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SL Xpress

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Everything posted by SL Xpress

  1. Probably best I stay away from expressing my thoughts on the general approach towards football hires. I'll just say the only time since Darrell Royal I felt like the university actually went after the best candidate available was the Mack Brown hire. Regardless of whether Brown succeeded or not, I would have been willing to defend that hire until the day I died. Slam dunk. The rest of them - all of them - have issues. I have no idea why the philosophy can't be to go out and get the best candidate every time, but something or someone is always getting in the way of that. But I'll refrain from a case by case analysis, especially on the baseball board. Which is not to say Sarkisian won't be successful. That's not my point. In any case, if there was any program other than football that should be able to go out there and money whip practically whatever coach they want to come be the head coach at UT, it would seem to me baseball would be it. Which is why that whole process under Perrin was so frustrating. But that's okay. I like Pierce. I think he's going to bring us hardware eventually. He's shown me he's ruthless enough that sentimentality isn't going to get in the way. That's a good sign. Could be this year is the year. I do know I'm excited the team has made it to Super Regionals. Oh, and no dog pile. That may be my favorite tradition in all of UT sports.
  2. I don't know that I personally get lost in it. I find this stuff fascinating. One of my biggest things is there's no such thing as a sure thing when it comes to coaching hires. There are exceptions. Augie Garrido when he was hired is about as close to a sure thing as you're ever going to get. Very unusual for a multiple national championship winning coach to leave the program he built. But I think of hires like Pete Carroll at USC, or Jim Tressel at Ohio State, who were similar cluster fuck type hiring situations. Sometimes it just works out. In my opinion it's too easy to get caught up in the talk of if they haven't won the whole thing then they're underachievers. I get that's the bar at Texas. And it should be. But there are plenty of coaches who weren't winning titles then suddenly they won a bunch of them. Heck, Jerritt Elliott had that reputation in volleyball, but after last season I don't hear much of a peep about it. Even got into the Hall of Fame recently. At the same time, I think all of us would like to see Pierce host a few more regionals and super regionals. There's a satisfaction in winning as the underdog, but it's not really the dynamic we aspire to as Texas fans. As Dodds famously said, "We are the Joneses."
  3. To me the key thing I'd point to as Exhibit A of how much Pierce wants to win is that he got rid of his long time assistant - something that had to be personally painful to do - because he recognized he needed a different level of a staff to win a national championship. I think we've seen some signs that the addition of Woody Williams is paying some dividends. I don't know the answer, but how many head coaches are there in college baseball with more NCAA tournament wins than Pierce since he's been at Texas? It can't be many. Is it even one? Obviously post season wins without a ring is a hollow stat, but I feel good about where we are as a program. And I had significant questions about the hire at the time, given that he seemed to be our 5th choice (or so) in that cluster fuck of a hiring process.
  4. Should have taken a balloon and then no one would have paid any attention.
  5. LeBarron Johnson’s performance yesterday was so good, they should name a campus library after him.
  6. I know the tweet talking about this interview was already posted, but I wanted to directly post the interview with retired General David Patraeus regarding the upcoming offensive among other things. It's a fantastic interview, IMO, and well worth a read. Also, it's much more aligned with my rah rah Ukraine sensibilities than the post I just made on Ukraine corruption. I will say from my perspective I do not agree with the assessment of so many negative nancies out there poo-pooing Ukraine's chances in this offensive. I wish there were more of them to lower expectations. I just keep seeing experts talking about, "It''s unrealistic to think Ukraine can force Russian troops back beyond the Russian border, claiming all their recognized territory pre 2014. That's too much to expect. But we do think Ukraine needs to reach the Sea of Azov to cut off the land bridge to Crimea and south of the Dnipro River." I just want to see a breach of the Russian defensive lines, and a concentrated effort to exploit it. Anything beyond that is gravy to me at the moment. Just something to show supporters (I don't need it, but others who actually have influence who do) this isn't necessarily going to be a war of attrition from here on out, and Ukraine is fully capable of conducting counter offensive operations. Anyway, here's the interview:
  7. So my apologies for getting off the rah rah train for the moment. Believe me, I'm 100% Team Ukraine. But we talk about the endemic corruption in Ukraine society, without understanding a lot of what that means. Here is a sobering 38 minute interview from Kyiv Independent with their journalist, Oleg Sukhov, who covers corruption in Ukraine society. Let's get some things straight. He's not exactly documenting what he's talking about. It's an interview. Everything he's saying could be lies. He could have his own agenda in some way. But I will say he's extremely convincing as someone who seems very earnest about his concerns regardling longstanding corruption in Ukrainian society, how ubiquitous and intractable it is, and how extremely poorly Ukraine has been at fighting it, including - even especially - right now. In a too long/didn't read summary, the gist of the issue is that the bodies being appointed to reform the judicial system by naming judges with integrity and corruption fighting credentials are being run themselves by corrupt judges - members of what Sukhov terms the judicial mafia. Anyway, have a listen. It's sobering. Until listening to this I was under the illusion things were getting better. And maybe they are. Dunno. But he's very convincing that things are not in fact getting better. The good news is that he hasn't been thrown out of a window, so he can keep doing what he's doing.
  8. Also, you guys were talking about Athen’s mistakes against Sparta. How about Thebes deciding to revolt against Macedon after the assasination of Philip II, with 20 year old whipper snapper Alexander way off in the Balkans campaigning? Alexander force marched in 3 weeks, turned the city to rubble, massacred the men and boys (other than some priests), and sold all the women and girls into slavery. Afterwards the other rebellious Greek city states, including Athens, decided they didn’t feel so rebellious after all. “We good, Alex. We good.” Also, a special mention to Smyrna. After WWI the Greeks were trying to reestablish their historic presence in Anatolia, with Allied support. Then the Allies withdrew their support and Kemal kicked all the Greeks out by force, including the massacre of the Greeks at Smyrna.
  9. But asking the question, "So I’ll ask again, is this the biggest geopolitical blunder in the history of mankind?" kind of lends itself to epic answers. I don't consider many blunders being discussed - Germany attacking Russia, Japan's surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, Napoleon invading Russia, or the Russian navy's sound defeat at the hands of the Japanese - as the same kind of epochal in nature, because in the end their civilization and culture remained intact. I do like 956 Worldwide's citation of Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. That was a gigantic miscalculation in modern times. I'd also add US support for Khomeini over the Shah, which I've cited on this thread previously. But in terms of something so unnecessary, you and I are on the same page. You made your original response as I was typing, but it's not like I disagree with anything you're saying here or in your previous post. The bottom line for me is that Putin got religion. He became a true believer in his own role in history. I think he still sees himself as the savior of Russia, the savior of Europe, and savior of his racial identity. He doesn't believe Ukraine has a right to exist. He's never thought they should exist. They are meant to be good Russians, and to paraphrase the infamous US officer quote during the Vietnam War, if they have to destroy Ukrainians once and for all to save them, so be it. It's led to an amazing number of miscalculations, in part because he's set up a system where no one dares mention to the emperor he might not be wearing a full set of clothes. Unfortunately they're still very dangerous, even as inept of a fighting force as they've proven themselves to be. I'm concerned about the expectations for this counter offensive. If Ukraine achieves any kind of breakthrough against the Russian fortifications I'm going to be giddy, whereas most talking heads I've watched seem to be continuously talking about Ukraine reaching the sea. I mean, maybe that's what happens. I hope so. It just seems a shame to have that as the expectation. But I do feel like we're about to find out what Ukraine has in store for the Russians.
  10. Well, I believe it's hard to measure those kinds of things in real time. Off the top of my head I'd say blunders that result in the end of civilizations or ruling classes probably rank higher. For example, Hannibal invading Rome - while brilliant, and I do think could've resulted in an ultimate victory had he been supported by his capital better - ended up with the complete annihilation of Carthage as a civilization. Cleopatra siding with Marc Antony ended with the massacre of her family and the ending of Ptolemaic rule and the Hellenistic domination of Egypt. The leaders of the Khwarazmian Empire probably should've traded with Genghis Khan rather than attack his caravans and behead his ambassadors. The Fourth Crusade sacking Constantinople didn't really do the Christian West a whole lot of favors in the long run. Charles XII invading Russia probably wasn't the best idea in retrospect. The Ottoman Empire siding with the Axis powers. Germany invading Russia and Japan attacking Pearl Harbor weren't great decisions at the time, but Germany is in great shape in many ways as a country/society, as is Japan. The War of 1812 didn't look like such a hot idea when Washington D.C. was being burnt to the ground and the British Navy was making plans to do the same thing to Baltimore (thanks Fort McHenry!). Probably the decisions that led to the breakup of the Soviet Union - such as the invasion of Afghanistan - rank higher in some senses than this right now, simply because the Soviet Union was more powerful and a greater existential threat even beyond their possession of nuclear weapons. But a lot of these - maybe all of them - are foreshadowing dire circumstances which would have come into play eventually anyway. There are a lot more that are more obscure that I'm leaving out. Lots of civilizations have come and gone in existential competition with neighbors, many of them after starting a war they thought they could win, or at least had to start on their own terms because it was "them or us." But as of this moment, it sure seems like one of the great all time geopolitical blunders. Certainly within modern times. They had a nice lucrative trade going on with Europe. The countries there were loathe to do anything to piss Russia off for fear of the consequences. They had possession of Crimea, and no real consequences for taking it, and no one was going to do anything to force them to give it back. The country that would seem to benefit from this the most is China, since they have ambitions to lead the world in their vision of a new world order, and Russia's setbacks take them away as a potential rival to the West, while also drawing so much condemnation and enmity that they're forced to become vassals to the Chinese in many respects.
  11. Your emotional scars from the 1991 Cotton Bowl might not be as severe as mine.
  12. Here's the article: https://euromaidanpress.com/2023/06/01/ukraine-now-probably-has-as-many-tanks-as-russia/ Quite a bit of guess work and assumptions going on, but the point is still the same. Massive advantages Russia had in equipment at the start of the war are no longer massive advantages.
  13. Not a big fan of the Shock the Nation phrase being used with a likely matchup with Miami coming up.
  14. I'm with @naija on this one. Again, it's your view, and you're welcome to it. But when I mention the horrors of female mutilation as evidence of worldwide misogyny and then you bring up how we can't point fingers at people surgically removing clitorises because of circumcision in this country, that's a form of equating the two, IMO. I also didn't mean to say we don't have any issues with misogyny in this country. In fact, the whole point of my post was how widespread and normal misogyny is in many ways. And there are plenty of other issues as well. Obviously. But there's not the same kind of issues regarding women in this country that there are in India. The bottom line is you see circumcision as a horrible evil in this world, and I don't. But I can respect that you do. But any kind of conversation where we're trying to equate the two in some way doesn't make any kind of sense to me. It makes me want to vomit a little, to be honest.
  15. So many great posts and conversations on this page. Here's an NPR article quoting a Russian who used to work in Moscow at the Russian Central Bank but now is in Germany as a Russian analyst for the German Council on Foreign Relations. Lots of information about the severe brain drain and labor shortages going on in Russia, and how it's going to get worse as time goes on. Dovetails with some of the things @The Dog is saying. I tend to be of the view that timeliness is important for the upcoming counter offensive, but it being successful is way more important. But that's a different post. Anyway, here's the article. Good stuff if you like reading about Russian's systemic weaknesses in fighting this war, which I think most of us do: https://www.npr.org/2023/05/31/1176769042/russia-economy-brain-drain-oil-prices-flee-ukraine-invasion
  16. You and I don't see circumcision the same way, although I do appreciate your passion and conviction on the subject. I especially appreciate the picture you're drawing of rampant baby dick sucking and chewing on the foreskin. I don't really see it as the crime against nature you do. I'm not going to make any effort to change your mind. I'll simply say we'll have to agree to disagree. That said, I find your efforts to equate circumcision to the surgical removal of a female's clitoris horrifying. The procedures itself aren't even close to comparable. The lasting effects aren't in the same ballpark. And the motivations for each procedure are vastly different. Regardless, male circumcision is on the decline as well. I just don't think of it as compelling an issue as you do. Since we're talking about India, and my post specifically was about misogyny worldwide, I don't understand how the rate of genital mutilation among females in the United States has as much of an impact on the discussion as you seem to. But I certainly appreciate and respect your position that it does.
  17. Ah, got it. I guess I thought you were replying to me regarding India, but you were talking in a more general way. Yes, the British had themselves quite a run there for a while. Thanks for the clarification.
  18. I don't understand your point here. I'm saying the British couldn't have changed the culture of India if they'd wanted to - which they didn't really, it wasn't what they valued about ruling India - until mid 19th century because neither the government nor their proxy, the British East India Company, actually controlled the subcontinent. As opposed to the Americas where they pretty much eradicated the culture of the Native Americans in areas where they colonized. I mean, I'm saying "they" but the US did a pretty slam bang job of taking over after winning independence. But while the nature of the colonization in Canada was slightly different, it still amounted to an institutional eradication of the Native American cultures. Something similar occurred in Australia. I'm comparing what the British did in NA and Australia to what they did in India. It was radically different in many ways. Although, to be fair plenty of Bengalis started accusing Churchill of genocide around a decade ago, a claim I do not agree with. No one should doubt British domination over much of the world for several hundred years, primarily through their command of the seas and their early start with the Industrial Revolution, but that domination took different forms in different places. I'd also like to point out that Hindus didn't actually run India for almost 400 years. They certainly seem determined to make up for lost time under Modi, however.
  19. Then you have women's track and field, which can only get fewer projected points. On the other hand, baseball has a ton of room to increase over their projected points since they're not even a regional host, whereas Stanford is projected to be a super regional host. I'd rather be in Stanford's shoes in that regard, but there is a lot of room to improve on the projected standings.
  20. As someone who has made some really dumb decisions and through nothing I did managed to live through them without deserving to, I can tell you his last thoughts as he blub blub blubbed were, "that was a really dumb thing I did."
  21. Yeah, it’s a common complaint directed towards me for sure.
  22. It hasn’t been ruled out. The Russians made a big deal out of the apparent nuclear escalation if the US sent them to Ukraine, but all I saw from official US sources was the equivalent of, “stop. You’re embarrassing yourself.” But I did see that narrative parroted by imbeciles to one degree or another. Not even just Russian socks. A lot of folks who want to wring their hands about things they’re completely ignorant of, one of them being the dangers of exposure to radiation from depleted uranium shells on the battlefield.
  23. I'm not claiming a moral high ground on anything. I'm saying misogyny is rampant worldwide, and always has been. If you're referring to circumcision, regardless of your views of it, there's a different level of invasiveness in surgically removing a male's foreskin and surgically removing a female's clitoris. I'm not defending either practice, but I am saying this is not an apples to apples comparison.
  24. Article about the general difficulties operating the Abrams in theater, with lots of quotes from our favorite pro Ukraine retired US general, Mark Hertling: https://kyivindependent.com/what-will-it-take-for-ukraine-to-maintain-and-operate-the-m1-abrams/
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