@globaljaybird "I’ll tell you for a fact-getting old damn sure ain’t for sissies."
Neither is the alternative....
Good luck with all that. There are a lot of us geezers on this Board so many of us will be facing this stuff soon if not already.
mayjay
7180 posts
@DanR When and where? We have kids on Maui and Oahu, so I can get some good hike references for you if you want. We go back to Maui on Nov 30 for 18 days!
@approxinfinity I think you are missing the facetiousness font....
@AsadZ He has already made America great by getting that Muslim fer'ner Hassein Osama out of the white house.
@BShark It's not the heat. It is the lack of humility.
@Texas-Hawk-10 Well, he needs to be traded for someone, and I doubt the Cavs want to get killed in it. Does he have veto power? I think Gilbert is the type who might trade him somewhere he doesn't want to go just out of spite.
96 here in "Famously Hot" (real city slogan) Columbia, SC (Accuweather Real Feel🌡106) and trying to cut the lawn. We keep having aft/evening t-storms and it doesn't dry out enough to cut until noon. So the grass and weeds have been growing up to 12-15 inches. Taking a break until evening. Pool is over 91 degrees now, so life is good! And so the summer goes...
Incidentally, FOE knocked off the #1 seed in the NE. FOE is the NE 4 seed, B's Army is #3 seed.
The Morrises' team, including Tyshawn and Elijah, are scheduled to play Boeheim's Army in the Northeast Regional Final on Sunday afternoon at 2 EDT, 1 CDT, on ESPN. This is according to Wikipedia for the 2017 tourney. (The Basketball Tournament's official site has a link to the bracket that didn't work; maybe it works better on a PC.)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Basketball_Tournament_2017 ↗
@Red.Rooster "I am sure you know that I read EVERY comment in the KU_BASKETBALL_NEWS category"
You also upvote everybody, which helps all of our self-confidence!
Wishing you well! I am glad you and your wife have each other to help you through this time. 42 years!
@Crimsonorblue22 Clear your cookies. The count starts all over.
@DoubleDD Different issue. I never have said those investigations should not be done. But did you read the article I suggested? Did you peruse what Republicans have been saying about Russia?
@DoubleDD "No evidence"? Wow! So you don't believe Trump, Jr.'s emails showing the Russians contacted him asking for a meeting to provide dirt on HRC? Even if no one attended a meeting, even if the campaign members had said no dice, it was still an attempt to influence the election by a hostile foreign power. Ask the heads of 11 intelligence agencies, and the Republicans on the Senate committee--they all agree numerous attempts have happened both here and directed at other countries, and that it is a legitimate question to find out whether they succeeded in any attempts.
What is sad is that the right's attacks on MSM have you and millions more not believing anything you read just because it has been reported by the MSM even when it has been reported by Fox, too. You ignore that many Republicans are angry about it, and obviously believe that it is all a Democratic hit job. Why, then, is Congress (controlled by Republicans) investigating it?
Please read Krauthammer's column. If you choose not to read it, you will be willfully avoiding information and might as well be putting on blinders.
Now, what it all means is subject to interpretation. Were I Trump and angry about accusations, I would want to encourage all investigations and get myself cleared. Threatening the Special Counsel isn't a confidence-builder by any means. But, maybe that is just me--oh, and the majority of Americans who believe it should be investigated.
The investigations are aimed at providing more information to guide where this should go. You, on the other hand, seem to have already come to a conclusion that it is all pointless, and I think that reflects the same approach that discounted Watergate as a mere 3rd-rate burglary.
Idea: ignore what Dems say. Just go look at what Republicans on the Committee have been saying. How can you attack them as setting Trump up?
@jaybate-1.0 Res ipsa loquitur.
@jaybate-1.0 The guy is an idiot if he thinks after this week that the efforts by Russia to influence the election are a fabrication of deluded liberals. Ask the devoted left-winger Charles Krauthammer. Even so, I know many people who voted for Hillary, not one of whom contends that she really won the election. That is another right-wing myth. A few shrill protestors do not represent typical Hillary voters any more than avid Trump supporters in the KKK represent his base.
@justanotherfan As usual, very well done. What companies are doing to employees is counter-productive, IMHO. Too many are destroying employee loyalty by cutting hours to avoid health insurance, eliminating OT for workers whose income has always depended on it, lowering wages to maximize profits, outsourcing jobs (hey, Carrier!), eliminating pensions or other incentives to devote decades to a company you love working for, and instituting layoffs whenever they sense doing so will result in a net short-term higher profit margin. On top of that, they have started imposing non-compete agreements right and left, mostly intended to restrict employee movement rather than to protect a customer base or proprietary information. Finally, many companies are not actually directly employing anyone except higher management--they farm out their work to contracting firms which unfortunately results in numerous workers having no vested interest in the results of what they do. If you have ever had to deal with a consolidator of insurance claims (rather than an adjuster representing just his own employer), or a billing office for a dozen medical practices, you might have run into the impersonal service that makes you wish for someone who gives a hoot about your view of the company.
Southwest Airlines and a number of others have tended to buck this trend. It is always good to look at lists of best companies to work for to see who envisions their workforce as an asset to invest in rather than use/discard.
My biggest concern is that as our economy continues to transition from industrial well-paid jobs to white-collar jobs requiring new skills and training, middle-class incomes will continue to fall and low-income workers will really just be scraping by. The result will be a huge decline in disposable income, resulting in less spending overall on ordinary daily items even as luxury spending thrives because of spending by the well-off. An economic disaster waiting to happen.
That is why I see this desperate desire by corporations to maximize short-term profits, and thus stock prices resulting in bonuses to execs, as horribly against their own interests. Ask Circuit City or Home Depot how well it works to replace experienced employees with whom customers form trust with fungible (minimum wage) functionaries.
@dylans "I’m not sure why that’s in the farm bill?"
Food stamps are in the farm bill because agricultural state legislators wanted to ensure, besides welfare for poor people, that there was a steady demand for farm products even in a recession when people have less income or are unemployed. Bob Dole, among others, opposed the food stamp program set up in the mid-60s when he was in the House, but became a prime supporter of the program as a senator with 1977 amendments that revamped the whole thing.
Can someone please explain what is meant by a "natural" point guard? Is it personality? Size? Dribbling and passing are talents any good player can develop, and shooting doesn't seem to be determinative since PGs sometimes score big but not always. Is there an innate quality people are referring to?
Or is it just a wrongly labelled way of saying someone is really good at it?
Natural = instinctive? Natural = talented?
Natural = developed skill set (i.e., not natural). Which is it?
@BeddieKU23 As a further note to my last comment, you see many discharged servicemembers struggling to adapt to an unstructured life even after looking forward to getting away from military life.
@BeddieKU23 Why did any of us choose things we changed our minds about later? Perhaps because you expect things will be different? Maybe he connected well on a visit with someone who turned out to be different. Maybe someone threw up on his bed and everyone just laughed. More likely in my mind, he simply didn't realize how important a structured religious environment was to him until it was gone.
@BeddieKU23 And, until he proves he can score in the NBA, he shouldn't get a dime. 23 pts ain't nuthin'.
@BeddieKU23 "Said KU was the worst year of his life. Apparently the KU life ain’t for the weak."
I don't think it was the toughness, but the fact that he was suddenly in a public school (secular) environment after 2 years in a rigorously evangelical school, Liberty. The coach said he felt lost at Kansas, and I suspect the off-court shenanigans first semester soured him on his teammates if he wanted prayer-group instead of party buddies. Indiana Wesleyan is also an evangelical school, so he probably feels right at home.
@BeddieKU23 Wow, I thought my phone was a crystal ball like Tolkien's palantír or something. I read your post, wished you had included the link, and then blue letters magically appeared on the page.
To test this, I will try to wish the winning numbers in Powerball to appear....
Thx for the link.
approxinfinity said:
@Barney I think it's probably possible to assemble a rough facsimile of the truth by comparing all the various spin engines. But who had the time for that?
If Facebook didn't collect so many eyeballs all day long, most people would have plenty of time to find and peruse a few sites to get a variety of opinions.
Oh, dear Lord, someone call the ambulance! El pollo is stroking out due to the utter failure of NBA execs to follow his posts!
I think Whitman came to KU expecting to be the #3 option up front, but has discovered that Mitch's improvement has bumped him to #4. Without a history of excitement about KU, the uncertain possibility of getting a ring while not playing much might not be as attractive to him as playing a lot somewhere else.
As mentioned before, he may not go pro anywhere. Therefore, if he loves to play he would do well to go where he maximizes that opportunity. Unlike an underclassman, he is not able to project into the future knowing if he pays his dues now he might get more time later. This is it for him.
People who are scholarship players at places like W&M are likely not hugely motivated by dreams of Final Fours. Especially if they end up being merely an afterthought to 7 or 8 other guys.
BShark said:
@JayHawkFanToo
6'1'', fat and old. Defense would be a problem. :grinning:
So you sound more effective as a thoroughly offensive player?
@JayHawkFanToo He defends his position on here pretty well usually.
@BShark Well, I for one welcome you to the team, and I am looking forward to you taking it in to the rim for a last-second victory at the Octagonnorhea of Doom!
jaybate 1.0 said:
How can we hope to compete with U.K., Duke and UNC without a William and Mary transfer?
It's hopeless!
It is a known fact that there have been a number of NCAA champions that included players who have heard of William and Mary.
Wasn't he the one who Mitch made come back to finish the blown layup in practice? Maybe he didn't like being told what to do by a youngster with no facial hair that could compete with the 'stache?
@HawkChamp "Where you are wrong is the portion where you say people blame the losses on lack of effort and Devontes 0-7 night."
Slight correction: I said that people saying "He didn't show up" make it sound as if a player didn't try, i.e., it is implied he didn't care, was apathetic, or negligent somehow. I am just pointing out the distinction between a bad night compared to actually not showing up, either mentally (laughing at your own stupid mistake, and then doing it again, for example), or physically (being late, getting suspended, failing to hustle, or being held out of the most important game for whatever reason, like CB vs Ore, or BG vs Nova).
That last line suggested something to me: In the past two years, in 400 minutes of possible playing time, we have gotten 6 total minutes out of two available 5-star players (CB twice) and a high 4 star (BG, himself also a 5-star acc to 247), producing zero shot attempts, zero FTAs, zero rebounds, 1 assist, and a turnover. That is not showing up.
@BeddieKU23 "I really did believe we’d win the title this past season with Frank but again we fell short. We just didn’t get it done and I think we look for a million other reasons to justify the disappointment."
All the discussion of reasons for last year's inability to go all the way--like poor defense, 3 pt shooting, no rim protection, too much LL lead-footed offense and brick-handed offense--all these things are related to the thing I in retrospect theorize was the most fatal flaw.
That being, the woeful, ridiculously inconsistent performance by the returnee who gave us maybe 50 good minutes at most all year, Carlton Bragg. I recall perhaps two games where he played to his potential for about 15 minutes each, but any good minutes he had in other games were scattered so much that the team simply received no benefit from him being there.
And we saw the price paid for his lack of performance: the staff didn't even trust this 5-star to even appear in the Oregon game when we desperately needed a spark, some rebounds, and someone who could power through Bell to the rim. Something like that is a cancer on a team--people here think Self made the team "tight" but I think the team went into the game feeling betrayed and knowing they were undermanned.
I have always despised people who blame a loss on a player's failures in one game when that player has busted his bootie all year. Yeah, Devonte missed all 7 shots, but we wouldn't have been there without him. To say he "didn't show up" is a short-hand method of saying he had a horrible night, but it implies a lack of effort, which is simply gratuitously insulting.
Carlton, however, spent the year f'ing around off and on the court. He did not focus, or if he did, he zoned out immediately afterward. The team needed him desperately after Doke's injury. All those games we won by the skin of our teeth were a tribute to nearly superhuman performances by the others, especially FM, DG, and JJ. We can now see that those games were really probably only a prelude to our eventual disaster staved off temporarily only by a run of amazing performances, mostly by a POY that hid a monster mess reclining on the bench.
CB didn't show up, the only KU player in my memory who for an entire season just simply didn't care enough to even try to live up to his potential. Had he even performed at half his talent--and maybe even if he had decided not to come back so no time and attention had to be wasted on him--I say the championship would be ours.
Crimsonorblue22 said:
@Kcmatt7 how much do u know about farming?
And about the many recessions caused in US history by the collapse of crop prices due to overproduction, causing massive losses in farm values, leading to widespread foreclosures and bankruptcies? I agree price supports and paying for fields to lie fallow seem wasteful, but I am unsure and a bit nervous about what could happen if they were dropped.
We have lost thousands of small farm in the past 50 years. Eliminating crop price supports and incentive payments to avoid overproduction could be the death knell of the rest.
Edit: And so, @approxinfinity, here I am. Didn't take long for me to be drawn into this category after all, did it?
@JayHawkFanToo Some of the fall, but not nearly enough, can be attributed to the general increase in scoring. Nearly twice as many teams now give up 70 or more pts than in 07-08. But the best defensive teams last year and 07-08 were only 2 pts apart. Also, the median (half more, half less) only grew by about 3.4 pts. On the other hand, KU was at #157 last year with 71.9, but that defensive scoring number would have been dramatically worse, some 80 places lower in 08 at #249.
These numbers are from a web site called teamrankings.com. Pretty interesting stats available there. No clue how accurate.
@Kcmatt7 Ah, there's the rub. Good questions. I have no answer. This, young Jedi, is your task in the future, to ponder the paradox, and to fix the unfixable.
@BeddieKU23 "When you get OAD you get what roughly 8 months of stability? "
Ironically not sarcastic!
I had a friend back in law school whose life was total drama, up and down every few weeks as she met/loved/got dumped by a new perfect guy. Several of us were really close to her, and we all spent a lot of time at the bars late at night either watching her go either gaga or bonkers every few weeks. (Call her Gertie just for fun.)
A year later, one guy who had graduated came back. He asked, "So how is Gertie? Has she stabilized?" I answered, somberly, "Well, yes, off and on." We looked at each other, and he said, "It is tragically ironic that you were not being sarcastic!"
Incidentally, by year 3 she found for her a perfect guy and as far as I know they are together still. Past is not always prelude.
Moral: I think Self thinks that with a OAD PG there is no way for any stability in that year. There is a learning curve for his PGs almost through year 2.
@kjayhawks I am twice your age. In my adult life I have seen many things, but two things I have not seen are a good plan to provide everyone with a big tax cut while providing the same level of services, or any national long-term economic or environmental plan.
@kjayhawks " I think that some day it will have to level out at some point."
Uh, oh, that there is subversive talk! Ain't no Commie, are you boy, beleeevin' in them soshalist ideowlagies??
Just funnin' ya! Gotta be careful mentioning anything about the top 10% reverting to the mean (they are listening--shhhhh!!!).......
@kjayhawks If you have any skills that would enable you to be one of the 400-800 most talented people in your profession, AND IF AND ONLY IF your profession is a field in which the general public is willing to pay double
(or even triple) digit dollars to see you work, you could make huge amounts of money, too.
I am not bothered by the salaries of athletes or actors because their performances and successes/fails are visible to everybody. It is the hundred million salaries paid to corporate execs with millions more paid to get rid of them that bother me, as do the millions in greasing-each-others'-palms paid for corporate board memberships where they do nothing to control a company's lavish self-indulgences. All those pretty offices with great commissioned sculptures and artwork? Deducted to a substantial extent, so taxpayers are subsidizing those things, too.
Unfortunately, the normal middle class earner toils in some job where thousands or millions of people could do the same thing. We couldn't, however, hit MLB pitching at a .300 clip, nor could we consistently drive past Lebron or block out AD for a rebound or put a step-back move on Stefan for 3, or crash through 3 280 to 330 pound linemen for a TD. Most of us couldn't even successfully act innocent getting caught grabbing an extra donut from the box, let alone be a convincing Jason Bourne or Forrest Gump. Guys who can do that maybe do not have unique abilities, but those are still special abilities.
An idea, though: Your thoughts are unique. Have you thought about writing to earn something extra? There is still a market for heartfelt memoirs, and a blog or even novelized account of your own journey in this topsy-turvy economy could be a grabber.
@Kcmatt7 Thank you, youngster!
@BeddieKU23 I am having a senior moment: has a presumed OAD point guard won an NCAA title? If not, could this be why HCBS has seemingly eschewed some opportunities in elite PG recruits by taking Moore?
@brooksmd "Bill" certainly would have been too informal, "Self" definitely would have been disrespectful (ask Bobby K), but I think using his full name wasn't disrespectful in the context of a discussion of his relationship with the school.
@KUSTEVE said "In retrospect, the posters who said we couldn’t replace Perry and Wayne were right, but not for the reasons they had originally surmised: it wasn’t the offense we missed … it was their defense we missed. We go from 3rd in the country in def eff to 24th in one year."
And here I thought it was because BG left....
:upside_down: :thought_balloon:
@approxinfinity There are many signings I don't get. The salary rules mystify me, too. Perhaps my lack of understanding of the rules has something to do with not understanding why these teams keep paying huge salaries to seemingly unproductive veterans?
I would love to see the salary rules and free agent rules simplified to just a hard floor and a hard cap. Let the teams suffer their own mistakes. Brilliant and careful planning could be rewarded. Players might go to a highest bidder, but might be giving up any chance for a ring.
No set salary figures for 1st yr players. Or, if teams don't want to have to pay guaranteed contracts, let them forfeit their 1st rd draft pick for this and next year.
To avoid owners just trying to accumulate tax write-offs before selling a loser (as Loria is alleged to be doing in MLB), come up with a system where a 2-years-in-a-row bottom team moves to the G league or something.
Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming....
@approxinfinity I think it is a nice idea, but since you have already always asked for people to act appropriately toward others, I do not see how a special topic will work any differently. Almost all the people on the board who have gotten totally lathered up in the past have also at times pledged to be only civil (including me). I guess you may be hopelessly optimistic that this board has some special group of people who can get along without rancor while discussing contentious issues--we may all be Jayhawk fans, but I fear that commonality is for sports only. Other divides exist, as they do throughout the country. Unfortunately our fandom does not grant any special attribute of open-mindedness. How often have you seen a comment that says, in a topic where people are highly opinionated, "I hadn't thought of that"?
My bigger concern is, who enforces the pledge, and how? I think it will be safer to avoid this one. I will just have to hope people leave political comments out of the bb topics. Too often, there are comments like "Spoken like a liberal (or a dittohead).." or asides about political correctness or Trump. Racism, for example, is a topic that transcends sports and politics--how do we deal with the UM protests and its effects on the sports programs, or Colin K and coverage of Colin K in the media, without implicating politics?
Still, I realize the world needs hopeless optimists like Columbus to try to guide us all to new vistas and to prove not all paths fall off the edge. Good luck with this one. I will take a look to see how it is going, but I am really going to try to avoid getting involved in all political commentary in all topics. I hope everyone else avoids the temptation in the other topics, too.
Thank you @approxinfinity for working so hard!
@Crimsonorblue22 When they let him stay on the active roster for a season, I will chow down heartily and spit feathers for a week!
@Crimsonorblue22 I repeat: Never doubted him. Just NBA GMs and coaches. Jury is still out on them.
BeddieKU23 said:
Zion plans to take an official visit to KU.
There was an article about him in our SC capital city rag, The State Newspaper, re how he might decide early. Mentions his trips (unscheduled as yet) to Az, UCLA, and KU will be official trip because the distance is so far (meaning they pay his way). His visits with UnivSouthCarolina, UNC, and Duke can all be done unofficially, I guess, but I think his contacts with team personnel are limited on those.
http://www.thestate.com/sports/high-school/prep-basketball/article161191103.html ↗
Note: Just like KCStar, you will have to eventually clear your cookies to read articles after I don't know how many. Chances are you won't be reading lots of The State articles unless Zion gets really interesting for us this coming year.
@chriz He wouldn't need to play with rookies and guys trying to catch on. 2 year guaranteed contract already.