Posted: November 29, 2021 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
By: Pat Austin
SHREVEPORT – It has been at least five years since I looked at Drudge with any regularity. In the (distant) past I rather enjoyed the site but man, the site really seemed to change. Such drama! Things just seemed so slanted. Did it change or was it just me? I don’t know, but I quit looking at it very often. Every now and then I’ll pop in over there and see what’s up. And then I leave.
Well so now we have the new Omnicron variant of the Coronavirus and Drudge is going crazy. Lockdowns! Likely in USA! Colossal outbreak! Unusual symptoms! State of emergency!
Please.
Just stop.
The variant has not been seen in the US and so far, the symptoms in people with this variant have been milder than in any other variant to date.
People are sick and tired of this panic. Now I’m not denying the Covid-19 is serious. I’m going to a funeral tomorrow morning as a matter of fact for the wife of a friend. She is a Covid fatality. Straight up. No other underlying conditions, nothing else. So yeah, I know it is a real thing, but it seems to me that if we keep crying wolf and stirring up all this panic all the time, people might be more receptive to whatever we need to do to deal with this.
Anyway. It is at least entertaining to look at Drudge every now and then, but I no longer take the site seriously as a news source. As we have established before, it is difficult to find an unbiased, accurate news site any longer. It’s the same situation for television news. Thank goodness for blogs, right?!
Perhaps this would be a good time to hit Pete’s tip jar!
Help me out…what are your go-to sites these days when you want news and information? Mostly blogs? News sites? Twitter? Where do you go? Expand my horizons, please!
Posted: November 29, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized
A while back I wrote about the relative measures of success for Brady and Belichick in their new positions. As Brady has already won a superbowl we can safely state that he has met the goals without re-iterating them.
As for the Patriots and Belichick I graded the Pats on the following scale based on the pre-Brady years:
Any year that the New England Patriots post Brady:
Have a winning record: should be considered OK
Win 11 games: should be considered a success
Win their division: should be considered a big success
Make the playoffs: should considered a huge success.
Win a playoff game: should be considered an spectacular success
Go to the Superbowl: should be considered an extraordinary success
Win a Superbowl: should be considered a Miracle
Now there are those who consider that a fair amount of Tom Brady’s success in general and the Patriots success in particular should be given to Coach Bill Belichick who some consider the greatest coach in Football history. For those of you who consider this the case let’s make a slight adjustment.
Any year the New England Patriots Under Belichick post Brady
Win a Superbowl, it’s an extraordinary success
Go to the Superbowl it’s a spectacular success
Win a playoff game it’s a Huge success
Make the playoffs, it’s a big success
Win their division, it’s a success
Win at least 11 games, it’s an OK season
Win less than 11 games…fire the bum!
These are reasonable expectations. I suspect that Patriots fans after two decades of winning will not be as generous as me with their expectations.
This makes the Bill Belichick Era going into today’s game a 24-34 as the coach of the New England Patriots in games not started by Tom Brady and in the three seasons that he coached the team sans Brady he made the playoffs….nearly once.
My expectations scale was “fire the bum” if he failed to win at least 11 but given the Covid situation that while effecting all teams hit his team hard I’d give him another season’s leeway, particularly if he can manage to make .500. If not I think we can safely say that the question of Bill vs Tom in terms of credit has been answered conclusively.
Well the Patriots are now 8-4 , in first place in their division and while not a lock for the playoffs yet looking pretty good with Rookie Mac Jones at the helm. Under standard Patriots scale it’s already an OK season and the Pats only have to go 3-2 the rest of the way to qualify for OK status under my Belichick scale.
Belichick has done this with a Rookie QB who had four other QB’s picked ahead of him.
It may be early to say this but I think we must conclude that Brady + Belichick were the perfect storm of the best in their professions coming together and that neither one negates the greatness of the other.
But there are still a few games to play so let’s see…
Last Sunday a career criminal, Darrell Brooks Jr, allegedly drove his SUV into a parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, killing six people and injuring dozens of others. He was out on $1,000 bail, an amount deemed “inappropriately low” the next day by the Milwaukee County district attorney, John T. Chisholm. Earlier this month Brooks allegedly ran over the mother of one his children in that same SUV.
Chisholm is one of many woke prosecutors elected in major metropolitan areas who believe in “affordable” or even no bail for individuals accused of violent crimes. Others include Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, who faces a recall election next year, George Gascón in Los Angeles County, Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, and Kim Foxx in Cook County, Illinois, where Chicago is the county seat. Many of their campaigns accepted contribution from sources tied to radical leftist George Soros.
Foxx, whose title is Cook County state’s attorney, made a national name for herself after dropping charges involving the hate crime hoax engineered by former Empire star Jussie Smollett. He was charged again after a special prosecutor was appointed after the uproar in response to Foxx dropped those charges. Smollett’s trial begins tomorrow.
But what is far worse than that is Foxx’s weak bail policy involving accused felons.
As I’ve mentioned before at Da Tech Guy, if you want to get the true story of how violent crime is devastating Chicago and its inner suburbs, you need to regularly visit CWB Chicago. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Chicago Tribune–more on them in a bit–the Chicago Sun-Times, and the broadcast TV station websites document many violent crimes, particularly the murders. But CWB provides the indispensable back story.
Since New Year’s Day CWB Chicago has been documenting individuals “accused of killing, trying to kill, or shooting someone in Chicago this year while awaiting trial for a felony.” With a little more than a month left in 2021 CWB Chicago has discovered 55 such people. Of those, 26 of them are accused of murder–and two others are charged with reckless homicide involving a vehicle. That brings us to a total of 28 fatalities.
The complete CWB Chicago list, as of November 28, is here.
What else is there to be found in that back story?
Last summer John Kass, then a Chicago Tribune columnist, wrote a column about the rise in crime in big cities that have woke prosecutors whose campaigns were funded by Soros. Kass was attacked and essentially demoted when co-workers of his, by way of their union, the Chicago Tribune Guild, claimed that the Soros column was anti-Semitic. Soros, a Holocaust survivor, is by most accounts a secular Jew. Kass never mentioned the religion or ethnicity of Soros in that column. So why was Kass attacked? Because he was on to something, the truth that is, about Soros and those catch-and-release prosecutors.
By the way when I first heard of Soros I figured he was a Greek-American As for Kass, who is a Greek-American, well he’s also a big fan of CWB Chicago. A few months ago he accepted a buyout from the new owners of the Trib. He has his own site that I regularly visit. A site, as he mentioned in one of his Chicago Way podcasts, where he is allowed to use the word “riot,” which he wasn’t able to do when he was with the Tribune.
Clearly Chicago and Cook County–I live in suburban Cook–has an ongoing Waukesha problem. So far my family and friends have not been affected by the increase in violent crime here. Although on Thanksgiving I had to explain to my daughter and her cousins what to do if they hear gunfire.
And as bad as Kim Foxx is–she doesn’t deserve all of the blame. Although a hardened leftist as well, Chicago’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, has chilly relations with Foxx, a member of a rival political camp. But Lightfoot endorsed Foxx when she faced a tough Democratic primary last year. Lightfoot’s feckless police commissioner, David Brown, does Lightfoot’s bidding. The mayor pledged to reduce crime as a candidate–but crime has instead soared. Chicago already has endured more murders in 2021 than in any year since 1996.
Illinois’ governor, JB Pritzker, was seemingly talking tough last month when he said that Chicago is “nearly at a state of emergency in our need to address crime.” Then Pritzker got silent on the subject–presumably after he remembered that like Lightfoot and Foxx, he is a Democrat. Oops.
In 2023 Illinois becomes the first state to without cash bail. Pritzker signed that bill into law earlier this year. Judges will be able to jail those accused of serious crimes.
Oh, what about Cook County judges? Circuit court judges are elected here–and once on the bench they face a retention vote every six years. Typically nearly all judges are retained. It’s time that voters take a close look at the role that judges play in the catch-and-release atmosphere in Cook County.
There have been some issues with games missed against opponents so I thought I should republish the rules on playing (particularly since the old blog is having issues)
Playing games and rescheduling
Real life always takes precedence over games and on occasion players will miss games or might be in a situation where they have to leave the league either temporarily or permanently
If the scheduled game time comes and your opponent is not there you are encouraged to give him 5 or 10 minutes to show up. If he does not show up or contact you by the 2nd 5 min wait period it is acceptable for you to being play
If a player is unable to play a series at the allotted date and time he is encouraged to contact his opponent & reschedule before the scheduled game time. If it is not possible to reschedule said player should put his team on auto for that series so his opponent can get the games in so as not to force an autoplay with the system taking both teams.
If due to illness or some other cause a player has to leave the league for a few weeks he is encouraged to find a replacement player to take over on a temp basis, if that is not possible he should put the team on autoplay until such time as he recovers.
If a player has to permanently leave the league and does not provide a replacement his team will go on autoplay and I will attempt to find a replacement manager.
REMEMBER IF YOUR TEAM IS ON AUTOPLAY AND YOUR OPPONENT REQUESTS A RESCHEDULE THE RESCHEDULE WILL AUTOMATICALLY TAKE PLACE AND IF SAID RESCHEDULE REQUEST IS FOR “NOW” THE GAME WILL BE PLAYED.
Also be aware that unlike the pervious version of the game if you are playing against the computer it does not say “computer manager” it has the name of the owner of the team so your opponent might not know you aren’t there. (some folks just don’t like to use the chat).
Auto Settings
If your team is on Auto Pilot that means that if a game is played the computer will take over as manager.
Be aware that you can set auto pilot for a single series so if you have to be away, or if work is particularly busy or even if you just don’t like the guy you are supposed to play that week you can check off the box and once the series is complete auto pilot will shut off.
On your team’s screen there is a Manager settings page that allows you to set how the pc manages when you are on Autoplay. You can set a default lineup vs lefties and righties, set up a rotation (and decide if a pitcher can go on short rest, when relievers come in. who your closers and setup people are, how aggressive to steal or run or take a base, pinch hitting and the lot.
You can set as little or as much as you want to set.
Even if like me you don’t plan on playing any auto games, things happen so if you want your team run the way you want it, make sure you check these settings.
Waivers
Here is the current waivers list:
Batters:
Aaron Tommie Taken Montreal Early Waivers Round 2 Pick 2
Adair Jerry Taken Chicago White Sox Early Waivers Round 2 pick 1
Alvis Max
Amaro Ruben
Baker Frank
Barry Rich
Barton Bob
Bateman John
Beauchamp Jim
Billings Dick
Blefray Curt Taken NY Mets Early waivers round 1
Bobb Randy
Boehmer Len
Bosch Don
Bowens Sam
Boyer Ken
Breeden Danny
Brinkman Chuck
Brooks Bobby
Brown Gates
Brown Larry
Browne Byron
Bryant Don
Burda Bob
Campanis Jim
Campbell Dave
Cannizzaro Chris Taken by Washington Early waivers round 1
Chaney Darrel
Charles Ed
Christian Bob
Clark Ron
Collins Kevin
Corrales Pat
coulter Chip
DaVanon Jerry
Davis Bill
Davis Ron
Dean Thomas
Donaldson John
Duncan Dave
Ellis John
Etheridge Bobby
Fairey Jim (Claimed by White Sox pending till 12/1/21 at 1 AM)
Floyd Bobby
Gabrielson Len (Taken Pittsburgh early waivers round 2)
Gamble Oscar
Geiger Gary
Gil Bus
Gosger Jim
Gutierrez Cesar
Hague Joe
Hall Jimmie
Haney Larry
Harrell John
Harrison Chuck
Healy Fran
Heath Bill
Hermoso Remy
Hershberger Mike
Hicks Jim
Hinton Chuck
Holman Gary
Hriniak Walt
Hutton Tom (Claimed by Pittsburgh acquired by Chicago by counter claim)
Jackson Sonny
Jeter Johnny (Claimed by New York Yankees / Highlanders)
Johnson Lou
Jones Dalton
Kelly Van
Kendall Fred
Keough Joe
Kolb Gary
Krug Chris
Lahoud Joe
Lee Leron
Llenas Winston
Lock Don
Lyttle Jim
Manuel Charlie
Martin JC
Matchick Tommy
May Dave
McGraw Tommy
McDonald Dave
McFadden Leon
McNulty Bill
Miller John
Morales Jerry
Nagelson Russ
Nelson Dave
Northey Scott
Oliver Gene
Oliver Nate
Oyler Ray (PIcked Round 3 Cincinnati early waivers)
Paepke Dennis
Pagliaroni
Peterson Cap
Phillips Adolfo
Qualls Jim
Quilici Frank
Ranew Merritt
Reid Scott
Renick Rick
Repoz Roger
Ricketts Dave
Rico Fred
Rios Juan
Robinson Bill
Robles Rafael
Rogers Buck
Rollins Rich
Roznovsky Rick
Ruberto Sonny
Rudolph Ken
Satriano Tom
Scheinblum Richie
Shannon Mike (picked round 4 early waivers SF Giants)
Shopay Tom
Simpson Dick
Sipin John
Slocum Ron
Smith Dick
Snyder Russ
Spangler Al
Spence Bob
Spriggs George
Stahl Larry
Stanley Fred
Stephenson John
Stewart Jimmy
Stinson Bob
Stone Gene
Stone Ron
Stuart Dick
Tartabull Jose
Tatum Javis
Tepedino Frank
Tischinski Tom
Torres Hector
Valdespino Sandy
Velazquez Freddie
Vidal Jose
Ward Pete
Watkins Dave
Webster Ramon
White Bill
Whitfield Fred
Wicker Floyd
Williams Jim
Woods Ron
Pitchers
Allen Lloyd
Arlin Steve
Baldschun Jack
Baney Dick
Barber Steve (Taken Chicago W Sox early waivers wk 1 1st pick)
Belinsky Bo
Bell Gary
Bertaina Frank
Boozer John
Boyd Gary
Brandon Bucky
Buchart Larry
George Brunet LHP SEA (Released by NYY to make room for Johnny Jeter)
Carlos Cisco
Champion Bill
Clark Rickey
Corkins Mike
Crider Jerry
Culver George
Dukes Tom
Ellis Sammy
Everitt Leon
Farrell Turk
Fisher Jack
Fitzmorris Al
Foster Alan
Fuentes Miguel
Garman Mike
Geishert Vern
Guinn Skip
Hamilton Jack
Jackson Al
James Jeff
Jaster Larry
Jones Steve
Kealey Steve
Kline Ron
Koonce Cal
Kroll Gary
Lamb Ray
Law Ron
Lazar Danny
Lersch Barry
McBean Al
Miles Jim
Morehead Dave
Morris John
Nottebart Don
Nye Rich
O’Riley Don
Palmer Lowell
Pascual Camilo
Pina Horacio
Priddy Bob
Purdin John
Raffo Al
Ramos Pedro
Rath Fred
Raymond Claude
Ribant Dennis
Robertson Rich
Roggenburk Garry
Ross Gary (Taken Pittsburgh early waivers round 3)
Sembera Carroll (Taken White Sox Early Waives Round 4)
Severinsen Al (Picked White Sox Early Wavers round 3 pick 1)
Shaw Don
Shea Steve
Short Chris
Sisk Tommie
Spama Joe
Sprague Ed
Talbot Fred (Taken NY Mets early waivers round 3)
Taylor Gary
Wagner Gary
Washburn Greg
Wsahbum Greg
Watkins Bob
Wynne Billy (Taken NY Mets early waivers round 2)
Zachary Chris
Update: Was asked about the keeper rules so here is an update on that which I sent out by email to the person who asked:
Here is the system fyi number of keepers is in addition to any rookies who are having their 1st dynasty card in 1970 with your franchise:
World series winner 4 players
World series runner up 5 players
non-world series Division winners 6 players
Non division winning teams with the best & 2nd best record 7 players
Non division winning teams with the 3rd and 4th best records 8 players
Non division winning teams with the 5th and 6th best records 9 players
Non division winning teams with the 7th and 8th best record 10 players
Teams with the 3rd and 4th worst records 11 players
Teams with the worst and 2nd worst record 12 players
Note 1: this is the max not counting rookies that a team can keep a team may voluntarily keep less.
Note 2: This is after any expansion draft. If there is an expansion draft said draft takes place before rosters are reduced by these figures
Note 3: Rookies who have new cards in 1970 are automatically protected from an expansion draft.
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