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Ghost of LL

Burnt Ends
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Everything posted by Ghost of LL

  1. So the soccer purists are going to hate this, but I really like what the NHL does--skate 3-on-3 for a five-minute overtime. And only after that do a shootout. Have your 30-minute extra time. Sure. But make it 7-on-7. And I guaran-damn-tee you that you won't see a lot of games going to PKs. What you will see is some fucking serious end-to-end action probably winding up with a fun goal on a semi-breakaway.
  2. There are "good people" and "bad people." But all good people do bad things. And at some point, a good person has done so many bad things that one day crosses that line and is now a bad person. Some people look up and have a "are we the baddies" moment. When that happens, a lot of them made a big course correction to try to get back on the "good" side of the ledger. But most people never have that moment. They never appreciate the bad that they've done. And they certainly never take stock of whether those bad things have accumulated to render them a bad person. That's not to say that bad people can't do good things. I think all bad people do good things. That's part of the wild thing about good and evil--it's found in all of us. ************* Long-winded story time! When I spent a summer in Germany with a school group, we took a weekend to go to the Bavarian Alps. It was great. We hit up Salzburg and then went over to Berchtesgaden--I still recommend the salt mine as a great tourist attraction. And then we went on a small hike around the lake to a gasthaus that was run by our German teacher's former teacher. He was a cool old guy. This was 1990, and he was probably in his mid-60's. He made lunch for us all, and we all drank plenty of bier. And then we adjourned out to the deck overlooking the lake. All-in-all, a pretty great afternoon. So while we're talking about the area and his family, he tells how his family had lived in the area for several hundred years. His grandfather fought in World War I; his father in World War II. He had been too young for that one. And so he breaks out the family photo album. He's got some good photos of himself as a kid. And then, among those is a photo of him with Goebbels. And then there's a photo of him sitting on Hitler's knee, and another one with him petting Blondi will Hitler and Eva Braun and his mother look on. And he tells the story of how his father was an early Nazi while he was in college in Munich, and had become a good friend of Hitler's. So every time Hitler went to his retreat in the Obersalzburg, he would stop at this very gasthaus and visit the family. And so this guy had very fond memories of his Onkel Adolph, who always brought him chocolates and let him play with his dog. And yeah--bringing a little Aryan kid chocolates is a very small "good." One might even characterize it as de minimis. But it is to say that even among the very baddest of people, there is an occasional good deed. But don't run around calling Hitler a "good person" because he gave some Aryan kid a chocolate.
  3. I have to tell you--and this is not directed particularly at you--I really hate this phrase and others like it (e.g., "The moral arc of the universe . . ."). It wrongly implies that "history" or "the universe" has some sort of consciousness and is guiding us. Or, at the very least, it implies that "history" is predetermined toward a more fair, decent, and virtuous future. And it's just not so. There's absolutely no reason to believe that history has to flow in that direction. For long periods of time, it flowed in the exact opposite direction--see, e.g., 476-1400 across Europe and 1400-present across Africa. And at particular moments, history was really fucking close to going really far in the direction of darkness. It took Churchill not capitulating in 1940 for the universe to continue its "moral arc." And history being on the right side of itself depends greatly on Stanislav Petrov deciding "why don't we wait and see if this is an actual NATO first strike." If we want history to move in the "right" direction, we've got to move it. MLK talked about the "moral arc of the universe," but he didn't sit back and treat it as certainty; he moved the universe. And as we sit here today, it's entirely possible that it is we who are on the wrong side of history unless we get off our ass and make sure history bends in our direction and away from Trumpist fascism.
  4. But here's the thing: there are a lot of people who love that he says "Exterminate the Jews" out loud. And they're not going to vote for someone who doesn't say it out loud. That was the entire reason he won Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan in 2016. There are a ton of people in those states (and across the country, really, but those states were the ones that were sufficiently close to be decisive) who fucking hate The Jews, hate The Blacks, hate The Gays, hate . . . pretty much any group you could reasonably put the definite article in front of. And they never felt like they could participate in American politics. For them, there are just two parties that are really one (e.g., the "Business Party" or the #uniparty), because neither party is willing to say out loud the things they believe. So they never voted. I mean, what's the point, really? If you fucking hate immigrants, why would you vote for George W. Bush, who talks about immigration reform and creating a path to citizenship? Trump spoke directly to those people. He called them "very fine people," and they loved him for it. They had never voted before in their lives; they voted for him. But if Trump is not the nominee, and it's someone like DeSantis--i.e., someone who has the sense not to call Nazis "very fine people," then we just go back to the status quo ante. Why the fuck are these people going to vote for either party, when neither says what they think? A lot of them will just fade back into the woodwork. They're still there, shooting up electrical substations in rural North Carolina, mind you. But you're not going to see them at the ballot box voting for someone like Ron fucking DeSantis.
  5. I'm going to go on record as predicting that this is going to be a fucking disaster. Deion did well at Jackson State by recruiting a handful of really good players to beat up on teams in the SWAC. But that's not going to happen in the PAC. Every school in the PAC has good players that have plenty of options. And once they get them in the door, a coaching staff has to develop players (as we well know). And I haven't seen anything to indicate that Deion has the ability to do that. So is he going to hire competent assistants? I can't imagine his ego would allow him to hire anybody who might upstage him. Maybe I'm way wrong. We shall see. But I see a lot of downside and not very much upside.
  6. A regime is never in so much danger as when it tries to reform itself.
  7. Advance Australia Fair!
  8. Let’s go Socceroos. Soccer > Football.
  9. You had me at “arrogant.” But you add in “imperialistic,” and I’m sold. Three Lions on the shirt!
  10. Shifting allegiance to Three Lions. Transformation…Complete. Football’s coming home!!
  11. Fuck the Dutch and their picturesque canals and stupid fucking wooden shoes.
  12. It's just unreal how petty the Big 12 remainers are. I really want never to play any of these assholes in any sport ever again.
  13. The Freak just feels like the Latte Larry's of Dallas radio.
  14. Just back from a week there. We had a Villa on Chalk Sound just down the street from Sopadilla Bay, and I really liked that part of the island. As mentioned above, that is way less crowded than the north side of the island. When we went, there were only a handful of people on the beach at Sopadilla, but plenty of guys with full bars set up under tents in case you wanted a rum punch or a gin & tonic (and I did). The new set up for the Fish Fry at Diamond Stubbs Plaza is great. It seemed that a lot of the vendors are also private chefs. So if you intend to get a private chef one night, it may be a good idea to use the Fish Fry as something of an audition. We used Grandma's Boy for when we wanted meals done in the house a couple times. But I would've been happy with any number of the other vendors at Fish Fry. PLS is the worst airport I've ever been to. That being said, you should run upstairs and find a spot at the bar. I think most people didn't know there was an upstairs (which was a good thing for those of us who figured it out).
  15. I think the Reuben is inarguably the best in town. Seriously—it’s fantastic. The big pretzel’s pretty great, too.
  16. Looking that way. And really disappointing for this team, which really should be in the quarterfinals every time (at least). There’s obviously some rot in der Mannschaft.
  17. Ok—I may have to adopt Ecuador as my team. I love it that their guys fight through the fouls and stay on their feet to keep the game going. There is no flopping. It’s so … un-Italian.
  18. I guess my only question is whether he was behind the keeper.
  19. So we’re not going to talk about that other guy who is behind the goalie?
  20. Don’t blame Fox—this is an international feed supplied by FIFA. Fox only provides the commentators.
  21. Yep—Elon just killed Truth Social. I wonder if Trump put any of his own money into that nonsense.
  22. Holy shit—a completion and a run for positive yardage!
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