Archive for October, 2024

Nixon had his Saturday Night Massacre, Chicago’s mayor has his Friday Afternoon Massacre

Posted: October 6, 2024 by John Ruberry in education, News/opinion, politics
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Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson

By John Ruberry

While he’s only 17 months in his first term in office, Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson is on pace to be remembered as one of America’s worst big city mayors. The competition to be inducted into that shameful club includes some real rascals and incompetents, such as New York’s Jimmy Walker, Detroit’s Coleman Young, Cleveland’s Dennis Kucinich, and Chicago’s Big Bill Thompson. 

The insufferably incompetent and complicit Chicago media, once among the America’s best, rarely mentions that “Branjo,” prior to his election as mayor, was a longtime paid organizer–that means agitator–for the far-left Chicago Teachers Union. The CTU was the largest donor to his mayoral campaign, and it supplied ground troops to get Johnson elected. Yes, I know, Johnson was also a Cook County commissioner. While in that job he authored no memorable legislation.

Johnson, in short, is in the pocket of the CTU. 

Why can’t you say so, Chicago media?

Chicago is essentially broke because of massive unfunded pension obligations, and so is Chicago Public Schools. 

On Friday afternoon, all seven members of the Chicago Board of Education resigned because they refuse to fire CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, who was appointed by Johnson’s predecessor, Lori Lightfoot. Johnson has called on Martinez to resign, the mayor supports the fiscally anemic CPS to take out what’s widely being called a “payday loan” to pay for pension obligations and big raises for CTU members. 

Martinez opposes that, and clearly, so do the former board members. Unlike Martinez, the board members who just quit aren’t Lightfoot holdovers. Johnson appointed all of them.

Richard Nixon, who Johnson has blamed for Chicago’s problems, had his Saturday night massacre. Johnson has his Friday Afternoon Massacre.

The president of the Chicago Teachers Union is Stacy Davis Gates. She’s an ill-tempered leftist who is possibly crazier than US Rep. Rashida Tlaib. Gates, it’s important to know, sends her son to a private school. Of course she is against school choice for everyone else, as is Johnson.

Besides its money problems, Chicago Public Schools do a horrible job educating students. Even though CPS spending continues to soar, student test scores continue to be quite low. Roughly three-quarters of CPS students are unable to read at grade level—and math scores are even worse. 

Can this story get any worse? 

In Chicago, getting worse is the normal.

As part of a transition to a fully elected Board of Education, ten seats for a new board are up for election this fall–voting has already begun. Johnson will appoint the remaining 11 seats. 

The new members that Johnson will appoint will be out of office in a few months. Branjo will task them to fire Martinez, approve the “payday loan” for those pension obligations, and approve a big raise for Chicago’s unionized teachers. 

Good government types in Chicago—amazingly, they really exist–condemned Johnson’s pro-Chicago Teachers Union power play. Surprisingly a large majority–over eighty percent–of the Chicago City Council, including aldermen who are members progressive caucus and two of the six socialists, have expressed opposition to Branjo’s move.

Johnson has been particularly cozy to some of city’s socialist aldermen. They were among his staunchest protecters after Branjo cancelled the city’s gunfire protection contract with ShotSpotter.

As Barack Obama famously said, elections have consequences. Chicago voters choose poorly.

Crime, despite laughable denials from Crain’s Chicago Business, also known as Crain’s Chicago Anti-Business, is a serious problem Chicago. The office and retail vacancy rate downtown are over 25 percent. For 2025, Chicago faces a $1 billion deficit.

Sadly, there is not recall mechanism in place for Chicago mayors.

Meanwhile, Johnson has other priorities. Today’s he’s campaigning for Kamala Harris in Las Vegas. Next week, ostensibly to bring business and tourism to Chicago, the mayor will be in London for the Bears game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Israel Passes the Test: A thought about the “Don’t Fear the Beeper” Attack

Posted: October 6, 2024 by datechguy in Israel, middle east
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Troi: Run programme.
Simulated Worf: The control system for the primary containment field is not functioning.
Simulated LaForge: Something’s severed the ODN conduit between here and the antimatter storage deck.
Troi: Geordi, could you repair the ODN conduit if you went into the crawlspace?
Simulated Worf: Sir, that crawlway is in a warp-plasma shaft. He would never survive the radiation.
Troi: I know that. Geordi, could you repair the conduit?
Simulated LaForge: Yeah, I think I could.
Troi: Then do it. That’s an order. (He exits)
Riker: End simulation. Something told me you wouldn’t let this go. Congratulations. You passed.
Troi: That’s what this was all about, wasn’t it? To see if I’d order someone to their death.

Star Trek TNG: Thine Own Self 1994 (Via Chakoteya.net)

Something hit me when I was reading this tweet by Yashar Ali

Particularly this bit of it:

The Mossad already got walkie talkies in the hands of Hezbollah back in 2015. The walkie talkies contained an extra large battery and also gave the ability of Mossad to eavesdrop on ALL Hezbollah communications, which it did for nine years.

Now while Hezbollah has been hitting Israel bigly over the last year, at least till operation “don’t fear the beeper” finally was launched they have also launched plenty of rockets and various attacks over the 9 years that Israel was collecting data.

That means that in order to keep Iran and their proxy terrorists in the dark during that time they would have had to allow some of those attacks to get through over that time as if they were unexpected because they could not risk them assuming their communications were being intercepted.

In hindsight of course this decision may in fact lead to the destruction of Hezbollah as anything resembling an effective fighting force and possibly to the freedom of the Lebanese from under the Iranian proxy’s thumb.

But to achieve that Israeli citizens were put at risk and some likely died.

It was a tough call, the time of call a person who has the lives of thousands or millions has to make or to quote the TNG episode above before Troi figured it out: “My first duty is to the ship.”

I’m old enough to remember when the US had leaders able to make those hard calls.

1972 Dynasty League Divisional Series New York Daytraders (Mets) vs Atlanta Bananas (Braves)

Posted: October 4, 2024 by datechguy in baseball, gaming, online gaming
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The final in a series of four posts on divisional series for my Dynasty League.

New York Daytraders (Mets) 94-68 2nd place NL Beta (3rd Seed)

Offense: The Daytraders finished tied with the Giants for most NL homeruns (140) led by 1971 AL MVP Willie Stargell (.331 Avg 32 HR) , Norm Cash (22 HR) and Craig Nettles (20 HR). Stargell & Ted Simmons (.281 13 HR 30 2B) drove in 91 each tied for 8th in the league. Leron Lee hit .328 (4th in league) 2nd in Slugging and OPS, with 8 Triples and 16 HR of his own. Willie Mays acquired from Montreal 1/3 of the way through the season managed to draw 51 walks with the Daytraders

Defense: The Daytraders .983 fielding percentage is decidedly ordinary. Their catchers only threw out less than a quarter (9 of 39) of baserunners stealing although Ted Simmons only committed 4 errors in 1245 2/3 innings. The 2nd base platoon was either perfect (Leron Lee no errors in 627 errors) or sloppy (Wayne Garrett 12 errors in 508 1/3 innings Norm Cash did well at first (.995). Stargell might have been a terror at the plate but in the field his seven errors and only 2 assists were much more friendly for their opponents. Both Leo Cardenas (ss) and Craig Nettles (3b) committed 18 errors with an above average fielding percentage for their position

Pitching: With a starting 3 of Tom Seaver Steve Carlton and Phil Niekro all throwing over 300 innings (Seaver 303 2/3 ip Carlton 310 Niekro 304 2/3) each with over 20 (Carlton 23, Niekro 22 Seaver 21) wins. 66 wins in 66 Complete games a bullpen is almost an afterthought. 3rd in NL ERA 3.10 and batting .227 and 1st in strikeouts in the majors with 1224 with Carlton (329) and Seaver (320) one and two in the majors by far. Roger Nelson acquired in a trade with KC went 13-7 in 26 starts and 2 relief appearances with a WHIP of 0.96 and an avg against of ,195 both 4th in the league. Alas their closers were only 64% effective with Lerrin LaGrow saving 8 of 12 the teams 16 saves 19th of 20th teams with only the 46 win Dodgers having fewer.

Atlanta Bananas 98-64 1st place NL Alpha (2nd Seed)

Offense: Atlanta’s offense begins and ends with Triple Crown winner and presumed MVP Billy Williams .386 39 HR 143 RBI who also led the league in OBP, Slug OPS hits and 2nd in runs (116) and Hits (203) Dusty Baker at .315 avg .389 OBP, .481 Slugging and .870 OPS 96 Runs and 185 Hits is no Williams but would lead most teams. Cesar Cedeno drove in 95, 15 SB, scoring 106 runs (3rd) and 52 doubles leading the league. The teams 132 runs are just behind the Giants. and their .269 Team avg leads the NL

Defense: The Bananas defense will not be putting the fear of God into anyone, at .982 they near the bottom of the league with Pittsburgh (.981) the only playoff team worse. More respectable is their caught stealing percentage of .419 4th in the NL but there are some bright spots like Aurelio Rodrigues with only 11 errors in 1424 1/3 innings at 3rd and young Toby Harrah with only 15 errors in 667 chances. Ralph Garr (4 Errors) Cesar Cedeno (5 errors) and Dusty Baker (6 Errors) will give guys a chance but Baker added 11 baserunner kills and Cedeno 16 to keep them honest. While Billy Williams did not impress at 1b he was errorless in over 150 innings in the outfield.

Pitching: Catfish Hunter, Fergie Jenkins and Mike Cuellar make a formidable 1-3 starting lineup with Sonny Siebert and Dave McNally (acquired in the Dave Giusti deal with SF) makes it even deeper. Add to that Rollie Fingers 18 saves in 21 chances and you have a team that can shut down anyone top to bottom. The downside, While the team gave up the fewest walks in the majors (376) that meant a lot of pitches over the plate quite a few going out of the park with Cuellar (24) Jenkins (20) and Catfish Under (15) and Siebert (10 in 149 1/3 innings) and McNally (8 in 115 1/3 innings all vulnerable to the gopher ball. Still with a .228 team avg against and a 3.10 team ERA clearly the long ball hasn’t counted them out.

Series 1 April: Opening day at Atlanta

An injury to Catfish Hunter ended his day after 1 2/3 inning but no matter 3 other Atlanta pitchers shut out the Daytraders while Toby Harrah, Ed Kranepool each drove in runs and Dusty Baker drove in 2 one on a solo shot off loser Tom Seaver to give the Braves a 4-0 win. In game 2 Fergie Jenkins gave up only 5 hits, two of them solo shots while Steve Carlton was shelled giving up 10 run (9 earned) on 15 hits for a 10-2 rout. The Daytraders took the final game as Phil Niekro outdueled Mike Cuellar 4-1 as two errors along with a strong start in the first doomed Atlanta.

Series 2 May at NY

Atlanta and NY split their second series Tom Seaver winning game one over a healed up Catfish Hunter. All the scoring was in the first with a Billy Williams solo shot in the 1st for the Bananas and a two run double by Norm Cash give NY their 2-1 final. In game 2 Ken Reynolds held the Daytraders to a single run on a fourth inning grounder while Billy Williams drove in two and Tito Fuenties, Leron Lee and Caesar Cedeno each drove in one for the 5-1 margin.

Series 3 at Atlanta

Atlanta swept the short series Catfish Hunter giving up 5 in 9 inning but the final three after his team had already scored 9 Dick Billings and Billy Williams treated Phil Niekro’s flutterball with distain as the bananas piled on 12 hits. In game 2 Fergie Jenkins also gave up 5 in only 5 innings but got the win as Atlanta put up 11 in 5 innings pounding Roger Nelson. The 12-8 final was not nearly as close as it seemed.

Series 4 at NY

The final series took place vs the 2nd Atlanta manager and the Daytraders paid back the Bananas in kind with a sweep. Game one saw the Daytraders again get to Fergie Jenkins early chasing him after 3 with 5 runs including a 2 run shot by Craig Nettles who would drive in 3. That was equal to the number Nelson gave up (2 earned) as NY won 6-3 Game 2 saw Catfish Hunter give up a pair of long ones to Stargell and Lee while Seaver only allowed two runs over nine (Both driven in by Billy Williams) in a 5-2 win. In the finale Steve Carlton in contrast to his first meeting with the Bananas gave up his only run in on a 9th inning solo shot. Hard luck loser Mike Cueller made one crucial mistake but it was to Craig Nettles with two on which gave the Daytraders a 3-0 lead. Leron Lee would get 3 hits and drive in the 4th run for the 4-1 final.

Season Series 5-5

This is likely the most evenly matched series so far in the playoffs which makes sense as these two teams fought for the division title all season. Atlanta was held back by chaos in the dugout with three different managers this season but their current leader put together a surge that clinched the division. The wildcard is the fact that the Daytraders have yet to face the new Atlanta manager.

The Bananas have a great top 3 starters actually a solid top 5 but the Mets have the most frightening top 3 in the league with a solid 4th. On the other hand while the Daytraders have an great offense Atlanta counters with the triple crown winner Billy Williams. Neither team has a great defense so it will come down to the starters. That edge has to go with the Daytraders although Fingers makes the Atlanta Bullpen decidedly better. This series should definitely go five and it’s as close to a pick-em as you can get but if you force me to choose I’d have to go Daytraders in 5 but by the smallest of margins. I suspect the Bananas vulnerability to the long ball will be the difference.

Daytraders in 5

1972 Dynasty Baseball Divisional Round Playoffs Pirates at San Francisco

Posted: October 3, 2024 by datechguy in baseball, dynasty baseball, gaming, online gaming
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The 3rd in a series of writeups about the divisional round in my 1972 Dynasty League

Pittsburgh: Winner NL Wild Card Round:

The write up about the Pirates team as a whole for the Wild Card Round is here.

NL Wild Card game 1 at Riverfront Stadium

It was a battle of the aces as Gaylord Perry a NL Cy Young favorite faced Fritz Peterson the ace of the Big Red Machine. Things started well for Cincinnati as Al Kaline tagged Perry for a homer and an Error by Hank Aaron set up Bill Buckner to drive in Joe Rudi on a grounder for a 2-0 lead. Pittsburgh struck back with two outs in the 6th. Singles by Bill Freehan, Ron Woods and George Scott loaded the bases and Peterson’s 3-2 pitch to Rod Carew was just outside to walk in a run but Tommy Davis K’d to kill the rally. Peterson further helped his cause by beating out an attempt to bunt Bill Bucker to 2nd a two out walk to Joe Morgan loaded the bases for Johnny Bench who singled him in but Perry like Peterson K’d the last man (Kaline) to keep things close (3-1) after 7.

That’s when the Pirates erupted. Bill Freehan led off with a solo shot to make it a 1 run game. Ron Woods walked and with one out Carew singled him to 3rd. Up came Joe Lahoud who drove a ball down the 1B line. Dick Allen dived but couldn’t get it Woods scored easily and Carew beat Kaline’s throw to give the Bucks the lead. Lahoud moved to 3rd on the throw but was cut down on a suicide squeeze when new Pitcher Fred Gladding got off the mound quickly to get the ball to Bench to keep it 4-3. Cincy threatened in the 8th getting runners on 1 & 3 in the 8th and the Pirates had 1st & 3rd with one out and the bases loaded in the 9th but both failed to score. Finally relief ace Mike Marshall came on in the 9th when Perry gave up a lead off double to Dick Allen. With the tying run in scoring position and nobody out Joe Morgan walked bringing up Bench who grounded a ball right to 3rd allowing Sonny Jackson to make the force there for the 1st out. This turned out to be critical as a bad throw by Jackson pulled Aaron off the bad loading the bases rather than allowing in the tying run. With the game on the line and only one out Marshall struck out Joe Rudi and got Ted Martinez to ground softy to short eeking out a 4-3 Pirates win by the narrowest of margins.

WP Perry (1-0) LP Peterson (0-1) Sv Marshall (1) HR Kaline (1) Freehan (1)

Game two at Three Rivers Stadium

Pittsburgh struck 1st off of starter Paul Splittorff as Aaron hit a solo shot with two outs but Bill Singer gave it right back in the 2nd when Bobby Tolan hit a two run shot of his own to give Cincy a 2-1 lead. Jose Cruz lead off the bottom of the 3rd with a walk and Pittsburgh unexpected pinch hit for Singer after only 3 inning of work. It paid off as Johnny Briggs doubled to left center tying the game and after a Bill Russell bunt moved him to 3rd Rod Carew singled him in for a 3-2 Pit lead. It looked like Cincy would come right back. Dick Allen singled in the top of the 4th and Splittorff bunted him to second. Joe Morgan promptly singled and the speedy Allen headed for home but young Jose Cruz’s throw got there first cutting down the tying run.

That would prove critical as relievers Jim Barr, Bob Johnson and Mike Marshall would all bend, none of them would break as they shut out the vaunted Reds office while Pit added two more on a bases loaded double play and a single in the 7th to account for the final 5-2 score

WP Barr (1-0) LP Splittorff (0-1) Sv Marshall (2) HR Aaron (1) Tolan (1)

San Francisco 108-54 1st in NL Beta (1st seed)

Offense: The offense that won a world series two years ago returned to San Francisco as the giants 718 runs scored was only surpassed by the incredible Yankees (822) Rookie Dave Kingman hit only .186 but 26 of his 70 hits left the park. He was one of 3 Giants members of the 20+ HR club with Bobby Bonds (23HR 107 RBI & 30 SB both 3rd in NL) and Harmon Killebrew acquired in a trade with Kansas City who though not was he was still put 21 balls out of the yard to go with the 6 that he hit for the Royals. and drove in 61. The team didn’t hit for much avg. Rick Monday hit the highest at .277 but with their 140 HR leading the NL they didn’t have to, particularly since their 656 walks led the majors. With Darrell Evans walking 137 times , Chris Spier’s 81 and Killer Killerbrew walking 72 times in 111 games there was always someone on base to drive in and Boy did they do so. They are a rally waiting to happen every inning.

Defense: Very few teams were more deadly up the middle. Dave Cash at 2nd with only 2 errors .997 FPCT and Chris Speier at short .986 FPCT were death to runners while Gary Maddox threw out 8 in center while committing only 2 errors Bobby Bonds in threw out 10 more in right but added 3 errors to the mix. Both Killebrew and Kingman were more than adequate at first with the vet outplaying the rookie but Darrell Evans 30 errors at 3rd were high and the SF pitching staff combined for 16 more. The real danger was the catching as the Giants only threw out 2 of 30 who were stealing all season.

Pitching: The Giants had the top team ERA in baseball at 2.66 top in baseball with a .216 avg against and top in baseball with a 1.09 WHIP. Combine that with the 3rd fewest walks in the NL and that meant there weren’t a lot of baserunners around to take advantage of their poor catching arms. s and their .216 avg against and 1.09 WHIP Jim Palmer at 26-5 with a 1.87 ERA and a WHIP of 0.97 and a .198 avg against was practically unhittable Eddie Watt went 9-1 in relief while saving 11 of 13 Dave Gusti who came over from Atlanta in the Trade for Dave McNally saved 17 of 21 to make it very hard to come back from all that offense. Unheralded Phil Hennigan went 6-2 in relief along with a save thanks to a .193 against and a WHIP under 1 (0.94) As for the rest of the rotation Dock Ellis and Mickey Lolich (acquired in May from Baltimore) were adequate both going 12-12 and Ron Bryant went 14-7 to round the things out.

Season Series

Series 1 May at Pittsburgh

In game 1 the Giants offense was too much for Gaylord Perry as rookie Dave Kingman hit a 2 run shot in the 1st while Bobby Bonds did the same in the 6th with Darrell Evans driving in one in the 3rd as well. This was more than enough for Steve Stone who gave up a solo shot by Aaron in the 3rd and came out in the 8th when the Bucks would add two more as they won 5-3

Game 2 was much more interesting with the Pirates managing 2 off Palmer in the 2nd on a Sonny Jackson triple. The Giants took the lead in the 3rd with 3 off Bob Johnson aided by errors from Sonny Jackson and Aaron. Dave Kingman’s double being the big hit. The Pirates tied it up in the 8th on a Coco Laboy single which drove in Jose Cruz to tie it but the key play was Dave Kingman being thrown out at 3rd by Rick Monday on Cruz’s single which would have given Pittsburgh a lead on the Laboy’s hit. Instead the game remained tied after 9 and would stay that way till the Giants erupted for 6 runs in the top of the 12 three of them on a bases clearing double by Rick Monday leading to the lopsided 9-3 score

Pittsburgh got their revenge in game 3 scoring 4 off the newly acquired Mickey Lolich on a pair of 2 runs shots by Aaron (3rd) and Stennett (7th) while Bill Singer held the Giants to a single run in the first over 7 2/3’s Marshall pitching the 9th for his 9th save.

Series 2 June at San Francisco

The Giants took game one despite an injury to starter Jim Willoughby and a pair of 6th inning runs off of Steve Stone who can in to replace him. The giants answered with back to back HR by Speier & Evans in the bottom of the inning and took the lead for good with 2 in the 7th via a Speier single and one in the 8th off of Bruce Kison 3. Eddie Watt got the win and the Giusti trade paid dividends with the save. In game 2 Pitt took an early 5-1 lead helped along by Back to Back HR by Bill Freehan & Ron Woods off starter Ron Bryant but the Giants would rally for four in the bottom of the inning to tie it the big hit being Killebrew’s 3 run shot and would take the lead for good in the 4th when Bobby Bonds Tripled and was driven in by a Killebrew double. Barr managed to get out of further damage but Stone, Hennigan and Acosta would shut the Bucs down the rest of the way. Once again it was in game 3 that Pittsburgh would avenge itself as Gaylord Perry would outduel Jim Palmer shutting them out on 3 hits while the Pirates scored on a Joe Lahoud single in the 1st and a solo shot by Johnny Briggs in the 3rd.

Series 3 August at Pittsburgh

The Giants shut out Pittsburgh in game one Dock Ellis shut them out for 8 with Cy Acosta pitching a scoreless 9th while they went to town on Jim Colburn with Bonds and, Evans homering and Evans driving in 5 runs total for an 8-0 blowout. Game two the Pirates shut them out back with Perry pitching 8 innings of 1 hit ball while Mike Marshall pitched the 9th for the save. Again the victims was Mickey Lolich was the victim of this shutout giving up homers to Freehan and Woods in a 3-0 loss. Game 3 would be another pitchers duel although not as scoreless as for 9 innings Three Pittsburgh Pitchers (Johnson Barr & Marshall) and Three Giants pitchers (Bryant, Watt & Giusti) would hold the other to 2 runs via a pair of singles by Bonds and Kingman in the 1st and a Solo shot by Aaron in the 4th and a Bryant error in the 6th that tied it. In the 10th the Giants would finally get to Marshall as with one out he gave out 3 doubles with a single after the first two in sequence for 3 runs. The Pirates would load the bases off Cy Acosta in the bottom half of the inning thanks to a single, walk and one out error. Acosta would give up one run on a bases loaded walk to Tom Haller and a wild pitch directly afterwards but he would get Ron Woods out on a grounder to short with the infield pulled in and after an intentional walk to George Scott would retire Rennie Steinnett to escape disaster.

Series 4 Sept at San Francisco

As in his last start against the Bucs Jim Palmer would give up two runs, but they would be in the 9th after his team had scored seven in the first six innings. Homers by Rick Monday, Evans were the big blows. Game 2 again went the Giants way. The Bucks got 2 in the 3rd on a Sonny Jackson double but the Giants got four back on an 2 RBI single by Bonds, an RBI single from Garry Maddox and an RBI double from Johnny Oates. Dave Cash would add a solo shot for the 5-2 win. Gaylord Perry would again Victimize Mickey Lolich with a 5 hit shutout in game 3 as Carew, Stennett and Perry himself would drive in runs while Aaron would go deep again for the 6-0 win.

Season Series SF 8-4

The Pirates 91 wins are nothing to sneeze at but the Giants dominated at home and on the road (54-27 records in each) winning 2-3 of every series they played and pretty much only losing when shut out by Gaylord Perry and beating up on Mickey Lolich. They are going to have to manage to win at least one game without Perry and beat someone other than Lolich to win this series. The Duel between him and Palmer in game one will decide a lot but based on the offense the rest of the team has managed I’ve got to give the edge to San Francisco in 4 but frankly I won’t be surprised if it goes five.

SF in 4.

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