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Ghost of LL

Burnt Ends
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Everything posted by Ghost of LL

  1. We spend a couple weeks there during the pandemic and let the kids do zoom school from the beach. It was a great experience all the way around, but you're right that you feel pretty good getting in an Escalade at the airport while everyone else is getting into a shitty tour bus.
  2. That's my era, too. And we'd go down to Nuevo Laredo and Acuna all the time. But Matamoros was always off-limits after Mark Kilroy got killed.
  3. Well, my life experiences haven't prepared me to be a college basketball coach, either. I mean, I didn't play basketball past middle school and I've never coached anything beyond my son's t-ball team. And I suspect those are kind of important qualifications. Another qualification is being able to talk to 18- to 22-year old men who are often Black. And if your life experiences don't prepare you to do that, then you probably also aren't qualified to be a college basketball coach.
  4. Two pretty nice wins over two of the worst teams in the league. There’s no tone there—we needed those points.
  5. Wow—this is some shit in the ‘46. No hail, but wind and rain so hard I couldn’t see out my windshield even with the wipers on their highest setting.
  6. And that's going to be a real hinderance to the Lege passing a lot of this other nonsense. I whole lot of their time is going to be taken up with $$$.
  7. This is the silly season when stupid ideas actually make it into bills that are introduced. Almost all of them will quietly die in committee. That being said, some of these truly horrific ideas will make it as amendments to other bills. So that's fun. Finally, it was good of the Republicans to identify several websites that offer information on abortion. Now all I have to do to a woman in need of such services is hand her a copy of proposed legislation. No crime in that.
  8. I think people who are not history professors ought to be real hesitant before drawing such tight historical parallels. There's generally a lot of historical nuance that gets missed in Twitter-length parallels such as this. Let it suffice to say that Japan's decision to go to war with the United States and the British Empire was the result of an idiosyncratic decision-making process and culture operating during a very different time in a different geopolitical set of circumstances. Japan's actions in 1941--whether one believes them to be rational or irrational--are unique to Japan in 1941. They don't do much to predict what China (which, last time I checked, is a different country) will do in 2023.
  9. The supposed difference in language was promoted by the Soviet Union as the major reason why the Moldavian SSR was separate and distinct from Romania (notwithstanding it being part of Romania prior to the Ribbontrop-Molotov Pact). Moldova casting aside that fictitious difference is pretty clearly a move by the unionists toward seeking unification with Romania.
  10. That's great. Thank you. The trip to Miyajima looks pretty easy from Hiroshima. You just take the train from Hiroshima station down to Miyajimaguchi station, walk across the street, and hop on a ferry. I'm probably making that sound a lot simpler than it actually is.
  11. Can't. Covid killed it. So yeah--it would be three full days in Kyoto. Or two days in Kyoto and one in Hiroshima/Miyajima. And I think it's going to be a gametime decision. I could really see us being pretty templed out after a couple days in Kyoto. I mean, yeah--I get that they're all different. And they're all very interesting and beautiful. But it's kind of like churches in Rome. At some point, they do all blend together and you just want to stop at a place and get a beer. Then again--I've never been churched out in Rome. Anyway, we're playing that very much by ear. If we decide to go, I'll just hop on the JR website the day before and get a couple of seat reservations on the Shinkansen down to Hiroshima. And if not, we won't.
  12. Yeah--that garden is across the street from our hotel, so I imagine we'll definitely walk over.
  13. It's pizza. Why would I spend one of my few meals in Japan eating pizza when I'm going to Italy later this year?
  14. Leaving Friday from LAX. This is a trip that's entirely paid for with miles/points, so shoutout to @Spankytoes on that. We're on Singapore Airlines to Narita. We decided on four days in Tokyo, staying in Shiodome. Probably not my first pick of neighborhoods to stay at, but again--this one is on Hilton points. Anyway, it's reasonably convenient to a bunch of transit, so that's nice. I say four days in Tokyo, but that's misleading as one of those days is going to be at Tokyo Disneyland (at Mrs.LL's insistence). I was initially interested in going out early one morning to the Toyosu fish market, but that now seems very sterile and kind of boring. Perhaps we'll go over to Tsujiki--it's fairly close to the hotel--but I think I'm a lot more excited about the department stores and the basement food courts. Then we have the Shinkansen down to Kyoto. I have to say--that's something I'm super-excited about. Picking up a bento box at Tokyo Station to eat on the goddamned bullet train. Oh--and a beer or five. I have three days in Kyoto. Mrs.LL wants to take a day trip down to Hiroshima and Miyajima. We'll see about that. Still wondering about these places that serve sushi while it's still flapping. Haven't really seen that from any of the restaurants I've looked at. And I might be down, but I think Mrs.LL would probably puke. And first thing's first when we arrive--tamago sando at 7-11!
  15. Just looking at that commercial, I bet if you traveled back in time to 1970 you'd think that America was filled with nothing but old people. It's just amazing how much older a 35-year old looked than than one looks today.
  16. 1,350 ballistic and cruise missiles is really not a lot. Russia has used nearly that number against targets in Ukraine. And that's just against Ukraine. This article is talking about China launching against not just Taiwan, but also the United States, the Philippines, Japan, and South Korea. They're going to need some more missiles. And they're going to be able to manufacture them. But herein lies the rub. Manufacturing new missiles requires chips. It requires fuel for the factories. It requires food for the workers. And China doesn't have enough of those things through domestic production. I think I've been clear from the outset that war with China would be very, very bad. It is something to be avoided if at all possible. But that war is a whole lot worse for China than it is for us. Because fundamentally, China has no path to victory; we do.
  17. I'm heading to Japan in a couple weeks up front on Singapore Airlines. I'll report back. On these choices, I really like the option of just staying in England. I really haven't done enough exploring of England outside of London and its environs. Maybe a trip over to Cornwall? For May, it's really hard for me to argue against Madrid. That's such a great town. Although, that is the right time to go to Venice if you ever want to go. The weather will be great, and it's really just a bit before all the tourists get there.
  18. Even Ukraine's cats are fucking metal. My cat sits around the house, alternatively laying in a sunny spot or laying on Mrs.LL's lap. Ukrainian cats eat the fucking Russians' souls.
  19. What happens? The assessment is made with "low confidence." So it's not exactly a definitive statement of what did or didn't happen. For the record, I am completely agnostic on this issue. I have no fucking clue whether it was natural or a lab failure. I appreciate that some people have very strong opinions on this. But it looks pretty impossible to state definitively one way or the other.
  20. It's rare post-1940 to see someone so nakedly support appeasement. There's a reason for that. That's just dead wrong. They don't almost always win. It's the opposite. The won in 1945 because we were supplying them. But without that logistical support, they lost in 1917 (owing to a failure of logistics); they lost in 1905 (owing to a failure of logistics); they lost in 1856 (owing to a failure of logistics).
  21. China did a great job of starting that process with its Zero Covid policy. Manufacturing has been looking elsewhere for a long time, and this is only going to accelerate that. Honestly what we really need to do is name Russia as a state-sponsor of terrorism and impose secondary sanctions. That would remove a lot of the uncertainty about what we would do with respect to China and would go a long way toward convincing them to reduce their ties to Russia.
  22. In small states like WV and MT, the power of incumbency is significantly heightened because a much larger percentage of the electorate has met with the senator, has received constituent services from his office, or else has some familial or business connection directly to him. So in those states, incumbency is generally going to carry over partisan identification. And no amount of money is going to change those personal connections that Manchin and Testor have in WV and MT, respectively. As to Ted Cruz, you're just dreaming if you think there's a "moderate" Republican out there who (1) would challenge Cruz in a primary and (2) would win. But even if there were, I don't even know what a "moderate" Republican looks like today? Is that Joe Strauss? Well guess what--he ain't running for shit. And even if he were, he'd get killed in a primary. Ted Cruz is the perfect representative of the Texas GOP. There are no shortcuts. If you want to beat him, you need to beat the Texas GOP.
  23. Let me push back on this a bit. Yeah, it'll cost $200M. But what else are you going to do with that $200M? We have five seats we need to defend--West Virginia, Montana, Ohio, Arizona, and Nevada. Money isn't going to matter in WV and MT. Those are small states where incumbency and partisan identification are going to carry the day. Among the others, I'm not too worried about Nevada. Nevada is like Florida for Republicans. Every cycle they think they have a chance. They don't. We'll make sure Rosen has the money she needs. But she should win that seat pretty easily. That leaves Ohio and Arizona. And honestly--how much money are you going to spend in Ohio and Arizona? Sure, we can spend $200M in each of those. But that means there's still plenty of Democratic donor money out there. So why not take a flyer on Texas? It's really your best shot at a pickup in 2024. And you need to spend some money in Texas just to make the Republicans play a little bit of defense. And let's be real honest--Allred is a good candidate. And 2024 is likely to be a good Democratic year with Trump on the top of the Republican ticket. Quit being a pussy--take your shot.
  24. Oh, I taunt. And I scoff and I mock. Fucking viruses aren’t going to get me. It’ll be heart disease like every other real American.
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