Archive for November 4, 2023

Don’t complain about the systems you built!

Posted: November 4, 2023 by navygrade36bureaucrat in Blame Biden Administration
Tags: , , ,

The incessant whining about Senator Tuberville is just non-stop these days, but a recent article in the Marine Corps Times absolutely takes the cake for the sheer hypocrisy shown concerning the Senate approval process.

First, we start with good news: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer decided to…wait for it…bring a vote on Lt Gen Christopher Mahoney to the Senate to confirm him as the Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps.

But wait! Didn’t that dirty, mean, America-hating Senator Tuberville have a hold on all nominations? Of course, the answer is no, and as I pointed out many times in the past, all Senator Tuberville has done is make the Senate follow its own rules and not shortcut the nomination approval process, since the DoD decided to focus on killing innocent American babies instead of protecting the country from foreign threats. He even voted in favor of General Mahoney, and the heads of the Air Force and Navy. The Marine Corps Times, after a few paragraphs, finally admits the truth:

That’s because since February Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, has refused to confirm senior military nominees through unanimous consent, in protest of a Pentagon policy covering time off and travel expenses for service members who travel out of state for abortions. Tuberville has argued that the military’s leadership gaps aren’t his fault and that it’s on the Pentagon to reverse its abortion policy or the Senate Democrats to hold individual roll-call votes on nominees. Democratic leaders estimated in September it would take 100 days of nothing but holding votes 8 hours a day to confirm what were then 273 nominees.

-Marine Corps Times

Reverse your illegal policy or else I’ll make you vote in accordance with existing rules?

Just a thought…if your rules make it hard to do work, you might want to fix the rules. Even better, maybe you reduce the vast number of generals and admirals, most of whom are totally worthless anyway and don’t contribute to the success of the military.

But the Marine Corps Times just can’t let it go, they have to come out against the evil Senator, so they fixate on an interview with the Commandant in September where he complained that his schedule was not sustainable, and he was only getting five hours of sleep a night.

From Bing AI image generator

5 hours of sleep!! The horror!!!

My brother in Christ, I have 5 children at home, and my wife and I are lucky if we get five hours of sleep a night. More importantly, generals and admirals have been telling junior Marines, soldiers, Sailors and airmen to pull long hours since…well, at least since I’ve been in, and probably before that. Anytime someone brings up sleep studies or the negative effects of not getting enough sleep, that person is chastised as a whiner. Will anyone do that to Smith?

Probably not, since he’s in the hospital. While Senator Tuberville did say he was praying for Smith’s recovery, he also, correctly, called out the nonsense remark on X:

“This guy is going to work 18-20 hours a day no matter what. That’s what we do. I did that for years.”

Marine Corps Times

And right there…that’s the unvarnished truth. We’ve created a two-tier system where it’s OK for junior military members to be deprived of sleep and ridiculed if they speak up, yet top leadership won’t do anything to change it, but then wants sympathy when they suffer too?

Or, more likely, they still don’t care, and they just want to score some cheap political points, because mean Senator Tuberville is asking hard questions about abortion that these so-called leaders don’t like answering.

If you’re not willing to answer hard questions, or (gasp) maybe rescind your illegal policy that murders innocent babies with taxpayer dollars, then perhaps you shouldn’t be in a leadership position.

Don’t whine about the systems you built. Generals Mahoney and Smith created the Marine Corps they now lead, and it apparently promotes a terrible sleep schedule. Well fellas, you own it. You made it over the past 20 or so years. You don’t get to complain about it. Same goes for the Senate…you made nominations hard, and you created hundreds of flag officer positions, so don’t whine when you have to actually review these people and follow your own rules.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Under the Fedora: Mysterious Ways, Mea Culpa (but not maximum), Cost Benefit, Rotate, Rotate Rotate, Too Little Too Late (at least for me)

Posted: November 4, 2023 by datechguy in baseball, dynasty baseball, gaming, nba, nfl, nhl, online gaming, Sports, under the fedora
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I apologize, I had previously stated that I’d give you the lyrics of my parody song “Don’t Mess With God” (sung to the tune of “Don’t Bring Me Down”) if the Catholic Hating Dodgers got bounced from the playoffs quickly but I think the time has passed.

I will however note that the Texas Rangers who won their first ever world series against a gritty Arizona Diamondbacks team four games to one were not just the only MLB team not to have a “Pride Night” (meaning gay pride) in their stadium, but did not lose a game in the playoffs in any MLB park that hosted one.

The only sad thing, the great Frank Howard didn’t live to see them win.

You might recall I hit the Celtics hard for their trade of Marcus Smart noting that on a team devoid of balls he had the most.

Well the Celtics who got rid of Smart and both Williams and Brogdon and replaced them with Kristaps Porzingas and Jrue Holiday have yet to lose a game in four tries while the teams involved in these trades are a combined 4-13 with the Memphis Grizzlies who got Smart yet to win one in six tries.

So I guess a mea culpa is in order but I’ll hold off the mea maxima culpa for now because Porzingas has a long history of injuries and we’re just under 5% into the season.

If he plays in 95% of the games then we’ll go to the max.

The Patriots made no moves at the trade deadline and while that doesn’t sit well with a lot of the Boston media I’m fine with it for a few reasons:

  1. There was not going to be a lot of interest in middling players beyond a 7th rounder at best
  2. There is no point in trading people who are good enough to build around for draft picks that may or may not produce an NFL player. The cost benefit just isn’t there.
  3. While everyone is drooling over the chance to get the top pick in the draft in the end since a full 20% of super bowls were won by QB’s taken in the first round it’s also true that a full 20% of Superbowls have been won by players picked at 199 (Tom Brady) or later (Bart Starr pick 200) (Brad Johnson 227)

The bottom line is that while a stud is a grand thing to have you still have to develop a QB. I think it’s better to get a team to win some games, even against bad competition than to tank for a first round pick. After all most teams who play the tank game are still losing big.

Instead of insisting on the return of the Brady era which isn’t happening lets remember and celebrate that we had that abnormal time to win and let Bill develop players as best he can.

The Boston Bruins have yet to lose in their first 10 games this season and seem even better than last year (19 out of a possible 20 points so far) despite the two major retirements in the off season. The difference seems to be the defense that has allowed only a single power play goal against them and of course the excellent goaltending of their pair of Ullmark and Swayman.

Many have suggested they should have traded one I disagree. Having both of them is the best insurance policy that a team can have against a single injury derailing a season as both are #1 goalies on any team in the league.

I would however suggest that whatever rotation you are using in the regular season be applied to the playoffs. The failure to do so last year after a record breaking regular season in my opinion contributed to their 1st round playoff defeat.

Finally in my two primary Dynasty Leagues the disappointment continues. While I was able to play spoiler to the White Sox playoff hopes in the final series of the year I tanked against Florida finishing 2 games out in a league that has no wild cards.

Meanwhile in the 1971 league my team that has traded off most of it’s stars for draft picks and prospects have won 5 of their last 6 but with only 35 games to go 9 games is just too much to make up in the race for the final wild card, even if I didn’t have two teams ahead of me to pass.

However there is movement in the NL as the Phillies who had a ten game lead for the final wildcard spot have gone 1-9 in their last ten letting the Cards pick up 4 games while playing .500 ball at the same time.

St. Louis is now only 6 games out with nobody to pass and still has three games against the Phillies coming up before the end.

On the down side the Cardinals next 12 games are against teams with winning percentages of .654, ,604 .535 and .708.

If they are going to come back they’ll have to earn it.