oktoberfest and symbolises the official prelude to the Oktoberfest celebration

In the year 1910, Oktoberfest celebrated its 100th birthday. 120,000 litres of beer were poured. In 1913, the Braurosl was founded, which was the largest Oktoberfest beer tent of all time, with room for about 12,000 guests.

I have very fond memories of Oktoberfest. If you ever have the opportunity to visit Europe, do it in late September because this is a must see and experience.

Oct 12 2015

More Odds or Onions

Can you pick The Onion without hovering your mouse over the links?



Not much of a challenge really, but if you just looked at the headlines you’d have an easy 50 / 50 shot at being wrong.

Woman stops intruder with medieval combat skills, sword

An Indiana woman says her training in medieval combat helped her corner a home intruder.

The Indianapolis Star reports 43-year-old Karen Dolley of Indianapolis threw punches until she had the man cornered during the Thursday night break-in. She then kept him subdued with a Japanese sword she keeps near her bed.

Dolley says she learned to fight as a teenager in the Society for Creative Anachronism, a group that recreates skills of the Middle Ages. She also skates with roller derby team Naptown Roller Girls.

Police responding to Dolley’s 911 call arrested 30-year-old Jacob Wessel of Greenwood, charging him with residential entry. Police say he forced open the home’s back door. Police reports say he was taken to a hospital because he was high on an unknown substance.

Popular New Exercise App Just Tells Users They Ran 5 Miles A Day No Matter What

LOS ALTOS, CA-Having reached nearly 2 million downloads within its first month of release, the new smartphone app ProMiler has quickly become one of the nation’s most popular exercise tools by informing users that they ran five miles each day no matter what, the app’s creators told reporters Friday. “With ProMiler, achieving your exercise goals is as simple as turning on your device in the morning and being notified that you’ve already run five miles,”

ProMiler spokesman John Lyons said while demonstrating the app, which uses advanced GPS technology to display a new, randomly generated five-mile running route near the user’s location every day. “The more you take advantage of ProMiler, the better runner you become, as the app automatically reduces your running time by several seconds per day. And with our ‘Calories Burned’ counter staying fixed at the number 1,000 each day, 100 percent of our users report hitting their fitness targets.

The results speak for themselves.” Officials added that the app comes pre-synced with Facebook, allowing users to automatically post their time and running route on their feed for all their friends to see.

Oct 12 2015

Junior League Division Series: Blue Jays @ Rangers Game 3

Friday’s Game

Top 1st Leadoff Double.  RBI Single.  Rangers 1 – 0.  Single, Runners at Corners.  RBI Sacrifice cuts down the Runner at Second.  Rangers 2 – 0.

Bottom 1st Solo Shot.  Rangers 2 – 1.

Top 2nd Leadoff Walk.  Sacrifice advance Runner to Third.  RBI Sacrifice.  Rangers 3 – 1.

Bottom 2nd Error, Runner at First.  Ground Rule Double, Runners at Second and Third.  RBI Single. Rangers 3 – 2.  RBI Double Play.  Tied at 3.

Bottom 5th Leadoff Double.  Sacrifice.  RBI Single.  Blue Jays 4 – 3.

Top 8th Leadoff Single.  Sacrifice.  RBI Single.  Tied at 4.  Caught Stealing.

Top 14th Infield Single.  Single.  RBI Single.  Rangers 5 – 4.  RBI Single.  Rangers 6 – 4 Final.

Rangers lead Series 2 – 0.

Analysis and Setup

No doubt about it, the Blue Jays (93 – 91) are in trouble.  You don’t drop 2 at home in a 5 game series and expect to advance.

If you’re a fan and you want to see them play one last time, you better watch today’s game.

If on the other hand you’re a Rangers (90 – 74) fan (though I can’t imagine why) you’re in the Catbird seat (yes a bird pun, what about I haven’t slept in days are you not understanding?).  Today, tomorrow, who cares?

Well I do dammit.  If they win today it’s one less thing I have to do tomorrow.

Bye bye Birdie (getting it?).

Martin Perez (L, 3 – 6, 4.46 ERA) will be on the mound for the Rangers.  The Blue Jays will be starting Marco Estrada (R, 13 – 8, 3.13 ERA).  Alas, on paper the Jays cream ’em.

Game time is 8 on Fox Sports 1.