…but apparently if you’re doing so to DeSantis suddenly the MSM, fake media that pushed the Russia Hoax the false J6 narrative and has been pushing the Trump indictments are disqualifying are suddenly to folks like Kari Lake and Donald Trump Jr a reliable source that must be trusted. Which is particularly funny in Lake’s case as her entire campaign in Arizona was based on her calling them out.
Now I’m not actually surprised by the Trump campaign’s reaction because it’s Trump’s nature to fight in this way. Indeed one of the things that make Trump appealing other than his record is that he fights like a Democrat and when the target is a Democrat people who have have seen the left get away with this kind of stuff without pushback for years tend to smile because a Jacksonian believes that if you’re fighting against someone who doesn’t fight fair, they don’t get a fair fight back. It’s one of the reasons why Trump is my 2nd choice after DeSantis over the rest of the GOP field that has no fight in them whatsoever.
But right now we’re in a GOP primary and Trump is fighting the single best GOP governor we have in the country using the same type of tactics & lies that the Dems used against him. Why because he understand that voters, not pols vote. (at least in GOP primaries where the boxes are stuffed)
That last thing President Trump needs on the GOP primary ballot is a person with a solid conservative record both of accomplishment and defeating the left who can appeal to those people particularly in swing states, that are suffering from Trump fatigue.
I submit and suggest the only person more afraid of Gov Ron DeSantis than the MSM and left is Donald Trump.
But in fairness if DeSantis is going to beat the Dems in November he has to be able to handle this kind of dishonest attack because it’s exactly the same type of tactics that the Biden campaign will throw at him and worse so it’s good practice for the fall.
Closing thought: If Trump is the nominee it will be interesting to see the same people touting these tactics by CNN vs DeSantis being outraged when they’re used against Trump again.
Posted: August 20, 2023 by datechguy in Uncategorized
Screwtape:Even if a particular train of thought can be twisted so as to end in our favor you will find that you have been strengthening in your patient the fatal habit of attending to universal issues and withdrawing his attention from the stream of immediate sense experiences. Your business is to fix his attention on the stream. Teach him to call it “real life” and don’t let him ask what he means by “real”.
C. S. Lewis The Screwtape letters Screwtape #1 1941
One of the disadvantages of having blogged continually for 15 years is that you are constantly looking for something to write about.
It doesn’t matter what else is going on, if you have readers, particularly readers who have kicked in cash there is a desire to make sure there is material on the plate every day. When you do full time work and have other items on your plate that can be a challenge.
That’s where the addiction of Twitter and everything else in social media comes into play. It provides an endless stream of people talking about things and expressing opinions on things. It can be a useful source but the desire to be heard and to prove one’s own self importance can become an addiction as strong as any other.
Today after mass DaWife and I were thinking about a quick bite when we decided to stop in on our sons house. Our oldest grabbed a quick shower and joined us at a local donut shop where we sat outside had a drink and ate our stuff while simply talking.
We didn’t concentrate on our phones, or the net or anything else, we just enjoyed the sun, the food the drink and each other.
In short to the horror of screwtape we withdrew our attention from the stream.
Of course in C. S. Lewis’ day the steam was very different that it is today but the principle is the same.
You have the power to walk away and interact with life. Note how many companies have failed to withdraw from the steam of facebook and twitter treating it like it was “real life” rather than interacting with the actual people their business is dependent on.
Don’t make that mistake, take a step away and if it means you don’t see an update on one of your sites till this evening or even tomorrow. You’ll be shocked at how easy it is to do so.
One of the truths of life is that everyone makes occasionally makes mistakes, and when one does the best way to deal with it is to acknowledge it and move on.
Such was seemingly the case in Ohio when Rep Max Miller (R-OH) inexplicitly had a hissy fit when a woman with barely over 7000 X (twitter) followers tweeted out one of the most basic tenants of Christianity:
There's no hope for any of us outside of having faith in Jesus Christ alone.
Congressman Miller treated this as an anti sematic remark rather than as a Christian professing Christianity and demanded she pull the tweet. As you might guess the national pushback was rather swift and so bad that even Illan Omar was dunking on him so he apologized leaving up the original tweet as it preserves the record.
That was seemingly it, one day story at best, stupid mistake quick correction down the memory hole it goes and a potential threat to his seat in congress gone.
Alas, it wasn’t that simple you see the lady in question above works for Ohio Right to Life and the congressman’s wife is on the board of that august body and while they were unable to create a victory in a critical referendum this month they were more than capable to getting vengeance for the unspeakable crime of causing him grief.
The woman who was attacked by a GOP congressman for expressing her Christian faith has now been fired by Ohio Right To Life. The congressman’s wife reportedly sits on the board. In a statement, @ohiolife does not deny that her tweet contributed to her firing. https://t.co/Cd23Qww0f7
I can think of no thing that is more likely to encourage a GOP primary challenge to congressman Miller nor cause grief to the primary campaign of his wife’s father who happens to be running for Senate in the state than this.
Let me get this straight. @LizzieMarbach makes a statement on social media that is completely fundamental to the Christian faith.
Sitting congressman @MaxMillerOH rebukes her, calling her a bigot and demanding she delete it while his wife sits on the board of her employer…… pic.twitter.com/8nh2VbINkS
Furthermore given Ohio right to life’s failure in their last campaign a move that divides and upsets their donor base is about as stupid as you can get.
Marbach refused to delete the post from social media, noting in a response to Miller that Jesus said he is “the way, the truth, and the life” without whom one cannot come to the Father. “No one has hope outside of Jesus Christ and every knee will bow one day,” she added.
Right to life tried to get her to quit on their own she declined:
Marbach said in additional comments to The Sentinel that she trusts “God will continue to use this situation to bring glory and honor to his name.” She expressed hope that Ohio Right to Life would defend the lives of preborn babies in the state without political entanglements.
I suspect that God will take care of her, after all this is exactly what Christ predicted:
If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin; but as it is they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me also hates my Father.
If I had not done works among them that no one else ever did, they would not have sin; but as it is, they have seen and hated both me and my Father. But in order that the word written in their law might be fulfilled, ‘They hated me without cause.’“When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me. And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.
I have told you this so that you may not fall away. They will expel you from the synagogues; in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God. They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me.
John 15:18-16:2
As much as this will be a pain to congressman’s Miller whose damage control has been undone it’s going to be a whole lot worse for Ohio Right to Life which is apparently more interested in cheap political infighting and using cancel culture for their own ends than the lives of the unborn.
I’d not want to be part of their fundraising arm after today.
As anyone who follows me on twitter knows I’m very much into the Dynasty Baseball game, which came out of the old pursue the pennant boardgame from the pre-pc era. It’s my primary pastime these days beside watching regular baseball.
You can have a lot of fun playing in a league but if you want to run your own remember while it’s a lot of fun it’s also quite a bit of work. If you’ve thought of running your own league here are a few things you should consider:
A: Consider how much time you have:
The first thing you need to consider if you want to run a Dynasty league is how much free time you have to both run the league and play in it. Playing a game itself is not all time consuming, about 30-40 minutes per game is what’s required, but if you are scheduling games 2 days, 3 days or even four days a week can add up, particularly if you are not retired or have a family that likes to do things. Furthermore if you’re running a league you have to leave yourself enough time to put out the various fires that take place. So when deciding to run a league make sure you decide:
How much time you have for administration
How much time you have to actually play
What I’d do is figure how many free days I have to play and then subtract one or even two and then set whatever league you create to that length, that will assure that you have time to get it done.
B: Consider what type of league you want
There are three basic types of leagues in order of complexity
Draft leagues (Hardest)
Existing team leagues
Season Replay leagues
All have advantages and disadvantages:
Draft leagues:
Draft leagues involve drafting players from a pool of players from the same season. Draft leagues have several advantages over existing team leagues:
A: You get to be GM as well as manager building your own team and are thus more invested in it
B You can continue the league year to year to keep up interest
C You can tweak the system to add realism, (trades, waiver wires etc)
D The Draft itself becomes an event
It’s my experience that some people enjoy the GM factor more than the games itself and that you really become invested in the teams and players. I’ve reached the point in my league that I started in 1969 that I even make baseball cards for the folks on my team to wit:
My Version of Jack Hiatt’s 1971 card
However draft leagues have their downsides:
A: Considerably more time to manage
B: Handling the rosters
C The draft itself may take days or weeks
D Keeping Competitive balance
E More things to go wrong
Running a draft league means, handling rosters of every single team, running a draft and trying to do it fairly and if you are having a league that goes from season to season keeping up the competitive balance from season to season. All of these require extra work and time depending on the size of your league: (My current draft leagues are 16 players for 1996 and 20 for 1971) and of course the more players the more work.
Bottom line: Draft leagues are in my opinion the most fun but if I were new I’d start with an existing league first to get my feet wet:
Existing team leagues
Having a league of existing teams takes a lot of work out of the system. The adantages are clear:
There is almost no managing of rosters
No trying to get people together for a draft
No worrying about a change from one season to the next
If more than one person wants the Yanks, or Cubs they can have them
You can mix eras
As soon as you have your schedule made you can start at once
Most existing team league involve GREAT teams which is the pool for tournaments. These tend to be very popular because the teams are memorable although you can spice things up as I did by creating leagues that aren’t just great teams two examples:
All pathetic team leagues: Teams in such a league all have to have a minimum loss level (90, 100 or something in between) This makes for a very odd game where you are constantly hoping for players to roll of their opponent’s cards. Also it gets interesting when one such team has a superstar. A 1967 Mets team with Tom Seaver for example. Can you picture the number Seaver produces when only facing slubs?
All Mediocre teams (the SD Jones league) I ran a league of teams that all had records from 80-82 to 82-80. This makes for an interesting league as there is enough of a mix of slubs and stars to really involve managing games.
Either way with these teams you don’t have the same roster / upkeep issues although with some of the older teams you are more likely to run into situations where a team has no pitcher eligible to use.
The disadvantages of set teams are:
Teams are static no variation.
No GM or Draft or Trade type fun
Balance (think 27 yanks vs well almost anyone)
Less incentives for teams losing to continue
The mix of eras can cause anomalies
Bottom line set teams are a good option to start out but tend to be one or two shot deals. They work with teams that
Replay Leagues
With a replay league you play a team in an actual season in order.
The advantages:
Very realistic. Actual team, actual schedule
Schedule is pre-made so faster start
The system handles trades and signings when it happens
Excellent for solo league play
There are however some huge disadvantages
Your season only moves only as fast as the slowest player
Locked into the number of games in the season (162) games
Unbalanced a bad team is always bad
A season replay league is a great choice if you want to get familiar with the game in a hurry. But you want to be sure that the players in it are committed because you can’t move to July 21 till all of July 22’s games are done. You might impose a 24-48 hour limit to get things in.
You CAN make a season replay league into a draft league but the amount of work is considerable and if you do be prepared for a season to take a full year
C: Consider how many series you want in a week:
Unless you are playing a season replay which is played based on when a day is finished. The Dynasty league system allows you to schedule up to four series a week at any time you wish to set.
As a series can be set for anywhere from 2-4 games that means as little as 2 games a week and as many as 12.
The fewer series played in a week of course the easier it is for people to play without having to resort to autoplay but that also means the slower the season goes. Also consider that a game takes 30-45 min in my experience so a 4 game series can take 3 hours while a two game series can be done in 90 minutes.
Also remember that the more series you have in a week the less likely you are to draw in players who are already in a league or two who won’t be able to squeeze in those extra games.
And the more series a week the less time to reschedule when real life insists on asserting itself over your scheduiled gaming time.
D: Consider how many games you want in a season:
Unless you are playing a season replay which fixes you at 162 games (or 154 if you play 1957 or 60 if you play the COVID season) you have the option to set any number of games.
The longer the season you play the more real it will be and the less impact injuries and suspension will have. Of course a short season the season will be and the more chance that a streak of good or bad luck will carry the day.
Also consider a short season means that you can have multiple seasons in a year while a long season will likely mean two at the most.
And if you have a draft league remember the draft takes up time between seasons it doesn’t finish in a day (unless you play face to face).
But either way remember you are the guy who is going to have to make this schedule and enter it manually into dynasty
E: Consider How many players you want to manage:
Note that I didn’t ask you how many teams you wanted in your league I asked how many players you want to manage.
A smaller league means fewer players and the fewer players you have the easier it is to have guys show up when games are scheduled and to schedule more games in a week etc.
It’s also a lot easier to come up with a schedule with fewer teams.
A small intimate league is fun but of course there is nothing like a large league with 16-20 players and a great variety of styles of play and management, plus you get less “Superteams because so many players are used. For example in my current 1971 league there are only 6 pitchers not on someone’s roster.
But keep this in mind any online league usually involves people you don’t know personally. The only thing everyone has in common is a love of baseball and a willingness to pay for the game.
There are invariably going to be the basic problems, people from different time zone having issues being free etc but you are also going to run into disputes and errors and mistakes and if it’s your league you have to make the calls. Managing people of different temperaments, different ages et/al can be difficult so do your best to impartially stick to the rules.
I STRONGLY suggest that you avoid non-league stuff in conversation or in the slack room and if you’re on social media and are angry about something in the news don’t vent in the league space (I made that mistake a few years ago in a league and it’s a mistake I regret.)
But more than that I suggest not having any kind of cash league with a prize. Once money is involved everything changes and any mistake becomes magnified
Remember in the end it’s all about having fun, make the choices to allow the maximum amount of fun for yourself and all the work will pay off.
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